Sin's Contrariety to Man

The second thing wherein the sinfulness of sin does consist, is its contrariety to the good of man, which is the thing that our text does especially dwell on and intend, and is therefore to be the more copiously spoken to. Sin is contrary to the good of man, and nothing is properly and absolutely so but sin, and this results and is evident from sin's contrariety to God: as there is nothing contrary to God but sin (for devils are not so but by sin) so sin in being contrary to God, is and cannot but be contrary to man; that must be unavoidably evil to man, that is evil against God, who is the chiefest good of man. Communion with, and conformity to God, is man's felicity, his heaven upon earth, and in heaven too, without which it would not be worth his while to have a being. Now sin being a separation between God and man, an interruption of this communion and conformity, it must needs be prejudicial and hurtful to him. Besides, the commandment (of which sin is a transgression) was given not only for God's sake, that he might have glory from man's obedience, but for man's sake, that man might enjoy the good and benefit of his obedience, and find that in keeping the commands of God there is great reward. These two were twisted together, and no sooner is the law transgressed, but God and man are joint-sufferers, God in his glory, and man in his good. Man's suffering follows at the heel of sin, indeed, as he suffers by, so in sinning; suffering and sinning involve each other. No sooner did sin enter into the world, but death (which is a privation of good) did enter by it, with it, and in it, for it is the sting of death; so that sin says, here is death, and death says, here is sin. No sooner did angels sin, but they fell from their first estate and habitation which they had with God in glory, not a moment between their sin and misery. And as soon as man had sinned, his conscience told him, that he was naked and destitute of righteousness and protection, and consequently an undone man, that he could not endure God's presence, nor his own (Genesis 3:7-8). So apparent is it that sin (and that in being contrary to God) is contrary to man, for what crosses God's glory, is cross to man's happiness.

To proceed more distinctly and particularly, I shall show that sin is against man's good, both present and future, here in time, and hereafter in eternity, in this life and world which now is, and in that to come, against all and every good of man, and against the good of all and every man. And herein lies the second instance of the sinfulness of sin, as it is: 1. Against man's present good in this life, and that 1. Against the good of his body. 2. Against the good of his soul. For on both it has brought a curse and death.

1. Sin is against the good of man's body; it has corrupted man's blood, and made his body mortal, and thereby rendered it a vile body. Our bodies, though made of dust, were yet more precious than the fine gold; but when we sinned, they became vile bodies. Before sin our bodies were immortal (for death and mortality came in by sin) but now alas they must return to dust, and it is appointed to all men once to die (and it is well if they die but once, and the second death have no power over them). They must see corruption, or death in equivalence, that is, a change; for this flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (as that wherein we were created might possibly have done) (1 Corinthians 15:50). Our body is sown in corruption, in dishonor, in weakness (1 Corinthians 15:42-43), and is therefore called vile (Philippians 3:21). And before this body be laid in the grave, it is languishing, in a continual consumption, and dying daily, besides all the dangers that attend it from without.

2. Sin is against the good of man's soul too. The soul is transcendently excellent beyond the body, and the good of that beyond the good of this; so that a wrong done to the soul is much more to man's hurt, than a wrong done to the body. Therefore says our Savior, Fear not them that can kill the body, and do no more (which is but little in comparison of what God can do to the soul, if it sin) but fear him that can destroy, that is, damn soul and body in hell (Matthew 10). It is not very ill with a man if it be well with his soul, but it can never be well with a man if it be ill with his soul; so that we can more easily and cheaply die than be damned, and may better venture our bodies to suffering, than our souls to sinning, for he that sins wrongs his soul (Proverbs 8:36). Nothing but sin does wrong a man's soul, and there is no sin but does it. Thus we see in general, that sin is against the good of man's body and soul. But yet for a more clear and full discovery thereof, I shall consider and speak of man: 1. In a natural sense. 2. In a moral sense.

1. If we consider man in a physical or natural state, we shall find sin to be: 1. Against the well-being, and 2. Against the very being of man; it will not suffer him to be well or long in the world, nor if possible to be at all.

1 It is against man's well-being in this life; vivere est valere, well-being is the life of life, and sin bears us so much ill will, that it deprives us of our livelihood, and that which makes it worth our while to live. Man was born to a great estate, but by sin (which was and is treason against God) he forfeited all. Man came into the world as into a house ready furnished; he had all things prepared and ready to his hands; all the creatures came to wait on him, and pay him homage. But when man sinned, God turned him out of house and home; all his lands, goods, and chattels were taken from him. Paradise was man's inheritance, where he had every thing pleasant to the eye, and good for food (as for clothes he needed none while innocent), but when he sinned, God dispossessed him of all, and drove him out into the wide world, like a pilgrim, a beggar, to live on his own hands, and to earn his meat with the sweat of his brow, as you may read at large (Genesis 3). Thus by sin, man that was the emperor of Eden is banished from his native country, and must never see it more but in a new and living way, for the old is stopped up, and beside that it is kept against him with flaming swords. Ever since it has been every man's lot to come into and go out of this world naked, to show that he has no right to anything, but lives on the alms of God's charity and grace (all [reconstructed: we] have or hold between our birth and death is clear [reconstructed: gain] and mere gift). God might choose whether he would allow us anything or not, and when he has given, he may take again, and none of us have cause to say anything but what Job did (Job 1:21): Naked came I into the world, and naked shall I return; the Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. All we have (our food and clothing) is but lent us; we are only tenants at will, and therefore, seeing we deserve nothing, we should be content with and thankful for anything (1 Timothy 6:7-8).

2 To show that man by sin had lost all, when our Lord Jesus came into this world for the recovery of man, and stood as in the sinner's stead, he had not where to lay his head. The foxes had holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has not where to lay his head (Luke 9:58). Which plainly shows that the sin of man had left the Son of Man nothing. Though Christ were Lord of all, yet if he will come in the likeness of sinful flesh, he must speed not like the Son of God, but Son of Man, and be a man of sorrows, destitute, forsaken, and afflicted. And though we fare the better for his suffering, yet he fared the worse for our sin; and among other the miseries he underwent, he had not where to lay his head. Again;

To add yet another discovery of the venomous nature of sin as to this that we are upon, it is not a little observable that though God took not the full forfeiture, nor stripped us so naked and bare as he might have done, but indulged us [reconstructed: competent] subsistence and accommodation, and (as the first fruits of his goodness) made the first suit of clothes which Adam and Eve wore, yet sin is against that good which God left us, and fills it with vanity and vexation, with bitterness and a curse. God left Adam many acres of land to till and husband, but he has it with a curse, sweat, and sorrow; many a grieving brier and pricking thorn stick fast to him (Genesis 3:17-19). God left him ground enough (verse 23), but alas it is cursed ground! So that sin is against man's temporal good, either in taking it from him, or cursing it to him. Sin is so envious that it would leave man nothing; and if God be so good as to leave him anything, sin's eye is evil, because God is good, and puts a sting in it, namely a curse.

Yet more particularly: 1 Sin is against man's rest and ease, of which man is much a lover, and indeed needs it, as being a great part of the well-being of his life. It is a sore travel which the sons of men have under the sun; indeed, what has man of all his labor, and the vexation of his heart wherein he has labored? For all his days are sorrows, and his travel grief (Ecclesiastes 1:13; 2:22-23) — whether he increase wisdom and knowledge, or pleasures and riches — indeed he takes not rest in the night, but is haunted with vain and extravagant, if not frightened with frightful dreams. And his fancies, which are waking dreams by day, are more troublesome than those of the night. Man's ground is overgrown with thorns, so that he has many an aching head and heart, many a sore hand and foot (before the year come about) to get a little livelihood out of this sin-cursed ground. Man's Paradise-like life was easy and pleasant, but now it is labor and pain, such as makes him sweat (indeed, Ecclesiastes 2:1-2, his recreations fall little short of his labor for pain and sweat). The old world was very sensible of this, as may be gathered from Genesis 5:29: He called his name Noah, saying, this same shall comfort us concerning our work, and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord has cursed; sin, curse, and toil keep company.

2 Sin is against man's comfort and joy (Genesis 3:17): In sorrow shall you eat all the days of your life — not one whole merry day! It were some comfort to a man, if after he had toiled and moiled all day, he could eat his bread with joy, and drink his wine with a merry heart, but sin will not suffer him. If he laugh, sin turns it to madness (Ecclesiastes 2:2), or else it is no better music than the crackling of thorns (Ecclesiastes 7:6). In paradise the blessing of God on Adam's diligent hand made him rich, and there was no sorrow with it — to allude to Proverbs 10:22 — but now man's sweet meats have sour sauces; in sorrow shall you eat, his bread is the bread of affliction.

Indeed the female (the she-man or woman), has a peculiar sort and share of sorrow, for the time of conception, breeding, bearing, and birth are tedious. Yet alas, many that feel the pain which sin brought are not sensible of the sin which brought the pain, though their sorrow and pain too be greatly multiplied, as we find it expressed (Genesis 3:16), and the more for want of faith and sobriety (1 Timothy 2:15).

3 Sin is against man's health: Hence come all diseases and sicknesses, till sin there were no such things: For this cause (in general) many are weak and sick among you: Let a man take the best air he can, and eat the best food he can, let him eat and drink by rule, let him take ever so many antidotes, preservatives and cordials, yet man is but a crazy sickly thing for all this: Truly every man in his best estate is a frail and brittle thing, indeed altogether vanity (Psalm 39), which is spoken with reference to diseases and sickness: take him while his blood dances in his veins, and his marrow fills his bones, yet then is he a brittle piece of mortality!

4 Sin is against the quiet of a man's natural conscience, for it wounds the spirit, and makes it intolerable; a wounded spirit who can bear (Proverbs 18:14)? While that is sound and whole, all infirmities are more easily borne, but when that is broken, the supports fail: and this has great influence upon the body; for (Proverbs 17:22) a merry heart does good like a medicine, (no cordial like it) but a broken spirit dries the bones, it sucks away the marrow and radical moisture (Proverbs 12:25). Heaviness in the heart of man makes it stoop; a good conscience is a continual feast, but sin mars all the mirth. When Cain had killed his brother, and his conscience felt the stroke of the curse, he was like a distracted man and mad: when Judas had betrayed his Master, he was weary of his life.

5 Sin is against the beauty of man; it takes away the loveliness of men's very complexions, it alters the very air of their countenance (Psalm 9:11). When you with rebukes correct man for iniquity, you make his beauty (or that which is to be desired in him, as it is in the margin) to consume or melt away like a moth; surely every man is vanity, his beauty vain. Now there was no such thing as vanity or deformity, till sin entered, every thing was lovely before, and man above any thing of the inferior world.

6 Sin is against the loving and conjugal cohabitation of soul and body, they were happily married, and lived lovingly together for a while, till sin sowed discord between them, and made them jar; many a falling out is there now between body and soul, between sense and reason, they draw several ways, there's a self-civil war, even in this sense the flesh lusts against the spirit, that poor man is hauled and pulled this way and that, tossed to and fro as with several winds: nunc hic nunc flectitur illic: man is full of contradictions. Time was when the mind commanded the body, but now this servant rides on horseback, when that prince walks on foot: Man is inverted, his head is where his heels should be; his soul is become a prisoner to the body (rather than a freeman) too too often; the beast is too hard for the man, and the horse rides the rider, sense lords it and domineers over reason!

7. Sin is against man's relative good in this world; man's comfort or sorrow lies much in relations; the weal or woe of his life is as relations are; that which was made for a help, proves but too often a hindrance. Sin has spoiled society, so that homo homini lupus, & diabolus, one man is a wolf, indeed a devil to another. Sin will not let husband and wife, parents and children live quietly, but sets them at variance, and many times a man's enemies are those of his own house and bosom; they who eat bread at our table, lift up their heel against us, and familiar friends become enemies. Lust makes wars (James 4:1) and from pride comes contention (Proverbs 13:10). It breeds divisions, factions in church and state, so that there is little of union or order, harmony, society or friendship in the world. Thus does sin set itself to oppose man's well-being.

2 Sin is against the very being of man; sin aims not only that man should not be well, but that man should not be at all: How many does it strangle in the womb? How many miscarriages and abortions does it cause? How many does it send from the cradle to the grave, so that they have run their race before they can go? Others die in their full strength, (beside the havocs it makes by war, etc.) as some do always eat their bread in darkness (Job 21:23). Man no sooner begins to live, but he begins to die; and after a few days, (which are but as a span, and do pass away more swift than a weaver's shuttle) sin lays all in the dust, princes as well as beggars. Sin has reduced man's age to a very little pittance, from almost a thousand to a very uncertainty, not only to seventy, but to seven; for among men no man's life is valued at more; man's time is short and uncertain, he who is born today is not sure to live a day. And what is our life, but as a vapor, which soon passes away? I might enlarge here, but this may suffice, to show that sin is against all the good of man in this life, considered in a natural sense; and now I proceed to show that sin is against the good of man.