all this pains about a tottering righteoufnefs? Becaufe, fuch as it is, it is their own. What ails them at Chrift's righteoufnefs? Why, that would make them free grace's debtors for all; and that is what the proud heart by no means can fubmit to. Here lies the ftrefs of the Elatter, Pfal. x 4. The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not feek: (to read it without the fupplement) that is, in other terms, He cannot dig, and to beg he is afhamed: Such is the ftruggle, ere the foul die to the law: But what speaks yet more of this woful difpofition of the heart, nature oft-times gets the maftery of the disease, infomuch that the foul, which was like to have died to the law, while convictions were sharp and piercing, fatally recovers of the happy and promising sickness; and (what is very natural) cleaves more clofely than ever to the law, even as a wife brought back from the gates of death would cleave to her hufband: This is the iffue of the exercise of many about their fouls cafe: they are indeed brought to follow duties more closely; but they are as far from Chrift as ever, if not farther.

(2) It is a violent death, Rom. vii 4. Ye are become dead to the law, being killed, flain, or put to death, as the word bears. The law itfelf has a great hand in this; the husband gives the wound, Gal. ii. 19. I through the law am dead to the law. The foul that dies this death, is like a loving wife matched with a rigorous husband: she does what The can to please him, yet he is never pleased; but toffeth, harasseth, and beats her, till the break her heart, and death fets her free; as will afterwards more fully appear. Thus it is made evident, that men's hearts are naturally bent to the way of the law, and ly crofs to the gospel contrivance; and the fecond article of the charge, against you that areunregenerate, is verified, namely, that ye are enemies to the Son of God.

3dly, Ye are enemies to the Spirit of God. He is the Spi of holinefs; the natural man is unholy, and loves to be fo, and therefore refifts the holy Ghoft, Acis vii. 51. The work of the Spirit is to convince the world of fin, righteousness and judgment, John xvi. 8. But O how do men ftrive to ward off thefe convictions, as ever they would ward off a blow, threatning their lofs of a right-eye, or a right hand! If the Spirit of the Lord dart them in, fo as they cannot evite them; the heart fays, in effect, as Ahab to Elijah, whom he both hated and feared: Haft thou found me, O mine enemy? And indeed they treat him as an enemy, doing their utmoft to ftifle convictions, and to murder these harbingers, that come to prepare the Lord's way into the foul. Some fill their hands with bufinefs, to put their convictions out of their heads, as Cain, who fell a building of a city: fome put them off with delays and fair promifes, as Felix did: fome will sport them away in company, and fome fleep them away. The holy Spirit is the fpirit of fanétification: whofe work it is to fubdue lufts, and burn up corruption: how then can the natural man, whofe lufts are to him as his lunbs, yea, as his life, fail of being an enemy to him. Leftly, Ye are enemies to the law of God. Tho' the natural man, fires to be under the law, as a covenant of works, chufing that way of

fal

falvation in oppofition to the mystery of Chrift: yet as it is a rule of life, requiring univerfal holiness, and difcharging all manner of impurity, he is an enemy to it: Is not fubject to the law of God, neither indeed can be, Rom. viii. 7. For, (1.) There is no unrenewed man, who is not wedded to fome one luft or other, which his heart can by no means part with. Now, that he cannot bring up his inclinations. to the holy law, he would fain have the law brought down to his inclinations: a plain evidence of the enmity of the heart against it. And therefore, to delight in the law of God, after the inward man, is proposed in the word as a mark of a gracious foul, Rom. vii. 22.. Pfal. i. 2. It is from this natural enmity of the heart against the law, that all the Pharifaical gloffes upon it have arisen: whereby the commandment, which is in itself exceeding broad, has been made very narrow, to the intent it might be the more agreeable to the natural difpofition of the heart. (2.) The law laid home to the natural confcience, in its fpirituality, irritates corruption. The nearer it comes, nature rifeth the more against it. In that cafe, it is as oil to the fire, which inftead of quenching it, makes it flame the more; When the commandment came, fin revived, fays the Apoftle, Rom. vii. 9. What reafon can be aligned for this, but the natural enmity of the heart against the holy law? Unmortified corruption, the more it is. opposed, the more it rageth. Let us conclude then, that the unre. generate are heart-enemies to God, his Son, his Spirit, and his law; that there is a natural contrariety, oppofition, and enmity in the will. of man, to God himself, and his holy will.

Fifthly, There is, in the will of man, contumacy against the Lord. Man's will is naturally wilful in an evil courfe, He will have his will, though it fhould ruin him: it is with him, as with the leviathan, (Job xli. 29.) Darts are counted as fubble; he laugheth at the fhaking of a fpear. The Lord calls to him by his word, fays to him, (as Paul to the jaylor, when he was about to kill himself,) Do thyself no harm: finners, Why will ye die? Ezek. xviii. 31. But they will not hearken, Every one turneth to his courfe; as the horfe rufheth into the battle, Jer. viii. 6. We have a promife of life, in form of a command, Prov. iv. 4. Keep my commandments and live: it fpeaks impenitent finners to be felf-deftroyers, wilful felf-murderers. They tranfgrefs the command. of living; as if one's fervant fhould wilfully ftarve himself to death, or greedily drink up a cup of poifon, which his malter commands him to forbear even fo do they they will not live, they will die, Prov. viii. 36. All they that hate me, love death. O what a heart is this! It is a ftony heart, (Ezek. xxxvi. 26.) hard and inflexible, as a floue: mercies melt it not, judgments break it not; yet it will break ere it bow. It is an infenfible heart; tho' there be upon the finnera weight of fin, which makes the earth to ftagger; although there is a weight of wrath on him, which makes the devils to tremble; yet he goes lightly under the burden; he feels not the weight more than a flouer till the Spirit of the Lerd quicken him, fo far as to feel it.

Laffly,

Lastly, The unrenewed will is wholly perverfe in reference to man's chief and higheft end. The natural man's chief end is not his God, but his felf. Man is a mere relative, dependent, borrowed being: he has no being nor goodness originally from himfelf; but all he hath is from God, as the first cause and fpring of all perfection, natural or moral: dependence is woven into his very nature; fo that if God fhould totally withdraw from him, he would dwindle into a mere nothing. Seeing then whatever man is, he is of him; furely in whatever he is, he fhould be to him; as the waters which come from the fea, do of course, return thither again. And thus man was created, directly looking to God, as his chief end but falling into fin, he fell off from God, and turned into himself; and like a traitor ufurping the throne, he gathers in the rents of the crown to himfel: Now, this infers a total apoftafy, and univerfal corruption in man; for where the chief and laft end is changed, there can be no goodness there. This is the cafe of all men in their natural ftate, Pfal. xiv. 2, 3. The Lord looked down-to fee if there were any that did feek God. They are all gone afide: to wit, from God; they feek not God, but themfelves. And tho' many fair fhreds of morality are to be found amongst them, yet there is none that doth good, no not one; for tho' fome of them run well, they are ftill off the way; they never aim at the right mark. They are lovers of their ownfelves, (2 Tim. iii. 2.) more than God, verfe 4. Wherefore, Jefus Chrift having come into the world, to bring men back to God again, came to bring them out of themselves in the first place, Matth. xvi. 25. The godly groen under the remains of this woful difpofition of the heart: they acknowledge it, and fet themselves against it, in its fubtile and dangerous infinuations. The unregenerate, tho' moft infenfible of it, are under the power thereof; and whitherfoever they turn themselves, they cannot move without the circle of felf: they feek themfelves, they act for themfelves; their natural, civil and religious actions, from whatever spring they come, do all run into, and meet in, the dead fea of self.

Moft men are fo far from making God their chief end, in their natural and civil actions; that in thefe matters, God is not in all their thoughts. Their eating and drinking, and fuch like natural actions, are for themselves; their own pleafure or neceffity, without any higher end: Zech. vii. 6. Did ye not cat for yourfelves? They have no eye to the glory of God in these things, as they ought to have, 1 Cor. x. 31. They do not eat and drink, to keep up their bodies for the Lord's fervice; they do them not, because God has faid, thou shalt not kill: neither do thefe drops of sweetness God has put into the creature, raife up their fouls towards that ocean of delight that is in the Creator, tho' they are indeed a fign hung out at heaven's door, to tell men of the fulness of goodness that's in God himself, Acts xiv. 16. But it is felf, and not God, that is fought in them by natural men. And what are the unrenewed man's civil, actions, fuch as buying, felling, working, &c but fruit to himfelf? Hof x 1. fo marrying and giving in

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marriage, are reckoned amongst the fins of the old world; (Matth. xxiv. 38) for they had no eye to God therein, to please him; but all they had in view, was to please themselves, Gen vi 3. Finally, Self is natural men's highest end, in their religious actions: They perform duties for a name, Matth. vi. 1, 2. or fome other worldly intereft, John vi. 26. Or, if they be more refined, it is their peace, and at moft their falvation from hell and wrath, or their own eternal happinefs, that is their chief and highest end, Matth. xix. 16,-22. Their eyes are held, that they fee not the glory of God. They feek God indeed, but not for himself, but for themselves. They feek him not at all, but for their own welfare: fo their whole life is woven into one web of practical blafphemy; making God the means, and self their end, yea, their chief end.

And thus have I given you fome rude draughts of man's will, in his natural ftare, drawn by fcripture and men's own experience. Call it no more Naomi but Marah: for bitter it is, and a root of bitterness. Call it no more free-will, but flavish luft; free to evil, but free from good, till regenerating grace loofe the bands of wickednefs. Now, fince all must be wrong, and nothing can be right, where the underStanding and will are fo corrupt; I fhall briefly dispatch what remains, as following of course, on the corruption of those prime faculties of

the foul.

The Corruption of the Affections, the Confcience and the Memory. The Body partaker of this corruption.

III. The Affections are corrupted. The unrenewed man's affections are wholly difordered and diftempered: they are as the unruly horfe, that either will not receive, or violently runs away with the rider. So man's heart naturally is a mother of abominations, Mark vii. 21,22. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, &c. The natural man's affections are wretchedly mifplaced; he is a spiritual monster. His heart is there, where his feet fhould be, fixed on the earth; his heels are lifted up against heaven, which his heart fhould be fet on, Acts ix. 5. His face is towards hell, his back towards heaven; and therefore God calls him to turn. He loves what he fhould hate, and hates what he thould love: joys in what he ought to mourn for, and mourns for what he fhould rejoice in; glorieth in his thame, and is afhamed of his glory; abhors what he should defire, and defires what he fhould abhor, Prov. i. 13, 14, 15. They hit the point indeed, (as Caiaphus did in another cafe) who cried out on the apoftles as men that turned the world upfide-down, Acts xvii. 6. for that is the work the gospel has has to do in the world, where fin has put all things fo out of order, that heaven lies under, and earth a top. If the unrenewed man's affections be fet on lawful objects, then they are either excellive, or defective.. Lawful enjoyments of the world have fome

times too little, but moftly too much of them: either they get not their due; or, if they do, it is measure preffed down, and running over. Spiritual things have always too little of them. In a word, they are always in, or over; never right, only evil.

Now, here is a three-fold cord against heaven and holiness, not eafily broken; a blind mind, a perverfe will, and diforderly diftempered affections. The mind fwelled with felf-conceit, fays the man fhould not ftoop; the will oppofite to the will of God, fays he will not; and the corrupt affections rifing against the Lord, in defence of the corrupt will, fay, he fhall not. Thus the poor creature ftands out against God and goodness; till a day of power come, in which he is made a new creature.

IV. The Confcience is corrupt and defiled, Tit. i. 15. It is an evil eye, that fills one's converfation with much darknefs and confufion; being naturally unable to do its office; till the Lord, by letting in a new light to the foul, awaken the confcience; it remains fleepy and unactive. Confcience can never do its work, but according to the light it hath to work by. Wherefore feeing the natural man cannot spiritually difcern fpiritual things, (1 Cor. ii. 14.) the confcience naturally is quite ufelefs in that point; being caft into fuch a deep fleep, that nothing but a faving illumination from the Lord, can fet it on work in that matter. The light of the natural confcience in good and evil, fin and duty, is very defective; therefore tho' it may check for groffer fins ; yet as to the more fubtile workings of fin, it cannot check for them, because it difcerns them not. Thus confcience will fly in the face of many, if at any time they be drunk, fwear, neglect prayer, or be guilty of any grofs fin; who otherwise have a profound peace; tho' they live in the fin of unbelief, are ftrangers to fpiritual worship, and the life of faith. And natural light being but faint and languifhing in many things which it doth reach, confcience in that cafe fhoots like a ftitch in one's fide, which quickly goes off; its incitements to duty, and checks for and struggles against fin, are very remifs, which the natural man eafily gets over. But because there is a falfe light in the dark mind, the natural confcience following the fame will call evil good, and good evil, Ifa. v. 20. And fo it is often found like a blind and furious horse, which doth violently run down himself, his rider, and all that doth come in his way, John xvi. 2. Whosoever killeth you, will think that he doth God fervice: When the natural confcience is awakened by the Spirit of conviction, it will indeed rage and rore, and put the whole man in a dreadful confternation, awfully fummon all the powers of the foul to help in a ftrait; make the ftiff heart to tremble, and the knees to bow; fet the eyes a-weeping, the tongue a-confefling; and oblige the man to caft out the goods into the fea, which it apprehends are like to fink the fhip of the foul, tho' the heart ftill goes after them. But yet it is an evil confcience, which natively leads to defpair, and will do it effectually, as in Judas's cafe; unless either lufts prevail over it, to lull it afleep, as in the cafe of Felix, Actsxxiv. 25.

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