mortification to follow thereupon. What is the reason men receive no
more impression from the voice of God and the light of his truth, than
a dead man in the grave doth from the roaring thunder, or a blind mole
from the light of the sun? It is because our atheism is as great as
the deadness of the one, or the blindness of the other. The principle
in the heart is strong to shut the door both of the thoughts and
affections against God. If a friend oblige us, we shall act for him as
for ourselves; we are won by entreaties; soft words overcome us; but
our hearts are as deaf as the hardest rock at the call of God; neither
the joys of heaven proposed by him can allure us, nor the flashed
terrors of hell affright us to him, as if we conceived God unable to
bestow the one or execute the other: the true reason is, God and self
contest for the deity. The law of sin is, God must be at the footstool;
the law of God is, sin must be utterly deposed. Now it is difficult
to leave a law beloved for a law long ago discarded. The mind of man
will hunt after anything; the will of man embrace anything: upon the
proposal of mean objects the spirit of man spreads its wings, flies to
catch them, becomes one with them: but attempt to bring it under the
power of God, the wings flag, the creature looks lifeless, as though
there were no spring of motion in it; it is as much crucified to God,
as the holy apostle was to the world. The sin of the heart discovers
its strength the more God discovers the “holiness of his will.”[298]
The love of sin hath been predominant in our nature, has quashed a
love to God, if not extinguished it. Hence also is the difficulty of
mortification. This is a work tending to the honor of God, the abasing
of that inordinately aspiring humor in ourselves. If the nature of man
be inclined to sin, as it is, it must needs be bent against anything
that opposes it. It is impossible to strike any true blow at any
lust till the true sense of God be re‑entertained in the soil where
it ought to grow. Who can be naturally willing to crucify what is
incorporated with him――his flesh? what is dearest to him――himself? Is
it an easy thing for man, the competitor with God, to turn his arms
against himself, that self should overthrow its own empire, lay aside
all its pretensions to, and designs for, a godhead; to hew off its
own members, and subdue its own affections? It is the nature of man to
“cover his sin,” {a165} to hide it in his bosom,[299] not to destroy
it; and as unwillingly part with his carnal affections, as the legion
of devils were with the man that had been long possessed; and when he
is forced and fired from one, he will endeavor to espouse some other
lust, as those devils desired to possess swine, when they were chased
from their possession of that man.
5. Here we see the reason of unbelief. That which hath most of God
in it, meets with most aversion from us; that which hath least of
God, finds better and stronger inclinations in us. What is the reason
that the heart of man is more unwilling to embrace the gospel, than
acknowledge the equity of the law? because there is more of God’s
nature and perfection evident in the gospel than in the law; besides,
there is more reliance on God, and distance from self, commanded
in the gospel. The law puts a man upon his own strength, the gospel
takes him off from his own bottom; the law acknowledges him to have
a power in himself, and to act for his own reward; the gospel strips
him of all his proud and towering thoughts,[300] brings him to his due
place, the foot of God; orders him to deny himself as his own rule,
righteousness, and end, “and henceforth not to live to himself.”[301]
This is the true reason why men are more against the gospel than
against the law; because it doth more deify God, and debase man. Hence
it is easier to reduce men to some moral virtue than to faith; to make
men blush at their outward vices, but not at the inward impurity of
their natures. Hence it is observed, that those that asserted that all
happiness did arise from something in a man’s self, as the Stoics and
Epicureans did, and that a wise man was equal with God, were greater
enemies to the truths of the gospel than others (Acts xvii. 18),
because it lays the axe to the root of their principal opinion,
takes the one from their self‑sufficiency, and the other from their
self‑gratification; it opposeth the brutish principle of the one,
which placed happiness in the pleasures of the body, and the more
noble principle of the other, which placed happiness in the virtue
of the mind; the one was for a sensual, the other for a moral self;
both disowned by the doctrine of the gospel.
6. It informs us, consequently, who can be the Author of grace and
conversion, and every other good work. No practical atheist ever yet
turned to God, but was turned by God; and not to acknowledge it to God
is a part of this atheism, since it is a robbing God of the honor of
one of his most glorious works. If this practical atheism be natural
to man ever since the first taint of nature in Paradise, what can be
expected from it, but a resisting of the work of God, and setting up
all the forces of nature against the operations of grace, till a day
of power dawn and clear up upon the soul?[302] Not all the angels in
heaven, or men upon earth, can be imagined to be able to persuade a
man to fall out with himself; nothing can turn the tide of nature, but
a power above nature. God took away the sanctifying Spirit from man,
as a penalty for the first sin; who can regain it but by his will and
pleasure? who can restore it, but he that removed it? Since every man
hath the same fundamental atheism {a166} in him by nature, and would
be a rule to himself and his own end, he is so far from dethroning
himself, that all the strength of his corrupted nature is alarmed up
to stand to their arms upon any attempt God makes to regain the fort.
The will is so strong against God, that it is like many wills twisted
together (Eph. ii. 3), “Wills of the flesh;” we translate it the
“desires of the flesh;” like many threads twisted in a cable, never
to be snapped asunder by a human arm; a power and will above ours,
can only untwist so many wills in a knot. Man cannot rise to an
acknowledgment of God without God; hell may as well become heaven, the
devil be changed into an angel of light. The devil cannot but desire
happiness; he knows the misery into which he is fallen, he cannot be
desirous of that punishment he knows is reserved for him. Why doth he
not sanctify God, and glorify his Creator, wherein there is abundantly
more pleasure than in his malicious course? Why doth he not petition
to recover his ancient standing? he will not; there are chains of
darkness upon his faculties; he will not be otherwise than he is; his
desire to be god of the world sways him against his own interest, and
out of love to his malice, he will not sin at a less rate to make a
diminution of his punishment. Man, if God utterly refuseth to work
upon him, is no better; and to maintain his atheism would venture a
hell. How is it possible for a man to turn himself to that God against
whom he hath a quarrel in his nature; the most rooted and settled
habit in him being to set himself in the place of God? An atheist by
nature can no more alter his own temper, and engrave in himself the
divine nature, than a rock can carve itself into the statue of a man,
or a serpent that is an enemy to man could or would raise itself to
the nobility of the human nature. That soul that by nature would strip
God of his rights, cannot, without a divine power, be made conformable
to him, and acknowledge sincerely and cordially the rights and glory
of God.
7. We may here see the reason why there can be no justification by
the best and strongest works of nature. Can that which hath atheism at
the root justify either the action or person? What strength can those
works have which have neither God’s law for their rule, nor his glory
for their end? that are not wrought by any spiritual strength from
him, nor tend with any spiritual affection to him? Can these be a
foundation for the most holy God to pronounce a creature righteous?
They will justify his justice in condemning, but cannot sway his
justice to an absolution. Every natural man in his works picks and
chooses; he owns the will of God no further than he can wring it to
suit the law of his members, and minds not the honor of God, but as it
jostles not with his own glory and secular ends. Can he be righteous
that prefers his own will and his own honor before the will and honor
of the Creator? However men’s actions may be beneficial to others,
what reason hath God to esteem them, wherein there is no respect
to him, but themselves; whereby they dethrone him in their thoughts,
while they seem to own him in their religious works? Every day
reproves us with something different from the rule; thousands of
wanderings offer themselves to {a167} our eyes: can justification
be expected from that which in itself is matter of despair?
8. See here the cause of all the apostasy in the world. Practical
atheism was never conquered in such; they are still “alienated from
the life of God,” and will not live to God, as he lives to himself and
his own honor.[303] They loathe his rule, and distaste his glory; are
loth to step out of themselves to promote the ends of another; find
not the satisfaction in him as they do in themselves; they will be
judges of what is good for them and righteous in itself, rather than
admit of God to judge for them. When men draw back from truth to error,
it is to such opinions which may serve more to foment and cherish
their ambition, covetousness, or some beloved lust that disputes with
God for precedency, and is designed to be served before him (John xii.
42, 43): “They love the praise of men more than the praise of God.” A
preferring man before God was the reason they would not confess Christ,
and God in him.
9. This shows us the excellency of the gospel and christian religion.
It sets man in his due place, and gives to God what the excellency of
his nature requires. It lays man in the dust from whence he was taken,
and sets God upon that throne where he ought to sit. Man by nature
would annihilate God and deify himself; the gospel glorifies God and
annihilates man. In our first revolt we would be like him in knowledge;
in the means he hath provided for our recovery, he designs to make
us like him in grace; the gospel shows ourselves to be an object of
humiliation, and God to be a glorious object for our imitation. The
light of nature tells us there is a God; the gospel gives us a more
magnificent report of him; the light of nature condemns gross atheism,
and that of the gospel condemns and conquers spiritual atheism in the
hearts of men.
_Use II._ Of exhortation.
First, Let us labor to be sensible of this atheism in our nature, and
be humbled for it. How should we lie in the dust, and go bowing under
the humbling thoughts of it all our days! Shall we not be sensible of
that whereby we spill the blood of our souls, and give a stab to the
heart of our own salvation? Shall we be worse than any creature, not
to bewail that which tends to our destruction? He that doth not lament
it, cannot challenge the character of a Christian, hath nothing of the
divine life and love planted in his soul. Not a man but shall one day
be sensible, when the eternal God shall call him out to examination,
and charge his conscience to discover every crime, which will then
own the authority whereby it acted; when the heart shall be torn open,
and the secrets of it brought to public view; and the world and man
himself shall see what a viperous brood of corrupt principles and ends
nested in his heart. Let us, therefore, be truly sensible of it, till
the consideration draw tears from our eyes and sorrow from our souls;
let us urge the thoughts of it upon our hearts till the core of that
pride be eaten out, and our stubbornness changed into humility; till
our heads become waters, and our eyes fountains of tears, and be a
spring of prayer to God to change the heart, and mortify the atheism
in it; and consider {a168} what a sad thing it is to be a practical
atheist: and who is not so by nature?
1. Let us be sensible of it in ourselves. Have any of our hearts been
a soil wherein the fear and reverence of God hath naturally grown?
Have we a desire to know him, or a will to embrace him? Do we delight
in his will, and love the remembrance of his name? Are our respects to
him, as God, equal to the speculative knowledge we have of his nature?
Is the heart, wherein he hath stamped his image, reserved for his
residence? Is not the world more affected than the Creator of the
world; as though that could contribute to us a greater happiness than
the Author of it? Have not creatures as much of our love, fear, trust,
nay, more, than God that framed both them and us? Have we not too
often relied upon our own strength, and made a calf of our own wisdom,
and said of God, as the Israelites of Moses, “As for this Moses we
wot not what is become of him?” (Exod. xxxii. 1) and given oftener the
glory of our good success to our drag and our net, to our craft and
our industry, than to the wisdom and blessing of God? Are we, then,
free from this sort of atheism?[304] It is as impossible to have two
Gods at one time in one heart, as to have two kings at one time in
full power in one kingdom. Have there not been frequent neglects
of God? Have we not been deaf whilst he hath knocked at our doors?
slept when he hath sounded in our ears, as if there had been no such
being as a God in the world? How many strugglings have been against
our approaches to him! Hath not folly often been committed, with
vain imaginations starting up in the time of religious service, which
we would scarce vouchsafe a look to at another time, and in another
business, but would have thrust them away with indignation? Had
they stept in to interrupt our worldly affairs, they would have been
troublesome intruders; but while we are with God they are acceptable
guests. How unwilling have our hearts been to fortify themselves with
strong and influencing considerations of God, before we addressed
to him! Is it not too often that our lifelessness in prayer proceeds
from this atheism; a neglect of seeing what arguments and pleas may
be drawn from the divine perfections, to second our suit in hand, and
quicken our hearts in the service? Whence are those indispositions
to any spiritual duty, but because we have not due thoughts of the
majesty, holiness, goodness, and excellency of God? Is there any duty
which leads to a more particular inquiry after him, or a more clear
vision of him, but our hearts have been ready to rise up and call
it cursed rather than blessed? Are not our minds bemisted with an
ignorance of him, our wills drawn by aversion from him, our affections
rising in distaste of him? more willing to know anything than his
nature, and more industrious to do anything than his will? Do we not
all fall under some one or other of these considerations? Is it not
fit, then, that we should have a sense of them? It is to be bewailed
by us, that so little of God is in our hearts, when so many evidences
of the love of God are in the creatures; that God should be so little
our end, who hath been so much our benefactor; that he should be
so {a169} little in our thoughts, who sparkles in everything which
presents itself to our eyes.
2. Let us be sensible of it in others. We ought to have a just
execration of the too open iniquity in the midst of us; and imitate
holy David, whose tears plentifully gushed out, “because men kept
not God’s law.”[305] And is it not a time to exercise this pious
lamentation? Hath the wicked atheism of any age been greater, or
can you find worse in hell, than we may hear of and behold on earth?
How is the excellent Majesty of God adored by the angels in heaven,
despised and reproached by men on earth, as if his name were published
to be matter of their sport! What a gasping thing is a natural sense
of God among men in the world! Is not the law of God, accompanied with
such dreadful threatenings and curses, made light of, as if men would
place their honor in being above or beyond any sense of that glorious
Majesty? How many wallow in pleasures, as if they had been made men
only to turn brutes, and their souls given them only for salt, to
keep their bodies from putrefying? It is as well a part of atheism not
to be sensible of the abuses of God’s name and laws by others, as to
violate them ourselves: what is the language of a stupid senselessness
of them, but that there is no God in the world whose glory is worth
a vindication, and deserves our regards? That we may be sensible of
the unworthiness of neglecting God as our rule and end, consider,
1. The unreasonableness of it as it concerns God.
1st. It is a high contempt of God. It is an inverting the order of
things; a making God the highest to become the lowest; and self the
lowest to become the highest: to be guided by every base companion,
some idle vanity, some carnal interest, is to acknowledge an
excellency abounding in them which is wanting in God; an equity in
their orders, and none in God’s precepts; a goodness in their promises,
and a falsity in God’s; as if infinite excellency were a mere vanity,
and to act for God were the debasement of our reason; to act for
self or some pitiful creature, or sordid lust, were the glory and
advancement of it. To prefer any one sin before the honor of God,
is as if that sin had been our creator and benefactor, as if it were
the original cause of our being and support. Do not men pay as great
a homage to that as they do to God? Do not their minds eagerly pursue
it? Are not the revolvings of it, in their fancies, as delightful
to them as the remembrance of God to a holy soul? Do any obey the
commands of God with more readiness than they do the orders of their
base affections? Did Peter leap more readily into the sea to meet his
Master, than many into the jaws of hell to meet their Dalilahs? How
cheerfully did the Israelites part with their ornaments for the sake
of an idol, who would not have spared a moiety for the honor of their
Deliverer![306] If to make God our end is the principal duty in nature,
then to make ourselves, or anything else, our end, is the greatest
vice in the rank of evils.
2d. It is a contempt of God as the most amiable object. God is
infinitely excellent and desirable (Zech. ix. 17): “How great is his
{a170} goodness, and how great is his beauty!” There is nothing in
him but what may ravish our affections; none that knows him but finds
attractives to keep them with him; He hath nothing in him which can
be a proper object of contempt, no defects or shadow of evil; there
is infinite excellency to charm us, and infinite goodness to allure
us,――the Author of our being, the Benefactor of our lives. Why then
should man, which is his image, be so base as to slight the beautiful
Original which stamped it on him? He is the most lovely object;
therefore to be studied, therefore to be honored, therefore to be
followed. In regard of his perfection he hath the highest right to our
thoughts. All other beings were eminently contained in his essence,
and were produced by his infinite power. The creature hath nothing
but what it hath from God. And is it not unworthy to prefer the copy
before the original――to fall in love with a picture, instead of the
beauty it represents? The creature which we advance to be our rule and
end, can no more report to us the true amiableness of God, than a few
colors mixed and suited together upon a piece of cloth, can the moral
and intellectual loveliness of the soul of man. To contemn God one
moment is more base than if all creatures were contemned by us forever;
because the excellency of creatures is, to God, like that of a drop to
the sea, or a spark to the glory of unconceivable millions of suns. As
much as the excellency of God is above our conceptions, so much doth
the debasing of him admit of unexpressible aggravations.
2. Consider the ingratitude in it. That we should resist that God with
our hearts who made us the work of his hands, and count him as nothing,
from whom we derive all the good that we are or have. There is no
contempt of man but steps in here to aggravate our slighting of God;
because there is no relation one man can stand in to another, wherein
God doth not more highly appear to man. If we abhor the unworthy
carriage of a child to a tender father, a servant to an indulgent
master, a man to his obliging friend, why do men daily act that
toward God which they cannot speak of without abhorrency, if acted
by another against man? Is God a being less to be regarded than man,
and more worthy of contempt than a creature?――“It would be strange
if a benefactor should live in the same town, in the same house with
us, and we never exchange a word with him; yet this is our case, who
have the works of God in our eyes, the goodness of God in our being,
the mercy of God in our daily food”[307]――yet think so little of him,
converse so little with him, serve everything before him, and prefer
everything above him? Whence have we our mercies but from his hand?
Who, besides him, maintains our breath this moment? Would he call
for our spirits this moment, they must depart from us to attend
his command. There is not a moment wherein our unworthy carriage is
not aggravated, because there is not a moment wherein he is not our
Guardian, and gives us not tastes of a fresh bounty. And it is no
light aggravation of our crime, that we injure him without whose
bounty, in giving us our being, we had not been capable of casting
contempt upon him: that he that hath the greatest stamp of his image,
man, {a171} should deserve the character of the worst of his rebels:
that he who hath only reason by the gift of God to judge of the equity
of the laws of God, should swell against them as grievous, and the
government of the Lawgiver as burdensome. Can it lessen the crime to
use the principle wherein we excel the beasts to the disadvantage of
God, who endowed us with that principle above the beasts?
1. It is a debasing of God beyond what the devil doth at present.
He is more excusable in his present state of acting, than man is in
his present refusing God for his rule and end. He strives against
a God that exerciseth upon him a vindictive justice; we debase a
God that loads us with his daily mercies. The despairing devils are
excluded from any mercy or divine patience; but we are not only under
the long‑suffering of his patience, but the large expressions of
his bounty. He would not be governed by him when he was only his
bountiful Creator: we refuse to be guided by him after he hath given
us the blessing of creation from his own hand, and the more obliging
blessings of redemption by the hand and blood of his Son. It cannot be
imagined that the devils and the damned should ever make God their end,
since he hath assured them he will not be their happiness; and shut up
all his perfections from their experimental notice, but those of his
power to preserve them, and his justice to punish them. They have no
grant from God of ever having a heart to comply with his will, or ever
having the honor to be actively employed for his glory. They have some
plea for their present contempt of God, not in regard of his nature,
for he is infinitely amiable, excellent and lovely, but in regard of
his administration toward them. But what plea can man have for his
practical atheism, who lives by his power, is sustained by his bounty,
and solicited by his Spirit? What an ungrateful thing is it to put off
the nature of man for that of devils, and dishonor God under mercy, as
the devils do under his wrathful anger!
2. It is an ungrateful contempt of God, who cannot be injurious to us.
He cannot do us wrong, because he cannot be unjust (Gen. xviii. 25):
“Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” His nature doth as
much abhor unrighteousness, as love a communicative goodness: he never
commanded anything but what was highly conducible to the happiness
of man. Infinite goodness can no more injure man than it can dishonor
itself: it lays out itself in additions of kindness, and while we
debase him, he continues to benefit us; and is it not an unparalleled
ingratitude to turn our backs upon an object so lovely, an object
so loving, in the midst of varieties of allurements from him? God
did create intellectual creatures, angels and men, that he might
communicate more of himself and his own goodness and holiness to
man, than creatures of a lower rank were capable of. What do we
do, by rejecting him as our rule and end, but cross, as much as in
us lies, God’s end in our creation, and shut our souls against the
communications of those perfections he was so willing to bestow? We
use him as if he intended us the greatest wrong, when it is impossible
for him to do any to any of his creatures.
3. Consider the misery which will attend such a temper if it continue
{a172} predominant. Those that thrust God away as their happiness
and end, can expect no other but to be thrust away by him, as to any
relief and compassion. A distance from God here can look for nothing,
but a remoteness from God hereafter. When the devil, a creature of
vast endowments, would advance himself above God, and instruct man
to commit the same sin, he is “cursed above all creatures.”[308] When
we will not acknowledge him a God of all glory, we shall be separated
from him as a God of all comfort: “All they that are afar off shall
perish” (Psalm lxxiii. 27). This is the spring of all woe. What the
Prodigal suffered, was because he would leave his father, and live
of himself. Whosoever is ambitious to be his own heaven, will at
last find his soul to become its own hell. As it loved all things for
itself, so it shall be grieved with all things for itself. As it would
be its own god against the right of God, it shall then be its own
tormentor by the justice of God.