[Through sin the soul
sets itself against God.]
Third, so That you may better perceive that the soul, through sin, has set itself against God, I will propose, and speak briefly about these two things:
I. The law II. The gospel.
I. For the law. God has given it as a rule of life, either as written in their natures, or as inserted in the Holy Scriptures; I say, as a rule of life for all the children of men. But what have men done, or how have they carried it to this law of their Creator; Let us see, and that from the mouth of God himself.
1. 'They have not hearkened unto My words' (Jer 6:19).
2. 'They have forsaken My law' (Jer 9:13).
3. They 'have forsaken Me, and have not kept My law' (Jer 16:11).
4. They have not 'walked in My law, nor in My statutes' (Jer 44: 4).
5. 'Her priests have violated My law' (Eze 22:26).
6. And, saith God, 'I have written to him the great things of My law, but they were counted as a strange thing.' (Hos 8:12).
Now, from whence should all this disobedience arise? Not from the unreasonableness of the commandment, but from the opposition that is lodged in us against God, and the enmity that it entertains against goodness. Hence the apostle speaks of the enmity, and says, that men are enemies in their minds, and souls, as is manifest by wicked works (Col 1:21). This, if men went no further, must need to be highly provoking to a just and holy God: yea, so highly offensive is it, that, to show the heat of His anger, He saith, 'Indignation and wrath, tribulation, and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil,' and this evil with a witness, 'of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile,' that does evil (Rom 2:8, 9). That breath the law; for that evil, He is crying out now. But,