Part 14
Prop. 4. 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 law-giver ! The moral law is not properly a mere act of
God's will considered in itself, or a tyrannical edict, like those of whom it may well be said, stat pro rations 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 canonised 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 united the link of duty from the creature, and dis solved the obligations of creatures to him, which is impossible to be con ceived ; 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 righteous ness, 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 un righteous 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 : Num. 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 unrighteous ness 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 wis dom 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.
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 189
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. 5. Sin in its own nature endeavours to render God the most miser able 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 sub
ject.' 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 natu rally 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 endeavour 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 endeavoured to make a mere slave of me by sin. Sin endeavours to sub ject the blessed God to the humour and lust of every person in the world.
Prop. 6. 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 honour 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 offend ing 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, —
190 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. XIV. 1.
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,' Ps. xciv. 1, 2. The less hopes such a 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 a 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 humours. 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,' Job xxi. 14, they desire as little the continuance of his being as they desire the knowledge of his ways, fa 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, 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 ?
8. Under this rank fall those who perform external duties only out of a principle of slavish fear. Many men perform those duties that the law en joins, with the same sentiments that slaves perform their drudgery, and are
* That is, HUDtt "TDD, Jer. xx. 3.— ED.
PS. XIV. l.J PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 191
constrained in their duties by no other considerations but those of the whip and the cudgel. Since, therefore, they do it with reluctancy, and secretly murmur while they seem to obey, they would be willing that both the com mands were recalled, and the master that commands them were in another world. The Spirit of adoption makes men act towards God as a father, a Spirit of bondage only eyes him as a judge. Those that look upon their superiors as tyrannical, will not be much concerned in their welfare, and would be more glad to have their nails pared, than be under perpetual fear of them.
Many men regard not the infinite goodness in their service of him, but
consider him as cruel, tyrannical, injurious to their liberty. Adam's posterity are not free from the sentiments of their common father, till they are regene rate. You know what conceit was the hammer whereby the hellish Jael struck the nail into our first parents, which conveyed death, together with
the same imagination to all their posterity : Gen. iii. 5, « God knows that
in the day you eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as
gods, knowing good and evil.' Alas, poor souls ! God knew what he did when he forbade you that fruit ; he was jealous you should be too happy ; it was a cruelty in him to deprive you a food so pleasant and delicious. The
apprehension of the severity of God's commands riseth up no less in desires that there were no God over us, than Adam's apprehension of envy in God, for the restraint of one tree moved him to attempt to be equal with God ; fear is as powerful to produce the one in his posterity, as pride was to pro duce the other in the common root. When we apprehend a thing hurtful to us, we desire so much evil to it, as may render it uncapable of doing us the hurt we fear. As we wish the preservation of what we love or hope for, so we are naturally apt to wish the not being of that whence we fear some hurt or trouble. We must not understand this as if any man did formally wish the destruction of God, as God. God in himself is an infinite mirror
of goodness and ravishing loveliness. He is infinitely good, and so univer sally good, and nothing but good, and is therefore so agreeable to a creature, as a creature, that it is impossible that the creature, while it bears itself to God as a creature, should be guilty of this, but thirst after him and cherish every motion to him. As no man wishes the destruction of any creature, as a creature, but as it may conduce to something which he counts may be beneficial to himself, so no man doth, nor perhaps can wish the cessation of the being of God, as God ; for then he must wish his own being to cease also ; but as he considers him clothed with some perfections, which he apprehends as injurious to him ; as his holiness in forbidding sin, his justice in punishing sin. And God being judged in those perfections contrary to what the revolted creature thinks convenient and good for himself, he may wish God stripped of those perfections, that thereby he may be free from all fear of trouble and grief from him in his fallen state. In wishing God de prived of those, he wishes God deprived of his being, because God cannot retain his deity without a love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity ; and he could not testify his love to the one, or his loathing of the other, without encouraging goodness, and witnessing his anger against iniquity.
Let us now appeal to ourselves, and examine our own consciences. Did we never please ourselves sometimes in the thoughts, how happy we should be, how free in our vain pleasures, if there were no God ? Have we not
desired to be our own lords without control, subject to no law but our own, and be guided by no will but that of the flesh ? Did we never rage against God under his afflicting hand ? Did we never wish God stripped of his holy will to command, and his righteous will to punish, &c.
192 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. XIV. 1.
Thus much for the general. For the proof of this, many considerations will bring in evidence ; most may be reduced to these two generals.
Man would set himself up, first, as his own rule ; secondly, as his own end and happiness.
I. Man would set himself up as his own rule instead of God. This will be evidenced in this method.
1. Man naturally disowns the rule God sets him.
2. He owns any other rule rather than that of God's prescribing. 3. These he doth in order to the setting himself up as his own rule. 4. He makes himself not only his own rule, but would make himself the rule of God, and give laws to his creator.
1. Man naturally disowns the rule God sets him. It is all one to deny his royalty and to deny his being. When we disown his authority, we dis own his Godhead. It is the right of God to be the sovereign of his crea tures ; and it must be a very loose and trivial assent that such men have to
God's superiority over them (and consequently to the excellency of his being, upon which that authority is founded), who are scarce at ease in themselves, but when they are invading his rights, breaking his bands, cast ing away his cords, and contradicting his will.
Every man naturally is a son of Belial, would be without a yoke, and
leap over God's enclosures ; and in breaking oat against his sovereignty, we disown his being as God. For to be God and sovereign are inseparable ; he could not be God, if he were not supreme ; nor could he be a creator without being a lawgiver. To be God, and yet inferior to another, is a con tradiction. To make rational creatures without prescribing them a law, is to make them without holiness, wisdom, and goodness.
(1.) There is in man naturally an unwillingness to have any acquaintance with the rule God sets him : Ps. xiv. 2, ' None that did understand and seek God.' The * refusing instruction,' and ' casting his word behind the back,' is a part of atheism, Ps. 1. 17. We are heavy in hearing the instructions either of law or gospel, Heb. v. 11, 12, and slow in the apprehension of what we hear. The people that God had hedged in from the wilderness of the world for his own garden were foolish, and did not know God ; were sottish, and had no understanding of him, Jer. iv. 22. The law of God is accounted a strange thing, Hos. viii. 12, a thing of a different climate and a far country from the heart of man, wherewith the mind of man had no natural acquaintance, and had no desire to have any, or they regarded it as a sordid thing. What God accounts great and valuable, they account mean and despicable. Men may shew a civility to a stranger, but scarce contract an intimacy ; there can be no amicable agreement between the holy will of God and the heart of a depraved creature : one is holy, the other unholy ; one is universally good, the other stark naught. The purity of the divine rule renders it nauseous to the impurity of a carnal heart. Water and fire may as well friendly kiss each other and live together without quarrelling and hissing, as the holy will of God and the unregenerate heart of a fallen creature.
The nauseating a holy rule is an evidence of atheism in the heart, as the nauseating wholesome food is of putrified phlegm in the stomach. It is found more or less in every Christian, in the remainders, though not in a full empire. As there is a law in his mind whereby he delights in the law of God, so there is a law in his members whereby he wars against the law of God, Kom. vii. 22, 23, 25. How predominant is this loathing of the law of God, when corrupt nature is in its full strength, without any principle to
PS. XIV 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 193
control it ! There is in the mind of such a one a darkness whereby it is ignorant of it, and in the will a depravedness whereby it is repugnant to it. If man were naturally willing and able to have an intimate acquaintance with, and delight in the law of God, it had not been sueh a signal favour for
God to promise to write the law in the heart. A man may sooner engrave the chronicle of a whole nation, or all the records of God in the Scripture, upon the hardest marble with his bare finger, than write one syllable of the law of God in a spiritual manner upon his heart. For,
[1.] Men are negligent in using the means for the knowledge of God's will. All natural men are fools, who know not how to use the « price God puts into their hands,' Prov. xvii. 16; they put not a due estimate upon opportunities and means of grace, and account that law folly which is tho birth of an infinite and holy wisdom. The knowledge of God which they may glean from creatures, and is more pleasant to the natural gust of men, is not improved to the glory of God, if we will believe the indictment the apostle brings against the Gentiles, Rom. i. 21. And most of those that have dived into the depths of nature, have been more studious of the quali ties of the creatures than of the excellency of the nature, or the discovery of the mind of God in them ; who regard only the rising and motions of the star, but follow not with the wise men, its conduct to the king of the Jews. How often do we see men filled with an eager thirst for all other kind of knowledge, that cannot acquiesce in a twilight discovery, but are inquisitive into the causes and reasons of effects, yet are contented with a weak and languishing knowledge of God and his law, and are easily tired with the proposals of them.
He now that nauseates the means whereby he may come to know and obey God, has no intention to make the law of God his rule. There is no man that intends seriously an end, but he intends means in order to that end ; as when a man intends the preservation or recovery of his health, he will intend means in order to those ends, otherwise he cannot be said to intend his health. So he that is not diligent in using means to know the mind of God, has no sound intention to make the will and law of God his rule. Is not the inquiry after the will of God made a work by the by, and fain to lacquey after other concerns of an inferior nature, if it hath any place at all in the soul ? which is a despising the being of God. The notion of the sovereignty of God bears the same date with the notion of his Godhead ; and by the same way that he reveals himself, he reveals his authority over us, whether it be by creatures without, or conscience within. All authority over rational creatures consists in commanding and directing ; the duty of rational creatures, in compliance with that authority, consists in obeying. Where there is therefore a careless neglect of those means which convey the
knowledge of God's will and our duty, there is an utter disowning of God as our sovereign and our rule.
[2.] When any part of the mind and will of God breaks in upon men, they endeavour to shake it off ; as a man would a sergeant that comes to
arrest him : l They like not to retain God in their knowledge,' Rom. i. 28. * A natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God ;' that is, into his affection ; he pusheth them back as men do troublesome and importunate beggars. They have no kindness to bestow upon it. They thrust with both shoulders against the truth of God, when it presseth in upon them ; and dash as much contempt upon it as the Pharisees did upon the doctrine our Saviour directed against their covetousness. As men naturally delight to be without God in the world, so they delight to be without any offspring of God in their thoughts. Since the spiritual palate of man is depraved, divine
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194 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. XIV. 1.
truth is unsavoury and ungrateful to us, till our taste and relish is restored by grace. Hence men damp and quench the motions of the Spirit to obe dience and compliance with the dictates of God ; strip them of their life and vigour, and kill them in the womb. How unable are our memories to retain the substance of spiritual truth, but like sand in a glass, put in at one part .and runs out at the other ! Have not many a secret wish that the Scrip ture had never mentioned some truths, or that they were blotted out of the
Bible, because they face their consciences, and discourage those boiling lusts they would with eagerness and delight pursue ? Methinks that interruption John gives our Saviour, when he was upon the reproof of their pride, looks
little better than a design to divert him from a discourse so much against the grain, by telling him a story of their prohibiting one to cast out devils, because he followed not them, Mark ix. 33, 38. How glad are men when
they can rake a battery against a command of God, and raise some smart objection, whereby they may shelter themselves from the strictness of it !
[3.] When men cannot shake off the notices of the will and mind of God, they have no pleasure in the consideration of them ; which could not pos
sibly be, if there were a real and fixed design to own the mind and law of -God as our rule. Subjects or servants that love to obey their prince and master, will delight to read and execute their orders. The devils under stand the law of God in their minds, but they loathe the impressions of it upon their wills. Those miserable spirits are bound in chains of darkness, evil habits in their wills, that they have not a thought of obeying that law they know. It was an unclean beast under the law that did not chew the cud ; it is a corrupt heart that doth not chew truth by meditation. A natural man is said not to know God, or the things of God ; he may know them notionally, but he knows them not affectionately. A sensual soul can have no delight in a spiritual law. To be sensual and not to have the Spirit are inseparable, Jude 19..
Natural men may indeed meditate upon the law and truth of God, but without delight in it ; if they take any pleasure in it, it is only as it is knowledge, not as it is a rule ; for we delight in nothing that we desire, but upon the same account that we desire it. Natural men desire to know God and some part of his will and law, not out of a sense of their practical excel lency, but a natural thirst after knowledge ; and if they have a delight, it is in the act of knowing, not in the object known, not in the duties that stream from that knowledge ; they design the furnishing their understandings, not the quickening their affections ; like idle boys that strike fire, not to warm themselves by the heat, but sport themselves with the sparks ; whereas a gracious soul accounts not only his meditation, or the operations of his soul about God and his will to be sweet, but he hath a joy in the object of that meditation, Ps. civ. 34. Many have the knowledge of God, who have no delight in him or his will. Owls have e}res to perceive that there is a sun, but by reason of the weakness of their sight have no pleasure to look upon a beam of it ; so neither can a man by nature love or delight in the will of God, because of his natural corruption. That law that riseth up in men for conviction and instruction, they keep down under the power of corruption, making their souls not the sanctuary, but prison of truth, Bom. i. 18. They will keep it down in their hearts, if they cannot keep it out of their heads, and will not endeavour to know and taste the spirit of it.
[4.] There is further a rising and swelling of the heart against the will of God. (1.) Internal. God's law cast against a hard heart is like a ball thrown against a stone wall, by reason of the resistance rebounding the further from it. The meeting of a divine truth and the heart of man, is
PS. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 195
like the meeting of two tides, the weaker swells and foams. We have a natural antipathy against a divine rule, and therefore when it is clapped close to our consciences, there is a snuffing at it, high reasonings against it, corruption breaks out more strongly ; as water poured on lime sets it on fire by an antiperistasis, and the more water is cast upon it, the more furiously it burns ; or as the sunbeams shining upon a dunghill makes the
steams the thicker and the stench the noisomer, neither being the positive cause of the smoke in the lime, or the stench in the dunghill, but by
accident the causes of the eruption : Rom. vii. 8, ' But sin taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, for
without the law sin was dead.' Sin was in a languishing posture, as if it were dead, like a lazy garrison in a city, till upon an alarm from the adversary it takes arms and revives its courage ; all the sin in the heart gathers together its force to maintain its standing, like the vapours of the night, which unite themselves more closely to resist the beams of the rising sun. Deep conviction often provokes fierce opposition ; sometimes disputes
against a divine rule end in blasphemies : Acts xiii. 45, ' Contradicting and blaspheming' are coupled together. Men naturally desire things that are forbidden, and reject things commanded, from the corruption of nature, which affects an unbounded liberty, and is impatient of returning under that yoke it hath shaken off, and therefore rageth against the bars of the law, as the waves roar against the restraint of a bank. When the understanding is dark and the mind ignorant, sin lies as dead : ' A man scarce knows he hath such motions of concupiscence in him, he finds not the least breath of wind, but a full calm in his soul ; but when he is awakened by the law, then the vicious ness of nature being sensible of an invasion of its empire, arms itself against the divine law, and the more the command is urged, the more vigorously it bends its strength, and more insolently lifts up itself against
it.'* He perceives more and more atheistical lusts than before ; ' all manner of concupiscence,' more leprous and contagious than before. When there are any motions to turn to God, a reluctancy is presently perceived ; athe istical thoughts bluster in the mind like the wind, they know not whence they come nor whither they go, so unapt is the heart to any acknowledgment of God as his ruler, and any reunion with him. Hence men are said to
* resist the Holy Ghost,' Acts vii. 51, to fall against it, as the word signifies, as a stone or any ponderous body falls against that which lies in its way ; they would dash to pieces or grind to powder that very motion which is made for their instruction, and the Spirit too which makes it, and that not from a fit of passion, but an habitual repugnance. * Ye always resist,' &c.
(2.) External, it is a fruit of atheism, in the fourth verse of this Psalm :
1 Who eat up my people as they eat bread.' How do the revelations of the mind of God meet with opposition ! And the carnal world like dogs bark against the shining of the moon ! So much men hate the light, that they spurn at the lanterns that bear it ; and because they cannot endure the treasure, often fling the earthen vessels against the ground wherein it is held.
If the entrance of truth render the market worse for Diana's shrines, the whole city will be in an uproar, Acts xix. 24, 28, 29. When Socrates upon
natural principles confuted the heathen idolatry, and asserted the unity of God, the whole cry of Athens, a learned university, is against him, and because he opposed the public received religion, though with an undoubted truth, he must end his life by violence. How hath every corner of the world steamed with the blood of those that would maintain the authority of
* Thes. Salmur. De Spiritu Servitutis, Thes. 19.
196 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. XIY. 1.
God in the world ! The devil's children will follow the steps of their father, and endeavour to bruise the heel of divine truth, that would endeavour to break the head of corrupt lust.
[5.] Men often seem desirous to be acquainted with the will of God, not out of any respect to his will and to make it their rule, but upon some other consideration. Truth is scarce received as truth. There is more of hypocrisy than sincerity in the pale of the church, and attendance on the mind of God. The outward dowry of a religious profession makes it often more desirable than the beauty. Judas was a follower of Christ for the bag, not out of any affection to the divine revelation. Men sometimes pretend a desire to be acquainted with the will of God, to satisfy their own
passions, rather than to conform to God's will. The religion of such is not the judgment of the man, but the passion of the brute. Many entertain a
doctrine for the person's sake, rather than a person for the doctrine's sake, and believe a thing because it comes from a man they esteem, as if his lips were more canonical than Scripture.
The apostle implies in the commendation he gives the Thessalonians, 1 Thes. ii. 13, that some receive the word for human interest, not * as it is
in truth the word and will of God,' to command and govern their consciences by its sovereign authority; or else they * have the truth of God' (as St James speaks of the faith of Christ) * with respect of persons,' James ii. 1, and receive it not for the sake of the fountain, but of the channel ; so that many times the same truth delivered by another is disregarded, which when
dropping from the fancy and mouth of a man's own idol, is cried up as an oracle. This is to make not God, but man, the rule ; for though we enter tain that which materially is the truth of God, yet not formally as his truth, but as conveyed by one we affect ; and that we receive a truth and not an error, we owe the obligation to the honesty of the instrument, and not to the strength and clearness of our own judgment. Wrong considerations may give admittance to an unclean as well as a clean beast into the ark of the soul ; that which is contrary to the mind of God may be entertained as well as that which is agreeable. It is all one to such, that have no respect to God, what they have ; as it is all one to a spunge to suck up the foulest water or the sweetest wine, when either is applied to it.
[6.J Many that entertain the notions of the will and mind of God admit them with unsettled and wavering affections. There is a great levity in the heart of man. The Jews that one day applaud our Saviour with Hosannahs as their king, vote his crucifixion the next, and use him as a murderer. We begin
in the Spirit and end in the flesh. Our hearts, like lutestrings, are changed with every change of weather, with every appearance of a temptation; scarce one motion of God in a thousand prevails with us for a settled abode. It is a hard task to make a signature of those truths upon our affections, which will with ease pass current with our understandings; our affections will as soon loose them as our understandings embrace them. The heart of man is unstable as water, Gen. xlix. 4, James i. 8. Some were willing to rejoice
in John's light, which reflected a lustre on their minds, but not in his heat, which would have conveyed a warmth to their hearts ; and the light was pleasing to them but for a season, John v. 35, while their corruptions lay as if they were dead, not when they were awakened. Truth may be admitted one day, and the next day rejected. As Austin saith of a wicked man, he loves the truth shining, but he hates the truth reproving. This is not to make God, but our own humour, our rule and measure.
[7.] Many desire an acquaintance with the law and truth of God, with a design to improve some lust by it, to turn the word of God to be a pander
PS. XIV. 1.] PEACTICAL ATHEISM. 197
to the breach of his law. This is so far from making God's will our rule, that we make our own vile affections the rule of his law. How many forced interpretations of Scripture have been coined to give consent to the lusts of
men, and the divine rule forced to bend and be squared to men's loose and carnal apprehensions ! It is a part of the instability or falseness of the
heart to ' wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction,' 2 Peter iii. 16, which they could not do, if they did not first wring them to countenance some detestable error or filthy crime. In paradise, the first interpretation made of the first law of God was point blank against the mind of the law giver, and venomous to the whole race of mankind. Paul himself feared that
some might put his doctrine of grace to so ill a use, as to be an altar and sanctuary to shelter their presumption : Rom. vi. 1, 15, ' Shall we then continue in sin, that grace may abound ? ' Poisonous consequences are often drawn from the sweetest truths ; as when God's patience is made a topic whence to argue against his providence, Ps. xciv. 1, or an encourage ment to commit evil more greedily, as though because he had not presently
a revenging hand, he had not an allseeing eye ; or when the doctrine of
justification by faith is made use of to depress a holy life ; or God's readi ness to receive returning sinners an encouragement to defer repentance till a death-bed. A liar will hunt for shelter in the reward God gave the
midwives that lied to 'Pharaoh for the preservation of the males of Israel, and Rahab's saving the spies by false intelligence. God knows how to distinguish between grace and corruption, that they may lie close together, or between something of moral goodness and moral evil which may be mixed. We find their fidelity rewarded, which was a moral good ; but not
their lie approved, which was a moral evil. Nor will Christ's conversing with sinners be a plea for any to thrust themselves into evil company. Christ conversed with sinners as a physician with diseased persons, to cure
them, 'not approve them ; others with profligate persons to receive infec tion from them, not to communicate holiness to them. Satan's children have studied their father's art, who wanted not perverted Scripture to second his temptations against our Saviour, Mat. iv. 4, 6. How often do carnal hearts turn divine revelation to carnal ends, as the sea fresh water into salt ! As men subject the precepts of God to carnal interests, so they subject the truths of God to carnal fancies. When men will allegorise the word, and make a humorous and crazy fancy the interpreter of divine oracles, and not the Spirit speaking in the word, this is to enthrone our own
imaginations as the rule of God's law, and depose his law from being the rule of our reason ; this is to rifle truth of its true mind and intent. It is more to rob a man of his reason, the essential constitutive part of man, than of his estate. This is to refuse an intimate acquaintance with his will. We shall never tell what is the matter of a precept, or the matter of a promise, if we impose a sense upon it contrary to the plain meaning of it ; thereby we shall make the law of God to have a distinct sense according to the
variety of men's imaginations, and so make every man's fancy a law to himself.
Now, that this unwillingness to have a spiritual acquaintance with divine truth is a disowning God as our rule, and a setting up self in his stead, is evident, because this unwillingness respects truth,
First, As it is most spiritual and holy. A fleshly mind is most contrary to a spiritual law, and particularly as it is a searching and discovering law, that would dethrone all other rules in the soul. As men love to be without
a holy God in the world, so they love to be without a holy law, the transcript
and image of God's holiness, in their hearts, and without holy men, the lights
198 CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. XIV. 1.
kindled by the Father of lights. As the holiness of God, so the holiness of the law most offends a carnal heart : Isa. xxx. 11, ' Cause the Holy One of
Israel to cease from before us ; prophesy [not] to us right things.' They could not endure God as a holy one. Herein God places their rebellion, rejecting him as their rule : ver. 9, ' Rebellious children, that will not hear
the law of the Lord.' The more pure and precious any discovery of God is, the more it is disrelished by the world. As spiritual sins are sweetest to a carnal heart, so spiritual truths are most distasteful. The more of the bright ness of the sun any beam conveys, the more offensive it is to a distempered eye.
Secondly, As it doth most relate to, or lead to God. The devil directs his fiercest batteries against those doctrines in the word, and those graces in the heart, which most exalt God, debase man, and bring men to the lowest sub jection to their Creator. Such is the doctrine and grace of justifying faith.
That men hate not knowledge as knowledge, but as it directs them to choose the fear of the Lord, was the determination of the Holy Ghost long ago :
Prov. i. 29, ' For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of
the Lord.' Whatsoever respects God, clears up guilt, witnesses man's revolt to him, rouseth up conscience, and moves to a return to God, a man naturally runs from, as Adam did from God, and seeks a shelter in some weak bushes of error, rather than appear before it. Not that men are unwilling to inquire into and contemplate some divine truths which lie furthest from the heart, and concern not themselves immediately with the rectifying the soul. They may view them with such a pleasure as some might take in beholding the miracles of our Saviour, who could not endure his searching doctrine. The light of speculation may be pleasant, but the light of conviction is grievous, that which galls their conciences, and would affect them with a sense of their duty to God.
Is it not easy to perceive that when a man begins to be serious in the concerns of the honour of God and the duty of his soul, he feels a reluctancy within him, even against the pleas of conscience, which evidenceth that some unworthy principle has got footing in the hearts of men, which fights against the declarations of God without and the impressions of the law of God within,
at the same time when a man's own conscience takes part with it, which is the substance of the apostle's discourse, Rom. vii. 15, 16, &c.
Close discourses of the honour of God and our duty to him are irksome, when men are upon a merry pin. They are like a damp in a mine, that takes away their breath ; they shuffle them out as soon as they can, and are as unwilling to retain the speech of them in their mouths, as the knowledge of them in their hearts. Gracious speeches, instead of bettering many men, distemper them, as sometimes sweet perfumes affect a weak head with aches.
Thirdly, As it is most contrary to self. Men are unwilling to acquaint themselves with any truth that leads to God, because it leads from self. Every part of the will of God is more or less displeasing, as it sounds harsh against some carnal interest men would set above God, or as a mate with him. Man cannot desire any intimacy with that law which he regards as a bird of
prey, to pick out his right eye or gnaw off his right hand, his lust, "dearer than himself. The reason we have such hard thoughts of God's will, is because we have such high thoughts of ourselves. It is a hard matter to believe or
•will that which hath no affinity with some principle in the understanding, and no interest in our will and passions. Our unwillingness to be acquainted with the will of God, ariseth from the disproportion between that and our
corrupt hearts ; we are ' alienated from the life of God in our minds,' Eph. iy, 18, 19. As we live not like God, so we neither think or will as God.
PS. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 199
There is an antipathy in the heart of man against that doctrine which teaches us to deny ourselves, and be under the rule of another ; but whatsoever favours the ambition, lusts, and profits of men is easily entertainable. Many are fond of those sciences which may enrich their understandings, and grate not upon their sensual delights. Many have an admirable dexterity in finding out philosophical reasons, mathematical demonstrations, or raising observa tions upon the records of history, and spend much time and many serious and affectionate thoughts in the study of them. In those they have not immediately to do with God ; their beloved pleasures are not impaired. It is a satisfaction to self, without the exercise of any hostility against it. But had those sciences been against self, as much as the law and will of God, they had long since been rooted out of the world. Why did the young man turn his back upon the law of Christ ? Because of his worldly self. Why did the Pharisees mock at the doctrine of our Saviour, and not at their own traditions ? Because of covetous self. Why did the Jews slight the person of our Saviour, and put him to death, after the reading so many credentials of his being sent from heaven ? Because of ambitious self, that the Romans might not come and take away their kingdom. If the law of God were fitted to the humours of self, it would be readily and cordially observed by all men. Self is the measure of a world of seeming religious actions ; while God seems to be the object and his law the motive, self is the rule and end : Zech. vii. 5,
' Did you fast unto me ? ' &c.
(2.) As men discover their disowning the will of God as a rule by unwill ingness to be acquainted with it, so they discover it by the contempt of it, after they cannot avoid the notions and some impressions of it. The rule of God is burdensome to a sinner ; he flies from it as from a frightful bugbear and unpleasant yoke. Sin against the knowledge of the law is therefore
called a ' going back from the commandment of God's lips,' Job xxiii. 12 ; a « casting God's word behind them,' Ps. 1. 17, as a contemptible thing, fitter to be trodden in the dirt than lodged in the heart. Nay, it is a casting it
off as an abominable thing, for so the word ft}? signifies : Hos. viii. 3, ' Israel hath cast off the thing that is good ; ' an utter refusal of God : Jer. xliv. 16, * As for the word which thou hast spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we
will not hearken.' In the slight of his precepts, his essential perfections are Blighted. In disowning his will as a rule, we disown all those attributes which flow from his will, as goodness, righteousness, and truth. As an act of the divine understanding is supposed to precede the act of the divine will, so we slight the infinite reason of God. Every law, though it proceeds from the will of the lawgiver, and doth formally consist in an act of the will, yet
it doth presuppose an act of the understanding. If « the commandment be
holy, just, and good,' as it is (Rom. vii. 12), if it be the image of God's holiness, a transcript of his righteousness and the efflux of his goodness, then in every breach of it, dirt is cast upon those attributes which shine in it, and a slight of all the regards he hath to his own honour, and all the provisions he makes for his creature. This atheism or contempt of God, is more taken notice of by God than the matter of the sin itself; as a respect to God, in a weak and imperfect obedience, is more than the matter of the obedience itself, because it is an acknowledgment of God, so a contempt of God, in an act of disobedience, is more than the matter of disobedience. The creature stands, in such an act, not only in a posture of distance from God, but defiance of him. It was not the bare act of murder and adultery which Nathan charged upon David, but the atheistical principle which spirited those evil acts. The
' despising the commandment of the Lord' was the venom of them, 2 Sam. xii. 9, 10. It is possible to break a law without contempt ; but when men
200 CHABNOCK'S WOEKS. [Ps. XIY. 1.
pretend to believe there is a God, and that this is the law of God, it shews
a contempt of his majesty. Men naturally account God's laws too strict, his yoke too heavy, and his limits too strait ; and he that liveth in a con tempt of this law, curseth God in his life. How can they believe there is a God, who despise him as a ruler ? How can they believe him to be a guide, that disdain to follow him ? To think we firmly believe a God, without living conformable to his law, is an idle and vain imagination. The true and sensible motion* of a God cannot subsist with disorder and an affected unrighteousness.
This contempt is seen, [1.] In any presumptuous breach of any part of his law. Such sins are frequently called in Scripture rebellions, which are a denial of the allegiance we owe to him. By a wilful refusal of his right in one part, we root up the foundation of that rule he doth justly challenge over us. His right is as extensive to command us in one thing as in another. And if it be dis owned in one thing, it is virtually disowned in all, and the whole statute-
book of God is contemned: James ii. 10, 11, ' "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, is guilty of all.' A willing breaking one part, though there be a willing observance of all the other points of it, is a breach of the whole, because the authority of God, which gives sanc tion to the whole, is slighted. The obedience to the rest is dissembled ; for the love which is the root of all obedience is wanting, for ' love is the fulfilling the whole law,' Rom. xiii. 10. The rest are obeyed because they cross not carnal desire so much as the other, and so it is an observance of himself, not of God. Besides, the authority of God, which is not prevalent to restrain us from the breach of one point, would be of as little force with us to restrain us from the breach of all the rest, did the allurements of the flesh give us as strong a diversion from the one as from the other. And though the command that is transgressed be the least in the whole law, yet the authority which enjoins it is the same with that which enacts the greatest. And it is not so much the matter of the command, as the authority com manding, which lays the obligation.
[2.] In the natural averseness to the .declarations of God's will and mind, which way soever they tend. Since man affected to be as God, he desires to be boundless; he would not have fetters, though they be golden ones, and conduce to his happiness ; though the law of God be a strength to them, yet they will not: Isa. xxx. 15, ' In returning shall be your strength; and you would not.' They would not have a bridle to restrain them from running into the pit, nor be hedged in by the law, though for their security, as if they thought it too slavish and low-spirited a thing to be guided by the will of another. Hence man is compared to a wild ass, that loves to * snuff up the wind in the wilderness at her pleasure,' rather than come under the guidance of God, Jer. ii. 24. From whatsoever quarter of the heavens you pursue her, she will run to the other.
The Israelites could not endure what was commanded, Heb. xii. 20, though in regard of the moral part, agreeable to what they found written in their own nature, and to the observance whereof they had the highest obli gations of any people under heaven, since God had by many prodigies delivered them from a cruel slavery, the memory of which prefaced the Decalogue : Exod. xx. 2, * I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.' They could not think of the rule of their duty but they must reflect upon the grand incen tive of it in their redemption from Egyptian thraldom ; yet this people were
* Qu. ' notion ' ?— ED.
PS. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 201
cross to God, which way soever he moved. When they were in the brick kilns, they cried for deliverance; when they had heavenly manna, they longed for their onions and garlic. In Num. xiv. 3, they repent of their deliverance from Egypt, and talk of returning again to seek the remedy of their evils in the hands of their cruellest enemies ; and would rather put themselves into the irons whence God had delivered them, than believe one word of the promise of God for giving them a fruitful land. But when Moses tells them God's order, that they should turn back by the way of the Red Sea, ver. 25, and that God had confirmed it by an oath that they should not see the land of Canaan, ver. 28, they then run cross to this com mand of God, and instead of marching towards the Red Sea, which they had wished for before, they will go up to Canaan, as in spite of God and
his threatening, ' We will go to the place which the Lord hath promised,' ver. 40, which Moses calls a 'transgressing the commandments of the Lord,' ver. 41. They would presume to go up, notwithstanding Moses his pro hibition, and are smitten by the Amalekites. When God gives them a precept, with a promise to go up to Canaan, they long for Egypt; when God commands them to return to the Red Sea, which was nearer to the place they longed for, they will shift sides and go up to Canaan, Num. xxi.
4, 5, &c. ; * and when they found they were to traverse the solitudes of the desert, they took pet against God, and instead of thanking him for the late victory against the Canaanites, they reproach him for his conduct from Egypt, and the manna wherewith he nourished them in the wilderness. They would not go to Canaan the way God had chosen, nor preserve them
selves by the means God had ordained. They would not be at God's dis posal, but complain of the badness of the way and the lightness of manna, empty of any necessary juice to sustain their nature. They murmuringly solicit the will and power of God to change all that order which he had resolved in his counsel, and take another, conformable to their vain, foolish desires. And they signified thereby that they would invade his conduct, and that he should act according to their fancy, which the psalmist calls a
* tempting of God, and limiting the Holy One of Israel,' Ps. Ixxviii. 41. To what point soever the declarations of God stand, the will of man turns the quite contrary way. Is not the carriage of this nation, the best then in the world, a discovery of the depth of our natural corruption, how cross man is to God? And that charge God brings against them may be brought
against all men by nature, that they * despise his judgment,' and have a rooted abhorrency of his statutes in their soul, Lev. xxvi. 43. No sooner had they recovered from one rebellion, but they revolted to another; so
difficult a thing it is for man's nature to be rendered capable of conforming to the will of God. The carriage of his people is but a copy of the nature of mankind, and is 'written for our admonition,' 1 Cor. x. 11. From this temper men are said to « make void the law of God,' Ps. cxix. 126; to make it of no obligation, an antiquated and moth-eaten record. And the Pharisees, by setting up their traditions against the will of God, are said to make his
law « of none effect,' to strip it of all its authority, as the word signifies, Mat. xv. 6, 7)X.vg(*)6a,re.
[3.] We have the greatest slight of that will of God which is most for his honour and his greatest pleasure. It is the nature of man, ever since Adam,
to do so : Hosea vi. 6, 7, * God desired mercy, and not sacrifice ; the know ledge of himself more than burnt-offering. But they, like men,' as Adam, ' have transgressed the covenant,' invade God's rights, and not let him be Lord of one tree.
* Daille, Serm. 1 Cor. x. Serm. 9.
202 CHAJINOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. XIY. 1.
We are more curious observers of the fringes of the law than of the greater concerns of it. The Jews were diligent in sacrifices and offerings, which God did not urge upon them as principals, but as types of other things, but negligent of the faith which was to be established by him ; holi ness, mercy, pity, which concerned the honour of God as governor of the world, and were imitations of the holiness and goodness of God, they were
strangers to. This is God's complaint, Isa. i. 11, 12, and 16, 17. We shall find our hearts most averse to the observation of those laws which are eternal and essential to righteousness ; such that he could not but command, as he is a righteous governor; in the observation of which we come nearest to him, and express his image more clearly, as those laws for an inward and spiritual worship, a supreme affection to him. God, in regard of his righteousness and holiness of his nature, and the excellency of his being, could not command the contrary to these ; but this part of his
will our hearts most swell against, our corruption doth most snarl at, whereas those laws which are only positive, and huve no intrinsic righteous ness in them, but depend purely upon the will of the lawgiver, and may be changed at his pleasure (which the other, that have an intrinsic righteous ness in them, cannot), we better comply with than that part of his will that
doth express more of the righteousness of his nature, Ps. 1. 6, 17, 19, such as the ceremonial part of worship, and the ceremonial law among the Jews. We are more willing to observe order in some outward attendances and glavering devotions, than discard secret affections to evil, crucify inward
lusts and delightful thoughts. A 'hanging down the head like a bulrush' is not difficult, but the breaking the heart like a potter's vessel to shreds and dust (a sacrifice God delights in, whereby the excellency of God and the vileness of the creature is owned), goes against the grain. To cut off an outward branch is not so hard as to hack at the root. What God most loathes, as most contrary to his will, we most love. No sin did God so severely hate, and no sin were the Jews more inclined unto, than that of
idolatry. The heathen had not 'changed their God' as the Jews had
'changed their glory,' Jer. ii. 11; and all men are naturally tainted with this sin, which is so contrary to the holy and excellent nature of God. By how much the more defect there is of purity in our respects to God, by so much the more respect there is to some idol within or without us, to humour, custom, and interest, &c.
Never did any law of God meet with so much opposition as Christianity, which was the design of God from the first promise to the exhibiting the
Redeemer, and from thence to the end of the world. All people drew swords at first against it. The Romans prepared yokes for their neighbours, but provided temples for the idols those people worshipped. But Christianity, the choicest design and most delightful part of the will of God, never met with a kind entertainment at first in any place. Rome, that entertained all others, persecuted this with fire and sword, though sealed by greater testi monies from heaven than their own records could report in favour of their idols.
[4.] In running the greatest hazards, and exposing ourselves to more trouble to cross the will of God, than is necessary to the observance of it. It is a vain charge men bring against the divine precepts, that they are rigorous, severe, difficult, when, besides the contradiction to our Saviour, who tells us his yoke is easy and his burden light, they thwart their own calm reason and judgment. Is there not more difficulty to be vicious, covetous, violent, cruel, than to be virtuous, charitable, kind? Doth the will of God enjoin that that is not conformable to right reason and secretly.
PS. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 203
delightful in the exercise and issue ? And, on the contrary, what doth Satan and the world engage us in that is not full of molestation and hazard ? Is it a sweet and comely thing to combat continually against our own con sciences, and resist our own light, and commence a perpetual quarrel against ourselves, as we ordinarily do when we sin ? They, in the prophet, Micah
vi. 6, 7, 8, would be at the expense of ' thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of oil,' if they could compass them ; yea, would strip themselves of their natural affection to their first-born to expiate the * sin of their soul,' rather than to ' do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God ;' things more conducible to the honour of God, the welfare of the world, the security of their souls, and of a more easy practice than the offerings they wished for.
Do not men then disown God, when they will walk in ways hedged with thorns, wherein they meet with the arrows of conscience at every turn in their sides, and slide down to an everlasting punishment, sink under an intolerable s-avery, to contradict the will of God ? When they will prefer a sensual satisfaction, with a combustion in their consciences, violation of their reasons, gnawing cares and weary travels, before the honour of God, the dignity of their natures, the happiness of peace and health, which might be preserved at a cheaper rate than they are at to destroy them ?
[5.] In the unwillingness and awkwardness of the heart, when it is to pay
God a service. Men ' do evil with both hands earnestly,' Micah vii. 3, but do good with one hand faintly ; no life in the heart nor any diligence in the hand. What slight and loose thoughts of God doth this unwillingness imply ! It is a wrong to his providence, as though we were not under his government, and had no need of his assistance ; a wrong to his excellency, as though there were no amiableness in him to make his service desirable ; an injury to his goodness and power, as if he were not able or willing to
reward the creature's obedience, or careless, not to take notice of it. It is a sign we receive little satisfaction in him, and that there is a great unsuitableness between him and us.
First, There is a kind of constraint in the first engagement. We are rather pressed to it than enter ourselves volunteers. What we call service to God, is done, naturally, much against our wills ; it is not a delightful food, but a bitter potion ; we are rather haled than run to it. There is a contradiction of sin within us against our service, as there was a contradic tion of sinners without our Saviour against his doing the will of God. Our hearts are unwieldy to any spiritual service of God ; we are fain to use a violence with them sometimes. Hezekiah, it is said, ' walked before the Lord with a perfect heart,' 2 Kings xx. 3 ; he walked, he made himself to walk. Man naturally cares not for a walk with God ; if he hath any com munion with him, it is with such a dulness and heaviness of spirit, as if he
wished himself out of his company. Man's nature, being contrary to holi ness, hath an aversion to any act of homage to God, because holiness must at least be pretended ; in every duty wherein we have a communion with God, holiness is requisite ; now, as men are against the truth of holiness because it is unsuitable to them, so they are not friends to those duties which require it, and for some space divert them from the thoughts of their beloved lusts. The word of the Lord is a yoke, prayer a drudgery, obedi
ence a strange element. We are like fish, that ' drink up iniquity like water,' Job xv. 16, and come not to the bank without the force of an angle ; no more willing to do service for God than a fish is of itself to do service for man. It is a constrained act to satisfy conscience, and such are servile, not son-like performances, and spring from bondage more than affection ; if
204 CHAENOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. XIY. 1.
conscience, like a task-master, did not scourge them to duty, they would never perform it.
Let us appeal to ourselves whether we are not more unwilling to secret, closet, hearty duty to God, than to join with others in some external service ; as if those inward services were a going to the rack, and rather our penance than privilege. How much service hath God in the world from the same principle that vagrants perform their task in Bridewell ! How glad are many of evasions to back them in the neglect of the commands of God, of corrupt reasonings from the flesh to waylay an act of obedience, and a multitude of excuses to blunt the edge of the precept ! The very service of God shall be a pretence to deprive him of the obedience due to him. Saul
will not be ruled by God's will in the destroying the cattle of the Amalekites, but by his own ; and will impose upon the will and wisdom of God, judging
God mistaken in his command, and that the cattle God thought fittest to be meat to the fowls were fitter to be sacrifices on the altar, 1 Sam. xv. 3, 9, 15, 21.
If we do perform any part of his will, is it not for our own ends, to have some deliverance from trouble ? Isa. xxvi. 16, 'In trouble have they visited
thee, they poured out a prayer, when thy chastening was upon them.' In affliction, he shall find them kneeling in homage and devotion ; in prosperity, he shall feel them kicking with contempt ; they can pour out a prayer in distress, and scarce drop one when they are delivered.