DISCOURSE XXXII. ROMANS vi. 21. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now afhamed? For the end of those things is death. THOUGH the hopes introduced by the Gospel of Christ are in themselves fitted to fupport and encourage virtue and true religion, and are only to be truly enjoyed by thofe who make a title to them by the innocency of their lives; yet they have been perverted to very ill purposes by fuch as, hating to be reformed by the precepts of the Gofpel, are willing nevertheless to put their fins under the protection of the glorious promifes contained in it. This policy prevailed fo foon in the church, that we find the Apostle ftating the pretence, and rejecting it with indignation, in the first verses of this chapter: What shall we fay then? Shall we continue in fin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to fin, live any longer therein? In the chapter before this of the text, he fets forth the exceeding great benefits we receive through Jefus Chrift: that being juftified by faith, we have peace with God. That God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet finners, Chrift died for us. That being juftified by his blood, we shall be faved from wrath through him. That as by one man's difobedience many were made finners; fo by the obedience of one fhall many be made righteous. To prevent the ufe which ill-disposed men were ready to make of this great goodness of God towards finners, imagining their iniquities to be privileged, fince fo much grace had been extended to them, the Apoftle in this chapter enters into the question, whether the hopes of the Gospel are reconcileable to a continuance in fin; and fhews by many arguments, drawn from the profesfion, the state, and the condition of a Chriftian, that a ftate of grace and a state of fin are as inconfiftent as life and death: fince every Chriftian is buried with Chrift by baptifm into death; that, like as Chrift was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even fo we alfo fhould walk in newness of life. From these reasons he proceeds to others, not of less moment, appealing to the fenfe of confcience and the voice of reafon against the prefumptuous conceit which made the Son of God the minifter of fin, and the Gospel to give countenance to the iniquities of which nature was ever afhamed, and against which the common reason of mankind had paffed fentence of condemnation: What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now afhamed? for the end of thofe things is death. These words will fuggeft to our confideration the following particulars : Firft, That the fhame and remorfe which attend upon fin and guilt arife from the natural impreffions on the mind of man. Secondly, That the expectation of punishment for fin is the refult of the reafon given unto us. Thirdly, That thefe common notions are the foundation of all religion, and therefore must be supposed and admitted in revealed religion, and cannot be contradicted by it. Firft, That the fhame and remorfe which attend upon fin and guilt arife from the natural impreflions on the mind of man. It is certain from experience that we can no more direct by our choice the fenfations of our mind, than we can those of the body: when the fire burns, flesh and blood muft feel pain; and a rational mind compelled to act against its own conviction must ever grieve and be afflicted. These natural connections are unalterably fixed by the Author of nature, and established to be means of our prefervation. We are taught by the sense of pain to avoid things hurtful or deftructive to the body; and the torments and anxiety of mind, which follow fo close and so constantly at the heels of fin and guilt, are placed as guardians to our innocence, as centinels to give early notice of the approach of evil, which threatens the peace and comfort of our lives. If we are perfect mafters of the fenfations of our mind, if reflection be fo much under command, that when we fay, Come, it cometh, when we fay, Go, it goeth, how is it that fo many fuffer so much from the uneafy thoughts and suggestions of their own hearts, when they need only speak the word and be whole? Whence the self-conviction, the self-condemnation of finners, whence the foreboding thoughts of judg ment to come, the fad expectations of divine ven geance, and the dread of future mifery, if the finner has it in his power to bid these melancholy thoughts retire, and can when he pleases fit down enjoying his iniquities in peace and tranquillity? These confiderations make it evident, that the pain and grief of mind which we fuffer from a sense of having done ill, flow from the very conftitution of our nature, as we are rational agents. Nor can we conceive a greater argument of God's utter irreconcileableness to fin, than that he has given us fuch a nature that we can never be reconciled to it ourfelves. We never like it in others where we have no intereft in the iniquity, nor long approve of it in ourselves when we have. The hours of cool reflection are the finner's mortification, for vice can never be happy in the company of reason; which is the true caufe why profligate finners fly to any excess that may help them to forget themselves, and hide them from the light of reason, which, whenever it ceases to be the glory of a man, will neceffarily become his shame and reproach. No vice is the better for being found in the company of intemperance, but becomes more odious in the fight of God and man. And yet how often does vice fly to intemperance for refuge! which fhews what miferable company finners are to themselves, when they can be content to expose themselves to the contempt of all about them, merely for the fake of being free from their own cenfure for a feason. Were it in the power of men to find any expedient to reconcile their reason to their vices, they would not fubmit to the hard terms of parting with their reason for the fake of being at ease with their vices. But there is no remedy; as long as we have the power of thinking, fo long muft we think ill of ourselves when we do ill. The only cure for this uneafinefs is to live without thought; for we can never enjoy the happiness of a brute, till we have funk ourselves into the fame degree of understanding. It may be faid, I know, that there have been some profligate finners who have difcovered no uneafinefs upon the account of their guilt, but have gone through a life of profperous wickedness with great fhew of outward peace and tranquillity: I know too, that there have been inftances of men who could play with fire, and be very familiar with it, without fhewing any fenfe of pain: but neither will the art of one be accepted as an argument against the fense of feeling, nor the obduratenefs of the other be admitted as a proof against the natural sense of a rational mind. Great wicked men are often loft in à perpetual fucceffion of bufinefs and pleasure, and have no refpite for reflection. The poor idle finner feeks ease in intemperance; the more profperous is kept at an unhappy diftance from himself by living in a crowd, and having his hours filled up with bufinefs, ceremony, or pleasure; and both equally live, with respect to themselves and their own condition, in one continued lethargy. But such inftances as thefe are of no confequence in determining the general case of mankind; especially confidering that even these are laying up in store for themselves fad materials for reflection, whenever the season of reflection overtakes them; and that, should they ever be deferted by business and pleasures, instead of being objections to the general fenfe of mankind un |