The Sinfulness Of Sin - Preach The Word

The Sinfulness Of SinRalph Venningbecome a servant, indeed, a slave to creatures, to devils, and lusts of all sorts.Now this debasement came by defilement, which cleavesa. To his body, for the flesh is filthy (2 Corinthians 7.1), and the body needssanctifying and cleansing (1 Thessalonians 5.23). The body is a body of sin, themembers are servants to uncleanness and to iniquity (Romans 6.19). Take himfrom head to foot, from the crown of the one to the sole of the other, there is nowhole (because no holy) part of him; but all is filthy, and full of putrefactions andsores. If we dissect and anatomize man, we shall find this only too true, for withoutnaming every sin that cleaves to the whole or every part, but speaking in a moregeneral way, it is thus said of sinful men: their mouth is full of cursing andbitterness, with their tongues they use deceit, the poison of asps is under their lips,their throat is an open sepulchre (Romans 3.13,14); eyes full of adultery (2 Peter2.14); the eye-lids haughty (Proverbs 30.13) ears dull of hearing (Hebrews 5.11),yea, deaf as the adder {Psalm 58.4); the forehead is as impudent as a brow ofbrass (Isaiah 48.4); both hands are employed to work iniquity (Micah 7.3); thebelly is an idol-god (Philipplans 3.19); the feet are swift to shed blood (Romans3.15); and if we look within, their inward part is very wickedness--the Hebrew is'wickednesses' (Psalm 5.9); the gall is a gall of bitterness, in a moral, as well as ina spiritual sense; the spleen is affected, indeed infected with envy and malice.What part is there which is not the seat of one or other evil?b. This defilement also cleaves to the soul, which is the principal subject of it. It isnot only flesh, but spirit that is filthy (2 Corinthians 7.1). God's image was more inand on the soul than the body of man, and sin's ambition and desire is to deprivethe soul of this image. Righteousness and holiness were stamped on man's soul,but sin has blotted this image and superscription, which once told from whence itcame, and to whom it belonged, so that man is fallen short of the glory of beingGod's. It must be new created or renewed ere God will own it for his, because tillthen his image is not legible, if, in this sense, it is his at all, for there is nonerighteous, no not one (Romans 3.10).It is not any one faculty only that sin has defiled, but, like a strong poison, it soaksand eats through them all; so that whereas all was holy, and holiness to the Lord,it is now evil, and evil against the Lord: Every imagination (figment or creature) ofthe heart is only evil continually (Genesis 6.5), Even the Flood, which washed awayso many sinners, could not wash away sin; the same heart remains after the Floodas before (Genesis 8.21), and as it was with the heart of man from his youth, so ithas continued to be to this old and decrepit age of the world. For to this day, thereproceed out of the heart the same evil thoughts, words and deeds that then did(Matthew 15.19) From this unclean fountain issues forth all that defiles the man.Sin has made the heart of man deceitful, and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17.9),and it is hardened in impenitence through the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews3.12,13), although thereby man does nothing but undo himself, and treasure upwrath against the day of wrath {Romans 2.5). It makes man obstinate, that he willnot be saved, but will be damned: 'Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life'(John 5.40). As for the Word of the Lord, we will not hearken, 'but we will certainlydo whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth' {Jeremiah 44.16-17). It isout of the abundance of folly and madness that is in men's hearts and bound up18