they what they will, is, seriously to consider the very great
unto you, and which so easily captivate you; you would find, that the great mountains which are before you would soon be made a plain, Zech 4:7. Other sins will not be long-lived, when justice is done upon your bosom sins. Thrust but a dart through the heart of Absalom, and a complete conquest will follow, 2 Sam 18:14.
3. The third motive to provoke you to crucify your bosom sins, be they what they will, is, seriously to consider the very great damage that your souls have already sustained by your bosom sins.
Saul, by casting an amorous eye upon Agag, lost his crown and kingdom. Samson, by dallying with his Delilah, lost his strength, sight, light, liberty, and life. But what are these losses to your loss of spiritual strength, to your loss of communion with God, to your loss of the Spirit of light, life, liberty, and glory; to your loss of joy unspeakable, and peace which passes all understanding; and to your loss of those fresh and sparkling hopes of glory, which were once sparkling in your bosom? Some there are, who had rather lose their souls than their sins: these shall be chronicled in hell for fools and madmen!
Mark Antony was so far bewitched with his Cleopatra, that in the heat of the battle of Actium, when the empire of the world, his life, and all lay at stake, that he fled to pursue her, to the ruin and loss of all. There are many, who are so bewitched to some Cleopatra, to some darling sin or other—that they pursue the enjoyment of them to the loss of God, Christ, heaven, and their souls forever!
Ah! Christians, that the sense of what you have formerly lost, and of what you daily lose by your playing with sin, might provoke you to set upon some effectual course for the mortifying of them!
It was a blasphemous speech of Henry the Second, who said, when Mentz, his city, was taken, "That he would never love God any more,