The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural…

III. And it is a calamitous, miserable World. It is void of the comforts of sacred Illumination, and of the assured Love of God, and of the exercise of wisdom, or holiness: ⟨p. 249⟩The delights of Saints in loving God, and waiting for eternal Life, are unknown to all the multitudes of the ungodly: They are confounded and lost in their ignorance and error; and tormented with their own passions, divisions and contentions. Their vices are part of their disquietment and pain, though pleasure be their intended end. It is a pitiful servitude that they are in to Satan, and an endless drudgery that they follow, in serving their covetousness, pride, and lust; and a tiresome task to care and labour to make provision for their fleshly appetites and wills. They are led captive by Satan to do his will; and yet in doing it they do their own, and are in love with their Captivity, and glory in their Chains. They are engaged daily against God and Mercy, against their Happiness, and their Friends that would procure it; and think him their Enemy that would make them wiser. They go under the guilt of all this sin; and they have no assurance of pardon or deliverance: And God overtaketh them many times with bodily distresses here: Sicknesses and pains consume men, and torment them; Wars, and plagues do send them by thousands, out of the World, which they took for their felicity: Fire and famine, piracy and robbery, and fraud, impoverish them: The frustrations of their hope torment them. And yet under all, they are hardened against God, and fall not out with their sin and folly, but with the Justice of Heaven, and with its instruments, or rather with all that beareth the Image of the Holiness of God. This is the visible condition of this World.

III. And it is a calamitous, miserable World. It is void of the comforts of sacred Illumination, and of the assured Love of God, and of the exercise of wisdom, or holiness: ⟨p. 249⟩The delights of Saints in loving God, and waiting for eternal Life, are unknown to all the multitudes of the ungodly: They are confounded and lost in their ignorance and error; and tormented with their own passions, divisions and contentions. Their vices are part of their disquietment and pain, though pleasure be their intended end. It is a pitifull servitude that they are in to Satan, and an endless drudgery that they follow, in serving their covetousness, pride, and lust; and a tiresome task to care and labour to make provision for their fleshly appetites and wills. They are led captive by Satan to do his will; and yet in doing it they do their own, and are in love with their Captivity, and glory in their Chains. They are engaged daily against God and Mercy, against their Happiness, and their Friends that would procure it; and think him their Enemy that would make them wiser. They go under the guilt of all this sin; and they have no assurance of pardon or deliverance: And God overtaketh them many times with bodily distresses here: Sicknesses and pains consume men, and torment them; Warrs, and plagues do send them by thousands, out of the World, which they took for their felicity: Fire and famine, piracy and robbery, and fraud, impoverish them: The frustrations of their hope torment them. And yet under all, they are hardened against God, and fall not out with their sin and folly, but with the Justice of Heaven, and with its instruments, or rather with all that beareth the Image of the Holiness of God. This is the visible condition of this World.