Sin has been delightfully admitted to an entertainment by all the
powers of the soul. The soul hath chosen it rather than God; and
also, at God's command, refuses to let it go.
If there be at any time, as indeed there is, a warrant issued out
from the mouth of God to apprehend, to condemn and mortify sin, why
then the souls of sinners do presently make these shifts for the
saving of sin from things that by the word men arc commanded to do
unto it:
1. They will, if possible, hide it, and not suffer it to be
discovered.
2. As the soul will hide it, so it will excuse it, and plead that
this and that piece of wickedness is no such evil thing, men need
not be so nice.
3. As the soul will do this, so to save sin it will cover it with
names of virtue, either moral or civil.
4. If convictions and discovery of sin be so strong and so plain
that the soul cannot deny but that it is sin, and that God is
offended therewith, then it will give flattering promises to God
that it will indeed put it away; but yet it will prefix a time that
shall he long first, saying, Yet a little sleep, yet a little
slumber, yet a little folding of sin in my arms, till I am older,
till I am richer, till I have had more of the sweetness and the
delights of sin.
5. If God yet pursues, and will see whether this promise of putting
sin out of doors shall he fulfilled by the soul, why then it will be
partial in God's law; it will put away some, and keep some; put away
the grossest, and keep the finest; put away those that can best be
spared, and keep the most profitable for a help at a pinch.
6. Yea, if all sin must be abandoned, or the soul shall have no
rest, why then the soul and sin will part--with such a parting as it
is--even as Phaltiel parted with David's wife, with an ill-will and
a sorrowful mind; or as Orpah left her mother, with a kiss. 2 Sam.
3:16; Ruth 1:14.
7. And if at any time they can or shall meet with each other again,
and nobody never the wiser, O what courting will be between sin and
the soul.
By all these, and many more things that might be instanced, it is
manifest that sin has a friendly entertainment by the soul, and that
therefore the soul is guilty of damnation; for what do all these
things argue, but that God, his word, his ways and graces, are out
of favor with the soul, and that sin and Satan are its only pleasant
companions?