A Body of Practical Divinity, Sermon 23
MAN's Misery by the FALL.
Quest. XIII. WHat is the Misery of that Estate whereinto Man fell?
Resp. All Mankind by their Fall lost Communion with God, are under his Wrath and Curse, and so made liable to all Miseries in this Life, to Death itself, and to the Pains of Hell for ever.
Ephes. 2.3. And were by nature the children of wrath. Adam left an unhappy Portion to his Posterity, Sin and Misery. We have already considered the first of these, Original Sin, now the Misery of that Estate; in the first we have seen Mankind Offending, in the second we shall see him Suffering. The Misery ensuing Original Sin, is twofold:
I. Privative: By this first Hereditary Sin we have lost Communion with God. Adam was God's Familiar, his Favourite, but Sin hath put us all out of Favour: When we lost God's Image, we lost his Acquaintance. God's banishing Adam out of Paradise, Hierogliphical, it shewed how Sin hath banish'd us out of God's Love and Favour.
II. Positive: In four things, 1. Under the Power of Satan. 2. Heirs of God's Wrath. 3. Subject to all Miseries in this Life. 4. Obnoxious to Hell and Damnation.
1. The first Misery is, By Nature we are under the Power of Satan,] who is called, The Prince of the Power of the Air, Eph. 2.2. Before the Fall Man was a free Denison, now a Slave; before a King on the Throne, now in Fetters. And who is Man inslaved too? To one that is an Hater of him. This was an Aggravation of Israel's Servitude, Psal. 106.41. They that hated them ruled over them. By Sin we are enslaved to Satan, who is an Hater of Mankind, and writes all his Laws in Bloud. Sinners before Conversion are under Satan's Command, as the Ass at the command of the Driver, he doth all the Devil's Drudgery. No sooner Satan tempts but he obeys; as the Ship is at the command of the Pilot, he steers it which way he will; so is the Sinner at the command of Satan, he may steer him which way he will; and he never steers the Ship but into Hell's Mouth. The Devil rules all the Powers and Faculties of a Sinner:
1. He rules the Understanding: He blinds Men with Ignorance, and then rules them. As the Philistines first put out Sampson's Eyes, and then bound him. Satan can do what he will with an ignorant Man: he doth not see the Errour of his way, therefore the Devil can lead him into any Sin; you may lead a blind Man any whither: Omne peccatum fundatur in ignorantia.
2. Satan rules the Will: Though he cannot force the Will, yet he can by a Tentation draw it, Joh. 8.44. The lusts of your father ye will do. He hath got your hearts, and him you will obey, Jer. 44.17. We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven. When the Devil spurs a Sinner by a Tentation, he will over Hedge and Ditch, break all God's Laws that he may obey Satan: Where then is Free-will? When Satan hath such power over the Will, his lusts ye will do. There's not any Member of the Body but is at the Devil's Service; the Head to plot Sin, the Hands to work it, the Feet to run on the Devil's Errand: Grave jugum servitutis, Cicero. Slavery is hateful to a Noble Spirit. Satan is the Worst Tyrant, the Cruelty of Cannibal or Nero is nothing to his; other Tyrants do but rule over the Bodies, he over the Conscience; other Tyrants have some Pity on their Slaves, though they work in the Gally, they give them Meat, let them have Hours for Rest: but Satan is a Merciless Tyrant, he …ets Men have no Rest. What pains did Iudas take, the Devil would let him have no rest till he had betrayed Christ, and afterwards embrued his Hands in his own Bloud.
Use 1. See here our Misery by Original Sin, enslaved to Satan, Ephes. 2.2. Satan is said to work effectually in the Children of Disobedience: What a sad Plague is this for a Sinner to be at the will of the Devil. Just like a Slave, if the Turk bids him dig in the Mine, hew in the Quarres, tug at the Oar, the Slave must do it, he dares not refuse. If the Devil bids a Man Lye or Cozen, he doth not refuse; and which is worst, Men are enslaved, and they willingly obey this Tyrant; other Slaves are forced against their will. Israel sighed by reason of their bondage, Exod. 2.23. But Sinners are willing to be Slaves, they will not take their Freedom; they kiss their Fetters.
Use 2. Let us labour to get out of this deplorable Condition Sin hath plunged us into; get from under the Power of Satan: If any of your Children were Slaves, you would give great sums of Money to purchase their Freedom; your Souls are enslaved, and will you not labour to be set free. Improve the Gospel; the Gospel proclaims a Jubilee to Captives. Sin binds Men, the Gospel looseth them: Paul's preaching was to turn Men from the Power of Satan to God, Acts 26.18. The Gospel-Star that leads you to Christ, and if you get Christ, then you are made free, though not from the Being of Sin, yet from Satan's Tyranny, Joh. 8.36. If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed. You hope to be Kings to Reign in Heaven, and will you let Satan Reign in you now? Never think to be Kings when you die, and Slaves while you live: The Crown of Glory is for Conquerours, not for Captives. Oh get out of Satan's Jurisdiction; get your Fetters of Sin filed off by Repentance.
2 Misery.] We are Heirs of God's Wrath.] In the Text, And were by nature the children of wrath. Tertullian's Exposition here is wrong, Chrildren of Wrath he understands subjective, that is, subject to Wrath and Passion; offending often in the Irascible Faculty of a wrathful Spirit. But by Children of Wrath, the Apostle passively means Heirs of Wrath, expos'd to God's Displeasure. God was once a Friend, but Sin broke the Knot of Friendship; now God's Smile is turned into a Frown; we are now bound over to the Sessions, and become Children of Wrath; And who knows the power of God…s wrath? Psal. 90.11. The Wrath of a King is as the roaring of a Lyon, Prov. 19.12. How did Haman's Heart tremble when the King rose up from the Banquet in wrath, Esth. 7.7. But God's Wrath is Infinite, all other is but as a Spark to a Flame: Wrath in God is not a Passion as in us; but it is an Act of God's Holy Will, whereby he abhors Sin, and decrees to punish it. This Wrath is very dismal, 'tis this Wrath of God that imbitters Afflictions in this Life: When Sickness comes attended with God's Wrath, it puts Conscience into an Agony. The mingling the Fire with the Hail made it so terrible, Exod. 9.24. so mingling God's Wrath with Affliction makes it torturing. It is the Nail in the Yoke; God's Wrath when but in a Threatning, (as a Shower hanging in the Cloud) made Ely's ears to tingle; What is it then when this Wrath is executed? It is terrible when the King rates and chides a Traytor, but it is more dreadful when he causeth him to be set upon the Rack, or to be broke upon the Wheel: Who knows the power of God's wath? While we are Children of Wrath, 1. We have nothing to do with any of the Promises; they are as the Tree of Life, bearing several sorts of Fruit, but no right to pluck one Leaf, Eph. 2.3. Children of wrath. Verse 12. Strangers to the covenants of promise. The Promises are as a Fountain seal'd. While we are in the State of Nature, we see nothing but the flaming Sword; and as the Apostle, Heb. 10.27. there remains nothing but foreign, a fearful looking for of fiery Indignation▪ 2. While Children of Wrath, we are Heirs to all God's Curses, Gal. 3.10. How can the Sinner eat and drink in that Condition? Like Damari… 's Banquet, he sat at Meat, and there was a Sword hanging over his Head by a small Thread; one would think he should have little stomack to eat: So the Sword of God's Wrath and Curse hangs every moment over a Sinner's head. We read of a flying Roll written with Curses, Zach. 5.3. There's a Roll written with Curses goes out against every Person that Lives and Dies in Sin: God's Curse blasts where-ever it comes. A Curse on the Sinner's Name, a Curse on his Soul, a Curse on his Estate, Posterity, a Curse on the Ordinances. Sad if all a Man did eat should turn to Poison: The Sinner eats and drinks his own Damnation at God's Table. Thus it is before Conversion. As the Love of God makes every bitter thing sweet, so the Curse of God makes every sweet thing bitter.
Use. See our Misery by the Fall, Heirs of Wrath: And is this Estate to be rested in? If a Man be fallen under the King's Displeasure, will he not labour to Re-ingratiate himself into his Favour. O let us flie from the Wrath of God! And whither should we flie, but to Jesus Christ? there's none else to shield off the Wrath of God from us, 1 Thess. 1.10. Iesus hath delivered us from wrath to come.
3. Subject to all outward Miseries: All the Troubles incident to Man's Life are the bitter Fruits of Original Sin; The sin of Adam hath subjected the Creature to Vanity, Rom. 8.20. Is it not a part of the Creature's Vanity, that all the Comforts here below will not fill the Heart, no more then the Mariner's breath can fill the Sails of a Ship: Job 2….22. In the midst of his sufficiency he shall be in straits. There is still something wanting, and a Man would have more: the Heart is always Hydropical, it thirsts and is not satisfied. Solomon put all the Creatures into a Lembick, and when he came to extract the Spirits and Quintissence, there was nothing but Froth, all was Vanity, Eccles. 1.2. Nay, 'tis vexing Vanity, not only Emptiness but Bitterness. Our Life is Labour and Sorrow, we come into the World with a Cry, go out with a Groan, Ps. 90.10. Some have said that they would not be to live the Life they have lived over again, because their Life hath had more Water in it than Wine. More Water of Tears then Wine of Joy: Quid est diu vivere nisi diu torqueri, Aug. Man is born to trouble, Job 5.7. Every one is not born Heir to Land, but he is born Heir to Trouble; as well separate Weight from Lead. We do not finish our Troubles in this Life, but change them. Trouble is the Vermine bred out of the putred matter of Sin. Whence are all our Fears, but from Sin? 1 Ioh. 4.18. There is torment in fear. Fear is the Ague of the Soul, sets it a shaking: some fear Want, others Alarms, others fear loss of Relations: If we rejoyce 'tis with Trembling. Whence are all our Disappointment of Hopes, but from Sin? Where we look for Comfort, there a Cross: where we expect Honey there we tast Wormwood: Whence is it that the Earth is filled with Violence, that the Wicked oppresseth the Man which is more righteous then he? Hab. 1.13. Whence is it that so much Fraudulency in Dealing, so much Falseness in Friendship, such Crosses in Relations; whence is it Children prove Undutiful, they that should be as the Staff of the Parents Age, are a Sword to pierce their Hearts: Whence is it Servants are Unfaithful to their Masters. The Apostle speaks of some who have entertain'd Angels into their Houses, Heb. 13.2. But how oft instead of entertaining Angels into their Houses, do some entertain Devils? Whence are all the Mutinees and Divisions in a Kingdom? 2 Chr. 15.5. In those days there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in. All this is but the sowr Core in that Apple our first Parents eat, viz. Fruit of Original Sin. Besides, all the Deformities and Diseases of the Body, Feavers, Convulsions, Catarrhs, Macies & nova febrium terris incubu…t cohors—These are from Sin. There had never been a Stone in the Kidnies, if it had not been first a Stone in the Heart. Yea, the death of the Body, is the Fruit and Result of Original Sin, Rom. 5.12. Sin entred into the world, and death by sin. Adam was made Immortal, conditionally, if he had not sinned; Sin dig'd Adam's Grave. Death is terrible to Nature: Lewis King of France forbad all that came into his Court to mention the name of Death in his Ears. The Socinians say, That Death comes only from the Infirmness of the Constitution. But the Apostle saith, Sin usher'd Death into the World: By sin came death. Certainly had not Adam eat of the Tree of Knowledge, he had not died, Gen. 2.17. In the day thou eatest, thou shalt surely (die,) implying, if Adam had not eat he should not have died. O then see the Misery ensuing upon Original Sin! Sin dissolves the foreign, the Harmony and good Temperature of the Body, it pulls this Frame in pieces.
4. Original Sin without Repentance exposeth to Hell and Damnation. This is the second Death, Rev. 20.14. Two things in it:
1. Poena Damni: Punishment of Loss; the Soul is banished from the Beatifical Presence of God, in whose Presence is Fulness of Joy.
2. Poena Sensus: Punishment of Sense; the Sinner feels the scalding Viols of God's Wrath: It is penetrating, abiding, Joh. 3.36. Reserved, 2 Pet. 2.17. If when God's Anger be kindled but a little, and a Spark or two of it flies into a Man's Conscience here in this life, it be so terrible, what then will it be when God stirs up all his Anger? In Hell there is the Worm and the Fire, Mark 9.44. Hell is the very Accent and Emphasis of Misery: There's Iudgment without Mercy. O what Flames of Wrath, what Seas of Vengeance, what Rivers of Brimstone, are pour'd out there upon the Damn'd! Bellarmi…e is of Opinion, That one Glimpse of Hell-fire were enough to make the most fla…itious Sinner turn Christian; nay, live as an Hermit, a most strict mortified Life. What is all other Fire to this, but painted Fire? Ejus adesse intolerabile, ejus abesse impossibile: To bear it will be intolerable, to avoid it will be impossible. And these Hell-torments are for ever; have no Period put to them, Rev. 9.6. They shall seek death and shall not find it. Origen fancied a Fiery Stream in which the Souls of sinful Men wer… to be purged after this Life, and then to pass into Heaven: but it is for ever. The Breath of the Lord kindles that Fire; and where shall we find Engines or Buckets to quench it? Rev. 14.11. And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever, and they have no rest night nor day. Thank Original Sin for all.
Use. 1. What sad thoughts should we have of this Primitive Original Sin, that hath created so many Miseries. What Honey can be got out of this Lyon, what Grapes can we gather off this Thorn? It sets Heaven and Earth against us: While we choose this Bramble to Rule, Fire comes out of the Bramble to devour us.
2. How are all Believers bound to Jesus Christ, who hath freed them from that Misery to which Sin hath exposed them, Eph. 1.7. In whom we have Redemption through his Blood. Sin hath brought Trouble and a Curse into the World. Christ hath sanctified the Trouble, and removed the Curse. Nay, he hath not only freed Believers from Misery, but purchased for them a Crown of Glory and Immortality, 1 Pet. 5.4. When the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a Crown of Glory that fadeth not away.