Partly By Wickedness.
While experience testifies that the seeds of religion are sown by God in
every heart, we scarcely find one man in a hundred who cherishes what he
has received, and not one in whom they grow to maturity, much less bear
fruit in due season. Some perhaps grow vain in their own superstitions,
while others revolt from God with intentional wickedness; but all
degenerate from the true knowledge of him. The fact is, that no genuine
piety remains in the world. But, in saying that some fall into
superstition through error, I would not insinuate that their ignorance
excuses them from guilt; because their blindness is always connected with
pride, vanity, and contumacy. Pride and vanity are discovered, when
miserable men, in seeking after God, rise not, as they ought, above their
own level, but judge of him according to their carnal stupidity, and leave
the proper path of investigation in pursuit of speculations as vain as
they are curious. Their conceptions of him are formed, not according to
the representations he gives of himself, but by the inventions of their
own presumptuous imaginations. This gulf being opened, whatever course
they take, they must be rushing forwards to destruction. None of their
subsequent attempts for the worship or service of God can be considered as
rendered to him; because they worship not him, but a figment of their own
brains in his stead. This depravity Paul expressly remarks: “Professing
themselves to be wise, they became fools.”(70) He had before said, “they
became vain in their imaginations.” But lest any should exculpate them, he
adds that they were deservedly blinded, because, not content within the
bounds of sobriety, but arrogating to themselves more than was right, they
wilfully darkened, and even infatuated themselves with pride, vanity, and
perverseness. Whence it follows, that their folly is inexcusable, which
originates not only in a vain curiosity, but in false confidence, and an
immoderate desire to exceed the limits of human knowledge.
II. David’s assertion, that “the fool hath said in his heart, There is no
God,”(71) is primarily, as we shall soon see in another place, to be
restricted to those who extinguish the light of nature, and wilfully
stupefy themselves. For we see many, become hardened by bold and habitual
transgressions, striving to banish all remembrance of God, which the
instinct of nature is still suggesting to their minds. To render their
madness more detestable, he introduces them as expressly denying the
existence of God; not that they deprive him of his being, but because they
rob him of his justice and providence, shutting him up as an idler in
heaven. Now, as nothing would be more inconsistent with Deity, than to
abandon the government of the world, leave it to fortune, and connive at
the crimes of men, that they might wanton with impunity,—whoever
extinguishes all fear of the heavenly judgment, and indulges himself in
security, denies that there is any God. After the impious have wilfully
shut their own eyes, it is the righteous vengeance of God upon them, to
darken their understandings, so that, seeing, they may not perceive.(72)
David is the best interpreter of his own meaning, in another place, where
he says, “The wicked have no fear of God before their eyes;”(73) and
again, that they encourage themselves in their iniquities with the
flattering persuasion that God doth not see them.(74) Though they are
constrained to acknowledge the existence of God, yet they rob him of his
glory, by detracting from his power. For as God, according to the
testimony of Paul, “cannot deny himself,”(75) because he perpetually
remains like himself,—those who feign him to be a vain and lifeless image,
are truly said to deny God. It must also be remarked, that, though they
strive against their own natural understanding, and desire not only to
banish him thence, but even to annihilate him in heaven, their
insensibility can never prevail, so as to prevent God from sometimes
recalling them to his tribunal. But as no dread restrains them from
violent opposition to the divine will, it is evident, as long as they are
carried away with such a blind impetuosity, that they are governed by a
brutish forgetfulness of God.
III. Thus is overthrown the vain excuse pleaded by many for their
superstition; for they satisfy themselves with any attention to religion,
however preposterous, not considering that the Divine Will is the
perpetual rule to which true religion ought to be conformed; that God ever
continues like himself; that he is no spectre or phantasm, to be
metamorphosed according to the fancy of every individual. It is easy to
see how superstition mocks God with hypocritical services, while it
attempts to please him. For, embracing only those things which he declares
he disregards, it either contemptuously practises, or even openly rejects,
what he prescribes and declares to be pleasing in his sight. Persons who
introduce newly‐invented methods of worshipping God, really worship and
adore the creature of their distempered imaginations; for they would never
have dared to trifle in such a manner with God, if they had not first
feigned a god conformable to their own false and foolish notions.
Wherefore the apostle pronounces a vague and unsettled notion concerning
the Deity to be ignorance of God. “When ye knew not God, (says he,) ye did
service unto them which by nature were no gods.”(76) And in another place
he speaks of the Ephesians as having been “without God,”(77) while they
were strangers to a right knowledge of the only true God. Nor, in this
respect, is it of much importance, whether you imagine to yourself one god
or more; for in either case you depart and revolt from the true God, and,
forsaking him, you have nothing left you but an execrable idol. We must
therefore decide, with Lactantius, that there is no legitimate religion
unconnected with truth.
IV. Another sin is, that they never think of God but against their
inclinations, nor approach him till their reluctance is overcome by
constraint; and then they are influenced, not by a voluntary fear,
proceeding from reverence of the Divine Majesty, but by a servile and
constrained fear, extorted by the divine judgment, which they dread
because it is inevitable, at the same time that they hate it. Now, to
impiety, and to this species of it alone, is applicable that assertion of
Statius, that fear first made gods in the world.(78) They, whose minds are
alienated from the righteousness of God, earnestly desire the subversion
of that tribunal, which they know to be established for the punishment of
transgressions against it. With this disposition, they wage war against
the Lord, who cannot be deprived of his judgment; but when they apprehend
his irresistible arm to be impending over their heads, unable to avert or
evade it, they tremble with fear. That they may not seem altogether to
despise him, whose majesty troubles them, they practise some form of
religion; at the same time not ceasing to pollute themselves with vices of
every kind, and to add one flagitious act to another, till they have
violated every part of God’s holy law, and dissipated all its
righteousness. It is certain, at least, that they are not prevented by
that pretended fear of God from enjoying pleasure and satisfaction in
their sins, practising self‐adulation, and preferring the indulgence of
their own carnal intemperance to the salutary restraints of the Holy
Spirit. But that being a false and vain shadow of religion, and scarcely
worthy even to be called its shadow,—it is easy to infer the wide
difference between such a confused notion of God, and the piety which is
instilled only into the minds of the faithful, and is the source of
religion. Yet hypocrites, who are flying from God, resort to the artifices
of superstition, for the sake of appearing devoted to him. For whereas the
whole tenor of their life ought to be a perpetual course of obedience to
him, they make no scruple of rebelling against him in almost all their
actions, only endeavouring to appease him with a few paltry sacrifices.
Whereas he ought to be served with sanctity of life and integrity of
heart, they invent frivolous trifles and worthless observances, to
conciliate his favour. They abandon themselves to their impurities with
the greater licentiousness, because they confide in being able to
discharge all their duty to him by ridiculous expiations. In a word,
whereas their confidence ought to be placed on him, they neglect him, and
depend upon themselves or on other creatures. At length they involve
themselves in such a vast accumulation of errors, that those sparks which
enable them to discover the glory of God are smothered, and at last
extinguished by the criminal darkness of iniquity. That seed, which it is
impossible to eradicate, a sense of the existence of a Deity, yet remains;
but so corrupted as to produce only the worst of fruits. Yet this is a
further proof of what I now contend for, that an idea of God is naturally
engraved on the hearts of men, since necessity extorts a confession of it,
even from reprobates themselves. In the moment of tranquillity, they
facetiously mock the Divine Being, and with loquacious impertinence
derogate from his power. But if any despair oppress them, it stimulates
them to seek him, and dictates concise prayers, which prove that they are
not altogether ignorant of God, but that what ought to have appeared
before had been suppressed by obstinacy.