Directives for Hating Sin # 1

Directives for Hating Sin

Directive 1 - Labor to know God, and to be affected with His attributes and always to live a in His sight.

No man can know sin perfectly, because no man can know God perfectly. You can no further know what sin is than you know what God is, whom you sin against; for the malignity of sin is against the will and attributes of God. The godly have some knowledge of God who is wronged by it. The wicked have no practical knowledge of God who is wronged by it. The wicked have no practical knowledge of the malignity of sin, because they have no such knowledge of God. Those who fear God, will fear sinning. Those who in their hearts are bold irreverently with God, will, in heart and life, be bold with sin. The atheist, who thinks there is no God, thinks there is no sin against Him. Nothing in the world will tell us so plainly and powerfully of the evil of sin, as the knowledge of the greatness, wisdom, goodness, holiness, authority, justice, truth, etc., of God. The sense of His presence, therefore, will revive our sense of sin's malignity.

Directive 2 - Consider well of the office, the bloodshed, and the holy life of Christ.

His office is to expiate sin, and to destroy it. His blood was shed for it. His life condemned it. Love Christ, and you will hate that which caused His death. Love Him, and you will love to be made like Him, and hate that which is so contrary to Christ. These two great lights will show the odiousness of darkness.

Directive 3 - Think well both how holy the office and work of the Holy Spirit is, and how great a mercy it is to us.

Shall God Himself, the heavenly light, come down into a sinful heart, to illuminate and purify it? And yet shall I keep my darkness and defilement, in opposition to such wonderful mercy? Though all sin against the Holy Spirit be not the unpardonable blasphemy, yet all is aggravated hereby.

Directive 4 - Know and consider the wonderful love and mercy of God, and think what He has done for you; and you will hate sin, and be ashamed of it.

It is an aggravation which makes sin odious even to common reason and sincerity - that we should offend a God of infinite goodness, who has filled up our lives with mercy. It will grieve you if you have wronged an extraordinary friend: his love and kindness will come into your thoughts, and make you angry with your own unkindness. Here look over the catalogue of God's mercies to you, for soul and body. And here observe that satan, in hiding the love of God from you, and tempting you under pretense of humility to deny His greatest special mercy, seeks to destroy your repentance and humiliation, also, by hiding the greatest aggravation of your sin.

Directive 5 - Think what the soul of man is made for, and should be used for - even to love, obey, and glorify our Maker; and then you will see what sin is, which disables and perverts it.

How excellent, and high, and holy are we created for and called to! And should we defile the temple of God? And should we serve the devil in filthiness and folly - when we should receive, and serve, and magnify our Creator?

Directive 6 - Think well what pure and sweet delights a holy soul may enjoy from God, in His holy service; and then you will see what sin is, which robs him of these delights, and prefers fleshly lusts before them.

O how happily might we perform every duty, and how fruitfully might we serve our Lord, and what delight should we find in His love and acceptance, and the foresight of everlasting blessedness - if it were not for sin; which brings down the soul from the doors of heaven - to wallow with swine in the mire!

Directive 7 - Bethink you what life it is which you must live forever, if you live in heaven; and what a life the holy ones these now live; and then think whether sin, which is so contrary to it, be not a vile and hateful thing.

Either you would live in heaven, or not. If not, you are not those I speak to. If you would, you know that there is no sinning; no worldly mind, no pride, no fleshly lust or pleasures there. Oh, did you but see and hear one hour - how those blessed spirits are taken up in loving and magnifying the glorious God in purity and holiness, and how far they are from sin - it would make you loathe sin ever after, and look on sinners as insane men wallowing naked in their dung. Especially, to think that you hope yourselves to live forever like those holy spirits; and therefore hate all sin.

Directive 8 - Look but to the state and torment of the damned, and think of the difference between holy angels and devils, and you may know what sin is.

Angels are pure - devils are polluted; holiness and sin do make the difference. Sin dwells in hell - and holiness in heaven. Remember that every temptation is from the devil - to make you like himself. Likewise every holy motion is from Christ - to make you like Himself. Remember when you sin, that you are learning and imitating of the devil - and are so far like him. John 8:44. And the end of all is, that you may feel his pains. If hell-fire is not good - then sin is not good.

Directive 9 - Look always on sin as one who is ready to die, and consider how all men will judge of it at the last.

What do men in heaven say of sin? And what do men in hell say of it? And what do men at death say of it? And what do converted souls, or awakened consciences, say of it? Is it then followed with delight and fearlessness as it is now? Is it then applauded? Will any of them speak well of it? Nay, all the world speaks evil of sin in the general now, even when they love and commit it. Will you sin when you are dying?

Directive 10 - Look always on sin and judgment together.

Remember that you must answer for sin before God, and angels, and all the world; and you will the better know it.

Directive 11 - Look now but upon sickness, poverty, shame, despair, death, and rottenness in the grave - and it may a little help you to know what sin is.

There are things within your sight or feeling; you need not faith to tell you of them. And by such effects you have knowledge of the cause.

Directive 12 - Look but upon some eminent, holy people upon earth; and upon the mad, profane, malignant world; and the difference may tell you in part what sin is.

Is there not an amiableness in a holy, blameless person, who lives in love to God and man, and in the joyful hopes of life eternal? Is not a beastly drunkard or whoremonger, and a raging swearer, and a malicious persecutor - a very deformed, loathsome creature? Is not the mad, confused, ignorant, ungodly state of the world a very pitiful sight? What then is the sin, which all this consists of?

Though the principal part of the cure is in turning the will to the hatred of sin, and is done by this discovery of its malignity; yet I shall add a few more directives for the executive part, supposing that what is said already had had its effect.

~Richard Baxter~

(continued with # 2)