Part 15
Secondly, There is a slightness in our service of God. We are loath to come into his presence, and when we do come, we are loath to continue with him. We pay not an homage to him heartily, as to our lord and governor ; we regard him not as our master, whose work we ought to do, and whose honour we ought to aim at.
First, In regard of the matter of service. When the torn, the lame, and the sick is offered to God, Mai. i. 13, 14, so thin and lean a sacrifice that you might have thrown it to the ground with a puff, so some understand the
meaning of * you have snuffed at it.' Men have naturally such slight thoughts of the majesty and law of God that they think any service is good enough for him, and conformable to his law. The dullest and deadest times we think fittest to pay God a service in ; when sleep is ready to close our eyes, and we are unfit to serve ourselves, we think it a fit time to open our hearts to God. How few morning sacrifices hath God from many persons and families ! Men leap out of their beds to their carnal pleasures or worldly employments, without any thought of their Creator and Preserver, or any reflection upon his will as the rule of our daily obedience ; and as many reserve the dregs of their lives, their old age, to offer up their souls to God, so they reserve the dregs of the day, their sleeping time, for the offering up their service to him. How many grudge to spend their best time in the serving the will of God, and reserve for him the sickly and rheumatic part of their lives ; the remainder of that which the devil and their own lusts have fed upon !
Would not any prince or governor judge a present half eaten up by wild beasts, or that which died in a ditch,, a contempt of his royalty? A corrupt thing is too base and vile for so great a king as God is, whose name is dreadful, Mai. i. 14. When by age men are weary of their own bodies, they would present them to God, yet grudgingly, as if a tired body were too good for him, snuffing at the command for service. God calls for our best, and we give him the worst.
Secondly, In respect of frame. We think any frame will serve God's turn ; which speaks our slight of God as a ruler. Man naturally performs duty with an unholy heart, whereby it becomes an abomination to God :
PS. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 205
Prov. xxviii. 9, ' He that turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his
prayers shall be an abomination to God.' The services which he commands he hates for their evil frames or corrupt ends: Amos v. 21, 'I hate, I
despise your feast-days, I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.' God requires gracious services, and we give him corrupt ones. We do not rouse up our hearts, as David called upon his lute and harp to awake, Ps. Ivii. 8. Our hearts are not given to him, we put him off with bodily exercise ; the heart is but ice to what it doth not affect. There is not that natural vigour in the observance of God which we have in worldly business. When we see a liveliness in men in other things, change the scene into a notion towards God, how suddenly doth their vigour shrink, and their hearts freeze into sluggishness ! Many times we serve God as languishingly as if we were afraid he should accept us, and pray as coldly as if we were unwilling he should hear us, and take away that lust by which we are governed, and •which conscience forces us to pray against ; as if we were afraid God should set up his own throne and government in our hearts. How fleeting are we in divine meditation, how sleepy in spiritual exercises, but in other exercises active ! The soul doth not awaken itself, and excite those animal and vital
spirits which it will in bodily recreations and sports, much less the powers of the soul ; whereby it is evident we prefer the latter before any service to God. Since there is a fulness of animal spirits, why might they not be excited in holy duties as well as in other operations, but that there is a reluctancy in the soul to exercise its supremacy in this case, and perform anything becoming a creature in subjection to God as a ruler ?
It is evident also in the distractions we have in his service. How loath
are we to serve God fixedly one hour, nay, a part of an hour, notwithstand ing all the thoughts of his majesty, and the eternity of glory set before our eye ! What man is there since the fall of Adam that served God one hour without many wanderings and unsuitable thoughts unfit for that service ! How ready are our hearts to start out and unite themselves with any worldly objects that please us !
Weariness in it evidenceth it. To be weary of our dulness signifies a desire ; to be weary of service signifies a discontent to be ruled by God. How tired are we in the performance of spiritual duties, when in the vain triflings of time we have a perpetual motion. How will many willingly revel whole nights, when their hearts will flag at the threshold of a religious ser vice ; like Dagon, 1 Sam. v. 4, lose both our heads to think, and hands to act, when the ark of God is present. Some in the prophet wished the new moon and the Sabbath over, that they might sell their corn, and be busied again in their worldly affairs, Amos viii. 5. A slight and weariness of the Sabbath was a slight of the Lord of the Sabbath, and of that freedom from the yoke and rule of sin which was signified by it. The design of the sacrifices in the new moon was tosignify a rest from the tyranny of sin, and a consecration to the spiritual service of God. Servants that are quickly weary of their work are weary of the authority of their master that enjoins it. If our hearts had a value for God, it would be with us as with the needle to the loadstone, there would be upon his beck a speedy motion to him, and a fixed union with him. When the judgments and affections of the saints shall be fully refined in glory, they shall be willing to behold the face of God, and be under his government to eternity, without any weari ness ; as the holy angels have owned God as their sovereign near these six thousand years without being weary of running on his errands. But, alas ! while the flesh clogs us, there will be some relics of unwillingness to hear his injunctions, and weariness in performing them ; though men may excuse
206 CHARNOCK'S WOEKS. [Ps. XIV. 1.
those things by extrinsic causes, yet God's unerring judgment calls it a weariness of himself : Isa. xliii. 22, « Thou hast not called upon me, 0 Jacob, but thou hast been weary of me, 0 Israel.' Of this he taxeth his own people, when he tells them he would have ' the beasts of the field, the dragons, and the owls;' the Gentiles, that the Jews counted no better than such, to honour him, and acknowlege him their rule in a way of duty, ver. 20, 21. [6.J This contempt is seen in a deserting the rule of God, when our expectations are not answered upon our service. When services are per formed from carnal principles, they are soon cast off when carnal ends meet
not with desired satisfaction. But when we own ourselves God's servants, and God our master, * our eyes will wait upon him till he have mercy on us,' Ps. cxxiii. 2. It is one part of the duty we owe to God as our master in heaven to ' continue in prayer,' Col. iv. 1, 2. And by the same reason in all other service, and to ' watch in the same with thanksgiving;' to watch for occasions of praise, to watch with cheerfulness for further manifestations of his will, strength to perform it, success in the performance, that we may from all draw matter of praise. As we are in a posture of obedience to his precepts, so we should be in a posture of waiting for the blessing of it.
But naturally we reject the duty we owe to God if he do not speed the blessing we expect from him. How many do secretly mutter the same as they in Job xxi. 15, 'What is the Almighty that we should serve him, and what profit shall we have if we pray to him ? ' They serve not God out of conscience to his commands, but for some carnal profit ; and if God make them to wait for it, they will not stay his leisure, but cease soliciting him any longer. Two things are expressed ; that God was not worthy of any homage from them, — ' What is the Almighty that we should serve him ? ' — and that the service of him would not bring in a good revenue or an advan tage of that kind they expected. Interest drives many men on to some kind of service, and when they do not find an advance of that, they will acknowledge God no more ; but like some beggars, if you give them not upon their asking and calling you good master, from blessing they will turn to cursing.
How often do men do that secretly, practically if not plainly, which Job's wife advised him to, curse God, and cast off that disguise of integrity they
had assumed ! Job ii. 9, ' Dost thou still retain thy integrity ? Curse God.' What a stir, and pulling, and crying is here ! Cast off all thoughts of religious service, and be at daggers drawing with that God, who for all thy service of him has made thee so wretched a spectacle to men, and a banquet for worms. The like temper is deciphered in the Jews : Mai. iii. 14, 'It is in vain to serve God ; and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinances,
that we have walked mournfully before the Lord ? ' What profit is it that we have regarded his statutes, and carried ourselves in a way of subjection to God as our sovereign, when we inherit nothing but sorrow, and the idolatrous neighbours swim in all kind of pleasures ? As if it were the most miserable thing to acknowledge God. If men have not the benefits they expect, they think God unrighteous in himself, and injurious to them, in not conferring the favour they imagine they have merited ; and if they have not that recompence, they will deny God that subjection they owe to him as creatures. Grace moves to God upon a sense of duty, corrupt nature upon a sense of interest ; sincerity is encouraged by gracious returns, but is
not melted away by God's delay or refusal. Corrupt nature would have God at its beck, and steers a course of duty by hope of some carnal profits, not by a sense of the sovereignty of God.
PS. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 207
[7.] This contempt is seen in breaking promises with God. One while the conscience of a man makes vows of new obedience, and perhaps binds
himself with many an oath ; but they prove like Jonah's gourd, withering the next day after their birth. This was Pharaoh's temper ; under a storm he would submit to God, and let Israel go, but when the storm is ended, he
will not be under God's control, and Israel's slavery shall be increased. The fear of divine wrath makes many a sinner turn his back upon his sin, and the love of his ruling lust makes him turn his back upon his true Lord. This is from the prevalency of sin, that disputes with God for the
sovereignty.* When God hath sent a sharp disease, as a messenger to bind men to their beds, and make an interruption of their sinful pleasures, their mouths are full of promises of a new life, in hope to escape the just vengeance of God. The sense of hell, which strikes strongly upon them, makes them full of such pretended resolutions when they howl upon their beds. But if God be pleased in his patience to give them a respite, to take off the chains where with he seemed to be binding them for destruction, and recruit their strength, they are more earnest in their sins than they were in their promises of a reformation, as if they had got the mastery of God, and had outwitted him. How often doth God charge them of not returning to him after a succession
of judgments ! Amos iv. 6-11. So hard it is, not only to allure, but to scourge men to an acknowledgment of God as their ruler.
Consider, then, Are we not naturally inclined to disobey the known will of God ? Can we say, Lord, for thy sake we refrain the thing to which our hearts incline ? Do we not allow ourselves to be licentious, earthly, vain, proud, revengeful, though we know it will offend him ? Have we not been peevishly cross to his declared will ? Run counter to him and those laws which express most of the glory of his holiness ? Is not this to disown him as our rule ? Did we never wish there were no law to bind us, no precept to check our idols ? What is this, but to wish that God would depose himself from being our governor, and leave us to our own conduct ? or else to wish that he were as unholy as ourselves, as careless of his own laws as we are ; that is, that he were no more a God than we, a God as sinful and unrighteous as ourselves ? He whose heart riseth against the law of God to unlaw it, riseth against the author of that law to undeify him. He that casts contempt upon the dearest thing God hath in the world, that which is the image of his holiness, the delight of his soul ; that which he hath given a special charge to maintain, and that because it is holy, just, and good ; would not stick to rejoice at the
destruction of God himself. If God's holiness and righteousness in the beamf be despised, much more will an immense goodness and holiness in the fountain be rejected ? He that wisheth a beam far from his eyes, because it offends and scorcheth him, can be no friend to the sun from whence that beam doth issue. How unworthy a creature is man, since he only, a rational creature, is the sole being that withdraws itself from the rule of God in this earth ? And how miserable a creature is he also, since, departing from the
order of God's goodness, he falls into the order of his justice ; and while he
refuseth God to be the rule of his life, he cannot avoid him being the judge of his punishment. It is this is the original of all sin, and the fountain of all our misery.
This is the first thing man disowns, the rule which God sets him.
2. Man naturally owns any other rule rather than that of God's prescrib ing. The law of God orders one thing, the heart of man desires another.
* Keyn. f Qu. ' stream'?— ED.
208 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. XIV. 1.
There is not the basest thing in the world, but man would sooner submit to be guided by it, rather than by the holiness of God ; and when anything that God commands crosses our own wills, we value it no more, than we would the advice of a poor despicable beggar.
How many are « lovers of pleasure, more than lovers of God !' 2 Tim. iii. 4. To make something which contributes to the perfection of nature, as learning, wisdom, moral virtues, our rule, would be more tolerable. But to pay that homage to a swinish pleasure, which is the right of God, is an inexcusable contempt of him. The greatest excellency in the world is infinitely below God; much more a bestial delight, which is both dis graceful and below the nature of man. If we made the vilest creature on earth our idol, it is more excusable than to be the slave of a brutish plea sure. The viler the thing is that doth possess the throne in our heart, the greater contempt it is of him who can only claim a right to it and is worthy
of it. Sin is the first object of man's election, as soon as the faculty whereby he chooses comes to exercise its power; and it is so dear to man, that it is, in the estimate of our Saviour, counted as the right hand and the right eye, dear, precious, and useful members.
(1.) The rule of Satan is owned before the rule of God. The natural man would rather be under the guidance of Satan than the yoke of his Creator. Adam chose him to be his governor in paradise. No sooner had Satan spoke of God in a way of derision — Gen. iii. 1, 5, 'Yea, hath God said?' — but man follows his counsel and approves of the scoff; and the greatest part of his posterity have not been wiser by his fall, but would
rather ramble in the devil's wilderness than to stay in God's fold. It is by the sin of man that the devil is become the god of the world, as if men were the electors of him to the government. Sin is an election of him for a lord, and a putting the soul under his government. Those that live according to the course of the world, and are loath to displease it, are under the govern-
. ment of the prince of it. The greatest part of the works done in the world
is to enlarge the kingdom of Satan. For how many ages were the laws whereby the greatest part of the world was governed in the affairs of reli gion, the fruits of his usurpation and policy ! When temples were erected to him, priests consecrated to his service, the rites used in most of the wor ship of the world were either of his own coining, or the misapplying the rites God had ordained to himself under the notion of a god ; whence the apostle
calls all idolatrous feasts * the table of devils,' * the cup of devils,' ' sacrifice to devils,' 'fellowship with devils,' 1 Cor. x. 20, 21. Devils being the real object of the pagan worship, though not formally intended by the wor shipper, though in some parts of the Indies the direct and peculiar worship is to the devil, that he might not hurt them ; and though the intention of others was to offer to God and not the devil, yet since the action was con trary to the will of God, he regards it as a sacrifice to devils. It was not the intention of Jeroboam to establish priests to the devil when he conse
crated them to the service of his calves, for Jehu afterwards calls them « the
servants of the Lord : ' 2 Kings x. 23, ' See if there be here none of the servants of the Lord,' to distinguish them from the servants of Baal, signi fying that the true God was worshipped under those images, and not Baal, nor any of the gods of the heathens ; yet Scripture couples the calves and devils together, and ascribes the worship given to one to be given to the other. 2 Chron. xi. 15, 'He ordained him priests for the high places, and for the devils, and for the calves which he had made ; ' so that they were sacrifices to devils, notwithstanding the intention of Jeroboam and his sub jects that had set them up and worshipped them, because they were contrary
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to the mind of God, and agreeable to the doctrine and mind of Satan, though the object of their worship in their own intention were not the devil, but some deified man or some canonised saint. The intention makes not a good action ; if so, when men kill the best servants of God with a design to do God service, as our Saviour foretells, John xvi. 2, the action would not be murder, yet who can call it otherwise, since God is wronged in the persons
of his servants ? Since most of the worship of the world, which men's
corrupt natures incline them to, is false and different from the revealed will of God, it is a practical acknowledgment of the devil as the governor, by acknowledging and practising those doctrines which have not the stamp of divine revelation upon them, but were minted by Satan to depress the honour of God in the world. It doth concern men then to take good heed, that in their acts of worship they have a divine rule, otherwise it is an owning the devil as the rule, for there is no medium. Whatsoever is not from God is from Satan.
But to bring this closer to us, and consider that which is more common among us. Men that are in a natural condition, and wedded to their lusts,
are under the paternal government of Satan: John viii. 44, * Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do.' If we divide sin into spiritual and carnal, which division comprehends all, the devil's authority is owned in both : in spiritual, we conform to his example, because those he commits ; in carnal, we obey his will, because those he directs ; he acts the one, and sets us a copy ; he tempts to the other, and gives us a kind of a precept. Thus man by nature being a willing servant of sin, is more desirous to be bound in the devil's iron chains than in God's silken cords.
What greater atheism can there be than to use God as if he were inferior to the devil ! to take the part of his greatest enemy, who drew all others into the faction against him ! to pleasure Satan by offending God, and gratify our adversary with the injury of our Creator! For a subject to take arms against his prince with the deadliest enemy both himself and prince hath in the whole word, adds a greater blackness to the rebellion.
(2.) The more visible rule preferred before God in the world is man. The opinion of the world is more our rule than the precept of God, and
many men's abstinence from sin is not from a sense of the divine will, no, nor from a principle of reason, but from an affection to some man on whom they depend, or fear of punishment from a superior ; the same principle with that in a ravenous beast, who abstains from what he desires for fear only of a stick or club. Men will walk with the herds, go in fashion with the most,
speak and act as the most do. While we « conform to the world,' we cannot perform a ' reasonable service' to God, nor prove, nor approve practically, ' what the good and acceptable will of God is.' The apostle puts them in opposition to one another, Rom. xii. 1, 2.
This appears,
[1.] In complying more with the dictates of men than the will of God.
Men draw encouragement from God's forbearance, to sin more freely against him, but the fear of punishment for breaking the will of man lays a restraint upon them ; the fear of man is a more powerful curb to restrain men in their duty than the fear of God. So we may please a friend, a master, a governor, we are regardless whether we please God or no ; men-pleasers are more than God-pleasers. Man is more advanced as a rule than God, when we submit to human orders, and stagger and dispute against divine. Would not a prince think himself slighted in his authority, if any of his servants should decline his commands, by the order of one of his subjects ? And will not God make the same account of us when we deny or delay our
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obedience for fear of one of his creatures ? In the fear of man we as little acknowledge God for our sovereign as we do for our comforter : Isa.
li. 12, 13, ' I, even I, am he that comforteth you : who art thou, that thou
shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, &c., and forgettest the Lord
thy maker,' &c. We put a slight upon God, as if he were not able to bear us out in our duty to him, and uncapable to balance the strength of an arm of flesh.
[2.] In observing that which is materially the will of God, not because it is his will, but the injunctions of men. As the word of God may be received, yet not as his word, so the will of God may be performed, yet not as his will. It is materially done, but not formally obeyed. An action, and obedience in that action, are two things ; as when man commands the ceasing from all works of the ordinary calling on the Sabbath, it is the same that God enjoins ; the cessation or attendance of his servants on the hearing the word are conformable in the matter of it to the will of God, but it is only
conformable in the obediential part of the acts to the will of man, when it is done only with respect to a human precept. As God hath a right to enact his laws without consulting his creature in the way of his government, so man is bound to obey those laws without consulting whether they be agree
able to men's laws or no. If we act the will of God, because the will of our superiors concurs with it, we obey not God in that, but man ; a human will being the rule of our obedience, and not the divine, this is to vilify God, and make him inferior to man in our esteem, and a valuing the rule of man above that of our Creator.
Since God is the highest perfection, and infinitely good, whatsoever rule he gives the creature must be good, else it cannot proceed from God. A base thing cannot be the product of an infinite excellency, and an unreason able thing cannot be the product of an infinite wisdom and goodness ; there
fore as the respecting God's will before the will of man is excellent and worthy of a creature, and is an acknowledging the excellency, goodness, and wisdom of God, so the eyeing the will of man before and above the will of God, is, on the contrary, a denial of all those in a lump, and a preferring the wisdom, goodness, and power of man in his law above all those per fections of God in his. Whatsoever men do that looks like moral virtue or abstinence from vices, not out of obedience to the rule God hath set, but
because of custom, necessity, example, ror imitation, they may in the doing of it be rather said to be apes than Christians.
[3.J In obeying the will of man when it is contrary to the will of God.
As the Israelites willingly ' walked after the commandment,' Hosea v. 11, not of God, but of Jeroboam in the case of the calves, and ' made the
king's heart glad with their lies,' Hosea vii. 3. They cheered him with their ready obedience to his command for idolatry (which was a lie in itself, and a lie in them) against the commandment of God and the warnings of the prophets, rather than cheer the heart of God with their obedience to his worship instituted by him ; nay, and when God offered them to cure them their wound, their iniquity breaks out afresh ; they would neither have him
as a Lord to rule them, nor a physician to cure them: Hosea vii. 1, * When
I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered.' The whole Persian nation shrunk at once from a duty due by the light of nature to the Deity, upon a decree that neither God or man should be petitioned to for thirty days, but only their king, Dan. vi. One only, Daniel, excepted against it, who preferred his homage to God above obedience to his prince. An adulterous generation is many times made the rule of
men's professions, as is implied in those words of our Saviour, Mark
PS. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 211
viii. 38, ' Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation.' Own him among his disciples, and be ashamed of him among his enemies. Thus men are said to deny God, Titus i. 16, when they attend to Jewish fables and the precepts of men rather than the word of God ; when the decrees or canons of fallible men are valued at a higher rate, and preferred before the writings of the Holy Ghost by his apostles.
As man naturally disowns the rule God sets him, and owns any other
rule than that of God's prescribing, so
(3.) He doth this in order to the setting himself up as his own rule, as
though our own wills, and not God's, were the true square and measure of goodness. We make an idol of our own wills ; and as much as self is exalted, God is deposed ; the more we esteem our own wills, the more we endeavour to annihilate the will of God ; account nothing of him, the more we account of ourselves ; and endeavour to render ourselves his superiors by exalting our own wills. No prince but would look upon his authority as invaded, his royalty derided, if a subject should resolve to be a law to him self in opposition to his known will. True piety is to hate ourselves, deny ourselves, and cleave solely to the service of God. To make ourselves our
own rule, and the object of our chiefest love, is atheism. If self-denial be the greatest part of godliness, the great letter in the alphabet of religion,
self-love is the great letter in the alphabet of practical atheism. Self is the great antichrist and antigod in the world, that ' sets up itself above all that
is called God ; ' self-love is the captain of that black band, 2 Tim. iii. 2. It sits in the temple of God, and would be adored as God ; self-love begins, but denying the power of godliness, which is the same with denying the ruling power of God, ends the list ; it is so far from bending to the righteous will of the Creator, that it would have the eternal will of God stoop to the humour and unrighteous will of a creature ; and this is the ground of the
contention between the flesh and the Spirit in the heart of a renewed man ; • flesh wars for the godhead of self, and Spirit fights for the Godhead of God ; the one would settle the throne of the Creator, and the other maintain a law
of covetousness, ambition, envy, lust, in the stead of God.
The evidence of this will appear in these propositions. Prop. 1. This is natural to man as he is corrupted. What was the venom of the sin of Adam, is naturally derived with his nature to all poste rity. It was not the eating a forbidding apple, or the pleasing his palate, that Adam aimed at, or was the chief object of his desire ; but to live inde pendently on his Creator, and be a god to himself: Gen. iii. 5, ' You shall be as gods.' That which was the matter of the devil's temptation, was the incentive of man's rebellion. A likeness to God he aspired to in the judg ment of God himself, an infallible interpreter of man's thoughts : ' Behold, man is become as one of us, to know good and evil,' in regard of self-suffi ciency and being a rule to himself. The Jews understand the ambition of man to reach no further than an equality with the angelical nature ; but Jehovah here understands it in another sense. God had ordered man by this prohibition not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil ; not to attempt the knowledge of good and evil of himself, but to wait upon the dictates of God ; not to trust to his own counsels, but to depend wholly upon him for direction and guidance. Certainly he that would not hold off his hand from so small a thing as an apple, when he had his choice of the fruit of the garden, would not have denied himself any thing his appetite had desired, when that principle had prevailed upon him. He
would not have stuck at a greater matter to pleasure himself with the dis-
212 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. XIV. 1.
pleasing of God, when for so small a thing he would incur the anger of his
Creator.
Thus would he deify his own understanding against the wisdom of God, and his own appetite against the will of God. This desire of equality with
God, a learned man* thinks the apostle intimates : Phil. ii. 6, ' Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.' The Son's being in the form of God, and thinking it not robbery to be equal with God, implies that the robbery of sacrilege committed by our first parents, for which the Son of God humbled himself to the death of the cross, was an
attempt to be equal with God, and depend no more upon God's directions, but his own conduct, which could be no less than an invasion of the throne
of God, and endeavour to put himself into a posture to be his mate. Other sins, adultery and theft, &c., could not be committed by him at that time, but he immediately puts forth his hand to usurp the power of his Maker. This treason is the old Adam in every man. The first Adam contradicted the will of God to set up himself: the second Adam humbled himself, and did nothing but by the command and will of his Father. This principle, wherein, the venom of the old Adam lies, must be crucified to make way for the throne of the humble and obedient principle of the new Adam, or quickening Spirit. Indeed, sin in its own nature is nothing else but a will ing according to self, and contrary to the will of God. Lusts are therefore called the wills of the flesh and of the mind, Eph. ii. 3. As the precepts of
God are God's will, so the violations of these precepts is man's will ; and thus man usurps a godhead to himself, by giving that honour to his own will which belongs to God ; appropriating the right of rule to himself, and denying it to his Creator. That servant that acts according to his own will
with a neglect of his master's, refuseth the duty of a servant, and invades the right of his master. This self-love, and desire of independency on God, has been the root of all sin in the world. The great controversy between
God and man hath been, whether he or they shall be God ; whether his reason or theirs, his will or theirs, shall be the guiding principle. As grace is the union of the will of God and the will of the creature, so sin is the
opposition of the will of self to the will of God. ' Leaning to our own understanding' is opposed as a natural evil to ' trusting in the Lord,' a supernatural grace, Prov. iii. 5. Men commonly love what is their own, their own inventions, their own fancies ; therefore the ways of a wicked
man are called ' the ways of his own heart,' Eccles. xi. 9 ; and the ways of a superstitious man his own devices : Jer. xviii. 12, ' We will walk after our own devices ;' we will be a law to ourselves. And what the psalmist says of the tongue, — ' our tongues are our own, who shall control us ? ' — is as truly the language of men's hearts, our wills are our own, who shall check us ?
Prop. 2. This is evident in the dissatisfaction of men with their own con sciences, when they contradict the desires of self. Conscience is nothing but an actuated or reflex knowledge of a superior power and an equitable law ; a law impressed, and a power above it impressing it. Conscience is not the law-giver, but the remembrancer to mind us of that law of nature imprinted upon our souls, and actuate the considerations of the duty and penalty, to apply the rule to our acts, and pass judgment upon matter of fact. It is to give the charge, urge the rule, enjoin the practice of those notions of right, as part of our duty and obedience.
But man is much displeased with the directions of conscience, as he is out of love with the accusations and condemning sentence of this officer of
* Dr Jackson.
PS. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 213
God. We cannot naturally endure any quick and lively practical thoughts of God and his will, and distaste our own consciences for putting us in mind
of it ; they therefore * like not to retain God in their knowledge,' Rom. i. 28 ; that is, God in their own consciences ; they would blow it out as it is the candle of the Lord in them to direct them, and their acknowledgments of God, to secure themselves against the practice of its principles. They would stop all the avenues to any beam of light, and would not suffer a sparkle of divine knowledge to flutter in their minds, in order to set up another direct ing rule suited to the fleshly appetite ; and when they cannot stop the light
of it from glaring in their faces, they rebel against it, and cannot endure to abide in its paths, Job xxiv. 13. He speaks not of those which had the written word or special revelations, but only a natural light or traditional handed from Adam. Hence are all the endeavours to still it when it begins to speak, by some
carnal pleasures, as Saul's evil spirit with a fit of music ; or bribe it with some fits of a glavering devotion when it holds the law of God in its com manding authority before the mind ; they would wipe out all the impres
sions of it when it presses the advances of God above self, and entertain
it with no better compliment than Ahab did Elijah, * Hast thou found me, 0
my enemy ?' If we are like to God in anything of our natural fabric, it is in the supe rior and more spiritual part of our souls. The resistance of that which is most like to God, and instead of God in us, is a disowning of the sovereign represented by that officer. He that would be without conscience, would be without God, whose vicegerent it is, and make the sensitive part, which conscience opposes, his lawgiver. Thus a man out of respect to sinful self, quarrels with his natural self, and cannot comport himself in a friendly beha viour to his internal implanted principles. He hates to come under the rebukes of them, as much as Adam hated to come into the presence of God,
after he turned traitor against him. The bad entertainment God's deputy hath in us, reflects upon that God whose cause it pleads. It is upon no other account that men loathe the upright language of their own reasons in those matters, and wish the eternal silence of their own consciences, but as they maintain the rights of God, and would hinder the idol of self from usurping
his Godhead and prerogative. Though this power be part of a man's self, rooted in his nature, as essential to him, and inseparable from him, as the
best part of his being ; yet he quarrels with it as it is God's deputy, and stickling for the honour of God in his soul, and quarrelling with that sinful self he would cherish above God. We are not displeased with this faculty
barely as it exerciseth a self-reflection, but as it is God's vicegerent, and bears the mark of his authority in it. In some cases this selfreflecting act meets with good entertainment, when it acts not in contradiction to self, but suitable to natural affections : as suppose a man hath in his passion struck
his child, and caused thereby some great mischief to him, the reflection of conscience will not be unwelcome to him, will work some tenderness in him, because it takes the part of self and of natural affection ; but in the more spiritual concerns of God it will be rated as a busy body.
Prop. 3. Many, if not most actions, materially good in the world, are done more because they are agreeable to self, than as they are honourable to God. As the word of God may be heard not as his word, 1 Thes. ii. 13, but as there may be pleasing notions in it, or discourses against an opinion or party we disaffect, so the will of God may be performed, not as his will, but as it may gratify some selfish consideration, when we will please God so far as it may not displease ourselves, and serve him as our master, so far as his command may be a servant to our humour ; when we consider not who
214 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. XIV. 1.
it is that commands, but how short it comes of displeasing that sin which rules in our heart, pick and choose what is least burdensome to the flesh
and distasteful to our lusts.
He that doth the will of God, not out of conscience of that will, but because it is agreeable to himself, casts down the will of God, and sets his
own will in the place of it, takes the crown from the head of God, and places it upon the head of self. If things are done, not because they are com manded by God, but desirable to us, it is a disobedient obedience ; a con
formity to God's will in regard of the matter, a conformity to our own will in regard of the motive ; either as the things done are agreeable to natural
and moral self, or sinful self.
1. As they are agreeable to natural or moral self. When men will prac tise some points of religion, and walk in the track of some divine precepts, not because they are divine, but because they are agreeable to their humour or constitution of nature ; from the sway of a natural bravery, the bias of a
secular interest, not from an ingenuous sense of God's authority, or a volun tary submission to his will ; as when a man will avoid excess in drinking, not because it is dishonourable to God, but as it is a blemish to his own reputation, or an impair of the health of his body, doth this deserve the
name of an observance of the divine injunction, or rather an obedience to ourselves ? Or when a man will be liberal in the distribution of his charity,
not with an eye to God's precept, but in compliance with his own natural compassion, or to pleasure the generosity of his nature. The one is obedience
to a man's own preservation, the other an obedience to the interest or impulse of a moral virtue. It is not respect to the rule of God, but the authority of self, and, at the best, is but the performance of the material part of the divine rule, without any concurrence of a spiritual motive or a spiritual man ner. That only is a maintaining the rights of God, when we pay an obser
vance to his rule, without examining the agreeableness of it to our secular interest, or consulting with the humour of flesh and blood ; when we will not decline his service, though we find it cross, and hath no affinity with the pleasure of our own nature ; such an obedience as Abraham manifested in his readiness to sacrifice his son ; such an obedience as our Saviour demands in cutting off the right hand. When we observe anything of divine order upon the account of its suitableness to our natural sentiments, we shall readily divide from him, when the interest of nature turns its point against
the interest of God's honour ; we shall fall off from him according to the change we find in our own humours : and can that be valued as a setting up the rule of God, which must be deposed upon the mutable interest of an inconstant mind ? Esau had no regard to God in delaying the execution of
his resolution to shorten his brother's days, though he was awed by the reverence of his father to delay it ; he considered, perhaps, how justly he
might lie under the imputation of hastening crazy Isaac's death, by depriv ing him of a beloved son. But had the old man's head been laid, neither the contrary command of God, nor the nearness of a fraternal relation, could have bound his hands from the act, no more than they did his heart from the resolution : Gen. xxvii. 41, * Esau hated Jacob, because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him : and Esau said in his heart, The days of
mourning for my father are at hand ; then will I slay my brother.' So many children, that expect at the death of their parents great inheri tances or portions, may be observant of them, not in regard of the rule fixed by God, but to their own hopes, which they would not frustrate by a disobligement. Whence is it that many men abstain from gross sins, but in
love to their reputation ? Wickedness may be acted privately, which a man's
PS. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 215
own credit puts a bar to the open commission of. The preserving his own esteem may divert him from entering into a brothel-house, to which he hath set his mind before, against a known precept of his Creator. As Pharaoh parted with the Israelites, so do some men with their blemishing sins ; not out
of a sense of God's rule, but the smart of present judgments, orfearjof a future wrath. Our security, then, and reputation, is set up in the place of God.
This also may be, and is, in renewed men, who have the law written in their hearts, that is, an habitual disposition to an agreement with the law of God ; when what is done is with a respect to this habitual inclination, with out eyeing the divine precept, which is appointed to be their rule. This also is to set up a creature, as renewed self is, instead of the Creator, and that law of his in his word, which ought to be the rule of our actions. Thus it is when men choose a moral life, not so much out of respect to the law of nature, as it is the law of God, but as it is a law become one with their souls and constitutions. There is more of self in this, than consideration of God ; for if it were the latter, the revealed law of God would upon the same reason be received as well as his natural law. From this principle of self, morality comes by some to be advanced above evangelical dictates.
2. As they are agreeable to sinful self. Not that the commands of God are suited to bolster up the corruptions of men, no more than the law can be said to excite or revive sin, Kom. vii. 8, 9. But it is like a scandal taken, not given ; an occasion taken by the tumultuousness of our depraved nature. The Pharisees were devout in long prayers, not from a sense of
duty or a care of God's honour, but to satisfy their ambition, and rake together fuel for their covetousness (Mat. xxiii. 14, ' You devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers'), that they might have the greater esteem 'and richer offerings, to free by their prayers the souls of deceased persons from purgatory ; an opinion that some think the Jewish synagogue had then entertained,* since some of their doctors have defended such a notion. Men may observe some precepts of God to have a better conveniency to break others. Jehu was ordered to cut off the house of Ahab; the service he undertook was in itself acceptable, but corrupt nature misacted that which holiness and righteousness commanded. God appointed it to magnify his justice, and check the idolatry that had been supported by that family. Jehu acted it to satisfy his revenge and ambition ; he did it to fulfil his lust, not the will of God who enjoined him. Jehu applauds it
as zeal, and God abhors it as murder, and therefore would * avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu,' Hosea i. 4. Such kind of services are not paid to God for his own sake, but to ourselves for our lust's sake.
4. This is evident in neglecting to take God's direction upon emergent occasions. This follows the text, « None did seek God.' When we consult not with him, but trust more to our own will and counsel, we make our selves our own governors and lords, independent upon him ; as though we could be our own counsellors, and manage our concerns without his leave and assistance ; as though our works were in our own hands, and not in the hands of God, Eccles. ix. 1, that we can by our own strength and sagacity direct them to a successful end without him. If we must ' acquaint our
selves with God' before we decree a thing, Job xxii. 28, then to decree a thing without acquainting God with it, is to prefer our purblind wisdom before the infinite wisdom of God ; to resolve without consulting God, is to depose God and deify self, our own wit and strength. We would rather,
like Lot, follow our own humour and stay in Sodom, than observe the angel's order to go out of it.
* Gerrard in loc.
216 CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. XIY. 1.
5. As we account the actions of others to be good or evil, as they suit with or spurn against our fancies and humours. Virtue is a crime, and vice a virtue, as it is contrary or concurrent with our humours. Little reason have many men to blame the actions of others, but because they are not agreeable to what they affect and desire. We would have all men take directions from us, and move according to our beck ; hence that com mon speech in the world, Such an one is an honest friend. Why ? Because he is of their humour, and lacqueys according to their wills. Thus we make self the measure and square of good and evil in the rest of mankind, and judge of it by our own fancies, and not by the will of God, the proper rule
of judgment.
Well, then, let us consider, Is not this very common, are we not naturally more willing to displease God than displease ourselves, when it comes to a point that we must do one or other ? Is not our own counsel of more value with us than conformity to the will of the Creator ? Do not our judgments often run counter to the judgment of God ? Have his laws a greater respect from us than our own
humours ? Do we scruple the staining his honour when it comes in com petition with our own ? Are not the lives of most men a pleasing them selves, without a repentance that ever they displeased God ? Is not this to undeify God, to deify ourselves, and disown the propriety he hath in us by the right of creation and beneficence ? We order our own ways by our own humours, as though we were the authors of our own being, and had given ourselves life and understanding. This is to destroy the order that God hath placed between our wills and his own, and a lifting up of the foot above the head; it is the deformity of the creature. The honour of every rational creature consists in the service of the First Cause of his being; as the welfare of every creature consists in the orders and proportionable motion
of its members, according to the law of its creation.
He that moves and acts according to a law of his own, offers a manifest wrong to God, the highest wisdom and chiefest good, disturbs the order of the world, nulls the design of the righteousness and holiness of God. The law of God is the rule of that order he would have observed in the world. He that makes another law his rule, thrusts out the order of the Creator, and establishes the disorder of the creature.
But this will yet be more evident in the fourth thing. (4.) Man would make himself the rule of God, and give laws to his Creator. We are willing God should be our benefactor, but not our ruler ; we are content to admire his excellency and pay him a worship, provided he will walk by our rule. * This commits a riot upon his nature ; to think him to be what we ourselves would have him and wish him to be, Ps. 1. 21. We would amplify his mercy and contract his justice, we would have his power enlarged to supply our wants, and straitened when it goes about to revenge our crimes ; we would have him wise to defeat our enemies, but not to dis appoint our unworthy projects; we would have him all eye to regard our indigence, and blind, not to discern our guilt ; we would have him true to his promises, regardless of his precepts, and false to his threatenings ; we would new mint the nature of God according to our models, and shape a God according to our fancies, as he made us at first according to his own
image.'* Instead of obeying him, we would have him obey us; instead of owning and admiring his perfections, we would have him strip himself of his infinite excellency, and clothe himself with a nature agreeable to our own.
* Decay of Christian piety, p. 169, somewhat changed.
PS. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 217
This is not only to set up self as the law of God, but to make our own imaginations the model of the nature of God.
Corrupted man takes a pleasure to accuse or suspect the actions of God. We would not have him act conveniently to his nature, but act what doth gratify us, and abstain from what distastes us. Man is never well but when
he is impeaching one or other perfection of God's nature, and undermining his glory ; as if all his attributes must stand indicted at the bar of our pur blind reason. This weed shoots up in the exercise of grace. Peter intended
the refusal of our Saviour's washing his feet as an act of humility, but Christ understands it to be a prescribing a law to himself, a correcting his love, John xiii. 8, 9.
This is evidenced,
(1.) In the strivings against his law. How many men imply by their lives that they would have God deposed from his government, and some unrighteous being step into his throne ; as if God had or should change his laws of holiness into laws of licentiousness, as if he should abrogate his old eternal precepts and enact contrary ones in their stead. What is the lan
guage of such practices, but that they would be God's lawgivers and not his subjects ; that he should deal with them according to their own wills, and not according to his righteousness; that they could make a more holy, wise, and righteous law than the law of God; that their imaginations, and
not God's righteousness, should be the rule of his doing good to them ? Jer. ix. 13, ' They have forsaken my law, and walked after the imaginations of their own heart.'
When an act is known to be a sin, and the law that forbids it acknowledged to be the law of God, and after this we persist in that which is contrary to it, we tax his wisdom as if he did not understand what was convenient for
us; we would 'teach God knowledge,' Job xxi. 22; it is an implicit wish that God had laid aside the holiness of his nature, and framed a law to pleasure our lusts. When God calls for weeping, and mourning, and gird ing with sackcloth upon approaching judgments, then the corrupt heart is
for joy and gladness, eating of flesh and drinking of wine, because to-morrow they should die, Isa. xxii. 12, 13; as if God had mistaken himself when he ordered them so much sorrow when their lives were so near an end, and had lost his understanding when he ordered such a precept. Disobedience
is therefore called contention — Rom. ii. 8, * Contentious, and obey not the
truth ' — contention against God, whose truth it is that they disobey ; a dis pute with him, which hath more of wisdom in itself and conveniency for them, his truth or their imaginations. The more the love, goodness, and holiness of God appears in any command, the more are we naturally averse from it, and cast an imputation on him, as if he were foolish, unjust, cruel, and that we could have advised and directed him better. The goodness of God is eminent to us in appointing a day for his own worship, wherein we might converse with him and he with us, and our souls be refreshed with spiritual communications from him ; and we rather use it for the ease of our bodies than the advancement of our souls, as if God were mistaken and injured his creature when he urged the spiritual part of duty. Every dis obedience to the law is an implicit giving law to him, and a charge against him that he might have provided better for his creature.
(2.) In disapproving the methods of God's government of the world. If the counsels of heaven roll not about according to their schemes, instead of adoring the unsearchable depths of his judgments, they call him to the bar, and accuse him, because they are not fitted to their narrow vessels, as if a nut-shell could contain an ocean. As corrupt reason esteems the highest
218 CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. fPs. XIV. 1.
truths foolishness, so it counts the most righteous ways unequal. Thus we commence a suit against God, as though he had not acted righteously and wisely, but must give an account of his proceedings at our tribunal. This
is to make ourselves God's superiors, and presume to instruct him better in the government of the world ; as though God hindered himself and the world in not making us of his privy council, and not ordering his affairs according to the contrivances of our dim understandings.
Is not this manifest in our immoderate complaints of God's dealings with his church, as though there were a coldness in God's affections to his church, and a glowing heat towards it only in us ? Hence are those importunate desires for things which are not established by any promise, as though we would overrule and over-persuade God to comply with our humour. We have an ambition to be God's tutors, and direct him in his counsels ; ' Who hath been his counsellor,' saith the apostle ? Rom. xi. 34. Who ought not to be his counsellor, saith corrupt nature ? Men will find fault with God in what he suffers to be done according to their own minds, when they feel the bitter fruit of it. When Cain had killed his brother, and his conscience racked him, how saucily and discontentedly doth he answer God : Gen.
iv. 9, ' Am I my brother's keeper?' Since thou dost own thyself the rector of the world, thou shouldst have preserved his person from my fury ; since thou dost accept his sacrifice before my offering, preservation was due as well as acceptance. If this temper be found on earth, no wonder it is
lodged in hell. That deplorable person, under the sensible stroke of God's sovereign justice, would oppose his nay to God's will : Luke xvi. 30, * And he said, Nay, father Abraham : but if one went to them from the dead, they
will repent.' He would presume to prescribe more effectual means than Moses and the prophets to inform men of the clanger they incurred by their
sensuality. « David was displeased,' it is said, 2 Sam. vi. 8, ' when the Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah; ' not with Uzzah, who was the object of his pity, but with God, who was the inflicter of that punishment.
When any of our friends have been struck with a rod against our senti ments and wishes, have not our hearts been apt to swell in complaints against God, as though he disregarded the goodness of such a person, did not see with our eyes, and measure him by our esteem of him ? As if he should have asked our counsel before he had resolved, and managed himself according to our will rather than his own. If he be patient to the wicked, we are apt to tax his holiness, and accuse him as an enemy to his own law. If he inflict severity upon the righteous, we are ready to suspect his good ness, and charge him to be an enemy to his affectionate creature. If he spare the Nimrods of the world, we are ready to ask, * Where is the God of judgment?' Mai. ii. 17. If he afflict the pillars of the earth, we are ready
to question, Where is the God of mercy ? It is impossible, since the de praved nature of man, and the various interests and passions in the world, that infinite power and wisdom can act righteously for the good of the uni verse, but he will shake some corrupt interest or other upon the earth ; so various are the inclinations of men, and such a weather-cock judgment hath every man in himself, that the divine method he applauds this day, upon a change of his interest, he will cavil at the next. It is impossible for the just orders of God to please the same person many weeks, scarce many
minutes together. God must cease to be God, or to be holy, if he should manage the concerns of the world according to the fancies of men.
How unreasonable is it thus to impose laws upon God ? Must God revoke his own orders ? govern according to the dictates of his creature ? Must God, who hath only power and wisdom to sway the sceptre, become
PS. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 219
the obedient subject of every man's humour, and manage everything to serve the design of a simple creature ? This is not to be God, but to set the creature in his throne. Though this be not formally done, yet that it
is interpretatively and practically done is every hour's experience.
(3.) In impatience in our particular concerns. It is ordinary with man to charge God in his complaints in the time of affliction. Therefore it is
the commendation the Holy Ghost gives to Job : Job i. 22, that « in all this,' that is, in those many waves that rolled over him, ' he did not charge God foolishly ; ' he never spake nor thought anything unworthy of the majesty and righteousness of God. Yet afterwards, we find him warping ; he nick names the affliction to be God's oppression of him, and no act of his good ness : Job x. 3, ' Is it good for thee that thou shouldst oppress ? ' He seems to charge God with injustice for punishing him when he was not
wicked, for which he appeals to God, ' Thou knowest that I am not wicked,' ver. 7, and that God acted not like a Creator, ver. 8.
If our projects are disappointed, what fretfulness against God's manage ment are our hearts racked with ! How do uncomely passions bubble up in us, interpretatively at least, wishing that the arms of his power had been bound, and the eye of his omniscience been hoodwinked, that we might have been left to our own liberty and design ; and this oftentimes when we have more reason to bless him than repine at him. The Israelites mur mured more against God in the wilderness, with manna in their mouths, than they did at Pharaoh in the brick kilns, with their garlic and onions between their teeth. Though we repine at instruments in our afflictions, yet God counts it a reflection upon himself. The Israelites speaking against Moses,
was in God's interpretation a rebellion against himself, Num. xvi. 41 com pared with xvii. 10. A rebellion is always a desire of imposing laws and con ditions upon those against whom the rebellion is raised. The sottish dealings of the vinedressers in Franconia with the statue of St Urban, the protector of the vines, upon his own day, is an emblem of our dealing with God. If it be a clear day, and portend a prosperous vintage, they honour the statue, and drink healths to it ; if it be a rainy day, and presage a scantiness, they daub it with dirt in indignation. We cast out our mire and dirt against God when he acts cross to our wishes, and flatter him when the wind of his providence joins itself to the tide of our interest.
Men set a high price upon themselves, and are angry God values them not at the same rate, as if their judgment concerning themselves were more
piercing than his. This is to 'disannul God's judgment,' and 'condemn him,' and 'count ourselves righteous,' as it is Job xl. 8. This is the epi demical disease of human nature ; they think they deserve caresses instead of rods, and upon crosses are more ready to tear out the heart of God than reflect humbly upon their own hearts. When we accuse God, we applaud ourselves, and make ourselves his superiors, intimating that we have acted more righteously to him than he to us, which is the highest manner of im posing laws upon him, as that emperor accused the justice of God for snatching him out of the world too soon.* What an high piece of practical atheism is this, to desire that that infinite wisdom should be guided by our folly, and asperse the righteousness of God rather than blemish our own. Instead of silently submitting to his will and adoring his wisdom, we declaim against him as an unwise and unjust governor. We would invert his order, make him the steward, and ourselves the proprietors of what we are and have. We deny ourselves to be sinners, and our mercies to be forfeited.
(4.) It is evidenced in envying the gifts and prosperities of others. Envy
* Ccelum suspicions vitam, &c. Vita Titi, ca. 10.
220 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. XIV. 1.
hath a deep tincture of practical atheism, and is a cause of atheism.* "We are unwilling to leave God to be the proprietor, and do what he will with his own, and as a Creator to do what he pleases with his creatures ; we assume a liberty to direct God what portions, when and how he should bestow upon his creatures ; we would not let him choose his own favourites, and pitch upon his own instruments for his glory. As if God should have asked counsel of us how he should dispose of his benefits. We are unwill ing to leave to his wisdom the management of his own judgments to the wicked, and the dispensation of his own love to ourselves. This temper is natural ; it is as ancient as the first age of the world. Adam envied God a felicity by himself, and would not spare a tree that he had reserved as a mark of his sovereignty. The passion that God had given Cain to employ against his sin he turns against his Creator ; he was wroth with God, Gen.
iv. 5, and with Abel ; but envy was at the root, because his brother's sacri fice was accepted and his refused. How could he envy his accepted person without reflecting upon the acceptor of his offering ! Good men have not been free from it. Job questions the goodness of. God, that he should
* shine upon the counsel of the wicked,' Job x. 3. Jonah had too much of self in fearing to be counted a false prophet, when he came with absolute denunciations of wrath, Jonah iv. 2. And when he could not bring a volley of destroying judgments upon the Ninevites, he would shoot his fury against his master, envying those poor people the benefit, and God the honour of
his mercy ; and this after he had been sent into the whale's belly to learn humiliation, which, though he exercised there, yet those two great branches of self-pride and envy were not lopped off from him in the belly of hell. And God was fain to take pains with him, and ,by a gourd scarce makes him ashamed of his peevishness. Envy is not like to cease, till all atheism be cashiered, and that is in heaven.