244 CORRUPTION OR DEPRAVATION [BOOK III.
have proved it in our way, that all men are born in an unregenerate condition. Tliis is so positively declared by our Saviour that there is no rising up against it, John iii. 8-8. Now, regeneration being the delivery of men (or the means of it) from that state and condi- tion wherein they are born or are by nature, we cannot discover wherein it doth consist without a declaration of that state which it gives us deliverance from. And this, in the first place, we shall insist upon at large, giving an account of the state of lapsed nature vmder a loss of the original grace of God. And these things I shall handle practically, for the edification of all sorts of believers, and not in the way and method of the schools; which yet shall be done elsewhere.
In the declaration of the state of corrupted nature after the fall, and before the reparation of it by the grace of Jesus Christ, — that is, the effectual operation of the Holy Spirit, — the Scripture princi- pally insists on three things:^ — 1. The corruption and depravation of the mind ; which it calls by the name of darkness and blindness, with the consequents of vanity, ignorance, and folly. 2. The depra- vation of the will and affections; which it expresseth several ways, as by weakness or impotency, and stuhhornjiess or ohstinacy. 8. By the general name of death, extended to the condition of the whole soul. And these have various effects and consequences, as in our ex- planation of them will appear.
All men by nature, not enlightened, not renewed in their minds by the saving, effectual operation of the Holy Spirit, are in a state of darkness and blindness with respect unto God and spiritual things, with the way of pleasing him and living unto him. Be men other- wise and in other things never so wise, knowing, learned, and skil- ful, in spiritual things they are dark, blind, ignorant, unless they are renewed in the spirit of their minds by the Holy Ghost. This is a matter which the world cannot endure to hear of, and it is ready to fall into a tumult upon its mention. They think it but an artifice which some weak men have got up, to reflect on and condemn them who are wiser than themselves. On the like occasion did the Pharisees ask of our Saviour that question with pride and scorn, "Are we blind also?" John ix. 40. But as he lets them know that their presumption of light and knowledge Avould serve only to aggravate their sin and condemnation, verse 41 ; so he plainly tells them, tliat notwithstand- ing all their boasting, " they had neither heard the voice of God at any time, nor seen his shape," chap. v. 87.
Some at present talk much about the power of the intellectual
I " Dico veterem Nativitatem atque acleo omnes Tiros nature, quos naturali propaga-
tione transfundmitur in sobolem in scriptura damnari ; maledictam cordis nostii iniagi-
"nuiidi^^^ .lyitionem, OS, nianus, pedes pcccatoet teucbrisinyoluta in nobis omnia." — Jolian.
Ferus in Evang ouiwcap. i. v. 23. " Fide perdita, spe rclicta, intelligentia obcrecata,,vol-
untate captiva, homo quo^ri ^e^repareUir non invenit." — De Vocat. Gent. lib. vii. cap. 3.
CHAP. III.] OF THE MIND BY SIN. 245
faculties of our souls, as though they were neither debased, corrupted, impaired, nor depraved. All that disadvantage which is befallen our nature by the entrance of sin is but in " the disorder of the affections and the inferior sensitive parts of the soul, which are apt to tumul- tuate and rebel against that pure untainted light which is in the mind ! " And this they speak of it without respect unto its renova- tion by the Holy Spirit; for if they include that also, they are in their discourses most notorious confused triflers. Indeed, some of them write as if they had never deigned once to consult with the Scri23tures, and others are plainly gone over into the tents of the Pelagians. But, setting aside their modern artifices of confident boasting, contemptuous reproaches, and scurrilous railings, it is no difficult undertaking so to demonstrate the depravation of the minds of men by nature, and their impotency thence to discern spiritual things in a sj)iritual manner,^ without a saving, effectual work of the Holy Spirit in their renovation, as that the j)roudest and most petu- lant of them shall not be able to return any thing of a solid answer thereunto. And herein we plead for nothing but the known doc- trine of the ancient catholic church, declared in the writings of the most learned fathers and determinations of councils against the Pelagians, whose errors and heresies are again revived among us by a crew of Socinianized Arminians.
We may to this purpose first consider the testimonies given in the Scripture unto the assertion as laid down in general: Matt. iv. 16, "The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up." Of what kind this darkness was in particular shall be afterward declared. For the present it answers what is proposed, — that before the illumi- nation given them by the preaching of the gospel, the people men- tioned " sat in darkness," or lived under the power of it. And such as was the light whereby they were relieved, of the same kind was the darkness under which they were detained. And in the same sense, when Christ preached the gospel, " the light shined in dark- ness, and the darkness comprehended it not," John i. 5, — gave not place to the light of the truth declared by him, that it might be re- ceived in the souls of men. The commission which he gave to Paul the apostle, when he sent him to preach the gospel, was, " To open the eyes of men, and to turn them from darkness to light," Acts xxvi. 18 ; — not to a light within them; for internal light is the eye or seeing of the soul, but the darkness was such as consisted in their blindness, in not having their eyes open : " To open their eyes>, and