Natural Men Are God's Enemies part 1.

 

Natural Men are God's Enemies.

God, though the Creator of all things yet has some enemies in the world.

Men in general will own, that they are, or have been sinners. There are few, if any at all, whose consciences are so blinded as not to be sensible they have been guilty of sin. And most sinners will own that they have bad hearts. They will own that they do not love God so much as they should do, and that they are not so thankful as they ought to be for mercies; and that in many things they fail. And yet few of them are sensible that they are God's enemies. They do not see how they can be truly so called; they are not sensible that they wish God any hurt, or endeavor to do him any.

 

But we see that the scripture speak of them as enemies to God. So in our text, and elsewhere, “And you that were sometimes alienated, and enemies in your minds by wicked works.” Col. 1:21. “The carnal mind is enmity against God.” Rom. 7:7.

And that all natural, or unregenerate men are indeed so, is what I shall endeavor now particularly to show. Which I propose to do in the following method:

1. I shall show, in what respects they are enemies to God.

2. To how great a degree they are enemies.

3. Why they are enemies.

4. I shall answer some objections.

1. I am to show, in what respects they are enemies to God.

1. Their enmity appears in their judgments; in the judgment and esteem they have of God. They have a very mean esteem of God. Men are ready to entertain a good esteem of those with whom they are friends: They are apt to think highly of their qualities, to give them their due praises; and if there be defects, to cover them. But those to whom they are enemies, they are disposed to have mean thoughts of; they are apt to entertain a dishonorable opinion of them; they will be ready to look contemptably upon any thing that is praiseworthy in them.

So it is with natural men towards God. They entertain very low and contemptible thoughts of God. Whatever honor and respect they may pretend and make a show of towards God if their practice be examined, it will show, that they do certainly look upon him to be a Being, that is but little to be regarded. They think him one that is worthy of very little honor and respect, not worthy to be much taken notice of. The language of their hearts is, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?" Exod. 5:2. "What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have if we pray unto him?” Job. 21:15. They count him worthy neither to be loved nor feared. They dare not behave with that slight and disregard towards one of their fellow creatures, when a little raised above them in power and authority, as they dare and do towards God. They value one of their equals much mere than God, and are ten times more afraid of offending such an one, than of displeasing the God that made them. They cast such exceeding contempt on God, us to prefer every vile lust before him, And every worldly enjoyment is set higher in their esteem than God. A morsel of meat, or a few pence of worldly gain, is preferred before him. God is set last and lowest in the esteem of natural men.

2. They are enemies in the natural relish of their souls. They have an inbred distaste and disrelish of God's perfections. God is not such a sort of being as they would have. Though they are ignorant of God, yet from what they hear of him, and from what is manifest by the light of nature of God, they do not like him. By his being endowed with such attributes as he is, they have an aversion to him. They hear God is an infinitely holy pure, and righteous Being, and they do not like him upon this account; they have no relish of such kind of qualifications; they take no delight in contemplating them. It would be a mere task, a bondage to a natural man, to be obliged to set himself to contemplate these attributes of God. They see no manner of beauty or loveliness, nor taste any sweetness in them. And upon the account of their distaste of these perfections, they dislike all the other of his attributes. They have greater aversion to him because he is omniscient and knows all things; because his omniscience is an holy omniscience. They are not pleased that he is omnipotent, and can do whatever he pleases; because it is a holy omnipotence. They are enemies even to his mercy, because it is a holy mercy. They do not like his immutability, because by this he never will be otherwise than he is, an infinitely holy God.

 

It is from this disrelish that natural men have of the attributes of God, that they do not love to have much to do with God. The natural tendency of the heart of man is to fly from God, and keep at a distance from him; and get as far off as possible from God. A natural man is averse to communion with God, and is naturally disinclined to those exercises of religion wherein he has immediately to do with God. It is said of wicked man, "God is not in all his thoughts," Psal. 10:4. It is evident that the mind of man is naturally averse to thinking about God; and hence, if any thoughts of God be suggested to the mind, they soon go away; such thoughts are not apt to rest in the minds of natural men. If any thing is said to them of God, they are apt to forget it: It is like seed that falls upon the hard path, it does not at all enter in, and the fowls of the air soon catch it away; or like seed that falls upon a rock. Other things will stick; but divine things do, as it were, rebound, and if they were cast into the mind, they meet with that there which soon thrusts them out again; they meet with no suitable entertainment but are soon chased away.

 

Hence also it is that natural men are so difficultly persuaded to be constant in the duty of secret prayer. They would not be so averse to spending a quarter of an hour, night and morning, in some bodily labor, but it is because they are averse to a work wherein they have so immediately to do with God, and they naturally love to keep at a distance from God.

3. Their wills are contrary to his will, God's will and theirs are exceeding cross the one to the other. God wills those things that they hate, and are most averse to; and they will those things that God hates. Hence they oppose God in their wills: They set up their wills against the will of God. There is a dreadful, violent, and obstinate opposition of the will of natural men to the will of God.

They are very opposite to the commands of God. It is from the enmity of the will, that "the carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Rom. 7:7. Hence natural men are enemies to God's government. They are not loyal subjects, but enemies to God, considered as Lord of the world. They are entire enemies to God's authority.

4. They are enemies to God in their affections. There is in every natural man a seed of malice against God: Yea, there is such a seed of this rooted in the heart of man naturally. And it does often dreadfully break forth and appear. Though it may in a great measure he hid in secure times, when God lets men alone, and they meet with no great disturbance of body or mind; yet if God does but touch men a little in their consciences, by manifesting to them a little of his wrath for their sins, this often times brings out the principle of malice against God, which is exercised in dreadful heartrisings, inward wranglings and quarrelings, and blasphemous thoughts; wherein the heart is like a viper, hissing, and spitting poison at God. There is abundance of such a principle in the heart. And however free from it the heart may seem to be when let alone and secure, yet a very little thing will set it in a rage. Temptations will show what is in the heart. The alteration of a man's circumstances will often discover the heart: A change of circumstance will bring that out which was hid before, Pharaoh had no more natural enmity against God than other men; and if other natural men had been in Pharaoh's circumstances, the same corruptions would have put forth themselves in as dreadful a manner. The Scribes and Pharisees had naturally no more of a principle of malice in their hearts against Christ than other men; and other natural men would, in their case, and having as little restraint, exercise as much malice against Christ as they did. When wicked men come to be cast into hell, then their malice against God will appear. Then will it appear what dreadful malice they have in their hearts. Then their hearts will appear as full of malice as hell is full of fire. But when wicked men come to be in hell, there will be no new corruptions put into their hearts; but only old ones will then break forth without restraint. That is all the difference between a wicked man on earth and a wicked man in hell, that in hell there will be more to stir up the exercise of corruption, and less to restrain it than on earth; but there will be no new corruption put in, A wicked man will have no principle of corruption in hell, but what he carried to hell with him. There are now the seeds of all the malice that will be exercised then, the malice of damned spirits is but a branch of the root, that is in the hearts of natural men now. A natural man has a heart like the heart of a devil; but only as corruption is more under restraint in man than in devils.

5. They are enemies in their practice. “They walk contrary to him.” Lev. 26:21. Their enmity against God does not lie still, but they are exceeding active in it. They are engaged in a war against God. Indeed they cannot hurt God, he is so much above them; but yet they do what they can. They oppose themselves to his honor and glory: They oppose themselves to the interest of his kingdom in the world; They oppose themselves to the will and command of God; and oppose him in his government. They oppose God in his works, and in his declared designs; while God is doing one work, they are doing the contrary, and as much as in them lies, counter working; God seeks one thing, and they seek directly the contrary. They list under Satan's banner, and are his willing soldiers in his opposing the kingdom of God.

Different ways of acting of the same divine nature

 II. To give some reasons of it.

First. They are all from the same Spirit of Christ. 1 Corinthians 12:4, 1 Corinthians 12:6, "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. Diversities of operations, but it is the same God that worketh all in all." The graces of Christianity are all from the Spirit of Christ sent forth into the heart, and dwelling there as an holy principle and divine nature. And therefore all graces are only the different ways of acting of the same divine nature, as there may be different reflections of the light of the sun. But it is all the same kind of light originally, because it all comes from the same fountain, the same body of light. Grace in the soul is the Holy Ghost acting in the soul, and there communicating his own holy nature. As it is in the fountain, it is all one and the same holy nature; and only diversified by the variety of streams sent forth. These streams must be all [[of the same nature]],4 seeing that they thus come from the same fountain. And the difference of many of them, whereby they have different denominations, is chiefly from the various respects to those and those objects and manners of exercise rather than a real difference in their abstracted nature.5

Second. They are all communicated in the same work of that Spirit, viz. the work of conversion. There is not one conversion to bring the heart to faith, and another6 to infuse love to God, and another humility, and another repentance, and another love to men. But all are given in one work of the Spirit. All these things are infused by one conversion,7 one change of the heart; which argues that all the graces are united and linked together, as being contained in that one and the same new nature which is given in regeneration; just as it is in the first generation, several faculties are communicated in one generation of the child, the sense of seeing, hearing, feeling, speaking and tasting, and the power of moving, breathing and digesting. It is all therefore one common nature, one common life manifoldly diversified.

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Third. All graces have the same root and foundation, viz. the knowledge of God's excellency. The same sight or sense of God's excellency begets faith, and love, and repentance, and all other graces.8 One sight of this will beget all those, because the sight of God's excellency shows the ground and reason of all holy disposition, and all holy behavior towards God. They who know God's name will love him, and trust in him, and have a spirit to submit to him, and a spirit to praise and to obey him. Psalms 9:10, "They that know thy name, will put their trust in thee." John 6:40, "He that seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life." 1 John 3:6, "Whosoever abideth in him, sinneth not; whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him." Jeremiah 22:16, "Was not this to know me?"

Fourth. All gracious dispositions have the same rule, viz. the law of God; and therefore must be linked together. For seeing they all have respect to this rule, they all tend to confirm the whole of that rule, and conform the heart and life to it. For he who has a true respect to one of God's commands, will have [[respect]]9 to all; for they are all established by the same authority, and are all jointly an expression of the same holy nature of God. James 2:10–11, "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law."

Fifth. They have all the same end. God is the end to which all the graces tend. As they are from the same cause, rising out of the same fountain, all standing on the same foundation, growing on the same root, and directed by the same rule, so they are all directed to the same end, viz. God, his glory, and our own happiness in him; which shows that they must be nearly related, and very much linked together.

Sixth. And lastly. They are related to one grace as the sum of them all; and that is charity, or divine love. This, we have before shown, is the sum of all true Christian grace,1 however many names we may give the different ways and manners of the exercise of grace; yet if we strictly examine them, they are all related to one. Love is the fulfilling of them all. They are but so many diversifications, and different habitudes and relations and manners of exercise of the same thing. One grace does in

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effect contain them all. Whence it is no wonder that they are nearly allied, and are always together, and dependent on one another, and implied one in another.