(Psalm lviii. 3). They go astray as soon as they be born: their poison
is like the poison of a serpent.” _The wicked_, (and who by his birth
hath a better title?) they go astray from the dictates of God and the
rule of their creation as soon as ever they be born. Their poison is
like the poison of a serpent, which is radically the same in all of
the same species. It is seminally and fundamentally in all men, though
there may be a stronger restraint by a divine hand upon some men than
upon others. This principle runs through the whole stream of nature.
The natural bent of every man’s heart is distant from God. When we
attempt anything pleasing to God, it is like the climbing up a hill,
against nature; when anything is displeasing to him, it is like
a current running down the channel in its natural course; when we
attempt anything that is an acknowledgment of the holiness of God,
we are fain to rush, with arms in our hands, through a multitude of
natural passions, and fight the way through the oppositions of our
own sensitive appetite. How softly do we naturally sink down into that
which sets us at a greater distance from God! There is no active,
potent, efficacious sense of a God by nature. “The heart of the sons
of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Eccl. viii. 11). _The heart_,
in the singular number, as if there were but one common heart beat in
all mankind, and bent, as with one pulse, with a joint consent and
force to wickedness, without a sense of the authority of God in the
earth, as if one heart acted every man in the world. The great apostle
cites the text to verify the charge he brought against all mankind.
[143] In his interpretation, the Jews, who owned one God, and were
dignified with special privileges, as well as the Gentiles that
maintained many gods, are within the compass of this character. The
apostle leaves out the first part of the text, “The fool hath said in
his heart,” but takes in the latter part, and the verses following. He
charges _all_, because all, every man of them, was under sin――“There
is none that seeks God;” and, {a91} ver. 19, he adds, “What the law
saith, it speaks to those that are under the law,” that none should
imagine he included only the Gentiles, and exempted the Jews from this
description. The leprosy of atheism had infected the whole mass of
human nature. No man, among Jews or Gentiles, did naturally seek God;
and, therefore, all were void of any spark of the practical sense of
the Deity. The effects of this atheism are not in all externally of
an equal size; yet, in the fundamentals and radicals of it, there
is not a hair’s difference between the best and the worst men
that ever traversed the world. The distinction is laid either in
common grace, bounding and suppressing it; or in special grace,
killing and crucifying it. It is in every one either triumphant or
militant, reigning or deposed. No man is any more born with sensible
acknowledgments of God, than he is born with a clear knowledge of
the nature of all the stars in the heavens, or plants upon the earth.
None seeks after God.[144] None seek God as his rule, as his end,
as his happiness, which is a debt the creature naturally owes to
God. He desires no communion with God; he places his happiness in
anything inferior to God; he prefers everything before him, glorifies
everything above him; he hath no delight to know him; he regards not
those paths which lead to him; he loves his own filth better than
God’s holiness; his actions are tinctured and dyed with self, and are
void of that respect which is due from him to God.
The noblest faculty of man, his understanding, wherein the remaining
lineaments of the image of God are visible; the highest operation of
that faculty, which is wisdom, is, in the judgment of the Spirit of
God, devilish, whilst it is earthly and sensual;[145] and the wisdom
of the best man is no better by nature; a legion of impure spirits
possess it; devilish, as the devil, who, though he believe there is
a God, yet acts as if there were none, and wishes he had no superior
to prescribe him a law, and inflict that punishment upon him which
his crimes have merited. Hence the poison of man by nature is said
to be like the poison of a serpent,[146] alluding to that serpentine
temptation which first infected mankind, and changed the nature of
man into the likeness of that of the devil; so that, notwithstanding
the harmony of the world, that presents men not only with the notice
of the being of a God, but darts into their minds some remarks of
his power and eternity; yet the thoughts and reasonings of man are
so corrupt, as may well be called diabolical, and as contrary to
the perfection of God, and the original law of their nature, as the
actings of the devil are; for since every natural man is a child of
the devil, and is acted by the diabolical spirit, he must needs have
that nature which his father hath, and the infusion of that venom
which the spirit that acts him is possessed with, though the full
discovery of it may be restrained by various circumstances (Eph.
ii. 2). To conclude: though no man, or at least very few, arrive to
a round and positive conclusion in their hearts that there is no God,
yet there is no man that naturally hath in his heart any reverence
of God. In general, before I come to a particular proof, take some
propositions.
{a92} _Prop. I._ Actions are a greater discovery of a principle than
words. The testimony of works is louder and clearer than that of words;
and the frame of men’s hearts must be measured rather by what they
do than by what they say. There may be a mighty distance between the
tongue and the heart, but a course of actions is as little guilty
of lying as interest is, according to our common saying. All outward
impieties are the branches of an atheism at the root of our nature, as
all pestilential sores are expressions of the contagion in the blood;
sin is therefore frequently called ungodliness in our English dialect.
Men’s practices are the best indexes of their principles: the current
of a man’s life is the counterpart of the frame of his heart. Who can
deny an error in the spring or wheels, when he perceives an error in
the hand of the dial? Who can deny an atheism in the heart, when so
much is visible in the life? The taste of the water discovers what
mineral it is strained through. A practical denial of God is worse
than a verbal, because deeds have usually more of deliberation than
words; words may be the fruit of a passion, but a set of evil actions
are the fruit and evidence of a predominant evil principle in the
heart. All slighting words of a prince do not argue an habitual
treason; but a succession of overt treasonable attempts signify a
settled treasonable disposition in the mind. Those, therefore, are
more deservedly termed atheists, who acknowledge a God, and walk as if
there were none, than those (if there can be any such) that deny a God,
and walk as if there were one. A sense of God in the heart would burst
out in the life; where there is no reverence of God in the life, it is
easily concluded there is less in the heart. What doth not influence
a man when it hath the addition of the eyes, and censures of outward
spectators, and the care of a reputation (so much the god of the
world) to strengthen it and restrain the action, must certainly
have less power over the heart when it is single, without any other
concurrence. The flames breaking out of a house discover the fire
to be much stronger and fiercer within. The apostle judgeth those
of the circumcision, who gave heed to Jewish fables, to be deniers
of God, though he doth not tax them with any notorious profaneness:
(Tit. i. 16), “They profess that they know God, but in works they
deny him.” He gives them epithets contrary to what they arrogated
to themselves.[147] They boasted themselves to be holy; the apostle
calls them abominable: they bragged that they fulfilled the law,
and observed the traditions of their fathers; the apostle calls them
disobedient, or unpersuadable: they boasted that they only had the
rule of righteousness, and a sound judgment concerning it; the apostle
said they had a reprobate sense, and unfit for any good work; and
judges against all their vain‑glorious brags, that they had not a
reverence of God in their hearts; there was more of the denial of God
in their works than there was acknowledgment of God in their words.
Those that have neither God in their thoughts, nor in their tongues,
nor in their works, cannot properly be said to acknowledge him. Where
the honor of God is not practically owned in the lives of men, the
being of God is not sensibly acknowledged in the hearts of men. The
{a93} principle must be of the same kind with the actions; if the
actions be atheistical, the principle of them can be no better.
_Prop. II._ All sin is founded in a secret atheism. Atheism is the
spirit of every sin; all the floods of impieties in the world break in
at the gate of a secret atheism, and though several sins may disagree
with one another, yet, like Herod and Pilate against Christ, they join
hand in hand against the interest of God. Though lusts and pleasures
be diverse, yet they are all united in disobedience to him.[148] All
the wicked inclinations in the heart, and struggling motions, secret
repinings, self‑applauding confidences in our own wisdom, strength,
&c., envy, ambition, revenge, are sparks from this latent fire; the
language of every one of these is, I would be a Lord to myself, and
would not have a God superior to me. The variety of sins against the
first and second table, the neglects of God, and violences against man,
are derived from this in the text; first, “The fool hath said in his
heart,” and then follows a legion of devils. As all virtuous actions
spring from an acknowledgment of God, so all vicious actions rise from
a lurking denial of him: all licentiousness goes glib down where there
is no sense of God. Abraham judged himself not secure from murder,
nor his wife from defilement in Gerar, if there were no fear of God
there.[149] He that makes no conscience of sin has no regard to the
honor, and, consequently, none to the being of God. “By the fear of
God men depart from evil” (Prov. xvi. 6); by the non‑regarding of God
men rush into evil. Pharaoh oppressed Israel because he “knew not the
Lord.” If he did not deny the being of a Deity, yet he had such an
unworthy notion of God as was inconsistent with the nature of a Deity;
he, a poor creature, thought himself a mate for the Creator. In sins
of omission we own not God, in neglecting to perform what he enjoins;
in sins of commission we set up some lust in the place of God, and
pay to that the homage which is due to our Maker. In both we disown
him; in the one by not doing what he commands, in the other by doing
what he forbids. We deny his sovereignty when we violate his laws;
we disgrace his holiness when we cast our filth before his face; we
disparage his wisdom when we set up another rule as the guide of our
actions than that law he hath fixed; we slight his sufficiency when
we prefer a satisfaction in sin before a happiness in him alone; and
his goodness, when we judge it not strong enough to attract us to him.
Every sin invades the rights of God, and strips him of one or other of
his perfections. It is such a vilifying of God as if he were not God;
as if he were not the supreme Creator and Benefactor of the world; as
if we had not our being from him; as if the air we breathed in, the
food we lived by, were our own by right of supremacy, not of donation.
For a subject to slight his sovereign, is to slight his royalty; or a
servant his master, is to deny his superiority.
_Prop. III._ Sin implies that God is unworthy of a being. Every sin is
a kind of cursing God in the heart;[150] an aim at the destruction of
the being of God; not actually, but virtually; not in the intention
of every sinner, but in the nature of every sin. That affection which
{a94} excites a man to break His law, would excite him to annihilate
his being if it were in his power. A man in every sin aims to set up
his own will as his rule, and his own glory as the end of his actions
against the will and glory of God; and could a sinner attain his end,
God would be destroyed. God cannot outlive his will and his glory;
God cannot have another rule but his own will, nor another end but his
own honor. Sin is called a turning the back upon God,[151] a kicking
against him,[152] as if he were a slighter person than the meanest
beggar. What greater contempt can be shown to the meanest, vilest
person, than to turn the back, lift up the heel, and thrust away with
indignation? all which actions, though they signify that such a one
hath a being, yet they testify also that he is unworthy of a being,
that he is an unuseful being in the world, and that it were well the
world were rid of him. All sin against knowledge is called a reproach
of God.[153] Reproach is a vilifying a man as unworthy to be admitted
into company. We naturally judge God unfit to be conversed with. God
is the term turned from by a sinner; sin is the term turned to, which
implies a greater excellency in the nature of sin than in the nature
of God; and as we naturally judge it more worthy to have a being in
our affections, so consequently more worthy to have a being in the
world, than that infinite nature from whom we derive our beings and
our all, and upon whom, with a kind of disdain, we turn our backs.
Whosoever thinks the notion of a Deity unfit to be cherished in his
mind by warm meditation, implies that he cares not whether he hath a
being in the world or no. Now though the light of a Deity shines so
clearly in man, and the stings of conscience are so smart, that he
cannot absolutely deny the being of a God, yet most men endeavor to
smother this knowledge, and make the notion of a God a sapless and
useless thing (Rom. i. 28): “They like not to retain God in their
knowledge.” It is said, “Cain went out from the presence of the Lord”
(Gen. iv. 16); that is, from the worship of God. Our refusing or
abhorring the presence of a man implies a carelessness whether he
continue in the world or no; it is a using him as if he had no being,
or as if we were not concerned in it. Hence all men in Adam, under
the emblem of the prodigal, are said to go into a far country; not
in respect of place, because of God’s omnipresence, but in respect
of acknowledgment and affection: they mind and love anything but God.
And the descriptions of the nations of the world, lying in the ruins
of Adam’s fall, and the dregs of that revolt, is that they know not
God. They forget God, as if there were no such being above them; and,
indeed, he that doth the works of the devil, owns the devil to be more
worthy of observance, and, consequently, of a being, than God, whose
nature he forgets, and whose presence he abhors.
_Prop. IV._ Every sin in its own nature would render God a foolish and
impure being. Many transgressors esteem their acts, which are contrary
to the law of God, both wise and good: if so, the law against which
they are committed, must be both foolish and impure. What a reflection
is there, then, upon the Lawgiver! The moral law is not properly a
mere act of God’s will considered in itself, or a tyrannical {a95}
edict, like those of whom it may well be said, _stat pro ratione
voluntas_: but it commands those things which are good in their own
nature, and prohibits those things which are in their own nature evil;
and therefore is an act of his wisdom and righteousness; the result
of his wise counsel, and an extract of his pure nature; as all the
laws of just lawgivers, are not only the acts of their will, but of
a will governed by reason and justice, and for the good of the public,
whereof they are conservators. If the moral commands of God were
only acts of his will, and had not an intrinsic necessity, reason
and goodness, God might have commanded the quite contrary, and made
a contrary law, whereby that which we now call vice, might have been
canonized for virtue: He might then have forbid any worship of him,
love to him, fear of his name: He might then have commanded murders,
thefts, adulteries. In the first he would have untied the link of
duty from the creature, and dissolved the obligations of creatures to
him, which is impossible to be conceived; for from the relation of a
creature to God, obligations to God, and duties upon those obligations,
do necessarily result. It had been against the rule of goodness and
justice to have commanded the creature not to love him, and fear and
obey him: this had been a command against righteousness, goodness,
and intrinsic obligations to gratitude. And should murder, adulteries,
rapines have been commanded instead of the contrary, God would have
destroyed his own creation; he would have acted against the rule
of goodness and order; he had been an unjust tyrannical governor of
the world: public society would have been cracked in pieces, and the
world become a shambles, a brothel‑house, a place below the common
sentiments of a mere man. All sin, therefore, being against the law of
God, the wisdom and holy rectitude of God’s nature is denied in every
act of disobedience. And what is the consequence of this, but that
God is both foolish and unrighteous in commanding that, which was
neither an act of wisdom, as a governor, nor an act of goodness, as
a benefactor to his creature? As was said before, presumptuous sins
are called reproaches of God (Numb. xv. 30): “The soul that doth aught
presumptuously reproacheth the Lord.” Reproaches of men are either
for natural, moral, or intellectual defects. All reproaches of God
must imply a charge, either of unrighteousness or ignorance: if of
unrighteousness, it is a denial of his holiness; if of ignorance, it
is a blemishing his wisdom. If God’s laws were not wise and holy, God
would not enjoin them: and if they are so, we deny infinite wisdom and
holiness in God by not complying with them. As when a man believes not
God when he promises, he makes him a liar (1 John v. 10); so he that
obeys not a wise and holy God commanding, makes him guilty either of
folly or unrighteousness. Now, suppose you knew an absolute atheist
who denied the being of a God, yet had a life free from any notorious
spot or defilement; would you in reason count him so bad as the other
that owns a God in being, yet lays, by his course of action, such a
black imputation of folly and impurity upon the God he professeth to
own――an imputation which renders any man a most despicable creature?
_Prop. V._ Sin in its own nature endeavors to render God the most
{a96} miserable being. It is nothing but an opposition to the will of
God: the will of no creature is so much contradicted as the will of
God is by devils and men; and there is nothing under the heavens that
the affections of human nature stand more point blank against, than
against God. There is a slight of him in all the faculties of man; our
souls are as unwilling to know him, as our wills are averse to follow
him (Rom. viii. 7): “The carnal mind is enmity against God, it is not
subject to the law of God, nor can be subject.” It is true, God’s will
cannot be hindered of its effect, for then God would not be supremely
blessed, but unhappy and miserable: all misery ariseth from a want
of that which a nature would have, and ought to have: besides, if
anything could frustrate God’s will, it would be superior to him: God
would not be omnipotent, and so would lose the perfection of the Deity,
and consequently the Deity itself; for that which did wholly defeat
God’s will, would be more powerful than he. But sin is a contradiction
to the will of God’s revelation, to the will of his precept: and
therein doth naturally tend to a superiority over God, and would
usurp his omnipotence, and deprive him of his blessedness. For if God
had not an infinite power to turn the designs of it to his own glory,
but the will of sin could prevail, God would be totally deprived
of his blessedness. Doth not sin endeavor to subject God to the
extravagant and contrary wills of men, and make him more a slave than
any creature can be? For the will of no creature, not the meanest and
most despicable creature, is so much crossed, as the will of God is by
sin (Isa. xliii. 24): “Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins:” thou
hast endeavored to make a mere slave of me by sin. Sin endeavors to
subject the blessed God to the humor and lust of every person in the
world.
_Prop. VI._ Men sometimes in some circumstances do wish the not being
of God. This some think to be the meaning of the text, “The fool hath
said in his heart, There is no God,” that is, he wishes there were no
God. Many tamper with their own hearts to bring them to a persuasion
that there is no God: and when they cannot do that, they conjure up
wishes that there were none. Men naturally have some conscience of
sin, and some notices of justice (Rom. i. 32): “They know the judgment
of God,” and they know the demerit of sin; “they know the judgment of
God, and that they which do such things are worthy of death.” What is
the consequent of this but fear of punishment; and what is the issue
of that fear, but a wishing the Judge either unwilling or unable
to vindicate the honor of his violated law? When God is the object
of such a wish, it is a virtual undeifying of him: not to be able
to punish, is to be impotent; not to be willing to punish, is to
be unjust: imperfections inconsistent with the Deity. God cannot
be supposed without an infinite power to act, and an infinite
righteousness as the rule of acting. Fear of God is natural to all
men; not a fear of offending him, but a fear of being punished by him:
the wishing the extinction of God has its degree in men, according
to the degree of their fears of his just vengeance: and though such a
wish be not in its meridian but in the damned in hell, yet it hath its
starts and motions in affrighted and awakened consciences on the earth:
under this rank of wishers, that there were no God, or that God were
destroyed, do fall.
{a97} 1. Terrified consciences, that are _Magor‑missabib_, see nothing
but matter of fear round about. As they have lived without the bounds
of the law, they are afraid to fall under the stroke of his justice:
fear wishes the destruction of that which it apprehends hurtful: it
considers him as a God to whom vengeance belongs, as the Judge of
all the earth.[154] The less hopes such an one hath of his pardon,
the more joy he would have to hear that his judge should be stripped
of his life: he would entertain with delight any reasons that might
support him in the conceit that there were no God: in his present
state such a doctrine would be his security from an account: he would
as much rejoice if there were no God to inflame an hell for him, as
any guilty malefactor would if there were no judge to order a gibbet
for him. Shame may bridle men’s words, but the heart will be casting
about for some arguments this way, to secure itself: such as are at
any time in Spira’s case, would be willing to cease to be creatures,
that God might cease to be Judge. “The fool hath said in his heart,
there is no Elohim, no Judge;” fancying God without any exercise of
his judicial authority. And there is not any wicked man under anguish
of spirit, but, were it within the reach of his power, would take
away the life of God, and rid himself of his fears by destroying his
Avenger.
2. Debauched persons are not without such wishes sometimes: an
obstinate servant wishes his master’s death, from whom he expects
correction for his debaucheries. As man stands in his corrupt nature,
it is impossible but one time or other most debauched persons at least
have some kind of velleities, or imperfect wishes. It is as natural
to men to abhor those things which are unsuitable and troublesome,
as it is to please themselves in things agreeable to their minds and
humors; and since man is so deeply in love with sin, as to count it
the most estimable good, he cannot but wish the abolition of that law
which checks it, and, consequently, the change of the Lawgiver which
enacted it; and in wishing a change in the holy nature of God, he
wishes a destruction of God, who could not be God if he ceased to
be immutably holy. They do as certainly wish that God had not a holy
will to command them, as despairing souls wish that God had not a
righteous will to punish them, and to wish conscience extinct for the
molestations they receive from it, is to wish the power conscience
represents out of the world also. Since the state of sinners is a
state of distance from God, and the language of sinners to God is,
“Depart from us;”[155] they desire as little the continuance of his
being, as they desire the knowledge of his ways; the same reason which
moves them to desire God’s distance from them, would move them to
desire God’s not being: since the greatest distance would be most
agreeable to them, the destruction of God must be so too; because
there is no greater distance from us, than in not being. Men would
rather have God not to be, than themselves under control, that
sensuality might range at pleasure; he is like a “heifer sliding from
the yoke” (Hosea iv. 16). The cursing of God in the heart, feared
by Job of his children, intimates a wishing God despoiled of his
authority, that their pleasure might not be damped by his law. Besides,
{a98} is there any natural man that sins against actuated knowledge,
but either thinks or wishes that God might not see him, that God might
not know his actions? And is not this to wish the destruction of God,
who could not be God unless he were immense and omniscient?