I am not; and that which I hate, I am : O wretched man, in whom the Cross of Christ hath not yet worn out the poisonous and bitter taste of that first tree. It is the pathetical complaint of Bonifacius in the same father. How doth the apostle even break with complaining of this rebellious and captivating power of original concupiscence, ταλαίπωρος ἐγὼ avopamos, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver ἄνθρωπος, me?" Though he were delivered from the damnation, yet he was not delivered from the misery of this sin, which must necessarily arise from the stirrings and conflicts of it. Though lust in the regenerate be not damnable, because albeit it bring forth sin, yet it doth not finish and consummate it; for it is broken off by repentance, and disabled by the power of Christ's Spirit; yet it is still miserable, because it disquieteth the spiritual peace and tranquillity of the soul. But there is no great danger in the war, if the enemy be either foolish or weak, or treatable, that either victory may be quickly gotten, or some pacifications and compositions concluded. But no such things here. Seventhly, Therefore consider the wisdom, the policies, the unsearchableness of the sin. The Scripture calls it "the wisdom of the flesh, earthly, sensual, devilish wisdom, wisdom to do evil, reasonings, strong holds, imaginations, high thoughts." And all this wisdom is employed to deceivea the soul:-therefore is fleshly wisdom' called by St. James b"devilish," because it hath the Devil's end, to draw away men from God, and to entice and beguile them :-therefore, in Scripture, the heart of man is said to be" deceitful and unsearchable ;" and lusts are called "deceivable lusts, and the deceitfulness of sin." Saint Paul hath a heap of words to express this serpentine quality of sin, by "cogging, or cheating, cunning, craftiness, methods, deceit."e But a man may be very wise, and that wisdom look upon none but mischievous and deceitful ends; and yet for all this, no great y Conflictus licet non sit damnabilis, quia non perfecit iniquitatem; miserabilis tamen, quia non habet pacem. Aug. de Nupt. et concupis. 1. 2. c. 2. ■ Rom. viii. 7. Jam. iv. 15. Jer. iv. 22. 2 Cor. x. 5. • Εσμὲν ἄπειροι καθ' ἑαυτῶν, καὶ κατὰ τῆς ὑγιείας ἡμῶν ἀπιστήμονες, Greg. Nazian. Orat. 1. b Jam. iii. 15. & i. 14. 2 Pet. iii. 17. Gen. iii. 13. 1 Tim. ii. 14. c Jere. xvii. 9. Eph. iv. 22. 2 Thes. ii. 10. Heb. iii. 13. Η Κυβεία, πανουργία, μεθοδεία, πλάν • Eph. iv. 14. h hurt done by him, because he may be unwilling to take the pains, like him in the historian that was "innocent," not out of good nature, but merely "out of laziness." There fore, thirdly, this deceit of sin is actuated and set on work with very strong desires, and universal lusting: the apostles calls them not lusts' only, but wills or resolutions of the flesh, and of the mind itself." Hence those secret sins which David himself was so troubled withal, those swarms of lusts which the soul forgeth in itself, as so many creatures. That which Solomon saith of the king's heart, is true of that fleshly king in every man's bosom," it is unsearchable;" a gulf; a Hell of sinful profoundness; poliies to keep from good; policies to poison and pervert good; policies to make good unseasonable; policies to bring to evil; policies to keep in evil; policies to maintain, justify, extenuate evil; policies to make men rest in false principles; policies to gloss and corrupt true principles; policies on the right hand for superstition, and flattering of God with will-worship; policies on the left hand for open profaneness. Infinite are the windings and labyrinths of the heart of man, the counsels and projects of the flesh, to establish the kingdom of sin in itself. It is an argument of one of the grandest consequences in Divinity, this one of the wisdom of the flesh, those wiles and principles that hold up the throne of the Prince of this world. What man is there, who will not, in profession, be ready to spit at the name of Satan, and to defy him and the works of his kingdom; and yet what man is there, in whose bosom Satan hath not a council-table, a troop of statists, by whom he worketh effectually the designs of his own kingdom? The more time any man will spend to make himself acquainted with himself, the more light of God's law he will set up in his heart; the more he will beg of God to reveal the secrets of his evil nature unto him, to make him see that abundance of the heart, that treasure of the heart, that Hell of the heart, that panoply and magazine of sin and temptation which is there. The more, with the prodigal, he f Solâ socordiâ innocens. Tac. Επιθυμίας τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν· θελήματα τῆς σαρκὸς καὶ τῶν διανοίων. Eph. ii. 3. h Prov. xxv. 3. i Hos. v. 2. Grande profundum est Homo, cujus capillos tu, Domine, numeratos habes; & tamen capilli ejus magis numerabiles sunt, quam affectus et mo. is cordis: Aug. Confes. lib. 4. cap. 16. 'comes unto himself,' and views that evil heart, and bitter root which is in him; certainly, the more confusion and silence, and abhorrency, and condemnation will there be of himself; the more adoration of that boundless mercy, of that bottomless purity, which is able to pierce into every corner of so unsearchable a pit, able to cleanse every hole and dungeon, and to enlarge it into a fit receptacle for the Prince of glory. Notable to this purpose is that place of St. Paul; "If all prophesy, and there come in an unbeliever or unlearned man, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all; and thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face, he will worship God." As soon as a man is convinced and judged out of the Word, and hath the secret filthiness of his heart laid open before him, hath his conscience cut open, and unridged by that 'sacrificing sword," which is a discerner of the very intents of the heart";' he presently falls down upon his face in the acknowledgment of his own unworthiness, and acknowledgeth all worship to be due to that most patient and merciful God, that had, all the former days of his ignorance, endured such an unclean vessel, which was from the very womb fitted for wrath-and now at last revealed his Gospel of salvation, opened the bowels of Christ for a sanctuary and refuge against all that vengeance that attendeth, and against all those spiritual enemies which did hunt" his soul. When men have their own evil ways revealed unto them (which is ever done by God's Spirit, when he will please to be pacified with them) then must they needs be confounded, and be loathsome in their own sight, and never open their mouths any more, nor hold up their faces,°' or 'stand before God P with their wonted confidencies and presumptions. This was the bottom of David's repentance, "that he was conceived in sin;" that was not the first time he was an adulterer, but he had it in his nature from the very womb. Men testify their pride in their looks and fashions, in their eyes and tongues: it is the deepest, the closest, and yet one of the openest sins; as a great oak that spreadeth much in sight, and yet is very deep under ground too. But now if men * 1 Cor. xiv. 24, 25. • Luke xviii. 13. P Ezra ix. 15. 1 Heb. iv. 12. m Rom. xv. 16. n Ezek. xiii. 18. did truly consider what black feet they are which do hold up these proud plumes; what a stinking root it is which bears these gaudy flowers; what a sulphury and poisonous soil it is, that nourisheth these painted apples; they would begin a little to new rate themselves. It is nothing but ignorance, that keeps men in pride. If to be wise to do evil, and foolish to do good; if to take endowments from the hand of God, and to fight against him with them; if to pervert the light of reason and scripture, to plead for sin and the purposes of Satan,-as lascivious poets use the chaste expression of Virgil, to notify their sordid and obscene' conceits; if to be so wise as to make "evil good, and good evil, light darkness, and darkness light," to distinguish idolatry into religion, superstition into worship, Belial into Christ, be matters to be proud of;-then there is in every man's nature a crop and harvest of just pride. Else we must all conclude, that he who glorieth in any thing which is merely from himself, hath chosen nothing to glory in but his own shame. Eighthly, Consider the strength and power of sin, to command, to execute, to bring about whatever it hath projected for the advancement of Satan's kingdom. It hath the power of a king, "it reigns in our members:" and it hath the strength of a law, it is "a law in our members : " and a law without strength is no law; for laws are made to bind and hold men fast. And therefore the apostle calls lust a law, because it commands, and holds under all our members to the obedience of it. Therefore wicked men are called "" the servants of sin ;" and the best of us are captives, that is, unwilling servants. Which notes such a strength of sin, as cannot, ex toto,' be altogether withstood. So much flesh and uncircumcisedness as a man hath in him, so much disability likewise hath he to withstand sin. In the wicked it hath an absoluteness, an universal and uncontrolled power. First, they cannot but sin, they can do nothing but sin. "Without faith it is impossible to please God" and "to the impure and unclean, every thing is unclean";" his mercies, cruel; his prayers, abomination; Tert. de præscript. advers. Hæretic. c. 39. u John viii. 34. * Rom. vii. 14. y Heb. xi. 6. VOL. I. L Rom. vi. 12. t Rom. vii. 23, Tit. i. 15, 16. his offerings, the sacrifice of fools. Secondly, if they seem to forsake any sin, it is not out of hatred to that, as a sin ("for he that said, Thou shalt not commit adultery, said also, Thou shalt not kill" a); but it is because they prefer others before it. A man that hath many concubines, may so dote upon some particulars, as that the rest haply may go untouched, or but cursorily saluted; and yet that is no argument of hatred to them, but of preferring the others. So a man's heart may be so taken up with the pursuit of some Herodias, some darling lust, as that others may seem utterly neglected, and scorned when the truth is, the heart that plays the adulterer with any sin, doth indeed hate none. Thirdly, if, by the power of the Word, they be frighted from the sin they most love, yet lust will carry them to it again; as a sow returneth to the mire, or a man to his wife. Fourthly, if they should be so fired and terrified away, that they durst never actually return again; yet even then lust will make them wallow in speculative uncleanness; their thoughts, their delights, their longings, would still hanker the other way. As lust may dog, and pester, and overtake a holy man that hates it, and yet he hates it still; so the Word may fright and drive a wicked man from the sin he loves, and yet still he loves it. Fifthly, this sin as it keeps men in love with all sin, so it keeps most off from all good duties. It is a chain upon all our faculties; an iron-gate, that keeps out any good thought, or poisons it when it comes in. In the faithful themselves, likewise, it is exceeding strong, by antiperistasis from the law, to deceive, captivate, sell as a slave, to make them do that which they hated and allowed not, and do not that which they would and loved. It may seem a paradox at the first, but it is a certain truth, 'Original sin is stronger in the faithful, than those very graces which they have received.' Understand it thus:-A man giveth to a prodigal son a great portion into his own hands, and then gives over the care of him, and leaves him to himself. In this case, though the money of itself were sufficient to keep him in good quality; yet his own folly, and the crows that haunt the carcase, those sharking com a Jam. ii. 11. |