marriage, are reckoned amongst the fins of the old world; (Matth. xxiv. 38.) for they had no eye to God therein, to please him; but all they had in view, was to please themselves, Gen vi 3. Finally, Self is natural men's highest end, in their religious actions: They perform duties for a name, Matth. vi. 1,2. or fome other worldly interest, John vi 26. Or, if they be more refined, it is their peace, and at moff their falvation from hell and wrath, or their own eternal happinefs, that is their chief and highest end, Matth xix. 16-22 Their eyes are held, that they fee not the glory of God. They feek God indeed, but not for himself, but for themselves. They feek him not at all, but for their own welfare: fo their whole life is woven into one web of practical blafphemy; making God the means, and felf their end, yea, their chief end.

And thus have I given you fome rude draughts of man's will, in his natural ftate, drawn by fcripture and men's own experience. Call it no more Naomi but Marah: for bitter it is, and a root of bitterness. Call it no more free-will, but flavish luft; free to evil, but free from good, till regenerating grace loofe the bands of wickednefs. Now, fince all muft be wrong, and nothing can be right, where the underStanding and will are fo corrupt; I fhall briefly difpatch what reinains, as following of courfe, on the corruption of thofe prime faculties of

the foul.

The Corruption of the Affections, the Confcience and the Memory. The Body partaker of this corruption.

III. The Affections are corrupted. The unrenewed man's affections are wholly difordered and diftempered: they are as the unruly horfe, that either will not receive, or violently runs away with the rider. So man's heart naturally is a mother of abominations, Mark vii. 21, 22. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, &c. The natural man's affections are wretchedly mifplaced; he is a spiritual monster. His heart is there, where his feet fhould be, fixed on the earth; his heels are lifted up against heaven, which his heart fhould be fet on, Acts ix. 5. His face is towards hell, his back towards heaven; and therefore God calls him to turn. He loves what he fhould hate, and hates what he should love: joys in what he ought to mourn for, and mourns for what he fhould rejoice in; glorieth in his thame, and is afhamed of his glory; abhors what he should defire, and defires what he fhould abhor, Prov. ii. 13. 14, 15. They hit the point indeed, (as Caiaphus did in another cafe) who cried out on the apoftles as men that turned the world upfide-down, Acts xvii. 6. for that is the work the gospel has has to do in the world, where fin has put all things fo out of order, that heaven lies under, and earth a-top. If the unrenewed man's affections be fet on lawful objects, then they are either excellive, or defective. Lawful enjoyments of the world have fome

times too little, but mostly too much of them: either they get not their due; or, if they do, it is measure pressed down, and running over. Spiritual things have always too little of them. In a word, they are always in, or over; never right, only evil.

Now, here is a three-fold cord against heaven and holiness, not eafily broken; a blind mind, a perverfe will, and diforderly diftempered affections. The mind fwelled with felf-conceit, fays the man fhould not ftoop; the will oppofite to the will of God, fays he will not; and the corrupt affections rifing against the Lord, in defence of the corrupt will, fay, he fhall not. Thus the poor creature ftands out against God and goodness; till a day of power come, in which he is made a new creature.

IV. The Confcience is corrupt and defiled, Tit. i. 15. It is an evil eye, that fills one's converfation with much darkness and confufion; being naturally unable to do its office; till the Lord, by letting in a new hight to the foul, awaken the confcience; it remains fleepy and unactive. Confcience can never do its work, but according to the light it hath to work by Wherefore feeing the natural man cannot fpiritually difcern fpiritual things, (1 Cor. ii. 14.) the confcience naturally is quite ufelefs in that point; being cast into fuch a deep fleep, that nothing but a faving lumination from the Lord, can fet it on work in that matter. The light of the natural confcience in good and evil, fin and duty, is very defective; therefore tho' it may check for groffer fins; yet as to the more fubtile workings of fin, it cannot check for them, because it difcerns them not.. Thus confcience, will fly in the face of many, if at any time they be drunk, fwear, neglect prayer, or be guilty of any grofs fin; who otherwife have a profound peace; tho' they live in the fin of unbelief, are ftrangers to fpiritual worship, and the life of faith. And natural light being but faint and languifhing in many things which it doth reach, confcience in that cafe fhoots like a fhitch in one's fide, which quickly goes off; its incitements to duty, and checks for and ftruggies againft fin, are very remifs, which the natural man eafily gets over. But because there is a falfe light in the dark mind, the natural confcience following the fame will call evil good, and good evil, Ifa. v. 20. And-fo it is often found like a blind and furious horfe, which doth violently run down himself, his rider, and all that doth come in his way, John xvi. 2. Whofoever killeth you, will think that he doth God fervice: When the natural confcience is awakened by the Spirit of conviction, it will indeed rage and rore, and put the whole man in a dreadful confternation, awfully fummon all the powers of the foul to help in a strait; make the stiff heart to tremble, and the knees to bow; fet the eyes a-weeping, the tongue a-confefsing; and oblige the man to caft out the goods into the fea, which it apprehends are like to fink the fhip of the foul, tho' the heart ftill goes after them But yet it is an evil confcience, which natively leads. to defpair, and will do it effectually, as in Judas's cafe ; unless either lufts prevail over it, to lull it afleep, as in the cafe of Felix, A&sxxiv. 25.

or

or the Blood of CHRIST prevail over it, fprinkling and purging it from dead works, as in the cafe of all true converts, Heb. ix. 14.&x. 23. Laftly, Even the Memory bears evident marks of this corruption. What is good and worthy to be minded, as it makes but flender impreffion, fo that impreffion eafily wears off; the memory, as a leaking veffel, lets it flip, Heb. ii. 1. As a fieve that is full, when in the water, lets all go when it is taken out; fo is the memory, with refpect to fpiritual things. But how does it retain what ought to be forgotten? Naughty things fo bear in themfelves upon it, that though men would fain have them out of mind, yet they stick there like glue. However forgetful men be in in other things, it is hard to forget an injury. So the memory often furnishes new fuel to old lufts; makes men in old age to re-act the fins of their youth, while it prefents them again to the mind with delight, which thereupon licks up the former vomit. And thus it is like the riddle, that lets through the pure grain, and keeps the refuse. Thus far of the corruption of the foul.

The Body itself also is partaker of this corruption and defilement, fo far as it is capable thereof. Wherefore the Scripture calls it finful flefb, Rom. viii. 3. We may take this up in two things. (1.) The natural temper, or rather diftemper of the bodies of Adam's children, as it is an effect of original fin; fo it hath a native tendency to fin, incites to fin, leads the foul into fnares, yea, is itself a fnare to the foul. The body is a furious beaft, of fuch metal, that if it be not beat down, kept under, and brought into fubjection, it will caft the foul into much fin and mifery, 1 Cor. ix. 27. There's a vileness in the body, (Phil.iii. 21.) which, as to the faints, will never be removed, until it be melted down in a grave, and caft into a new mould, at the refurrection to come forth a fr ritual body: and will never be carried off from the bodies of thofe, who are not partakers of the refurrection to life. (2.) It ferves the foul in many fins. Its members are inftruments or weapons of unrighteoufnefs, whereby men fight against God, Rom. vi. 13. The eyes and ears are open doors, by which impure motions and finful defires enter the foul; the tongue is a world of iniquity; James iii. 6. an unruly evil, full of deadly poifon, ver. 8. By it the impure heart vents a great deal of its filthiness. The throat is an open fepulchre, Rom. iii. 13. The feet run the devil's errands, ver. 15. The belly is made a god, Philip. iii. 19. Not only by drunkards and riotous livers, but by every natural man, Zech. vii. 6. So the body naturally is an agent for the devil; and a magazine of armour against the Lord.

To conclude, man by nature is wholly corrupted: From the file of the foot, even unto the head, there is no foundness in him. And as in a dunghill, every part contributes to the corruption of the whole; fo the natural man, while in that ftate, grows ftill worfe and worfe. The foul is made worfe by the body, and the body by the foul and every faculty of the foul ferves to corrupt another more and more. Thus much for the fecond general Head.

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How

How Man's Nature was corrupted.

THIRDLY, I fhall fhew how man's nature comes to be thus corrupted. The heathens perceived that man's nature was corrupted: but how fin had entred, they could not tell. But the Scripture is very plain in that point, Rom. v. 12. By one man fin entered into the world. Ver. 19. By one man's difobedience, many were made finners. Adam's fin corrupted man's nature, and leavened the whole lump of mankind. We putrified in Adam, as our root. The root was poifoned, and fo the branches were envenomed; the vine turned the vine of Sodom, and fo the grapes became grapes of gall. Adam, by his fin, became not only guilty, but corrupt; and fo tranfmits guilt and corruption to his pofterity, Gen. v. 3. Job xiv. 4. By his fin he stript him felf of his original righteoufnefs, and corrupted himself: we were in him representatively, being reprefented by him, as our moral head, in the covenant of works; we were in him feminally, as our natural head; hence we fell in him, and by his difobedience, were made finners, as Levi, in the loins of Abraham paid tithes, Heb. vii. 9, 10. His first fin is imputed to us; therefore juftly are we left under the want of his original righteoufnefs, which, being given to him as a common perfon, he caft off, by his fin; and this is neceffarily followed, in him and us, by the corruption of the whole nature; righteousness and corruption being two contraries, one of which must needs always be in man, as a fubject capable thereof. And Adam our common father being corrupt, we are fo too; for who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?

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Although it is fufficient to evince the righteousness of this difpenfation, that it was from the Lord, who doth all things well; yet to filence the murmurings of proud nature, let these few things further be confidered, (.) In the covenant wherein Adam reprefented us, eternal happiness was promifed to him and his pofterity upon condition of his, that is, Adam's perfect obedience, as the representative for all mankind whereas, if there had been no covenant, they could not have pleaded eternal life, upon their most perfect obedience, but might have ben, after all, reduced to nothing, notwithstanding, by natural juftice, they would have been liable to God's eternal wrath, in cafe of fin. Who in that cafe would not have confented to that reprefentation? (2.) Adam had a power to ftand given him, being made upright. He was as capable to ftand for himself, and all his pofterity, as any after him could be for themselves. This trial of mankind, in their head, would foon have been over, and the crown won to them all, had he stood; whereas, had his pofterity been independent on him, and every one left to act for himself, the trial would have been continually a-carrying on, as men came into the world. (3) He had natural affections the frongeft to engage him, being our common father. (4.) Ilis own ftock was in the thip, his all lay at stake as well

as

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as ours.

He had no feparate intereft from ours; but if he forgot ours, he behoved to have forgot ours, he behoved to have forgot his own. (5.) If he had ftood, we fhould have had the light of his mind, the righteoufnefs of his will, and holiness of his affections, with entire purity tranfmitted unto us; we could not have fallen; the crown of glory, by his obedience, would have been for ever fecured to him and his. This is evident from the nature of a federal representation; and no reason can be given why, feeing we are loft by Adam's fin, we fhould not have been faved by his obedience. On the other hand, it is reasonable, that he falling, we fhould, with him, bear the lofs. Laftly, Such as quarrel this difpenfation, must renounce their part in Chrift; for we are no otherwife made finners by Adam, than we are made righteous by Chrift; from whom we have both imputed and inherent righteoufnefs. We no more made choice of the second Adam, for our head and reprefentative in the fecond covenant; than we did of the firft Adam in the firft covenant.

Let none wonder that fuch an horrible change would be brought on by one fin of our first parents, for thereby they turned away from God, as their chief end, which neceffarily infers an univerfal depravation. Their fin was a complication of evils, a total apoftafy from God, a violation of the whole law. By it they broke all the ten commands at once. (1.) They chofe new gods. They made their belly their god, by their fenfuality: felf their god, by their ambition; yea, and the devil their god, believing him, and difbelieving their Maker. (2.) Tho' they received, yet they obferved not that ordinance of God, about the forbidden fruit. They contemned that ordinare fo plainly enjoined them, and would needs carve out to themselves, how to ferve the Lord. (3.) They took the name of the Lord their God in vain: defpifing his attributes, his juftice, truth, power, &c. They grofly profaned that facramental tree; abufed his word, by not giving credit to it; abused that creature of his, which they thould not have touched, and violently mifconftrued his providence ; as if God, by forbidding them that tree, had been ftanding in the way of their happinefs; and therefore he fuffered them not to efcape his righteous judgment. (4.) They remembered not the Sabbath to keep it holy, but put themselves out of a condition to ferve God aright on his own day. Neither kept they that state of holy reft, wherein God had put them. (5.) They caft off their relative duties: Eve forgets herself, and acts without advice of her husband, to the ruin of both; Adam inftead of admonishing her to repent, yields to the temptation, and confirms her in her wickedness. They forgot all duty to their pofterity. They honoured not their Father in heaven; and therefore their days were not long in the land which the Lordi their God gave them. (6.) They ruined themselves, and all their pofterity. (7.) Gave up themfelves to luxury and fenfuality. (8.) Took away what was not their own, against the exprefs will of the great Owner. (9.) They bore falfe witnefs, and lied against

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the