wonder how they consist together if we did not find it by
so many experiences. Your way proves that you do not believe it, that
death is the end of it, and then your words evidence that you do not
believe that you are unbelievers of that. O! how desperate is the
wickedness, and how great is the deceitfulness, of the heart! The false
prophet that is in every man's bosom, deceives him that it may destroy
him. As Satan is a liar and a murderer, and murders by lying, so the heart
of man is a self murderer and a self destroyer, and that is done by lying
and deceiving. There is some lie in every sin, but there is this gross,
black, fundamental lie at the bottom of all sin,--a conceit of immunity and
freedom from death and hell, a strong imagination of escaping danger, even
though such a way be chosen and walked into as of its own nature
inevitably leads to destruction. And there is something of this bloody
murdering flattery even in the hearts of Christians, therefore, this
apostle gives us an antidote against it, and labours often to purge it
out, by stirring up that knowledge they have received. "Know ye not that
the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?" 1 Cor. vi. 9. Be
not deceived, God is not mocked, for what a man soweth, that shall he
reap, he that soweth to the flesh shall reap corruption &c., Gal. vi. 7,
8. O that you might listen to this word, to this watchword given you and
stop your course, at least for a season, to think what shall be the latter
end! Know you not that such shall not inherit the kingdom? Know you not
that the way to heaven lies upward? Know you not that your way lies
downward towards the flesh and the earth? Are you so far demented(182) as
to think to come to heaven by walking just downward in the lusts of the
flesh? Truly this is the strongest and strangest enchantment that can be,
that you think to sow one thing and reap another thing, to sow darkness
and reap light, to sow corruption and reap incorruption. Is that possible
in nature to sow nettle seed and think to reap barley or wheat? Be not
deceived. O that you would undeceive your poor deluded souls, and know
that it is as natural for death and hell to grow out of sin and walking
after the flesh, as it is for every seed to yield its own fruit and herb!
Do you then think to dissolve the course and order of nature? Truly the
flesh is mortal in itself; it is ordained for corruption. You see what it
turns to after the life is out, that