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

First, The soul's falling in with the grand device of salvation by Jesus Christ, and setting the matters of salvation on that footing before the Lord, is declared by the scriptures of truth to be an undoubted mark of a real saint, who is happy here, and shall be happy hereafter. Matth. xi. 6. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. 1 Cor. i. 23, 24. But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness: but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Philip iii. 3. For we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Now how could this be, if nature could comply with that grand device.

Secondly, Corrupt nature is the very reverse of the gospel contrivance. In the gospel, God promiseth Jesus Christ as the great means of re-uniting man to himself: he has named him as the Mediator, one in whom he is well pleased, and will have none but him, Matth. xvii. 5. But nature will have none of him, Psal lxxxi. 11 God appointed the place of meeting for the reconciliation, namely, the flesh of Christ; accordingly, God was in Christ, (2 Cor. v. 29.) as the tabernacle of meeting, to make up the peace with sinners; but natural men, tho' they should die for ever, will not come thither John v. 40. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. In the way of the gospel, the sinner must stand before the Lord in an imp•••d righteousness: but corrupt nature is for an inherent righteousness: and therefore, so far as natural men follow after righteousness, they follow after the law of righteousness, Rom. ix 31, 32. and not after the Lord our righteousness. Nature is always for building up itself, and to have some grounds for boasting: but the great design of the gospel is to exalt grace, to depress nature, and exclude boasting, Rom. iii 27. The sum of our natural religion is, to do good from and for ourselves,