sin in its nature as sin a Christian should
have a mortal hatred of it, as his mortal enemy. It is not Christianity to
abstain from some fleshly lusts, if ye consider them not as your soul's
enemies, 1 Peter ii. 11. "Ye that love the Lord hate evil," Psal. xcvii.
10. These are chained together. David's hatred was a soul-hatred, an
abhorrency, Psal. cxix. 163, "I hate and abhor lying." It is like the
natural antipathies that are among creatures, the soul hates not only the
person of it, but the nature of it also. Men often hate sin, only as it
is circumstantiate, but Christian hatred is a hatred of the nature, like
the deadly feuds, which are enmities against the kind and name. "I will
put enmity between thy seed," &c. It is a "perfect hatred," Psal. cxxxix.
22. And so it cannot endure any sin, because all is contrary to God's
holiness and offensive to his Spirit. I would think it easier to forsake
all evil, and cease from doing any evil, I mean, presumptuously, with a
willing mind and endeavour, than indeed to forsake one, for as long as ye
entertain so many lusts like it, they shall make way for it. It were
easier to keep the whole commandments in an evangelical sense, than indeed
to keep any one, for all of them help another, and subsist they cannot one
without another, so that ye take a foolish course, who go about particular
reformations. Ye scandalous sinners profess that ye will amend the
particular fault ye are guilty of, and, in the mean time, you take no heed
to your souls and lives, therefore it shall be either in vain, or not
acceptable. How pleasant a life would Christians have, if they would
indeed be persuaded to be altogether Christians! The halving of it
neither pleaseth God nor delights you, it keeps you but in continual
torment between God and Baal. Your own lusts usurp over you, and that of
Christ in you challenges the supremacy, so ye are as men under two
masters, each striving for the place, and were it not better to be under
one settled government? If there be any tenderness of God in your hearts,
or light in your consciences, they cannot but testify against your lusts,
these strange lords. Your lusts, again, they drive you on against your
conscience; thus ye are divided and tormented betwixt two,--your own
conscience and affections. You have thus the pain of religion, and know
not the true pleasure of it. You are marred in the pleasures of sin,
conscience and the love of God is a worm to eat