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when once they have gathered some scraps of knowledge of religion, and have attained to some reformation of life, do swell with conceit of themselves; a sad sign that the effects of the fall lie so heavy upon them, that they have not as yet come to themselves. But those men are such a spectacle of commiseration, as one would be that had set his palace on fire, and were glorying in a cottage he had built for himself out of the rubbish, though so very weak that it could not stand against a storm.

USE III. Of lamentation. Here was a stately building; man, carved like a fair palace, but now lying in ashes. Let us stand and look on the ruins,

and drop a tear. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation. Could we choose but to weep, if we saw our country ruined, and turned by the enemy into a wilderness? if we saw our houses on fire, and our households perishing in the flames? But all this comes far short of the dismal sight-" man fallen as a star from heaven !" Ah! may not we now say, "O that we were as in months past," when there was no stain in our nature, no cloud on our minds, no pollution in our hearts! Where is our primitive glory now? Once no darkness in the mind, no re

bellion in the will, no disorder in the affections. But ah!"how is the faithful city become a harlot ? righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers. Our silver is become dross, our wine mixed with water." That heart which was once the temple of God, is now turned into a den of thieves. Let our name be Ichabod, for the glory is departed. Happy wast thou, O man! who was like unto thee? No pain nor sickness could affect thee, no death could ap

proach thee, no sigh was heard from thee, till these bitter fruits were plucked off the forbidden tree. Heaven shone upon thee, and earth smiled: thou wast the companion of angels, and the envy of devils. But how low is he now laid, who was created for dominion, and made lord of the world!" The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us that we have sinned." The creatures that waited to do him service, are now, since the fall, set in battle array against him; and the least of them, having commission, proves too hard for him. Alas! how are we fallen! how are we plunged into a gulf of misery! The sun has gone down on us, death has come in at our windows; our enemies have put out our two eyes, and sport themselves with our miseries. Let us then lie down in our shame, and let our confusion cover us. Nevertheless, there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. Come then, O sinner! look to Jesus Christ, the second Adam. Quit the first Adam and his covenant; come over to the Mediator and Surety of the new and better covenant: and let your hearts say, "Be thou our ruler, and let this breach be under thy hand :" and let your "eye trickle down, and cease not, without any intermission, till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven."

STATE II.

THE STATE OF NATURE, OR OF ENTIRE

DEPRAVATION.

HEAD I.

THE SINFULNESS OF MAN'S NATURAL state.

GENESIS vi. 5.

"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,"

WE have seen what man was, as God made him, a lovely and happy creature: let us view him now, as he hath unmade himself, and we shall see him a sinful and miserable creature. This is the sad state we were brought into by the fall; a state as dark and doleful as the former was glorious: and this we commonly call the state of nature, or man's natural state, according to the apostle-" And were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." And herein two things are to be considered: 1st, The sinfulness; 2dly, The misery of this state, in which all the unregenerate do live. I begin with the sinfulness of man's natural state, whereof the text gives us a full, though short account: "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great," &c.

The scope and design of these words are, to clear God's justice in bringing the flood on the old world. There are two particular causes taken notice of in the preceding verses:-1. Mixed marriages, ver. 2. The sons of God, the posterity of Seth and Enos, professors of the true religion, married with the daughters of men, the profane, cursed race of Cain. They did not carry the matter before the Lord, that he might choose for them. But without any respect to the will of God, they chose, not according to the rules of their faith, but of their fancy: they saw that they were fair; and their marriage with them occasioned their divorce from God. This was one of the causes of the deluge, which swept away the old world. Would to God that all professors in our day could plead not guilty! But though that sin brought on the deluge, yet the deluge hath not swept away that sin, which, as of old, so in our day, may justly be looked upon as one of the causes of the decay of religion. It was an ordinary thing among the pagans to change their gods, as they changed their condition into a married lot. And many sad instances the Christian world affords of the same; as if people were of Pharaoh's opinion, that religion is only for those who have no other care upon their heads. 2. Great oppression, ver. 4. "There were giants in the earth in those days," men of great stature, great strength, and monstrous wickedness, "filling the earth with violence," ver. 11. Thus much for the connection, and what particular crimes that generation was guilty of. But every person that was swept away by the flood could not be guilty of these things; and shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Therefore, in my text there is

a general indictment drawn up against them all"The wickedness of man was great in the earth," &c. And this is well instructed; for God saw it. Two things are laid to their charge here :—

1. Corruption of life, wickedness, great wickedness. I understand this of the wickedness of their lives; for it is plainly distinguished from the wickedness of their hearts. The sins of their outward conversation were great in the nature of them, and greatly aggravated by their attendant circumstances; and this not only among those of the race of cursed Cain, but those of holy Seth: "The wickedness of man was great." And then it is added, "in the earth," 1. To vindicate God's severity; in that he not only cut off sinners, but defaced the beauty of the earth, and swept off the brute creatures from it by the deluge; that as men had set the marks of their impiety, God might set the marks of his indignation, on the earth. 2. To show the heinousness of their sin, in making the earth, which God had so adorned for the use of man, a sink of sin, and a stage whereon to act their wickedness, in defiance of heaGod saw this corruption of life; he not only knew it, and took notice of it, but he made them to know that he did take notice of it, and that he had not forsaken the earth, though they had forsaken heaven.

ven.

2. Corruption of nature: "Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." All their wicked practices are here traced to the fountain a corrupt heart was the source of all. The soul, which was made upright in all its faculties, is now wholly disordered. The heart, that was made

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