The vial poured out upon the sea. A remarkable relation of certain pirates brought…

We will Enquire; First, Whence it proceeds, that the most of Men, die before they arrive unto Wisdom? You may be sure, The Fall of Man is the cause of this evil. Man was ambitious of Wisdom. The Temptation of the Forbidden Fruit was, A Tree to be desired, to make one wise. But Man by his Fall has lost his Wisdom. A Darkness is come upon his Mind. His perverse Mind is now naturally disposed unto Error. He is naturally Ignorant, and out of the way. His Faculties, to discern wisely what is Right and Good, are horribly wounded by his Fall from God. It is now come to pass, that the Children of Men come under that Character; Rom. 3.16.17. —The way of Peace they have not know. And because the depraved Soul of Man loves his Error, therefore the Holy God leaves him in it. Because he will not be reclaimed from it, God lets him go on in his Error. Because he hates the Light, God withholds it from him. He Delights in his Darkness, & prefers and practises the Works of Darkness; God therefore gives him up to his Darkness. We may add, what we read; 2. Cor. 4.4. The god of this world blinded their Minds. Satan is by the wrath of God, become the Ruler of this Dark World. Men do by Sin put themselves under the Dominion of Satan. Satan shuts his poor Slaves up in those Dungeons, where the Rays of Wisdom do not reach them. Sinners enslaved by Satan, may say of their Master, He has laid me in the lowest Pitt, in Darkness, in the Deeps. They are by the Intrigues of Satan, kept so ⟨p. 34⟩full of Business, and carried unto such a Distance from God, that they can't see things in a True light. So they go down to the Generation of their Foolish Fathers, and they never see light.

We will Enquire; First, Whence it proceeds, that the most of Men, dy before they arrive unto Wisdom? You may be sure, The Fall of Man is the cause of this evil. Man was ambitious of Wisdom. The Temptation of the Forbidden Fruit was, A Tree to be desired, to make one wise. But Man by his Fall has lost his Wisdom. A Darkness is come upon his Mind. His perverse Mind is now naturally disposed unto Error. He is naturally Ignorant, and out of the way. His Faculties, to discern wisely what is Right and Good, are horribly wounded by his Fall from God. It is now come to pass, that the Children of Men come under that Character;