Sin Unlamented

A decline in the spiritual life lies in disregarding the Word of God and a lack of attention to prayer. Christians who allow sin to linger “unlamented” are in great spiritual danger. I encourage Christians to develop a habit of dealing with sin promptly, faithfully, and biblically. It is a timely word for our day as it was during his own.

I considered how the duty of prayer is attended to as one considerable reason for spiritual declension. In this, I propose considering another cause contributing to the same end: sin lying on the conscience unlamented.[1] When the apostle Paul wrote his First Epistle to the church at Corinth, they were sunk in a wretched condition. With admirable faithfulness, wisdom, patience, and tenderness, he wrote that Epistle to reclaim them. Many of them were reclaimed, but some, it seems, continued insensible, which induced him, when he wrote his Second Epistle to that church, to express himself thus: “I fear lest when I come again, my God will humble me among you; and that I shall bewail many who have sinned already, and have not repented of their deeds.”[2]

Sin, if not habitually lamented and removed by repeated applications to the cross of Christ, is like poison in the bones; it rankles within us and is destructive of our soul’s prosperity. So long as sin remains unlamented, so long as we have a habitual liking to it, and so long, to say the least, God has a controversy with us. To assist anyone who wishes to make strict inquiry into this matter, I would state a few pieces of evidence by which it may be known whether we have sinned and not repented and point out the danger of such a condition.

Suppose there is any particular evil to which we have been exceedingly addicted, and that evil still persists. In that case, we may be confident that we have not lamented it sufficiently or to any good purpose. Saul confessed his sin to David, but his persisting in it too plainly proved that he never truly repented.[3] How often we may have confessed our sins before God if these confessions are not attended with a forsaking of them, we are none the nearer. Still, the farther off: it is an awful state of mind indeed to persevere, at the same time, in sinful indulgences and religious exercises.

Farther: Though we should refrain from the evil as to practical compliance if such refraining arises from mere prudential considerations, we may conclude that we have never truly repented. If the bias of the heart is towards evil, and we are withheld, merely or principally, by regard to our reputation, worldly interest, or fear of hell and not by the fear and love of God, our condition is hazardous. 

If when we are plied with temptations, the arguments we use to repel it are taken, not so much from its evil nature or its God-dishonouring tendency as from the consequences it will produce, let us tremble: indeed we stand upon the brink of a tremendous precipice. “That man,” says Dr Owen, “who opposes nothing to the seduction of evil in his own heart, but fear of shame among men, or hell from God, is sufficiently resolved to do that evil if there were no punishment attending it; which, what it differs from living in the practice of sin, I know not!”[4]

Again, Suppose we have been guilty of one particular sin, either of commission or omission, yet we may have accumulated a load of guilt by small degrees. This is the more likely to go unlamented because, being contracted by little at a time, it has obtained a place in the heart almost unnoticed. 

But as little and repeated colds, when they settle upon the constitution, will, in the end, bring on a fit of sickness, so will these little neglects and indulgences bring on a sore disorder upon our souls. There is not a day that passes, but we are contracting fresh guilt: unless, therefore, we maintain a habitual communion with Christ, daily bewailing our sins at the foot of his cross, we may certainly conclude that we have sinned and not repented.

Farther: If past evils are remembered with pleasure and approbation; if the thoughts and imaginations are fed by dwelling upon them; or if we can take pleasure in speaking of our former sinful exploits, though, it may be, at the same time we would be though to disapprove of them; these are but too forcible a kind of evidence that we have not yet repented of our deeds. 

To say the least, if we have repented, we have again made the evils our own by re-commissioning them in our mind, which requires renewed repentance and application to Christ, as otherwise, we are as much under their guilt as ever. True repentance is attended with a holy shame that will teach us to wish our evil ways annihilated and their very name buried in oblivion. 

Some sins expose us to shame among men, and it is natural for us to wish to have buried in forgetfulness, whether we repent of them or not, but there are others very offensive to God, which yet will gain the applause of men. Here it is: the temptation in question lies. True repentance will make us ashamed to repeat these and others. “Thou shalt remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more, because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God.”[5]

In fine: If we have not with holy abhorrence confessed and rejected our sin, we have not yet repented of it. There is such a thing as the conscience being habitually burdened with guilt, the spirit depressed with long-continued dejection, and yet the soul not be brought to thorough contrition. 

The heart seems ready to dissolve, yet not altogether come to a point. Such a state of mind is tenderly described by David in the 32d and 38th Psalms. Both these psalms were probably written after his repentance for his remarkable fall, and in them, he describes not only the breakings forth of godly sorrow but the previous operations of his mind during the time of his lying under the guilt of that great sin. 

“When I kept silent,” said he, “my bones waxed old through my roaring all day. For day and night, thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture is turned into summer's drought! Thine arrows stick fast in my, and thy hand presseth me sore.—My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness.” He comes to the crisis now: “I am ready to halt; my sorrow is continually before me! I will declare my iniquity. I will be sorry for my sin!”[6]

The state of mind last described is far less dangerous than any of the above because it promises to come to a speedy and happy issue, but yet things are never safe till the soul, dissolved in grief, lies prostrate at the feet of Jesus. We have reason to think that a great deal of remorse of conscience and depression of mind may come on and go off again. There is nothing that we have more significant reason to dread than a being so given up of God as that the guilt of our consciences shall wear away by degrees instead of being washed away by an application to the blood of Christ.

First, it weakens and enervates our graces and, as a consequence, spoils our usefulness. Godliness is a tender plant in all its lovely forms: sin indulged in the soul, like weeds in the garden, will impoverish it and cause the tender plant to dwindle away. 

Righteousness and unrighteousness cannot flourish together. Experience too plainly proves that carnality indulged damps the flames of love, kills holy resolution, joy and peace fly before its malignant influence, hope sickens into fear, and faith loses sight of invisible realities. When this is the case, of what use are we? What in the family? What in the church? What in the world? Where is now the savour with which our spirit and conversation should be attended? Alas, we are but too much like salt that has lost its savor[7], fit for neither the land nor the dunghill!

It cuts off all communion with God. The joys of salvation were withdrawn from David when he withdrew from God. It is well if prayer and all close dealing with God are not neglected, or if we approach God in form, while iniquity is regarded in our hearts, the Lord will not hear us. We may go morning, evening, and oftener, but the Lord is not there! 

The pleasures of religion are fled. Our soul is removed far from peace, and we shall soon have forgotten spiritual prosperity. There are only two states of mind that we now alternately experience: we are either locked up in insensibility or pierced with self-reflection.

It gives Satan a great advantage over us. It temps the tempter to apply to us with renewed force. While sin lies unlamented upon the conscience, we are like a besieged city, enfeebled by famine, sickly, and without a heart to resist, and this must needs invite the besieger to renew his onsets. It is by resisting the devil that he flies from us: and so, vice versa, by dropping resistance he is encouraged to approach towards us. 

This, in fact, is the case with us: while sin remains unlamented, there are generally more temptations ply the mind than at other times. When Samson slept and lost his strength, the Philistines were soon upon him.[8] Now, put these all together; our strength is gone, the Holy Spirit has departed, and temptation is coming upon us with redoubled force: alas! Where are we? Well, did the psalmist exclaim, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, and in whose spirit there is no guile.”[9]

Again, Secret sins indulged will, in all probability, soon become manifest and open. It is not in human nature to be able, for a long continuance, to conceal the ruling bias of the heart. It will come out in some way or another, and it is fit it should be. A wise Providence has so ordered it that the heart and conduct shall not be at perpetual variance. It is worthy of the character of a holy and jealous God to show his abhorrence to secret sin by suffering the party to be rolled in the dirt of public reproach. If we regard not the honour of God’s name, can we wonder if he regards not the honour of ours? “Him that honoureth me I will honour; but he that despiseth me shall be lightly esteemed.”[10]

Does it not hereby become a matter of doubt how it is with us as to our state before God? Though no faithful Christian will ever sink into total apostasy, while sin is unlamented, we are on a direct road to it, the same road that those who have trod who have apostatized. They once thought themselves right as well as we and began to sin by little and little: yes, they went on and presumed, it may be, that they should be some time or other restored, but instead of that, they have gone on and on, till death has cut them off, and beyond the grave, they have found their dreadful disappointment.

These things should make us tremble and consider the danger of trifling with sin and presuming upon being reclaimed, making ourselves easy in impenitence. If we go on in sin, do we not have a reason to think things are never right with us from the beginning? If the waters are nought, does it not indicate that the spring has never been healed?

 

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[1] This article appeared originally in 1787 in The Theological Miscellany, and Review of Books on Religious Subjects. It is reprinted here with updated annotations from The Works of the Rev. Andrew Fuller (New Haven: S. Converse, 1825), 8:29–33. Interested readers can find the entire series in this collection of Fuller’s works.

[2] Fuller paraphrases 2 Corinthians 12:20–21.

[3] Perhaps a reference to 1 Samuel 24:16–22.

[4] John Owen (1616–1683), the Congregationalist academic, theologian, and pastor was one of Fuller’s key influences. John Owen, Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers, 3rd. ed. (London: Nathanael Ponder, 1668), 93.

[5] Ezekiel 16:63.

[6] Psalms 32:3–4; 38:2, 5, and 17–18.

[7] Cf. Matthew 5:13.

[8] Cf. Judges 16:19–20.

[9] Psalm 32:1, 2.

[10] 1 Samuel 2:30.