A True Map of Man’s
Miserable Estate by Nature
by Christopher Love
Edited by Don Kistler
[Christopher Love, minister of St.
Laurence-Jewry in London, was beheaded at the age of 29 for treason during the Protectorate
of Oliver Cromwell. Thomas Manton preached his funeral sermon. Among others
accused, but not convicted or executed, were Thomas Watson and several other
prominent London ministers. Love declared his innocence to the very end. The
letters written between Christopher and his wife Mary, as he sat in the Tower
of London awaiting his death in August, 1651, are full of love and poignant
affection. If it pleases God to allow it, Soli Deo Gloria will begin work
shortly be reprinting some of Love’s writings. This abridgment is from the 1806
edition.]
I will show you the eight particular
properties of a man without Christ.
1. Every man without
Jesus Christ is a base man.
2. He is a bondman.
3. He is a beggarly
man.
4. He is a blind man.
5. He is a deformed
man.
6. He is a
disconsolate man.
7. He is a dead man;
and
8. He is a damned
man.
These are the eight properties of a man
without Jesus Christ. First, every man without Jesus Christ is a base man.
Though you are born of the blood of nobles, and though you are of the offspring
of princes, yet if you have not the royal blood of Jesus Christ running in your
veins, you are a base man.
In Daniel 11:21 and Psalm 15:4, you read of
vile persons. Such is every man without Christ, and he must be so, because it
is only Christ who can take off that baseness wherein every one is by nature.
In Isaiah 43:4, God says, Since thou wast
precious in Mine eyes, thou becamest honorable. And, in I Peter 2:7, Unto you who believe, Christ is precious.
It is Jesus Christ who puts a diamond of honorand glory upon men. They are all
base men who are out of Jesus Christ, and that in these three respects:
1. They come from a base origin.
2. They commit base actions; and
3. They aim at base ends.
Every man who is out of Christ comes from a
base origin. He does not have his origin from the Spirit, but from the flesh.
He does not proceed from God who is the Father of lights, but from the devil
who is the prince of darkness.
He is base because he commits base actions.
All the actions and services of a Christ-less man, at best, are but as filthy
rags and dead works. A man, in his unconverted state, is the slave and drudge
of the devil, a worker of wickedness, still fulfilling the desires of the flesh
and of the mind, being given over to vile affections.
He is a base man who is without Christ because
he aims at base ends in whatever he does, and that two ways. (1) In this world
he aims at base ends in his hearing, reading, praying, and profession of
religion. He minds himself and his own ends in all that he does. (2) All his
actions tend to base ends in another world. As the actions of a man in Christ
tend to salvation, so the actions of a Christ-less man tend to damnation.
Second, a man without Christ is not only a
base man, but a bondman. This Christ tells you in John 8:36, If the Son shall make you free, then are you
free indeed, intimating that if you do not have an interest in Christ to
free you from the slavery of sin and Satan, you are slaves indeed. This bondage
and slavery, likewise, consists in three particulars: 1. they are slaves to
sin; 2. to the devil, and 3. to the law.
1. Every Christ-less man is a slave to sin. In
John 8:34, Jesus says, Verily I say unto
you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin, and in 2 Peter 2:19, While they promise them liberty, they
themselves are servants of corruption, for of whom a man is overcome, of the
same he is brought into bondage. Every man, by nature, is a slave to his
lusts, a slave to sin, and to the creatures. God made man over all the
creatures, but man has made himself servant to all the creatures.
2. He is not only in bondage and slavery to
sin, but to the devil, too. The last two verses of 2 Timothy 2 say, in meekness instructing those that oppose
themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance, to the acknowledging
of the truth, that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil,
who are taken captive by him at his will.
3. He is in bondage to the law, that is, he
does nothing in obedience to the law; and this is the great misery of a man
without Christ. He is bound to keep the whole law of God. There is a very
strange expression in Revelation 18:13. Saint John tells there that all those
who did worship the beast shall cry, ‘Woe
and alas,’ for Babylon is fallen, and shall cry for the slaves and souls of men.
All wicked men are slaves to antichrist, to sin and to the law, and this is the
great misery of an unregenerate man.
Third, you are not only a base and a bondman, but
a beggarly man, too, without Jesus Christ; for all the treasures of grace and
mercy are hid and locked up in Christ as in a common magazine or storehouse.
Colossians 2:13, In Him are hid all the
treasure of wisdom and knowledge. If you are out of Christ, you have
nothing. As it says in Revelation 4:17, Thou
sayest thou art rich and increased in goods, and hast need of nothing, and
knowest not that thou art poor, and wretched, and miserable, and blind, and
naked. You will grant that he is a poor and beggarly man that lacks these
four things: meat for his belly, clothes for his back, money for his purse, and
a house to put his head in. Why, in all these respects, every man who is out of
Christ is a beggarly man.
1. A beggarly man is one who has no meat to put
in his belly, and all you who have no interest in Jesus Christ are beggarly, in
this regard, because you do not feed upon that bread of life, nor drink of the
water of life, the Lord Christ, whose flesh is meat indeed, and whose blood is
drink indeed, without which your souls will starve for hunger.
2. You will say he is a poor man who has no
clothes to put upon his back, Thus every man out of Christ is not only poor,
but naked, Revelation 3:17, Thou knewest
not that thou wert poor and miserable, and blind and naked. That man who is
not clothed with the long robes of Christ’s righteousness is a naked man, and
is exposed to the wrath and vengeance of Almighty God. Those men have a cloak
to cover their sinful nakedness and shame who are clothed with the robes of
Christ’s righteousness. It is said of Jacob that he obtained the blessing from
his father by being clad in the garments of his eldest brother, and so we are
only blessed by God our Father as we are clothed with the robes of our elder
brother Jesus Christ.
3. That man is a beggarly man who has no money
in his purse. So, though your purses are full of gold, if your hearts are not
full of grace, you are very beggarly men, Luke 16:11. Grace is the only true
riches. All the durable riches are bound up in Christ.
4. And lastly, he is a beggarly man who does
not have a house to put his head in, who is destitute of a house to lodge in
and a bed to lie on. So, you who have no interest in Christ, when your days are
expired and death comes, you do not know what to do nor where to go. You cannot
say with the godly man that when death takes you from here that you shall be
received into everlasting habitations. You cannot say that Christ has gone
before to prepare a place for you in heaven.
So, then, in these four particulars you see
that a Christ-less man is a very beggarly man, having neither food for his
body, nor clothes for his back, nor money for his purse, nor a house to put his
head in, unless it is a dungeon of darkness with devils and damned spirits.
Fourthly, another property of a man without
Christ is that he is a blind man. Revelation 3:17, And knewest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and
blind, and naked. Hence it is that wicked men, during their unregeneracy,
are called “darkness.” Ephesians 5:8, You
were sometime darkness, but now are you light in the Lord, walk as children of
the light. So light is come into the world, and yet men love darkness
rather than light because their deeds are evil.
Jesus Christ is to the soul that which the sun
is to the earth. Take away the sun from the earth and it is nothing but a
dungeon of darkness. So take away Christ from the soul and it is nothing but a
dungeon of the devil. Though there is a Christ in the world, if the heart is
shut and Jesus Christ is not in you, you are in a state of darkness and
blindness.
Fifth, every man without Christ is a deformed
man, as you may read in Ezekiel 16:3-14. Thus
saith the Lord God, ‘Thy nativity is in the land of Canaan, thy father was an
Amorite, and then, in the 6th verse, When I passed by thee, and saw thee
polluted in thy blood, I said unto thee, ‘Live,’ yea I said unto thee, when
thou wast in thy blood, ‘live.’ When a poor child lies weltering in its
blood, not swaddled, nor washed, nor looked after, what a sad condition is it
in? And thus were you, says God. But then read on in the 7th verse, I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of
the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great. Then in the 14th verse, Thy
renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty, for it was perfect through
My comeliness that I had put upon thee, said the Lord, intimating that,
before Christ looks upon a soul, he lies weltering in his own blood and not
able to help himself, but he becomes comely through Christ’s comeliness that is
cast upon him. If you lack Christ, you lack your best ornament.
A man without Christ is like a body full of
sores and blotches. He is like a dark house without light and a body without a
head, and such a man must be a deformed man.
Sixth, another property of a Christ-less man
is that he is a disconsolate man. Christ is the only spring of comfort and the
fountain of all joy and consolation. Take away Christ from the soul and it is
as if you took the sun away from the firmament. If a man has all the blessings
in the world and lacks Christ, he lacks that which should sweeten all the rest
of his discomforts. In Exodus 15:23-25, you read of the waters of Marah. They
were so bitter that none could drink of them, but then the Lord showed Moses a
tree which, when he had cast into the waters, made the waters sweet. Why, Jesus
Christ is this tree. He sweetens the bitterness of any outward affliction and
he can make all your sorrows to flee away. There is nothing in the world that
sweetens the comforts and gives us joy in the possession of the things of this
world more than having an interest in Jesus Christ.
It is not, beloved, having much of the
creature in your house, but having Christ in your hearts that makes you live
comfortably. All the bread you eat will be bread of sorrow if you do not feed
upon the body of Jesus Christ; and all your drink will be but wine of
astonishment if you do not drink of the blood of Jesus Christ. Without an
interest in Christ, all your comforts are but crosses, and all your mercies are
but miseries, as in Job 20:22, In the
fulness of his sufficiency, he shall be in straits. Though you have
abundance of the things of this life, though you have more than enough, yet if
you do not have an interest in Christ, you have nothing.
Seventh, another property of a man out of
Christ is that he is a dead man. You know that common place in I John 5:12, He that hath the Son hath life, and he that
hath not the Son hath not life. Hence we read in Ephesians 2:1 that
unregenerate men are dead in trespasses
and sins, and the reason is that Christ is a believer’s life. Colossians
3:3, Our life is hid with Christ in God.
Take away Christ from a man and you take away his life, and take away life from
a man and he is a dead lump of flesh. Unregenerate men are termed strangers to
the life of godliness and, therefore, must be dead in their sins. Though they
do not enjoy the life of a man, yet if the life that he lives is not by faith
in the Son of God, he is spiritually dead. For example, you know a dead man
feels nothing. Do what you will to him, he does not feel it. So a man who is
spiritually dead does not feel the weight of his sins, though they are a heavy
burden pressing him down into the pit of hell. He is a stranger to the life of
godliness, past feeling, given over to a reprobate sense, so that he does not
feel the weight and burden of all his sins.
A dead man has a title to nothing here in this
life. Though he was ever so rich, yet he loses his title to all, and his riches
go from him to another. So, being spiritually dead, you can lay claim to
nothing, neither to grace, nor mercy, heaven, or happiness by Jesus Christ.
A dead man is still rotting and returning to
the dust from whence he came; and so a man who is spiritually dead falls from
iniquity to iniquity, and from one sin to another, until at last he drops down
into hell fire.
Eighth, the last property of a Christ-less man
is that he is a damned man. If he lives and dies without Christ, he is a damned
man. So says John 3:18, He that believeth not, he is condemned already. He is
as surely damned as if he were in hell already. He who is without Jesus Christ
must go without heaven, for heaven and glory and happiness are entailed upon
him. Heaven is given to none but those who are heirs together with Christ, and
therefore, you who are without Christ must be without heaven, and consequently
without happiness and salvation, and therefore you must be damned.
So that you see in these eight particular
properties, in what a sad and miserable condition every Christ-less man is in,
and oh! that what has now been declared concerning the wretchedness of a
Christ-less man might provoke every soul among you to a holy eagerness and
earnestness of spirit, above all your gettings to labor to get Jesus Christ.
[This abridged sermon is reprinted from Sola
Scriptura, a magazine formerly published by Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, by the
permission of the editor. For further information about books by Love, or other
Puritan books, contact Don Kistler at:
Soli Deo Gloria
P.O. Box 451
Morgan, PA
15064
(412) 221-1901/ Fax
(412) 221-1902
Soli Deo Gloria books
are also available from Great Christian Books]