The Sinners Sanctuary, Sermon 21
SERMON XXI.
Rom. 8.7, 8.
The carnal mind is enmity to God: and cannot be subject to his Law. So then they who are in the flesh, cannot please God.
IT is not the least of mans evils, that he knows not how evil he is; therefore the Searcher of the heart of m…n, gives the most perfect account of it, Ier. 17.12. The heart is deceitful above all things, as well as desperatly wicked. Two things superlative and excessive in it, bordering upon an infinitnesse, such as sin is capable of, Wickedness and Deceitfulness: and indeed, that which makes the wicked heart desperatly and hopelesly so, is, the deceitfulness of it: there are many specious coverings gotten, to palliat this wickedness and enmity, and so many invisible and spiritual wickednesses in the heart, that it is no wonder, that they lu…k and dwell without observation. Sin is either covered with some deceivable pretext of another thing, or altogether escapes the dim eyes of men, because of its subtil and spiritual nature. Both are in this business: the enmity of mans heart against God is so subtil a thing in many, and it is shrouded over with some other pretences in all, that few get the lively discovery and sense of it. It is true, it is very grosse and palpable in most part of men; visible I mean upon them, though not to themselves. Any, whose eyes is opened, may behold the black visage of rebellion in the most part of the actings and courses of men, as the Apostle Gal. 6. speaks, the works of the flesh are manifest. Truly this enmity against God is too too manifest in most part, the weapons of your warfare against God, being so carnal and visible, your opposition to his holy will and wayes being so palpable. There is an enmity acted by many in the tenour of their conversation, without God in the world, and against God; as appears in all your inveterat and godlesse customs of lying, swearing, cursing, drunkenness, railing, Sabbath-breaking, neglect of prayer, and such like: which carry in their fore-brow this inscription, Against the known God, opposite to that of the Athenians altar. The God whom you pretend to know and wo…ship, His Name is every day blasphemed, His word slighted, His will disobeyed, as if you had proclaimed war against him. But there is in some (and I fear a great many) not only an acted, but an affected enmity too. Enmity rising up to the maturity and ripness of malignity, and hatred of the Image of God, in all his children. Some are not willing to go to Heaven, yet they do not disturb others in their juorney: they can let others be religious about them, and rawly desire to be like them; but others there are, who will neither enter into Heaven themselves, nor let others enter, as Christ speaks of the Pharisees, Matth. 23.13. They hate the light of anothers conversation, because their own deeds are evil, and are reproved and condemned by it. Its said Rev. 11.10. The witnesses tormented them that dwelt on the earth. It is strange, what a torment it is to the world, that the godly are in it! piety is an eye-sore to many: if they could extirpat all that bears that image, they would think it sweet as bread, Psal. 14. This is a more open and declared enmity against the God of Heaven; and yet I know it lurks under the mask of some other thing: you pretend to hate hypocrisie only. Alas! what a scorn is it for profanity to hate hypocrisie? sure it is not because it is a sin, but for the very shaddow of piety it carries: you hate the thing it self so perfectly, that you cannot indure the very picture of it. Do not deceive your selves, the true quarrel is, because they run not to the same excesse of riot with you: if they will lie, cozen, defraud, swear, and blaspheme as other men, you could indure to make them companions, as you do others; and the principle of that is, the enmity that was placed in the beginning: that mortal irreconciliable feud, betwixt the two families, are two seeds, of Christ and Satan.
But (as I told you) this enmity acts in a more subtile and invisible way in some, and is painted over with some fair colours, to hide the deformity of it: not only the grosser corruptions of men carry this stamp, but take even the most refined piece, or part in man; take his mind, take the excellency of his mind, even the wisdom of it; yet that hath enmity incorporated into it, and mixed with it throughout all; for the wisdom of the flesh is enmity with God, as it may be read, foreign, the very prudence and reason of a natural man, which carries him to a distance from, and opposition with, the common defilements in the courses of men; yet that hath in its bosome, a more exquisite and refined enmity against God; and so the more spiritual and purified it be from grosser corruptions, it is the more active and powerful against God, because it is, as it were, the very spirit and quintessence of enmity. You see it, 1 Cor. 1. how the wisdom of God is foolishness to the wisdom of the world, and then again, that the wisdom of the world is the greatest folly to the only wise God. Men, that have many natural advantages beyond others, are at this great disadvantage, They are more ready to despise godliness, as too base and simple a thing, to adorn their natures: As Christ said of rich men, it may be said of wise men, of learned men, of civil and blameless persons, who have a smooth carriage before the world, how hard is it for such to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven? hard indeed, for they must be stript naked of that, ere they can enter through this narrow gate; I mean, the opinion and conceit, of any worth or excellency; and so diminished in their own eyes, that they may go through this needles eye, without crushing.
The stream of enmity runs under-ground often, and so hides it self under some other notion, till at length it burst forth openly: I find it commonly run in the secret channel of amity or friendship, to some other thing opposite to God: So Iames 4.4, the amity of …he world is enmity with God; and 1 Joh. 2.15. He that loveth the world, the love of the Father is not in him. There are two dark and under-ground conduits, to convey this enmity against God, Amity to the world, and Amity to our selves, self-love, and creature-love. We cannot denounce war openly against Heaven, but this is the next course, To joyn to, or associat with, any party that is contrary to God; and thus under the covert of friendship to our selves, and love to the world, we war against God, and destroys our own souls. I say, first, Amity to the world carries enmity to God in the bosome of it: and if you believe not this, hear the Apostles sharp and pungent question, you adulterers and adulteresses, know you not that the Amity of the world is Enmity with God? He doth not speak only, to persons guilty of that crime, but to all natural men, who are guilty of an adultery or whoredome, of a more spiritual nature; but as abominable and more dangerous. There is a bond and special tye betwixt all men, and God their Maker, which oblidgeth them to consecrate and devout themselves, their affections and endeavours to his honour, especially when the Covenant of the Gospel is superadded unto that, in which Jesus Christ our Lord reveals himself, as having only right to us and our affections; as willing to bestow himself upon us; and notwithstanding of all the distance between him and wretched sinners, yet filling it up with his infinit love, and wonderful condescency, dimitting himself to the form of a servant, out of love, that so he might take us up, to be his chast Spouse, and adorn us with his beauty. This he challengeth of us, whoever hear and profess the Gospel: This is you… profession (if you understood it) That Iesus Christ shall be your well-beloved, and ye his; that you shall separate your self to him, and admit no stranger in his place: that the choice and marrow of your joy, love, and delight, shall be bestowed on him. Now, this bond and tye, of a professed relation, to that glorious Husband, is foully broken by the most part, by espousing their affections to this base world. Your hearts are turned off him unto strangers, that is, present perishing things: whereas the intendment of the Gospel is, To present you to Christ as pure Virgins, 2 Cor. 11.2. Truly your hearts are gone a-whoring after other things: the love of the world hath withdrawn you, or kept you in chains: these present things are as snares, nets and bands; as an harlots hands and heart, Eccles. 7.26. they are powerful inchantments over you, which bewitch you to a base love, from an honourable and glorious love. O that you would consider it, my beloved! what opposition there is betwixt the love of the world, and the love of the Father; betwixt amity to that which hath nothing in it, but some present bait to your deceitful lusts; and amity to God, your only lawful Husband. Affection is a transforming and conforming thing, Si terram amas terra es, the love of God would purify thy heart, and lift it up to more similitude to him whom thou loves; but the love of the world assimulats it unto the world, makes it such a base and ignoble piece, as the earth is. Do you think marriage-affection can be parted? My wel-beloved is mine, therefore the Church is the Turtle, the Dove to Christ; of wonderful chastity: it never joyns but to one, and after the death of its marrow, it sighs and mourns ever after, and sits solitarily. You must retire, my beloved, and disingage from the love of other things, or you cannot love Christ: and if you love not Christ, you cannot have peace with the Father: and if you have not that peace, you cannot have life: this is the chain of life, the first link begins at the divorcement of all fo…mer loves and beloved idols: once the soul must be loosed in desire and delight, and that link must be fastned upon the most lovely and desireable object, Christ, the desire of the Nations: and this draws alongs another link, of peace and life with it. Do not mistake it, Religion would not hinder or prejudge your lawful business in this world: O it were the most compendious way to advance it, with more ease to your souls! But certainly it will teach you to exchange the love of these things, for a better and more heart-contenting love.
Then Amity to our selves is Enmity to God, and truly this is the last strong hold that holds out longest against God: when others may be beaten down, or surrendered: possibly a man may attain to this, To despise these lower things, as below his natural dignity and the excellency of his spirit: some may renounce much of that friendship with worldly and temporal things, as being fordid and base: but the enmity gets in to this strong and invisible tower of darkness, self-love, and pride: and therefore the Apostle Iohn makes this the last and chiefest, the pride of life, 1 Joh. 2.16. When the lusts of the eyes and flesh are in some measure abated, this is but growing: and what decreaseth of these, seems to accresce unto this: as if self-love and pride, did feed and nourish it self upon the ashes or consumption of other vices. Yea, it draws sap from graces and vertues, and grows thereby, till at length it kill that which nourished it: and indeed the Apostle Iames seems to proceed to this, vers. 5, 6. when he minds us that God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble; Doth the Scripture say this in vain, saith he? Is not self amity as well enmity, as the amity of the world? and therefore God opposes himself unto it, as the very grand enmity: self is the great lord, the arch-rebel, the head of all the opposition, that in which they do all center; and when all the inferiour Souldiers are captives, or killed, this is last in the fields, it lives first in opposition, and dies last, prunum vivens, & ultimum moriens. When a man is separated from many things, yet he may be but more conjoyned to himself, and so the further disjoyned from God. Of all the vile raggs of the old man, this is nearest the skin, and last put off: Of all the members, self is the heart, first alive, and last alive: When enmity is constrained to render up the outward members of the body, to yeeld them to a more smooth and fair carriage, to a civil behaviour, when the mind it self is forced to yeeld unto some light of truth, and knowledge of the Gospel; yet the enmity retires into the heart, and fortifies it the stronger, by self-love, and self-estimation; as in winter, the encompassing cold, makes the heat to combine it self together in the bowels of the earth, and by this means the springs are hotter then in summer; so the surrounding light of the Gospel, or education, or natural honesty, drives the heat and strength of enmity inward, where it fortifies it self more: This is that accursed Antiperistasis, that is made by the concurrence of some advantages of knowledge, and civility, and such like. The blood of enmity against God, gets in about the heart when it is chased for fear out of the outward man: Therefore the very first and fundamental principle of Christianity, is, Let a man deny himself, and so he shall be my Disciple; he must become a fool in his own eyes, though he be wise, that he may be wise, 1 Cor. 3.18. he must become as ungodly, though godly, that he may be justified by faith, Rom. 4.5. he must forsake himself, that he may indeed find himself, or get a better self in another, he must not eat much honey, that is not good, it would swell him though it be pleasant: he must not search his own glory, or reflect much upon it, if he would be a follower and friend of Christ. Look how much soever you engage to your selves, to esteem, or desire to be esteemed of others, to reflect with complacency on your selves, to mind your own satisfaction and estimation in what you do, so much you disingage from Jesus Christ, for these are contrary points: Its a direct motion towards Christ, its an inverse and backward motion towards our selves; and so much as we move that way, we promove not, but loses of our way, and are further from the true end. Ezekiels living creatures, may be an emblem of a Christian motion, he returns not as he goes, he makes a straight line to God, whithersoever he turn him; but nature makes all crooked lines, they seem to go forth in obedience to God, but they have a secret unseen reflection into its own bosom. And this is the greatest act of enmity To idolize God, and Deifie our selves: we make him a cypher, and sacrifice to our selves: his peculiar incommunicable property, of Alpha and Omega, that we do sacrilegiously attribute to our selves, the beginning of our motions, and end of them too. This is the crooked line, that nature cannot possibly move out of, till a higher spirit come, And restore her that halted, and make plain her paths.
That which is added, as a reason, explains this enmity more clearly; Because it cannot be subject, &c. Truly these two forementioned amities of the world and of our selves, do withdraw men wholly from the orderly subjection, that they owe to the Law of God. Order is the beauty of every thing, of nature, of art, of the whole universe, and of the several parts, kingdoms and republicks of it. This indeed is the very beauty of the world, all things subordinat to him that made them; only miserable man hath broken this order, and marred this beauty, and he cannot be subject foreign cannot come again into that orderly station and subordination he was once into. This is the only gap, or breach of the creation. And it is some other engagements, that draws him thus far out of course, The base love of the world and the inordinat love of himself, O these make his neck stiff! that it cannot bow to the yoke of obedience: these have opposite and contrary commands, and no man can serve two masters: when the commands of the great Lord, self, comes in opposition with the commands of God, then he cannot be subject to the Law of God. For a time, in some things, he may resemble a subjection, when the will of self, and the will of God commands in one point, as sometimes they do by accident; but that is neither frequent nor constant.
Not only, he is not subject, but there is worse in it, he cannot be subject to the Law of God. This is certainly, to throw down the natural pride of man, that alwayes apprehends some remnant ability in himself: you think still to make your selves better, and when convinced or challenged for sins, to make a mends and reform your lives. You use to promise these things as lightly and easily, as if they were wholly in your power, and as if you did only delay them for advantage; and truly it seems, this principle of self-sufficiency is engraven on mens hearts, when they procrastinat and delay repentance, and earnest minding of Religion to some other fitter season, as if it were in their liberty, to apply to it when they please: and when you are urged and perswaded to some reformation, you take in hand even as that people, Ier. 42.6, 20. Who said, all that the Lord hath said, we will do: You can strike hands, and engage to serve the Lord, as easily, as that people in Ioshua 24.18, 19. But we may say, Oh that there were such a heart in you! but alas, such a heart is not in you! you cannot serve the Lord, for He is holy and jealous, and ye are not only weak, but wicked. I beseech you then, believe this one testimony that God hath given of man, even the choisest thing in man, the very wisdom of a natural man, It is not subject to Gods Law, and it cannot be better, neither can it be subject: resolution, industry, vowes and covenants will not effect this, till the most High break and bow the heart. And not only is this enmity against the old law of commandments, an antipathy at them, as crossing our lusts, but even against the new and living Law, of the spirit of life in Christ.
Here is your misery, you can neither be subject to the Law as commanding to obey it, or threatning for disobedience to it, nor to the Gospel as promising to believe and receive it. The Law commands, but your law countermands within. The Law threatens and sentences you with condemnation, but you have some self-pleasing delusion, and dream in your heads, and blesses your selves in your own hearts, even though ye walk in the imagination of your hearts, contrary to the Law, Deut. 29. It is strange that you do not sore-apprehend and fear hell! but its this delusion possesses the heart, you shall not die: It was the first act of enmity, not only the transgression of the command, but unbelief of the truth of the curse: and that which fi…st encouraged man to sin, encourages you all to ly into it, and continue in it, a fancy of escaping wrath. This noise fills the heart: Satan whispers it in the ear, go on, you shall not die. Thus it appears, that the natural mind cannot be subject to the Law of God, no perswasion, no instruction, can inforce this belief of your damnable condition upon you.
But then when the enmity is beaten out of this sort, and a soul is really convinced of its desperat and lost estate, when the heart is brought down to subjection, to take with that dreadful sentence; yet there is another tower of enmity in the heart, that can keep out against the weapons of the Gospel, such as Paul mentions, Rom. 10.2. Being ignorant of the righteousnesse of God, they went about to establish their own, and could not submit to the righteousness of God. There is a natural pride and stiffness of heart, that we cannot endure but to have something in our selves, to rest on, and take pleasure into: and when a soul sees nothing, it rather vexes and torments it self, as grieving because it hath no ornament, or covering of its own, nor rejoiceth and delighteth in that righteousness of God revealed in Christ. O the difficulty to bow down so low, as to put on anothers righteousness over our nakedness! and should it be called submission? is it not rather the elevating, and ex…lting of a soul; yet in respect of our natural posture of spirit, it is a matter of great difficulty, to make a self condemned sinner submit to thi…, To be saved freely, without money or price, by anothers ransome. What empty, vain and frivolous expiation, and satisfactions will souls invent, rather then trust all to this? How long will poor souls wander abroad, from hill to mountain, seeking some inherent qualification, to commend them, and leave this Garden and Paradise of delights, which is opened up in Christ? souls look every where for help, till all hands fail; and then necessity constrains them to come hither, but indeed when necessity b…ought in charity, and amity keeps in, when once he knows what entertainment is in Christ. As for you, who as yet have not stooped to the sentence of wrath, how will you submit to the righteousness of God? but I wonder how you imagine this to be so easie a thing, To believe. You say You did alwayes believe in Christ, and that your hearts are still on him, and that you do it night and day. Now, there needs no other argument, to perswade that you do not at all believe in the Gospel, who have not apprehended no more difficulty in it, no more contrariety to your rebellious natures in it: let this one word go home with you, and convince you of your unbelief, The natural min… is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can it be. How then do you come so easily by it? certainly it must be fained and counterfit.