In these things lie the sum of our present argument. If the Lord Christ act no otherwise for our good but in and by his blessed offices of priest, prophet, and king; and if the immediate effect of the grace of Christ acting in all these offices towards us be our holiness and sanctification, — those in whom that effect is not wrought and produced
CHAP, v.] OUR CONDITION IN THIS WORLD. 641
have neither ground nor reason to promise themselves an interest in Christ, or any advantage by his mediation. For men to " name the name of Christ," to profess themselves Christians, or his disciples, to avow an expectation of mercy, pardon, life and salvation by him, and in the meantime to be in themselves worldly, proud, ambitious, envious, revengeful, haters of good men, covetous, living in divers lusts and pleasures, is a scandal and shame unto Christian religion, and unavoidably destructive to their own souls.
CHAPTER V.
NECESSITY OF HOLINESS FROM OUR CONDITION IN THIS WORLD.
Necessity of holiness farther argued from our own state and condition in this world ; with what is requu-ed of us with respect unto our giving glory to Jesus Christ.
V, Another argument for the necessity of holiness may be taken from the consideration of ourselves, and our 'present state and condi- tion; for it is hereby alone that the vicious distemper of our nature is or can be cured. That our nature is fearfully and universally de- praved by the entrance of sin, I have before declared and sufficiently confirmed, and I do not now consider it as to the disability of liv- ing unto God, or enmity unto him, which is come upon us thereby, nor yet as to the future punishment which it renders us obnoxious unto ; but it is the present misery that is upon us by it, unless it be cured, which I intend. For the mind of man being possessed with darkness, vanity, folly, and instability; the will under the power of spiritual death, stubborn and obstinate; and all the affections carnal, sensual, and selfish ; the whole soul being hurried off from God, and so out of its way, is perpetually filled with confusion and perplex- ing disorder. It is not unlike that description which Job gives of the grave : " A land of darkness, and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness," chap. x. 21, 22. When Solomon set himself to search out the causes of all the vanity and vexation that is in the world, of all the troubles that the life of man is filled withal, he affirms that this was the sum of his discovery, " God made men upright, but they have found out many inventions," Eccles. vii. 29; that is, cast themselves into endless entanglements and confusions. What is sin in its guilt, is punishment in its power, yea, the greatest that men are liable unto in this world. Hence, God for the guilt of some sins penally gives many up to the power of others, Rom. i. 24, 26, 28 ; 2 Thess. ii. 1 1, 12. And this he doth, not
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64^2 NECESSITY OF HOLINESS FROM [bOOK V.
only to secure and aggravate their condemnation at the last day, but to give them in this world a recompense of their folly in themselves ; for there is no greater misery nor slavery than to be under the power of sin.
This proves the original depravation of our nature: The whole soul, filled with darkness, disorder, and confusion, being brought under the power of various lusts and passions, captivating the mind and will unto their interests, in the vilest drudgeries of servitude and bondage, no sooner doth the mind begin to act any thing suitably unto the small remainders of light in it, but it is immediately con- trolled by impetuous lusts and affections, which darken its directions and silence its commands. Hence is the common saying not so common as what is signified by it, —
" Video meliora proboque,
Deteriora sequor." [Ovid. Metam., lib. vii. 20.]
Hence the whole soul is filled with fierce contradictions and conflicts. Yanity, instability, folly, sensual, irrational appetites, inordinate de- sires, self-disquieting and torturing passions, act continually in our depraved natures. See the account hereof, Rom. iii. 10-18. How full is the world of disorder, confusion, oppression, rapine, unclean- ness, violence, and the like dreadful miseries ! Alas ! they are but a weak and imperfect representation of the evils that are in the minds of men by nature ; for as they all proceed from thence, as our Saviour declares. Matt. xv. 18, 19, so the thousandth part of what is conceived therein is never brought forth and acted : " From whence come wars and fightings among you ? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain : ye fight and war, yet ye have not," James iv. 1, 2. All evils proceed from the impetuous lusts of the minds of men ; which, when they are acted unto the utmost, are as unsatisfied as they were at their first setting out. Hence the prophet Isaiah tells us that wicked men, under the power and disorder of de- praved nature, are like "the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt," and have "no peace," chap. Ivii. 20, 21. The heart is in continual motion, is restless in its figments and ima- ginations, as the waters of the sea when it is stormy and troubled; and they are all evil, "only evil continually," Gen. vi. 5, Herein doth it " cast up mire and dirt." And those who seem to have the greatest advantages above others, in power and opportunity to give satisfaction unto their lusts, do but increase their own disquietness and miseries, Ps. Ixix. 14: for as these things are evil in themselves and unto others, so they are penal unto those in whom they are, especially in whom they abound and reign; and if their breasts were opened, it