Human Nature

Human Nature in its Fourfold State by Thomas Boston This is Tape 4, or Download 4, narrated May 8, 2004 Why Original Sin is to be Specially Noticed, Section 3 I shall offer some reasons why we should especially notice the sin of our nature. Because of all sins it is the most expensive and diffusive. It goes through the whole man and spoils all. Other sins mar particular parts of the image of God, but this doth at once deface the whole. A disease affecting any particular member of the body is dangerous, but that which affects the whole is worse. The corruption of nature is a poison of the old serpent, cast into the fountain of action, and infects every action and every breathing of the soul. 2. It is the cause of all particular lusts and actual sins in our hearts and lives. It is the spawn which the great Leviathan has left in the souls of men, from whence comes all the fry of actual sins and abominations. Mark 7.21 Out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, and so on. It is a bitter fountain, particular lusts are but rivulets running from it, which bring forth into the life a part only, and not the whole of what is within. The fountain is always above the streams, and where the water is good, it is best in the fountain, where it is bad, it is the worst there. The corruption of nature, being that which defiles all, itself must needs be the most abominable thing. 3. It is virtually all sin, for it is the seed of all sins, which want but the occasion to set up their heads, being in the corruption of nature, as the effect and the virtue of its cause. Hence it is called a body of death. Romans 7.24 It is consisting of the several members belonging to such a body of sins. Colossians 2.11 Whose life lies in spiritual death. It is a cursing ground, fit to bring forth all manner of noxious weeds. As a whole nest of venomous creatures must needs be more dreadful than any few of them that come creeping forth, so the sin of thy nature, that mother of abominations, must be worse than any particular lusts that appear stirring in thy heart and life. Never did every sin appear in the conversation of the vilest wretch that ever lived, but look thou into thy corrupt nature, and there thou mayest see all and every sin, and the seed and root thereof. There is a fullness of all unrighteousness there. Romans 1.29 There is atheism, idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, and whatsoever is vile. Possibly none of these appear to thee in thy heart, but there is more in that unfathomable depths of wickedness than thou knowest. Thy corrupt heart is like an ant's nest, on which, while the stone lieth, none of them appear, but take off the stone and stir them up. But with the point of a straw you will see what a swarm is there, and how lively they are. Just such a sight with thy heart afford thee, did the Lord but withdraw the restraint he has upon it, and suffer Satan to stir it up by temptation. 4. The sin of our nature is, of all sins, the most fixed and abiding. Sinful actions, though the guilt and stain of them may remain, yet in themselves pass away. The drunkard is not always at his cups, nor the unclean person always acting lewdness, but the corruption of nature is an abiding sin. It remains with men in his full power by night and by day, at all times fixed, as with bands of iron or brass, till their nature be changed by converting grace. And it remains even with the godly, until the death of the body, though not in its reigning power. Pride, envy, covetousness, and the like are not always stirring in thee, but the proud, envious, carnal nature is still with thee, even as the clock that is wrong is not always striking wrong, but the wrong set continues with it without intermission. 5. It is a reigning sin. Romans 6.12 Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts thereof. There are these three things which you may observe in the corrupt heart. 1. There is a corrupt nature, the corrupt set of the heart, whereby men are unapt for all good and fitted for all evil. This the apostle calls here sin which reigns. 2. There are particular lusts or dispositions of our corrupt nature, which the apostle calls the lusts thereof, such as pride, covetousness, and so on. 3. There is one among these, which is like Saul among the people, higher by far than the rest, namely the sin which doth so easily beset us. Hebrews 12.1 This we usually call the predominant sin, because it doth, as it were, reign over other particular lusts, so that other lusts must yield to it. These three are like a river which divides itself into many streams, whereof one is greater than the rest. The corruption of nature is a riverhead that has many particular lusts in which it runs, but it chiefly disburdens itself into what is commonly called one's predominant sin. Now all of these, being fed by the sin of our nature, it is evident that it is the reigning sin which never loses its superiority over particular lusts, which live and die with it and by it. But the same channel, so particular predominance may be changed, as lust in youth may be succeeded by covetousness in old age. Now what doth it avail to reform and other things while the reigning sin remains in its full power? What, though some particular lusts be broken, if sin, the sin of our nature, keep the throne, it will set up another in its stead. As when a water-course is stopped in one place, if the fountain is not dammed up, it will stream forth another way. Thus some cast off their prodigality, but covetousness comes up in its stead. Some cast away their profanity, and the corruption of nature sends not its mainstream that way, as before, but it runs in another channel, namely in that of illegal disposition, self-righteousness, or the like. So the people are ruined by their not contemplating the sin of their nature. Lastly, it is a hereditary evil. Psalm 51 5 In sin did my mother conceive me. Particular lusts are not so, but in the virtue of their cause. A prodigal father may have a frugal son, but this disease is necessarily propagated in nature, and therefore hardest to cure. Surely then the word should be given out against this sin as against the King of Israel, 1 Kings 22 31. Fight neither with small nor great, save only with this. For this sin, being broken, all other sins are broken with it. And while it stands entire, there is no victory. How to get a view of the corruption of nature? Section 4 That you may get a view of the corruption of your nature, I would recommend to you three things. 1. Study to know the spirituality and extent of the law of God, for that is a glass wherein you may see yourselves. 2. Observe your heart at all times, but especially under temptation. Temptation is a fire that brings up the scum of the vile heart. Carefully mark the first risings of corruption. Lastly, go to God through Jesus Christ for illumination by His Spirit. Lay out your soul before the Lord as willing to know the vileness of your nature. Say unto Him, That which I know not, teach thou me, and be willing to take in light from the word. Believe, and you shall see. It is by the word the Spirit teaches, but without the Spirit's teaching, all other teaching will be to little purpose. Though the gospel were to shine about you like the sun at noonday, and its great truth ever so plainly preached, you will never see yourselves aright until the Spirit of the Lord lighteth candle within your breast. The fullness and glory of Christ, and the corruption and vileness of our nature, are never rightly learned but where the Spirit of Christ is a teacher. To shut up this weighty point, let the consideration of what has been said come in Christ to you all. You that are brought out of your natural state of corruption, unto Christ be humble. Still coming to Christ, and improving your union with Him, to the further weakening of your natural corruption. Is your nature changed? The day was you could not stir. Now you are cured, but remember the cure is not yet perfected. You still go halting. Though it were better with you than it is, the remembrance of what you were by nature should keep you low. You that are yet in your natural state, take this with you. Believe the corruption of your nature, and let Christ and His grace be precious in your eyes. O that you would at length be serious about the state of your souls. What do you intend to do? You must die. You must appear before the judgment seat of God. Will you lie down and sleep another night at ease in this case? Do it not. For before another day you may be summoned before God's dreadful tribunal in the grave clothes of your corrupt state, and your vile souls cast into the pit of destruction as a corrupt lump, to be forever buried out of God's sight. For I testify unto you all, there is no peace with God, no pardon, no heaven for you in your natural state. There is but a step between you and eternal destruction from the presence of the Lord. If the brittle thread of your life, which may be broken with a touch, ere you are aware, be broken while you are in this state, you are ruined forever without remedy. But come speedily to Jesus Christ. He has cleansed as vile souls as yours, and He will yet cleanse the blood that He has not cleansed. Joel 3.21 Thus far of the sinfulness of man's natural state. Head number two. The misery of man's natural state. We were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Ephesians 2.3 Having shown you the sinfulness of man's natural state, I come now to lay before you the misery of it. A sinful state cannot but be a miserable state. If sin go before, wrath follows of course. Corruption and destruction are so knit together that the Holy Ghost calls destruction even eternal destruction. Corruption. Galatians 6.8 He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, that is, everlasting destruction, as is clear from its being opposed to life everlasting in the following clause. The Apostle, having shown the Ephesians their real state by nature, that they were dead in sins and trespasses, altogether corrupts, tells them in the words of the text, their relative state, namely, that the pit was dug for them, while in that state of corruption, being dead in sins, they were by nature children of wrath, even as others. In the words we have four things. 1. The misery of a natural state. It is a state of wrath, as well as a state of sin. We were, says the Apostle, children of wrath, bound over and liable to the wrath of God, under wrath in some measure, and in wrath bound over to more, even the full measure of it, in hell, where the floods of it go over the prisoners forever. Thus Saul in his wrath, adjudging David to die, 1 Samuel 20, verse 31, and David in his wrath, passing sentence of death against a man in a parable, 2 Samuel 12, 5, says each of them, of his supposed criminal, he shall surely die, or as the words in the first language are, he is a son of death. So the natural man is a child of wrath, a son of death. He is a malefactor, dead, in law, lying in chains of guilt, a criminal held fast in his fetters till the day of execution, which will not fail to come unless a pardon be obtained from his God, who is his judge and opponent too. By that means, indeed, children of wrath may become children of the kingdom. The phrase in the text, however common in the Holy Language, is very significant. And as it is evident that the Apostle calling natural men the children of disobedience, verse 2, means more than that they were disobedient children, for such may the Lord's own children be. So to be children of wrath is more than simply to be liable to or under wrath. Jesus Christ was liable to and under wrath, but I doubt whether we have any warrant to say he was a child of wrath. The phrase seems to intimate that men are, whatever they are in their natural state, under the wrath of God, that they are wholly under wrath. Wrath is, as it were, woven into their very nature and mixes itself with the whole of the man, who is, if I may so speak, a very lump of wrath, a child of hell, as the iron in the fire is all fire. For men naturally are children of wrath, come forth, so to speak, out of the womb of wrath, as Jonah's gourd was the son of a knight, which, we render, came up in a knight, Jonah 4.10, as if it had come out of the womb of the knight. As we read of the womb of the morning, Psalm 1.10, verse 3, And so the birth, following the womb which it came, was soon gone. Thus sparks of fire are called sons of the burning coal, Job 5.7, in the margin of Isaiah 21.10. O my threshing, and the corn, or son, of my floor, threshed in the floor of wrath, and, as it were, brought forth by it. Thus a natural man is a child of wrath, that comes into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones. Psalm 119, verse 18, For though Judas was the only son of perdition among the apostles, yet all men by nature are of the same family. 2. Here is a rise of this misery. Men have it by nature. They owe it to their nature, not to their substance or essence. For that neither is nor was sin, and therefore cannot make them children of wrath. Though for sin it may be under wrath, not to their nature is qualified at man's creation by his Maker, but to their nature is vitiated and corrupted by the fall, to the vicious quality or corruption of their nature is before notice, which is their principle of action, and, ceasing from action, the only principle in an unregenerate state. Now by this nature men are children of wrath, as in time of pestilential infection one draws in death with a disease, then raging. Wherefore, seeing from our first being as children of Adam, we are corrupt children, shaped in iniquity, conceived in sin. We are also from that moment children of wrath. 3. The universality of this misery. All are by nature children of wrath. We, says the apostle, even as others, Jews as well as Gentiles, those that are now by grace the children of God, were by nature in no better case than those that are still in their natural state. Lastly, here is a glorious and happy change intimated. We were children of wrath, but are not so now. Grace has brought us out of that fearful state. This the apostle says of himself and other believers, and thus it well becomes a people of God to be often standing on the shore and looking back to the red sea of the state of wrath which they were weltering in, even as others. 4. Man's natural state is a state of wrath. DOCTRINE The state of nature is a state of wrath. Everyone in a natural, unregenerate state is in a state of wrath. We are born children of wrath, and continue so until we be born again. Nay, as soon as we are children of Adam, we are children of wrath. I shall usher in what I have to say on this point with a few observations, touching the universality of this state of wrath, which may serve to prepare the way for the word into your consciences. Wrath has gone as wide as ever sin went. When angels sinned, the wrath of God broke in upon them as a flood. God spare not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell. 2 Peter 2, 4 It was thereby demonstrated that no natural excellency in the creature can shield it from the wrath of God, if once it become a sinful creature. The finest and nicest piece of the workmanship of heaven, if once the Creator's image be defaced upon it by sin, God can and will dash in pieces in His wrath, unless that affection be made to justice, and that image be restored, neither of which the sinner himself can do. Adam sinned, and the whole lump of mankind was leavened and bound over to the fiery oven of God's wrath. From the text you may learn, number one, that ignorance of that state cannot free men from it. The Gentiles that knew not God were by nature children of wrath, even as others. A man's house may be on fire, his wife and children perishing in the flames, while he knows nothing of it, and therefore is not concerned about it. Such is your case, O ye that are ignorant of these things. Wrath is silently sinking into your souls while you are blessing yourselves, saying, We shall have peace. You need not a more certain token that you are children of wrath than that you never saw yourselves such. You cannot be the children of God that never yet saw yourselves the children of the devil. You cannot be in the way to heaven that never saw yourselves by nature in the high road to hell. You are grossly ignorant of your state by nature, and so ignorant of God and of Christ in your need of him. And though you look on your ignorance as a covert from wrath, yet take it out of the mouth of God himself that it will ruin you if it be not removed. Isaiah 27 11 It is a people of no understanding, therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them. Thessalonians 1 8 Hosea 4 6 2 No outward privileges can exempt men from the state of wrath. For the Jews, the children of the kingdom, God's peculiar people, were children of wrath even as others. Though ye be church members, partakers of all church privileges, though ye be descendants of godly parents of great and honorable families, be what ye will, ye are by nature heirs of hell, children of wrath. 3 No profession, no attainments in a profession of religion, do or can exempt a man from the state of wrath. Paul was one of the strictest sect of the Jewish religion. Acts 26 5 Yet a child of wrath even as others till he was converted. The close hypocrite and the profane are alike as to their state, however different their conversation be, and they will be alike in the fatal end. Psalm 125 5 As for such as turn aside into their crooked ways, the Lord shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity. 4 Young ones that are but setting out into the world have not that to do to make themselves children of wrath. By following the graceless multitude, they are children of wrath by nature, so it is done already. They were born heirs of hell, and they will indeed make themselves more so if they do not, while they are young, flee from that wrath to which they are born, by fleeing to Jesus Christ. Lastly, whatever men are now by grace, they are even as others by nature. This may be a sad meditation to them that have been at ease from their youth and have had no changes. Now these things being premised, I shall in the first place show what the state of wrath is, next confirm the doctrine, and then apply it. 1 I am to show what the state of wrath is, but who can fully describe the wrath of an angry God? None can do it, yet so much of it may be discovered as may serve to convince men of the absolute necessity of fleeing to Jesus Christ out of that state of wrath. Anger in men is a passion and commotion of the spirit for an injury received, with a desire to resent the same. When it comes to a height and is fixed in one spirit, it is called wrath. Now there are no passions in God, properly speaking. They are inconsistent with this absolute unchangeableness and independency. Therefore Paul and Barnabas, to remove the mistake of the Lyconians who thought they were gods, tell them they were men of like passions with themselves. Acts 14, 15 Wrath, when it is attributed to God, must not be considered in respect to the affection of wrath, but the effects thereof. Wrath is a fire in the bowels of man, tormenting the man himself, but there is no perturbation in God. His wrath does not in the least mar that infinite repose and happiness which he has in himself. It is a most pure undisturbed act of his will, producing dreadful effects against the sinner. It is little which we know of the infinite God, but condescending to our weakness, he is pleased to speak of himself to us after the manner of men. Let us therefore notice man's wrath, but remove everything in our consideration of the wrath of God that implies imperfection, and so we may attain to some view of it, however scanty. By this means we are led to take up the wrath of God against the natural man in these three particulars first. There is wrath in the heart of God against him. The Lord approves him not, but is displeased with him. Every natural man lies under the displeasure of God, and that is heavier than mountains of brass. Although he be pleased with himself, and others be pleased with him too, yet God looks down on him displeased. His person is under God's displeasure. Thou hatest all workers of iniquity. A godly man's sin is displeasing to God, yet his person is still accepted in the beloved. But God is angry with the wicked every day. There is a fire of wrath burns continually against him in the heart of God. They are as dogs and swine, most abominable creatures in the sight of God. Though their natural state be gilded over with a shining profession, yet they are abhorred by God. They are to him as smoke in his nose, and lukewarm water to be spewed out of his mouth. Secondly, he is displeased with all they do. It is impossible for them to please him, being unbelievers. He hates their persons, and so has no pleasure in, but is displeased with their best works. He that sacrifices a lamb is as if he cut off a dog's neck, and so on. Their duty as done by them is an abomination to the Lord. And as men turn their back on those with whom they are angry, so the Lord's refusing communion with the natural man in his duties is a plain indication of this wrath. Secondly, there is wrath in the word of God against him. When wrath is in the heart, it seeks a vent by the lips. So God fights against the natural man with the sword of his mouth. The Lord's word never speaks good of him, but always curses and condemns him. Hence it is that when he is awakened, the word read or preached often increases his horror. First, it condemns all his actions, together with his corrupt nature. There is nothing he does, but the law declares it to be sin. It is a rule of perfect obedience from which he always in all things declines, and so it rejects everything he does as sinful. Secondly, it pronounces his doom and denounces God's curse against him. Galatians 3.10 For as many are of the works of the law are under the curse, for it is written, Cursed is everyone that continueeth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. Be he never so well in the world, it pronounces a woe from heaven against him. Isaiah 3.11 The Bible is a quiver filled with arrows of wrath against him, ready to be poured in on his soul. God's threatenings in his word hang over his head as a black cloud ready to shower down on him every moment. The word is indeed the saint's security against wrath, but it binds the natural man's sin and wrath together as a certain pledge of his ruin if he continues in that state. So the conscience being awakened and perceiving this tie made by the law, the man is filled with tears in his soul. Thirdly, there is wrath in the hand of God against the natural man. He is under heavy strokes of wrath already and is liable to more. First, there is wrath on his body. It is a piece of cursed clay which wrath is sinking into by virtue of the threatening of the first covenant. Genesis 2.17 In the days thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. There is never a disease, gripe, nor stitch, that affects him, but it comes on him with the sting of God's indignation in it. They are all cords of death sent before to bind the prisoner. Secondly, there is wrath upon his soul. He can have no communion with God. He is foolish and shall not stand in God's sight. Psalm 5.5 When Adam sinned, God turned him out of paradise. The natural men are as Adam left them, banished from the gracious presence of the Lord and can have no access to him in that state. There is war between heaven and them, and so all commerce is cut off. They are without God in the world. Ephesians 2.12 The sun has gone down on them, and there is not the least glimpse of favor towards them from heaven. Number 2 Hence the soul is left to pine away in its iniquity. The natural darkness of their minds, the averseness to good in their wills, the disorder of their affections, and distemper of their consciences, and all their natural plagues are left upon them in a penal way, and being so left, increase daily. God casts a portion of worldly goods to them, more or less, as a bone is thrown to a dog, but alas, his wrath against them appears in that they get no grace. The physician of souls comes by them and goes by them and cures others on each side of them while they are consuming away in their iniquity and ripening daily for utter destruction. Number 3 They lie open to fearful additional plagues on their souls, even in this life. First, sometimes they meet with deadening strokes, silent blows from the hand of an angry God. Arrows of wrath enter into their souls without noise. Isaiah 6.10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and so on. God strives with them for a while, and convictions enter their consciences, but they rebel against the light, and by a secret judgment they receive a blow on the head. So that from that time they do as it were live and rot above ground. Their hearts are dead, and their affections withered, their consciences stupefied, and their whole souls blasted. Cast forth as a branch and withered. John 15.16 They are plagued with judicial blindness. They shut their eyes against the light, and they are given over to the devil, the God of this world, to be blinded more. 2 Corinthians 4.4 Yea, God sends them strong delusions that they should believe a lie. 2 Thessalonians 2.11 Even conscience, like a false light on the shore, leads them upon rocks by which they are broken in pieces. They harden themselves against God, and He leads them to Satan in their own hearts, whereby they are hardened more and more. They are often given up unto vile affections. Romans 1.26 The reins are laid on their necks, and they left to run into all excess, as their furious lusts draw them. Secondly, sometimes they meet with sharp, fiery strokes, whereby their souls become like Mount Sinai, where nothing is seen but fire and smoke, nothing heard but the thunder of God's wrath, and the voice of the trumpet of a broken law waxing louder and louder, which makes them, like Paschur, Jeremiah 20.4, a terror to themselves. God takes the filthy garments of their sins, which they were wont to sleep in securely, overlays them with brimstone, and sets them on fire about their ears, so they have a hell within them. Thirdly, there is wrath on the natural man's enjoyments. Whatever it be wanting in his house, there is one thing that is never wanting there. Proverbs 3.33 The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked. Wrath is on all that he has, on the bread that he eats, the water he drinks, the clothes which he wears, his basket and store cursed. Deuteronomy 28.17 Some things fall wrong with him, and that comes to pass by virtue of this wrath. Other things go according to his wish, and there is wrath in that too, for it is a snare to his soul. Proverbs 1.32 The prosperity of fools shall destroy them. This wrath turns his blessing into curses. Malachi 2.2 I will curse your blessings, yea, I have cursed them already. The holy law is a killing letter to him. 2 Corinthians 3.6 The ministry of the gospel is favor of death unto death. 2.16 In the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, he eateth and drinketh damnation to himself. 1 Corinthians 11.29 Nay, more than all that, Christ himself is to him a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. 1 Peter 2.8 Thus wrath follows the natural man as his shadow does his body. 4 He is under the power of Satan. Acts 26.18 The devil has overcome him, so he is by conquest his lawful captive. Isaiah 49.24 The natural man is condemned already. John 3.18 And therefore under the heavy hand of him that hath the power of death, that is, the devil. 5 He keeps his prisoners in the prison of a natural state, bound hand and foot, laden with divers lusts, his chains wherewithal he holds them fast. Thou needest not, as many do, call on the devil to take thee, for he has a fast hold of thee already, as a child of wrath. Lastly, the natural man has no security for a moment's safety from the wrath of God coming on him to the uttermost. The curse of the law denounced against him has already tied him to the stake, so that the arrows of justice may pierce his soul, and in him may meet all the miseries and plagues that flow from the avenging wrath of God. See how he is set as a mark to the arrows of wrath. Psalm 7.11-13 God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turn not, he will wet his sword. He hath bent his bow and made it ready. He is also prepared for him the instruments of the death. Doth he lie down to sleep? There is not a promise that he knows of or can know to secure him that he shall not be in hell ere he awake. Justice pursues and cries for vengeance on the sinner. The law casts the fireballs of its curses continually upon him. Wasted and long-tired patience is that which keeps in his life. He walks amidst enemies armed against him. His name may be Magor Mithabib, i.e., terror roundabout. Jeremiah 20-3 Angels, devil, men, beasts, stones, heaven and earth are in readiness on a word of command from the Lord to ruin him. Thus a natural man lives, but he must die too, and death is a dreadful messenger to him. It comes upon him armed with wrath and put three sad charges in his hand. 1. Death charges him to bid an eternal farewell to all things in this world, to leave it and haste away to another world. Ah, what a dreadful charge must this be to a child of wrath! He can have no comfort from heaven, for God is his enemy. As for the things of the world and the enjoyment of his lusts, which were the only springs of his comfort, these are in a moment dried up to him forever. 2. He is not ready for another world. He was not thinking of removing so soon, or if he was, yet he has no portion secured him in another world but that which he was born to, and was increasing all his days, namely a treasure of wrath. But go he must, his clay God the world must be parted with, and what has he more? There was never a glimmering of light or favor from heaven to his soul. The wrath which hung in the threatening as a cloud like a man's hand is darkening the whole heaven above him. If he look unto the earth from whence all his light was wont to come, behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish, and he shall be driven to darkness. Isaiah 8.22 2. Death charges soul and body to part till the great day. His soul is required of him. Luke 12.20 Oh, what a miserable party must this be to a child of wrath! Care was indeed taken to provide for the body things necessary for this life, but alas, there is nothing laid up for another life, nothing to be a seed of a glorious resurrection. As it lived, so it must die, and rise again. Sinful flesh fueled for the fire of God's wrath. As for the soul, he was never solicitous to provide for it. It lay in the body, dead to God and all things truly good, and so must be carried out into the pit, in the grave clothes of its natural state. For now that death comes, the companions of sin must part. 3. Death charges the soul to appear before the tribunal of God, while the body lies to be carried to the grave. Ecclesiastes 12.7 The spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Hebrews 9.27 It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. Well were it for the sinful soul, if it might be buried together with the body, but that cannot be. It must go and receive its sentence, and shall be shut up in the prison of hell, while the cursed body lies imprisoned in the grave, till the day of the general judgment. When the end of the world, as appointed of God, has come, the trumpet shall sound, and the dead arise. And shall the weary earth, at the command of the judge, cast forth the bodies, the cursed bodies of those that lived and died in their natural state. To see death and hell, shall deliver up their dead. Revelation 20.13 Their miserable bodies and souls shall be reunited, and they summoned before the tribunal of Christ. Then shall they receive that fearful sentence, depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. Matthew 25.41 Whereupon they shall go away into everlasting punishment. Verse 46 They shall be eternally shut up in hell, never to get the least drop of comfort, nor the smallest alleviation of their torment. There they will be punished with the punishment of loss, being excommunicated forever from the presence of God as angels and saints. All means of grace, all hopes of delivery, will be forever cut off from their eyes. They shall not have a drop of water to cool their tongues. Luke 16.24-25 They will be punished with the punishment of sins. They must not only depart from God, but depart into fire, into everlasting fire. There the worm that shall gnaw at them will never die. The fire that shall scorch them shall never be quenched. God will through eternity hold them up with one hand, and pour the full vials of wrath into them with the other. This is that state of wrath natural men live in, being under much of the wrath of God and liable to more. But for a further view of it, let us consider the qualities of that wrath. Number one. It is irresistible. There is no standing before it. Who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry? Psalm 76.7 Can the worm or the moth defend themselves against him that decides to crush them? As little can the worm man stand before an angry God. Foolish men indeed practically bid a defiance to heaven. But the Lord often, even in this world, opens such sluices of wrath upon them, as all their might cannot stop. They are carried away thereby as with a flood. Hence much more will it be so in hell. Number two. It is insupportable. What a man cannot resist, he will try to endure. But who shall dwell with devouring fire? Who shall dwell with everlasting burnings? God's wrath is a weight that will sink men into the lowest hell. It is a burden which no man can stand under. A wounded spirit who can bear Proverbs 18.14 Number three. It is unavoidable to such as go on impenitently and die in their sinful course. He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed in that without remedy. Proverbs 29.1 We may now flee from it, indeed by fleeing to Jesus Christ. But such as flee from Christ will never be able to avoid it. Whither can man flee from an avenging God? Where will they find a shelter? The hills will not hear them. The mountains will be deaf to their loudest supplications when they cry to them to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. Number four. It is powerful and fierce wrath. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? Even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. Psalm 90.11 We are apt to fear the wrath of man more than we ought. But no man can apprehend the wrath of God to be more dreadful than it really is. The power of it can never be known to the utmost. For it is infinite, and, properly speaking, has no utmost. How fierce however it be, either on earth or in hell, God can still carry it further. Everything in God is most perfect in His kind, and therefore no wrath is so fierce as this. O sinner, how won't thou be able to endure that wrath which will tear thee in pieces? Psalm 51.22 And grind thee to powder. Luke 20.18 The history of the two she-bears that tear the children of Bethel is an awful one. 2 Kings 2.23-24 But the united force of the rage of lions, leopards, and she-bears bereaved of their whelps is not sufficient to give us even a faint view of the power of the wrath of God. Hosea 13.7-8 Therefore I will be unto them as a lion, as a leopard by the way, will I observe them. I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the call of their heart, and so on. 5. It is penetrating and piercing wrath. It is burning wrath and fiery indignation. There is no pain more exquisite than that which is caused by fire, and no fire so piercing as the fire of God's indignation that burns unto the lowest hell. Deuteronomy 32.22 The arrows of men's wrath can pierce flesh, blood, and bones, but cannot reach the soul. But the wrath of God will sink into the soul and so pierce a man in the most tender part, like as when a person is thunderstruck, oftentimes there is not a wound to be seen in the skin, yet life is gone and the bones are melted, as it were. So God's wrath can penetrate into and melt a man's soul within him, when his earthly comforts stand about him entire and untouched, as in Belshazzar's case. Daniel 5.6 6. It is constant wrath, running parallel with a man's continuance in an unregenerate state, constantly attending him from the womb to the grave. There are a few days so dark, but the sun sometimes looks out from under the clouds, but the wrath of God is an abiding cloud on the objects of it. John 3.36 The wrath of God abideth on him that believeth not. 7. It is eternal. O miserable soul, if thou flee not from this wrath unto Jesus Christ, though thy misery had a beginning, yet it will never have an end. Should devouring death wholly swallow thee up and forever hold thee fast in the grave, it would be kind, but thy body must be reunited to thy immortal soul, and live again, and never die, that thou mayest be ever dying in the hands of the living God. Cold death will quench the flame of man's wrath against us, if nothing else do. But God's wrath, when it is come on the sinner, millions of ages, will still be the wrath to come. Matthew 3.7 1 Thessalonians 1.10 As the water of a river is still coming, how much soever of it is past. While God is, he will pursue the quarrel. 2. Lastly, however dreadful it is, and though it be eternal, yet it is most just wrath, it is a clear fire without the leaf smoke of injustice. 3. The sea of wrath, raging with the greatest fury against the sinner, is clear as crystal. The judge of all the earth can do no wrong. He knows no transports of passion, for they are inconsistent with the perfection of his nature. 4. Is God unrighteous, who taketh vengeance? I speak as a man. God forbid, for then how shall God judge the world? 5. The doctrine of the state of wrath, confirmed and vindicated. Head 2. I shall confirm the doctrine. Consider, 1. How peremptory the threatening of the first covenant is. In the days thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Genesis 2.17 Hereby sin and punishment being connected, the veracity of God's ascertains is the execution of the threatening. Now all men, being by nature under this covenant, the breach of it lays them under the curse. 2. The justice of God requires that a child of sin be a child of wrath, that the law being broken, the sanction thereof should take place. God as man's ruler and judge cannot but do right. Genesis 18.25 Now it is a righteous thing with God to recompense sin with wrath. 2 Thessalonians 1.6 He is of pure eyes, and to behold evil. Habakkuk 1.13 And he hates all the workers of iniquity. Psalm 5.6 3. The whores of a natural conscience prove this. Conscience in the breasts of men tells them that they are sinners and therefore liable to the wrath of God. 4. Let men at any time soberly commune with themselves, and they will find that they have the witness in themselves, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death. Romans 1.32 4. The pains of the new birth, the work of the Spirit on elect souls in order to their conversion, demonstrate this. Hereby their natural sinfulness and misery is liable to the wrath of God, or plainly taught them, filling their hearts with fear for that wrath, as it is the Spirit's work to convince of sin, righteousness, and judgment. John 16.8 This testimony must needs be true, for the Spirit of truth cannot witness an untruth. But true believers, being freed from the state of wrath, receive not the spirit of bondage again to fear, but receive the spirit of adoption. Romans 8.15 Therefore, if fears of that nature do arise after the soul's union with Christ, they come from the saint's own spirit, or from a worse. Lastly, the sufferings of Christ plainly prove this doctrine. Wherefore was the Son of God a son under wrath, but because the children of men were children of wrath. He suffered the wrath of God, not for himself, but for those that were liable to it in their own persons. Nay, this not only shows us to have been liable to wrath, but also that wrath must have a vent in the punishment of sin. If this was done in the green tree, what would become of the dry? What a miserable case must a sinner be in that is out of Christ, that is, not vitally united to Christ and partakers not of his spirit. God, who spared not his own Son, surely will not spare such an one. But the unregenerate man who has no great value for the honor of God will be apt to rise up against his judge and in his own heart condemn his procedure. Nevertheless, a judge, being infinitely just, a sentence must be righteous. Therefore, to stout thy mouth, O proud sinner, and to still thy clamor against thy righteous judge, consider first. Thou art a sinner by nature, and it is highly reasonable that guilt and wrath be as old as sin. Why should not God begin to vindicate his honor as soon as vile worms attempt to impair it? Why shall not a serpent bite a thief as soon as he leaps over the hedge? Why should not the threatening take hold of the sinner as soon as he casts away the command? The poisonous nature of the serpent affords a man sufficient ground to kill it as soon as ever he can reach it. And by this time thou mayest be convinced that thy nature is a very compound of enmity against God. Secondly, thou is not only enmity against God in thy nature, but hast discovered it by actual sins, which are in his eyes acts of hostility. Thou hast brought forth thy lusts into the field of battle against thy sovereign Lord. And because thou art such a criminal, thy condemnation is just. For besides the sin of thy nature, thou hast done that against heaven, which if thou hadst done against man, thy life must have gone for it. And shall not wrath from heaven overtake thee? Number one. Thou art guilty of high treason and rebellion against the King of heaven. The thought and wish of thy heart, which he knows as well as the language of thy mouth, has been, Know God. Psalm 14, 1. Thou hast rejected his government, blown the trumpet, and set up the standard of rebellion against him, being one of those that say, We will not have this man to reign over us. Luke 19, 14. Thou hast driven against and quenched his spirit, practically disowned his laws, proclaimed by his messengers, stopped thine ears at their voice, and sent them away mourning for thy pride. Thou hast conspired with his grand enemy, the devil. Although thou art a servant of the King of glory, daily receiving of his favors and living on his bounty, thou art holding a correspondence and hast contracted a friendship with his greatest enemy, and art acting for him against thy Lord. For the lust of the devil ye will do. John 8, 44. Number 2. You are a murderer before the Lord. You have laid the stumbling block of your iniquity before the blind world and have ruined the souls of others by your sinful course. Though you do not see it now, the time may come when you shall see the blood of your relations, neighbors, acquaintances, and others upon your head. Matthew 18, 7. Woe unto the world because of offenses. Woe to that man by whom the offense cometh. Yea, you are a self-murderer before God. Proverbs 8, 36. He that sins against me wrongs his own soul. All that hate me love death. Ezekiel 18, 31. Why will you die? The laws of men go as far as they can against the self-murderer, denying his body a burial place with others and confiscating his goods. What wonder is it that the law of God is so severe against soul murderers. Is it strange that they who will needs depart from God? Now, cost what it will, should be forced to depart from Him at last into everlasting fire. But what is yet more criminal? You are guilty of the murder of the Son of God, for the Lord will reckon you amongst those that pierced Him. Revelation 1, 7. You have rejected Him as the Jews did, and by your rejecting Him you have justified their deed. They indeed did not acknowledge Him to be the Son of God, but you do. What they did against Him was in His state of humiliation, but you have acted against Him in a state of exaltation. These things will aggravate your condemnation. What wonder, then, if the voice of the Lamb changed to the roaring of the lion against the traitor and murderer? Objection. But some will say, Is there not a vast disproportion between our sin and that wrath you talk of? I answer, No. God punishes no more than the sinner deserves. To rectify your mistake in this matter, consider, number one, the vast rewards which God has annexed to obedience. His word is no more full of fiery wrath against sin than it is of gracious rewards to the obedience it requires. If heaven be in the promises, it is altogether equal that hell be in the threatenings. If death were not in the balance with life, eternal misery with eternal happiness where were the proportion? Moreover, sin deserves a misery, but our best works do not deserve the happiness, yet both are set before us, sin and misery, holiness, and happiness. What reason is there, then, to complain? Number two, How severe soever the threatenings be, yet all have enough to do to reach the end of the law. Fear him, says our Lord, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell. Yea, I say unto you, fear him. Luke 12, 5 This bespeaks our dread of divine power and majesty, yet how few fear him indeed. The Lord knows the hearts of sinners to be exceedingly intent upon fulfilling their lusts. They cleave so fondly to these fulsome breasts that a small force does not suffice to draw them away from them. They that travel through deserts where they are in a hazard from wild beasts have need to carry fire along with them, and they have need of a hard wedge that hath knotty timber to cleave. So a holy law must be fenced with dreadful wrath and a world lying in wickedness. But who are they that complain of that wrath as too great, but those to whom it is too little to draw them off from their sinful courses? It was a man who pretended to fear his Lord because he was an austere man, that kept his pound laid up in a napkin, and so he was condemned out of his own mouth. Luke 19, 20-22 Thou art that man, even thou whose objection I am answering. How can the wrath which you are under and liable to be too great when as yet it is not sufficient to awaken you to flee from it? Is it time to relax the penalties of the law when men are trampling the commands of it underfoot? 3. Consider how God dealt with his own son when he spared him not. Romans 8, 32 The wrath of God seized on his soul and body both, and brought him into the dust of death. That his sufferings were not eternal flowed from the quality of the sufferer who was infinite, and therefore able to bear at once the whole load of wrath. And upon that account his sufferings were infinite in value. But as the sufferings of a mere creature cannot be infinite in value, they must be protracted to an eternity. And what confidence can a rebel subject have to quarrel on his part with the punishment executed on the king's son? 4. The sinner does against God what he can. Behold, you have done evil things that you have done no more and worth thanks to him who restrained you to the chain which the wolf was kept in by, not to yourself. No wonder that God shows his power on the sinner who puts forth his power against God as far as it will reach. The unregenerate man puts no period to his sinful course and would put no bounds to it either if he were not restrained by divine power for wise ends. Therefore, it is just that he be forever under wrath. 5. It is infinite majesty which sin strikes against and so it is in some sort an infinite evil. Sin rises in its demerit according to the quality of the party offended. If a man wound his neighbor, his goods must go for it. But if he wound his prince, his life must go for that. The infinity of God makes infinite wrath a just demerit of sin. God is infinitely displeased with sin and when he acts, he must act like himself and show his displeasure by proportionable means. Lastly, those that shall lie forever under this wrath will be eternally sinning and therefore must eternally suffer, not only in respect of divine judicial procedure, but because sin is its own punishment in the same manner as holy obedience is its own reward. The doctrine of the misery of man's natural state applied. Use one of information. Is our state by nature a state of wrath? Then, number one, surely we are not born innocent. Those chains of wrath which by nature are upon us show us to be born criminals. The swaddling bands wherewith infants are bound, hand and foot, as soon as they are born, may put us in the minds of the cords of wrath with which they are held prisoners as children of wrath. Number two, what desperate madness is it for sinners to go on in their sinful course? What is it but to heap coals of fire on thine own head, to lay more and more fuel to the fire of wrath, to treasure up unto thyself wrath against a day of wrath ? You may have no reason to complain as long as you are out of hell. Wherefore, doth a living man complain, Lamentation 3 39. If one who has forfeited his life be banished from his country and exposed to many hardships, he may well bear all patiently seeing his life is spared. Do you murmur because you are under pain and sickness? Nay, bless God, you are not there where the worm never dies. Dost thou grudge that thou art not in so good a condition in the world as some of your neighbors are? Be thankful, rather, that you are not in the case of the damned. Is your substance gone from you? Wonder that the fire of God's wrath has not consumed you. Kiss the rod, O sinner, and acknowledge mercy, for God punishes us less than our iniquities deserve. Ezra 9.13 4. Here is a memorandum both for poor and rich. The poorest of the poor and the and the poor and the poor and the poor and the poor and the poor and the and the and the and the poor and the and the poor and the poor and the poor and the poor as 1915, will pervert judgment for you. Nay, know for certain that however miserable you are here, you shall be eternally miserable hereafter, if you live and die in your natural state. 2. Many that have enough in the world have far more than they know of. You have, it may be, O unregenerate man, in a state, a good portion, a large stock, left you by your father. However, you hadst improved it, and the sun of prosperity shines upon you, so that you can say with thee, Saw, Genesis 33 9, I have enough. But know you have more than all that an inheritance was you do not think of, thou art a child of wrath and heir of hell. That is an heritage which will abide with thee amidst all the changes in the world, as long as you continue in an unregenerate state. When you shall leave your substance to others, this shall go along with you into another world. It is no wonder a slaughter-ox is fed to the full, and is not toiled as others are. Job 21 30, The wicked is reserved to the day of destruction, and they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath. Well then, rejoice, let your heart cheer thee, walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes, live above reproofs and warnings from the word of God. Show yourself a man of fine spirit by casting off all fear of God, mock its seriousness, live like yourself a child of wrath and heir of hell. But know you that for all these things God will bring you into judgment, Ecclesiastes 11 9. Assure yourself your breaking shall come suddenly at an instant, Isaiah 30 13. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of a fool, Ecclesiastes 7 6. The fair blaze and the great noise which they make is quickly gone, so shall your mirth be. Then that wrath that is now silently sinking into your soul shall make a fearful hissing. 3. Woe to him that, like Moab, has been at ease from his youth, Jeremiah 48 11. And ever saw the black cloud of wrath hanging over his head. There are many who have no changes, therefore they fear not God. Psalm 55 19. They have lived in a good belief, as they call it all their days. That is, they never had power to believe in any report of their soul's state. Many have come by their religion too easily, and as it came lightly to them, so it will go from them when the trial comes. Do you think men flee from wrath in a morning dream? Or will they flee from the wrath they never saw pursuing them? 6. Think it not strange if you see one in great distress about his soul condition, who is wont to be as jovial and as little concerned for salvation as any of his neighbors. Can anyone get a right view of himself as in a state of wrath, and not be pierced with sorrows, tears, and anxiety? When a weight quite above a man's strength lies upon him, and he is alone, he can neither stir hand nor foot. But when one comes to lift it off him, he will struggle to get off from under it. Thunderclaps of wrath from the word of God conveyed to the soul by the Spirit of the Lord will surely keep a man awake. Lastly, it is no wonder that wrath comes upon churches and nations and upon us in this land, and that infants and children yet unborn smart under it. Most of the society are yet children of wrath. Few are fleeing from it or taking the way to prevent it, but people of all ranks are helping it on. The Jews rejected Christ, and their children have been smarting under wrath these sixteen hundred years. God grant that the bad entertainment given to Christ in his gospel by this generation be not pursued with wrath on the succeeding one. Use Number Two of Exhortation Here first I shall drop a word to those who are yet in an unregenerate state, two, to those that are brought out of it, three, to all indifferently. To you that are in an unregenerate state, I would sound the alarm and warn you to see yourselves while there is yet hope. O you children of wrath, take no rest in this dismal state, but fly to Christ, the only refuge. Haste and make your escape there. The state of wrath is too hot a climate for you to live in. Micah 2.10 Arise ye and depart, for this is not your rest. O sinner, do you know where you are? Do you not see the danger? The curse has entered into your soul. Wrath is your covering. The heavens are growing blacker and blacker above your head. The earth is weary of you. The pit is opening her mouth for you. And should the threat of your life be cut this moment, you are henceforth passed all hope forever. Sirs if we saw you putting a cup of poison to your mouth, we should fly to you and snatch it out of your hands. If we saw the house on fire about you while you were fast asleep in it, we would run to you and drag you out of it. But alas, you are ten thousand times in a greater hazard, yet we can do no more to tell you your danger, invite, exhort, and beseech you to look to yourselves and lament your stupidity and obstinacy when we cannot prevail with you to take warning. If there were no hope of your recovery, we should be silent and would not torment you before the time. But though you be lost and undone, there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. Wherefore I cry unto you in the name of the Lord and in the words of the prophet Zechariah 9.12. Turn ye to the strong cold, you prisoners of hope. Flee to Jesus Christ out of this your natural state. Motive 1 While you were in this state, you must stand or fall according to the law or covenant of works. If you understood this aright, it would strike through your hearts as a thousand darts. One had better be a slave to the Turks, condemned to the galleys, or under Egyptian bondage and be under the covenant of works now. All mankind were brought under it in Adam, as we heard before. And you in your unregenerate state are still where Adam left you. It is true there is another covenant brought in, but what is that to you who are not brought into it? You must needs be under one of the two covenants, either under the law or under grace. That you are not under grace, the dominion of sin over you manifestly evinces. Therefore you are under the law. Romans 6.14 Do you think God has laid aside the first covenant in Matthew 5.17 and 18, Galatians 3.10? No he will magnify the law and make it honorable. It is broken indeed on your part, but it is absurd to think that therefore your obligation is dissolved. Nay, you must stand and fall by it till you can produce your discharge from God himself, who is a party in that covenant. In this you cannot pretend to, seeing that you are not in Christ. Now to give you a view of your misery in this respect, consider these following things. 1. Hereby you are bound over to death in virtue of the threatening of death in the covenant, Genesis 2.17. The condition being broken, you fall under the penalty, so it concludes you under wrath. 2. There is no salvation for you under this covenant but on a condition impossible to be performed by you. The justice of God must be satisfied for the wrong which you have already done. God has written his truth in characters of the blood of his own Son. 3. Yea, and you must perfectly obey the law for the time to come, so saith the law, Galatians 3.12. The man that doth them shall live in them. Come then, O sinner, see if you can make a ladder whereby you may reach the throne of God. Stretch forth your arms and try if you can fly on the wings of the wind. Catch hold of the clouds and peer through these visible heavens, and either climb over or break through the jasper walls of the city above. These things you may as well do, as be able to reach heaven in your natural state or under this covenant. 3. There is no pardon under this covenant. Pardon is the benefit of another covenant which you have nothing to do, Acts 13.39. By him all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses. 4. As for you, you are in the hand of a merciless creditor, who will take you by the throat, saying, Pay what you owe, and cast you into prison there to remain till you have paid the utmost farthing. Unless you be wise as to get a surety in time, who is able to answer for all your debt and get up your discharge? This Jesus Christ alone can do. You abide under this covenant and plead mercy, but what is your plea founded on? 5. There is not one promise of mercy or pardon in that covenant. Do you plead mercy for mercy's sake? Justice will step in between it and thee, and plead God's covenant, threatening which he cannot deny. 4. There is no place for repentance in this covenant, so that the sinner can be helped by it. For as soon as ever you sin, the law lays its curse on you, which is a dead weight you can by no means throw off. 5. No, not though your head were waters, and your eyes a fountain of tears, to weep day and night for your sin. That is, what the law cannot do, in that it was weak through the flesh, Romans 8.3. You are another profane Esau that has sold your blessing, and therefore there is no place for repentance, though you seek it carefully with tears while under that covenant. 5. There is no acceptance of the will for the deed under this covenant, which was not made for good will, but good words. The mistake in this point ruins many. They are not in Christ, but stand under the first covenant, and yet they plead this privilege. 6. This is just like a man's having made a feast for those of his own family, and when they sit down a table, another man's servant, that has run away from his master, presumptuously comes forward and sits down among them. Would not the master of the feast give such a stranger that check? 7. Friend, how came thou in here? And since he is none of his family, command him to be gone quickly. Though a master accept the good will of his own child for the deed, can a hired servant expect that privilege? 6. You have nothing to do with Christ while under that covenant. By the law of God, a woman cannot be married to two husbands at once. Either death or divorce must dissolve the first marriage, or she can marry another. So we must first be dead to the law, or we can be married to Christ, Romans 7.4. 7. The law is a first husband. Jesus Christ, who raises the dead, marries a widow that was heartbroken and slain by the first husband. 8. But while the soul is in the house with the first husband, it cannot plead a marriage relation to Christ, nor the benefits of a marriage covenant, which it has not yet entered into. Galatians 5.4. 9. Christ is become of no effect to you, whosoever of you are justified by the law, you are fallen from grace. 10. Peace, pardon, and such like benefits, all are benefits of the covenant of grace. You must not think to stand off from Christ and the marriage covenant with him, and yet plead these benefits. Any more than one man's wife can plead the benefit of a contract of marriage passed between another man and his wife. 11. Lastly, see the bill of exclusion passed in the court of heaven against all under the covenant of works. Galatians 4.30. 12. The son of a bondwoman shall not be heir. Compare verse 24. 13. Heirs of wrath must not be heirs of glory. Whom the first covenant has power to exclude out of heaven, the second covenant cannot bring into it. Objection. 14. Then it is impossible for us to be saved. Answer. 15. It is so while you are in that state. But if you would be out of that dreadful condition, hasten out of that state. If a murderer be under sentence of death, so long as he lives within the kingdom, the laws will reach his life. But if he can make his escape and get over the sea into the dominions of another prince, our laws cannot reach him there. This is what we would have you to do. Flee out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son, out of the dominion of the law into the dominion of grace, and all the curses of the law or covenant of works shall never be able to reach you. Motive 2. O you children of wrath, your state is wretched, for you have lost God, and that is an unspeakable loss. You are without God in the world. Ephesians 2.12. Whatever you may call yours, you cannot call God yours. If we look to the earth, perhaps you can tell us that land, that house, or that herd of cattle is yours. But let us look upward to heaven. Is that God, that grace, that glory yours? Truly you have neither part nor lot in this manner. When Nebuchadnezzar talks of cities and kingdoms, O how big does he speak! Great Babylon that I have built, my power, my majesty! But he tells a poor tale when he comes to speak of God, saying, Your God, Daniel 2.47 and 4.30. Alas, sinner, whatever you have, God is gone from you. O the misery of a godless soul! Have you lost God? Then first, the sap and substance of all you have in the world is gone. The godless man have what he will is one that has not. Matthew 25.29 I defy the unregenerate man to attain to soul satisfaction whatever he possesses since God is not his God. All his days he eats in darkness. In every condition there is a secret dissatisfaction that haunts his heart like a ghost. The soul wants something, though perhaps it knows not what. And so it will always be till the soul return to God, the fountain of satisfaction. 2. Thou canst do nothing of purpose for thyself, for God is gone, his soul is departed from you. Jeremiah 6.8 Like a leg out of joint hanging by, whereof a man has no use, is a word there used doth bear. Losing God you have lost the fountain of good, and so all grace, all goodness, all the saving influences of a spirit. What can you do then? What fruit can you bring forth, more than a branch cut off from the stalk? John 15.5 You art become unprofitable. Romans 3.12 The filthy rotten thing fit only for the dunghill. 3. Death has come up into your windows, yea, and has settled on your face. For God, in whose favor is life, Psalm 30 verse 5, is gone from you, and so the life of your soul is departed. What a loathsome lump is your body when the soul is gone! Far more loathsome is the soul in this case. You are dead while you live. Do not deny it, seeing your speech is gone. Your eyes close in all spiritual motion, and you ceased. Your true friends who see your case lament, because you are gone into the land of silence. 4. You have not a steady friend among all the creatures of God. For now that you have lost a master's favor, all the family is set against you. Conscience is thine enemy. The word never speaks good of you. God's people loathe you, so far as they see what you are. Psalm 15, 4 The beasts and stones of the field are banded together against you. Job 5, 23, Hosea 2, 18 Your meat, drink, and clothes grudge to be serviceable to the wretch that has lost God, and abuses him to his dishonor. The earth groans under you. Yea, the whole creation groaneth and travelleth in pain together because of you, and such as you are. Romans 8, 22 Heaven will have nothing to do with you, for there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth. Revelation 21, 27 Only hell from beneath is moved for you, to meet you at your coming. Isaiah 14, 9 Lastly, your hell is begun already. What makes hell but exclusion from the presence of God? Depart from me, you cursed. You are gone from God already with the curse upon you. That which is now your choice shall be your punishment at length if you turn not. As a gracious state is a state of glory in the bud, so a graceless state is hell in the bud, which if it continue will come at length to perfection. Now I shall drop a few words to the saints. First, remember that at that time, namely, when you were in your natural state, you were without Christ, having no hope and without God in the world. Call to mind a state you were in formerly, and review the misery of it. There are five memorandums, which I may thence give in to the whole assembly of the saints, who are no more children of wrath, but heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, though as yet in their minority. Number one, remember that in the day our Lord first took you by the hand, you were in no better condition than others. What moved him to take you when he passed by your neighbors? He found you children of wrath, even as others, but he did not leave you. He came into the common prison, where you lay in your fetters, even as others. And from among the multitude of condemned malefactors, he picked you out, commanded your fetters to be taken off, put a pardon in your hand, and brought you into the glorious liberty of the children of God, while he left others in the devil's fetters. Number two, remember there was nothing in you to engage him to love you, in the day he first appeared for your deliverance. You were children of wrath, even as others, fit for hell, and altogether unfit for heaven. Yet the king brought you into the palace. The king's son made love to you, a condemned criminal, and espoused you to himself on the day in which you might have been led forth to execution. Even so, father foresaw it seeing good in thy sight. Matthew 11, 26 Number three, remember you were fitter to be loathed than loved in that day. Wonder that when he saw you in your blood, he looked not at you with abhorrence and passed by. Wonder that ever such a time could be a time of love. Ezekiel 16, 8 Number four, remember you were decked with borrowed feathers. It is his comeliness which is upon you. Verse 14, it was he that took off your prison garments and clothed you with robes of righteousness, garments of salvation, garments wherewith you are arrayed as the lilies, which toil not, neither do they spin. He took the chains from off your arms, the rope from about your neck, put you in such a dress as you might be fit for the court of heaven, even to eat at the king's table. Number five, remember your falsest day as Pharaoh's butler, who had forgotten Joseph. Mind how you have forgotten and how unkindly you have treated him, who remembered you in your lowest state. Is this your kindness to your friend? In the day of your deliverance did you think you could thus have requited him, your lord? Secondly, pity the children of wrath, a world that lies in wickedness. Can you be concerned for them, you who were once in the same condition? You have got ashore, indeed, but your companions are yet in hazard of perishing, and will not you afford them all possible help for their deliverance, what they are you sometimes were? This may draw pity from you and engage you to use all means for their recovery. See Titus 3, 1-3. Thirdly, admire your matchless love which brought you out of the state of wrath. Christ's love was active love. He brought thy soul from the pit of corruption. It was no easy work to purchase the life of the condemned sinner, but he gave his life for thy life. He gave his precious blood that quenched the flame of wrath which otherwise would have consumed you. Men get the best view of the stars from the bottom of a deep pit. From this pit of misery into which you were cast by the fall of the first Adam, you may get the best view of the Son of Righteousness in all his dimensions. He is the second Adam who took you out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay. How broad were the skirts of that love which covered such a multitude of sins! Behold the length of it, reaching from everlasting to everlasting. Psalm 103, 17. The depth of it, going so low as to deliver you from the lowest hell. Psalm 86, 13. The height of it, raising you up to sit in heavenly places. Ephesians 2, 6. Fourthly, be humble, carry low cells, walk softly all your years. Be not proud of your gifts, graces, privileges, or attainments, but remember you were children of wrath even as others. The peacock walks slowly, hangs down his starry feathers while he looks to his black feet. Look ye to the hole of the pit whence you were digged, and walk humbly as it becomes free graces, debtors. Lastly, be holy for your Lord. Every wife is obliged to be dutiful to her husband, but double ties lie upon her who is taken from a prison or a dunghill. If your Lord has delivered you from wrath, you ought on that very account to be holy his, to act for him, to suffer for him, and to do whatever he calls you to. The saints have no reason to complain of their lot in the world, whatever it be. Well may they bear the cross for him by whom the curse was borne away from them. Well may they bear the wrath of men in his cause who has freed them from the wrath of God, and cheerfully go to a fire for him by whom hell fire is quenched as to them. Soul and body and all that you have in the world were sometimes under wrath. He has removed that wrath. Shall not all these be at his service? That thy soul is not overwhelmed with the wrath of God is owing purely to Jesus Christ, and shall it not then be a temple for his Spirit? That your heart is not filled with horror and despair is owing to him only. To whom then should it be devoted but to him alone? That thine eyes are not blinded with the smoke of the pit, thy hands are not fettered with chains of darkness, thy tongue is not broiling in the fire of hell, and thy feet are not standing in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, is owing purely to Jesus Christ. And shall not these eyes be employed for him, these hands act for him, this tongue speak for him, and these feet speedily run his errands? To him who believes that he was a child of wrath, even as others, but is now delivered by the blessed Jesus, nothing will appear too much to do or suffer for his Deliverer when he was a fair call to it. Section 3 To Conclude with the Word to All Let no man think lightly of sin, which lays the sinner open to the wrath of God. Let not the sin of our nature, which wreathes the yoke of God's wrath so early about our necks, seem a small thing in our eyes. Fear the Lord because of his dreadful wrath. Tremble at the thoughts of sin against which God has such fiery indignation. Look on his wrath and stand in awe and sin not. Do you think this is to press you to slavish fear? If it were so, one had better be a slave to God with a trembling heart than a free man to the devil, with a seared conscience and a heart of adamant. But it is not so. You may love him and thus fear him too, yet you ought to do it, though you were saints of the first magnitude. Although you have passed the gulf of wrath being in Jesus Christ, yet it is but reasonable that your heart should shiver when you look back to it. Your sin still deserves wrath, even as the sins of others, and it would be terrible to be in a fiery furnace, although by a miracle we were so fenced against it, is that it could not harm us.