5. Season the heart with strict principles. Two principles I shall commend to you —
[1.] That the greatest suffering is to be chosen before the least sin. In suffering, the offence is done to us ; in sin, to God. The evil of suffering is but for a moment, the evil of sin for ever. Sin separateth you from God, but aflSictions do not, but bring you nearer to God. The least sin allowed maketh our sincerity doubtful and questionable : Ps. Ixvi. 18, ' If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.' Small sins have met with great judgments. Adam for eating an apple was turned out of paradise ; TJzzah for touching the ark was smitten with death ; Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead for one lie ; the evil angels were thrust out of heaven for an aspiring thought ; Zacharias was struck dumb for unbelief; Lot's wife for looking back was turned into a pillar of salt ; Moses for a few passionate words was shut out of the land of promise ; David for a proud conceit in number- ing the people brought a plague upon them. Now God is the same, and hateth sin as much as ever. No man is driven to a necessity of sinning. We imagine a necessity when we commit one sin to avoid the tempta- tion of another, but God never reduceth a man to that strait. If you mean it of evils of sin, it is false; if of evils of punishment, it is true; if of evils of sin and punishment together, it is most true. A man may be often put to suffer for sin that is offered to his choice, but never to sin that he may not sin. We reduce ourselves to sinful straits.
[2.] Another strict principle is, that a man cannot be too strict. There is no nimium in the essentials of religion or the solid parts of godliness. A man cannot be too holy and too righteous ; a man can- not love God too much, or Christ too much, nor serve him too faith-
358 SERMONS UPON EPHESIANS V. [SeR. XIX.
fully. What is the meaning then of Solomon ? Eccles. vii. 16, 'Be not righteous overmuch.' There may be too much of that which is but pretended righteousness. The best fall short of what God's word and the necessities of their souls require. The world accuseth them of preciseness, but their consciences accuse them of negligence,
(1.) God's precepts are very strict : Mat. xxii. 37, ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.' God is to be loved without measure and limitation. To think this is too strict is to blaspheme his holy law.
(2.) Patterns of holiness are very high. God's worthies : Heb. xii. 1, ' Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.' The angels : Mat. vi. 10, ' Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.' God himself : 1 Peter i. 15, 'But as he that hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation.' Wherein then is this over-righteousness ? I answer — Not in the end, not in necessary diligence about the means ; but when the means are not pro- portioned to the end, but one duty shuts out another ; in some things the devil may tempt us to over-doing
[3.] Another strict principle is, that the least sin allowed makes our sincerity questionable: James ii. 10, 'For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.' It is good to stand at the greatest distance from sin ; to go too near the brink is dangerous : 1 Thes. v. 22, ' Abstain from all appearance of evil.' They that do all that they may do usually do more than they should. Small sins may procure great trouble, if God sets them home upon the conscience.
SEKMON XIX.
Bedeeming the time, hecause the days are evil. — Epn. v. 16.
These words contain a new direction to the children of light. Two things there are in it — (1.) A duty, ' Kedeeming the time ; ' (2.) The reason of it, ' Because the days are evil.'
First, In the duty there is the act and the object. Both must be explained.
1. The act, i^ayopa^o/xevoi, buying ; or, as we render it, ' redeem- ing.' Grotius and some others conceive it may be explained by the words of Nebuchadnezzar to the astrologers, as they are rendered by the Septuagint, Dan. ii. 8, ' Ye would gain the time,' on Kaupov v/Mei<i i^wyopd^ere. And others think the meaning is, that by their wary carriage they should shift off dangers, and gain as nmch time as they could to honour God in the world. To this purpose also they draw in that, Col. iv. 5, ' Walk in wisdom toward them that are with- out, redeeming the time.' But besides that this exposition would
VeK. 16.] SERMONS UPON EPHESIANS V. 359