THIS LITTLE IDOL Octavius Winslow
THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST To affirm, as the scriptures of truth positively
do, that mankind is originally and totally depraved, is but
to portray it with every feature of its pristine nobleness, purity,
and excellence utterly spoiled. Mankind has become the living
embodiment, the self-acting impersonation, the very incarnation of fallen
self-love, self-love in the form of complete selfishness. The
original center of the soul forsaken, man had become a center to himself. The god he worshipped was the
deification of self. The religion he professed was
the adoration of self. The powers he cultivated were
consecrated to self. His whole existence was one act
of service and devotion to self. The divine center abandoned.
He knew no other God, acknowledged no other sufficiency, recognized
no other end than himself. Every faculty in thought, every
affection and action, was made to contribute to the cloud of
incense which rose as one dense column before this little idol
self. Self the first. Self the last. Self all in all. And is it not
so now? Self, in some shape, is still
the deity of the natural man. Selfishness is still the universal
sin of our nature, exhibited in one or more of its thousand
modifications, its endless forms. All are in pursuit either of
wealth, or ambition, or pleasure, or honor, or gratification under
the law of selfishness. Self is the only recognized principle
and rule of action which regulates the conduct of the great majority
of our depraved species. The indictment is heavy. The
picture is dark. The sin is awful, we admit. But
it is borne out by daily observation and frequent experience, and
by the faithful, unerring word of God. All men seek their own. What, we ask, is all this? This self-exaltism, this egotism,
this envy and jealousy? This attempt to supplant others
in esteem, influence, and power. This prodigality and love of
worldly show. This eager chase of wealth. This covetousness and penuriousness. This love of ease and sloth.
This niggardly dole of charity. This cruel, heartless, grinding
oppression. This growing sensuality in crime. What we ask is all this, and
a thousand times more, but the one appalling cancerous sin of
selfishness, existing in the very heart of depravity, and
sending its fatal poison along all the fibers of human society. Strewing flowers on a dead corpse. Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes,
1660. Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God. Matthew 5, verse 8. External
morality is not heart purity. A person may be clothed with
great moral virtues, such as justice, charity, prudence, and
temperance, and yet go to hell. We must not rest in mere outward
morality. A swine may be washed, yet be
a swine still. Morality does but wash a man. Grace changes him. Morality may
shine in the eyes of the world, but it differs as much from purity
as a pebble differs from a diamond. Morality is but strowing flowers
on a dead corpse. A man who is but highly moral
is but a tame devil. How many have had morality their
saviour? Morality will damn as well as
vice. A boat may be sunk with gold
as well as with dung. The moral person, though he will
not commit gross sins, yet he is not sensible of heart sins.
He is not troubled for unbelief, hardness of heart, vanity of
thoughts. He abhors gross sins, not gospel
sins. The snake has a fine appearance,
but has a deadly sting. Just so, the moral man is fair
to look on, but has a secret antipathy against the holy ways
of God. Morality is not to be rested
in. The heart must be pure. God would have Aaron wash the
inner parts of the sacrifice. Leviticus 9 verse 14 Morality
does but wash the outside, the inside must be washed. Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Matthew 5 verse
8 Only the blood of Christ can
soften it. Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes,
1660 I will take away their hearts of stone, And give them tender
hearts. Ezekiel 11, verse 19 owes a misery of a hard heart. A heart of stone is insensible.
A stone is not sensible of anything. Lay a heavy weight upon it, or
grind it to powder, it does not feel. So it is with a hard heart. It is insensible to both its
own sin and God's wrath. The stone in the kidneys is felt,
but not the stone in the heart, having lost all sensitivity. Ephesians 4.19 A heart of stone
is inflexible. A stone will not bend. Just so,
the hard heart will not comply with God's command. It will not
stoop to Christ's scepter. A heart of stone will sooner
break. then bend by repentance. It is so far from yielding to
God that like the anvil it beats back the hammer. A heart of stone
will always resist the Holy Spirit. Acts 7 verse 51 A hard heart
is void of all grace. While the wax is hard, it will
not take the impression of the seal. Just so, the heart, while
it is hard, will not take the stamp of grace. It must first
be made tender and melting. The plow of the word will not
penetrate a hard heart. A hard heart is good for nothing
but to make fuel for hell fire. Because of your hardness and
unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the
day of wrath. Romans 2 verse 5. Hell is full
of hard hearts. There is not one soft heart there. There is much weeping there,
but no softness. We read of vessels of wrath,
prepared for destruction. Romans 9 verse 22. Hardness of heart fits these
vessels for hell, and makes them like withered wood, which is
fit only to burn. Hardness of heart makes a man's
condition worse. than all his other sins besides. If one is guilty of great sins,
yet if he can mourn, there is hope. But hardness of heart binds
guilt fast upon the soul. It seals a man under wrath. It is not heinousness of sin,
but hardness of heart which damns. O the misery of a hard heart!
A stony heart is a worst heart. If it were bronze, it might be
melted in the furnace, or it might be bent with the hammer.
But a stony heart is such that only the arm of God can break
it. and only the blood of Christ
can soften it. I will take out your stony heart
of sin and give you a new obedient heart. Ezekiel 36 verse 26 A cooler hell. From Thomas Brooks. The crown and glory of Christianity. Or holiness. The only way to
happiness. 1662 God, I thank you that I
am not like other people. Greedy, unrighteous, adulterers,
or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give a
tenth of everything I get. verses 11 and 12. Many please
and satisfy themselves with mere civility and common morality. They bless themselves that they
are not swearers, nor drunkards, nor extortioners, nor adulterers,
and so on. Their behavior is civil, sincere,
harmless, and blameless. But civility is not sanctity. Civility rested in, is but a
beautiful abomination, a smooth way to hell and destruction.
Civility is very often the nurse of impiety, the mother of flattery,
and an enemy to real sanctity. There are those who are so blinded
with the fair shows of civility, that they can neither see the
necessity nor beauty of sanctity. There are those who now bless
themselves and their common morality, whom, at last, God will scorn
and cast off, for lack of real holiness and purity. A moral
man may be an utter stranger to God, to Christ, to Scripture,
to the filthiness of sin, to the depths and devices of Satan,
to their own hearts, to the new birth, to the great concerns
of eternity, to communion with Christ, to the secret and inward
ways and workings of the Spirit. Well, sirs, remember this. Though the moral man is good
for many things, yet he is not good enough to go to heaven.
He who rises to no higher pitch than civility and morality shall
never have communion with God in glory. The most moral man
in the world may be both Christless and graceless. Morality is not
sufficient to keep a man out of eternal misery. All morality
can do is to help a man to one of the best rooms and easiest
beds which hell affords. For as a moral man's sins are
not so great as others, so his punishments shall not be so great
as others. This is all the comfort that
can be given to a moral man, that he shall have a cooler hell
than others have. But this is but cold comfort. Morality without piety is as
a body without a soul. Will God ever accept such a stinking
sacrifice? Surely not. But the tax-collector
stood at a distance, he would not even look up to heaven, but
beat his breast, and said, God have mercy on me a sinner. I
tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified
before God. It will be bitter in your belly. William Sucker, the consistent
Christian. 1660. The wages of sin is death. Romans
6, verse 23. The ways of sin may have popular
approval, but they shall also have divine abhorrence marked
upon them. This Delilah may please us for
a time, but she will betray us at last. Though Satan's apples
may have a fair skin, yet they certainly have a bitter core.
Methinks the flaming sword in one hand, and the golden scepter
in the other hand, should guard us from the forbidden tree, and
make our hearts like wet tinder to all the sparks of Satan. Reader,
if you behold nothing but pleasure in the commission of sin, you
will experience nothing but the most dreadful pain in the conclusion
of sin. The wages of sin is death. All workmen should have their
wages, and it is only reasonable that those who employ you should
pay you. But however you may delight in
the works of sin, you will by no means relish the wages of
sin. Ah, what wise man would toil
so long in sin's drudgery, whose wages are no better than eternal
misery? The wages of sin is death. Though all sins are not equal
in their nature, yet all sins are in their very nature deadly.
The candle of man's life is blown out by the wind of his lusts. The corruption of nature tends
to the dissolution of nature. Reader, you began to be mortal
when you began to be sinful. If you had never had anything
to do with sin, could never have had anything to do with you.
It is that vile enemy, sin, which God shoots all his arrows. Sin
is like a serpent in your bosom, which stings you. Sin is like
a thief in your closet, who plunders you. Sin resembles poison in
the stomach, or a sore to the heart, both of which tend to
death. Like John's little book, sin
may be sweet in your mouth, but it will be bitter in your belly.
The foul dregs lie at the bottom of the vessel. The golden cup
of sin is filled with the most poisonous ingredients. Sinner,
that which is now like a rose flourishing in your bosom, will,
in a very little time, be like a poison dagger at your heart. While such a Judas kisses, he
kills. While the ivy twines round the
oak, it eats out its sap. If sin were not so deceitful,
it would not be so delightful. Like a cunning angler, sin shows
the bait, but conceals the hook. If you, O man, are found nibbling
at the bait, you may justly expect the hook. O think! you who now boast in nothing
so much as sin, that there is a time approaching when you will
be ashamed of nothing but sin. You will be eternally sinful,
but you cannot be eternally joyful. In hell all that sugar will be
melted, in which this bitter pill of sin was wrapped. Hell
is too hot a climate for wanton delights to live in. The pleasures
of sin are but for a season, but the torments of unpardoned
sin are and eternal duration. Death will turn all the waters
of pleasure into blood. The serpent of sensual delight
always carries a deadly sting in its tail. All the blaze of
worldly pomp will soon end in midnight darkness and horror.
It is better to make your lodgings in a bed of snakes than in the
forbidden bed of sinful lusts. When the pale horse of death
goes before, the red horse of wrath follows after. When a sinner's
body goes to the worms to be consumed, then his soul goes
to hell to be tormented. A wise man knows that it is far
better to forego the pleasures of sin here than to undergo the
pains of wrath hereafter. There was a certain rich man
who was splendidly clothed, feasting lavishly every day. What pleasure
does dives now reap in hell from all the choice banquets he sat
down to on earth? I am in agony in this fire. The stench and torment of everlasting
burnings will take away the sweetest perfumes which ever covered sin. IT WOULD MAKE HIM PULL HIS HAT
OVER HIS EYES. THOMAS BROOKS. THE PRIVY KEY
OF HEAVEN. 16. 65. All Christians have their secret
sins, secret not only from other men, but from himself. It is
but natural for every man to err, and then to be ignorant
of his errors. Every man's sins are beyond his
understanding. There is not the best, the wisest,
nor the holiest man in the world, who can give a full and entire
list of his sins. Who can understand his errors?
Cleanse me from secret faults. Psalm 19 verse 12. Who can understand
his errors? This interrogation has a force
of an affirmation. Who can? No man. No, not the
most perfect and innocent man in the world. O friends, who
can reckon up the secret sinful imaginations, the secret sinful
inclinations, The secret pride. The secret blasphemies. The secret hypocrisies. The secret atheistic arisings. The secret murmurings. The secret
repinings. The secret discontents. The secret insolences. The secret filthinesses. THE SECRET UNBELIEVINGS, WHICH
GOD MIGHT EVERY DAY CHARGE UPON HIS SOUL. Should the best and
holiest man on earth have but his secret sins written on his
forehead, it would not only put him to a crimson blush, but it
would make him pull his hat over his eyes, or cover his face with
a double scarf. Who can understand his errors?
Cleanse me from secret faults. THE DEVIL'S BRAT. Thomas Brooks. A Cabinet of Choice Jewels. 1669. THAT SIN MIGHT BECOME UTTERLY
SINFUL. Romans 7. Verse 13. Paul, to
set forth the formidable evil that is in sin, expresses it
thus. He could find nothing more evil
and odious to express sin by than itself. Sin is so great
an evil that it cannot have a worse epithet given it. Paul can call
it no worse than by its own name, sinful sin. Had he said that
sin was a snare, a serpent, a viper, a toad, a plague, a devil, a
hell, and so on, he would have said much, but yet not enough
to set forth the transcendent evil which is in sin. Therefore
he calls it sinful sin. All other evils are but outward,
they only reach the name, the body, the estate, the life. But sin is an inward evil, a
spiritual evil, an evil that reaches the precious and immortal
soul, and therefore is the greatest evil. Death puts an end to all
other troubles, namely poverty, sickness, disgrace, scorn, contempt,
afflictions, losses, and so on. But sin is so great an evil that
death itself cannot put an end to it. Eternity itself shall
never put a stop, an end, to the evil of evils. All other
evils can never make a man the object of God's wrath and hatred. A man may be poor, and yet precious
in the eyes of God. He may be greatly abhorred by
the world, and yet highly honored by God. He may be debased by
men, and yet exalted by God. But sin is so great an evil,
that it subjects the sinner's soul to the wrath and hatred
of God. All other evils do but strike
a man's present well-being, but sin strikes at a man's eternal
well-being. All other evils can never hinder
a man's communion with God. A man may have communion with
God in poverty, in sickness, in prison, in banishment, but
sin is so great an evil that it interrupts communion with
God, it cuts off communion with God. All outward evils are God's
creatures. Is there any evil in the city
which the Lord has not done? But sin is the devil's brat.
It is a creature of his own begetting. Yes, sin is worse than the devil. It is that which has turned glorious
angels into infernal devils. All other evils do not fight
against the greatest good. But sin is that grand evil that
fights against the greatest good. Sin fights against the being
of God, the essence of God, the glory of God. Sin is a killing
of God. It is a murdering of God. Sin
is a universal evil. It is all evil. It is nothing
but evil. There is not one drop, one spark
of good to be found in any sin. In all outward evils there is
some good, there is some good in poverty, in sickness, in war,
in death. But there is not the least good
in sin. Sin is the sole object of God's
hatred. He hates nothing but sin. He
is angry with nothing but sin. He has forbid nothing but sin.
He has revealed His wrath against nothing but sin. So great and
evil is sin. Sin is that grand evil which
has midwifed all other evils into the world. It was sin which
drowned the old world with water. It was sin which destroyed Sodom
with fire and brimstone. It was sin which laid Jerusalem
in heaps. It was sin which has midwifed
sword, famine, and pestilence into the world. It was sin which
laid the foundations of hell. For before sin there was no hell. It was sin which crucified the
Lord of glory. Now, O how great must that evil
be which has ushered in all these great evils into the world! Sin
is enmity against God. God has no enemy in the world
but sin, and those whom sin has made enemies. Sin has set all
the world against the Lord of glory. It is sin which has turned
men into incarnate devils, and which has drawn them out to fight
against God, and Christ, and their own souls, and their everlasting
peace. A Christian looks upon sin as
the greatest evil in the world, and his heart rises and is enraged
against it because of the vile, filthy, odious, and heinous nature
of it. How did those swine run? Thomas
Watson The Ten Commandments Then they may come to their senses,
and escape the devil's trap, having been captured by him to
do his will. 2 Timothy 2 verse 26 Men naturally
are enslaved to Satan. Satan is called the prince of
this world. John 14 verse 30 And the God of this world. 2
Corinthians 4 verse 4 Because he has power to command and to
enslave his dupes. Though he shall one day be a
fellow-prisoner in chains, yet now he insults and tyrannizes
over the souls of men. Sinners are under his rule. He
exercises a jurisdiction over them. He fills men's heads with
error, and their hearts with malice. Why has Satan filled
your heart? Acts 5, verse 3. A sinner's heart is a devil's
mansion house. I will return into my house.
Matthew 12, verse 44. Satan is a comprehensive tyrant. He rules men's minds. He blinds
them with ignorance. The God of this world has blinded
the minds of those who believe not. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 4
He rules their memories. They remember that which is evil
and forget that which is good. Their memories are like a strainer,
which lets go all the pure and retains only the dregs. He rules
their wills. Though He cannot force the will,
He draws it. You are of your father the devil,
and the lusts of your father you will do. John 8 verse 44. He has control over their hearts,
and they willingly obey Him. His strong temptations draw men
to evil, more than all the promises of God can draw them to good.
This is the state of every man by nature. The devil has him
in his power. A sinner grinds in the devil's
mill. He is at the command of Satan,
as a donkey is at the command of the driver. How did those
swine run? When the devil entered into them,
they entered the swine, and suddenly the whole herd rushed down the
steep bank into the sea, and perished in the water. Matthew
8 verse 32. It is a dreadful and dismal case
to be under the power and tyranny of Satan. He wholly possesses
them. If people should see their pets
bewitched and possessed by the devil, they would be much troubled,
and yet, though their souls are possessed by Satan, they are
not sensible of it. What can be worse than for men
to be in bondage to the devil, and him hurry them on in their
lusts to perdition? Yet they are willingly enslaved
to Satan. They love their galler. What
an infinite mercy it is when God brings poor souls out of
this house of bondage, when he gives them a deliverance from
the prince of darkness. Has David rescued a lamb out
of the lion's mouth? So Christ rescues souls out of
the mouth of the roaring lion. Oh, what a mercy it is to be
turned from the power of Satan unto God. Acts 26, verse 18. to be brought out of the house
of bondage, from being Satan's captives, to be made subjects
of the Prince of Peace. A Spiritual Monster Thomas Boston
Human Nature in its Fourfold State The unrenewed man's affections
are wholly corrupted, disordered, and distempered. Man's heart
naturally is a mother of abominations. For from within, out of men's
hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,
greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and
folly. Mark 7 verses 21 and 22. Men loved darkness. John 3 verse 19. The natural
man's affections are wretchedly misplaced. He is a spiritual
monster. His heart is where his feet should
be, fixed on the earth. His heels are lifted up against
heaven, which his heart should be set on. His face is towards
hell, his back is towards heaven. He loves what he should hate,
and hates what he should love. He joys in what he ought to mourn
for. and mourns for what he should
rejoice in, abhors what he should desire, and desires what he should
abhor, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. 2 Timothy
3 verse 4 What her tender infant may grow
up to be! J. C. Ryle. Every inclination
of his heart is evil from childhood. Genesis 8 verse 21. Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Psalm 51 verse
5. Remember that children are born
with a decided bias toward evil, and therefore if you let them
choose for themselves, they are certain to choose wrong. The
mother cannot tell what her tender infant may grow up to be. Tall
or short, weak or strong, wise or foolish, all is uncertain. But one thing the mother can
say with certainty. He will have a corrupt and sinful
heart. It is natural for us to do wrong.
Our hearts are like the earth on which we tread. Let it alone,
and it is sure to bear weeds. No sin startles less, or damns
surer. John Flavel, The Method of Grace
He who believes on the Son has everlasting life, But he who
does not believe in the Son shall not see life, But the wrath of
God abides on him. John 3 verse 36 Unbelief is man's
great sin, And condemnation is his great misery. How dreadful
a sin is the sin of unbelief, which brings men under the condemnation
of the great God! No sin startles less, or damns
surer. Unbelief is a sin which does
not affright the conscience, as some other sins do, but it
kills the soul more certainly than any of those sins. Other
sins could not damn us, were it not for unbelief, which fixes
the guilt of them all upon us. Unbelief is the sin of sins,
and when the Spirit comes to convince men of sin, He begins
with this as a capital sin. To Sin and Not to Blush Thomas
Brooks, Heaven on Earth 1667 Only those things which are sinful
are shameful. Then when I make atonement for
you, for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed,
and never again open your mouth, because of your humiliation,
declares the Sovereign Lord. Ezekiel 16 verse 63. When a penitent soul sees his
sins pardoned, the anger of God pacified, and divine justice
satisfied, then he sits down ashamed. Sin and shame are inseparable
companions. A Christian cannot have the seeming
sweet of sin, but he shall have the real shame which accompanies
sin. These two God has joined together,
and all the world cannot put them asunder. It was a vile and
impenitent Caligula who said of himself that he loved nothing
better in himself than that he could not be ashamed. A soul
who has sinned to weigh all shame is a soul ripe for hell and given
up to Satan. A greater plague cannot befall
a man in this life than to sin and not to blush. A corrupt heart was the source
of all. Thomas Boston, Human Nature in
its Fourfold State. We have seen what man was, as
God made him, a lovely and happy creature. Let us view him now
as he has unmade himself. We shall see him a sinful and
a miserable creature. This is the sad state we are
brought into by the Fall. Man's nature is now wholly corrupted. There is a sad alteration, an
astonishing overturning in the nature of man, where, at first,
there was nothing evil, now there is nothing good. God saw that
the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Genesis 6, verse 5. All their wicked practices are
here traced to the fountain and spring-head. A corrupt heart
was the source of all. The soul, which was made upright
in all its faculties, is now wholly disordered. The heart,
which was made according to God's own heart, is now the reverse
of it, a forge of evil imaginations, a sink of inordinate affections,
and a storehouse of all impiety. verses 21 and 22. Behold the heart of the natural
man, as it is opened in our text. The mind is defiled. The thoughts
of the heart are evil. The will and affections are defiled. The imagination of the thoughts
of the heart, that is, whatever the heart frames within itself
by thinking, such as judgment, choice, purposes, devices, desires,
every inward motion is evil. Yes, and every imagination, every
frame of the thoughts is evil. But is there not, at least, a
mixture of good in them? No, they are only evil. Whatever changes may be found
in them are only from evil to evil, for the imagination of
the heart or frame of thoughts in natural men is evil continually. Not one holy thought can ever
be produced by an unholy heart. Oh, what a vile heart is this! What a corrupt nature is this!
What can that heart be whereof every imagination, every set
of thoughts, is only evil, and that continually? Surely that
corruption is ingrained in our hearts, interwoven with our very
natures, has sunk deep into our souls, and will never be cured
but by a miracle of grace. Now such is man's heart, such
is his nature, until regenerating grace changes it. MAN ACTING AS A DEVIL Horatius
Bonner The Surety's Cross In the cross we see what is in man. In the cross man has spoken out. He has exhibited himself. and
made unconscious confession of his feelings, especially in reference
to God, to His being, His authority, His character, His law, His love. It was man who erected the cross
and nailed the Son of God to it, permitted by God to give
vent to the feelings of his heart. and placed in circumstances the
least likely to call forth anything but love. He thus expressed the
feelings of his heart in hatred to God and to his incarnate Son. Reckoning the death of the cross,
the worst of all deaths, man deems it the fittest for the
Son of God. Thus the enmity of the natural
heart speaks out. A man not only confesses publicly
that he is a hater of God, but he takes pains to show the intensity
of his hatred. More, he glorifies in a shame,
crying aloud, Crucify Him! Crucify Him! The cross thus interprets
what is in man's heart. The cross rips the mask of pretended
religion from his face, and exhibits man overflowing with the malignity
of hell. You say, I don't hate God. I may be indifferent to Him.
He may not be in all my thoughts, but I don't hate Him. Then what
does that cross mean? Love? Hatred? Indifference? Which? Does love
demand the death of the loved one? Does indifference crucify
its objects? Look at your hands. Are they
not red with blood? Whose blood is that? The blood
of God's own Son? No, neither love nor indifference
shed His blood. It was hatred that did it. Enmity,
the enmity of the carnal heart. You say that I have no right
to judge you. I am not judging you. It is yon cross which judges
you, and I am asking you to judge yourselves by it. It is yon cross
that interprets your purposes, and reveals the thoughts and
intents of your heart. Oh, what a revelation! Man hating
God, and hating most when God is loving most. Man acting as
a devil. and taking the devil's side against
God. The cross, then, was a public
declaration of man's hatred of God, man's rejection of his Son,
and man's avowal of his belief that he needs no Savior. What
do you think of Christ? was God's question. Man's answer
was, Crucify Him! O what must man be, when he can
hate, condemn, mock, scourge, spit upon, crucify the Lamb of
God, when coming to Him clothed in love, and with the garments
of salvation? And what must sin be, when, in
order to expiate it, the Lord of glory must die upon a tree,
an outcast, a criminal, a curse? See its ugly face. Thomas Watson. Body of Divinity. What a heinous
and excretable thing is sin! Sin is the distillation of all
evil. The scripture calls it the accursed thing. It is compared
to the venom of serpents and the stench of sepulchres. The
devil would paint sin with the pleasing colors of pleasure and
profit, that he may make it look fair. But I shall pull off the
paint, that you may see its ugly face. We are apt to have slight
thoughts of sin and say to it, as Lot of Zoar, is it not a little
one? But sin is a great evil. Sin
fetches its pedigree from hell. Sin is from the devil. He who
commits sin is of the devil. Satan was the first actor of
sin, and the first tempter to sin. Sin is the devil's firstborn. Sin is a defiling thing, a polluting
thing. It is to the soul as rust is
to gold, as stain to beauty. It makes the soul red with guilt,
and black with filth. Sin in scripture is compared
to a minstrel's cloth and to a plague sore. Sin has blotted
out God's image and stained the orient brightness of the soul.
Sin makes God loathe a sinner, and when a sinner sees his sin,
he loathes himself. Sin stamps the devil's image
on a man. Malice is a devil's eye. Hypocrisy
his cloven foot. Sin turns a man into a devil.
One of you is a devil. John 6 verse 70. Sin is an act of rebellion against
God. A sinner tramples upon God's
law, crosses his will, and does all he can to affront, yes, to
spite God. Sin strikes at the very deity.
Sin is God's would-be murderer. Sin would not only unthrown God,
but would un-God him. If the sinner could help it,
God would no longer be God. Sin is an act of ingratitude
and unkindness. God feeds the sinner. keeps off
evils from him, be miracles him with mercy, but the sinner not
only forgets God's mercies, but abuses them. He is a worse for
mercy, like Absalom, who, as soon as David had kissed him
and taken him into favor, plotted treason against him, like the
mule who kicks the mother after she has given it milk. God may
upbraid the sinner, I have given you your health, strength, and
estate, but you requite me evil for good. You wound me with my
own mercies. Did I give you life to sin against
me? Did I give you wages to serve
the devil? Is this your kindness to your
friend? Sin is a disease. The whole head is sick. Some
are sick with pride, others with lust, others with envy. Sin is distempered, the intellectual
part. It is a leprosy in the head.
It is poison the vitals. It is with a sinner as with a
sick patient. His palate is distempered. The
sweetest things taste bitter to him. The word which is sweeter
than the honeycomb tastes bitter to him. Nothing can cure this
disease but the blood of the physician. Sin is an irrational
thing. It makes a man act not only wickedly,
but foolishly. It is absurd and irrational to
prefer the less before the greater. The sinner prefers the passing
pleasures of sin before eternal rivers of pleasures. Is it rational
to lose heaven for the indulging of a lust? Is it rational to
gratify an enemy? When sin burns in the soul, Satan
warms himself at this fire. Men's sins feast the devil. Sin is a painful thing. It costs
men much labor to pursue their sins. How do they tire themselves
in doing the devil's drudgery? They weary themselves to commit
iniquity. What pains did Judas take to
bring about his damnation? Many a man goes to hell in the
sweat of his brow. Sin is the only thing God has
antipathy against. God does not hate a man because
he is poor or despised in the world. The only thing which draws
forth the keenness of God's hatred is sin. O do not do this abominable
thing which I hate! And surely, if the sinner dies
under God's hatred, he cannot be admitted into the celestial
mansions. Will God let that man live with
him, whom he hates? God will never lay such a viper
in his bosom. Sin first enslaves, and then
damns. Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes,
1660. I tell you the truth. Everyone
who sins is a slave to sin. John 8, verse 34. You are of your father, the devil,
and you want to carry out your father's desires. John 8, verse
44. It is the sad misery of an unregenerate
person that he is in a state of vassalage. He is under the
tyranny of sin. It is the greatest slavery in
the world for a man to be a slave to his own passions. A wicked
man is as much a slave as he who works in the galley. Look
into his heart, and there are legions of lusts ruling him. He must do what sin will have
him to do. A slave is at the service of
a usurping tyrant. If he bids him dig in the mine,
or hew in the quarries, or tug at the ore, he must do it. Thus
every wicked man must do what corrupt nature, inspired by the
devil, bids him to do. If sin bids him to be drunk,
or to be unchaste, he is at the command of sin, as a donkey is
at the command of the driver. Sin first enslaves, and then
damns. But now that you have been set
free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you
reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. Romans
6 verse 22. He died for his patients. William S. Plumer, The Rock of
Our Salvation, 1867. The whole head is hurt, and the
whole heart is sick. You are sick from head to foot,
covered with bruises, welts, and infected wounds. Isaiah 1,
verses 5 to 6. Often in scripture, sin is spoken
of as a disease. a sickness, a hurt. Christ, as a great physician,
has the only sovereign balm. Sin is a dreadful disease. Yes,
it is the very worst disease. It was the first, and so is the
oldest malady. It infected man very soon after
his creation. For six thousand years sin has
committed its ravages and been gaining inveteracy. No other
disease is so old. Sin is also a universal disease. Other maladies have slain their
thousands, but sin has slain its millions. The whole world
is a graveyard, full of death and corruption. No person ever
lived without sin. As soon as we begin to live,
we begin to transgress. Not only is every man sick, but
our whole nature is diseased. Our understanding is darkened.
Our memory is polluted. The thoughts of our heart are
only evil continually. Our throats are open graves.
Our tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on our
lips. Our mouths are full of cursing
and bitterness. Our feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery mark our ways. And the way of peace we do not
know. Our eyes behold vanity. Our hands are full of bribes
and of blood. Our heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. We love darkness rather than
light. We are utterly diseased with
sin. Sin makes men spiritually blind,
and deaf, and dumb, and lame, and lethargic. Sin is a terrible
compilation of diseases. It is a rottenness in the bones.
It is a maddening fever, a wasting consumption, a paralysis of all
the powers. Human nature is wholly corrupt.
Sin is a perpetual disease. It rages day and night, on the
sea and on the land, in the house of mirth and in the house of
God. Sin is a hereditary disease.
We are conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity. Sin is also
contagious. Sinners are enticers, seducers,
corruptors. Sin is also the most deceitful
and flattering disease. One of its strong delusions is,
you shall not die. See the throng of ungodly people
marching to perdition, the slaves of sin, the servants of corruption,
the enemies of God. Their mirth would make one think
them to be the happiest of people, and not, as they really are,
condemned criminals, on their way to the eternal prison-house
of inflexible justice. Sin has its delusive dreams.
The worse a man is, the better he thinks himself to be. Sin
is a worse disease, because it is a parent of all other diseases. But for sin we would never have
seen a human being in pain, or sicken, or die. Suffering and
agony have one parent, sin. Other diseases are calamities,
but sin is a wickedness. Sin is not a misfortune. Sin
is a crime. It is a wicked thing to be a
sinner. Transgression brings guilt. God
is angry with the wicked every day. The more sinful anyone is,
the more is God displeased with him. Sin is the most loathsome
of all diseases. Pride is the worst kind of malady.
No heart is so vile as a hard heart. No vileness compares with
an evil heart of unbelief. No sight is so appalling as the
sight of vile affections. Sin is horrible and abominable
to God. Sin is also the most dolorous
disease. They multiply their sorrows who
hasten after transgression. The most bitter cries that ever
were heard were extorted by sin. Other diseases do but kill the
body, but sin kills soul and body in hell forever. Sin will
rage more violently beyond a tomb than on earth. It will be followed
by eternal regrets and reproaches, eternal weeping and wailing,
eternal wrath and anguish. Sin cannot be cured by any means
of human devising. All reformations can never cure
the heart. I fast twice in a week. I give
tithes of all that I possess, said the Pharisee. while spiritual
wickedness reigned within. We may weep and lament over our
sins, but that will neither dethrone sin nor atone for it. Our tears
are nothing, our works are nothing, all our righteous deeds are as
filthy rags, they are of no avail. The only remedy for sin is found
only in Jesus. He is the physician of souls.
None but He can cure a sin-sick soul. He makes no charge for
all His cures. He died for His patients. His
blood cleanses from all sin. With his stripes we are healed.
Christ's death atones. By his sufferings we have remission
of sin. In all cases where it is applied,
the gospel remedy is sovereign and effectual. It availed for
the dying thief, for the bloody soul of Tarsus, for the cruel
jailer, and for millions and millions who once esteemed themselves
as vile and as worthy of everlasting death. And now, poor sin-sick,
dying soul, flee to this physician. Submit your case to him, and
seek for the healing remedy. If you stay away, you must die.
The wages of sin is death. The blood of Jesus cleanses us
from every sin. 1 John 1 verse 7 He is both depraved and condemned. John Angel James, the practical
believer, delineated. God created man in his own image,
which consisted of true holiness. No spot of guilt was upon his
conscience, nor spot of depravity upon his heart. The light of
truth irradiated his understanding. The glow of perfect love warmed
his heart. The choices of his will were
all on the side of purity. His conscience was the seat of
perfect peace. The beauties of holiness adorned
his character. His soul was in harmony with
the untainted scenes of Paradise, in which bowers he walked in
undisturbed friendship with God. No sorrow wrung his heart. No
care wrinkled his brow. No anxiety broke his rest. He was happy, because he was
holy. When he sinned, his whole moral
condition was altered. He fell under the condemnation
of the law he had violated, and became the subject of inward
corruption. An entire change passed over
his nature. He not only became guilty, but
depraved. His understanding became darkened. His affections became selfish
and earthly. His will became prone to choose
what is wrong. His conscience became benumbed.
If he would ever be recovered from this state of misery, he
must be both pardoned and sanctified. The covenant of God's love and
mercy in Christ Jesus, the glorious scheme of redeeming grace, meets
the whole case of fallen man by providing not only justification,
but sanctification as well. Wonderful gospel provision, pardon
for the guilty, sanctification for the unholy. The condition
of the sinner may be likened to that of a condemned criminal
shot up in prison and infected with a deadly plague. What he
needs is both the cure of his plague and the reversal of his
sentence. Neither alone will meet his case.
If he is only pardoned, he will die of the plague. If he is only
cured of the plague, he will suffer the just sentence of the
law. So it is with fallen man. He is both depraved and condemned. If he is only pardoned, his depravity
will be his misery. If he could by any means be reformed,
he is still under sentence of death. The glory and completeness
of the gospel scheme is that it provides a cure for the diseases
of the soul in sanctification as well as aparted from the condemnation
of the law in justification. God's Most Stubborn Enemy Jonathan
Edwards Spiritual Pride I hate pride and arrogance. Proverbs
8 verse 13 The Lord detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of
this, they will not go unpunished. Proverbs 16 verse 5 Pride is
a person having too high an opinion of himself. Pride is the first
sin that ever entered into the universe, and the last sin that
is rooted out. Pride is the worst sin. It is
the most secret of all sins. There is no other matter in which
the heart is more deceitful and unsearchable. Alas, how much
pride the best have in their hearts! Pride is God's most stubborn
enemy. There is no sin so much like
the devil as pride. It is a secret and subtle sin,
and appears in a great many shapes, which are undetected and unsuspected. I hate pride and arrogance. Proverbs 8, verse 13. The Lord detests all the proud
of heart. Be sure of this, they will not
go unpunished. Proverbs 16, verse 5. The Great Storehouse of Iniquity
John Angel James, The Anxious Enquirer 1834 From the heart
come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities,
thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies. These are the things that defile
a man. Matthew 15 verses 19 to 20 The heart is a polluted fountain
from whence all the muddy streams of evil conduct flow. The heart
is a great storehouse of iniquity. Men sometimes make excuse for
their evil deeds by saying that they have good hearts at the
bottom. This, however, is an awful mistake, for every man's
heart, not accepting the most wicked, is really worse than
his conduct. Men think little of sin, but
does God? What turned Adam and Eve out
of paradise? Sin. What drowned the old world
in the flood? Sin. What brought disease, accidents,
toil, care, war, pestilence, and famine into the world? Sin. What has converted the world
into one great burying place of its inhabitants? Sin. What lights the flames of hell?
Sin, what crucified the Lord of life and glory. Sin, what
then must sin be? Who but God and what but His
infinite mind can conceive of its evil nature? the most devouring idol in all
the world, Richard Baxter, the sinfulness of flesh-pleasing. Their destiny is destruction,
their God is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame.
Their mind is on earthly things. Philippians 3 verse 19. Flesh-pleasing is the grand idolatry
of the world. The flesh is the greatest idol
that ever was set up against God. That is a man's God, which
he takes for his chief good, and loves best, and is most desirous
to please. And this is the flesh to every
sensualist. He loves pleasure more than God.
He minds the things of the flesh, and lives for it, and walks after
it. He makes provision for it. to
satisfy its appetite and lusts. He sows to the flesh and fulfills
its lusts. It is not primarily the bowing
of the knee and praying to a thing which constitutes idolatry. It
is the loving and pleasing and obeying, and seeking, and delighting
in a thing which is idolatry. So the loving of the flesh, and
pleasing it, and serving it, and obeying it, and seeking and
delighting in its pleasures is a grand idolatry, more than if
you offered sacrifices to it. And so the flesh is God's chief
enemy because it has the chief love and service which are due
to Him. The flesh robs him of the hearts of all people who
are carnal and unsanctified. All the Baals and Jupiters and
Apollos and other idols of the world put together have not so
much of the love and service due to God as the flesh alone
has. If other things are idolized
by the sensualist, It is but as they subserve his flesh, and
therefore they are made but inferior idols. The flesh is not only
the common idol, but the most devouring idol in all the world.
It has not, as inferior, flattered idols have, only a knee and compliment,
or now and then a sacrifice or ceremony, but it has the heart,
the tongue, the body to serve it. The flesh is loved and served
by the sensualist with all his heart, and with all his soul,
and with all his strength. They forsake God for the flesh.
They forsake Christ and heaven and their salvation for it. They
forsake all the solid comforts of this life, and all the joys
of the life to come for it. They sell all that they have,
and lay down the price at its feet. Yes, more than all they
have, even all their hopes of what they might have to all eternity,
they suffer in the flames of hell forever for their flesh. How vile and idle is the flesh! It is a great madness to serve
an idol of silver, or gold, or stone, or wood. But is it any
better to serve an idol of flesh and blood, which is full of filth
and excrement within, and the skin itself, the cleanest part,
is ashamed to be uncovered? Is this a God to sacrifice all
that we have to, and to give all our time, and care, and labor,
and our souls, and all to? Consider how impious, and horrid,
and abasement it is of the Eternal God, to prefer so vile a thing
before Him. You say continually by your practice,
this filthy, nasty flesh is to be preferred before God, to be
more loved, and obeyed, and served. It deserves more of my time than
God. It is more worthy of my delight
and love. It is but a few days until all
their most adorned, pampered flesh will be turned into worms'
food. A few days will turn their pleasure
into anguish, their jollity into groans, their ostentation into
lamentation, all their pride into shame. When the skull is
cast up with the spade, to make room for a successor. You may
see the hole where all the food and drink went in, but you will
see no signs of mirth or pleasure.