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bestow great compliments upon him. This is to SER M. add scorn to his ruin, and is only infulting over the wretchedness and calamity of the man's condition. And yet this is the course of them that go about to perfuade man, that although the cafe is thus with him, he can recover his own excellence that he hath loft; that he can anew create himself, or repair the ruins of his decayed and shattered state. This is the way to add incurableness to his mifery, by tempting him to neglect the only means of taking it off, and fo make him miferable without remedy. But that perfons out of a deep concern for the honour and glory of man as the top of the creation, should go about to make him believe himself now in an honourable state, and that he can even now do great things; how unfuitable and infignificant is this, as well as inconfiftent with truth! And again we

3. INFER hence, that man is moft especially prejudiced and impaired by his lapfe or fall, in respect to his difpofition and inclinations towards GOD. The wound is principally in his mind, and confifts in the depreffion and enfeebling of its powers; but the mind itself is most especially hurt and impaired in respect of those inclinations by which it fhould be guided towards GOD. For in the ftate in which he is at present he is indisposed to the love of God; and for this mean reason, because he cannot fee him. And that he is not able to love what he cannot fee, fhews him to be a very mean abject creature,

and

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VOL. and that his powers are mightily impaired. Surely the time was, that he could have loved what he could not have feen with his bodily eye; and how comes it to pafs that because he cannot fee Go D, therefore he cannot love him? This fhews that his mind is impaired, that he is hurt chiefly in what refpects his Creator; and that his propenfity, the bent and bias of his spirit towards GoD is loft.

So

THIS is the fad and difinal thing that is befallen the nature of man, becaufe GOD is far beyond the reach of his fight, and he himself is funk into flesh, loft in earth, and always impofed upon by fenfe, he cannot see him, cannot lift up the dull heavy eye of his mind to his GOD, which is the eye he must be seen with by his creatures. that, as the Apostle Paul expreffes it, he is become alienated from the life of GOD, and without GOD in the worlds. And how much is this to be lamented, that man is fo fallen off from GOD! that his original propensity to him is loft and dropped from his nature! If we had heard but of one man fince the creation of the world with whom this was the cafe, it would deferve to be very much lamented. But that this fhould come upon the whole kind, that it fhould be thus, as I may speak, with the whole race of men; methinks the fenfe of it should never wear off from our hearts. Strange! that it should be the course and fashion of this world all over the earth, to live in an oblivion of him that made us, and with hearts devoid of his love, and only because

* Eph. 11. 12.

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because he is fo excellent as not to be seen by us SER M. with the bodily eye! It was reckoned a fad and terrible day, when a tribe was cut off from Ifrael; but if we confider what man was made for, what was the defign and end of his creation, we fee as it were a whole race of beings loft from the creation of GOD. For what can we think man was made for but to love, admire, triumph, and glory in his great Maker? But to all this he is loft, and abstracting what is done in order to the recovering him again, it had been as well if there had been no men at all, and for themfelves unspeakably better. How ftrange then is it, that fuch a matter as this is fhould ever escape our thoughts! If we speak of the corruption and depravedness of human nature, they are words of course that drop from us now and then, and fome flight notions of the matter hover in our minds; but how few are there to whom it is a familiar thing to roll themselves in the dust before the LORD, in the sense of that vile and abject state, which man in common now is in? How few lament that they are by the fall cut off from GOD; and spoiled as to all their capacities, whereby they were fuited to the divine love, fervice, and communion! And yet the most tragical calamities that could poffibly have fallen out in the world, or of which we could form any imagination, had been nothing in comparison of this. Nay if all mankind, as to fhape, or impoffibility of external injoyments, were the most monstrous and moft miferable crea tures living, it were nothing when compared to

the

VOL. the mischief and mifery, which are the fruits of man's apoftacy from his Maker.

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WE further infer hence, that man upon all thefe accounts, muft neceffarily be at a very great distance from true bleffedness. Whoever underftands, or confiders the connexion between bleffedness and love,will foon perceive the reasonablenefs of this inference. It is impoffible to be bleffed without love; and it is neceffary to every one's fatisfaction, that it be a full and sufficient good that is the object of his love. If either of thefe be wanting, it is impoffible it should be fatisfying, or a fuitable good to me. Or if on the other hand, there be a good never so self-sufficient or all-fufficient, yet if I cannot love it, if my heart is averfe to it, this alfo is a fufficient bar to my happiness. The things that are feen, though a man love them never fo much, can never satisfy, because they are not fufficient. The infinite incomprehended good is all-fufficient, and fit for every purpose; but this cannot make him happy, because he doth not love it. In the creature therefore man cannot be happy, in GoD he will not. He cannot in the creature, because that hath not in it felf to give; in GoD he will not, because his heart is difinclined to him, and will not be brought to a closure with him by love.

CONSIDER man according to this state of his cafe, and you must look upon him as one, who by his very constitution and present temper of his -foul, is formed for mifery;' I fay fo long as he continues in his prefent fituation. His heart in

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clines him truly to vifible things, and to love the SER M. objects of fenfe, which can never make him happy. The good that is unfeen hath enough in it to make him bleffed, but then he will not love it. He will not apply himself to love God, merely because he is out of fight. You must needs think then that it is a great thing that must work the cure of man, who is thus involved in fo great an abyfs of depravedness and mifery. And therefore I must add,

5. THAT there is a very great neceffity of much Gospel-preaching in order to perfuade men to the love of GOD. For what is the defign of the Gospel, but to render GoD amiable to men? What is it but a method of rendering GOD lovely, and of restoring men's love to GOD? And fince his loveliness is not the object of fight, there needs. fuch a fupplemental representation of himself, to supply the want of vifion. And fince the things that court our fenfes are obvious, and occur to us every day, yea every hour of the day, it is needful that we should be frequently put in mind of GOD; and that those discoveries of him which tend to beget the love of him in our hearts, should be very much urged and inculcated upon us. For otherwise what shall countervail fenfe, or what shall we fet against the fight of our own eyes? No man bath feen GOD, at any time"; what is it then that must supply that defect, and be in the ftead of the fight of God to us? Why, the only begotten Son of God, be bath declared him. So that we have now a revelation of GOD himself. And our Lord Jefus

VOL. I.

E

Chrift,

John 1. 18.

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