I proceed now,
II. To say something with
respect to the degree of, this enmity; tending in some measure to show, how
great enemies natural men are to God.
1. They have no love to
God; their enmity is mere enmity, without any mixture of love. A natural man is
wholly destitute of any principle of love to God, and never had the least
exercise of this love. Some natural men have had better natural tempers than
others, and some are better educated than others, and some live a great deal
more soberly than others; but one has no more love to God than another; for
none have the least spark of that. The heart of a natural man is as destitute
of love to God, as dead, stiff, cold corpse is of vital heat. “I know you, that
ye have not the love of God in you.” John 5:43
2. Every faculty and
principle of action is wholly under the dominion of enmity against God. The
nature of man is wholly infected with this enmity against God. He is tainted
with it throughout, in all his faculties and principles. And not only so, but
every faculty is entirely and perfectly subdued under it, and enslaved to it.
This enmity against God has the absolute possession of the man. The Apostle
Paul, speaking of what he was naturally, says, “I am carnal, sold under
sin." Rom. 7:14.
The understanding is
under the reigning power of this enmity against God, so that it is entirely
darkened and blinded with regard to the glory and excellency of God. The will
is wholly under the reigning power of it. All the affections are governed by
enmity against God: There is not one affection, nor one desire, that a natural
man has, or that he is ever stirred up to act from, but what contains in it
enmity against God. A natural man is as full of enmity against God, as any
viper, or any venomous beast, is full of poison.
3. The power of the
enmity of natural men against God, is so great, that it is insuperable by any
finite power. It has too great and strong a possession of the heart, to be
overcome by any created power. Natural men cannot overcome their own enmity,
let them strive never so much with their own hearts. Indeed, a natural man
never sincerely strives to root out his enmity against God; his endeavors are
hypocritical: He delights in his enmity, and chooses it. Neither can others do
it, though they sincerely, and to their utmost, endeavor to overcome this
enmity. If godly friends and neighbors labor to persuade them to cast away
their enmity, and become friends to God, they cannot persuade them to it.
Though ministers use never so many arguments and entreaties, and set forth the loveliness
of God, and tell them of the goodness of God to them, and hold forth to them
God's own gracious invitations, and intreat them never so earnestly to cast off
their opposition and enmity, and to be reconciled, and become friends, yet they
cannot overcome it: Still they will be as bad enemies to God as ever they were.
The tongue of men or of angels cannot persuade them to relinquish their
opposition to God. Miracles will not do it. How many miracles did the children
of Israel see in the wilderness! Yet their enmity against God remained, as
appeared by their often murmuring. And how often did Christ use miracles to
this end without effect? But the Jews yet obstinately stood out. “O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto
thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen
gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.” Matth. 23:37. And
how great did the enmity of these people appear to be after all; how spiteful
and venomous were their hearts towards Christ, as appears to be after all; how
spiteful and venomous were their hearts towards Christ, as appears by their
cruel treatment of him in his last sufferings!
They are mortal enemies
to God, i. e. They have that enmity in their hearts, that strikes at the life
of God. A man may be no friend to another, and may have an ill spirit towards
him, and yet not be his mortal enemy: His enmity will be satisfied and glutted
with something short of the death of the person. But it is not so with natural
men with respect to God, they are mortal enemies. Indeed natural men cannot
kill God. They have no hope of it, and so make no attempts. It has ever been
looked upon so much above their power, that, it may be, it is not thought of.
But this is no argument that this is not the tendency of the principle.
Natural men are enemies
to the dominion of God; and their nature shows their good will to pull him down
out of heaven, and dethrone him if they could! Yea, they are enemies to the
being of God, and would be glad if there was no God, and therefore it
necessarily follows, that they would kill him, and cause that there should be
none, if they could.
"The fool hath said
in his heart, there is no God," Psal. 14:1. This saving in his heart,
there is no God, implies in it, not only an aptness to question the being of
God, but it implies that he inclines it should be so. His heart says, i.e. his
inclination says. The words in the original are thus: “The fool hath said in
his heart, no God.” The words, there is, are in the original, but were put in
by the translators. Now, if we read the words so, “The fool hath said in his
heart, no God," they will perhaps show the Psalmist's meaning more fully
than as they are now translated. “The fool hath said in his heart, no
God," That is, I would have none, I do not desire any, I wish there was
none; that would suit my inclination best. That is the language of the
inclinations of a natural man; no God. Let there be no God for me, let me have
no God; let the world be emptied of a God, he stands in my way. And hence he is
an Atheist in his heart, he is ready to think there is none; and that also is
ready to be the language of his heart, “There is no God.”
The viper's poison is
deadly poison; and when he bites, he seeks the precious life. And men are in
this respect a generation of vipers. Their poison, which is enmity against God,
seeks the life of God. “O generation of vipers.” Matth. 3:7. "The wicked
are estranged from the womb.... Their poison is like the poison of a serpent.”
Psal. 58:3, 4. “For their vine is the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of
Gomorrah; their grapes are the grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter. Their
wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps," Deut. 32:32,
33.
The divine nature being
immortal, and infinitely out of our reach, there is no other trial possible,
whether the enmity that is naturally in the heart against God, be mortal or no,
but only for God to take on him the human nature and become man, so as to come
within man's reach, that they should be capable of killing him. There can be no
other experiment but this. And this trial there has been. And what has been the
event? Why, when once God became man, and came down to dwell here among such
vipers as fallen men, they hated him and persecuted him; and never left him
till they had imbrued their hands in his blood. There was a multitude of them
that appeared combined in this design. Nothing would do, but he must be put to
death. All cry out, “Crucify him, crucify him. Away with him." They had
rather Barabbas, who greatly deserved death, should live, than he should not
die. Nothing would restrain them from it; even all his preaching, and all his
miracles; but they would kill him. And it was not the ordinary kind of execution
that would satisfy them; but it must be the most cruel, and most ignominious
they possibly could invent. And they, in the time of it added to it, and
aggravated it as much as ever they could, by mocking him, and spitting on him,
and scourging him. This shows what the nature und tendency of man's enmity
against God is; here it appeared in its true colors.
5. Natural men are
greater enemies to God than they are to any other being whatsoever. Natural men
may be very great enemies to their fellow creatures, but not so great as they
are to God. There is no other being that so much stands in sinners way, in
those things that they chiefly set their hearts upon, as God. Men are wont to
hate their enemies in proportion to two things, viz. their opposition to what
they look upon to be their interest, and their power and ability. One that is
looked upon a great and powerful enemy, will be more hated than one that is
weak and impotent. But none of their enemies are so powerful as God.
Man's enmity to other enemies
may be got over: Time may wear it out, and they may be reconciled and be
friends. But natural men, without a mighty work of God to change their
hearts, will never get over their enmity against God. They are greater
enemies to God than they are to the devil. Yea, they treat the devil as their
friend and master, and join in with him against God. "Ye are of your
father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do: He was a murderer
from the beginning,” John 8:44.
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