SIN'S DEFORMITY - Four particulars concerning sin, taken from the word of God 3/4

           Third Particular.  The nature of sin, as the word defines it.  See its description, ‘sin is the transgression of the law,’ I John 3:4—a few words, but of weight enough to press the soul that commits it to hell, yea to press sin itself to death in the heart of a saint, if laid on with these considerations—

1. Whose law it is by sinning we break. It is not that of some petty prince—and yet such conceive their honour so deeply concerned in their laws, that they take vengeance on the violators of them—but of the great God, whose glorious name is in every attribute assaulted and reproached by the sinner, yea the very life and being of God is endeavoured to be destroyed.  Peccatum est deicidium—sin is deicide.  For he that would rob God of his honour is an enemy to his very being; because God’s being is so wrapped up in his glory, that he cannot outlive the loss of it. These, it is true, are above the reach of the sinner’s short arm, but that is no thanks to him, because his sin aims at these, though it cannot carry its shot so far as to hurt him.
2. What law it is; not cruel, written with the blood of his creatures, as the laws of some tyrant princes are, who consult their own lust, and not their people’s good, in their edicts. But this law is equal and good; in {the} keeping of which is life.  So that no provocation is given by any rigour of unnecessary taxes imposed upon us to rise up against it.  ‘What iniquity,’ saith God, ‘have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me?’ Jer. 2:5.  He that put away his wife was to give her a bill of divorce, declaring the cause of his leaving her.  Thus God condescends to expostulate with sinners, and asks what evil they can charge upon him or his government that they forsake him.  But, alas! no more cause can be given than why a beast, in a fat sweet pasture, should break the hedge to get into a barren heath or a dirty lane, where nothing but starving is to be had.

           3. At whose notion the poor creature transgressed the good law of God, and that is of a cursed spirit the devil, no less our enemy than God’s enemy.  Now for a child at the solicitation of his father’s greatest enemy, and his own also, to take up rebellious arms against a dear loving parent, adds to the monstrosity and unnaturalness of the fact.  This thou dost, Christian, when by sin thou transgressest the law of God. And now, by this time, methinks I see thy blood to rise and boil with anger in thee, while thy God points to thy sin and tells thee, ‘This, O my child, is the enemy that would take away my glory and life too by thy means—who by debt both of nature and grace owest thy whole self to live and die for the maintaining of my honour!’  Art thou not as ready to fall upon thy sin, and drag it to execution, as the servants of Ahasuerus were to lay hold of Haman, and cover his face as a son of death, when their prince did but vent his wrath conceived against him? Est. 7:8.  Certainly, were but the love of God well kindled in our bosoms, we should even spit fire on the face of any that durst tempt us to sin against him.

SIN'S DEFORMITY - Four particulars concerning sin, taken from the word of God 2/4

           Second Particular.  The names and titles with which the word stigmatizeth sin.  And God, to be sure, miscalls none.  If a thing be sweet, he will not say it is bitter; if good, he will not call it evil.  For he claps a woe upon his head that doth so, Isa. 5:20. Never think to find honey in the pot when God writes poison on its cover.  We may say of every sin in this respect what Abigail of her husband—as is its name in Scripture, so is it.  If God call it folly, then there is no wisdom to be found in it.  The devil indeed teacheth sinners to cover foul practices with fair names. Superstition must be styled devotion; covetousness, thrift; pride in apparel, handsomeness; looseness, liberty; and madness, mirth.  And truly there is great need for sinners to do thus, to make this fulsome dish go down with less regret.  There are some have made a hearty meal of horseflesh, or the like carrion, under a better name, whose stomachs would have risen against it if they had known what it was.  Therefore as persecutors of old wrapped the Christians in the skins of those beasts which would render them the most desirable prey to those they were cast; so Satan and our false hearts present sins to us under those names that will sharpen our appetites to them, or at least take away the abhorrence our consciences else would show against them.

           But canst thou be content, poor soul, to be so easily cheated?  Will the fire burn thee the less, into which thou art emboldened to put thy finger, because a knave that owes thee and ill turn tells thee that it will not hurt thee?  Hear rather what the God of truth saith of sin, and by what names he calls it, and you shall find that whatever is dreaded by us, or hated, feared, or loathed, in all the world, they are borrowed, and applied to sin—the vomit of dogs; the venom of serpents; the stench of rotten sepulchres; dunghills and jakes; the deadliest diseases and sores, gangrenes, leprosies, and plague, attributed to it, II Peter 2:22; Luke 3:7; Rom. 3:13; II Tim. 2:17; I Kings 8:38; yea, hell is raked for an expression to set it out—it being compared to the very fire of hell itself, James 3:6.  And because of their penury and straitness of these appellations —therefore it is called by its own name, as the worst that God himself can say thereof, ‘sinful’ sin, Rom. 7:13.  Now what shall be done to the thing that the great God thus loathes, and loads with such names of dishonour, thereby to signify his abhorrence of it? What?  Every gracious heart will soon resolve, that he should pursue it with fire and sword, till we have executed upon it the judgement written in its utter ruin and destruction.

SIN'S DEFORMITY - Four particulars concerning sin, taken from the word of God 1/4

   DIRECTION FIRST.  Take some pains to collect out of the word the several lineaments with which the Spirit of God doth paint out the deformity of sin, that so thou mayest make it the more odious and hateful to thy thoughts, when, by laying them together, thou shalt see in its true picture and portraiture—drawn by so skilful and faithful a hand—the fair face of this goodly lady, whose beauty Satan doth so highly commend to thy wanton embraces.  Poor man sins upon Satan’s credit, and receives it into his bosom, as Jacob did his wife into his bed—before he sees its face, or knows well what it is—and therefore, as he in the morning found her to be, not that beautiful Rachel as was promised, but a blear eyed Leah; so the sinner, too late—when his conscience awakes—sees himself miserably cheated, and disappointed of what he looked for, and finds a purgatory where he expected a paradise.  Now, that thou mayest, Christian, the better see the ugly shape of this monster sin, observe from the word of God these four particulars concerning it.  First. The birth and extraction of it. Second. The names given it. Third. Its nature.  And, Fourth. Its properties.

Four particulars concerning sin, taken from the word of God.

           First Particular.  The birth and extraction of sin. Who is its father, and from whom is it descended? The holy God disowns it.  The sun can as soon beget darkness, as God, who is ‘the Father of lights,’ be the author of sin.  From him comes ‘every good and perfect gift,’ James 1:17.  But, O sin, whence art thou? Thou art not his creature; he neither made thee, nor ever moved any to thy production.  Certainly if it were from him he would like and love it.  Every one loves his own child, though never so black.  Much more doth God like what is his.  We find him looking back upon every day's work of the creation, and upon all at last, pleased with what he had done, all ‘was very good,’ Gen. 1:31.  But of sin what he thinks, see Deut. 7:25, 26; Prov. 6:16; Rev. 2:6, 15, where he ex-presseth his detestation and hatred of it, from which hatred proceed all those direful plagues and judgments thundered from the fiery mouth of his most holy law against it.  Nay, not only the work, but the worker also, of iniquity, becomes the object of his hatred, Ps. 5:5.  So that if God were the author of sin, he would be a hater of himself.  Well, at whose door then doth God lay this brat to find a father?  Surely at the devil’s: ‘Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do,’ John 8:44.  And again in the same place, ‘When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.’  Sin is a brat which calls the devil both father and mother. For of himself, even of his own free will—the womb wherein it was conceived—did he beget it; and having begot it, put it out to nurse to man.  And is not man, who was made to serve and enjoy the great God his Maker, highly set up, to suckle and carry this his infernal child about in his arms?  Ah, poor man, whence art thou fallen?  It is strange that the very remembering whose offspring thyself wert doth not strike thee into a horror, to see thy precious soul debased unto such servitude as to fulfil the lusts of that cursed spirit.  Never let us spit at the witch for suffering the devil’s imps to suck on her body, while we can prostitute our souls to any of his lusts.