Religion & morality > Human nature in its fourfold state

[ead IT. The Explication of the Text. 133
r. The mifery of a natural (late; it is a flate of
Itrath, as well as a ilate of fm. We were, fiys the
ii|Apoftle, children of wrath, bound over, and liable, to
She wrath of God -, under wrath in fotne ineafure; and,
n wrath, bound over to more, even the full meafure
|f it in hell, where the floods of it go over the priibn-
t its for ever Thus Saul, in his wrath, adjudging Da-
lid to die, 1 Sam xx. 31. and David, in his wrath,
laffing fentence of deatli again Pc the man in the parable,
|l| Sam. xii 5. fay each of them, of his fuppofed cri-
ainal He [hall furely die; or, as the words in the firft
unguage are, he is a jon of death. So the natural mail
a child of wrath, a fon of death. He is a maltfaftor,
ad in law, lying in chains of guilt : a criminal held
ft in his fetters, till the day of execution : which will
t fail, unit fs a pardon be obtained from his God, who
his judge and party too. By that means, indeed,
ildren ol wrath may become children of the king-
m The phrafe in the text, however common it is
holy language, is very fignificart. And as it is evi-
nt, that the Apoftle calling natural men, the children
difobedience, ver. 2 Means more than that they
jere drfcbedient children ; for fuch may the Lord’s
n children be : fo to be children of wrath is more
an fimply to be liable to, or under wrath. Jefus
rift was liable to, or under wrath ; but I doubt if we
ve any warrant to fay, he was a child of wrath,
re phrafe feems to intimate, that men are, whatfo-
r they are in their natural ftate under the wrath
God •, that they are wholly under ■wrath : wrath is,
it were, woven into their very nature, and mixeth
l:lf with the whole of the man ; who is (if I may fo
ak) a very lump of wrath, a child of hell, as the
in the fire is-all fire For men naturally are chil-
|:n of wrath, come forth (fo to fpeak) out of the
mb of wrath, Jonah's gourd was the fon cf a night,
itch we render came up in a night, Jonah iv. to as
: had come out of the womb of the night, (as we,
|i of the womb of the morning, Pfal cx. 3.) and fo,
birth following the belly whence it came, was foon
gone.
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