_Direct._ IV. Know and consider the wonderful love and mercy of God, and think what he hath done for you; and you will hate sin, and be ashamed of it.--It is an aggravation which makes sin odious even to common reason and ingenuity, that we should offend a God of infinite goodness, who hath filled up our lives with mercy. It will grieve you if you have wronged an extraordinary friend: his love and kindness will come into your thoughts, and make you angry with your own unkindness. Here look over the catalogue of God's mercies to you, for soul and body. And here observe that Satan, in hiding the love of God from you, and tempting you under the pretence of humility to deny his greatest, special mercy, doth seek to destroy your repentance and humiliation also, by hiding the greatest aggravation of your sin.
_Direct._ V. Think what the soul of man is made for, and should be used to, even to love, obey, and glorify our Maker; and then you will see what sin is, which disableth and perverteth it.--How excellent, and high, and holy a work are we created for and called to! And should we defile the temple of God? and serve the devil in filthiness and folly, where we should entertain, and serve, and magnify our Creator?
_Direct._ VI. Think well what pure and sweet delights a holy soul may enjoy from God, in his holy service; and then you will see what sin is, which robbeth him of these delights, and preferreth fleshly lusts before them.--O how happily might we perform every duty, and how fruitfully might we serve our Lord, and what delight should we find in his love and acceptation, and the foresight of everlasting blessedness, if it were not for sin; which bringeth down the soul from the doors of heaven, to wallow with swine in a beloved dunghill!
_Direct._ VII. Bethink you what a life it is which you must live for ever, if you live in heaven; and what a life the holy ones there now live; and then think whether sin, which is so contrary to it, be not a vile and hateful thing.--Either you would live in heaven, or not. If not, you are not those I speak to. If you would, you know that there is no sinning; no worldly mind, no pride, no passion, no fleshly lust or pleasures there. Oh, did you but see and hear one hour, how those blessed spirits are taken up in loving and magnifying the glorious God in purity and holiness, and how far they are from sin, it would make you loathe sin ever after, and look on sinners as on men in bedlam wallowing naked in their dung. Especially, to think that you hope yourselves to live for ever like those holy spirits; and therefore sin doth ill beseem you.
_Direct._ VIII. Look but to the state and torment of the damned, and think well of the difference betwixt angels and devils, and you may know what sin is.--Angels are pure; devils are polluted: holiness and sin do make the difference. Sin dwells in hell, and holiness in heaven. Remember that every temptation is from the devil, to make you like himself; as every holy motion is from Christ, to make you like himself. Remember when you sin, that you are learning and imitating of the devil, and are so far like him, John viii. 44. And the end of all is, that you may feel his pains. If hell-fire be not good, then sin is not good.
_Direct._ IX. Look always on sin as one that is ready to die, and consider how all men judge of it at the last.--What do men in heaven say of it? and what do men in hell say of it? and what do men at death say of it? and what do converted souls, or awakened consciences, say of it? Is it then followed with delight and fearlessness as it is now? is it then applauded? will any of them speak well of it? Nay, all the world speaks evil of sin in the general now, even when they love and commit the several acts. Will you sin when you are dying?
_Direct._ X. Look always on sin and judgment together.--Remember that you must answer for it before God, and angels, and all the world; and you will the better know it.
_Direct._ XI. Look now but upon sickness, poverty, shame, despair, death, and rottenness in the grave, and it may a little help you to know what sin is.--These are things within your sight or feeling; you need not faith to tell you of them. And by such effects you might have some little knowledge of the cause.
_Direct._ XII. Look but upon some eminent, holy persons upon earth, and upon the mad, profane, malignant world; and the difference may tell you in part what sin is.--Is there not an amiableness in a holy, blameless person, that liveth in love to God and man, and in the joyful hopes of life eternal? Is not a beastly drunkard or whoremonger, and a raging swearer, and a malicious persecutor, a very deformed, loathsome creature? Is not the mad, confused, ignorant, ungodly state of the world a very pitiful sight? What then is the sin that all this doth consist in?