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

(2) It is a violent death, Rom vii 4 Ye are become dead to the law, being killed, slain, or put to death, as the word bears. The law itself has a great hand in this; the husband gives the wound, Gal ii. 19. I though the law am dead to the law. The soul that dies this death, is like a loving wife matched with a rigorous husband: she does what she can to please him, yet he is never pleased; but tosseth, harasseth, and beats her, till she break her heart, and death sets her free; as will afterwards more fully appear. Thus it is made evident, that men's hearts are naturally bent to the way of the law, and lie cross to the gospel contrivance: and the second article of the charge, against you that are unregenerate, is verified, namely▪ that ye are enemies to the Son of God.

(2) It is a violent death, Rom vii 4 Ye are become dead to the law, being killed, slain, or put to death, as the word bears. The law itself has a great hand in this; the husband gives the wound, Gal ii. 19. I though the law am dead to the law. The soul that dies this death, is like a loving wife matched with a rigorous husband: she does what she can to please him, yet he is never pleased; but tosseth, harasseth, and beats her, till she break her heart, and death sets her free; as will afterwards more fully appear. Thus it is made evident, that men's hearts are naturally bent to the way of the law, and ly cross to the gospel contrivance: and the second article of the charge, against you that are unregenerate, is verified, namely▪ that ye are enemies to the Son of God.

3dly, Ye are enemies to the Spirit of God. He is the Spirit of holiness; the natural man is unholy, and loves to be so, and therefore resists the holy Ghost, Acts vii. 51. The work of the Spirit is to convince the world of sin, righteousness and judgment, John xvi. 8. But O how do men strive to ward off these convictions, as ever they would ward off a blow, threatening their loss of a right-eye, or a right hand? If the Spirit of the Lord dart them in, so as they cannot evite them; the heart says, in effect, as Ahab to Elijah, whom he both hated and feared: Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And indeed they treat him as an enemy, doing their almost to stifle convictions, and to murder these harbingers, that come to prepare the Lord's way into the soul come fill their hands with business, to put their convictions ou o their heads, as Cain, who fell a building of a city: some put them off with delays and fair promises, as Felix did: some will sport them away in company, and some sleep them away. The holy Spirit is the spirit of sanctification: whose work it is to subdue lusts, and burn up corruption how then can the natural man, whose lusts are to him as his limbs, yea, as his life fail of be […] enemy to him.