might have life. They were not only naturally unable to come, but they had no inclination to the duty. Their stomachs are full, and, like the full soul that loaths the honey. comb, they nauseate the heavenly food in their offer.

(3.) There is a proneness to evil, a bent and inclination to it, Hos. xi. 7. My people are bent to backsliding from me.' Hence natural man are mad on idols. Set sin and duty, death and life, cursing and blessing before the natural man, and leave the will to itself, it will naturally run to sin, to death, and the curse, as the waters run down a steep place. (4.) There is a crossness and contrariety in the will to God and goodness, Rom. viii. 7. The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.' That God forbids a thing is a motive to the will to like it. No fruit is so sweet to the corrupt appetite as the forbidden fruit. Strip sin naked of all its ornaments and allurements, and the natural man will court it for itself. The will naturally lies cross to God.

(1.) It is cross to his nature. He is holiness itself; and the will rejects holiness for itself. Hence men say to God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways,' Job xxi. 14. The will is an enemy to the scripture God, and hence they do what they can for the change, Psal. 1. 21. It was most agreeable to nature, that the Pagans made their gods prophane. The proud man desires to have none above him to controul him, or call him to account, and the natural man wants to have no God, Ps. xiv. 1.

(2.) It is cross to his will. (1.) To his law, which binds to conformity to God, which the natural man hates, Rom. viii. 7. Corrupt nature rises against this yoke: they would have the law brought down to their corruptions. Hence that is a distinguishing mark of the godly man, His delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law doth he meditate day and night,' Psal. i. 2. (2.) To his gospel. The will of man naturally is quite opposite to the grand device of salvation through the Lord Jesus; and natural men, like Judas, would rather hang themselves than go to Christ, submitting themselves unto the righteousness of God, Rom. x. 3. They say, "We will not have this man to reign over us.' Luke xix. 14. The gospel is designed for humbling the pride and selfishness of men; but they are for exalting self, and placing it on the throne. It lies cross to the will of God in its chief acts.

(1.) As to the intention, the will is wholly cross and perverse as to the ultimate end. Self is set up for the chief end instead of God, 2 Tim. iii, 2. Men shall be lovers of their own selves.' In this we follow our first fathers footsteps. The will is like a traitor, who, instead of gathering in the rents of the crown to the king, gathers them in to itself. (2.) As to the choice, Psal. iv. 6. There be many that say, Who will shew us any good?' God offers himself to be the sinner's portion; but he chuses the creatures for his portion, and sin for the way to obtain it.

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(5.) There is contumacy in it. The will is wilful in evil and will not be turned, though it should run on the swordpoint of vengeance, Ezek. xviii. 31. Why will ye die, O house of Israel? Like the leviathan in his way, it laugheth at the shaking of a spear,' Job xli. 29. I shall have peace (says the natural man), though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst,' Deut. xxix. 19. This is the stony heart, which as a stone is insensible, resist, ing, inflexible, but by the power of divine grace, hard to receive impressions, but as the water to let them go.

3dly, As to the affections, they are quite disordered. While man stood, his reason was subject to the law, and his affections to his reason: but now, like the unruly horse, they will either not receive, or else run away with the rider, Jer. ii. 23, 24.

(1.) The affections are misplaced as to their objects. The natural man is a spiritual monster. His heart is there, where his feet should be, fixed on the earth; his heels are lifted up against Heaven, which his heart should be set on. He loves what he should hate, and hates what he should love; joys in what he ought to mourn for, and mourns for what he should rejoice in; glories in his shame, and is ashamed of his glory; abhors what he should desire, and desires what he should abhor; acting in direct opposition to the apostolical injunction of seeking those things which are above,' Col. i. 1.

(2.) When the natural man's affections are fixed on lawful objects, they can keep no bounds. They cannot flow to the creature, without overflowing; they cannot love a lawful object, without overloving it; nor joy in any created comfort, without excess. The affections are never right, only evil. Further, this corruption has spread even to the body.

That which should be a temple for God is become a gar rison of lusts.

1. It incites the soul to sin. What a snare is the tempe rature of the body to the soul, leading it to the commission of many foul sins! Therefore the godly beat it down as an unruly beast, keep it under, and bring it into subjection, that it cast not the soul into sin and misery, 1 Cor. ix. 27. It is the house wherein snares are spread for the soul; so that many, to please their bodies, make shipwreck of their souls.

2. Its members are instruments of unrighteousness, Rom. vi. 13. Are not the eyes and ears the windows whereat death comes in to the soul? The tongue is an untamed beast, by which the impure heart vents its filthiness. The throat is an open sepulchre; the feet run the devil's errands; and the belly is made a god. The body is naturally an agent for Satan, and a magazine of armour against the Lord.

What shall we say? who can express the corruption of na ture? The whole man is corrupted. All defilement is in us naturally, Rom. i. 29. The treasure of wickedness is in the heart, Matth. xii. 35. It is a cage full of unclean birds. The tongue is a world of iniquity, an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. What an universe of wickedness and impurity must the heart then be?

This is a rude draught of the corruption of human nature in its fallen state, which the Spirit of God in scripture calls flesh, in many passages that might be quoted. The propriety of this expression will be evident from the following particulars.

1. It denotes the degrading and debasing malignity that is in sin, which unspirits and unsouls a man, if I may be allowed such expressions. A sinner is called a carnal man, a man made up of nothing but a lump of dull flesh kneaded together, without spirit. And therefore the apostle, Rom. viii. 13. does not bid men mortify the deeds of their souls, but of their bodies, because wicked men act as if they had no souls, or at least not so noble a soul as the rational one is.

2. It denotes what it is that sin tends unto. It is only to please and gratify the flesh; to pamper the body, that sensual, sordid, and baser part of man. The soul of the natural man acts for no higher end than the soul of a beast. The soul of a beast acts not for itself, but is made a drudge and underling to the body. It serves only to carry the body up

and down to its pasture, and make it to relish its food and fodder. And thus it is with the souls of wicked men; they act not for themselves, but are only provisors for the body, that seek out and lay in provision for the flesh. Hence we have that exhortation, Rom. xiii. 14. 'Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof.

3. Though the soul be the chief seat of the flesh, yet the flesh is the great instrument by which it acts, Rom. vi. 19. Hence its actions are called the deeds of the body,' Rom. viii. 13. Though some sins are seated in the mind, as heresies, covetousness, malice, pride, &c. yet they are set down among the works of the flesh in the apostle's catalogue, Gal. v. 19, 20. And as to the sins of omission, they usually take their rise in men from some inordinate sensual affection to the creature, which causes them to omit their duty to God, but, generally speaking, most sins are acted by the flesh. When the devil would set up a kingdom in the hearts of men, he doth it by the flesh; for what is nearer and dearer to us than our flesh? and things pleasant and grateful to the flesh strongly promote his designs. These darken and blind their minds, corrupt their hearts, and entice and allure their affections; so that they hunt after them with an eager pursuit, to the woful neglect of God and their precious souls.

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4. The disorder of the sensitive appetite, which inclines men to the interest and conveniences of the flesh, is the great cause of all sin; and therefore fallen man is represented in scripture as wholly governed by his sensual inclinations, Gen. vi. 3. John iii. 6. as if he had nothing in him but what is earthly and carnal. Our souls cleave so fast to the earth in our degenerate state, and are so much addicted to the body, that they have lost their primitive excellence and beauty. Our understanding, will, and affections, are wofully distempered by our senses, and enslaved to the flesh. So that with great propriety corrupt nature is called flesh in scripture.

1. This corruption is most truly and properly sin, even in the regenerate, where the guilt of it is removed by the blood of Christ, and the power of it subdued by his Spirit and grace. And all the motions thereof in them are sin; as appears from what the apostle says, Rom. vii. 5, 7, 8. For

when we are in the flesh, the motions of sins which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.' Gal. v. 17. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.'

2. This corruption is exceeding sinful. For the law and covenant of works made with Adam, as the head and representative of all his posterity, required perfect obedience and conformity to God both in heart and life, to love the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind. God placed him in a holy and happy state, endued him with his image, consisting in knowledge, righteousness, and true holi ness; and gave him sufficient power and ability to perform the duty he owed to his Lord, and to continue in the course of obedience, till he should be confirmed both in holiness and felicity. Now, man having by sin stript himself of the image of God, and rendered himself incapable of obeying God either in heart or life, the law still requires all the holiness and righteousness that it did when he was in his upright estate; and the want of conformity to the law of God must be exceeding sinful, as a breach of the law of God, and a trampling on his image. And, in order to affect us with a deep sense of the sinfulness of the total corruption of our nature, let us consider,

(1.) The pregnancy of this corruption. It is indeed all sin virtually, which is retailed out in many particular sinful acts. It contains in its bowels the seed and spawn of all wickedness whatsoever. All treasons and disobedience, rebellions and hostilities, against the supreme and sovereign majesty of heaven, are to be found in it. It is the nursery, seed, and womb, yea, every sin that is possible to be committed is in this womb, so conceived and formed, animated and brought to the birth, as there needs nothing but a temptation and opportunity to bring it forth. It may be you never imbrued your hands in your brother's blood, as Cain did, nor have actually committed murder, yet the seed