Matthew 19:16-22 And, behold, one came and said to him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?… There are sins so rooted, so riveted in men, so incorporated, so consubstantiated in the soul, by habitual custom, as that those sins have contracted the nature of ancient possessions. As men call manners by their names, so sins have taken names from men, and from places; Simon Magus gave the name to a sin, so did Gehazi, and Sodom did so. There are sins that run in names, in families, in blood; hereditary sins, entailed sins; and men do almost prove their " gentry " by those sins, and are scarcely believed to be rightly borne, if they have not those sins. These are great possessions, and men do much more easily part with Christ than with these sins. But then there are less sins, light sins, vanities; and yet even these come to possess us, and separate us from Christ. How many men neglect this ordinary means of their salvation, the coming to these exercises, not because their undoing lies on it, or their discountenancing, but merely out of levity, of vanity, of nothing, they know not what to do else, and yet do not this. You hear of one man that was drowned in a vessel of wine, but how many thousands ill ordinary water! And he was no more drowned in that precious liquor than the)-in that common water. A gad of steel does no more choke a man than a feather or a hair. Men perish with whispering sins, nay with silent sins, sins that never tell the conscience they are sins, as often as with crying sins. And in hell there shall meet as many men that never thought what was sin, as that spent all their thoughts in compassing sin; as many who, in a slack inconsideration, never cast a thought upon that place, as that by searing their conscience, overcame the sense and fear of that place. Great sins are great possessions, but levities and vanities possess us too; and men had rather part with Christ than with any possessions. (J. Donate.) Parallel Verses KJV: And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? |
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