His Natural State.

5

will, and printed him a fair copy without any erratas according to his own image, which is nothing but holiness and love. But our defection from God puts us into this state, which is maintained by our inherent and tumultuous lusts. In our creation there was an union to God; in our corruption a separation from him, whence ariseth an opposition to him; so that it is not created, but corrupted nature, which is here

meant.

(2.) Every profane man is a natural man, and consequently an enemy. Wicked works are demonstrative, demonstratively denials of God. In works they deny him, Tit. 1. 16. Sensual, and having not the Spirit, are put together, Jude 19. That man that is actuated by sensuality, is not acted by the holy, but by the diabolical spirit. Luxurious persons, that make their belly their God, are termed enemies to the cross of Christ, Phil. 3. 18. And if enemies to the cross of Christ, then enemies to God, who was engaged in the greatest design that ever was upon the stage of heaven and earth, at the time of Christ's being upon the cross. And if enemies to the cross of Christ, then enemies to all those attributes of wisdom, power, holiness, truth, justice, mercy, which God glorified in the death of Christ, and in the most illustrious manner.

(3.) Every unrenewed man, though never so richly endowed with morals, is a natural man. What is called oρóvnμa σȧpxòs in the text, is called, 1 Cor. 2. 14, ψυχικος ἄνθρωπος, one that hath nothing excellent but a rational soul. As ψυχικός is opposed to TVεvμatikos, it is a soul jointured in the richest dowry of nature. And as opposed to σαρκικός, 2 fleshly man, it notes a freedom from gross pollutions and defilements without. Α ψυχικός άνθρωπος, is one led by the rational dictates of his mind, and σaρKikos is a man led by his sensitive affections. Though the one be better than the other, and more agreeable

to the order of nature, yet both being corrupted and defiled, are contrary to God.

Suppose a man with the highest endowments of reason, wisdom, understanding, learning, as wise as Solomon, and suppose him as rich in morals as in intellectuals; yet if he be not renewed in the spirit of his mind, Rom. 12. 2, i. e. the more spiritual and rational part of his soul, though there be never so fair a frontispiece, colour, and pretences of friendship, yet such a man is an enemy; because by all that strength of nature he cannot have a knowledge of spiritual things, or a faith in God; and without a knowledge of him, he cannot be subject to him; and without faith it is impossible to do any thing to please him.

The most civilized heathens, who disdained those ugly and carnal sins of drunkenness, lust, &c. yet were possessed by the more spiritual legions of pride and vain glory, &c. Though you have not outwardly the impurity of the flesh, yet you may flow with a greater impurity of the Spirit. External acts of pollution are more abhorred by reason, because they are more brutish, they degrade the nature of a man, and disgrace his person. But in heart-sins, though there be not so much of discredit, there is more of enmity.

2. What kind of enmity this is. (1.) I understand it of nature, not of actions only. Every action of a natural man is an enemy's action, but not an action of enmity. A toad doth not envenom every spire of grass it crawls upon, nor poison every thing it toucheth, but its nature is poisonous. Certainly every man's nature is worse than his actions: as waters are purest at the fountain, and poison most pernicious in the mass, so is enmity in the heart. And as waters relish of the mineral vein they run through, so the actions of a wicked man are tinctured with the enmity they spring from, but the mass and strength of this is lodged in his nature. There is in

Rooted in the Nature of Man.

all our natures such a diabolical contrariety to God, that if God should leave a man to the current of his own heart, it would overflow in all kind of wickedness for the best mere nature has fundamentally and radically as much of this enmity, as the worst: for the disposition is the same, though the effects may be restrained in some men more than in others. No man is any more born with a love to God, than he is with the knowledge of the highest sciences. There is indeed an active power to the attainment of those by the assistance of a good education; but man hath only a passive power to the other, as being a subject passively capable of the grace of God. The inherency of this enmity in our nature the psalmist expresses, when he tells us, The wicked are estranged from the womb, they go astray as soon as ever they be born, Psal. 58. 3, 4. They go sinfully, before they go naturally. Their poison is like the poison of a serpent, which you know is radically the same in all of the same species.

(2.) It is a state of enmity. Godly men may do an enemy's action, but they are not in a state of enmity. They may be cheated into sin, but they do not dwell in it; they may fall into it as a man into a ditch, but they lie not in it. There may be some jarrings between God and a regenerate man; God may be displeased with him, and he disgusted with God, and jealous of him, as in the case of Jonah, a type of Christ; but there is not a stated war. But a natural man is in a state of universal contrariety.

[1] All times, it is rooted in the nature of a man. It is called a root of bitterness planted in a man's disposition: therefore bitterness is a quality essential to it, and inseparable from it: for while it remains a root, it will remain bitter.

You can never suppose a thing to exist, and be without its nature, and the modes and qualities due to such a being; or a man to live, and be without a soul. So you cannot suppose a corrupted creature to

be one moment of time without this enmity, no more than a serpent can be imagined to retain its nature without the venom inherent in it, though there is not at all times the discovery of it.

[2.] In every sinful act. Though the interest of particular sins may be contrary to one another, yet they all conspire in a joint league against God. *Scelera dissident. Sins in conflict with one another; covetousness and prodigality, covetousness and intemperance cannot agree, but they are all in an amicable combination against the interest of God. † In betraying Christ Judas was acted by covetousness, the High Priest by envy, Pilate by popularity, but all shook hands together in the murdering of Christ. And those various iniquities were blended together, to make up one lump of enmity. Though in every sin there is not an express hatred of God, yet there is Odium Dei participative, some participation of hatred of him. As all virtuous actions partake of the nature of love to the chiefest good, our beloved object; so all vicious actions, which are at a distance from the chief end, are marshalled by, and tinctured with, that inward enmity which lurks in the soul.

[3.] Objectively universal against all the attributes of God. For sin being an opposition to the law of God, is consequently a contrariety to his will, and his understanding, and therefore to all those attributes which flow from his will, as goodness, righteousness, truth; and his understanding, as wisdom, knowledge.. Though every law proceeds from the will of the lawgiver, and doth formally consist in actu voluntatis, yet it presupposes actum intellectus, i. e. Though it consists in the will of the lawgiver, yet it presupposes the wisdom of the lawgiver to be the fountain. As the understanding of God precedes the act of his, will, so every sin being against the will of God, is also against

* Seneca.

.1 + Jenkin Jude, Part 2. p. 522.

the infinite reason and wisdom of God, which is the foundation of all his laws.

(3.) This enmity against God is habitually seated in the mind. Corruption extends its empire as large as regeneration; but this is seated in the mind, and the most spiritual part of it, renewed in the spirit of your mind, Rom. 12. 2; it does not content itself with the outworks of the affections, but triumphs in the chiefest fort of the soul, and there displays its banners. The great contest between God and the devil is in the understanding and will. The standards are first erected there. As in conversion, the mind is first enlightened by God, and the will first inclined; so in seduction, they are first possessed by Satan.

Hence a natural man is described to be one that fulfils the desires of the mind, as well as of the flesh, Eph. 2. 3. In this part, wherein God placed the most splendid part of his image, does Satan diffuse his poison and wisdom, the chiefest flower in the rational part of man, is infected with this plague, for that is devilish too, Jam. 3. 15. The mind thus infected, is like those eminent persons, that spread the contagion of their vices to all their attendants. If it be thus in the noblest and governing part of the soul, it must be so also in the other faculties, which are directed by it, and observe the dictates of it. * The other faculties, like common soldiers in a war, fight for the prey and booty; but the mind, the Sovereign, being filled with principles of a more direct contrariety to God, fights for the superiority, and orders all the motions of the lower rout,

But more particularly, there is, odium aversionis, as opposed to desire. Thus man hates God, because he turns from him, Man naturally gives his vote for God's absence, and is so far from loving the practice, that his stomach abhors the knowledge of God's ways; that say unto God, depart from us, for we desire not

Gurnal's Christian Armour, something changed.