Human Nature in its Fourfold State

Let no man think lightly of sin, which lays the sinner open to the wrath of God. Let not the sin of our nature, which wreaths the yoke of God’s wrath so early about our necks seem a small thing in our eyes. Fear the Lord because of His dreadful wrath. Tremble at the thought of sin against which God has such fiery indignation. Look on His wrath, and stand in awe, and sin not. Do you think this is to press you to slavish fear? If it were so, one had better be a slave to God with a trembling heart, than a free man to the devil, with a seared conscience and a heart of adamant. But it is not so; you may love Him and thus fear Him too, yea, you ought to do it, though you were saints of the first magnitude. (See Psa 119.120; Matt 10.28; Luke 12.5; Heb 12.28,29.) Although you have passed the gulf of wrath, being in Jesus Christ, yet it is but reasonable that your hearts should shiver when you look back at it. Your sin still deserves wrath, even as the sins of others; and it would be terrible to be in a fiery furnace, although by a miracle we are so protected against it, as it could not harm us.

Thomas Boston (pg. 181-182)

Behold here, O believers, your high privilege. You were once branches of a degenerate stock, even as others: but you are, by grace, become branches of the true vine (John 15.1). You are cut out of the dead and killing stock, and ingrafted in the last Adam, who was made a quickening spirit (1 Cor 15.45). Your loss by the first Adam is made up, with great advantage, by your union with the second. Adam, at his best estate, was but a shrub, in comparison with Christ, the tree of life. He was but a servant; Christ is the son, the Heir, and Lord of all things, ‘the Lord from Heaven.’ It cannot be denied, that grace was shown in the first covenant: but it is as far exceeded by the grace of the second covenant, as the twilight is by the light of the mid-day.

Thomas Boston (pg. 267)

Weigh the world, and all that is in it.

Weigh the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season.

Weigh your afflictions in this balance, and you will find the heaviest of 

them very light

Weigh the most difficult and uneasy duties of religion here, and you will no 

more recken the yoke of Christ unsupportable.

Weigh your convictions in this balance.

Weigh sin in this balance, and, though now it seems a light thing to you, you 

will find it a weight sufficient to turn up an eternal weight of wrath 

upon you. 

Be warned and stirred up to flee from the wrath to come.

And now sinners, what shall I say to you? I have given you some view of the privileges of those in the state of grace. You have seen them afar off; but alas! They are not yours, because you are not Christ’s. The sinfulness of an unregenerate state is yours, and the misery of it is yours also; you have neither a part not lot in this matter. The guilt of all your sins lies upon you; you have no part in the righteousness of Christ. There is no peace in you, no peace with God, no true peace of conscience, for you have no savings interest in the great Peace-maker. You are not of God’s family; the adoption we spoke of, belongs not to you. You have no part in the spirit of sanctification, and, in one word, you have no inheritance among them that are sanctified. All I can say to you in this matter is, that, the case is not desperate, they may yet be yours (Rev 3.20), ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.’ Heaven is promising a union with earth still; the potter is making suit to his own clay; and the gates of the city of refuge are not yet closed. O that we could compel you to come in!

 Thomas Boston (pg 319-320)

And now, if you would be saved from the wrath to come, and never go into this place of torment, take no rest in your natural state; believe the sinfulness and misery of it, and labour to get out of it quickly, fleeing unto Jesus Christ by faith. Sin in you is the seed of hell: and if the guilt and reigning power of it be not removed in time, they will bring you to the second death in eternity. There is no way to get them removed, but by receiving Christ as He is offered in the Gospel, for justification and sanctification: and He is now offered to you with all salvation (Rev 22.12,17), ‘And behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. And the Spirit and bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say, come; and let him that is the athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.’ Jesus Christ is the Mediator of peace, and the fountain of holiness: He it is who delivers us from the wrath to come. ‘There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit’ (Rom 8.1). And the terrors of hell, as well as the joys of heaven, are set before you, to stir you up to a cordial receiving of Him, with all His salvation; and to incline you to the way of faith and holiness, in which alone you can escape the everlasting fire. May the Lord Himself make them effectual to that end!

Thomas Boston (pg 505-506)