The Natural Enmity of the Mind against God

RoMANSs viii. 7.

The carnal mind is enmity against God.”

We should be blinding ourselves against the light of experience, did we deny of many of our acquaintances, that they have either brought into the world, or have acquired, by a natural process of education, such a gentleness of temper, such a docility, such a taste for the amiable, and the kind, such an honourable sense of integrity, such a feel in

sympathy for the wants and misfortunes of others, that it would not be easy, and what is more, we may venture to say, from the example of our Saviour, who, when he looked to the young man, loved him, that it would positively not be right, to withhold from them our admiration and our tenderness. Still it were a violation of all scriptural propriety in language, to say of them that they were not carnal, or not carnally minded. All, by the very signification of the term, are carnal, whose minds either retain their-original constitution, or have undergone no other transforming process than a mere process of natural education. Some minds are — in these circumstances, more agreeable to look upon than others, just as some faces are more agreeable than others, to the eye. Each mind has its own peculiar character, just as each face has its own set of features, and its own complexion. But, as all the varieties in the latter, from exquisite beauty to most revolting deformity, do not exclude irom any, the one and universal attribute of decay; — so neither may all the constitutional varieties in the former, from the most sordid to the most naturally upright and amiable, exclude the possession of some one and universal attribute; and it may be the very attribute assigned to nature in the text — even hostility against God.

Let us first offer some remarks on the affirmation of the text, that the carnal mind is enmity against God, — and then shortly consider, how it is that the gospel of Jesus Christ suits its applications to this great moral disease.

I. It appears a very presumptuous attempt, on the part of a human interpreter, when the object which he proposes, and which he erects into a separate head of discussion, is to prove the assertion of the text. Should not the very circumstance of its being the assertion of the text, be proof enough for you? On what better foundation can your belief be laid than on the testimony of God? and when we come to understand the meaning of the thing testified, is not the bare fact of God being the witness of it, sufficient ground for its credibility to rest upon? Shall man’s reasoning carry a greater authority along with it, than God’s declaration? Is your faith to depend on the success or the failure of his argument ?. Whether he succeed in establishing the truth of the assertion or not, upon independent reasonings of his own, — remember that by reading it out in his text, he has already come forward with an argument more conclusive than any which his ingenuity can devise. And yet, how often do your convictions lie suspended on the ability of the preacher, and on the soundness of his demonstrations ?. You refuse to believe truth, plainly set before you in the Bible, because the minister has failed in making.out his point. Now, the truth of the point in question may have already received its decisive settlement, from the text delivered in your hearing. We may try, and take our own way of ‘bringing the truth of your enmity against God, close and home upon your consciences. But, if there be truth in all the sayings of the Bible, enough has been already said, to undermine the security of your fancied attainments. It.is said, that in our nature there is a rooted and an embodied character of hostility to our Maker. This should make. the wisest and most sufficient among you feel that you are poor indeed, — and let other expedients, to press home the melancholy truth fail, or be effectual as they may, this is surely enough to convince and to alarm you. But, though we cannot add to the truth of God, there is such a thing as what the Apostle calls making that truth manifest to your consciences. Your own observation may attest the very same truth, which God announces to you in his word. And if it be a truth, respecting the state of your own heart, this agreement be-Se en a eS eee a

288: SERMON XU.

tween what God says you are; and: what you find yourselves to be, is often most powerfully instrumental, in reclaiming men to the acknow-. ledgment of the wuth, and bringing ‘their heart under its influence. ‘This is the -very argument which compelled the faith of the woman of Samaria. ‘‘ Come and see the man which told:me all the things that ever I did; is not this the Christ?” «It is the very argument, by which many an unbeliever was convinced in the Apostle’s days. The secrets of his heart were made manifest, and so falling down on his face,-he worshipped God, and reported that God was in them, of a truth. We cannot make the assertion in the text stronger than God has made it already, — but we may be able to guide-your observations to that which is the subject of it — even to your own mind. We may lead you to attend more closely, and to view more distinctly, the state of your minds, than you have ever yet done. If your finding of the matter shall agree with God’s saying about it, it may make the truth of the text tell with energy upon your consciences; — and it were well for one and all of us, that we obtained a more overwhelming sense of our. necessities than we have ever yet gotten; that, we. saw ourselves in those true colours of deformity which really belong to us; that the inveteracy of our disease as sinners, were more known and more felt by us; that we could lift up the mantle of delusion, which the accomplishments of nature throw over the carnal mind, and by which they spread a most bewildering gloss over all the rebelliousness and ingratitude of the inner man. Could we but make you feel your need and your helplessness as sinners, — could we chase away. - from you the pride and the security of your fancied attainments, — could we lead you to mourn and be in heaviness, under a sense of your alienations and idolatries, and risings of hatred against the God, who created, and who sustains you; — then might we look for the overtures of the gospel being more thankfully listened to, more cordially embraced, more rejoiced in as the alone suitable remedy to the wants and the sorenesses of your fallen nature, — then might we look for the attitude of self-dependence being broken down, and for all trust, and all glorying, being transferred from ourselves, and laid upon Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

It is no proof of love to God that we do many things, and that too with the willing consent of the mind, the performance of which is agreeable to his law. If the same thing might be done upon either of two principles, then the doing of it may only prove the existence of one of these principles, while the other has no presence or operation in the mind whatever. I do not steal, and the reason of it may be either that I love God, and so keep his commandments, or it,may be that I have honourable feelings, and would spurn at the disgracefulness of such an action. ‘This is only one example, but the bare statement of it serves for a thousand more. ° It lets us in at once to the decisive fact, that there are many principles of action applauded, and held in reverence, and most useful to society, and withal urging us to the performance of what, in the matter of it, is agreeable to the law of God, which may have a practical ascendancy over a man whose heart. is. alienated from the love of God. Propose the question to yourself, Would not I do this good thing, or abstain from this evil thing, though God had no will in the matter? If you would, then put not down what is altogether due to other principles to the principle of love to God, or a desire of pleasing him. ‘The principle upon which you have acted may be respectable, and honourable, and amiable. We are not disputing all this, We are only saying, that it is not the love of God; and should we hear any one of you assert, that I have nothing to reproach myself with, and that give every body their own, and that I possess a fair character in society, and have done nothing to forfeit it, and that I have my share of generosity, and honour, and tenderness, and civility, our only reply is, that this may be very true. You may have a very large share of these, and of other estimable principles, but along with the possession of these many things, you may lack one thing, and that one thing may be the love of God. An enlightened discerner of the heart may look into you, and say, with our Saviour in the text, “I know you that you have not the love of God in you.”

It is no test whatever of your love to God, that you tolerate him, when he calls upon you, to do the things which your natural principles

incline you to do, and which you would ‘have

done at any rate.. But when he claims that place in your affections which you give to many of the objects of the world, — when he puts in for that share of your heart which you give to wealth, or pleasure, or reputation among men, — then is not God a weariness? and does not the inner man‘feel impatience and dislike at these grievous exactions? and when the will of God thwarts the natural current of your tastes and enjoyments, is not God, at the moment of urging that will, with all the natural authority bene belongs to him, a positive offence to you:

‘ How would you like the visit of a man whose presence broke up some arrangement that you had set your heart upon; or marred the enjoyment of some favourite scheme that you were going to put into execution? Would not you hate the visit? and if it were often repeated, — if the disappointments you received from this cause were frequent and perpetual, — if you saw a systematic design of thwarting you by these galling and numerous interruptions, would not you also cordially hate the visitor, and give the most substantial evidence of your hatred, too, by shunning him, or shutting him out? Now, is not God just such a visitor? O how many favourite schemes of enjoyment would the thought of him, and of his will, if faithfully admitted to the inner chambersof the mind, put to flight! How many fond caiculations be given up about the world, the love of which is opposite to the love of the Father. How many trifling amusements behoved to be painfully surrendered, if a sense of God’s will were to tell upon the conscience with all the energy that is due to it. How many darling habits abandoned, if the whole man were brought under the dominion of this imperious visitor; — how many affections torn away from the objects on which they are now fastened, if his presence were at all times attended to, and he was regarded with that affection which he at all times demands of us! Cae see. Domne Boe: This may explain a fact, which we fear must come near to the conscience of many a respectable man, and that is, the recoil which he has often experienced, as if from some object of severe and unconquerable aversion, when the preacher urges upon his thoughts some scrip-. tural representations either of the will or the character of God. Or take this fact in another way, and in which it presents itself, if not more strikingly, at least more habitually; and that is, the undeniable circumstance of God being shut out of his thoughts for the great majority of his time, and him feeling the same kind of ease, at the exclusion, as when he shuts the dooron the most unwelcome of his visitors. The reason is, that the inner man, busied with other objects, would positively be offended at the intrusion of the thought of God. It is because, to admit him, with all his high claims and spiritual requirements into your mind, would be to disturb you in the enjoyment of objects which are better loved and more sought after than he. It is because your heart is occupied with idols, that God is shut out of it. It is because your. heart is after another treasure. It is because your heart is set upon other things. Whether it be wealth, or amusement, or distinction, or the ease and the pleasures of life, we pretend not to know; but there is a something, which is your god, to the exclusion of the great God of heaven and earth. The Being who is upholding you all the time, and in virtue of whose preserving hand, you live, and think, and enjoy, is all the while unminded and unregarded by you. You look upon him as an interruption. It is of no consequence to the argument what the occupation of your heart be, if it is such an occupation as excludes God from it.. It may be what the world calls a vicious occupation, — the pursuits of a dishonest, or the debaucheries of a profligate life, — and, in this case, the world has no objection tostigmatise you with enmity against God. Or it may be what the world calls an Innocent occupation — amusement to make you happy, work to earn asubsistence, business to establish a liberal provision for your families. But your heart may be so given to it, that God 1s robbed of his portion of your heart altogether. Or it may be what the world cails an honourable occupation, — the pursuit of eminence in the walks of science or of patriotism; and still there may be an

exclusion, or a hatred, of the God who puts in for all things being done to his glory. Or it-may be what the world calls an elegant occupation, — even that of a mind enamoured with the tastefulness of literature; but it may be so enamoured with this, that the God who created your mind, and all the tastes which are within it, and all the objects which are without it, and which minister to its most exquisite gratification, — this God, we say, may be turned away from with a feeling of the most nauseous antipathy, and you may give the most substantial evidence of your hatred to him, by ridding your thoughts of him altogether. Or, lastly, it may be what the world calls a virtuous occupation, even that of a mind bustling with the full play of its energies, among enterprises aigensty and plans of public good, Yetevenhere, wonderful as you may think it, there may be a total exclusion and forgetfulness of God; and, while the mind is filled and gratified with a rejoicing sense of its activity and its usefulness, it may be merely delighting itself with a constitutional gratification, — and God the author of that constitution, be never thought of, — or, if thought of according to the holiness of his attributes, and the nature of that friendship, opposite to the friendship of the world, which he demands of us, and the kind of employment which forms the reward and the happiness of his saints in eternity, even the praise and the contemplation of himself, — if thought of, we say, accerding to this his real character, and these the real requirements that he lays upon us, — even the man to whom the word yields the homage of virtue may think of his God with feelings of offensiveness and disgust.

There is nothing monstrous in all this, to the men of our world, seeing that they have each a share in that deep and lurking ungodliness, which has both so vitiated our nature, and so blinded all who inherit this nature, against a sense of its enormity. But only conceive how it must be thought of, and how the. contemplation of it must be felt, among those who can look on character, with a spiritual and intelligent estimation. How must the pure eye of an angel be moved at such a spectacle of worthlessness, — and surely, in the records of heaven, this great moral peculiarity of our outcast race must stand engraven as that, which of all others, has the character of guilt most nakedly and most essentially belonging to it. That the bosom of a thing formed should feel cold or indifferent to him who formed. it, — that not a thought or an image should be so unwelcome to man, as that of his Maker, — that the creature should thus turn round on its Creator, and eye disgust upon him, — that its every breath should be envenomed with hatred against him who inspired it, — or, if it be not hatred, but only unconcern, or disinclination, that even this should be the real disposition of a fashioned and sustained being, towards the hand of his’ Preserver, — there is a perversity here, which time’ may palliate for a season, but which, under a universal reign of justice, must at length be brought out to its adequate condemnation. And on that day, when the earth is to be burnt up, and all its flatteries shall have subsided, will it be seen of many a heart that rejoiced in the applause and friendship of this. world, that, alienated from the love of God, it was indeed in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.

Nor does it palliate the representation which we have now given, that a God, in the fancied array of poetic loveliness — that a God of mere natural perfection, and without one other moral attribute than the single attribute of indulgence — that a God,. divested of all which can make him repulsive to sinners, and, for this purpose, shorn of all those glories, which truth and authority, and holiness, throw around his character — that such a God should be idolized at times by many a septimentalist. It would form no deduction from our enmity against the true God, that we give an occasional hour to the worship of a graven image, made with our own hands — and it is just of as little significancy to the argument, that we feel an occasional glow of affection or of reverence, towards a fictitious being of our own imagination. If there be truth in the Bible, it is there‘where God” has made an authentic exhibition of his nature, — and if God in Christ be an offence to you — if you dislike this way of approach — if you shrink from the contemplation of that Being, who bids you sanctify him in your hearts, and who claims such a preference in your regard, as shall dispossess your affections for all that is earthly — if you have no relish for the intercourse of prayer, and of spiritual communion with such a God — if your memory neither love to recal him, nor your fancy to dwell upon him, nor he be the being with whom you greatly delight yourself, the habitation to which you resort continually, — then be assured, that amid the painted insignificancy of all your other accomplishments, your heart is not right with God; and he who is the Father of your existence, and of all that gladdens it, may still be to you a loathing and an abomination.

Neither does it palliate the representation, which we have now offered, that we do many things with the direct object of doing that which is pleasing toGod It is true, there cannot be love where there is no desire to please; but-it is as true, that there may be a desire to please where there is no love. .Why, I may both hate and fear the man, whom I may find it very convenient to please; and to secure whose favour, I may practise a thousand arts of accommodation and compliance. I may comply by action — but instead of complying with my will, I may abominate the necessity which constrains me. I may be subject to his pleasure in my person, and in my performances — but you would not say, while hatred rankled within me, that I was subject to him with my mind. A sovereign may overrule the humours of arebellious province, by the presence of his resistless military — but you would not say that there was any loyalty in this forced subordination. He may compel the bondage of their actual services — but you would not say, that it was in this part of his dominions, where the principle of subjection to him existed in-the minds of the people. We have already atlirmed, that though our will went along with a number of performances, which in the matter of them were agreeable to God’s law — this was far from an unfailing indication of love to God; for there may-be a thousand other constitutional principles, the residence and operation of which in the heart may give rise to these performances, while there was an utter distaste, and hostility on our part to God. They may be done, not because God wills the doing, but because the doing falls in with our humour, or our interest, or our vanity, or our instinctive grattfication. But now we are prepared to go farther, and say, that they may be done, because God wills the doing, and yet there may be an utter want of subjection in the mind, to the law of God. The terror of his power may constrain you. to many acts of obedience, even as the call; “Flee from the coming wrath,” told on the disciples of John the Baptist. But obedience may

- be rendered to all the requirements of this prophet. Thieves, and swearers, and sabbath-breakers, may, under the fear of the coming vengeance, give up their respective enormities, and yet their minds. be altogether carnal, and utterly destitute of subjection to the law of God. ‘There may be the obedience of the hand, while there is the gall of bitterness in the heart, at the necessity which-constrains it. It may not be the consenting of the mind, to the law of him whom you

delight to please, and to honour. ‘Now, this is

the service for which it is the aim of Christiani-

ty to prepare you. It is by putting that law, which was graven~on-tables of stone, upon the

tables of your heart, that it enables you to yield that obedience, which is acceptable to God. He is grieved at the reluctancy of your services. No performances can satisfy him, while your heart remains in shut and shielded alienation against him. What he wants, is to gain the friendship and the confidence of his creatures; and he feels all the concern of a wounded and mortified father, when he knocks at the door of your heart, and finds its affections to be away from him. He condescends to plead the matter, and with the tenderness of a disappointed father, does he say, “Wherein have I wearied you, O children of Israel, testify against me?” You may fear him; you may heap sacrifices upon his altar; you may bring the outer man to something like a slavish obedience, at his bidding. — but till your heart be subdued, by that great process, which all who are his spiritual subjects must undergo, you are carnal, and you do not love him. Your obedience is like a body without a soul. The very principle which gives it all its value, is wanting. It is this which turns the whole to bitterness. It is this, which, with all the bustling activity of your services, keeps you dead in trespasses and sins.. It is this which mars every religious performance, and imparts the character of rebelliousness to every one item, in the list of your plausible and ostentatious duties. There is not one of them which is not accompanied with an act of disobedience, and that too, to the first and greatest commandment, by which we are called upon to love the Lord with all our heart, strength, and soul. Though the hand should be subject, — though. the mouth should be subject, — though all the organs of the outer man should be subject; yet it availeth nothing, if the will of the mind is not subject. I could sell all my goods to feed the poor. I could compel my hand to sign an order to that effect, — and I could keep my hand from reversing that order till it was executed. But all this I may do, says Paul, and yet have nothing, because I have not charity. It is not the act of well doing to your neighbour, but a principle of love to your neighbour, on which God stamps the testimony of his approbation. In like manner, it is not the act of well doing to God, but the principle of Jove to God, which he values; — and if this be withheld from him, you are carnal; and with all your painful and multiplied attempts at obedience, your mind is not subject to the law of God.

We shall conclude, at present, with two short reflections.

First, If any of you are convinced of the justness of the representations which we have now given, you will perceive, that your guilt in. the sight of God, may be of a far deeper and more alarming kind, than men are generally aware of. And such a view of the matter may be quite intolerable to him who nauseates the peculiarities of the gospel, — to him who has a contempt for the foolishness of that preaching, of which the great burden is Jesus Christ, and him crucified, — to him, in a word, whom the true description of our moral disease, must terrify or offend, — seeing that he carries a distaste in his heart toward the alone remedy, by which the disease can be met and extirpated. sis. But secondly, There is another class of people, whom stich a view of the. actual state of human nature ought to tranquillize, by bringing their minds out of perplexity, into a state of firm and confident decision. ‘There are often in a, congregation, a set of hearers not yet shut up into the faith, but approaching towards it, — with a growing taste for the Christianity of the New Testament, but without a full and a final acquiescence in it, — with an opening and an enlarging sense of the importance of the gospel, but still halting between two opinions respecting it; who, in particular, are not sure where their sole dependance for salvation should be placed, whether singly upon their own performances, or singly upon the righteousness of Christ, or jointly upon both. Now, we trust that the lesson of our text may have the effect with some, of bringing this unsettled account more speedily to its termination. You may have hitherto, perhaps, been under the impression, that the condition of man was not just so bad as to require a Saviour, who must undertake the whole of his cure, and. bring

SERMON “XIII. wt

about ‘the! whole of his’’salvation. ‘You’ have attempted to share with the: Saviour in the matter of your redemption. ‘Instead’ of looking upon it ‘with the’eye of the Apostle, as being all’of grace, or all of works) ‘you have, in some way or other,‘ attempted a ‘compromise between them; and this has the undoubted effect of keeping ‘you at ‘a distance from Christ: You have ‘not felt your entire need of him, and therefore you have’ not leaned in close and ‘constant dependence upon him. But let the torch of a’ Spiritual law be lifted over your characters, and through’ the guise “of its external décencies reveal-to’ you’the mountain of iniquity within; let the’ deformity of the heart be made known, and you’ becomé sensible of the truitlessneéss ‘of’ every endeavour; so long’ as the consent of a willing °cordiality is withheld from the person and authority ‘of God let the utter powerlessness’of all your doings, be ‘contrasted ‘with the perversity of your stubborn and ‘unmanageable desires, and the ‘case is seen in all its helplessness; — you become desperate of salvation in one’‘way, and you are led to look for it in another-way. ©The question, whether salvation is of:graceor of works,’ receives its most decisive settlement’2when thus driven away from’ one term’ of the alternative, you are compelled, as youronly resource, to’ the other term. You feel that nothing else will do for your acceptance with God, but your acceptance of the offered Saviour. You stand at the foot of the cross, — you make an absolute surrender of yourself to the terms of the gospel.

And we know not a more blissful or a more’

memorable event, in the history of the human j

soul, than, when convinced that there is no other righteousness. than in the merits, and no. other sanctification than in the grace of the Saviour, it henceforth glories only in his. cross; and now, that every other expedient of reformation has been tried, and failed of its accomplishment, it takes to the remaining one of crying mightily to God; and pressing, at a throne. of grace, the supplication of the Psalmist, ‘‘ Create a clean heart, and renew. a right spirit within me.”

One thing is certain; you are welcome, at this moment, to lay hold of the righteousness.. of God, in Christ Jesus; you are welcome,, at this moment, to the use of his prevailing: name, in your prayers to the Father; you:are welcome, at ‘this moment, to the plea of his meritorious. obedience, and of his atoning death; ,and,you,are welcome, at, this moment,. to the promise of the Spirit, given unto all who. believe, whereby the enmity of their carnal..minds will be, done away, — God will no longer -be-regarded with antipathy ‘and. disgust, — he will appear in. the face. of Jesus Christ as a reconciled..Father, — he will pour upon you the spirit of adoption, — - you. will walk before him without fear,; — and those bonds being loosed, wherewith. you were formerly held, you will yield.to him the willing obedience of those whose. hearts are enlarged, and who run, with. delight, in the way of his commandments. ss meenhebe ‘i eye:. 4 Cornett

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