you still go halting. And, though it were better with you than it is, the remembrance of what you were by nature should keep you low. You that are yet in your natural state, take with it: believe the corruption of your nature, and let Christ and his grace be precious in your eyes. O that you

would at length be serious about the state of your souls! You must die; you must appear before the judgment-seat of God. Will you lie down and sleep another night at ease in this case? Do it not; for before another day you may be sisted before God's dreadful tribunal, in the grave-clothes of your corrupt state; and your vile souls cast into the pit of destruction as a corrupt lump, to be for ever buried out of God's sight. For I testify unto you all, there is no peace with God, no pardon, no heaven for you, in this state: there is but a step betwixt you and eternal destruction from the presence of the Lord: if the brittle thread of your life, which may be broke with a touch ere you are aware, be indeed broken while you are in this stste, you are ruined for ever, and without remedy. But come speedily to Jesus Christ; he has cleansed as vile souls as yours; and he will yet "cleanse the blood that he hath not cleansed."

man's natural state.

Thus far of the sinfulness of

HEAD II.

THE MISERY OF MAN'S NATURAL STATE.

EPHESIANS ii. 3.

"We were by nature the children of wrath, even as others."

HAVING showed you the sinfulness of man's natural state, I come now to lay before you the misery of it. A sinful state cannot be but a miserable state. If sin go before, wrath follows of course. Corruption and destruction are so knit together, that the Holy Ghost calls destruction, even eternal destruction, corruption: "He that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption," that is, everlasting destruction; as is clear from its being opposed to life everlasting in the following clause. And so the apostle having shown the Ephesians their real state by nature, to wit, that they were dead in sins and trespasses, altogether corrupt; he tells them, in the words of the text, their relative state, namely, that the pit was digged for them while in that state of corruption being dead in sins, they "were by nature children of wrath, even as others."

In these words we have four things:1. The misery of a natural state: of wrath, as well as a state of sin.

it is a state

We were, says

the apostle, children of wrath, bound over and liable to the wrath of God; under wrath in some measure; and, in wrath, bound over to more, even the full measure of it in hell, where the floods of it go over

the prisoners for ever.
of wrath, a son of death.
in law, lying in chains of guilt: a criminal held fast
in his fetters till the day of execution; which will not
fail, unless a pardon be obtained from his God, who
is his judge and party too. By that means, indeed,
children of wrath may become children of the king-
dom.

The natural man is a child
He is a malefactor, dead

The phrase in the text, however common it is in holy language, is very significant. And as it is evident, that the apostle calling natural men the children of disobedience, means more than that they were disobedient children; for such may the Lord's own children be so to be children of wrath, is more than simply to be liable to, or under wrath. The phrase seems to intimate, that men are, whatsoever they are in their natural state, under the wrath of God, that they are wholly under wrath. Thus the natural man is a child of wrath: it comes into his

bowels like water, and like oil into his bones." For though Judas was the only son of perdition amongst the apostles, yet all men, by nature, are of the same family.

2. There is the rise of this misery: men have it by nature. They owe it to their nature, not to their substance or essence; for that neither is, nor was sin, and therefore cannot make them children of wrath; though for sin it may be under wrath: not to their nature as qualified at man's creation by his Maker; but to their nature as vitiated and corrupted by the fall; to the vicious quality, or corruption of their nature, which is their principle of action, and, ceasing from action, the only principle in an unregenerate state.

3. The universality of this misery. All are by nature children of wrath: we, saith the as others, Jews as well as Gentiles.

apostle, even Those that are

now by grace the children of God, were by nature in no better case, than those that are still in their natural state.

Lastly, There is a glorious and happy change intimated here: we were children of wrath, but are not so now; grace has brought us out of that fearful state. This the apostle says of himself and other believers. And thus it well becomes the people of God to be often standing on the shore, and looking back to the red sea of the state of wrath they were some time weltering in, even as others.

Man's natural state is a state of wrath.

DOCTRINE, The state of nature is a state of wrath. Every one in a natural unregenerate state, is in a state of wrath.. We are born children of wrath; and continue so until we be born again. Nay, as soon as we are children of Adam, we are children of wrath.

I shall usher in what I am to say on this point, with a few observations touching the universality of this state of wrath; which may serve to prepare the way for the word into your consciences.

Wrath has gone as wide as ever sin went. When angels sinned, the wrath of God brake in upon them as a flood: "God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell." And thereby it was demonstrated, that no natural excellency in the creature will shield it from the wrath of God, if once it becomes a sinful creature. The finest and nicest

piece of the workmanship of heaven, if once the Creator's image upon it be defaced by sin, God can and will dash it in pieces in his wrath; unless satisfaction be made to justice, and that image be repaired; neither of which the sinner himself can do. Adam sinned; and the whole lump of mankind was leavened, and bound over to the fiery oven of God's wrath. And from the text ye may learn, (1.) The ignorance of that state cannot free men from it: the Gentiles that knew not God, "were by nature children of wrath, even as others." A man's house may be on fire, his wife and children perishing in the flames, while he knows nothing of it, and therefore is not concerned about it. Such is your case, O ye that are ignorant of these things! wrath is silently sinking into your souls, while ye are blessing yourselves, saying, 'We shall have peace.' Ye need not a more certain token that ye are children of wrath, than that you never yet saw yourselves such. Ye are grossly ignorant of your state by nature; and so ignorant of God, and of Christ, and your need of him and though ye look on your ignorance as a covert from wrath; yet take it out of the mouth of God himself, that it will ruin you if it be not removed: "It is a people of no understanding; therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them." (2.) No outward privileges can exempt men from this state of wrath; for the Jews, the children of the kingdom, God's peculiar people, "were children of wrath, even as others." Though ye be church-members, partakers of all church privileges; though ye be descended of godly parents, of great and honourable families; be what ye will, ye are by nature heirs of