OF WHAT MAN IS

MAN, fallen from his first dignity and original perfection, is now the creature that fighteth with the law of God; is full of darkness, ignorance, and the contempt of God; without obedience, fear, and love of God; oppressed and subject unto all calamities, and wilful concupiscence, both of body and soul.

Man is an enemy of God (Rom. 8), the image of the devil, the library of lies, the friend of the devil, right heir of eternal death, and the child of damnation (Eph 2). We are murderers by the means of sin, not only of ourselves, but also of the Son of God, Who never sinned. And yet, not understanding this our woeful case and condition, we neglect both God and His law, and feel not our infirmities and sickness — the more is our health to be despaired of!

He that labors under the dangerous disease, and yet feels not the grief thereof, will never find the remedy, nor have the ill removed. We see this to be true by natural reason. Of all diseases frenzy is the most dangerous, yet the patient feels it not, nor can show where or how this woeful and miserable disease molests him; therefore very seldom or never are such persons cured and made whole. Seeing the next way unto health is the knowledge of the disease, and man is in himself sick and infected with more diseases a thousand fold than I have rehearsed, it is not without cause that I say, that to know what man is, it is very necessary; although it seem not so unto such as are drunk with the pleasures of the world, and never think from the bottom of their heart to return unto repentance. If the Scripture of God and the writings of learned men cannot persuade them what the wrath of God is against sin, I know well my labors will little avail. Yet every disciple of Christ is bound to seek the glory of God and salvation of his neighbor, and to commit the success unto God.

It is very difficult and hard for man to know himself; the only way thereupon is to examine and open himself before God by the light of the Scripture; and he, that beholds himself well in the mirror and glass, will find such a deformity and disgraced physiognomy, that he will abhor his own proportion so horribly disfigured. Let man seek no further than the first commandment (Exod 20; Deut. 5): “Thou shalt love thy Lord God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy power, and thy neighbor as thyself,” then shall man perceive his wretchedness; how that many times he loves nothing less than God or his neighbor; and perceive that he is the friend of the devil and of the world, and a contemner of God.

This way James teaches man to know himself: “Whoso looketh in the law of liberty,” etc. James uses the word “law,” which in the Hebrew phrase signifies a doctrine that teaches, instructs, and leads a man as well unto the knowledge of himself as of God.

So Paul disputes by admirable enallages and prosopopoeias (a figure, by the which things are made persons), in the 7th chapter of Romans: “By the law cometh the knowledge of sin;” he calls the law the power and force of sin (1 Cor. 15). Only the law declares how great an ill sin is; and the man that beholds the will of God in the law, will find himself and all his life guilty of eternal death. Read the 7th chapter to the Romans with judgment, and then know what man is, how miserable spoiled of virtue and oppressed with sin. So Paul learned to know himself; and knew not what sin was, till the law had made him afraid, and showed him that he, being a pharisee, was with all his holiness, condemned. “Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.” (Rom. 7). And in the same chapter he shows plainly what he saw in the glass and contemplation of the law, that sin was manifested thereby, and the greatness thereof known. “But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. “Mark the travice (opposition, as in fencing) and play between the law of God and the conscience of Paul, and see how he gives thanks unto his master the law, and proclaims it to be a spiritual and holy thing, as a light or torch, to show man his filthy and stinking nature; saying: “The law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin”; a bondman of sin and traitor to God.

Here thou seest, good reader, what a miserable wretch man is; and how man may know his misery by the law. Howbeit, though we read it many times, we are neither the wiser, nor the better. We are not taught much by this mistress the law; she cannot make us good scholars. We dally and play so with the world, we live in such security and ease, that, say she what she list, we turn the dead ear and will not hear.

Therefore, to make man know himself, God sendeth another mistress to school him, namely, adversity; then we begin to understand the law of God. As David cries, that he is unable to bear the burden of Sin, if the Lord execute judgment, as the greatness thereof merits: “If Thou, Lord, shouldest be extreme to mark what we have done amiss, who may abide it?” (Ps. 130). David, when he felt the pains of his adultery, the death of his child, the conspiracy of Absalom, the vitiating of his wives, exile and banishment, and such other calamities; in this school of misery learned this verse: “Who can sustain the wrath of God?” Now, though these temporal pains be more than man can support, they are but sport and dalliance in respect of the eternal pains. Howbeit, man may learn by them how much God is displeased with sin, and know himself to be, as he is, a vile piece of earth with all his pride and pomp, and a rebel unto his Maker, as no creature else is, saving the devil and he.

This inward and secret ill, rebellion of the heart, blindness of the intention, and forwardness of will, is daily augmented by the malice of the devil, and our own negligence, that regards not what the law teaches that God requires of man. Because the gospel teaches, that we are only saved by the mercy of God for the merits of Christ, our gospellers have set all at liberty, and care not at all about such life as should and ought to follow every justified man and disciple of Christ. It is no marvel, for there is no discipline and punishment for sin; and wheresoever the gospel is preached and this correction not used, as well against the highest as the lowest, there shall never be a godly church.

As a king’s army, though their hearts are ever so good, cannot resist the force of his enemies without the weapons and artillery necessary for men of war; no more can the king’s majesty, the magistrates, and preachers, preserve the church against the devil and sin; without the excommunication of such as openly offend the divine majesty of God and His Word. For, by this means, the sinner is taught by the Scripture to know himself, as we find 1 Cor. 5 : “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we are gathered together, and my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” God would not only the faithful, but also that the unbelievers should be kept in order by the discipline of the law, as Paul saith: “The law is given for the unrighteous”; likewise Deut. 19: “Thou shalt put the evil away from among you. And these which remain shall hear, and fear; thine eye shall not pity him.”

This political and civil use of the law teaches man to know his faults; and this discipline of the law, exterior and civil, is necessary for a man for divers causes: First, to declare our disobedience unto God; then, to avoid the punishment that always God, or else the magistrate, punishes the transgression with; thirdly, because of public peace in every commonwealth, that one man should not do injuries to another, either in body or in goods.

There is yet another cause why this discipline of the law is necessary, which few men regard. Paul saith, that it is a schoolmistress unto Christ; because such as leave not off to sin, and to do the thing which is contrary unto the express Word of God, to those Christ is not profitable. This use teaches Paul when he says 1 Cor. 6 : “Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, etc., shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” And so John saith : “Whosoever sinneth is of the devil.” He that knows himself must refrain from doing of ill; hear the gospel, and learn the gospel, that the Spirit of God may be efficacious in him; which cannot be as long as he hath a purpose to continue doing of ill. Ezekiel speaks of this civil and politic use of the law; and likewise of the second use thereof, which is, as I said before, to show man his sin, to accuse man before God, to alarm him, and to condemn man plainly: chap. 33: “I will not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live.” These words declare that as God would not the death of a sinner, so he requires the sinner to cease from doing of ill, and to be converted unto virtue.

As for the second use of the law, which is to declare what sin is, I showed before that it manifests the greatness and vileness thereof; as Paul writes, it condemns sin, and delivers not from sin: “By the law (saith he) is the knowledge of sin. The law worketh wrath; through the law sin is made exceedingly sinful” (Rom. 7). “The sting of death is sin: but the strength of sin is the law” (1 Cor. 15). In men that are addicted unto the pleasures of this world, the law has not this use, say the preacher what he list. Let the Word of God threaten eternal death for sin, it avails not. He thinks God is asleep, and will, at last, be satisfied with some trifle as an offering for sin. We shall find the contrary to our great pain, as others have before our time, that would not believe the Word till they felt the vengeance and punishment of God, as Cain, the world drowned with the flood, the burning of Sodom and others. It is a great and horrible offence to hide or extenuate the judgment of God against sin, and the voice of the law that condemns the same. God willeth His pleasure to be known openly, Jer. 1: “Lo, I have put My words in thy mouth; behold I have set thee over nations, that thou mayest root out and destroy.”

This use and office of the law none feel nor perceive so well as such as are God’s friends, Adam, Abraham, Jacob, David, Hezekiah, etc. David said that the fear of God’s displeasure and wrath was no less pain unto him than though a fierce lion had rent and dismembered his body in pieces, “as a lion hath broken all my bones,” Ps. 22. So saith Paul: “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” He before said: “Once I lived without the law,” that is, “I was secure, not feeling the wrath of God”; but now, being converted from a pharisee to be an apostle, and brought to a knowledge of himself, he confesses his imbecility and faults, and says: “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing.” Yet Paul confesses, that the law makes us not afraid to be damned because we cannot satisfy it, but that we should come to Christ with these comfortable words: “He hath concluded all under sin, that He might have mercy upon all”: a great consolation for every troubled conscience!

Thus man may know himself to be, as he is, a very wretched and damnable creature, were it not for the virtue of Christ’s death.

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