336 ,Sermon r. reconciliation and enmity with God ; whofe law does not' only condemn this and that work or deed of theirs, but all of them as but dead works : Their very flare and per - fon is condemned ; their peace, if 5hey have any, is no folid peace, none of God's peaee ; for there is no peke, nor ground of peace to the wicked, fays my God, Ifai. 57. Thei' inclination is wholly depraved and corrupted ; all their thoughts and imaginations are evil, only evil, and conti- nually evil, as it is, Gen. 6. 5. and, as that often cited em- phatick word is, 4-it. 1. 15. To him that is defiled and un- believing there is nothing pure.Every practice of his,and the ufe of every thing,is to him impure,and his very mind and Confcience is totally defiled. And this will be yet more clear, if we confider, 1. The cafe that the man is in, who is not in Chrift; he is without God, without hope, under his curie, and the condemnatory fentence of his law; And can a man poflïbly have a clear Confcience that is under God's curie, and bath the fentence of his law handing over his head unrepealed ? Therefore he is faid, fòhn 3. to be condemned already, and to have the wrath of God abiding en him. Z. If we confider that a man in this condition, is under the dominion of fin, be is a captive of it, and of the devil at his will, as it is, 2 Tim. 2. 26. So that there is fcarce any motion er temptation to fin, but he hearkens- to it, and complies with it ; his heart is open to (warms of lulls, and as a cage to unclean and foul fpirits, legions of devils in a manner haunt him New, if fuch a man can have a clear Confcience, ye may eafily judge ; and yet fuch is the flare and condition of every man by nature and therefore, when Chrift fpeaks of the renovation of a' man, he fometimes calls it the calling out of the devil importing thereby, That every man in nature is a com- mon receptacle as it were to devils, The firfl ufe of this ferves to teach us, how we ought on the one hand to lothe the flare of nature, and how on the other hand we ought to love and long after a flare of faith in Chrift Jefus, by whom only our natural flare can be changed. Is it not a wonder, that fo many rational men and women can live and ly dill in their natural hate; without minding or looking after a change ? confidering that this hands recorded of and againft them, That their verb`
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