The Sinfulness Of Sin - Preach The Word

The Sinfulness Of SinRalph Venninghimself, and then quickly went to his father. In the recovery of man, our Lord JesusChrist is made of God to us not only righteousness, but light and wisdom (1Corinthians 1.30). We were without that ourselves which Christ is made to us.That this is the common case of Jew and Gentile, i.e. all men, the Apostle assuresus (Romans 3.9-11); indeed, men themselves declare it to be so. I may say of manas Solomon does of the fool: 'When he walketh by the way...he saith to every onethat he is a fool' (Ecclesiastes I0.3); the way and course he takes, his carriage andbehaviour show him to be a fool. Like a child, a man is known by his doings(Proverbs 20.11). As he that doeth righteousness is righteous, so he that doethfolly is a fool.Man's folly is shown to be great in three ways:a. In relation to his chief and ultimate end, the summum bonum. Man should seekgreatly for happiness, in what to place it as well as how to obtain it. Oh the varietyof opinions that men have had about happiness! Varro tells us of a great many, butwho can tell us of all? So many men, so many minds, for when man goes fromunity, he falls into multitude. He has found out many inventions. Time was whenman had light and wisdom enough to know that God was the kuriotaton agathon,the supreme and chief good, and that his happiness lay in knowing and enjoyingGod. But since sin, man has become such a fool as to say, in his heart, There is noGod, at least no happiness in knowing God; for if sin does not make men suchatheists as to believe there is no God, yet it makes them such as to wish that therewere no God, and to say that it is no happiness to know him, or profit to serve him.Let us eat and drink, is the voice of men rather than, Let us seek and serve God.Who will show us any good, viz. corn, wine and oil, is the voice of man (Psalm 4.6),indeed of all till regenerate.Man has become so sottish and brutish that he lives by sense. Now sense will neverlook to God who is invisible--that is for faith--but to the creatures, which arevisible, and the objects of sense. How Solomon has set this out to the life, in hisEcclesiastes, viz. that sense seeks for happiness below God; man is fond of toysand trifles, and seeks contentment where there is nothing but vexation, as if hecould find ease in the place and element of torment, viz. in hell! He sets his eyesand heart upon that which is not (Proverbs 23.5). The lust of the eye, the lust ofthe flesh, the pride of life is the trinity, the god of this world, and excludes the loveof God (1 John 2.15,16).All things of sense are only for one, and that the worse half, of man, viz. the body.Now when all a man's labour is for this, with neglect of the soul, which is theprincipal man of the man, what folly is it! To mind the less, and neglect the greater,to be troubled about these many things, and neglect the one thing necessary isfolly with a witness, and will be followed with a vengeance. What is it, to labour forthe back and belly, as if it were God, to mind earthly things and neglect, evendespise heavenly, but folly in the extreme! it is to glory in shame (Philipplans3.19). He who bade his soul take ease, in eating, drinking, and being merry, wascalled a fool, and so is every one that lays up treasure for himself, his sensual self,and is not rich toward God, as our Saviour tells us (Luke 12.16-21). I havediscoursed elsewhere on this text, to show the folly of such men, and, if God22