1. What we have been. Let us often consider the horrible filthiness of our corrupt nature, stinking worse than any carcass before Grod. Take the softest notion of original sin, we wanted a righteousness to place before God : Ps. li. 5, ' I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.' We wanted strength to serve him : Kom. viii. 7, 'The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.' We had nothing to incline us to God or commend us to him. Yea, not only an irapotency, but an averseness. Partly out of carnal liberty : Kom. viii. 7, ' Because the carnal mind is enmity to God.' Partly through sensuality, or addict- edness to present things grateful to the flesh: John iii. 6, ' That which is born of the flesh is flesh.' Partly through legal bondage : Gen. iii. 7, ' The eyes of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked ; ' ver. 10, ' I heard thy voice in the garden, and I hid myself, because I was naked.' Through carnal liberty our hearts were averse from him as a lawgiver ; through bondage, as a judge : Col. i. 21,
* You that were sometimes alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works.'
2. After grace received, mixed principles, and therefore mixed opera- tions, flesh and spirit, law and gospel, Gal. v. 17. If we consider in what state our soul is, what our actions are, how polluted with a tang of the flesh, how little comfortable sense of the love of God, we should soon see that we still carry about with us the cause of a deep humilia- tion in our bosoms, and to cry out with the publican, Luke xviii. 13,
* Lord, be merciful,' &c. ; or with Paul, Rom. vii. 24, ' 0 wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? ' Besides your wants and defects, consider the loatiisome corruption of your souls, which follow you wherever you go. The sins of our best duties are enough to humble us, to have such low conceptions of God, such heartless prayers, &c.
3. Consider what we have deserved. IMie eternal wrath of God, due to us for sin. It is a wonder that he doth not turn us into hell every moment, and that fire doth not come forth from his jealousy to consume us, who are ever and anon tripping in his service.
You will say, Blessed be God, we are escaped by Christ ; we are passed from death to life.
Ans. I do not tell you what God will do, but what you have deserved; and this not to weaken your confi.dence, but to humble your hearts. Now it is enougli for that, that you had once the sentence passed upon you, and have had the rope, as it were, about your necks ; that you have been at the gates of hell, and might have entered in, but for the
422 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXXXI. [SeR. II.
grace of your Redeemer. Besides, you deserve it still ; your daily sins and best actions deserve the wrath of God. And such a sense of it is still necessary as quickens to thankfulness, and prays for pardon, and promoteth to humility ; and you turn grace into wantonness, and abuse it, if it lessen any of these acts. Well, then, though God- forgive us, we must not forget we were once as bad as the worst, and children of wrath, even as others, Eph. ii. 3. We must still condemn ourselves when God justifieth us, and set our sins ever before us though God do cast them behind his back. Now shall such creatures as we be proud, so sinful, so liable to the curse, whose righteousnesses are as filthy rags ? Isa. Ixiv. 6.
Secondly, Fiequent communion with God in prayers and praises ; for so we more and more come into the knowledge of God, and a sight and sense of his majesty and glory ; and a serious sight of God will humble us : Isa. vi. 5, ' I am unclean, for I have seen the Lord of hosts;' Gen. xviii. 27, 'I am but dust and ashes;' Job xhi. 5, 6, 'I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear ; but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.' Can they be proud that have so often to do with an holy and glorious God ? Surely one glimpse of his majesty will take down thy self-exalting thoughts. The stars differ from one another in brightness and glory, but when the sun appeareth they are all obscured, and those differences unobserved. So when we compare ourselves with men, we seem great, wise, powerful ; but God, rightly apprehended, lesseneth us in our opinion, estimation, and affection. He is all, we are nothing but what he maketh us to be. All the creatures to him are nothing, less than nothing, Isa. xl. 17 ; nothing in opposition to him ; nothing in com- parison of him ; nothing in exclusion of him. Now the mind should be often seasoned with these thoughts, as surely they will where men have much to do with God, and are often with him, if they be serious in their addresses to him.