THE apostle pursueth his argument, why they should be as free from sin as formerly they were from righteousness, by comparing the two services together, the service of sin and the service of righteousness. He speaketh in the next verse of the service of righteousness, in the text of the service of sin. As to the service of righteousness, it is matter of joy and pleasure while it is a-doing; of comfort and confidence in the remembrance of it; and for the future, life and eternal salvation. But, on the contrary, if we take a view of sin with respect to the three distinctions of time, past, present, and to come, we shall find it evil and very evil: 'What fruit had you of those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.'
Sin may be considered three ways - either as to the time of committing it, or the time of remembering it, or the time of God's rewarding and punishing of it; and you find in all so many arguments against it.
1. As to the time of committing it; so the apostle argueth ab inutili, 'There is no fruit;' then, when you lived a carnal life, what fruit had you?
2. As to the present remembrance, 'Ye are now ashamed.' Now, that is -
[1.] Now, the commission is over. Or rather,
[2.] Now, after your conversion to God. Grace breedeth shame in us because of foregoing sins; so that here the apostle argueth a turpi.
3. As to future expectation, 'The end of those things is death;' there the argument is a damno, from the hurt and damage that cometh to us thereby. As to time past, sin is unprofitable; as to time present, shameful; as to time to come, pernicious and deadly. By all these considerations it may be made fearful to us.
First, The apostle's argument ab inutili is propounded by way of question, which is the strongest way either of affirmation or denial; for it is an appeal to conscience and experience. If the service of sin. was at any time fruitful, it was, questionless, when it was a-doing, when you were servants of sin, and had nothing to check and allay it, but were altogether blinded by your lusts, feeding the oblectation and pleasure of your fleshly minds with the vanities of the world. 'What fruit had you then?' that is, You had none at all.
Doct. There is no solid benefit or profit to be gotten by sin.
The scripture representeth it as unfruitful and deceitful.
1. As unfruitful: Eph. 4:11, 'Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.' A state of sin maketh us unfruitful to God. We cannot gather grapes off thorns and figs off thistles; so it is unfruitful to the sinner himself, who loseth his time and strength, for that which will only occasion shame and trouble, and hereafter eternal death.
2. As deceitful: Eph. 4:22, 'That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts;' Heb. 3:13, 'Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfnlness of sin.' It is so called because it promiseth much, and performeth but little.
[1.] It promiseth much. Sin smileth on the soul with enticing blandishments. Satan told our first parents, 'Ye shall be as gods,' Gen. 3:5; and still we promise ourselves something from sin, some contentment, some profit; for no man would be wicked gratis, merely for his mind's sake, or without an aim at some further end. Mere evil, as evil, cannot be the object of choice; there is some fruit or benefit expected in all that we do.
[2.] It doth not make good its word to us.
(1.) It doth not answer expectation; the sinner looketh for more contentment and satisfaction than ever he doth enjoy: Eccles. 5:16, 'What profit hath he that hath laboured for the wind?' It is fruitless enterprise; it may be there is a wind, a short-lived transitory delight, but it is gone as soon as it cometh; nothing cometh of it that may be called fruit, nothing that may be solid satisfaction to a man that hath a conscience, and is capable of an immortal estate, and hath a maker or a judge to whom he must give an account how he hath spent his time and strength, and what hath been the business of his life in the world. Alas! the fruit of sin dieth with the very act, and when the lust is satisfied, it beginneth to be contemned; as Amnon hated Tamar more than ever he loved her, 2 Sam. 13:15. So short are all unlawful pleasures, enduring no longer than the sinful act; for which, like fools, men hazard and lose pleasures for evermore. Reason taketh the throne when appetite is satisfied, and scourgeth the soul with bitter remorse, because appetite hath been obeyed before it. Sin after the committing appeareth worse than before; when it is too late, the sinner crieth out, What have I done? Esau, when 'he had sold the birthright, sought it afterwards with tears,’ Heb. 12:16,17. Judas, when the treason was over, he saw the worthlessness of the price for which he sold his master: Mat. 27:4, 'I have sinned, in that I have betrayed innocent blood.' When once conscience is touched and awakened, guilt flasheth in the sinner's face, then the bitter effects of sin are felt by experience.
(2.) It is not valuable; the profit will not countervail the loss, nor the pleasure the pain.
(1st) The profit will not countervail the loss. Men hazard their souls, and then gain a little wealth, and that is the worst bargain men can make: Mat. 16:26, 'What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?' Besides that, the wealth gotten by sin cometh with a curse, that within a while consumeth it: Prov. 10:2, 'The treasures of wickedness profit nothing;' so that to seek to grow rich by sin is, in the eye of faith at least, a fruitless enterprise.
(2d.) Nor the pleasure the pain; it is delightful to the sensual part, but at the end it biteth like a serpent: Heb. 11:26, 'All the pleasures of sin are but for a season.' Sometimes they leave us in the midst, always in the end of our days, and then the horror and anguish beginneth. But to speak nothing of what is eternal, but of that which is of present feeling, sin raiseth a tempest and storm in the conscience, which is not easily allayed: Hosea 8:7, 'They have sown the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind.' The pleasure we fancy in sin is lost as soon as enjoyed, but the sting is not so soon gone; the crop doth answer the seed, and usually with increase. They that sow the wind can expect to reap nothing but the wind; but they reap the whirlwind. A man that feeleth the gripes of a surfeit buyeth the pleasant meat at a dear rate; and what a sorry purchase doth he make that is at so much cost and expense of time to please the flesh, and getteth nothing but trouble of mind and horrors of conscience for his recompense!
(3d) If there be any fruit of sin singly, yet comparatively it is as none; that is, if compared with what we might get by God's service. The carnal world lives by sense, as God's children do by faith. Now they that judge of their happiness by their senses, expect and promise themselves more good by the pleasures, honours, and profits of the world than all God's promises; but a little experience confuteth them. On the other side, they that measure their happiness by the rule of faith, God's promises are heritage enough to them: Ps. 119:111, 'Thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage for ever, they are the rejoicing of my heart.' God promises things truly good to them out of love: Ps. 84:11, 'He will give grace and glory, and no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.' They are all Yea and Amen, of unvariable truth, and of certain accomplishment. Therefore happy are they that trust in him, when others go a-whoring from him, Ps. 73:28. Now, though by sin men should get increase of riches, enjoy variety of pleasures, endear themselves to the favour of great men, yet is this fruit to be compared to that we may have by serving and trusting in God? Alas! the nature of these things is such, that they cannot make us good, much less happy, and their value is much lessened when we cannot have them without so spiteful a condition as sin, without committing or doing something against conscience, or omitting what God requireth of us. Well, then, if it seem fruit singly and apart, yet it is none comparatively in respect of what we might have by pleasing God.
Use 1. To rouse us out of a state of sin. Men would not lie so long in it if they would recollect themselves, and consider, What have I gotten since I was the devil's bond-slave, but a blind mind, a troubled conscience, and a hard heart, and it may be shame and disgrace in the world? Now what a folly is it for any one to pursue that which will bring him no fruit. One beginneth to be awakened when he beginneth to say, Job 33:27, 'I have sinned, and perverted that which is right, and it profited me not.' Whatsoever sin promiseth, or sinners fancy, it will be found at last an unprofitable course. What do men get by drinking, gaming, chambering, and wantonness, what by all the lusts of youth, and the bold attempts of riper years, but an ill name and a worse conscience, a diseased body, and many times an encumbered estate? They turn their back upon God to their great disadvantage. God is willing to stand to this trial, that his service doth us no hurt: Jer. 2:5, 'What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?' Yea, that it will do us much good: Micah 2:7, 'Do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly?' But sin cannot stand the trial; it doth us much hurt now, and will do us more hereafter: Prov. 5:11,12, 'And thou mourn at last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, and say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart hath despised reproof?'
Use 2. To prevent acts of sin for the time to come. It is good often to put this question, Cui bono? 'What doth it?' Eccles. 2:2. What shall I gain by those vain delights and sinful practices? To take pains to no purpose is folly, to an ill purpose is unnatural and self-destruction. Ask what doth it? To my body? A modest temperance will keep it in better plight, and freer from diseases than a gluttonous pampering of it. To my estate? A little with the fear of God is better than great revenues with sin. To my soul? Shall I be more cheerful to serve God, or my mind in a better posture for the high uses of religion? To my eternal estate? Am I in the way to hell, or to heaven? If men would but commune with themselves oftener, What am I now a-doing? what will come of it? It may be I shall get a little worldly pelf, but what is this to the loss of God's favour, or to the loss of my soul? We are often quarrelling with God: What profit is it that I serve the Almighty, and pray unto him? Mal. 3:14, 'Ye have said, It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinances, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?' So Job 21:15, 'What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have if we pray unto him?' Surely we should do as much on the other side. What will sin come to? What profit by this sensual careless life, this hunting after the world, and neglecting God and my precious immortal soul?
Secondly, The second dissuasion or argument which the apostle useth is a turpi; it is a base thing, implied in that clause, 'Whereof ye are now ashamed.' You had no solid benefit then, and you cannot review your past sinful life without shame.
The words may be considered under a twofold reference -
1. As it is an act of repentance in the godly.
2. As it sets forth the evil and odiousness of sin.
First, As it is an act of repentance in the godly. After ye came to better knowledge, ye were ashamed of those things ye took pleasure in before, therefore now meddle no more with them.
Doct. That God's people are, and ought to be, ashamed of their past sins.
There are two things in sin - (1.) The guilt of it; (2.) The folly and filthiness of it.
The guilt causeth fears and terrors with respect to the wrath of God which is to ensue; but the folly and filthiness of sin causeth shame. Man is a rational creature, and therefore is ashamed of what is foolish, and was at first made a holy creature, and to enjoy communion with a holy God, and therefore turpitude and filthiness is a cause of shame. Now it requireth a quick and more tender sense to be sensible of the folly and filthiness of sin, than to be sensible of the wrath due to sin; but all those who are brought home to God are sensible of both. A man covered with noisome boils and sores is not only affected with the pain, but abhorreth the sight and smell of them; but first he feeleth the pain. So the first work is terror; men are 'pricked at heart,' Acts 2:37, before they have a sight of their folly and filthiness. The soul beginneth to come on finely when it is brought to that, it is gradus in re. To be sensible of this folly is the first degree of spiritual wisdom: 1 Cor. 3:18, 'If any man among you seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise;' he cometh to himself again, and when sensible of his filthiness and loathsomeness, it is a sign he hath some love and liking to the pure and holy ways of God. As there is more light and love infused into the heart, so do men more loathe themselves for their filthiness: Ezek. 36:31, 'Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and abominations.' To be truly and really ashamed of sin is the effect of saving grace: Ezra 9:6, 'I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God.'
There are two sorts of shame: the shame of a guilty, stormy conscience, and the shame of a tender conscience; there is a confounding shame, and a penitential shame. The one breedeth trouble of spirit, and is the fruit of sin; the other a holy self-loathing, and is the fruit of grace; the first may be in carnal men, the other is only in God's children. The differences between these two sorts of shame may be these: -
(1.) The penitential shame continueth and increaseth under the greatest assurance of forgiveness, and dieth not when we think we are out of danger; the other is presently after the commission of sin, and while the guilt remaineth; as David grew shy of God, Ps. 32. after he got his discharge, and his sins were pardoned: Ezek 16:63, 'That thou mayest remember and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more, because of thy shame, when I am pacified towards thee, for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God.' There is a dislike of sin when they are upon the surest terms with God.
(2.) The first sort of shame considereth sin as it damneth or destroyeth, not as it defileth; but the second, as it is an act of filthiness and folly; of folly, as David, Ps. 73:22, 'So foolish was I and ignorant, I was as a beast before thee;' of filthiness, Ezra 9: 6, ‘O my God, I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God; for our iniquities have increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up into the heavens.’ They loathe sin as sin, because they love holiness as holiness: Ps. 119:140, 'Thy word is very pure, therefore thy servant loveth it' Conscience keepeth its own court, meddleth not but for moral evils, is ashamed not of calamities and infelicities, but crimes or sins, which are hateful to God, and therefore to the new creature; for it hateth and loveth on God's grounds and reasons.
(3.) The first sort of shame is accompanied with slavish fear, shunneth the presence of God, as Adam did, Gen. 3:10, 'I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself;' or David, Ps. 32:3,4, 'When I kept silence, my bones waxed old,' &c. The other is accompanied with love, and causeth the godly to come into God's presence, but with self-loathing and reverence: Prov. 30:2, 'Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man;' Luke 18:13, 'The publican standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote on his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.' The one causeth us to hate God, the other to loathe ourselves for our unkindness to him, and unworthy dealing with him. The one is our torment, the other our cure.
(4.) The trouble and shame of hypocrites is because of the world; the shame of the godly is because of God. Saul was not ashamed of his sin, but ashamed that Samuel should reprove him before the people, 1 Sam. 15:30. So 'the thief is ashamed when he is found,' Jer. 2:26. But a child of God is ashamed before God, and of sins which the world cannot see: Ps. 69:5,6, 'O God, thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from thee. Let not them that wait on thee, O Lord God of Hosts, be ashamed for my sake; let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel.' As if he had said, Sure I have just cause to be ashamed, &c.
(5.) The effect showeth a difference; the true shame quickeneth the soul to more resolution, vigilance, earnest striving against sin; so that our life, trade, and principal business in the world is to avoid it: Ps. 119:6, 'Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments;' but in the other it prevaileth no further than that they may avoid the present trouble, and get a little ease.
The reasons and causes of this shame: -
(1.) A new and heavenly light to see those things which others see not, and which themselves saw not before: Jer. 31:19, 'Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh, I was ashamed; yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth;’ Rom. 7:9, ‘I was alive without the commandment once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died,’ They see more of sin, and more evil in sin than ever they saw before, as light discovers what lay hid before in the dark.
(2.) A lively sense and taste of God's mercy and goodness, of his forbearing mercy, that he did not strike as soon as the offence was committed: Rom. 2:4, 'The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance;' redeeming mercy by Christ: 1 John 3:5, 'Ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins;' covenanting mercy, or the offers of pardon and life in the new covenant: Acts 17:30, 'The time of this ignorance God winked at, but now he commandeth all men everywhere to repent;' his healing mercy: Tit. 3:5, 'According to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.' To offend so good a God, or sin against the Lord of love and mercy, is a great crime.
(3.) The new nature, which is contrary to sin: Ps. 97:10, 'Ye that love the Lord hate evil;' There is odium offensionis, et odium inimicitiae, a hatred of offence, and a hatred of enmity.
(4.) Their seriousness. Before the deluded soul is so taken up with fleshly pleasures, and deluding objects, that they had no time nor room to consider of their ways; what with business and sensual delights, and the crowd of worldly cares, and the noise of foolish sports and sensual passions, their hearts were diverted from observing things of the greatest and everlasting consequence, they did in effect forget they had souls to save or lose, or a God to serve, or a glory to look after: but now they remember, and loathe themselves.
Use 1. To show how much they differ from the people of God that wallow in all manner of filthiness, and know no shame. Impudency is a great note of obstinacy and impenitency: Zeph. 3:5, 'The unjust knoweth no shame.' By long custom in sinning they lose the sense of the filthiness and odiousness of it, and so outgrow all feelings of conscience.
2. To stir up in the people of God this holy shame, by reason of sin past and present. It is a great help to the spiritual life, for when we make light of sin, we are in danger of being overcome by it. Therefore rouse up yourselves. Is the offending of the eternal God a slight thing? Surely God doth not make his laws for nought, nor doth he make such a stir by his word and providence against a tame and harmless thing, nor threaten men to hell for small indifferent matters; neither needed Christ to have died, and done all that he hath done to cure a small and little disease. More particularly,
[1.] Sin is the creature's rebellion and disobedience to the law of the absolutely universal sovereign: 1 John 3:4, 'Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth the law; for sin is the transgression of the law.'
[2.] The deformity of the noblest creature upon earth: Rom. 3:23, 'For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.'
[3.] A stain so deep that nothing could wash it away but the blood of Christ: Rev. 1:5,6, 'To him that loved us, and washed our sins with his own blood,' &c.
[4.] It hath yielded a flood that drowned the world of sinners, yet it did not wash away their sins: 2 Pet. 2:9, 'Bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.'
[5.] Hell itself can never do it, nor purge out the malignity of it, therefore it hath no end: Mark 9:44, 'Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.'
[6.] God himself doth loathe the creature for sin, and nothing else but sin: Zech. 11:8, 'Three shepherds also I cut off in one month, and my soul loathed them;' Deut. 32:19, 'When the Lord saw it he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons and of his daughters;' Ps. 78:59, 'When God saw this he was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel.'
Secondly, as it sets forth the evil and the odiousness of sin; shame dogs sin at the heels.
Doct. That sin is really the matter of shame.
1. It is so for the present, it will make you loathsome to yourselves, infamous to others, odious to God.
[1.] Loathsome to ourselves. Therefore a wicked man dareth not to converse with his own heart, but doth what he can to fly from himself, to divert his thoughts from the sight of his own soul, or the view of his own natural face in the glass of the word: John 3:20, 'Every one that doth evil hateth the light, neither cometh be to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.' There is a secret bosom-witness which they fear: Job 27:6, 'My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go, my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.' There needeth a great deal of do to bring a man and his conscience together.
[2.] Infamous to others. He bringeth a blot upon himself: Prov. 13:5, ‘A righteous man hateth lying, but a wicked man is loathsome, and cometh to shame.' They are a disgrace to the society in which they live: 2 Pet. 2:13, 'Spots are they, and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings, while they feast with you.' Those that love sin in themselves, hate it in another: Tit 3:3, 'We ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.'
[3.] Odious to God: Ps. 14:2,3, 'The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy, there is none that doth good, no not one;' and they are sensible of it, and therefore grow shy of God, 1 John 3:20,21.
2. It will be much more so hereafter.
(1.) At the day of judgment. Shame is properly fobos dikaiou logou, a fear of a just reproof, and that chiefly from one in authority, most of all from the judge of the world. This is principally intended, not shame of face before men, so much as shame of conscience, a loathness to come into God's presence: Gen. 3:10, 'I was afraid, or ashamed, because I was naked, and I hid myself.' There was verecundia before, an aweful bashfulness, but not pudor, fear of reproof and blame; that entered with sin; much more when all things shall be opened and brought to light, as at the great day: 1 John 2:28, 'That we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.’ Wicked persons that are void of righteousness, and all hypocrites that have been unfaithful and unthankful to him, will then be ashamed.
(2.) In hell. Shame in the damned is that troublous confounding sense of their lost estate, past folly, and evil choice, having now no hope of his grace: Dan. 12:2, 'Some shall arise to shame and everlasting contempt;' they shall be rejected by God as much as they now reject and disown him.
Use. Well, then, let us walk more cautiously, not return again to our wallowing in the mire, lest we provide matter of grief and shame to ourselves. It is a grace to be ashamed in a penitent manner; but it is a sin to provide matter of shame anew. The godly and wicked are both ashamed, the one to get sin pardoned, the other would have conscience deadened; the one to get sin mortified, the other only to have ease within themselves, though they wallow in sin, and be not reconciled to God. God's children are more watchful for the time to come, but the other would only get rid of trouble. Now if we cannot hope to prevail with the one, we have great confidence the other will weigh his motive. Will you once more render yourselves odious to God, a burden to yourselves, and live contrary to him, whose favour is your life? You have more to do with him than with all the world, your happiness is to hold communion with him; will you, now you have eyes to see the odiousness of sin, break through all the restraints which light and love lay upon you?
Thirdly, The apostle's argument is a damno, it is harmful, the end of sin is death. The end may be taken for the scope, or for the effect; it is not scopus peccantis, but finis peccati; this is the issue it cometh unto, we incur the penalty of eternal death. The sinner hopeth for a better issue, but the end of the work is death; it is finis operis, though not operantis.
Doct. If we continue in sin, we cannot expect other or better fruit and conclusion than eternal death.
Now we find the shame, hereafter death. All that I shall say now, shall be referred to these three heads: (1.) It is terrible; (2.) It is just; (3.) It is certain.
(1.) It is terrible, if we consider the loss - a separation from the blessed presence of God; the disciples wept when Paul said, 'Ye shall see my face no more.' Oh! what will be our case and plight when God shall say, 'Depart, ye cursed, ye shall see my face no more!' Then for the pain, it is set forth by the worm and fire: Mark 9: 48, 'Where the worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.' Alas! for momentary pleasures we run the hazard of eternal pains.
(2.) It is just. They sin against an infinite God, refuse eternal blessedness, have passed their trial, when they were upon their choice! If they had lived longer, they had continued in their impenitency; now they are in their final estate, in termino, when no change of mind can be thought to proceed from grace.
(3.) It is certain, both by God's commination: Gen 2:17, 'In the day that thou eatest thereof, them shalt die the death;' it is sin's wages: Rom. 6:23, 'The wages of sin is death;' and conscience is in dread of it: Rom. 1:32, 'Knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death.'
Use. Often think of the end. Men would be much more wise if they would more seriously think of the end of things. For the present, a sinner may bear it out confidently, and with some degree of pleasure; but what will the end be? That quite spoileth sin's market: Prov. 1:17, 'In vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.' The silliest creature would not run into the destructive snare if he did see it. But we are guilty of two faults, either we believe it not, or we consider it not.
1. We believe it not. The apostle tells us, 'All men have not faith,’ 2 Thes. 3:2; few have it, and the best have too little of it. Would they live such a careless life if they were persuaded that all would end in hell-torments? No, they would think they could not soon enough get out of the snare; they would 'flee from the wrath to come,' Mat 3:7; they would 'fly for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before them;' but alas! the other world seemeth little better than a fable to most men.
2. They consider it not: Prov. 9:18, 'He knoweth not that the dead are there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell;' it is rendered as a reason why the fool counteth 'stolen waters sweet, and bread eaten in secret pleasant;' these carnal delights are taken by stealth, neither allowed by God nor approved by sound reason. How come men to be thus infatuated? They do not consider that these pleasures are salted with a curse, and that after all their free and licentious life, they shall be turned into hell.
To conclude the whole. Since there is no profit to be found in the ways of sin, and they will certainly bring shame and eternal destruction - shame for the present, and confusion of face for evermore - let all the people of God seriously think of these things: -
[1.] That they may be more thankful for their deliverance by Christ. Pliny tells us of a wood, though of an unpleasant smell, that recovers the pleasure of the senses again: so, that we may not be gospel-glutted, it is good to review the evil of the carnal estate, that we may the better give thanks for our recovery.
[2.] That we may walk more humbly and watchfully. You should be so far from running into your past sins, that you should never remember them without shame and self-loathing; and, considering the fruits of sin, we should meddle with this forbidden fruit no more.
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