Take Up the Cross

But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.
— Genesis 13:13

And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.
— Genesis 18:20-21

How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?
— Job 15:16

This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
— Ecclesiastes 9:3

There is a Natural Contrariety, Direct Opposition, and Enmity, in the Will of Man, to God Himself, and His Holy Will, by Thomas Boston. The following contains an excerpt from Chapter Two of his work, “Human Nature in its Fourfold State.”

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
— Genesis 6:5

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
— Romans 8:7

II. The State of Nature.

2. Of the Corruption of the Will.

4. There is a natural contrariety, direct opposition, and enmity, in the will of man, to God himself, and his holy will, Romans 8:7, “The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” The will was once God’s deputy in the soul, set to command there for him; but now it is set up against him. If you would have the picture of it in its natural state, the very reverse of the will of God represents it. If the fruit hanging before one’s eye is but forbidden, that is sufficient to draw the heart after it. Let me instance in the sin of profane swearing and cursing, to which some are so abandoned, that they take a pride in it, belching out horrid oaths and curses, as if hell opened with the opening of their mouths; or larding their speeches with minced oaths; and all this without any manner of provocation, though even that would not excuse them. Pray, tell me,

(1.) What profit is there here? A thief gets something for his pains; a drunkard gets a belly-full; but what do you swearers get? Others serve the devil for pay; but you are volunteers, who expect no reward but your work itself, in affronting Heaven; and if you repent not, you will get your reward in full measure; when you go to hell, your work will follow you. The drunkard shall not have a drop of water to cool his tongue there; nor will the covetous man’s wealth follow him into the other world! you may drive on your old trade there; eternity will be long enough to give you your heart’s fill of it.

(2.) What pleasure is there here—but what flows from your trampling on the holy law? Which of your senses does swearing and cursing gratify? If it gratifies your ears, it can only be by the noise it makes against the heavens. Though you had a mind to give up yourselves to all manner of profanity and sensuality, there is so little pleasure can be strained out of these sins of swearing, that we must needs conclude, your love to them, in this case, is a love to them for themselves, a devilish unhired love, without any prospect of profit or pleasure from them otherwise. If any shall say, these are monsters of men—be it so; yet, alas! the world is full of such monsters; they are to be found almost everywhere. Allow me to say, they must be admitted as the mouth of the whole unregenerate world against heaven, Romans 3:14, “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” Ver. 19, “Now we know, that whatever things the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.”

I have a charge against every unregenerate man and woman, young and old, to be proved by the testimony of Scripture, and their own consciences; namely, that whether they be professors or profane, seeing they are not born again, they are heart enemies, (1.) to God; (2.) to the Son of God; (3.) to the Spirit of God; and (4.) to the law of God. Hear this, you careless souls, who live at ease in your natural state.

(1.) You are enemies to GOD in your mind, Col. 1:21. You are not as yet reconciled to him; the natural enmity is not as yet slain, though perhaps it lies hidden, and you do not perceive it.

1. You are enemies to the very being of God, Psalm 14:1, “The fool has said in his heart, there is no God.” The proud man wishes that none were above himself; the rebel, that there were no king; and the unrenewed man, who is a mass of pride and rebellion, that there were no God. He says it in his heart, he wishes it were so, though he is ashamed and afraid to speak it out. That all natural men are such fools, appears from the apostle’s quoting a part of this psalm, “That every mouth may be stopped,” Romans 3:10-19. I own, indeed, that while the natural man looks on God as the Creator and Preserver of the world, because he loves his own self, therefore his heart rises not against God being his Benefactor—but his enmity will quickly appear when he looks on God as the Governor and Judge of the world, binding him, under the pain of the curse, to exact holiness, and girding him with the cords of death, because of his sin. Listen in this case to the voice of the heart, and you will find it to be, “there is no God!”

2. You are enemies to the nature of God, Job 21:14, “They say unto God–Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways!” Men set up for themselves, an idol of their own fancy, instead of the true God, and then fall down and worship it. They love him no other way than Jacob loved Leah, while he mistook her for Rachel. Every natural man is an enemy to God, as he is revealed in his word. The infinitely holy, just, powerful, and true being, is not the God whom he loves—but the God whom he loathes. In fact, men naturally are haters of God, Romans 1:30; if they could, they certainly would make him otherwise than what he is. Now, upon this I would, for your conviction, propose to your conscience a few queries.

1st, How are your hearts affected towards the infinite purity and holiness of God? Conscience will give an answer to this, which the tongue will not speak out. If you are not partakers of his holiness, you cannot be reconciled to it. The Pagans finding that they could not be like God in holiness, made their gods like themselves in filthiness; and thereby they show what sort of a God the natural man would have. God is holy; can an unholy creature love his unspotted holiness? Nay, it is the righteous only that can “give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness,” Psalm 97:12. God is light; can creatures of darkness rejoice therein? Nay, “everyone that does evil hates the light,” John 3:20. “For what communion has light with darkness?” 2 Cor. 6:14.

2nd, How are your hearts affected towards the justice of God? There is not a man, who is wedded to his lusts, as all the unregenerate are— but would desire to blot out the God of justice. Can the malefactor love his condemning judge? or an unjustified sinner, a just God? No, he cannot, Luke 7:47, “To whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” Hence, as men cannot get the doctrine of his justice blotted out of the Bible, it is such an eye-sore to them, that they strive to blot it out of their minds—they ruin themselves by presuming on his mercy, while they are not careful to get a righteousness, wherein they may stand before his justice; but “think he will do nothing at all to them,” Zeph. 1:12.

3rd, How are your hearts affected towards the omniscience and omnipresence of God? Men naturally would rather have a blind idol, than the all-seeing God; therefore, they do what they can, as Adam did, to hide themselves from the presence of the Lord. They no more love the all-seeing, every-where present God, than the thief loves to have the judge witness to his evil deeds. If it could be carried by votes, God would be voted out of the world, and closed up in heaven; for the language of the carnal heart is, “The Lord does not see us. The Lord has abandoned the earth,” Ezek. 8:12.

4th, How are your hearts affected towards the truth and veracity of God? There are but few in the world who can heartily subscribe to this sentence of the apostle, Romans 3:4, “Let God be true—but every man a liar.” Nay, truly, there are many who, in effect, hope that God will not be true to his word. There are thousands who hear the gospel, who hope to be saved, and think all safe with them for eternity–who never had any experience of the new birth, nor do at all concern themselves in the question, Whether they are born again, or not? a question that is likely to wear out from among us at this day. Our Lord’s words are plain and peremptory, “Except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” What are such hopes, then—but real hopes that God–with profoundest reverence be it spoken–will recall his word, and that Christ will prove a liar? What else means the sinner, who, “when he hears the words of the curse, blesses himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart?” Deut. 29:19.

5th, How are your hearts affected towards the power of God? None but new creatures will love him for it, on a fair view thereof; though others may slavishly fear him upon account of it. There is not a natural man—but would contribute, to the utmost of his power, to the building of another tower of Babel, to hem it in.

On these grounds I declare every unrenewed man an enemy to the true God.

(2.) You are enemies to the SON of God. That enmity to Christ is in your hearts, which would have made you join the farmers who killed the heir, and cast him out of the vineyard. “Am I a dog?” you will say, that I should so treat my sweet Savior? So did Hazael ask in another case; but when he had the temptation, he was a dog to do it. Many call Christ their dear Savior, whose consciences can bear witness, that they never derived as much sweetness from him as from their sweet lusts, which are ten times dearer to them than Christ. He is no other way dear to them, than as they abuse his death and sufferings for the peaceable enjoyment of their lusts; that they may live as they please in the world; and when they die, be kept out of hell. Alas! it is but a mistaken Christ that is sweet to you, whose souls loathe that Christ who is the “brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of his person.” It is with you as it was with the carnal Jews, who delighted in him, while they mistook his errand into the world, fancying that he would be a temporal deliverer to them, Mal. 3:1. But when he “sat as a refiner and purifier of silver,” vers. 2, 3, and rejected them as reprobate silver, who thought to have had no small honor in the kingdom of the Messiah, his doctrine galled their consciences, and they had no rest until they imbrued their hands in his blood. To open your eyes in this point, which you are so averse to believe, I will lay before you the enmity of your hearts against Christ in all his offices.

1st, Every unregenerate man is an enemy to Christ in his PROPHETICAL office. He is appointed of the Father as the great Prophet and Teacher; but not upon the call of the world, who, in their natural state, would have unanimously voted against him—therefore, when he came, he was condemned as a seducer and blasphemer. For evidence of this enmity, I will instance two things.

Proof 1. Consider the treatment which he meets with when he comes to teach souls inwardly by his Spirit. Men do what they can to stop their ears, like the deaf adder, that they may not hear his voice. They “always resist the Holy Spirit.” “They desire not the knowledge of his ways;” and therefore bid him “depart from them.” The old calumny is often raised upon him on that occasion, John 10:20, “He is mad, why listen to him?” Soul concern is accounted, by many, nothing else but distraction, and melancholy fits; men thus blaspheming the Lord’s work, because they themselves are beside themselves, and cannot judge of those matters.

Proof 2. Consider the entertainment which he meets with when he comes to teach men outwardly by his word. His written word, the Bible, is slighted. Christ has left it to us, as the book of our instruction, to show us what way we must steer our course, if we would go to Immanuel’s land. It is a lamp to light us through a dark world, to eternal light. And he has enjoined us, to search it with that diligence wherewith men dig into mines for silver and gold, John 5:39. But, ah! how is this sacred treasure profaned by many! They ridicule that holy word, by which they must be judged at the last day; and will rather lose their souls than their jest, dressing up the conceits of their wanton wits in scripture phrases.

Many exhaust their spirits in reading romances, and their minds pursue them, as the flame does the dry stubble; while they have no heart for, nor relish to, the holy word; and therefore seldom take a Bible in their hands. What is agreeable to the vanity of their minds, is pleasant and exciting; but what recommends holiness to their unholy hearts, makes their spirits dull and flat. What pleasure they find in reading a profane ballad, or story-book, to whom the Bible is entirely tasteless! Many lay by their Bibles with their sabbath-day’s clothes; and whatever use they have for their clothes, they have none for their Bibles, until the return of the Sabbath. Alas! the dust on your Bibles is a witness now, and will, at the last day, be a witness of the enmity of your hearts against Christ as a Prophet.

Besides all this, among those who usually read the scripture, how few are there that read it as the word of the Lord to their souls, and keep up communion with him in it! They do not make his statues their counselors, nor does their particular case send them to their Bibles. They are strangers to the solid comforts of the scriptures. And when they are dejected, it is something else than the word that revives them—as Ahab was cured of his sullen fit, by the obtaining of Naboth’s vineyard for him.

Christ’s word preached is despised. The treatment which most of the world, to whom it has come, have always given it, is that which is mentioned, Matt. 22:5, “They made light of it;” and for his sake, they are despised whom he employs to preach it; whatever other face men put upon their contempt of the ministry. John 15:20, 21, “Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.”

But though the earthen vessels, wherein God has put the treasure, be turned, with many, into vessels wherein there is no pleasure—yet why is the treasure itself slighted? But slighted it is, and that with a witness, this day. “Lord, who has believed our report? To whom shall we speak?” Alas! when they come to ordinances for the most part, it is but to appear, or as the word is, to be seen before the Lord; and to tread his courts, namely, as a company of beasts would do, if they were driven into them, Isaiah 1:12, so little reverence and awe of God appear on their spirits. Many stand like brazen walls before the word, in whose corrupt hearts the preaching of the word makes no broach. Nay, not a few are growing worse and worse, under “precept upon precept;” and the result of all is, “They go and fall backward, and are broken, and snared, and taken,” Isaiah 28:13. What tears of blood are sufficient to lament that the gospel of “the grace of God,” is thus “received in vain!” Ministers are but the voice of one crying; the speaker is in heaven; and speaks to you from heaven by men—why do you “refuse him who speaks?” Heb. 12:25. God has made our master Christ, heir of all things, and we are sent to seek for a spouse for him. There is none so worthy as he; none more unworthy than they to whom this match is proposed; but the prince of darkness is preferred before the Prince of Peace!

A dismal darkness overclouded the world by Adam’s fall, more terrible than as if the sun, moon, and stars had been forever wrapped up in blackness of darkness; and there we would have eternally lain, had not this grace of the gospel, as a shining sun, appeared to dispel it, Tit. 2:11. But yet we fly like night-owls from it; and, like the wild beasts, lay ourselves down in our dens—when the sun arises, we are struck blind with the light thereof; and, as creatures of darkness, love darkness rather than light. Such is the enmity of the hearts of men against Christ, in his prophetical office.

2ndly, The natural man is an enemy to Christ in his PRIESTLY office. He is appointed of the Father a priest forever; that, only by his sacrifice and intercession, sinners may have peace with, and access to God. But Christ crucified is a stumbling-block, and foolishness to the unrenewed part of mankind, to whom he is preached, 1 Cor. 1:23. They are not for him as the “new and living way;” nor is he, by the voice of the world, “a High-priest over the house of God.” Corrupt nature goes quite another way to work.

Proof 1. None of Adam’s children are naturally inclined to receive the blessing in borrowed robes; but would always, according to the spider’s motto, “owe all to themselves:” and so climb up to heaven on a thread spun for themselves. For they “desire to be under the law,” Gal. 4:21, and “go about to establish their own righteousness,” Romans 10:3. Man naturally looks on God as a great master; and himself as his servant, who must work and win heaven as his wages. Hence, when conscience is awakened, he thinks that, to the end he may be saved, he must answer the demands of the law, serve God as well as he can, and pray for mercy wherein he comes short. And thus many come to duties, who never come out of them to Jesus Christ.

Proof 2. As men naturally think highly of their duties, that seem to them to be well done, so they look for acceptance with God, according as their work is done, not according to the share they have in the blood of Christ. “Therefore have we fasted, say they, and you see not?” They value themselves on their performances and attainments; yes, their very opinions in religion, Phil. 3:4, 7, taking to themselves what they rob from Christ the great High priest.

Proof 3. The natural man, going to God in duties, will always be found either to go without a Mediator, or with more than the one only Mediator, Jesus Christ. Nature is blind, and therefore venturesome; it sets men a-going immediately to God without Christ; to rush into his presence, and put their petitions in his hand, without being introduced by the secretary of heaven, or putting their requests into his hand. So fixed is this disposition in the unrenewed heart, that when many hearers of the gospel are conversed with upon the point of their hopes of salvation, the name of Christ will scarcely be heard from their mouths. Ask them how they think to obtain the pardon of sin? they will tell you they beg and look for mercy, because God is a merciful God; and that is all they have to confide in. Others look for mercy for Christ’s sake—but how do they know that Christ will take their plea in hand? Why, as the papists have their mediators with the Mediator, so have they. They know he cannot but do it; for they pray, confess, mourn, and have great desires, and the like; and so have something of their own to commend them unto him—they were never made poor in spirit, and brought empty-handed to Christ, to lay the stress of all on his atoning blood.

3rdly, The natural man is an enemy to Christ in his KINGLY office. The Father has appointed the Mediator, “King in Zion,” Psalm 2:6. All to whom the gospel comes are commanded, on their highest peril, “to kiss the Son,” and submit themselves unto him, verse 12. But the natural voice of mankind is, “Away with him;” as you may see, verse 2, 3, “They will not have him to reign over them,” Luke 19:14.

Proof 1. The workings of corrupt nature would wrest the government out of his hands. No sooner was he born—but, being born a King, Herod persecuted him, Matt. 2. And when he was crucified, they “set up over his head his accusation written, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews,” Matt. 27:37. Though his kingdom is a spiritual kingdom, and not of this world—yet they cannot allow him a kingdom within a kingdom, which acknowledges no other head or supreme but the Royal Mediator. They make bold with his royal prerogatives, changing his laws, institutions, and ordinances; modeling his worship according to the devices of their own hearts, introducing new offices and officers into his kingdom, not to be found in “the book of the manner of his kingdom;” disposing of the external government thereof, as may best suit their carnal designs. Such is the enmity of the hearts of men against Zion’s King.

Proof 2. How unwilling are men, naturally, to submit unto, and be hedged in by, the laws and discipline of his kingdom! As a king, he is a lawgiver, Isaiah 33:22, and has appointed an external government, discipline, and censures, to control the unruly, and to keep his professed subjects in order, to be exercised by officers of his own appointment, Matt. 18:17, 18; 1 Cor. 12:28; 1 Tim. 5:17; Heb. 13:17. But these are the great eye-sores of the carnal world, who love sinful liberty, and therefore cry out, “Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us,” Psalm 2:3. Hence this work is found to be, in a special manner, a striving against the stream of corrupt nature, which, for the most part, puts such a face on the church, as if there were no king in Israel, everyone doing that which is right in his own eyes.

Proof 3. However natural men may be brought to feign submission to the King of saints—yet lusts always retain the throne and dominion in their hearts, and they are serving divers lusts and pleasures, Titus 3:3. None—but those in whom Christ is formed, do really put the crown on his head, and receive the kingdom of Christ within them. His crown is “the crown wherewith his mother crowned him on the day of his espousals.” Who are they, whom the power of grace has not subdued, who will not allow him to set up, and to put down, in their souls, as he will? Nay, as for others, will never absolutely resign themselves to his government, until conquered in a day of power. Thus you may see, that the natural man is an enemy to Jesus Christ in all his offices.

But O, how hard it is to convince men in this point! They are very loath to believe. And, in a special manner, the enmity of the heart against Christ in his priestly office seems to be hidden from the view of most of the hearers of the gospel. There appears to be a peculiar malignity in corrupt nature against this office of his. It may be observed, that the Socinians, those enemies of our blessed Lord, allow him to be properly a Prophet and a King—but deny him to be properly a Priest. And this is agreeable enough to the corruption of our nature—for, under the covenant of works, the Lord was known as a Prophet or Teacher, and also as a King or Ruler; but not at all as a Priest. So man knows nothing of the mystery of Christ, as the way to the Father, until it is revealed to him—and when it is revealed, the will rises up against it; for corrupt nature is opposed to the mystery of Christ, and the great contrivance of salvation, through the crucified Savior, revealed in the gospel. For clearing of which weighty truth, let these four things be considered:

1. The soul’s falling in with the grand scheme of salvation by Jesus Christ, and setting the matters of salvation on that footing before the Lord, is declared by the Scriptures of truth to be an undoubted mark of a real saint, who is happy here, and shall be happy hereafter, Matt. 11:6, “Blessed is he whoever shall not be offended in me.” 1 Cor. 1:23, 24, “But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” Phil. 3:3, “For we are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” Now, how could this be, if nature could comply with that grand device?

2. Corrupt nature is the very reverse of the gospel plan. In the gospel, God proposes Jesus Christ as the great means of re-uniting man to himself; he has named him as the Mediator, one in whom he is well pleased, and will have none but him, Matt. 17:5; but nature will have none of him, Psalm 71:11. God appointed the place of meeting for the reconciliation, namely, the flesh of Christ; accordingly, God was in Christ, 2 Cor. 5:19, as the tabernacle of meeting, to make up the peace with sinners—but natural men, although they should die forever, will not come to Christ, John 5:40, “You will not come to me that you might have life.” In the way of the gospel, the sinner must stand before the Lord in an imputed righteousness—but corrupt nature is for an inherent righteousness; and, therefore, so far as natural men follow after righteousness, they follow after “the law of righteousness,” Romans 9:31, 32; and not after “the Lord our righteousness.” Nature is always for building up itself, and to have some ground for boasting; but the great design of the gospel is to exalt grace, to depress nature, and exclude boasting, Romans 3:27. The sum of our natural religion is, to do good from and for ourselves, John 5:44; the sum of the gospel religion is, to deny ourselves, and to do good from and for Christ, Phil. 1:21.

3. Everything in nature is against believing in Jesus Christ. What beauty can the blind man discern in a crucified Savior, for which he is to be desired? How can the will, naturally impotent, yes, and averse to good, make choice of him? Well may the soul then say to him in the day of the spiritual siege, as the Jebusite said to David in another case, “Except you take away the blind and the lame, you shall not come in hither,” 2 Sam. 5:6. The way of nature is to go into oneself for all; according to the fundamental maxim of unsanctified morality, “That a man should trust in himself;” which, according to the doctrine of faith, is mere foolishness—for so it is determined, Proverbs 28:26, “He who trusts in his own heart is a fool.” Now faith is the soul’s going out of itself for all—and this, nature, on the other hand, determines to be foolishness, 1 Cor. 1:18-23. Therefore there is need of the working of mighty power to cause sinners to believe, Eph. 1:19; Isaiah 53:1. We see the promises of welcome to sinners, in the gospel-covenant, are ample, large, and free, clogged with no conditions, Isaiah 55:1; Rev. 22:17. If they cannot believe his bare word, he has given his oath upon it, Ezek. 33:11; and, for their greater assurance, he has annexed seals to his sworn covenant, namely, the holy sacraments—so that no more could be demanded of the most faithless person in the world, to make us believe him, than the Lord has condescended to give us, to make us believe himself. This plainly speaks nature to be against believing; and those who flee to Christ for a refuge, to have need of strong consolation, Heb. 6:18, to balance their strong doubts, and propensity to unbelief. Farther, also, it may be observed, how in the word sent to a secure, graceless generation, their objections are answered beforehand; and words of grace are heaped one upon another, as you may read, Isaiah 55:7-9; Joel 2:13. Why? Because the Lord knows, that when these secure sinners are thoroughly awakened, doubts, fears, and carnal reasonings against believing, will be getting into their breasts, as thick as dust in a house, raised by sweeping a dry floor.

4. Corrupt nature is bent towards the way of the law, or covenant of works; and every natural man, so far as he sets himself to seek after salvation, is engaged in that way, and will not leave it, until beat from it by divine power. Now the way of salvation by works, and that of free grace in Jesus Christ, are inconsistent. Romans 11:6, “And if by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace; otherwise work is no more work.” Gal. 3:12, “And the law is not of faith; but the man that does them shall live in them.” Therefore, if the will of man naturally inclines to the way of salvation by the law, it lies cross to the gospel plan. And that such is the natural bent of our hearts, will appear, if these following things be considered:

(1st.) The law was Adam’s covenant; and he knew no other, as he was the head and representative of all mankind, who were brought into it with him, and left under it by him, though without strength to perform the condition thereof. Hence, this covenant is interwoven with our nature; and though we have lost our father’s strength—yet we still incline to the way he was set upon, as our head and representative in that covenant—that is, by doing, to live. This is our natural religion, and the principle which men naturally take for granted, Matt. 19:16, “What good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?”

(2ndly.) Consider the opposition that has always been made in the world, against the doctrine of free grace in Jesus Christ–by men setting up the way of works; thereby discovering the natural tendency of the heart. It is manifest, that the great design of the gospel plan is to exalt the free grace of God in Jesus Christ, Romans 4:16, “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace.” See Eph. 1:6, and chapter 2:7-9. All gospel truths center in Christ—so that to learn the truth, is to learn Christ, Eph. 4:20, and to be truly taught it, is to be taught as “the truth is in Jesus,” verse 21. All dispensations of grace and favor from heaven, whether to nations or particular people, have still had something about them proclaiming the freedom of grace; as in the very first separation made by the divine favor, Cain, the elder brother is rejected, and Abel, the younger, accepted. This shines through the whole history of the Bible—but, as true it is, this has been the point principally opposed by corrupt nature. One may well say, that, of all errors in religion, since Christ the seed of the woman was preached, this of works, in opposition to free grace in him, was the first that lived, and, it is likely, will be the last that dies. There have been vast numbers of errors, which have sprung up, one after another; whereof, at length, the world became ashamed and weary, so that they died away—but this has continued, from Cain, the first author of this heresy, unto this day; and never lacked some who clave to it, even in the times of greatest light.

I do not, without ground, call Cain the author of it; who, when Abel brought a sacrifice of atonement, a bloody offering of the firstlings of his flock, like the publican smiting on his bosom, and saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” advanced with his thank-offering of the fruit of the ground, Gen. 4:3, 4, like the proud Pharisee with his “God, I thank you,” etc. For what was the cause of Cain’s wrath, and of his murdering Abel? was it not that he was not accepted of God for his work? Gen. 4:4, 5. “And why did he slew him? Because his own works wore evil and his brother’s righteous,” 1 John 3:12; that is, done in faith, and accepted, when his were done without faith, and rejected, as the apostle teaches, Heb. 11:4. So he wrote his indignation against justification and acceptance with God through faith, in opposition to works, in the blood of his brother, to convey it down to posterity. And, since that time, the unbloody sacrifice has often swimmed in the blood of those who rejected it.

The promise made to Abraham, of the seed in which all nations should be blessed, was so overclouded among his posterity in Egypt, that the generality of them saw no need of that way of obtaining the blessing, until God himself confuted their error by a fiery law from Mount Sinai, which “was added because of transgressions, until the seed should come,” Gal. 3:19. I need not insist on telling you, how Moses and the prophets had still much to do, to lead the people off from the conceit of their own righteousness. The ninth chapter of Deuteronomy is entirely spent on that purpose. They were very gross in that point in our Savior’s time, in the time of the apostles, when the doctrine of free grace was most clearly preached, that error lifted up its head in the face of the clearest light; witness the epistles to the Romans and Galatians. And since that time it has not been lacking; Popery being the common sink of former heresies, and the heart and life of that delusion. And, finally, it may be observed, that always as the church declined from her purity otherwise, the doctrine of free grace was obscured proportionably.

(3rdly.) Such is the natural propensity of man’s heart to the way of the law, in opposition to Christ, that, as the tainted vessel turns the taste of the purest liquor put into it, so the natural man turns the very gospel into law, and transforms the covenant of grace into a covenant of works. The ceremonial law was to the Jews a real gospel, which held blood, death, and translation of guilt, before their eyes continually, as the only way of salvation; yet their very table, that is, their altar, with the several ordinances pertaining thereto, Mal. 1:12, was a snare unto them, Romans 11:9, while they used it to make up the defects in their obedience to the moral law; and clave to it so, as to reject him, whom the altar and sacrifices pointed them to, as the subject of all—even as Hagar, whose duty was only to serve, was, by their father, brought into her mistress’s bed; not without a mystery in the purpose of God, “for these are the two covenants,” Gal. 4:24. Thus is the doctrine of the gospel corrupted by papist and other enemies to the doctrine of free grace. And indeed, however natural men’s heads may be set right in this point, as surely as they are out of Christ; their faith, repentance, and obedience, such as they are, are placed by them in the room of Christ and his righteousness; and so trusted to, as if by these they fulfilled a new law.

(4thly.) Great is the difficulty, in Adam’s sons, of their parting with the law as a covenant of works. None part with it, in that respect— but those whom the power of the spirit of grace separates from it. The law is our first husband, and gets everyone’s virgin love. When Christ comes to the soul, he finds it married to the law, so as it neither can nor will be married to another, until it be obliged to part with the first husband, as the apostle teaches, Romans 7:1-4. Now, that you may see what sort of a parting this is, consider,

1st. It is death, Romans 7:4; Gal. 2:19. Entreaties will not prevail with the soul here; it says to the first husband, as Ruth to Naomi, “The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.” And here sinners are true to their word; they die to the law, before they are married to Christ. Death is hard to everybody; but what difficulty, do you imagine, must a loving wife, on her deathbed, find in parting with her husband, the husband of her youth, and with the dear children she has brought forth to him? The law is that husband; all the duties performed by the natural man are these children. What a struggle, as for life, will be in the heart before they are parted? I may have occasion to touch upon this afterwards; in the mean time, take the apostle’s short but pithy description of it, Romans 10:3, “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.” They go about to establish their own righteousness, like an eager disputant in schools, seeking to establish the point in question; or, like a tormentor, extorting a confession from one upon the rack. They go about to establish it, to make it stand—their righteousness is like a house built on the sand; it cannot stand—but they would have it to stand. It falls; they set it up again—but still it tumbles down on them; yet they cease not to go about to make it stand.

But why all these pains about a tottering righteousness? Because, such as it is, it is their own. What sets them against Christ’s righteousness? Why, that would make them free grace’s debtors for all; and that is what the proud heart can by no means submit to. Here lies the stress of the matter, Psalm 10:4, “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek,” to read it without the supplement, in other terms, it means, “He cannot beg, and to beg he is ashamed.” Such is the struggle before the soul dies to the law. But what speaks yet more of this woeful disposition of the heart, nature oft-times gets the mastery of the disease—insomuch that the soul, which was likely to have died to the law while convictions were sharp and piercing, fatally recovers of the happy and promising sickness; and, what is natural, cleaves more closely than ever to the law, even as a wife brought back from the gates of death, would cleave to her husband. This is the outcome of the exercises of many about their souls’ case—they are indeed brought to follow duties more closely; but they are as far from Christ as ever, if not farther.

2ndly. It is a violent death, Romans 7:4, “you are become dead to the law,” being killed, slain, or put to death, as the word bears. The law itself has a great hand in this; the husband gives the wound, Gal. 2:19, “I through the law am dead to the law.” The soul that dies this death, is like a loving wife matched with a rigorous husband; she does what she can to please him—yet he is never pleased—but harasses and beats her until she breaks her heart, and death sets her free—this will afterwards more fully appear.

Thus it is made evident, that men’s hearts are naturally bent to the way of the law, and lie cross to the gospel method—and the second article of the charge against you who are unregenerate is verified, namely, that you are enemies to the Son of God.

(3.) You are enemies to the SPIRIT of God. He is the Spirit of holiness—the natural man is unholy, and loves to be so, and therefore resists the Holy Spirit, Acts 7:51. The work of the Spirit is to convince the world of “sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment,” John 16:8. But O, how do men strive to ward off these convictions, as much as they ward off a blow, threatening the loss of a right eye, or a right hand. If the Spirit of the Lord darts them in, so that they cannot avoid them; the heart says, in effect, as Ahab to Elijah, whom he both hated and feared, “Have you found me, O my enemy?” And indeed, they treat him as an enemy, doing their utmost to stifle convictions, and to murder these harbingers that come to prepare the Lord’s way into the soul. Some fill their hands with business, to put their convictions out of their heads, as Cain, who set about building a city; some put them off with delays and fair promises, as Felix did; some will sport them away in company, and some sleep them away. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of sanctification; whose work it is to subdue lusts, and burn up corruption—how then can the natural man, whose lusts are to him as his limbs, yes, as his life, fail of being an enemy to him?

(4.) You are enemies to the LAW of God. Though the natural man desires to be under the law, as a covenant of works, choosing that way of salvation, in opposition to the mystery of Christ; yet as it is a rule of life to him, requiring universal holiness, and forbidding all manner of impurity, he is an enemy to it—”is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be,” Romans 8:7. For,

1. There is no unrenewed man, who is not wedded to some one lust or another, which his heart can by no means part with. Now, that he cannot bring up his inclinations to the holy law, he would fain have the law brought down to his inclinations—a plain evidence of the enmity of the heart against it. Therefore, “to delight in the law of God after the inward man,” is proposed in the word as a mark of a gracious soul, Romans 7:22; Psalm 1:2. It is from this natural enmity of the heart against the law, that all the pharisaical glosses upon it have arisen; whereby the commandment, which is in itself exceeding broad, has been made very narrow, to the intent that it might be the more agreeable to the natural disposition of the heart.

2. The law, laid home on the natural conscience in its spirituality, irritates corruption. The nearer it comes, nature rises the higher against it. In that case it is as oil to the fire, which instead of quenching it, makes it flame the more—”When the commandment came, sin revived,” says the apostle, Romans 7:9. What reason can be assigned for this—but the natural enmity of the heart against the holy law? Unmortified corruption, the more it is opposed, the more it rages.

Let us conclude then, that the unregenerate are heart-enemies to God, his Son, his Spirit, and his law; that there is a natural contrariety, opposition, and enmity in the will of man to God himself, and his holy will.

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