Romans 6:21

Here the apostle puts them in mind of the several mischiefs and inconveniences which did attend their former vicious course of life: namely, unprofitableness, What fruit had you? Dishonourableness, whereof ye are now ashamed? Perniciousness, The end of those things is death. Behold the complexion of sin's face in this glass, it being for the time past unprofitable, for the time present shameful, for the time to come deadly; Most men consult their profit, their honour, their pleasure, their safety; but sin disappoints us in them all.

Observe, 1. The unprofitableness of sin for time past; What fruit had ye then? Are ye anything the better for it? Verily, not at all; there is no solid benefit, no real profit to be got by sin; those sins which we think to be advantageous to us, when all accounts are cast up, will be found to be quite otherwise; all the gain of sin will turn to loss at last.

Observe, 2. The dishonourableness and disparagement which sin brings along with it as present, Whereof ye are now ashamed.

Learn thence, That sin is really matter of shame and blushing, rendering us odious to God, infamous to others, loathsome to ourselves; it is. dishonour to our natures,. reproach to our reason and understanding: it doth therefore debase and degrade us, because it pollutes and defiles us, and is. reproach which we voluntarily bring upon ourselves.

Observe, 3. The perniciousness of sin, or the fatal consequence of it. The end of those things is death, natural spiritual, and eternal: The latter is principally meant, which consists in lively apprehensions of the happiness invaluable which they have lost, and in. quick sense of the pains intolerable which they lie under, and this accompanied with despair of all future relief. Now, when misery and despair meet together, they make. man completley miserable.

Good God! make sinners, all sinners, thoroughly sensible of the manifest inconveniences of. wicked life; that it brings no present profit or advantage to them, that it will not bear reflection, but causeth shame; and that it is fatal in its event and issue!

Oh then, let no profit tempt us, no pleasure entice is, no power embolden us, no privacy encourage us, to enter into any sinful way, or adventure upon any wicked word: for what fruit can we expect to have of those things whereof we are now ashamed, the end of which things is death?