Religion & morality > Human nature in its four-fold state ... in several practical discourses

Plead I. of Nature applied. 1
U s e II. For Lamentation. Well may we la- '
ment thy Cafe, O natural Man, for ’tis the faddeft
Cafe one can be in, out of Hell. ’Tis Time to la¬
ment for thee; for thou art dead already, dead
while thou liveft ; thou cardeft about with thee a
dead Soul in a living Body : And becaufe thou.art
dead, thou canft not lament thy own Cafe. Thou
art lothfome in the Sight of God ; for thou art alto¬
gether corrupt. Thou baft no Good in thee : Thy
Soul is a Mafs of Darknefs, Rebellion, and Vile-
nefs, before the Lord. Thou thinkeft perhaps, that
thou haft cl good Heart to God, good Inclinations,
and good Deftres : But God knows, there’s nothing
Good in thee, but every Imagination of thine Heart
is only Evil. Thou canft do no Good; thou canft,
do nothing but Sm. For,
Firft, Thou art the Servant of Sin, Rom. vi. 17;
and therefore free from Righteoufnefs, verfe 20.
Whatever Righteoufnefs be, (poor Soul) thou art
free of it; thou Hoft not, thou canft not meddle
with it. Thou art under the Dominion of Sin, a
Dominion where Righteoufnefs can have no Place.
Thou art a Child, and Servant of the Devil, tho^
thou be neither Wizard nor Witch ; feeing thou
art yet in the Stats of Nature, John viii. 44. Te
are of your Father the Devil. And to prevent any
Miftake, conftder, that Sin and Satan have two
Sorts of Servants, (1.) There are fome employed,
as it were, in coarfer Work: Thofe bear the De¬
vil’s Mark in their Fore-heads, having no Form of
Godlinefs ; but are profane, grofly ignorant, mere
Moralifts, not fo much as performing the exter¬
nal Duties of Religion, but living to the View of
the World, as Sons of Earth, only minding earth¬
ly ‘things, Philip, iii. i$>. (2.) There are fome em-'