O dreadful effects of the fall of man! We have not only become enemies to God and rebels against him, but are also so ignorant of ourselves, and so blind to our own state, that we do not see this: we will not own it. "An enemy to God! What, to that good and gracious Lord, in whom I live, move, and have my being? I cannot think that any one upon earth can be so wicked as to be an enemy to God" –such is the language of blind nature: thou that utterest it art the man. Yea, such is the enmity of thine, of every man's nature against God, that were it possible, and in our power, we should kill God. Start not at the thought! horrid as it is, here is proof of it. God was manifest in flesh. How was he received? How was he treated by sinful man? Let the annals of his holy life speak the base contempt and hellish treatment he met with from man: let the history of his painful and agonizing death proclaim the enmity of sinners' hearts against him.
They killed, whom? Jesus of Nazareth, a mere man, mighty m word and deed? a great prophet only? Infinitely more, O unparalleled mystery of iniquity! O inscrutable mystery of godliness! they killed the Prince of Life. Such the abominable wickedness of human nature, such the total blindness of the human heart, a murderer is preferred to an innocent man; a vile miscreant is spared; the Divine Redeemer, the author of life, is put to death. Here, O soul, behold the true hut horrid picture of human nature: such its enmity to God as to take away the life of God.
Dost thou think in thine heart, surely my nature is not so dreadfully wicked, I could not have done so vile a deed? Thou dost not yet know thyself; thy thoughts proceed from blindness and ignorance of the depth of thy totally wicked nature: and as yet thou seest not the amazing heights of the Lord's love. The Prince of Life dies by the wicked hands of men. To what end? That by his death his very murderers should live and not die eternally. O matchless love! Learn, O my soul, to fathom the depth of the enmity of the human heart by the heights of the love of a dying Saviour. Sin has done its worst, slain my Redeemer, that I might live. Satan, thou hast wreaked thy hellish wrath; but thou art conquered in my Saviour's death. Law, thou hast sheathed thy strongest sting, and spent the poison of thy dart in the body of my God; but, glory to my Prince of Life, he lives to love, and loves to save: I am safe. O may the Spirit make this faith kill legal hopes and self-righteous confidence.
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