they have of God. They have a very mean esteem of God. Men are ready to entertain a good esteem of those with whom they are friends: they are apt to think highly of their qualities, to give them their due praises; and if there be defects, to cover them. But those to whom they are enemies, they are disposed to have mean thoughts of; they are apt to entertain a dishonorable opinion of them; they will be ready to look contemptibly upon any thing that is praiseworthy in them.

So it is with natural men towards God. They entertain very low and contemptible thoughts of God. Whatever honor and respect they may pretend and make a show of towards God, if their practice be examined, it will show, that they do certainly look upon him to be a Being, that is but little to be regarded. They think him one that is worthy of very little honor and respect, not worthy to be much taken notice of. The language of their hearts is, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice ?" Exod. v. 2. "What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have if we pray unto him ?" Job xxi. 15. They count him worthy neither to be loved nor feared. They dare not behave with that slight and disregard towards one of their fellow creatures, when a little raised above them in power and authority, as they dare and do towards God. They value one of their equals much more than God, and are ten times more afraid of offending such a one, than of displeasing the God that made them. They cast such exceeding contempt on God, as to prefer every vile lust before him. And every worldly enjoyment is set higher in their esteem than God. A morsel of meat, or a few pence of worldly gain, is preferred before him. God is set last and lowest in the esteem of natural

men.

2. They are enemies in the natural relish of their souls. They have an inbred distaste and disrelish of God's perfections. God is not such a sort of being as they would have. Though they are ignorant of God, yet from what they hear of him, and from what is manifest by the light of nature of God, they do not like him. By his being endowed with such attributes as he is, they have an aversion to him. They hear God is an infinitely holy, pure, and righteous Being, and they do not like him upon this account; they have no relish of such kind of qualifications; they take no delight in contemplating them. It would be a mere task, a bondage to a natural man, to be obliged to set himself to contemplate these attributes of God. They see no manner of beauty or loveliness, nor taste any sweetness in them. And upon the account of their distaste of these perfections, they dislike all the other of his attributes. They have greater aversion to him because he is omniscient and knows all things; because his omniscience is a holy omniscience. They are not pleased that he is omnipotent, and can do whatever he pleases; because it is a holy omnipotence. They are enemies even to his mercy, because it is a holy mercy. They do not like his immutability, because by this he never will be otherwise than he is, an infinitely holy God.

It is from this disrelish that natural men have of the attributes of God, that they do not love to have much to do with God. The natural tendency of the heart of man is to fly from God, and keep at a distance from him; and get as far off as possible from God. A natural man is averse to communion with God, and is naturally disinclined to those exercises of religion wherein he has immediately to do with God. It is said of wicked man, "God is not in all his thoughts," Psal. x. 4. It is evident that the mind of man is naturally averse to thinking about God; and hence, if any thoughts of God be suggested to the mind, they soon go away; such thoughts are not apt to rest in the minds of

natural men. If any thing is said to them of God, they are apt to forget it: it is like seed that falls upon the hard path, it does not at all enter in, and the fowls of the air soon catch it away; or like seed that falls upon a rock. Other things will stick; but divine things do, as it were, rebound; and if they are cast into the mind, they meet with that there which soon thrusts them out again; they meet with no suitable entertainment, but are soon chased away.

Hence, also it is that natural men are so difficultly persuaded to be constant in the duty of secret prayer. They would not be so averse to spending a quarter of an hour, night and morning, in some bodily labor, but it is because they are averse to a work wherein they have so immediately to do with God, and they naturally love to keep at a distance from God.

3. Their wills are contrary to his will. God's will and theirs are exceeding cross the one to the other. God wills those things that they hate, and are most averse to; and they will those things that God hates. Hence they oppose God in their wills: they set up their wills against the will of God. There is a dreadful, violent, and obstinate opposition of the will of natural men to the will of God.

They are very opposite to the commands of God. It is from the enmity of the will, that "the carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be," Rom. vii. 7. Hence natural men are enemies to God's government. They are not loyal subjects, but enemies to God, considered as Lord of the world. They are entire enemies to God's authority.

4. They are enemies to God in their affections. There is in every natural man a seed of malice against God: yea, there is such a seed of this rooted in the heart of man naturally. And it does often dreadfully break forth and appear. Though it may in a great measure lie hid in secure times, when God lets men alone, and they meet with no great disturbance of body or mind; yet if God does but touch men a little in their consciences, by manifesting to them a little of his wrath for their sins, this oftentimes brings out the principle of malice against God, which is exercised in dreadful heart-risings, inward wranglings and quarrelings, and blasphemous thoughts; wherein the heart is like a viper, hissing, and spitting poison at God. There is abundance of such a principle in the heart. And however free from it the heart may seem to be when let alone and secure, yet a very little thing will set it in a rage. Temptation will show what is in the heart. The alteration of a man's circumstances will often discover the heart: a change of circumstance will bring that out which was hid before. Pharaoh had no more natural enmity against God than other men; and if other natural men had been in Pharaoh's circumstances, the same The corruptions would have put forth themselves in as dreadful a manner. Scribes and Pharisees had naturally no more of a principle of malice in their hearts against Christ than other men; and other natural men would, in their case, and having as little restraint, exercise as much malice against Christ as they did. When wicked men come to be cast into hell, then their malice against God will appear. Then it will appear what dreadful malice they have in their hearts. Then their hearts will appear as full of malice as hell is full of fire. But when wicked men come to be in hell, there will be no new corruptions put into their hearts; but only old ones will then break forth without restraint. That is all the difference between a wicked man on earth and a wicked man in hell, that in hell there will be more to stir up the exercise of corruption, and less to restrain it than on earth; but there will be no new corruption put in. A wicked man will have no principle of corruption in hell, but what he carried to hell with him. There are now the seeds of all the malice

that will be exercised then. The malice of damned spirits is but a branch of the root, that is in the hearts of natural men now. A natural man has a hear like the heart of a devil; but only as corruption is more under restraint in mat than in devils.

5. They are enemies in their practice. "They walk contrary to him," Lev. xxvi. 21. Their enmity against God does not lie still, but they are exceeding active in it. They are engaged in a war against God. Indeed they cannot hurt God, he is so much above them; but yet they do what they can. They oppose themselves to his honor and glory: they oppose themselves to the interest of his kingdom in the world: they oppose themselves to the will and command of God; and oppose him in his government. They oppose God in his works, and in his declared designs; while God is doing one work, they are doing the contrary, and as much as in them lies, counter-working; God seeks one thing, and they seek directly the contrary. They list under Satan's banner, and are his willing soldiers in his opposing the kingdom of God.

I proceed now,

II. To say something with respect to the degree of this enmity; tending in some measure to show, how great enemies natural men are to God.

1. They have no love to God; their enmity is mere enmity, without any mixture of love. A natural man is wholly destitute of any principle of love to God, and never had the least exercise of this love. Some natural men have had better natural tempers than others; and some are better educated than others; and some live a great deal more soberly than others; but one has no more love to God than another; for none have the least spark of that. The heart of a natural man is as destitute of love to God, as a dead, stiff, cold corpse is of vital heat. "I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you," John v. 43. 2. Every faculty and principle of action is wholly under the dominion of enmity against God. The nature of man is wholly infected with this enmity against God. He is tainted with it throughout, in all his faculties and principles. And not only so, but every faculty is entirely and perfectly subdued under it, and enslaved to it. This enmity against God has the absolute possession of the man. The Apostle Paul, speaking of what he was naturally, says, "I am carnal, sold under sin," Rom. vii. 14.

The understanding is under the reigning power of this enmity against God, so that it is entirely darkened and blinded with regard to the glory and excellency of God. The will is wholly under the reigning power of it. All the affections are governed by enmity against God; there is not one affection, nor one desire, that a natural man has, or that he is ever stirred up to act from, but what contains in it enmity against God. A natural man is as full of enmity against God, as any viper, or any venomous beast is full of poison.

3. The power of the enmity of natural men against God, is so great, that it is insuperable by any finite power. It has too great and strong a possession of the heart, to be overcome by any created power. Natural men cannot overcome their own enmity, let them strive never so much with their own hearts. Indeed a natural man never sincerely strives to root out his enmity against God; his endeavors are hypocritical: he delights in his enmity, and chooses it. Neither can others do it, though they sincerely, and to their utmost, endeavor to overcome this enmity. If godly friends and neighbors labor to persuade them to cast away their enmity, and become friends to God, they cannot persuade him to it. Though ministers use never so many arguments and entreaties, and set forth the loveliness of God, and tell them of the goodness of God to them, and hold forth to them God's own gracious invitations, and entreat them never so

earnestly to cast off their opposition and enmity, and to be reconciled, and become friends, yet they cannot overcome it: still they will be as bad enemies to God as ever they were. The tongue of men or of angels cannot persuade them to relinquish their opposition to God. Miracles will not do it. How many miracles did the children of Israel see in the wilderness! Yet their enmity against God remained, as appeared by their often murmuring. And how often did Christ use miracles to this end without effect! But the Jews yet obstinately stood out. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" Matt. xxiii. 37. And how great did the enmity of these people appear to be after all; how spiteful and venomous were their hearts towards Christ, as appears by their cruel treatment of him in his last sufferings!

They are mortal enemies to God, i. e., they have that enmity in their hearts, that strikes at the life of God. A man may be no friend to another, and may have an ill spirit towards him, and yet not be his mortal enemy: his enmity will be satisfied and glutted with something short of the death of the person. But it is not so with natural men with respect to God, they are mortal enemies. Indeed natural men cannot kill God. They have no hope of it, and so make no attempts. It has ever been looked upon so much above their power, that, it may be, it is not thought of. But this is no argument that this is not the tendency of the principle.

Natural men are enemies to the dominion of God; and their nature shows their good will to pull him down out of heaven, and dethrone him if they could! Yea, they are enemies to the being of God, and would be glad if there was no God, and therefore it necessarily follows, that they would kill him, and cause that there should be none, if they could.

"The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God," Psal. xiv. 1. This saying in his heart, there is no God, implies in it, not only an aptness to question the being of God, but it implies that he inclines it should be so. His heart says, i. e., his inclination says. The words in the original are thus: "The fool hath said in his heart, no God." The words, there is, are not in the original, but were put in by the translators. Now, if we read the words so, " The fool hath said in his heart, no God," they will perhaps show the Psalmist's meaning more "The fool hath said in his heart, no fully than as they are now translated. God." That is, I would have none, I do not desire any, I wish there was none, that would suit my inclination best. That is the language of the inclinations of a natural man; no God. Let there be no God for me, let me have no God; let the world be emptied of a God, he stands in my way. And hence he is an Atheist in his heart, he is ready to think there is none; and that also is ready to be the language of his heart, "There is no God."

The viper's poison is deadly poison; and when he bites, he seeks the precious life. And men are in this respect a generation of vipers. Their poison, which is enmity against God, seeks the life of God. "O generation of vipers,' Matt. iii. 7. "The wicked are estranged from the womb.-Their poison is like the poison of a serpent," Psal. lviii. 3, 4. "For their vine is the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are the grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter. Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps," Deut. xxxii. 32, 33.

The divine nature being immortal, and infinitely out of our reach, there is no other trial possible, whether the enmity that is naturally in the heart against VOL. IV

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God, be mortal or no, but only for God to take on him the human nature a become man, so as to come within man's reach, that they should be capable killing him. There can be no other experiment but this. And this trial the has been. And what has been the event? Why, when once God beca man, and came down to dwell here among such vipers as fallen men, th hated him and persecuted him; and never left him till they had imbrued the hands in his blood. There was a multitude of them that appeared combined this design. Nothing would do, but he must be put to death. All cry o "Crucify him, crucify him. Away with him." They had rather Barabbas, wi greatly deserved death, should live, than he should not die. Nothing would r strain them from it; even all his preaching, and all his miracles; but the I would kill him. And it was not the ordinary kind of execution that wou satisfy them; but it must be the most cruel, and most ignominious they possib could invent. And they, in the time of it, added to it, and aggravated it much as ever they could, by mocking him, and spitting on him, and scourgin him. This shows what the nature and tendency of man's enmity against Go is; here it appears in its true colors.

5. Natural men are greater enemies to God than they are to any other bein whatsoever. Natural men may be very great enemies to their fellow creatures, by not so great as they are to God. There is no other being that so much stand in sinners' way, in those things that they chiefly, set their hearts upon, as Goo Men are wont to hate their enemies in proportion to two things, viz., their op position to what they look upon to be their interest, and their power and ability One that is looked upon a great and powerful enemy, will be more hated tha one that is weak and impotent. But none of their enemies are so powerful a God.

Man's enmity to other enemies may be got over: time may wear it out, and they may be reconciled and be friends. But natural men, without a mighty work of God to change their hearts, will never get over their enmity against God. They are greater enemies to God than they are to the devil. Yea, they treat the devil as their friend and master, and join in with him against God "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do: he was a murderer from the beginning," John viii. 44.

I now proceed,

III. To show why, or on what account they are enemies to God. The general reason is, that God is opposite to them in the worship of their idols.

The apostasy of man does summarily consist in departing from the true God to idols; forsaking his Creator, and setting up other things in his room.

When God at first created man, he was united to his Creator; the God that made him was his God. The true God was the object of his highest respect, and had the possession of his heart. Love to God was the principle in his heart, that ruled over all other principles; and every thing in the soul was wholly in subjection to it. But when man fell, he departed from the true God, and the union that was between his heart and his Creator was broken: he wholly lost the principle of love he had to God. And henceforward man clave to other gods. He gave that respect to the creature which is due to the Creator. When God ceased to be the object of his supreme love and respect, other things of course became the objects of it.

Man will necessarily have something that he respects as God. If man does not give his highest respect to the God that made him, there will be something else that has the possession of it. Men will either worship the true God, or