fhip. Abimelech the fon of Gideon's concubine, flew his seventy brethren the fons of the wives. 2. The reafon hereof is, that one fin kept in the allowed practice thereof, evidenceth that any good done by fuch a one, is not done out of love to God, and regard to his holy law, but from fome felf end. For if the authority of God upon any command were fufficient to recommend the obedience of it to a man, it would recommend all the commands to him, because all bear the fame impress of divine authority, James ii. 10, II. FOURTHLY, The whole unregenerate world lies under the guilt of fin, the guilt of revenging wrath, Rom. iii. 19. Now we know that what things foever the law faith, it faith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be ftopped, and all the world: may become guilty before God. By the fanction of the law, guilt follows fin; the creature finning be comes liable to wrath; there is a bond of guilt wreathed about their neck, by which they may be drawn to fuffer. Hence fin is called a debt, because as it is the taking away of obedience due, it binds to fuffer punishment accordingly. That we may have a view of their state under the guilt of fin, confider, I. It is the guilt of eternal wrath they lie under, being bound over thereto by the curfe, Gal. iii. 1o. The regenerate may be under guilt too; but it is only the guilt of fatherly anger; there is no curse, no revenging wrath in their cafe, Rom. viii. 1. But the unregenerate are under a bond of guilt binding them to fuffer in hell to the complete fatisfaction of juftice. 2. The guilt of their original fin they were born with, is ftill lying on them, Eph. ii. 3.-And were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. They came into the world condemned men; and not being in Chrift, the sentence is never reverfed, though the execution is delayed. They have not the king's pardon, pardon, though they are yet spared, and easy as if there were no quarrel. 3. Every actual tranfgreffion, in heart, lip, or life, by omiffion, or commiffion, brings on new guilt of that kind on them, Gal. iii. 10. Curfed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." So the guilt of their fins is added to the guilt of their original fin; and as many actual fins as they are chargeable with, fo many pliars there are of that cord of death on them. As they repeat their fins, the law repeats its curfe. 4. An unregenerate man can do nothing but what is fin, Matth. vii. 18. Accordingly God teftifies of them that there is none that doeth good, no not one, Rom. iii. 12. His nature being wholly corrupt, all his actions are corrupt too; his natural actions, Zech. vii. 6. his civil actions, Prov. xxi. 4. and his religious. actions, Prov. xv. 8. So that in all they do, they contract new guilt, Hag. ii. 14.. 5. Man is a bufy creature, ftill doing. And none are more busy than the unregenerate that can do no good, Ifa. lvii. 20. The wicked are like the troubled fea, when it cannot reft, whofe waters caft up mire and dirt. The heart of man is like the watch, that may go as faft going wrong, as when going right; it is ftill employed about vanity or vileness; and every imagination is evil, Gen. vi. 5.. Be 6. Lastly, All their guilt sticks with them, nothing of it goes off, being out of Christ, Eph. ii. 1. lievers are daily contracting guilt, it is true; but then they are daily getting it removed too, through daily application of the blood of Chrift by faith, as the living man is putting off naftiness from him; whereas all abides with the unregenerate world, as the vermin on the dead corpfe that can put of none. Now put all these together, and what a dreadful lair has the unregenerate world in the guilt of fin! Floods of guilt are ftill rolling in on them, as the waters waters are running continually into the fea; but whereas the fea lets out of its waters that it receives in, they keep all the floods of guilt that roll in on them. So the longer they live, they are the more miferable, because the more guilty. LASTLY, The whole unregenerate world lies in the filth and pollution of fin, Tit. i. 15. Unto them that are defiled and unbelieving, is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. Sin is a defiling evil, it pollutes the finner in the fight of God, defacing his image in the foul, and rendering him unlike God. God is glorious in holinefs, this holiness he has expreffed in his law, and fin is the quite contrary of that holiness. So that God can no more cease to abominate it, than to delight in his own image, Hab. i. 13. Jer. xliv. 4. 1. Their natural defilement and pollution which they were born in, ftill remains, Pfal. li. 5. for they are not born again of the water and the Spirit. An emblem of their case ye have in Ezek. xvi. The whole foul of their frame is unclean, polluted, and unlike God, Tit. i. 15. 2. Every actual tranfgreffion, of omiffion, or commisfion, leaves a new ftroke of pollution on them, rendering them more unlike God, Rom. iii. 13. So that their spiritual uncleannefs is ever increafing, and the longer they live, they do but contract the more defilement. 3. Laftly, All fticks on them, nothing of their old or new defilement is removed; because they were never washed in the laver of regeneration, Ezek. xxii 24. And what a wretched case must that be, where new filth is still coming on the foul, but none going off? II. I fhall now fhew how the unregenerate world lies in wickednefs. They lie in it in the moft hopelefs cafe; which we may take up in three things. They lie, 1. Bound 1. Bound in it, Acts viii. bound in it like prifoners in the pit, Ifa. lxi. 1. They are in chains of guilt, which they cannot break off; there are fetters of ftrong lufts upon them, which hold them fast. Satan has overcome them, and brought them into bondage; and though they see their cafe is wrong, though a natural confcience witneffeth their hazard; yet they cannot leave it, but go on like an ox to the flaughter, and a fool to the correction of the ftocks. 2. Afleep in it, Eph. v. 14. They have drunk of the intoxicating cup, and are faft afleep, though within the fea mark of vengeance. Though fometimes they are made to start in their fleep, by paffing convictions like a stitch in the fide; yet there is no awakening of them, by all the alarms they get from the word, from providence, and their own confcience. . If they are at any time moved by thefe, yet they quickly fall over asleep again. 3. Lastly, Dead in it, Eph. ii. 1. A natural life, through the union of a foul with their body, they have, but their spiritual life is gone, the union of their fouls with God being quite broken, Eph. iv. 18. The image of God on the foul, the principle of vital holy actions, is away from them; fo they lie in their wickednefs, breathless and moveless, ready to be buried out of God's fight. The Doctrine of the Unregenerate World lying in USE I. Of information. See here, Firft, The fpring and fountain of the abounding fin in our day: The whole world lies in wickedness ; and wickedness proceedeth from the wicked, 1 Sam. xxiv. 13. What but wickedness can be expected in a wicked world? The unregenerate bear the far greater bulk in the land, as in the world; and they are lying in wickedness. Here then is the opened fountain of the great deep, that has brought on a deluge of wickednefs. Hence, 1. The 1. The apoftafy in principles, men departing from the faith, and bringing in damnable herefies. The infidelity of this generation has gone to a monftrous height; contempt of revealed religion has fearfully fpread. The doctrine of the grace of Chrift is defpif.. and the doctrine of the perfon of Chrift is rudely attacked; the foundations that were left in safety in the time of Prelacy, yea under Popery, are now overturned *. So has the wickedness of the world lying in wickedness broke out in our day. ed; 2. Apoftafy in practice. There is a deluge of profanity gone over the land; men have loofed the bridle to their lufts, opened the fluice to their wickedness, that there is no stopping of it by men's endeavours, Pfal. cxix. 126. "It is time for thee, Lord, to work; for they have made void thy law." All ranks have corrupted their ways in church and ftate; that they are like to wear out ferious godliness, and the faints of the Moft High. And the generation is remarkably worse than their father's, more loofe, and regardless of all that is good. Secondly, The fpring of all the miferies that are lying on us, and we are threatened with. The world is lying in wickedness, and therefore lies in mifery; for God is a fin-hating and fin-revenging God. It is the fin and wickednefs of the generation, that has brought on the decay of trade, and is impoverishing the country, for a witness against the mifimprovement of a thriving condition. To that is owing the prefent ftraitness, and diminishing of our ordinary food; for the abuse of fulness in luxury, fenfuality, and lafcivioufnefs; the defolating of the flocks, for men's oppreffing one another; the great fiçknefs and death in families wherewith the Lord is afflicting us. And thefe look but like the beginning of forrows, for there is no turning to the hand that fmiteth. The author refers to the revival of Arianism in England by Dr Clarke, and in Scotland by Professor Simpson. |