'Voices From The Past' Vol. 1 — May 9

Anselm used to say, if he could see the shame of sin on the one hand, and the pains of hell on the other, and must choose one, he would rather be thrust into hell without sin, than to go into heaven with sin. So great was his hatred of sin. It is our wisest and safest course to stand a distance from sin. Do not go near the house of the harlot (Prov. 5:8). David came near the snare, and was taken to the breaking of his bones and the wounding of his conscience. It was a divine saying of a heathen: 'If there were no God to punish, no devil to torment, no hell to burn, and no man to see him, yet he would not sin for the ugliness and filthiness of sin, and the grief of his own conscience'—Seneca. 'A little leaven leavens the whole lump?' (1 Cor. 5:6). How has Adam's one sin spread over all mankind! (Rom. 5:12). O how the father's sin infects the child, the husband's the wife, and the master's the servant! Sin has a spreading, infectious, deceitful, and bewitching nature. Sin is a child of Satan's own begetting. It will kiss the soul, yet betray the soul forever. It gives Satan a power over us, and an advantage to accuse us. It bewitches the soul to call evil good, and good evil. A soul bewitched with sin will hold out against God. Let God strike and wound, and cut to the very bone, yet that soul cares not and fears not, but holds on to a course of wickedness. Sin kills secretly, insensibly, and eternally, yet the bewitched soul will not cease from sin. When the physicians told Theotimus that except he abstain from drunkenness he would lose his eyes, he answered, 'Farewell sweet light', for he would rather lose his eyes than leave his sin. The story of the Italian, who made his enemy deny God, and then stabbed him, to murder both body and soul, declares the perfect malignity of sin. O stand at a distance from sin!

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Devotional Readings 'Voices From The Past Vol.1.'
Thomas Brooks, Works, I:12-16
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