what can be more desirable than to be one of this number? And yet such you will be, when you are called out of darkness into the marvellous light of God and of Christ. I pray God I may be able to help you in the understanding of these expressions, the darkness of unbelievers, the light of Christians; and may the Spirit of the Lord speak them in their full sense and virtue to all our hearts! I shall therefore take occasion from these words,

1. To consider what a state of nature is, here called darkness.

II. A state of grace, or light.

I. A state of nature; that is, what you may suppose that of a man to be, who knows no more of God and religion than his natural reason teaches him, confines all his views to this life, and is ignorant of the state of his soul; or if he has the Bible in his hands, sets no value upon that kind of learning, makes no use of it, does not concern himself about it, but continues in the main as insensible and regardless of the great truths contained in it as if he had never heard of them. Let such a one be never so wise in the things of this world, good-natured, prudent, civil, with a reputation for honesty and fair dealing, put the matter as high as you will, add some form of religion to all the rest, his condition is here told him, he is in darkness. And that more especially in these respects; he is ignorant of God -ignorant of sin - ignorant of the way of salvation; or, which is the same thing, whatever knowledge he has of these points, it settles altogether in the head, without reaching his heart, influencing his endeavours, or affecting his practice. The former of these, or downright ignorance, is the case of those who lived before the coming of Christ, or never heard of him; the other, of

those, who by living in Christian countries, and often hearing the peculiar doctrines of Scripture spoken of, cannot be supposed to be totally ignorant of them, but through carelessness, self-conceit, or attachment to the world, that is, upon the whole, unbelief, receive no benefit from them.

1. The natural man is ignorant of God. He neither knows what he is in himself, nor what he is to us, what he requires of us, or will do for us. And for this reason he is said in Scripture to be without God; the God he believes in being one of his own making, to suit his inclinations, and suffer him to go on in his own way. He does not understand that he was made and sent into the world to live in a willing subjection to him, to reverence his authority, and be wholly at his disposal, and therefore does not take him for his Lord and Governor. He may not be openly and notoriously wicked; he may be prudent in the management of his worldly concerns, and so far wise as neither to waste his substance, nor destroy the health of his body by any kind of intemperance, nor live so as to hurt his reputation, nor bring needless inconvenience upon himself; but in all this he has no regard to God, nor design to recommend himself to his favour. And as he is without a sense of God's government and authority, so he does not know or consider that his heart is God's due, nor what it is to give it to him. Let what will befal him, good or evil, he is still bowed down to the earth, looks for his happiness no where else, and has not the least thought of choosing God for his portion. He may believe that he gives and takes away, and be more or less pleased with him as he receives more or less from him; but he does not consider him as the great object of his love, and entitled to the chief place in his affections. "He that cometh to God," with a right knowledge of him, "must believe

that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him," Heb. xi. 6, that is, in truth and earnestness of desire, as their portion in time and eternity. But this is not the temper and character of the natural man. His ignorance of God prevents his coming to him; and present and sensible things are so much the idols of his heart, and the end of his living, that he cannot seek him at all, and much less with any degree of diligence, as his treasure and exceeding great reward. The almighty power of God is not his trust for support and protection. The universal presence of God, as privy to all his thoughts, words, and actions, and always at hand to supply his wants, is no part of his comfort. The perfections, the will, the law of God he is unacquainted with; his head, his heart, his whole soul, are otherwise employed, and his will bent against them. The Scripture says more," they are foolishness to him," and that "he cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned;" 1 Cor. ii. 14; that is, by a light which he neither has nor desires. And if there is one thing in God which he chiefly dislikes, or makes less account of than another, and endeavours to keep at the greatest distance from his thoughts, it is his justice. His mercy he can acknowledge and speak well of; but then it is the only article of his creed; and if God is any thing else, if he is not only and altogether mercy, without truth, without holiness, without justice, by his own confession he is an unknown God to him. In a word, he is ignorant of God as a Being who is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, with entire devotion, and unfeigned desire of his blessings, and who strictly requires it of him. He calls not upon him, he prays not to him, from a sense of his spiritual wants, has nothing to ask of him, keeps up no intercourse with him, respecting his soul; and if ever he uses words to this purpose, it is because

they are put into his mouth by others,-they cannot be the language of his heart.

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2. As the natural man is ignorant of God, so he is likewise ignorant of sin, its deadly nature, and prevalence in himself, and therefore denies it where it is, excuses it when it cannot be denied, and upon the whole makes a light matter of it. Indeed, ignorance of God and ignorance of sin go together, and it is hard to say which is first; but certain it is that they mutually strengthen and support each other. We mistake the nature of God because we know not what sin is; and again, our ignorance of sin, and unwillingness to know what it is, keeps us in ignorance of God. He is the hater and avenger of sin. This is the nature and character of the God with whom we have to do, of which the sin and punishment of the first man is full proof; and I may venture to affirm that there never was, nor ever will be, a sin in the world unpunished. If you are at a loss to understand me, think of Jesus Christ. If there was a single sin of yours or mine, which he did not take up, and bear in his own body on the cross, it would sink us to hell. And here the natural unenlightened man is all blindness, sees no such evil in sin as is pretended, and laughs at the word damnation. Though the Scripture from beginning to end is all a history of God's dealings with men on account of sin, of his will to punish it, and the methods he has taken to prevent it; though he feels the truth of it in all the calamities which befal him, in the pains, sicknesses, and sorrows of this mortal life, and knows that he must feel it in the death of his body; he will not understand that there is such a killing power in it, nor that he is under the curse of God for it. And besides his ignorance of the evil quality and destructive nature of all sin, he is blind to his own, does not perceive what a strength it has in himself, and what

a law it is in his members. And the reason is, because he does not trace it up to its root, nor suffer the law of God to sit in judgment upon his heart. If he is not one of the worst of men, and for the most part abstains from outward, scandalous sins, he looks no farther, and will not be persuaded that God does. Secret sins, pride, malice, guile, envy, wrath, fretfulness against God and man, and much other filthiness of spirit, are unobserved, or the guilt of them denied under pretence of infirmity, or the unavoidable corruption of nature. Whereas that very nature, as the root of such evil fruits, must necessarily be a great part of every man's sin; and if it is not seen, and confessed, and lamented as such, we shall be for ever hidden from ourselves. And from hence it comes to pass that the natural man sees no sin in not resigning himself to the disposal and authority of God, and living in professed subjection to him as his Lord and Governor; no sin in keeping his heart from God; no sin in not seeking after God; no sin in a continual course of worldliness, to the neglect of his everlasting portion in God; no sin in any thing but what exposes him to present loss, inconvenience, or the censure of the world.

3. And as he is ignorant of God and of sin, he must of course be ignorant of the way of salvation, or averse to it in his heart. He cannot desire and seek after it, any more than he would for recovery from a bodily distemper, when he thinks himself in perfect health. The way of salvation, as declared in Scripture, and I know of no other, is by Christ's satisfaction to justice, and faith in him as a sacrifice for the sin of the world. And this faith, in every one who flies to it as his remedy, necessarily supposes sense of sin, of the heinousness of it, and the wrath which is due to it. And again, this sense of sin, wherever it is real, as of its being odious in itself,