Galatians 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written… The most terrible scene that men are capable of beholding, in time or eternity. Happy they who timely behold it, so as to be thereby stirred up to flee to Christ. I. THE CONDITION OF THE NATURAL MAN'S SOUL UNDER THE CURSE. This is the most noble part of man. In the moment he sinned, his soul fell under the curse. And so 1. His soul was separated from God, in favour with whom its life lay. 2. Hence, man's soul-beauty was lost; death seized on him by sin, his beauty went off. A dead corpse is an awful sight, where the soul is gone.. But thy dead soul, from which God is gone, O natural man I is a more awful one. Couldst thou see thy inward man, as well as thou seest the outward, thou wouldst see a soul within thee of a ghastly countenance, the eyes of its understanding set, its speech laid, all the spiritual senses now locked up, no pulse of kindly affection towards God beating any more; but the soul lying speechless, motionless, cold and stiff like a stone, under the curse. 3. Hence the whole soul is corrupted in all the faculties thereof. As the soul being gone, the body corrupts; so the soul, being divested of its original righteousness, is wholly corrupted and defiled, having a kind of verminating life in it — "They are altogether become filthy" (Psalm 14:3). And as when the curse was laid on the earth, the very nature of the soil was altered; so the souls of men under the curse are quite altered from their original holy constitution. This appears in all the faculties thereof. (1) Look into the mind, framed at first to be the eye of the soul; there is a lamentable alteration upon it under the curse. "O how is the fine gold become dim!" There is a mist upon it, whereby it is become weak, dull, and stupid in spiritual things, and really incapable of these things. Darkness has sat down on the mind — "Ye were sometimes darkness" (Ephesians 5:8); and there spiritual blindness and ignorance reign, not to be removed by man's instruction, or any power less than what can take off the curse. This cursed ground is fruitful of mistakes, misapprehensions, delusions, monstrous and misshapen conceptions in Divine things; doubtings, distrust, unbelief of Divine Revelation, grow there, of their own accord, as the natural product of the cursed soil; while the seed of the word of the kingdom sown there does perish, and faith cannot spring up in it, for such is the soil that they cannot take with it. (2) Look into the will, framed to have the command in the soul, and it is in wretched plight. Its uprightness for God is gone, and it is turned away backward from Him. It is not only under an inability for good, but having lost all power to turn itself that way — "We were without strength" (Romans 5:6); "For it is God which worketh in you to will and to do of His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13); but it is averse to it, as the untrained bullock is to the yoke (Psalm 81:11). (3) Look into the affections, framed to he the arms and feet of the soul for good, and they are quite wrong. Set spiritual objects before them to be embraced, then they are powerless, they cannot embrace them, nor grip them stedfastly; they presently grow weary, and let go any hold they have of them; like the stony-ground hearers, who because they had no root withered away (Matthew 13:6). But as for carnal objects, agreeable to their lusts, they fly upon them, they clasp and twine about them; they hold so fast a grip, that it is with no small difficulty they can be got to let go their hold. Summon them to duty, they are flat, there is no raising of them, they cannot stir; but on the least signal given them by temptation, they are like Saul's hungry soldiers, flying on the spoil. (4) Look into the conscience, framed to be in the soul God's deputy for judgment, His spy, and watchman over His creature; and it is miserably corrupted — "Their mind and conscience is defiled" (Titus 1:15). It is quite unfitted for its office. It is fallen under a sleepy distemper, sleeping and loving to slumber. (5) Look into the memory, framed to be the storehouse of the soul, and the symptoms of the curse appear there too. Things agreeable to the corruption of nature, and which may strengthen the same, stick fast in the memory, so that often one cannot get them forgotten, though they would fain have their remembrance razed. But spiritual things natively fall out of it, and are soon forgotten; the memory, like a leaking vessel, letting them slip. 4. Man being in these respects spiritually dead, the which death was the consequent of the first sin, the curse lies on him as a gravestone, and the penalty binds it upon him, that he cannot recover. So he is in some sort, by the curse, buried out of God's sight. 5. Hence that corruption of the soul grows more and more. As the dead corpse, the longer it lies in the grave, it rots the more, till devouring death has perfected its work in its utter ruin; so the dead soul under the curse grows worse and worse in all the faculties thereof, till it is brought to the utmost pitch of sin and misery. 6. And hence the corruption of nature shoots forth itself in innumerable particular lusts, according to its growth (Mark 7:21, 22, 23). But this is not all the misery of the soul under the curse; there are additional plagues, which by the curse they are liable to, who are under it. These soul-plagues are of two sorts — silent strokes, and tormenting plagues. 1. Silent strokes, which make their way into the soul with no noise; but the less they are felt, they are the more dangerous; such as — (1) Judicial blindness. (2) Strong delusions. (3) Hardness of heart. (4) A reprobate sense. (5) Vile affection. 2. Tormenting plagues. Many are the executioners employed against the soul fallen under the curse, who together do. pierce, rack, and rend it, as it were, in pieces. (1) Discontent. (2) Wrath. (3) Anxiety. (4) Sorrow of heart. (5) Fear and terror. (6) Despair. II. THE CONDITION OF THE NATURAL MAN'S BODY UNDER THE CURSE. 1. It is liable to many defects and deformities in the very constitution thereof. Adam and Eve were at their creation not only sound and entire in their souls, but in their bodies, having nothing unsightly about them. But O how often now is there seen a variation from the original pattern, in the very formation of the body! Some are born deaf, dumb, blind, or the like. Some with a want of some necessary organ, some with what is superfluous. Some with such a constitution of body as makes them idiots, the organs of the body being so far out of case, that they are unfit for the actions of the rational life; and the soul is by them kept in a mist during the union with that body. All this is owing to sin and the curse, without which there had been no such things in the body of man. 2. As the temperature of the body was by the first sin altered, so as it disposed to sin (Genesis 3:7), so by the curse that degenerate constitution of it is penally bound on, by. which it comes to pass that it is a snare to the soul continually. The seeds of sin are in it; it is "sinful flesh" (Romans 8:3), "a vile body" (Philippians 3:21), and these seeds are never removed while the curse lies on it, being a part. of that death to which it is bound over by the curse. 3. It is under the curse a vessel of dishonour. By its original make, it was a vessel of honour, appointed to honourable uses, and was so used by the soul before sin entered; and every member had its particular honourable service, serving the soul in subordination to God. But now it is brought down from its honour, and its "members are yielded instruments of unrighteousness unto sin" (Romans 6:13), and it is abused to the vilest purposes; and it is never restored to its honour till, the curse being removed, it becomes the temple of God, by virtue of the purchase of it made by the blood of Christ. 4. It is liable to many mischiefs from without, tending to render it uneasy for the time, and at length to dissolve the frame of it. From the heavens above us, the air about us, the earth underneath us, and all that therein is, it is liable to hurt. 5. There is a seed-plot of much misery within it. It is by the curse become a weak body, and so liable to much toil and weariness, fainting and languishing under the weight of the exercise it is put to (Genesis 3:19). And not only so, but it hath in it such seeds of corruption, tending to its dissolution, as spring up in many and various maladies, which often prove so heavy that they make life itself a burden. 6. In all these respects the body is a clog to the soul in point of duty, often hanging like a dead weight upon it, unfitting it for, and hindering it from, its most necessary work. The sinful soul is in itself most unfit for its great work, in this state of trial, by reason of the evil qualities of it under the curse. But the wretched body makes it more so. The care of the body doth so take up its thoughts with most men, that, caring for it, the soul is lost. Its strength and vigour is a snare to it, and its weakness and uneasiness often interrupt or quite mar the exercises wherein the soul might profitably be employed. But it may be objected, That by this account of the condition of those under the curse, the case of natural men and of believers in Christ is alike; since it is evident, that not only these bodily miseries, but many of these soul miseries, are common to both. I answer: Though it seem to be alike in the eye of beholders, in regard these miseries are materially the same on natural men and on the children of God; yet really there is a vast difference. On the former they are truly effects of the curse; on the latter they are indeed effects of sin, but not of the curse — "For Christ hath redeemed them from the curse of the law, being made a curse for them" (Galatians 3:13). (1) The stream of miseries on soul or body to a natural man, runs in the channel of the covenant of works; but to a believer, in the channel of the covenant of grace. (2) There is revenging wrath in the one, but fatherly anger only in the other. (3) The miseries of the ungodly in this life are an earnest of eternal misery in hell; but those of the godly are medicines, to keep back their soul from death — "When we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world" (1 Corinthians 11:32). III. THE WHOLE MAN IS UNDER THE CURSE. He is cursed — 1. In his name and reputation. 2. In his employment and calling in the world. 3. In his worldly substance. 4. In his relations. 5. In his lot, whether afflicted or prosperous. 6. In his use of the means of grace. 7. In his person. (1) He is under the power of Satan. (2) Being under the curse, he is continually in hazard of utter destruction, of having the copestone put on his misery, and being set beyond all possibility of help.If his eyes were opened he would see himself every moment in danger of dropping down into the pit of hell (Psalm 7:12). (T. Boston, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. |
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