blind, ye should have no fin; but now ye fay, We fee; therefore your fin remaineth."

(6.) Laftly, There is a continual night in the unregenerate world, 1 Theff. v. 5. There is an eternal day in heaven, no night there; with the regenerate the day is broken; but with the unregenerate the black and dark night ftill remains, Ifa. viii. 20. From all which it appears, that they lie in fin, as prifoners in a dungeon; and that an unconverted state is the fuburbs of hell, where there is outer darkness.

Thirdly, They are all lying under the curfe, Gal. iii. 10.

For not being in Chrift, they are under the law as a covenant of works, Rom. iii. 19. It is the regenerate only that are delivered from it, Rom. viii. I. "There is no condemnation to them which are in Chrift Jefus." Hence all the unregenerate are declared out of Christ, 2 Cor. v. 17. and debarred out of heaven, John iii. 3. And whatever differences may be among them as to their way and walk, the curfe goes over their whole world. Now this proves that they are lying in wickednefs two ways.

1. In that the curfe always implies wickedness. A holy God will lay none under the curfe of the law, but fuch as are lying under fin. It is wickedness that draws the curfe after it; and the latter could have had no place in the world, till once the former made way for it. So being children of wrath by nature, proves us to be in a state of corruption by nature.

2. While it lies on, fin and wickednefs retain their strength, 1 Cor. xv. 56. “The strength of fin is the law." The reason is, the curfe on a finner effectually bars all fanctifying influences from heaven; fo that it is not poffible that the finner can rise up from his state of fin, while in that cafe. When the fig-tree was curfed, it withered away; and fo does the world in wickednefs under the curfe. Therefore faith is the only way to holinefs; for by it alone the finner is united to Chrift, and juftified, whereby

the

the curfe is removed; and then he is fanctified, or brought out of his ftate of wickedness.

Fourthly, They are all dead in fin, Eph. ii. 1. There was a great cry in Egypt, when there was one dead in every family; but the unregenerate world is all dead together. God, the life of the foul, is departed from them; they are alienated from the life of God, their speech is laid, and their spiritual fenfes are bound up. So that world is the region of the fhadow of death. There is this difference indeed,

1. Some are dead and rotten; these are the immoral part of the world, who by their profane lives are as intolerable to fober men, as a ftinking carcase; whofe conversation, by reafon of their profanity, is like the opening of an unripe grave, Rom. iii. 13. therefore compared to dogs and fwine.

2. Some are embalmed dead; these are the moral and religious part of the world. A form of godlinefs, the study and practice of moral virtue, is to them as the embalming of the dead corpfe, though they cannot put fpiritual life in a foul. So that these alfo are dead ftill, and lying dead in fin, though they smell not fo rank as the profane and immoral.

Laftly, They are all deftitute of every principle of holinefs, and there cannot be an effect without a cause of it; there can be no acts of holiness without a principle to proceed from. They are deftitute,

1. Of the Spirit of God; he dwells not in them, Jude 19. compare 1 Cor. ii. 14. All true fanctifi cation according to the fcripture is by the Spirit; it is his taking poffeffion of the foul that looses the bands of fin and death, Rom. viii. 2. and he dwells in all that are Chrift's, ver. 9. But they are poffeffed by the fpirit of the world, which is oppofite to the Spirit of God, and has contrary effects, 1 John iv. 5. They are of the world; therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.

2. They are deftitute of the new nature; it is by regeneration

regeneration the new man is framed; in the unregenerate is the old man alone, which is corrupt with his deeds, Eph. iv. 22. Since then the tree is not

good, how can the fruit be good? If the new naturė is totally wanting, how can there be the actions, life, and converfation of the new frame?

3. They are deftitute of faith. And without that there can be nothing acceptable to God, Heb. xi. 6. Feigned faith they may have, but true faith they have not; for that unites with Chrift, and makes a new

creature.

4. Lafly, Love, the immediate principle of all ac ceptable obedience, is wanting in them; for that proceeds from faith, and faith works by it. They cannot love God, that have not believed in him, for thefe go together. And where no love is, there can be no holy obedience.

SECONDLY, I come now to explain this state of the unregenerate world, there lying in wickedness. And we fhall confider,

1. What of wickedness they lie in.

2. How they lie in it.

I. I am to confider what of wickedness they lie in. All the unregenerate world lies,

FIRST, In a ftate of fin and wickedness, Acts viii. 23. I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity. Their state before the Lord is a finful and wicked ftate, they have never been washed, nor purged from their fin. They are all over finful and wicked, as over head and ears in the mire, Rev. iii. 17. This we take up in two things.

First, Their nature is wholly corrupted with fin and wickedness, Matth. vii. 18. Some of them may have a fair fhew outwardly, but inwardly they are all overspread with the leprofy of fin, wholly corrupt, John iii. 6. The infection by the firft fin has gone over the whole man, from the crown of the head to

the

the fole of the foot. And the cure has never yet been begun in them, as having never been touched with regenerating grace. Even the faints nature is corrupt, but they are renewed in part; but the unregenerate are wholly corrupted in the whole man, Ifa. viii. 20.; there is not the leaft ftroke of purity in them, Tit. i. 15.

1. Their fouls in all their faculties are overspread with fin, and wholly corrupted.

(1.) Their mind and understanding is wretchedly vitiated. It is overwhelmed with grofs darkness as to fpiritual things, Eph. iv. 17, 18. Darkness is over all that region; it is the land of darknefs and fhadow of death, where the very light is darkness; fo that they cannot receive the things of God, more than a blind man the light of the fun, 1 Cor. ii. 14. So unbelief reigns there, they cannot believe, for they cannot fee, Eph. ii. 2..

(2.) Their will is wholly perverfe and rebellious against God, neither plying nor able to ply to the will of God, Rom. viii. 7. The wrong fet it got by the fall, it keeps; and nothing lefs than creating power can give it a new fet. What God wills not, that they will, and what he wills, they will not; fo that the holy law has an irritating effect on them. It is called a ftony heart; break it may, but bow it cannot, till melted down by regenerating grace.

(3.) Their affections are all in diforder. Jer. xvii. 9. There is no moderating of them, by religion and reason, but they are turbulent and unmanageable, Jer. ii. 23. 24. They are wretchedly mifplaced; they love what they fhould loath, and loath what they fhould love. They can keep no measure, they run to evil, and what is good is against the grain with them. They are monsters in fpiritual things; their hearts are where there feet fhould be, on the world, and their heels lifted up against heaven.

(4.) Their conscience is in miferable plight.

Tit.

i. 15.

i. 15. It is unfit to do its office truly for want of faying illumination. Hence it is a lax confcience, that lets many evils pafs without any check at all, being filent and fenfelefs; but as to grofs fins, in checking of which it becomes through custom in them very remifs and easy. And if at any time it be awakened, it is easily bribed or boasted to filence.

2. The body partakes of that corruption, by communication with the finful foul. It incites to fin; is a house wherein the foul finds many a fnare spread for it; fo that many, to gratify their fenfes and bodily appetites, make shipwreck of their fouls. Therefore the apostle fays, "I keep under my body, and bring it into fubjection; left that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway," I Cor. ix. 27. It ferves the foul in much fin, with the members thereof inftruments of unrighteoufnefs, Rom vi. 13. The eyes and ears are windows whereat death comes into the foul; the tongue an unruly evil; the lips unclean, the throat an open fepulchre; the feet fwift to mischief; and the belly made a god, not only by them that feed delicately, but those that live on coarse fair, Zech. vii. 6.

Secondly, Their lives and converfations are wholly corrupted. Pfal. xiv. 3. For the fountain being poisoned, no pure ftreams can come forth from thence, Matth. xii. 34. The converfation of unregenerate men is one continued courfe of error, and wandering lout of the way of God's commandments. Some of them are nearer the way than others of them, but all of them are quite off it, Pfal. xiv. 3. Whether they move flow or faft, they are out of course, Eccl. x. 15. For many of their actions are ill in themselves, in the very matter of them condemned by the law of God, and which they never truly repent of. All of them are wrong in the manner, the beft of them are marred in the mating, through the want of right principles, motives and ends.

SECONDLY,