62 SERMONS UPON 1 JOHN III. [SeR. XIV.
speeches or actions, or making provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof. In short, there may be sluggishness ; we may be affected Avith the ease of the flesh, but we will not suffer it to withdraw us from God, or grossly to neglect the duties of our general and particular calling.
(ddly.) There are great enormities, or gross and scandalous sins ; now in this a christian doth not ordinarily sin. In some rare case, by the suddenness or violence of some great temptation, they may be over- taken or overborne, but they therein act quite contrary to their habitual resolutions and ordinary practice ; and when they commit them, they do not lie dead in sin, though shrewdly bruised, diseased, and dis- tempered: these do not commit them with an habitual hatred and contempt of God, though they proceed from a less love. They have an habitual love and fear of God ; as Peter, that denied Christ out of fear, yet telleth him, ' Lord, thou knowest I love thee,' John xxi. 18. But this love is obstructed for the time, and by this violent shock grace is so hindered that it cannot obtain its effect ; they do not con- sider what unkindness it is to commit such sins. So their faith, though it failethnot, as it did in Peter, is obstructed, so that they cannot for the present counterbalance the pleasures of sin with the danger of it ; or if they do consider these things, it is but coldly and carelessly. In short, they may fail in the degree of affection to God, but they do not change God for sin ; there are dislikes and checks which arise from the new nature, yet they are not strong enough for the present to defeat the temptation, and though they be for a time foiled, yet they cannot rest or persist in sin : Jer. viii. 4, ' Shall they fall, and not arise ? ' A fountain muddied soon worketh itself clean again ; the needle in the compass may be jogged and discomposed, but it turneth to the pole again. There is a sudden recovery ; as a candle sucketh light as soon as it is blown out more easily than a dead wick. Their hearts may smite them, as David's did for numbering the people, 2 Sam. xxiv. 10. They bewail their sins : Mat. xxvi. 75, ' Peter went out, and wept bitterly.' They run to their advocate: 1 John ii. 1, ' If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.' Sue out their pardon : 2 Sam. xxiv. 10, ' I have sinned greatly in that I have done ; now I beseech thee take away the iniquity of thy servant.' They relapse not, unless it be before the wound be well closed and healed. Thus they do not sin.
[2.] Tliey cannot sin. In a regenerate man there is an aversion of heart and mind from it. He doth not simply abstain from sinning, but he cannot commit sin ; he hath a strong, potent inclination and disposi- tion, which carrieth him another way ; his soul is averse from it. A child of God is never in a right posture till he doth look upon sin not only as contrary to his duty, but his nature ; it is an unnatural production, as if a sheep, instead of a lamb, should bring forth a serpent : 'A thorn cannot bring forth grapes, nor will a thistle produce figs.' And on the contrary, hips and haws do not grow upon vines, but every tree bring- eth forth fruit suitable to its own nature ; so one that hath a new nature showeth itself by eschewing of sin and by pursuing the death of sin. It is as natural to the new nature to hale sin, as to love God : Ps. xcvii. 10, ' Ye that love the Lord hate evil.' There is in it an
VeR. 9.] SERMONS UPON 1 JOHN III. 63
irreconcilable hatred and enmity against sin. There is a twofold hatred — odium abcminationis et odium inimicitice, the hatred of offence, whereby we turn away from what we apprehend to be repugnant and prejudi- cial to us ; so is sin repugnant and contrary to the renewed will. It is agreeable and suitable to the unregenerate as draff to the appetite of a swine, and grass and hay to a bullock and horse ; but to a renewed man, as meat that we loathe and have an antipathy against. Now there is in all these that are born of God this kind of hatred and antipathy against sin ; it is an offence to them. Then there is odium inimicitice, a hatred of enmity and hostility, which is a seeking the destruction of what we hate ; we pursue it to the death. Thus the regenerate hate sin ; they mortify and subdue it, and have no satisfaction in themselves till it be destroyed : tion cessat in Icesione peccati, sed in exterminio : Ptom. vii. 24, ' 0 wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? ' Now the heart of a renewed man being thus constituted, they cannot sin as others do ; they are settled in such a love to God and hatred of sin, they cannot be at the beck and command of every lust, as they were before. Velleius Paterculus saith of Cato Minor, that he had gotten such a just frame and constitution of soul, that he could not but do justly. So the renewed are so set and framed, there is such a new life and a holy nature planted in them by God, that they cannot sin, that is, live and lie in sin, whatever out of infir- mity they may fall into.