That we may not imagine these things to be pe- culiar to St. Paul, we proceed to shew,
II. Wherein our experience must resemble his —
1855.1 Paul's spiritual conflicts. 183
" As face answers to face in a glass, so doth the heart of man to man :" and every one who is con verted to God will resemble the Apostle,
1. In an utter abhorrence of all sin —
[Sin is really hateful to all who see it in its true colours ; it is properly called, " filthiness of the flesh and spirita:" and all who feel its workings within them, will " lothe both it, and themselves on account of it, notwithstanding God is paci- fied towards themb. Ungodly men may indeed hate sin in others; as Judah did, when he sentenced his daughter Tamar to death for the crime in which he himself had borne a share c ; and as David did, when he condemned a man to die for an act, which was but a very faint shadow of the enormities which he himself had committed*1. Ungodly men may go so far as to hate sin in themselves, as Judas did when he confessed it with so much bitterness and anguish of spirit; and as a woman may who has brought herself to shame ; or a gamester, who has reduced his family to ruin. But it is not sin that they hate, so much as the consequences of their sin. The true Christian is distinguished from all such persons in that he hates sin itself, independent of any shame or loss he may sustain by means of it in this world, or any punishment he may suffer in the world to come. The Apostle did not refer to any act that had exposed him to shame before men, or that had destroyed his hopes of acceptance with God, but to the inward corrup- tion of which he could not altogether divest himself: and every one that is upright before God will resemble him in this respect, and hold in abhorrence those remains of depravity which he cannot wholly extirpate.
Nor will the true Christian justify himself from the consi- deration that he cannot put off his corrupt nature : no; he will grieve from his inmost soul that he is so depraved a creature. When he sees how defective he is in every grace, how weak his faith, how faint his hope, how cold his love ; when he sees that the seeds of pride and envy, of anger and resentment, of worldliness and sensuality, yet abide in his heart ; he weeps over his wretched state, and " groans in this tabernacle, being burthened." Not that this grief arises from fear of perishing, but simply from the consideration that these corruptions defile his soul, and displease his God, and rob him of that sweet fellowship with the Deity, which, if he were more purified from them, it would be his privilege to enjoy.
Under these impressions he will desire a deliverance from sin as much as from hell itself: not like a merchant who casts
a 2 Cor. vii. 1. b Ezek. xvi. 63.
c Gen. xxxviii. 24—2(3. d 2 Sam. xii. 5—7.