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

Depraved nature acts in the regions of horror, unallayed, and undisguised. Lastly, They are driven away from all means of grace: and are set beyond the line, quite out of all prospect of mercy. There is no more an opportunity to buy oil for the lamp; it is gone out at death, and can never be lighted again. There may be offers of mercy and peace made after they are gone; but they are to others, not to them; there are no such offers in the place, to which they are driven; these offers are only made in that place, from which they are driven away.

LASTLY, In what respect may they be said to be driven away in their wickedness? Ans. (1.) In respect of their being driven away in their sinful unconverted state. Having lived enemies to God, they die in a state of enmity to him: for none are brought into the eternal state of consummate happiness, but by the way of the state of grace, or begun recovery in this life. The child that is dead in the womb, is born dead, and is cast out of the womb into the grave: so he who is dead, while he liveth, or is spiritually dead, is cast forth of the womb of time, in the same state of death, into the pit of utter misery. O miserable death, to die in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity! it had been incomparably better for such as die thus, that they had never been born. (2.) In regard they die sinning, acting wickedly against God. in contradiction to the divine law: for they can do nothing but sin while they live. So death takes them in the very act of sinning; violently draws them from the embraces of their lusts, and drives them away to the tribunal to receive their sentence. It is a remarkable expression, Job xxxvi. 14. They […] in youth: the marginal reading […], their soul dieth in youth; their lusts being lively their desires vigorous, and expectations big, as is common in youth. And their life is […] unclean: or, and the company (•r herd) of th•• dieth among the Sodomites, i. e. is taken away in the […] of their sin and wickedness▪ as the Sodomites were, Gen. ••x. Luke vi. , 9. (3) In as much