5. Information. Hence we see the root of all sin in the world. What is the reason men row against the stream of their own consciences? What is the reason men of sublimated reason, and clear natural wisdom, are voluntary slaves to their own lusts, which they serve with as delightful, as disgraceful a drudgery against the light of their own minds? It is from this contrariety to God, seated in their very nature, they could never else so earnestly, so chearfully do the devil's work before God's. They could never else be deaf to the loud voice of God, and have their ears open to the least whisper of Satan. Whence proceeds our stupidity, the folly of our thoughts, the levity of our minds, the deadness of our affections, the sleepiness of our souls, our inexcusable carelessness in holy duties, more than any thing of a temporal concern, but from this aversion from God! It is this enmity dulls our heart in any service. Though conscience which is in us, to keep up the interest of God's law, spurs us on to duty, yet sin that is within -us, that keeps up the quarrel against heaven, hinders -us from it, or diverts us in it..

5. 6. Information... Hence follows the necessity of regeneration. This division between God and his creature will not admit of any union without a change of nature. The carnal mind, as such, can never be reconciled to God before this be wrought. The old frame must be demolished, and a new one reared; for a change of state cannot be without a change of nature. It is impossible that this nature, so corrupt and contrary, can ever be reconciled to the pure and holy nature of God; what communion hath light with darkness? We must be God's friends, before we can be sin's enemies; the root of bitterness must be taken away, habitual corruption removed, the heart will never else stand right as a compass towards heaven. Who can ever fight against his nature? No man will ever resist the devil without a change; we cannot without the rooting out this enmity, make a profitable

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approach to God. What expectation canst thou have of a good look from him, when thou comest to him with all thy natural hatred of him? How canst thou dare to come to him, who knows every circumstance of thy enmity better than thou dost thy name, and is so well acquainted with thy heart? What hopes can you have of any answer from him? If we bring our wickednesses with us to Gilgal, the place of worship, even there in the solemnest duties will God hate us, All their wickedness is in Gilgal, for there I hated them. Hos. 9. 15. If the mind be filled with hostile principles against the purity of God's commands, it must be inexperienced and inactive to every work; To every good work reprobate. Tit. 1. ult. If the head be sick, needs must the heart be faint. If the counselling-faculty be false, cursed must be all its

advice.

7. Information. That is not grace which does not alter nature. Morality therefore is not grace, because it doth not change nature; if it did, many of the heathens were as near to God as the best of christians; whatsoever may be done by the strength of nature, cannot alter it: for no nature can change itself. Poison may be great within the skin, like to a viper's, be we never so speckled with a reformation. Freedom from gross sins argues not a friendship to God. None were so great enemies to Christ as the pharisees, to whom Christ gives no better a title, than that of the devil's children, and charges them with the hatred both of himself and his Father, John 15. 24. The enmity may be the greater under a zealous and devout morality. The poor publicans crowded in to Christ, while the self-righteous Jews derided him, and rejected the counsel of God, and put the word of God from them. Luke 7. 30. Acts 13. 46. It is a foolish thing for men to boast of their own heart, or outward conformity; thou canst not tell how soon that heart thou boastest of, may boil out its enmity. The plant which is pleasant to the eye, may be poison to the

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stomach. Boast not therefore of thy glossy morality, thy checquered skin, so long as there is a venom in thy nature. Whatsoever excellencies a natural man has, are all tainted with this poison, his wisdom, learning, moral virtue, and are rather aggravations than excuses.

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8. Information. Hence follows the necessity of applying to Christ. As there is a necessity of a change of nature in us, because our enmity to God is a moral enmity; so there is a necessity of a compensation and satisfaction to God for the preservation of God's honour, because it is an unjust enmity, not rising from any injury that ever God did to us; and because his enmity to us, provoked by our disaffection to him, is a legal enmity, his law violated must be satisfied. Our enmity is unjust, and therefore must be parted with; God's enmity against us is just, and therefore must be removed by a satisfaction. And since we are unable to give God a compensation for our wrongs, we must have recourse by faith to that blood which hath given him a compleat satisfaction. It is Christ only that satisfies God for us, by the shedding of his blood, and removes our enmity by the operation of his Spirit.

9. Information. See hence the reason of the difficulty of conversion, and the little success the gospel hath. All the words in the world will not change nature; men strive against the Spirit, and will not come under the power of it if they might have their own will. Can you by exhortations ever reconcile a wolf and a lamb? Can you by rational arguments newmould the nature of a fierce lion, or by moral discourses stop the tide of the sea? Though man be a rational creature, yet corrupt habits in him answer to mere nature in them, and sway, and tide us as much against God. Grave discourses can never set a man straight that is born crooked. It is no easy thing for the heart of man, possessed so long by this cursed principle, to surrender itself upon God's summons;

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men are not so easily reconciled, when the hatred hath been hereditary in the family; this has been of as long a standing, within a few hours, as Adam himself. To turn to God in ways of righteousness, is contrary to the stream of corrupt nature, and therefore it must be overpowered by a flood of almighty grace, as the stream of the river is by the tide of the

sea.

10. Information. If there be such an enmity against the sovereignty of God in the heart of man, this shows us the excellency of obedience. It is the endeavour of the creature, as much as in him lies, to exalt God, to keep him upon his throne, to preserve the sceptre in his hand, and the crown upon his head. As faith is a setting a seal to the truth of God, so is obedience a setting a seal to the dominion of God, and subscribing to the righteousness thereof. It is called a confirmation of God's law, an affection to the honour of it, Cursed be him that confirms not all the words of this law, to do them. Deut. 27. 26. It is an establishing it, as a standing infallible rule, and consequently an establishing the lawgiver, and an applause to the righteonsness of his government. God being the highest perfection, and infinitely good, therefore whatsoever rule he gives the creature, must be good and amiable, or else it cannot proceed from God. A base and vile thing can never proceed from that which is only excellent. An unreasonable thing can never proceed from that which is altogether reason and regular; therefore the obedience to God's law is an acknowledging the excellent goodness, love, wisdom, righteousness of the lawgiver, and a bearing witness to it in the face of the world.

II. Use is for examination. Examine yourselves by those demonstrations laid down in the first part, whether this enmity be prevalent in you or no. 1. Have you yet a stoutness of heart against hearing the law of God, which crosses the desires of the flesh? 2. Are you unwilling to be determined by divine in

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junctions? 3. Doth your heart swell most against those laws which are most spiritual, and which God doth most strictly urge? 4. Do you fall out, and quarrel with your own consciences, when they press upon you any command of God? 5. Do you countenance that law in your members, that law of sin, in opposition to the law of your mind? 6. Are you willing to be at more pains and expence to violate God's law, than to observe it, and preserve the honour of it? 7. Do you perform things materially righteous, because of the agreeableness of them to your humour and constitution, out of respect to your reputation, or, which is worse, out of an affection to some base lust and carnal end, or out of a slavish fear of God? 8. Are the laws of men more valued and feared by you than the laws of God? Do you more readily obey them? 9. Are you desirous and diligent in the drawing men from compliance with God's laws, to be your companions in any sin you are addicted unto? 10. Do you take pleasure in the affronts men offer to God, and make them the matter of your sport and jollity? So much as you find of this temper in any of your souls, so much of enmity there is.

III. Use is for exhortation. 1. To sinners. Lay down thy arms against God. How can you hear these things without saying, Lord, deliver me from this nature? Oh! what should I be an enemy to so good a God? Did God put enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent? and shall I put an enmity between God and my soul, and a love between my heart and the serpent? Shall I change this promise of God, and make my dearest affections embrace the serpent's seed, and refuse God himself? Lay down thy cudgels, strip thyself, yield thyself to him upon his own terms. How canst thou sit down at rest in hating God, and being hated by him? While thou art in thy natural condition, thou canst not be a friend to God; for they that are in the flesh, cannot please him, Rom. 8. 8. How can two

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