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Sin
nn. Demerit of Sin. It is certain without dispute that an
offense, injury or affront to God is greater than an offense, injury or
affront in other respects equal, against any finite being that is or can
be, however great….
Again, it is evident that the injury increases in some proportion or
other to the greatness of its object: that is if you add greatness to
the person injured, you add badness to the injury in some proportion or
other…
34. Original Sin. There can be no question but that human
nature, by some means or other, however it came about, is now, in these
days, all over the world, in every man that comes into the world, very
much vitiated. Now the rectitude of human nature and of rational beings
most certainly is that they should be most highly affected with the
highest excellencies, and less affected with lower excellencies; that
the mind should have the sweetest taste and most perfect, exquisite
delight of those things that are truly most delightful, and a lower
delight and slower relish of those things that in themselves are less
delightful; that the things that are most beautiful and amiable, as soon
as ever they are seen, should most delight the eye, and those things
which are less beautiful should less please the sight; and that man
should have the quickest and easiest sight and most delightful
perception of that which is best, and the slowest and dullest perception
of that which is less good. This is the rectitude of human nature, and
thus humans once were, or else most certainly human nature proceeded
from God as an inconsistent, self-repugnant, and contradictory thing.
But we know, as well as we know that we have being, that this rectitude
is not the present state of human nature but the right contrary, in all
universally, till human nature, by some means after we are born, is
wrought up into this rectitude again. We are the highest species with
the lowest excellencies. We have the easiest and greatest delight in
things that in themselves are least delightful. Things that are less
beautiful and amiable in themselves strike much quicker and deeper with
the sense and proportion and constitution of the mind than things that
have in themselves the highest excellence, most charming beauty, and
exquisite sweetness. Yea, we can hardly bring ourselves to be in any
measure pleased with the beauty, or to taste any sweetness at all, in
things that are infinitely the greatest excellencies. How much soever
one has been out of the way of ill examples or from the practice of
vice, set before his eyes or represent to his mind the brightest and
most amiable instances of virtue, and his mind responds but very
heavily, at the perception; but bring before him beauty of body, and
some of the meanest perfections of mind, and the soul comes immediately
alive and in a near rapture. And so in all other cases.
44. Eternal Torments. Question. Seeing that the
malicious or evil principle, which is the essence of the sin, is not
infinite, though the God against whom sin is committed be infinite, how
can it be just to punish sin with an infinite punishment? I acknowledge,
if man at the same time that he injured God had actually a full and
complete idea of the infinite excellency and greatness of God whom he
injured, he could not injure him without an infinite pravity of soul,
and then infinite punishment would undoubtedly be deserved. But all
finite beings are uncapable of this full idea. Wherefore it is
impossible for them to have this infinite restraint, nor of pravity of
infinite strength to break through restraint. It seems that the pravity
of an action is not to be measured by the real hidden excellency or
greatness of the person offended, but by the understanding the offender
has of his greatness. That which was hidden is no aggravation, because
he did not know it. If his idea be finite, then a finite pravity of mind
is sufficient to conquer that idea.
Answer. Eternal punishment is just in the same respects infinite as
the crime, and in no other. Thus the crime or injury done, in itself
considered, is really infinite, yet is finite in the idea or mind
committing it, that is, is in itself infinite but is not committed
infinitely: so it is with the punishment. It is really in itself
infinite but is never suffered infinitely. Indeed if the soul was
capable of having at once a full and complete idea of the eternity of
misery, then it would properly be infinite suffering, but the soul is no
more capable of having a full idea of that than of the infinite
greatness and excellency of God, and we should have as full and as
strong an idea of God’s infinite perfection as the damned have of the
eternity of their torment, if it were not for sin. Eternity is suffered
as an infinite God is offended, that is, according to the comprehension
of the mind. Then if it were possible for a man eternally to be in pain,
and all the while be deceived and think that he had suffered not above
half an hour, and was assured that he was not to suffer above half an
hour longer — though the misery in God’s idea would be infinite, yet in
the suffering it is finite, in the suffering it is no more than if one
should partake of nothing, and suffer one hour, and drop into nothing
again. Sin against God, in God’s idea, is infinite, and the punishment
is infinite no otherwise but in the idea of God. For all that is past
and all that is to come, that is not comprehended in finite ideas, is
not anywhere else but in the divine idea. See where we have proved that
nothing has any existence but in ideas. [Of Being.]
301. Sin and Original Sin. The best philosophy that I have
met with of original sin and all sinful inclinations, habits, and
principles is that of Mr. Stoddard of this town of Northampton. This is
that it is self-love, in conjunction with the absence of the image and
love of God — that natural and necessary inclination that man has to his
own benefit, together with the absence of original righteousness. Or in
other words it is the absence of that influence of God’s spirit, whereby
love to God and to holiness is kept up to that degree that this other
inclination is always kept in its due subordination. But this being
gone, his self-love governs alone and, having not the superior principle
to regulate it, breaks out into all manner of exorbitancies, and becomes
in innumerable cases a vile and odious disposition and causes thousands
of unlovely and hateful actions. There is nothing in the actions we call
sin, but only the same self-love that necessarily belongs to that
nature, working and influencing without regulation from that superior
principle that particularly belongs to our nature and that is necessary
in order to the harmonious exercise of it. This natural and necessary
inclination to ourselves, without the governor and guide, will
certainly, without anything else, produce or rather will become all
those sinful inclinations which are in the corrupted nature of man.
475. Sin Against The Holy Ghost. There seem to be three
things essential to this sin, viz., conviction, malice, and
presumption in expressing that malice. Christ says, Mat. 12:31-32,
“Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men and,
whosoever speaketh a word against the son of man it shall be forgiven
him but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost neither in this world
nor in the world to come.”
Here I would observe 1st, in order to a man’s speaking against or
reviling the Holy Ghost in the sense of this text, he must have some
knowledge of him. If a man only hears the name Holy Ghost, having no
notion what is meant by it and reviles he knows not what, he does not
blaspheme the Holy Ghost in the sense of the text. Or if he has only
such a notion that he is one of the persons in the Godhead and speaks
against him, as he does against the other persons, having no notion in
his mind of anything that is a distinction of nature or work. One man
would not be said to blaspheme or revile another, if he spoke against
him, having only heard his name, having no notion at the same time in
his mind of anything belonging to him that distinguished him from the
rest of mankind, or to revile his person in particular if he had no
other notion of him than only of his being of such a company, if he has
no notion in his mind of anything that distinguishes his particular
person that he expresses spite against. Therefore when men blaspheme
the Holy Ghost, they express spite against something that they have an
idea or notion of in their minds, that is particularly pertaining to
and distinguishing of this divine person. Therefore I determine thus:
that those that blaspheme the Holy Ghost unpardonably express their
contumely and spite against the Holy Ghost with respect to those acts
of his, wherein consists his nature and office, viz. divine love
either expressing the love of God or breathing (?) love to God, or
which is the same thing with respect to his gracious and holy acts. It
is no matter whether they have a distinct notion of a person of the
Holy Ghost if they, out of malice, revile those things wherein his
nature and work consists. The Pharisees, out of malice, reviled the
Holy Ghost in his expressing the love and mercy of God to men in
casting out devils and delivering men from captivity to that cruel
enemy, a gracious and glorious work, something of the same nature with
his casting Satan out of men’s souls and an image of it. And we are not
to understand it, as though Christ charged them with this sin merely
because they reviled the Holy Ghost in this work. But in all his
doctrine and works they, against conviction, laid all those things in
Christ that were the fruits of the Spirit to the devil. They charged him
with acting and being acted by an unclean spirit, Mark 3:30.
2.
In order to a man’s blaspheming the Holy Ghost in the sense in which
Christ speaks his so doing, it must be attended with conviction. He
must be sensible that he does it, and he must be sensible that the
thing he reviles is God’s Spirit, or at least that it is from God. He
must have conviction that God is God and must have a malice against
him, and must from malice against him express his contempt. Or despite
of some gracious or holy spiritual operation of his, or in a word, he
must revile the grace of God that he has light to know is his. A man is
not said to blaspheme or revile another in the sense that the
expression is used in this text, if he does not know who he is. If a man
meets another that is his father and reviles him, he doesn’t revile his
father, if he doesn’t know that it is his father.
A
man may have light sufficiently to know a thing and may inwardly
secretly be convinced, and yet his spite and malice may keep him, as it
were, from owning of it to himself. A man may have abundant evidence of
some worthy qualification in another that he mortally hates and may, as
it were, keep from owning of it to himself, and yet indeed be inwardly
sensible of it. He does, as it were, willfully stop the mouth of his
understanding — wont suffer it to speak out. So I believe it was with
those Pharisees: that miserable unreasonable shift of theirs to take
off the evidence of his miracles seems to show that they were
convinced, but were willfully resolved to object and not to own, viz.,
that he had one of the strongest of the devils in him and so by him cast
out the rest.
3.
By speaking against the Holy Ghost I understand anyway very outwardly
and presumptuously declaring malice by reproaching and blaspheming. A
having malice inwardly is not sufficient, though it be against
convictions of conscience, but when a person has (?) with his malice
also the presumption as to appear in it, he has that spirit of contempt
that he is not restrained by any fear or awe, but is so horribly daring
as outwardly to express his malice, by reproaching, then therein he
commits the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. Generally words
and actions go together.
4.
The spite and malice that they do this from may be against God or
against the Son of God, or against the people of God, but if it is not
any spite or malice against God or the Son of God or the people that
being declared is the sin against the Holy Ghost, but their spite must
be because of the Holy Ghost. If their spite is declared against God, it
must be because of the gracious or holy breathings and operations of
the Spirit that he is the Author of. If it be against the Son of God,
it must be because of what of the Holy Ghost appears in him: his holy
doctrine, holy precepts, holy life, or what of the gracious or holy
influences of the Holy Ghost come from him. Or if it be against the
people of God, it must be because of the Holy Ghost in them, their holy
religion, holy graces. Their spite and malice is evermore terminated
upon the Holy Ghost, or as the Holy Ghost is the foundation of their
malice. Their spite and contumely, when it is declared, it must be
declared against that, or for that. They need not declare that their
spite is for the Holy Ghost, but they must declare that it is for that
which is indeed, and which they are convinced, is divine, the Holy
Ghost. For instance, if a man, when convinced, appears in avowed enmity
against another for his holiness, his love to God, or his humility and
faith in Christ alone, if he openly appears in avowed hatred and
contumely against him for those things, either by reproaching him for
them, or maliciously persecuting of him declaredly for those things,
whether he will call them the Holy Ghost or no, yet if he is convinced
that they are, or that they are divine things in him, he commits the
unpardonable sin. The Pharisees, though they were inwardly convinced,
yet had a mortal spite against Christ for his holy doctrine and manner
of life and precepts and miracles, because they were so contrary to
them and therefore they reproached them as though they were hellish and
from the devil.
We
have reason to think that conviction is one thing essential to this sin,
for this is every where in Scripture spoken of as a sin the more
difficultly pardoned, Num. 15:29- 30, speaking there of the sacrifices
that were to be offered for sins of ignorance, God says, “But the soul
that doth ought presumptuously whether born in the land or a stranger,
the same reproacheth the Lord and that soul shall be cut off from among
his people.” Luke 23:34, “Father forgive them for they know not what
they do.” 1 Tim 1:13, “But I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly
and in unbelief.” So in the beginning of the 6th chapter to the Hebrews
(Heb. 6), speaking probably there of this unpardonable sin, and 10th
chapter (Heb. 10).
Here a question may arise, viz. why is this more unpardonable
than to have a spite against and to blaspheme the divine being in
general, or either of the other persons of the Trinity? If a man that
was convinced of the being of a God should blaspheme and reproach him
and charge him with folly, or with injustice and cruelty or wickedness,
that is not unpardonable. But he that blasphemes against the Holy
Ghost, willfully and maliciously reproaches that which should attract
our love, and win our hearts, viz. the beauty and grace of God.
They are malicious against God for his love and loveliness. They are
malicious against God’s saving grace and presumptuously blaspheme it.
Wherefore God never will bestow it upon them.
When men blaspheme the Father or the Son and may yet be pardoned, they
blaspheme him by denying that of him wherein the Holy Ghost consists,
by denying goodness or holiness and attributing contrary qualities to
him, or else by denying wisdom of them.
Mr.
Baxter says that it does not appear that the Pharisees were convinced.
But we have to think that many of them were convinced by their
behavior, at other times as well as now, Mat. 28:11, particularly by
their behavior when the watch came and showed them of Christ’s rising
from the dead. Their actions plainly showed that they believed them,
for they did not blame the watch at all, that they had not been faithful
in watching and keeping the body of Jesus, but gave them large money to
hide (?) them, to keep it secret, and invented a lie for them to tell,
and told them they would plead their cause with the governor, and would
persuade [sic] him and secure (?) them. By Heb. 6 it appears that it is
against a great degree of light and Heb. 10, it is said, “if they sin
willfully after they have received the knowledge of the truth.”
Christ in mentioning the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost has respect to
their laying all that he did, as acting by the Holy Ghost, to an
unclean spirit. He has not only a respect to this particular instance
of casting out devils, for they did not only moan that this, but that
all was from the devil. He rather takes occasion to mention it now
because such a miracle was a powerful argument to convince them. The
people were all amazed and said, “Is not this the Son of David,” Mat.
12:23. And they were now convinced by the strength of it, as he sees
who knew their thoughts, as it is said, Mat. 12:25. And they showed
their conviction by what they said as we observed before.
The
Pharisees did but repeat what they used to say upon this occasion. They
used to say, “he hath an unclean spirit and that he had Beelzebub,”
Mat. 10:25. And it is this, that Christ has respect to as Mark 3:30.
They repeat that now with this addition, that the unclean spirit he had
was the prince of them, to take off the objection he did or might raise
against them: you say that he acts by the spirit of the devil? If so,
how does he cast out devils out of others? They answer that the devil,
that he has is the chief of them, and by that he is able to cast out
the rest.
The
apostle says, Heb 10:26, “if we sin willfully after we have received the
knowledge of the truth, etc.” Now persons may be said to sin willfully
in three senses: 1. As all sins are willful, even sins of ignorance,
the actions are voluntary actions, and they spring from a depraved
disposition or inclination. 2. When men know that acts are sins at the
same time that their wills determine them, as a man may do when he is
overpowered by a temptation, by fear or some appetite. 3. When his will
is determined to wickedness for opposition’s sake, without any cause
for it but a mere spite against, and contumacy towards that to which
sin is the opposite: against true religion and its principles and
exercises, or against the Holy Ghost in his actings and fruits. For the
Holy Ghost is the opposite to sin, Heb. 10:29, “he hath done despite to
the Spirit of grace.” This is to sin spontaneously,
åêïõóéù, or
willingly in the sense of this text.
They rebel for the sake of rebelling, oppose for the sake of opposition,
or which is the same thing, out of spite to that which is opposed.
566. Law. Sin. Duty. It hardly seems to me true to say that
the command of God is the prime ground of all the duty we owe to God.
Obedience is but one part of the duty we owe to God. It is our duty to
love God, to honor him, and have a supreme regard to him, and submit to
him, and praise him, and obey him. These are distinct duties. To obey
God is not a general, that under which the rest are properly included as
particulars. That does not comprise the general nature and reason of all
the rest. It is not the prime reason or ground of our obligation to love
and honor God, that is, our duty to obey him. I acknowledge that we are
commanded to love and honor God, and that we ought to love and honor him
in obedience to that command, seeing God has commanded it. But our
obligation to obedience is not the prime ground of our duty to love him
and honor him, but on the contrary, our obligation to love and honor God
and to exercise a supreme regard to God is the very proper ground of our
obligation to obey. That is the very reason that it is our duty to do as
God bids us, because we have such a supreme regard, love, and honor to
him, as disobedience is quite contrary to. A command of any being cannot
be the prime foundation of obligation because there must be something
prior, as a reason why a command is obligatory, and why obedience is due
to it. If anyone should ask me why I am obliged to obey God more than
the king of France, it would not be proper for me to answer, because God
commands me to obey him. There is something prior to God’s command that
is the ground of, and reason why, his command obliges.
664a. The Greatness of the Sin of Unbelief. The sin of
unbelief is exceedingly provoking to God, because thereby his only
begotten Son is condemned and ill treated. And how incensing that must
be to the wrath [sic] we may judge, by considering how soon and how
greatly God’s wrath was wont to be stirred up by an ill treatment of the
saints. They who were but Christ’s disciples were so dear to God, and
God set so high a value upon them, that he touched the apple of God’s
eye, and his wrath was effectually roused by it, despising of them was a
great crime, Mat. 18:10. “Take heed that he despise not one of these
little ones etc. — but how much dearer to God is his only begotten Son,
and how much higher a value doth he set upon him.” John 3:18, “because
he hath not believed on the only begotten Son of God.”
Especially if any of the saints came from God with a gracious message to
men, if they were then treated with indignity, did God highly resent it.
Thus how highly did God resent it when Corah and his company envied
Moses and treated him ill and rejected him: how terribly were they
destroyed. But if they escaped not who refused him that spoke on earth,
much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaks from
heaven.
676. Sin. All that a natural man doth is sin. Vid. Shepard’s
Sincere Convert, p. 105. Let a woman seek to give all the
content to her husband that may be, not out of any love to him but only
out of love to another man; he abhors all that she doth.
725. Vanity of the World. After the fall, the place of
paradise was altered. It was changed from earth to heaven, and God
ordered it so that nothing paradisiacal should be any more here. And
though sometimes there be great appearances of it and men are ready to
flatter themselves that they shall obtain it, yet it is found that
paradise is not here, and there is nothing but the shadow of it. Those
things that look most paradisiacal will have some sting to spoil them. |
