everlasting deliverance from all sinful self-love.
And if self-love is the fruitful mother of all our passions, then
sensuality is surely her eldest son. Indeed, so shallow are we, and so
shallow are our words, that when we speak of sinful passion most men
instantly think of sensuality. There are so many seductive things that
appeal to our appetites, and our appetites are so easily awakened, and
are so imperious when they are awakened, that when passion is spoken
about, few men think of the soul, all men think instantly of the body.
And no wonder. For, stupid and besotted as we are, we must all at some
time of our life have felt the bondage and degradation of the senses.
Passion in the Interpreter's House had soon nothing left but rags. And
in this house to-night there are many men whose consciences and hearts
and characters are all in such rags from sensual sin, that when the
Scriptures speak of uncleanness, or rags, or corruption, their thoughts
flee at once to sensual sin and its conscience-rending results. Cease
from sensuality, said Cicero, for if once you give your minds up to
sensuality, you will never be able to think of anything else.
Ambition, emulation, and envy are the leading members of a whole prolific
family of satanic passions in the human heart. Indeed, these passions,
taken along with their kindred passions of hatred and ill-will, are, in
our Lord's words, the very lusts of the devil himself. The Jews hated
our Lord the more for what He said about these detestable passions, but
His own disciples love Him only the more that He so well knows the evil
affections of their hearts, and so well describes and denounces them.
Anybody can denounce sensual sin, and everybody will understand and
approve. But spiritual sin,--ambition and emulation and envy and ill-
will--these things are more easy to denounce than they are to detect and
describe, and more easy to detect and describe than they are to cast out.
These sins seem rather to multiply and to strike a deeper root when you
begin to cast them out. What an utterly and abominably evil passion is
envy which is awakened not by bad things but by the best things! That
another man's talents, attainments, praises, rewards should kindle it,
and that the blame, the depreciation, the hurt that another man suffers
should satisfy it,--what a piece of very hell must that be in the human
heart! What more do we need than just a little envy in our hearts to
make us prostrate penitents before God and man all our days? What more
doctrine, argument, proof, authority, persuasion should a sane man need
beyond a little envy in his heart at his best friend to make him an
evangelical believer and an evangelical preacher? How, in the name of
wonder, is it that men can be so ignorant of the plague of their own
hearts as to remain indifferent, and, much more, hostile, to the gospel
of love and holiness? Pride, also,--what a hateful and intolerable
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account