^ Isai. vi. 5. <" Rom. vii. 12. ^ 1 John iii. 4.
" Rom. vii. 13. f Heb. ix. 26. e 1 John iii. 8.
1' Heb. X. 29.
t2
an open shamed" No wonder, then, that God, when dissuading us from the commission of sin, addresses us in those pungent terms, " O, do not that abominable thing which I hate''."]
But instead of our regarding it with the abhor- rence it deserves, I am constrained to shew you,
II. What sad indulgence it meets with at our hands —
View the generahty of men —
[So far from abhorring sin, they love it, they delight in it, and, to use the strong expression of Scripture, " they wallow in it, even as a sow wallows in the mire'." In fact, it is the very element in which men live. Look all around you : I speak not of those who " run into every excess of riot ;" though they, alas! are very numerous, and, for the most part, " glory in their shame :" but I speak of the great mass of the community, the rich, the poor, the old, the young : Whom amongst them da you find regulating themselves according to God's holy Law ? Who has not a standard of his own, such as use and fashion have prescribed? and who is not satisfied with conforming to that, without ever once thinking of God's Law, or so much as desiring to approve himself to him? Verily, " the whole world lieth in wickedness," and under the dominion of the Wicked one^^.'\
But, passing by these, behold the more decent part of the community —
[Doubtless there are many who are more decorous in their conduct, and more observant of a form of godliness. But I ask, even in reference to them, How many of them do really \dew sin as God views it ? That some enormous evils are ab- horred, I readily acknowledge : but they are sucli only as, by a kind of common consent, are stamped with general reproba- tion. As for sin, as sin, and as a departure from God's holy Law, who hates it? Who lothes it? Who abhors it? Yea, I ask. Who does not hear it, without offence ? and see it, with- out disgust? and harbour it, without remorse? Let these questions sink down into your ears : carry them home with you, as tests of your real state : put them home to your conscience, and give an answer to them as before God. You well know, that if any one loaded our parents with deep and unmerited disgrace, he would soon excite our indignation. You know, also, that the sight and smell of a putrid carcase would create in us a lothing which we could scarce endure. Nor need you be told, what feelings of remorse would follow the commission of murder. But sin, whether heard or seen or felt, begets in
i Heb. vi. 6. ^ Jer. xliv. 4. ' 2 Pet. ii. 22.
*" 1 John v. 19. iv tui Trojjjpw. Eph. ii. 2.