13. It is a contempt of all those means by which God useth to enforce his laws, and quicken the sense of our duty upon our hearts ; such are the strivings and pressing motions of his Spirit, Gen. vi. 3. The Spirit warneth us of our danger when we are running into sin, and
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when we are slack and negligent mindeth us of our duty ; the good Spirit doth not cease his importunities towards the wicked till they banish him from themselves. Such are also the checks of conscience, which taketh God's part in the soul, and beareth witness against our sins when other faculties conspire against him, Rom. ii. 15. So the instructions of our friends and teachers : Pro v. iv. 12, 13, ' How have
1 hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof ! nor have I obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instruct me.' Instructions and warnings to the contrary do much aggravate and represent the evil nature and wilfulness of sinners, that nothing will stop them, and they are angry with those that would hinder them from going to hell. Of the same nature is the holy con- versation of the godly : Heb. xi. 7, ' By faith Noah condemned the world by preparing an ark ; ' and John vii. 7, ' The world cannot hate you. but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.' Not only by doctrine, but conversation, a living reproof; the godly are hated as objects reviving guilt.
14. The slenderness of the temptation that irritates us to break the laws of God doth also show the malignity of sin ; for what is it but the pleasing of the carnal faculty ? James i. 14, ' Every man is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed.' He is enticed and drawn away by the love of some sensitive pleasure ; this is all the recompense, all that is put in balance against the offending of God and the dreadful consequences of it ; and then you will see what sin is. It is a light esteem of the favour of God, whilst a little base and brutish pleasure is preferred before it. When therefore a little sensitive delight, a little defiling transitory pleasure, is chosen before God, he is despised, and pleasure is loved before him : 2 Tim. iii. 4, ' Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. The fountain of living waters is forsaken for a broken cistern,' Jer. ii. 13 ; the creature for the creator, as if our souls found more delight and content in it than God. All the happi- ness in heaven is laid by for a little pomp and pleasure here on earth. In short, sense and appetite is preferred before reason and conscience, and so we make the beast to ride the man, things temporal before eternal, 2 Cor. iv. 16, and the present world before the world to come,
2 Tim. iv. 10, a preferring the body before the soul, the frail flesh before the immortal substance, and its pleasure before the concernments of the life to come ; and so a parting with, or selling of all manner of happiness for a thing of nought.
Secondly, I come to give you the corollaries, or practical inferences thence deduced.
1. We see hence the folly of them who make a mock and sport of sin: Prov. xiv. 9, 'Fools make a mock of sin;' and Prov. xxvi. 18, 19, ' As a madman casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, so is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I in sport?' Many when they have committed sin themselves, or enticed others to sin, laugh at it as if they were in jest. As when they have sworn an oath or told a lie, or cozened or cheated their neighbours, or fallen into adultery or intemperance ; nay, when they see others troubled about sin, they mock and laugh at it. That which I shall say to these men shall be in two things. First, However they make light of sin now, yet when they come to die, it will sting them to the quick : 1 Cor. xv.
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56, ' The sting of death is sin.' They will see it is no jesting matter to affront a God of infinite wisdom, majesty, and power, that it is no matter of sport whether a man shall be saved or damned, be eternally happy or eternally miserable. Secondly, The next thing I shall say to them is, that to make a sport of sin showeth great obduracy and hardness of heart, and searedness of conscience. Men do not easily get into this frame of spirit, but it is after long sinning. It is custom brings dedolency, and it is somewhile before men get the mastery of conscience, and are past feeling, Eph. iv. 19. The seat of scorners is the highest degree of sin, Ps. i. 1.
2. It showeth the folly of those that do not only make a light reckoning of sin themselves, but think also that God makes little account of it. But if God makes little account of sin, why doth he so strictly forbid it? Why doth he punish it so grievously and terribly? First, In his internal government, with horrors of conscience, which are more grievous than death itself : Prov. xviii. 14, ' A wounded spirit who can bear ? ' and Job saith, chap. vii. 15, ' My soul chooseth strangling and death rather than life.' This vexation is so grievous, that death is preferred before it. For Judas to speak thus and act thus, being overcome of despair, is no marvel ; but for Job thus to express himself is worthy our notice. Secondly, If God makes no reckoning of sin, why do little children die, and that sometimes with racking and grievous pain ? Eom. v. 14, ' Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression.' It is not a mere chance. Thirdly, If God makes little account of sin, why did the Lord Jesus endure those grievous agonies, so that his soul was heavy to death, Mat. xxvi. 38, and he sweated drops of blood ? Was this a fable, or was this in vain ? Or else sin is another thing than we usually take it to be. If God make so little reckoning of sin, then, in the fourth place, what is the reason that small sins have met with so great a judgment ; angels made devils for an aspiring thought ; Adam for eating an apple ; Uzzah for touching the ark ; Ananias and Sapphira for one lie both struck dead ; Lot's wife for looking back turned into a pillar of salt ? No sin is little that is committed against the great God.