from day to day, just as we live on from day to day, without being
distinctly aware of it. A healthy man does not go about, holding his
fingers upon his wrist, and counting every pulse; and neither does a
sinful man, as he walks these streets and transacts all this business,
think of and sum up the multitude of his transgressions. And yet, that
pulse all the while beats none the less; and yet, that will all the while
transgresses none the less. So long as conscience is asleep, sin is
pleasant. The sinful activity goes on without notice, we are happy in
sin, and we do not feel that it is slavery of the will. Though the chains
are actually about us, yet they do not gall us. In this condition, which
is that of every unawakened sinner, we are not conscious of the "bondage
of corruption." In the phrase of St. Paul, "we are alive without the
law." We have no feeling sense of duty, and of course have no feeling
sense of sin. And it is in this state of things, that arguments are
framed to prove the mightiness of mere conscience, and the power of bare
truth and moral obligation, over the perverse human heart and will.
But the Spirit of God awakens the conscience; that sense of obligation to
be _perfectly_ holy which has hitherto slept now starts up, and begins to
form an estimate of what has been done in reference to it. The man hears
the authoritative and startling law: "Thou shalt be perfect, as God is."
And now, at this very instant and point, begins the consciousness of
enslavement,--of being, in the expressive phrase of Scripture, "_sold_
under sin." Now the commandment "comes," shows us first what we ought to
be and then what we actually are, and we "die."[2] All moral strength
dies out of us. The muscle has been cut by the sword of truth, and the
limb drops helpless by the side. For, we find that the obligation is
immense. It extends to all our outward acts; and having covered the whole
of this great surface, it then strikes inward and reaches to every
thought of the mind, and every emotion of the heart, and every motive of
the will. We discover that we are under obligation at every conceivable
point in our being and in our history, but that we have not met
obligation at a single point. When we see that the law of God is broad
and deep, and that sin is equally broad and deep within us; when we learn
that we have never thought one single holy thought, nor felt one single
holy feeling, nor done one single holy deed, because self-love is the
root and principle of all our work, and we have never purposed or desired
to please God by any one of our actions; when we find that everything
has been required, and that absolutely nothing has been done, that we are
bound to be perfectly holy this very instant, and as matter of fact are
totally sinful, we know in a most affecting manner that "whosoever
committeth sin is the _slave_ of sin".
But suppose that after this disheartening and weakening discovery of the
depth and extent of our sinfulness, we proceed to take the second step,
and attempt to extirpate it. Suppose that after coming to a consciousness
of all this obligation resting upon us, we endeavor to comply with it.
This renders us still more painfully sensible of the truth of our
Saviour's declaration. Even the regenerated man, who in this endeavor has
the aid of God, is mournfully conscious that sin is the enslavement of
the human will. Though he has been freed substantially, he feels that the
fragments of the chains are upon him still. Though the love of God is the
predominant principle within him, yet the lusts and propensities of the
old nature continually start up like devils, and tug at the spirit, to
drag it down to its old bondage. But that man who attempts to overcome
sin, without first crying, "Create within me a clean heart, O God," feels
still more deeply that sin is spiritual slavery. When _he_ comes to know
sin in reference to the obligation to be perfectly holy, it is with
vividness and hopelessness. He sees distinctly that he ought to be a
perfectly good being instantaneously. This point is clear. But instead of
looking up to the hills whence cometh his help, he begins, in a cold
legal and loveless temper, to draw upon his own resources. The first step
is to regulate his external conduct by the Divine law. He tries to put a
bridle upon his tongue, and to walk carefully before his fellow-men. He
fails to do even this small outside thing, and is filled with
discouragement and despondency.
But the sense of duty reaches beyond the external conduct, and the law of
God pierces like the two-edged sword of an executioner, and discerns
the thoughts and motives of the heart. Sin begins to be seen in its
relation to the inner man, and he attempts again to reform and change the
feelings and affections of his soul. He strives to wring the gall of
bitterness out of his own heart, with his own hands. But he fails
utterly. As he resolves, and breaks his resolutions; as he finds evil
thoughts and feelings continually coming up from the deep places of his
heart; he discovers his spiritual impotence,--his lack of control over
what is deepest, most intimate, and most fundamental in his own
character,--and cries out: "I _am_ a slave, I am a _slave_ to myself."
If then, you would know from immediate consciousness that "whosoever
committeth sin is the slave of sin," simply view sin in the light of that
obligation to be _perfectly_ pure and holy which necessarily, and
forever, rests upon a responsible being. If you would know that spiritual
slavery is no extravagant and unmeaning phrase, but denotes a most real
and helpless bondage, endeavor to get entirely rid of sin, and to be
perfect as the spirits of just men made perfect.
II. Sin is spiritual slavery, if viewed in reference to the _aspirations_
of the human soul.
Theology makes a distinction between common and special grace,--between
those ordinary influences of the Divine Spirit which rouse the
conscience, and awaken some transient aspirations after religion, and
those extraordinary influences which actually renew the heart and will.
In speaking, then, of the aspirations of the human soul, reference is had
to all those serious impressions, and those painful anxieties concerning
salvation, which require to be followed up by a yet mightier power from
God, to prevent their being entirely suppressed again, as they are in a
multitude of instances, by the strong love of sin and the world. For
though man has fallen into a state of death in trespasses and sins, so
that if cut off from _every_ species of Divine influence, and left
_entirely_ to himself, he would never reach out after anything but the
sin which he loves, yet through the common influences of the Spirit of
Grace, and the ordinary workings of a rational nature not yet reprobated,
he is at times the subject of internal stirrings and aspirations that
indicate the greatness and glory of the heights whence he fell. Under the
power of an awakened conscience, and feeling the emptiness of the world,
and the aching void within him, man wishes for something better than he
has, or than he is. The minds of the more thoughtful of the ancient
pagans were the subjects of these impulses, and aspirations; and they
confess their utter inability to realize them. They are expressed
upon every page of Plato, and it is not surprising that some of the
Christian Fathers should have deemed Platonism, as well as Judaism, to be
a preparation for Christianity, by its bringing man to a sense of his
need of redemption. And it would stimulate Christians in their efforts to
give revealed religion to the heathen, did they ponder the fact which the
journals of the missionary sometimes disclose, that the Divine Spirit is
brooding with His common and preparatory influence over the chaos of
Paganism, and that here and there the heathen mind faintly aspires to be
freed from the bondage of corruption,--that dim stirrings, impulses, and
wishes for deliverance, are awake in the dark heart of Paganism, but that
owing to the strength and inveteracy of sin in that heart they will prove
ineffectual to salvation, unless the gospel is preached, and the Holy
Spirit is specially poured out in answer to the prayers of Christians.
Now, all these phenomena in the human soul go to show the rigid bondage
of sin, and to prove that sin has an element of servitude in it. For when
these impulses, wishes, and aspirations are awakened, and the man
discovers that he is unable to realize them in actual character and
conduct, he is wretchedly and thoroughly conscious that "whosoever
committeth sin is the _slave_ of sin." The immortal, heaven-descended
spirit, feeling the kindling touch of truth and of the Holy Ghost,
thrills under it, and essays to soar. But sin hangs heavy upon it, and it
cannot lift itself from the earth. Never is man so sensible of his
enslavement and his helplessness, as when he has a _wish_ but has no
_will_.[3]
Look, for illustration, at the aspirations of the drunkard to be
delivered from the vice that easily besets him. In his sober moments,
they come thick and fast, and during his sobriety, and while under the
lashings of conscience, he wishes, nay, even _longs_, to be freed from
drunkenness. It may be, that under the impulse of these aspirations he
resolves never to drink again. It may be, that amid the buoyancy that
naturally accompanies the springing of hope and longing in the human
soul, he for a time seems to himself to be actually rising up from his
"wallowing in the mire," and supposes that he shall soon regain his
primitive condition of temperance. But the sin is strong; for the
appetite that feeds it is in his blood. Temptation with its witching
solicitation comes before the will,--the weak, self-enslaved will. He
_aspires_ to resist, but _will_ not; the spirit _would_ soar, but the
flesh _will_ creep; the spirit has the _wish_, but the flesh has the
_will_; the man longs to be sober, but actually is and remains a
drunkard. And never,--be it noticed,--never is he more thoroughly
conscious of being a slave to himself, than when he thus _ineffectually_
aspires and wishes to be delivered from himself.
What has been said of drunkenness, and the aspiration to be freed from
it, applies with full force to all the sin and all the aspirations of the
human soul. There is no independent and self-realizing power in a mere
aspiration. No man overcomes even his vices, except as he is assisted by
the common grace of God. The self-reliant man invariably relapses into
his old habits. He who thinks he stands is sure to fall. But when, under
the influence of God's common grace, a man aspires to be freed from the
deepest of all sin, because it is the source of all particular acts of
transgression,--when he attempts to overcome and extirpate the original
and inveterate depravity of his heart,--he feels his bondage more
thoroughly than ever. If it is wretchedness for the drunkard to aspire
after freedom from only a single vice, and fail of reaching it, is it not
the depth of woe, when a man comes to know "the plague of his heart," and
his utter inability to cleanse and cure it? In this case, the bondage of
self-will is found to be absolute.
At first sight, it might seem as if these wishes and aspirations of the
human spirit, faint though they be, are proof that man is not totally
depraved, and that his will is not helplessly enslaved. So some men
argue. But they forget, that these aspirations and wishes are _never
realized_. There is no evidence of power, except from its results. And
where are the results? Who has ever realized these wishes and
aspirations, in his heart and conduct? The truth is, that every
_unattained_ aspiration that ever swelled the human soul is proof
positive, and loud, that the human soul is in bondage. These
_ineffectual_ stirrings and impulses, which disappear like the morning
cloud and the early dew, are most affecting evidences that "whosoever
committeth sin is the _slave_ of sin." They prove that apostate man has
sunk, in one respect, to a lower level than that of the irrational
creation. For, high ideas and truths cannot raise him. Lofty impulses
result in no alteration, or elevation. Even Divine influences leave him
just where they find him, unless they are exerted in their highest grade
of irresistible grace. A brute surrenders himself to his appetites and
propensities, and lives the low life of nature, without being capable of
aspirations for anything purer and nobler. But man does this very
thing,--nay, immerses himself in flesh, and sense, and self, with an
entireness and intensity of which the brute is incapable,--in the face of
impulses and stirrings of mind that point him to the pure throne of God,
and urge him to soar up to it! The brute is a creature of nature, because
he knows no better, and can desire nothing better; but man is "as the
beasts that perish," in spite of a better knowledge and a loftier
aspiration!
If then, you would know that "whosoever committeth sin is the _slave_ of
sin," contemplate sin in reference to the aspirations of an apostate
spirit originally made in the image of God, and which, because it is not
eternally reprobated, is not entirely cut off from the common influences
of the Spirit of God. Never will you feel the bondage of your will more
profoundly, than when under these influences, and in your moments of
seriousness and anxiety respecting your soul's salvation, you aspire
and endeavor to overcome inward sin, and find that unless God grant you
His special and renovating grace, your heart will be sinful through all
eternity, in spite of the best impulses of your best hours. These upward
impulses and aspirations cannot accompany the soul into the state of
final hopelessness and despair, though Milton represents Satan as
sometimes looking back with a sigh, and a mournful memory, upon what he
had once been,[4]--yet if they should go with us there, they would
make the ardor of the fire more fierce, and the gnaw of the worm more
fell. For they would help to reveal the strength of our sin, and the
intensity of our rebellion.
III. Sin is spiritual slavery, if viewed in reference to the _fears_ of
the human soul.
The sinful spirit of man fears the death of the body, and the Scriptures
assert that by reason of this particular fear we are all our lifetime in
bondage. Though we know that the bodily dissolution can have no effect
upon the imperishable essence of an immortal being, yet we shrink back
from it, as if the sentence, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt
return," had been spoken of the spirit,--as if the worm were to "feed
sweetly" upon the soul, and it were to be buried up in the dark house of
the grave. Even the boldest of us is disturbed at the thought of bodily
death, and we are always startled when the summons suddenly comes: "Set
thy house in order, for thou must die."
Again, the spirit of man fears that "fearful something after death," that
eternal judgment which must be passed upon all. We tremble at the
prospect of giving an account of our own actions. We are afraid to reap
the harvest, the seed of which we have sown with our own hands. The
thought of going to a just judgment, and of receiving from the Judge of
all the earth, who cannot possibly do injustice to any of His creatures,
only that which is our desert, shocks us to the centre of our being! Man
universally is afraid to be judged with a righteous judgment! Man
universally is terrified by the equitable bar of God!
Again, the apostate spirit of man has an awful dread of eternity. Though
this invisible realm is the proper home of the human soul, and it was
made to dwell there forever, after the threescore and ten years of its
residence in the body are over, yet it shrinks back from an entrance into
this untried world, and clings with the desperate force of a drowning man
to this "bank and shoal of time." There are moments in the life of a
guilty man when the very idea of eternal existence exerts a preternatural
power, and fills him with a dread that paralyzes him. Never is the human
being stirred to so great depths, and roused to such intensity of action,
as when it feels what the Scripture calls "the power of an _endless_
life." All men are urged by some ruling passion which is strong. The love
of wealth, or of pleasure, or of fame, drives the mind onward with great
force, and excites it to mighty exertions to compass its end. But never
is a man pervaded by such an irresistible and overwhelming influence as
that which descends upon him in some season of religious gloom,--some
hour of sickness, or danger, or death,--when the great eternity, with
all its awful realities, and all its unknown terror, opens upon his
quailing gaze. There are times in man's life, when he is the subject of
movements within that impel him to deeds that seem almost superhuman; but
that internal ferment and convulsion which is produced when all eternity
pours itself through his being turns his soul up from the centre. Man
will labor convulsively, night and day, for money; he will dry up the
bloom and freshness of health, for earthly power and fame; he will
actually wear his body out for sensual pleasure. But what is the
intensity and paroxysm of this activity of mind and body, if compared
with those inward struggles and throes when the overtaken and startled
sinner sees the eternal world looming into view, and with strong crying
and tears prays for only a little respite, and only a little preparation!
"Millions for an inch of time,"--said the dying English Queen. "O
Eternity! Eternity! how shall I grapple with the misery that I must meet
with in _eternity_,"--says the man in the iron cage of Despair. This
finite world has indeed great power to stir man, but the other world has
an infinitely greater power. The clouds which float in the lower regions
of the sky, and the winds that sweep them along, produce great ruin and
destruction upon the earth, but it is only when the "windows of heaven
are opened" that "the fountains of the great deep are broken up," and
"all in whose nostrils is the breath of life die," and "every living
substance is destroyed which is upon the face of the ground." When fear
arises in the soul of man, in view of an eternal existence for which he
is utterly unprepared, it is overwhelming. It partakes of the immensity
of eternity, and holds the man with an omnipotent grasp.
If, now, we view sin in relation to these great fears of death, judgment,
and eternity, we see that it is spiritual slavery, or the bondage of the
will. We discover that our terror is no more able to deliver us from the
"bondage of corruption," than our aspiration is. We found that in spite
of the serious stirrings and impulses which sometimes rise within us, we
still continue immersed in sense and sin; and we shall also find that in
spite of the most solemn and awful fears of which a finite being is
capable, we remain bondmen to ourselves, and our sin. The dread that goes
down into hell can no more ransom us, than can the aspiration that goes
up into heaven. Our fear of eternal woe can no more change the heart,
than our wish for eternal happiness can. We have, at some periods,
faintly wished that lusts and passions had no power over us; and perhaps
we have been the subject of still higher aspirings. But we are the same
beings, still. We are the same self-willed and self-enslaved sinners,
yet. We have all our lifetime feared death, judgment, and eternity, and
under the influence of this fear we have sometimes resolved and promised
to become Christians. But we are the very same beings, still; we are the
same self-willed and self-enslaved sinners yet.
Oh, never is the human spirit more deeply conscious of its bondage to its
darling iniquity, than when these paralyzing fears shut down upon it,
like night, with "a horror of great darkness." When under their
influence, the man feels most thoroughly and wretchedly that his sin is
his ruin, and yet his sinful determination continues on, because
"whosoever committeth sin is the _slave_ of sin," Has it never happened
that, in "the visions of the night when deep sleep falleth upon men," a
spirit passed before your face, like that which stood still before the
Temanite; and there was silence, and a voice saying, "Man! Man! thou must
die, thou must be judged, thou must inhabit eternity?" And when the
spirit had departed, and while the tones of its solemn and startling cry
were still rolling through your soul, did not a temptation to sin solicit
you, and did you not drink in its iniquity like water? Have you not found
out, by mournful experience, that the most anxious forebodings of the
human spirit, the most alarming fears of the human soul, and the most
solemn warnings that come forth from eternity, have no prevailing power
over your sinful nature, but that immediately after experiencing them,
and while your whole being is still quivering under their agonizing
touch, you fall, you rush, into sin? Have you not discovered that even
that most dreadful of all fears,--the fear of the holy wrath of almighty
God,--is not strong enough to save you from yourself? Do you know that
your love of sin has the power to stifle and overcome the mightiest of
your fears, when you are strongly tempted to self-indulgence? Have you no
evidence, in your own experience, of the truth of the poet's words:
"The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain, Slaves by their own compulsion."
If, then, you would know that "whosoever committeth sin is the _slave_ of
sin," contemplate sin in relation to the fears which of necessity rest
upon a spirit capable, as yours is, of knowing that it must leave the
body, that it must receive a final sentence at the bar of judgment, and
that eternity is its last and fixed dwelling-place. If you would know
with sadness and with profit, that sin is the enslavement of the will
that originates it, consider that all the distressing fears that have
ever been in your soul, from the first, have not been able to set you
free in the least from innate depravity: but, that in spite of them all
your will has been steadily surrendering itself, more and more, to the
evil principle of self-love and enmity to God. Call to mind the great
fight of anguish and terror which you have sometimes waged with sin, and
see how sin has always been victorious. Remember that you have often
dreaded death,--but you are unjust still. Remember that you have often
trembled at the thought of eternal judgment,--but you are unregenerate
still. Remember that you have often started back, when the holy and
retributive eternity dawned like the day of doom upon you,--but
you are impenitent still. If you view your own personal sin in reference
to your own personal fears, are you not a slave to it? Will or can your
fears, mighty as they sometimes are, deliver you from the bondage of
corruption, and lift you above that which you love with all your heart,
and strength, and might?
It is perfectly plain, then, that "whosoever committeth sin is the slave
of sin," whether we have regard to the feeling of obligation to be
perfectly holy which is in the human conscience; or to the ineffectual
aspirations which sometimes arise in the human spirit; or to the dreadful
fears which often fall upon it. Sin must have brought the human will into
a real and absolute bondage, if the deep and solemn sense of indebtedness
to moral law; if the "thoughts that wander through eternity;" if the
aspirations that soar to the heaven of heavens, and the fears that
descend to the very bottom of hell,--if all these combined forces and
influences cannot free it from its power.
It was remarked in the beginning of this discourse, that the bondage of
sin is the result of the _reflex_ action of the human will upon itself.
It is not a slavery imposed from without, but from within. The bondage of
sin is only a _particular aspect_ of sin itself. The element of
servitude, like the element of blindness, or hardness, or rebelliousness,
is part and particle of that moral evil which deserves the wrath and
curse of God. It, therefore, no more excuses or palliates, than does any
other self-originated quality in sin. Spiritual bondage, like spiritual
enmity to God, or spiritual ignorance of Him, or spiritual apathy towards
Him, is guilt and crime.