Romans 6:21 What fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. The son of Sirach prudently advised, "Judge none blessed before his death; for a man shall be known in his children." This holds good concerning the family of sin: for it keeps a good house which is full of company and servants; it is served by the possessions of the world, courted by the unhappy, flattered by fools, and feasted all the way of its progress. But if we look to what are the children of this splendid family, and see what issue sin produces, it may help to untie the charm. Sin and concupiscence marry together and feast highly; but the children of their filthy union are ugly, foolish, and ill-matured — shame and death. These are the fruits of sin — apples of Sodom, fair on the outside, but within full of ashes and rottenness. And the tree with its fruits go together; if you will have the mother, you must take the daughters. In answer to the question of the text we are to consider — I. WHAT IS THE SUM TOTAL OF THE PLEASURES OF SIN. Most of them will be found very punishments. 1. To pass over the miseries ensuing from envy, murder, and a whole catalogue of sins, every one of which is a disease, we may observe that nothing pretends to pleasure but the lusts of the flesh, ambition, and revenge. These alone cozen us with a fair outside; and yet on a survey of their fruits we shall see how miserably they deceive us. 2. For a man cannot take pleasure in the lusts of the flesh unless he be helped forward by inconsideration and folly. Grave and wise persons are extremely less affected by them than the hare-brained boy. It is a strange beauty that none but the blind or blear-eyed can see. 3. The pleasures of intemperance are nothing but the relics and images of pleasure, after nature has been feasted; for so long as she needs, and temperance waits, pleasure stands by: but as temperance begins to go away, having done the ministries of nature, every morsel and drop is less delicious and endurable, but as men force nature to stay longer than she would. 4. With these pretenders to pleasure there is so much trouble to bring them to act an enjoyment, that the appetite is above half tired before it comes. An ambitious man must be wonderfully patient; and no one buys death and damnation at so dear a rate as he who fights for it, enduring heat and cold and hunger; and who practises all the austerities of the hermit, with this difference that the one does it for heaven and the other for hell. And as for revenge, its pleasure is like that of eating chalk and coals, or like the feeding of a cancer or a wolf; the man is restless till it be done, and when it is everyone sees how infinitely removed he is from satisfaction. 5. These sins, when they are entertained with the greatest fondness from without, must have little pleasure, because there is a strong faction against them. Something within strives against the entertainment, and they sit uneasy on the spirit, when the man is vexed that they are not lawful. They are against a man's conscience, i.e., against his reason and his rest. 6. The pleasure in those few sins that pretend to it is a little limited nothing, confined to a single faculty, to one sense; and that which is the instrument of sense is its torment. By the faculty through which it tastes it is afflicted, for so long as it can taste it is tormented with desire, and when it can desire no longer it cannot feel pleasure. 7. Sin hath little or no pleasure in its enjoyment because its very manner of entry and production is by a curse and a contradiction. Men love sin because it is forbidden, some out of the spirit of disobedience, some by wildness, some because they are reproved, many by importunity; and sins grow up with spite, peevishness, and wrath. 8. The pleasures in the enjoyment of sin are trifling because so transient; if they be in themselves little this makes them still less; but if they were great this would change the delight into torment. Add to this that it so passes away that nothing pleasant remains behind: it is like the path of an arrow; no man can tell what is become of the pleasures of last night's sin. 9. Sin has in its best advantages but a trifling pleasure, because not only God, reason, conscience, honour, interest, and laws sour it, but the devil himself makes it troublesome; so that one sin contradicts another and vexes the man with a variety of evils. Does not envy punish flattery, and self-love torment the drunkard? Which is the greater, the pleasure of prodigalities or the pain of the consequent poverty? 10. Sin has so little relish that it is always greater in expectation than possession. If men could see this beforehand they would not pursue it so eagerly. 11. The fruits of its present possession, the pleasures of taste, are less pleasant, because no sober or intelligent man likes it long. He approves it in the height of passion and under the disguise of temptation, but at all other times he finds it ugly and unreasonable, and the remembrance abates its pleasures. II. WHAT FRUITS AND RELISHES SIN IF LEAVES BEHIND IT BY ITS NATURAL EFFICIENCY. 1. Paul comprises them under the scornful appellation of "shame." The natural fruits of sin are — (1) Ignorance. (a) Man was first tempted by the promise of knowledge; he fell into darkness by believing that the devil held forth to him a new light. It was not likely that good should come from so foul a beginning: the man and the woman knew good, and all that was offered them was the experience of evil. Now this was the introduction of ignorance. When the understanding suffered itself to be so baffled as to study evil, the will was so foolish as to fall in love with it, and they conspired to undo each other. For when the will began to love it, then the understanding was set on work to advance, approve, believe it, and to be factious on behalf of the new purchase. Not, however, that the understanding received any natural diminution, but received impediment by new propositions. It lost and willingly forgot what God taught, went from the fountain of truth, and gave trust to the father of lies. (b) It is certain that if a man would be pleased with sin, or persuade others to be so, he must do it by false propositions. Who is a greater fool than an atheist who sees rare effects and denies their cause, an excellent government without a prince? But in persuading men to this the devil never prevailed very far, although he has prevailed in a thing almost as senseless, viz., idolatry, which not only makes God after man's image, but in the likeness of a cat, etc. But he has succeeded yet farther in prevailing upon men to believe that evil is good and good evil, that fornication can make them happy and drunkenness wise, and that sin has pleasure and good enough in it to make amends for the pains of damnation. Sin has no better argument than a fly has to enter a candle. Such is the sinner's philosophy, and no wiser are his hopes, viz., that he can in an instant make amends for the evils of years, or else that he shall be saved whether he will or no: or that heaven shall be had for a sigh; i.e., he hopes without a promise and believes that he shall have mercy for which he never had a revelation. If this be knowledge or wisdom then there is no such thing as folly or madness. (c) There are some sins whose very formality is a lie. Superstition could not exist if men believed that God was good, wise, free, and merciful, and no man would do in private what he fears to do in public if he knew that God sees him there and will bring that work of darkness into the light. He who excuses a fault by telling a lie, believes it better to be guilty of two faults than one. The first natural fruit of sin then is to make a man a fool, and this is shame enough. (2) But sin also makes a man weak, unapt to do noble things; by which is not meant a natural disability, for it is equally ready for a man to will good as evil; the understanding being convinced the hand can obey, and the passions be directed to God's service. But because they are not used to it, the will finds a difficulty to do them so much violence. There is a law in the members, and he that gave that law is a tyrant, and the subjects of it slaves; who often love their fetters and labour hard; the basest of services for the most contemptible rewards. And then custom brings in a new nature and makes a bias in every faculty. Two things aggravate the slavery and weakness of the sinner. (a) He sins against his own interest. He knows that he will be ruined by it, but the evil custom remains. (b) Custom prevails against experience. Though the man has been disgraced and undone it will not cure him. (3) Sin naturally introduces a great baseness on the spirit, expressed sometimes by the devil's entering into a man. Men fall by this into sins of which there can be no reason given, which no excuse can lessen, and which are set off by no allurements. 2. Although these are the shameful effects of sin, yet there are some sins which are directly shameful in their nature, and every one of which has a venomous quality of its own. Thus the devil's sin was the worst because it came from the greatest malice; Adam's because it was most universal; Judas' because against the most excellent Person. This is a strange poison in sin that of so many sorts every one of them should be the worst. Every sin has an evil spirit of its own to manage and embitter it, but to some sins shame is more appropriate, such as lying, lust, vow making, and inconstancy. And such is the fate of sin that the shame grows more and more; we lie to men and excuse it to God. And the shame will follow the sin beyond the grave. III. WHAT ARE ITS CONSEQUENCES BY ITS DEMERIT AND THE WRATH OF GOD WHICH IT HAS DESERVED. 1. The impossibility of concealment. No wicked man ever went off the scene of his unworthiness without a vile character. The intolerable apprehensions of sinners themselves, and the slightest circumstances often bring to light what was transacted behind the curtains of light. 2. Sin itself; and when God punishes in this way He is extremely angry, for then it is not medicinal but exterminating. One evil invites another, and when the Holy Spirit is quenched the man is left to the mercy of his merciless enemy. 3. Fearful plagues, and even when God forgives the sinner retribution is not wholly withheld. It is promised through Christ that we shall not die, but not that we shall not be smitten. (1) There are some mischiefs which are the proper scourges of certain sins and attend them — drunkenness by giddiness, lying by being given over to believe a lie, etc. (2) There are some states of sin which expose a man to all mischief by taking off every guard. (3) The end of all this is death eternal. (Jeremy Taylor.) Parallel Verses KJV: What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. |
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