Hugh Binning, Works, p. 417:
These only are the true Christian principles of mortification, – love of Jesus Christ, which constrains men to live no more to themselves, but to be new creatures, 2 Cor. 5:14, 15; and hatred of sin in its nature as sin: a Christian should have a mortal hatred of it, as his mortal enemy. It is not Christianity to abstain from some fleshly lusts, if ye consider them not as your soul’s enemies, 1 Peter 2:11. “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil,” Ps. 97:10. These are chained together. David’s hatred was a soul-hatred, an abhorrency, Ps. 119:163, “I hate and abhor lying.” It is like the natural antipathies that are among creatures: the soul hates not only the person of it, but the nature of it also. Men often hate sin, only as it is circumstantiate, but Christian hatred is a hatred of the nature, like the deadly feuds, which are enmities against the kind and name. “I will put enmity between thy seed,” &c. It is a “perfect hatred,” Ps. 139:22. And so it cannot endure any sin, because all is contrary to God’s holiness and offensive to his Spirit.
These only are the true Christian principles of mortification, – love of Jesus Christ, which constrains men to live no more to themselves, but to be new creatures, 2 Cor. 5:14, 15; and hatred of sin in its nature as sin: a Christian should have a mortal hatred of it, as his mortal enemy. It is not Christianity to abstain from some fleshly lusts, if ye consider them not as your soul’s enemies, 1 Peter 2:11. “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil,” Ps. 97:10. These are chained together. David’s hatred was a soul-hatred, an abhorrency, Ps. 119:163, “I hate and abhor lying.” It is like the natural antipathies that are among creatures: the soul hates not only the person of it, but the nature of it also. Men often hate sin, only as it is circumstantiate, but Christian hatred is a hatred of the nature, like the deadly feuds, which are enmities against the kind and name. “I will put enmity between thy seed,” &c. It is a “perfect hatred,” Ps. 139:22. And so it cannot endure any sin, because all is contrary to God’s holiness and offensive to his Spirit.
