Secondly, It is not only said to be enmity, but it is said to be * enmity against God.' It hath chosen a great enemy indeed. It is in sundry places proposed as our enemy: 1 Pet. ii. 11. 'Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.' They are enemies to the soul, that is, to ourselves. Sometimes as an enemy to the Spirit that is in us : * The flesh lusteth' or fighteth * against the Spirit ;' Gal. V. 17. It fights against the Spirit, or the spiritual principle that is in us, to conquer it ; it fights against our souls to destroy them. It hath special ends and designs against our souls, and against the principle of grace that is in us ; but its proper formal object is God ; it is enmity against God. It is its work to oppose grace ; it is a consequent of its work to oppose our souls, which follows upon what it doth, more than what it intends ; but its nature and formal design is to oppose God; God as the lawgiver, God as holy, God as the author of the gospel, a way of salvation by grace, and not by works, is the direct object of the law of sin. Why doth it oppose duty, so that the good we would do, we do not, either as to matter or manner? Why doth it render the soi;l carnal, indisposed, unbelieving, unspiritual, weary, wandering? It is because of its enmity to God, whom the soul aims to have communion withal in duty. It hath, as it were, that command from Satan, which the Assyrians had from their king, ' Fight neither with small nor great, save only with the king of Israel;' I Kings xxii. 31. It is neither great nor small, but God himself, the King of Israel, that sin sets itself against. There lies the secret formal reason of all its opposition to good, even because it relates unto God. May a road, a trade, a way of duties be set up, where commu- nion with God is not aimed at, but only the duty itself, as is the manner of men in most of their superstitious v/orship, the opposition that will lie against it from the law of sin will be very weak, easy, and gentle. Or, as the Assyrians, because of his shew of a king, assaulted Jehosaphat, but when they found that it was not Ahab, they turned back from pursuing of him. Because there is a shew and appear- ance of the worship of God, sin may make head against it at first, but when the duty cries out in the heart, that indeed God is not there ; sin turns away to seek out its proper enemy.
32 THE NATURE AND POWER
even God himself, elsewhere. And hence do many poor creatures spend Aheir days in dismal tiring superstitions, without any great reluctancy from within, when others can- not be suffered freely to watch with Christ in a spiritual manner one hour. And it is no wonder that men fight with carnal weapons for their superstitious worship without, when they have no fighting against it within. For God is not in it ; and the law of sin makes not opposition to any duty, but to God in every duty. This is our state and condition; all the opposition that ariseth in us unto any thing that is spiri- tually good, whether it be from darkness in the mind, or aversation in the will, or sloth in the affections, all the secret arguings and reasonings that are in the soul in pursuit of them, the direct object of them is God himself. The enmity lies against him, which consideration surely should influence us to a perpetual constant watchfulness over ourselves.
It is thus also in respect of all propensity unto sin, as well as aversation from God. It is God himself that is aimed at. It is true, the pleasures, the w-ages of sin, do greatly influence the sensual carnal affections of men; but it is the holiness and authority of God that sin itself rises up against ; it hates the yoke of the Lord; 'Thou hast been weary of me,' saith God to sinners, and that during their performance of abundance of duties. Every act of sin is a fruit of being weary of God. Thus Job tells us what lies at the bottom in the heart of sinners, ' They say to the Lord, Depart from us,' it is enmity against him and aversation from him. Here lies the formal nature of every sin, it is an opposition to God, a casting off his yoke, a breaking off the dependance which the creature ought to have on the Creator. And the apostle, Rom. viii. 7. gives the reason why he affirms ' the carnal mind to be enmity against God,' namely, because ' it is not subject to the w'ill of God, nor indeed can be.' It never is, nor will, nor can be subject to God, its whole nature con- sisting in an opposition to him. The soul wherein it is may be subject to the law of God, but this law of sin sets up in contrariety unto it, and will not be in subjection.
To manifest a little farther the power of this law of sin from this property of its nature, that it is enmity against God, one or two inseparable adjuncts of it may be considered, which will farther evince it.