And, in regard of the effects, sin is like a disease. Diseases, if they be neglected, breed death itself, and become incurable. So it is with the dis- eases and sins of the soul. Neglect them, and the best end of them will be despair in this world. Whereupon we may have advantage to fly unto the mercy of God in Christ. This is the end of sin, either to end in a good despair or in a fruitless barren despair, at the hour of death leading to hell, when they have no grace to repent. ' The wages of sin is death,' &c., Rom. vi. 23. Sin itself is a wound, and that which riseth from sin is a wound too, doubting and despair ; for this disease and wound of sin breeds that other disease, a despair of mercy, which is the beginning of hell, the second death. These things might be further enlarged. But for the present only in general know that sin is a disease and a wound of the soul ; so much worse than the diseases of the body, by how much the soul is more precious than it, and the death of the soul more terrible than the death of the body. Sin is a disease and a wound ; for what is pride but a swelling ? What is anger but an intemperate heat of the soul, like an ague, as it weie ? What is revenge but a wildfire in the soul ? What is lust but a spreading canker in the soul, tending to a consumption ? What is covetousness but a sword, a perpetual wounder of the soul, piercing it through with many sorrows ? WTiat is security but, as it were, the lethargy and apoplexy of the soul ? And so we might go on in other resemblances (/).
Quest. But, it may be demanded, how shall we know that we are sick of this sickness and disease you speak of ?
Ans. How do we know that we are sick in body ? If the body be ex- treme cold we know there is a distemper, or if it be extreme hot. So if the soul be so extreme cold that no heavenly motives or sweet promises can work upon it, stir it up, then certainly there is a disease upon the soul.
If the soul be inflamed with revenge and anger, that soul is certainly dis- eased. The temper of the soul is according to the passions thereof. A man may know by his passions when he hath a sick soul.
If a man cannot relish good diet, then we count him a sick man ; so ■when a man cannot rehsh holy discourse nor the ordinances of God. You have some men that can relish nothing but profits and pleasures, and such vanities, but no divine thing. Such have sick souls undoubtedly.
So, again, a man may know there is a deadly sickness and soreness upon the soul, 1, when it is senseless of its wounds ; and, 2, is senseless of that which passeth from it. As men, we say, are ready to die when excremen- tal things pass from them without any sense, so a man may know that he is desperately soul-sick when oaths, lies, and deceitful speeches pass from him, and yet he is senseless of them. They think not of them. They mean no harm. Doth that argue a sound state of body, when a man is so desperately ill that he feels not his bodily hurts ? And is this a good state of Boul, when these filthy things come out from it insensibly ? It is an argument of extreme deadness of spirit and irreverence, and of a desperate sin-sick soul, when there is no dread or awe of the majesty of God. Let such look about them. It is an aggi'avation of the danger of the soul this kind of temper. We usually say, when the stomach is so weak that it can hold no nourishment without casting it up again as fast as it receives it,
804 THE EETURNING BACKSLIDER. [SeRMON V.
certainly such an one is sick, and in a dangerous state of body. So when a man hears and hears, and reads and i;eads, and digests nothing into nourishment, but all is left where he heard it, it is a sign they have sick souls when their retentive power is so weak. And there is certainly some sickness, some dangerous obstruction in that soul that cannot digest the wholesome word of God, to make use of it ; some noisome lust then cer- tainly obstructs the soul, which must be purged out.
It is a pitiful thing to see the desperate condition of many now, who, though they live under the tyranny of sin, yet flatter their owti disease, and account them their greatest enemies who any way oppose their sick humour. What do they most cordially hate ? The sound preaching of the word. The very sight of such an one whose calling hath been to put us in mind of our sins, evil coui'ses, and vanities of the world, is loathsome and offensive to carnal men, in whom corruption is grown up to such a tyranny that it sways the whole soul to debase how to satisfy it. Man is so diseased that those lusts in him, which he should labour to subdue and mortify by the power of the Spirit, do so oversway him that all his life is nothing else but a disease and backsliding into sin. And as il we were not corrupt enough ourselves, how many are there who feed their corruptions when they frequent ill places and company, whom they cannot do without, and are as fish in the water, feeding the old man in them. So that such are not only sick, but defend, maintain, and feed their sickness, their whole life being spent this way, which they laugh at, and make ' pride their chain and ornament,' Ps. Ixxiii. 6, as the prophet speaks. This is spoken that we may take up a lamentation for the vileness of man's nature, and to teach us how to judge aright of men when they devise how to have their hberty strengthened to go to hell, as it were, with an high hand, having their will so fortified that no man is able to deal with them, thwart them, or teach them anything. If it were oflered to most men to have what estate they would in this world, what are their wishes and desires ? 0 that I might live as I list, that I might have what would content my pleasures without control, that I might have no crosses, but go smoothly on ! Yet this, which is the desu-e of most men, is the most cursed estate of all, and most to be lamented. Thus it appeareth sin is a v/ound and a disease. What use may we make of it ?