N34404:146
Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses
Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses. / By Mr. Thomas Boston, late Minister of the Gospel at Etterick.
United States : s.n. Printed for the booksellers., M,DCC,LXXXVII. 1787
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Evid. 3. The natural man is always as a workman left without light; either trifling or doing mischief. Try to catch thy heart at any time thou wilt, and thou shall find it either weaving the spider's web, or hatching cockatrice-eggs, (Isa. lix. 5.) roving through' the world, or digging into the pit; filled with vanity, or else with vileness, busy doing nothing, or what is worse than nothing. A sad sign of a dark mind.
Evid. 3. The natural man is always as a workman left without light; either trifling or doing mischief. Try to catch thy heart at any time thou wilt, and thou shall find it either weaving the spider's web, or hatching cockatrice-eggs, (Isa. lix. 5.) roving thro' the world, or digging into the pit; filled with vanity, or else with vileness, busy doing nothing, or what is worse than nothing. A sad sign of a dark mind.
Evid. 4. The natural man is void of the saving knowledge of spiritual things. He knows not what a God he has to deal with; he is unacquainted with Christ; and knows not what sin is. The greatest graceless wits are blind as moles in these things. Ay, but some such can speak of them to good purpose: and so might these Israelites of the temptations, signs and miracles, their eyes had seen, (Deut. xxix. 3.) to whom nevertheless the Lord had not given an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto that day, ver. 4. Many a man that bears the name of a Christian, may make Pharaoh's confession of saith, Exod. v. 2. I know not the Lord, neither will they let go when he commands them to part with. God is with them as a prince in disguise among his subjects, who meets with no better treatment from them, than if they were his fellows, Psal. l. 21. Do they know Christ, or see his glory, and any beauty in him for which he is to be desired? if they did, they would not slight him as they do: a view of his glory would so darken all created excellency, that they would take him for, and instead of all, and gladly close with him, as he offereth himself in the gospel,