150 SIN DECEITFUL AND CLOAKED BY FAIR NAMES. alienation from God, with a disposition to be the slaves of fashion, and the associates of the gay, however wicked or worldly; and thus in the end will undo them for eternity. Probably not one rich man in ten thousand improves that important talent, wealth, as at the judgment bar he will wish to have employed it. Few indeed are our Reynoldses and our Thorntons. Are you poor? your situation will tempt you to discontent, to repinings and murmurings at your own humble lot, to envy and reproach those in more favoured circumstances. Are you young? you will be tempted to selfconceit; to slight the counsels of age and experience, of valuable friends or tender relatives, through the pride of your own foolish and wicked heart. You will be tempted to indulge in youthful lusts; to form friendships, or a more lasting union, with such as charm your ungoverned fancy, though they may be strangers to the grace of God, and the children of the wicked one. Are you in the last stage of life? you will be tempted to indulge unreasonable prejudices; to censure, without reason, the wisest and most benevolent plans, because they differ from what you saw in youth; to murmur beneath the infirmities of advancing age, and to grasp, with a tighter embrace, the world that is departing from you for ever. As in a journey through a wilderness, if you expected the assaults of tigers, you would particularly observe every bush, where they could lie prepared for their fatal spring; if you feared the bite of serpents, you would observe the herbage, in which the enemy might lie across your way; if you dreaded a fall from some hidden precipice, you would watch every step you made: so in the journey of life, guard peculiarly in its different stages against the dangers incident to that stage; and mortify the sin which may most easily beset you. § 5. If you would mortify sin, consider its deceitfulness, and guard against deception. We read of those who are hardened through the deceitfulness of sin; and God himself represents the sinful heart as not only desperately wicked, but "deceitful above all things." Sin deceives millions of the victims which it ruins. Many are the modes in which this system of deception is conducted. Virtue is stigmatized as vice, and vice is extolled as virtue. A formal nominal Chris חיי with a heart as cold as Nova Zembla's eternal ice, is THE SPIRIT'S HELP TO BE SOUGHT. 151 deemed a rational Christian; and a zealous, warm-hearted disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, is pronounced an enthusiast or a fanatic. Soft names are affixed to odious crimes. An abandoned whoremonger, or a profligate seducer, with the falsehood of Satan on his lips, is called a man of pleasure. A man, so full of infernal pride that he would risk his own life, or take his fellow-man's, for an offensive word, is deemed a man of honour. Revenge assumes the name of justice. Flattery is termed courtesy. Covetousness cloaks itself under the name of frugality; and while adopting for its golden maxim the hackneyed remark, That charity begins at home, takes care that it shall end there too. Atheism and infidelity are free thinking or free inquiry. Thus the darkest crimes which men commit, are softened down, and represented as pleasing or honourable, by some specious and delusive name. § 6. While thus called to duties so eternally important, and yet so difficult, lean not upon a human arm. Trust not in your own ability or might. No inherent power of yours will ever accomplish the momentous work of mortifying sin. The Scriptures direct your view to a mightier agent; to the Spirit of God. "If ye, THROUGH THE SPIRIT, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." As the Holy Spirit is the source of peace, and hope, and joy, and love, so by his influence and aid sin must be subdued and destroyed. Look therefore to him, who sanctifies, renews, gives the disposition, and carries on till death the work of grace. O, look to him for heavenly influence, to strike at the very root of sin! Let mortification of this evil engage your labour; yet still depend upon the Holy Spirit's aid, and go forward trusting in his might. $7. To impress your mind most deeply with a hatred of sin, and with the necessity of mortifying this horrid evil, indulge such views as these of its unspeakable malignity.* It is infinitely hateful. Sin is "the only object of God's infinite hatred." God is love. He loves his Son, his angels, his children. His love, like the sun shining in its strength, diffuses good through his immense dominions; but sin is the object of his infinite abhorrence. A sinful word, or a sinful (n) Rom. viii. 13. * On the malignity of sin, several thoughts are borrowed from Robert Bolton. 152 CONSIDERATIONS ON thought, has in it that evil, against which God's infinite hatred and indignation are directed. Sin is more hateful than the most hateful" fiend in hell, than even the devil himself." For sin made Satan what he is. But for sin the dark fiends of hell had been angels of light; but for sin Satan himself had been a child of God. Had there been no sin there would have been no devil; had there been no sin there would have been no hell. Could an infernal spirit appear to you, glaring with hideous woe and hellish dispositions, what alarm would seize you! if power to flee remained, how would you flee from the horrid being! Flee then from sin, the parent of devils and the author of hell. Sin is most polluting. Could Satan be cleansed from the pollution of sin, he would no longer be a devil. Could his fallen legions be cleansed from sin, instead of miserable fiends they would become happy angels. Could souls enduring the miseries of damnation be freed from its pollution, they would pass from the blackness of eternal night, to scenes of peace, and joy, and love. Sin made them wretched, and its polluting stains, eternally upon their souls, will make them eternally hateful, eternally wretched. Sin is most infectious. Like a contagious pestilence, it pollutes and destroys all it touches. All within the reach of its infection die. The first sin polluted all the sons and daughters of Adam, from the hour when he sinned in paradise, to that when time shall be no more. Think of the mighty multitudes that have lived on earth since time began. Think of the swarming millions that now people the earth-perhaps a thousand millions of immortal beings. Think how soon these must be swept into the grave, and give place to other generations, and these again to others. And then, if you can, estimate the malignity of one sin's infection-that infection which has spread a deadly poison through the veins of generation after generation, for six thousand years; which has defiled them to such a degree, that man is altogether corrupt and depraved; which has ruined them so completely, that it has made them all the heirs of death, and dug a grave for all mankind. While such is the effect of one sin, who can describe sin's malignity, or estimate its evil? By one sin was the whole race of man rendered corrupt and wretched. By one 4 THE MALIGNITY OF SIN. 153 sin all this lower creation was made subject to vanity. And now, if but one sin lie lurking in the heart, unpardoned and unrepented of, it pollutes all man's words, affections, thoughts, and actions; blasts all his knowledge and privileges, kills all his hopes, and damnns his soul. Sin is full of effects most fearful, most dreadful. It deprives the "soul of God's favour, of all part and portion in the blood of Christ," a blessing worth more than a thousand worlds; of the kind protection and paternal care of the Most High; "of the glorious guard of angels," the comfortable communion of saints, and the sweet delights these blessings yield; "of the quiet joy and tranquillity of a good conscience," a jewel worth far more than a world; of all the heavenly illuminations and comforts, by which the Holy Ghost visits and refreshes the hearts of holy men; of all calm delight and true satisfaction in this life, and stretching forward its malignant influence, it deprives the deathless soul of the crown of life; of the unspeakable joys of heaven; of that immeasurable and endless bliss that patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs enjoy in the presence of God and the Lamb. While sin indulged thus robs the soul of peace and happiness and heaven, it loads it with ills immense in their size and eternal in their duration. It subjects it" to blindness of mind, hardness of heart, horror of conscience," estrangement from God, and bondage to Satan; to fear, uneasiness, and restlessness in life; to doubt and terror in the day of death; to banishment from God, the source of happiness. It loads it with remorse that will last for ever; with guilt that will occasion eternal torments and eternal despair. It kills the soul with the death that never dies; for none can take the life of the soul away, though millions make it an accursed, wretched thing. O, dreadful cruelty! for man to murder with such a death his own soul; and to make it die eternally. "What must it be to die for ever; to suffer the pangs of death to-day, only as a prelude to suffering them to-morrow? What must it be to die from morning till night, and from night till morning; to die through days, and years, and centuries, and thus to spend eternity in dying?"* Sin is so vile, that it can never be pardoned or washed * Dwight. 154 THE MALIGNITY OF SIN. away, but by the blood of the Son of God. "Had all the dust of the earth been turned into silver, and the stones into pearls; should the boundless sea have streamed with nothing but liquid gold," all would not have been a sufficient ransom for one sinful soul. Should all the creatures of the earth, and all the angels of heaven, have offered themselves as a sacrifice to divine justice, all could not have expiated one sin, or atoned for one transgression. Or had the Son of God himself sought man's happiness by supplication only, there is no reason for supposing he could have been heard. He must suffer, or man eternally must die. And shall not the heart's blood of the Son of God, shed for sin, fill you with eternal abhorrence of that which murdered him on Calvary, and which, but for his death, would have murdered your soul with everlasting destruction? Sin is unspeakably hateful and loathsome, because it is committed against God. It offends the blessed Majesty of heaven, insults the Father, wounds the Son, and grieves the Spirit. Had it power according to its nature, it would dethrone the Eternal, and strip him of his majesty and blessedness. O, how hellish is that evil, which thus lifts its hand against the King eternal, immortal, and invisible! What has not God done to bless you! From the void of non-existence he called you into being; formed a charming world for your reception here, and bid the sun shine and the seasons revolve. How numberless have been his mercies! mercies of every varied kind. The seeing eye, the hearing ear, the speaking tongue, the active limb; days and years of health, nights of peace and ease; the sprightliness of youth, the vigour of maturer life; the pulse still beating, the heart still playing, the functions of all going forward without any care of yours; food to support you every day of every year, and friends to cheer life every day.-Not one blessing deserved, yet millions given to bless this transient life; and all given by God. Nor has he stopped here: higher mercies, nobler gifts, claim attention. He has given you an immortal soul, with all its noble and deathless powers; the word of life, to show the path to immortality; hundreds of gracious promises, and salutary precepts; his Son to die in your place, and by his miseries to secure endless bliss for you; his Spirit to instruct, enlighten, to sanctify, and meeten the soul for heaven. |