Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses

Evid. 2. Every natural man's heart and life is a mass of darkness, disorder and confusion; how refined soever he appear in the sight of men. For we ourselves also, saith the apostle Paul, were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, Tit. iii. 3. and yet at that time, which this text looks to, he was blameless, touching the righteousness which is in the law, Phil. iii. 6. This is a plain evidence that the •ye is evil, the whole body being full of darkness, Mat. vi. 23. The unrenewed part of mankind is rambling through the world. like so many blind men; who will neither take a guide, nor can guide themselves; and therefore are falling over this and the other precipice, into destruction. Some are running after their covetousness, till they be pierced through with many sorrows; some sticking in the m•re of sensuality; others dashing themselves on the rock of pride and self-conceit; every one stumbling on some one stone of stumbling or other: all of them are running themselves upon the sword-point of justice, while they eagerly follow, whither their unmortified passions and affections lead them; and while some are lying alone in the way, others are coming up, and falling headlong over them. And therefore, Woe unto the (blind) world because of offences, Matth. xviii. 7. Errors in judgment swarm in the world; because it is night, wherein all the beasts of the forrest do creep forth. All the unregenerate are utterly mistaken in the point of true happiness; for tho' Christianity hath fixed that matter in point of principle; yet nothing less than overcoming grace can fix it in the practical judgment. All men agree in the desire to be happy: but amongst unrenewed ⟨p. 50⟩men, touching the way to happiness, there are almost as many opinions as there are men; they being turned every one to his own way, Isa. liii. 6. They are like the blind Sodomites about Lot's house, all were seeking to find the door, some grope one part of the wall for it, some another; but none of them could certainly say, he had found it: and so the natural man may stumble on any good but the chief good. Look into thine own unregenerate heart, and there thou wilt see all turned upside down: