Part 16
This sin is an imitation of the devil, whose first sin upon earth was envy, as his first sin in heaven was pride. It is a wishing that to ourselves which the devil asserted as his right, to give the kingdoms of the world to whom he pleased, Luke iv. 6. It is an anger with God because he hath not given us a patent for government. It utters the same language in disparagement of God as Absalom did in reflection on his father : If I were king in Israel, justice should be better managed ; if I were Lord of the world, there should
be more wisdom to discern the merits of men, and more righteousness in distributing to them their several portions. Thus we impose laws upon God, and would have the righteousness of his will submit to the corruptions of ours, and have him lower himself to gratify our minds rather than fulfil his own. We charge the author of those gifts with injustice, that he hath not dealt equally, or with ignorance, that he hath mistook his mark. In the same breath that we censure him by our peevishness, we would guide him by our wills.
This is an unreasonable part of atheism. If all were in the same state and condition, the order of the world would be impaired. Is God bound to have a care of thee, and neglect all the world besides ? ' Shall the earth be forsaken for thee ? Job xviii. 4. Joseph had reason to be displeased with his brothers, if they had muttered, because he gave Benjamin a double por tion, and the rest a single. It was unfit that they, who had deserved no gift at all, should prescribe him rules how to dispense his own doles. Much more unworthy is it to deal so with God ; yet this is too rife.
(5.) It is evidenced in corrupt matters or ends of prayer and praise. When we are importunate for those things that we know not whether the
* Because wicked men flourish in the world; Sollicitor nullos ease putare Deos.
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righteousness, holiness, and wisdom of God can grant, because he hath not discovered his will in any promise to bestow them, we would then impose such conditions on God which he never obliged himself to grant, when we pray for things not so much to glorify God, which ought to be the end of prayer, as to gratify ourselves. We acknowledge, indeed, by the act of petitioning, that there is a God, but we would have him un-God himself to be at our beck, and debase himself to serve our turns. When we desire those things which are repugnant to those attributes whereby he doth manage the government of the world ; when by some superficial services we think we have gained indulgence to sins, which seems to be the thought of the strumpet in her paying her vows to wallow more freely in the mire of her
sensual pleasures : Pro. vii. 14, * I have peace-offerings with me ; this day I have paid my vows :' I have made my peace with God, and have entertain ment for thee. Or when men desire God to bless them in the commission of some sin. As when Balak and Balaam offered sacrifices that they might prosper in the cursing of the Israelites, Num. xxv. 1, &c.
So for a man to pray to God to save him, while he neglects the means of salvation appointed by God, or to renew him when he slights the word, the only instrument to that purpose, this is to impose laws upon God contrary to the declared will and wisdom of God, and to desire him to slight his own institutions. When we come into the presence of God with lusts reeking in our hearts, and leap from sin to duty, we would impose the law of our cor ruption on the holiness of God. While we pray the will of God may be done, self-love wishes its own will may be performed, as though God should serve our humours when we will not obey his precepts. And when we make vows under any affliction, what is it often but a secret contrivance to bend and natter him to our conditions ! We will serve him if he will restore
us ; we think thereby to compound the business with him, and bring him down to our terms.
(6.) It is evidenced in positive and bold interpretations of the judgments of God in the world. To interpet the judgments of God to the disadvantage of the sufferer, unless it be an unusual judgment, and have a remarkable hand of God in it, and the sin be rendered plainly legible in the affliction, is a presumption of this nature. When men will judge the Galileans, whose blood Pilate mingled with the sacrifices, greater sinners than others, and themselves righteous, because no drops of it were dashed upon them ; or when Shimei, being of the house of Saul, shall judge according to his own
interest, and desires David's flight upon Absalom's rebellion to be a punish ment for invading the rights of Saul's family, and depriving him of the suc cession in the kingdom, 2 Sam. xvi. 5, as if he had been of God's privy council when he decreed such acts of justice in the world.
Thus we would fasten our own wills as a law or motive upon God, and interpret his acts according to the motions of self. Is it not too ordinary, when God sends an affliction upon those that bear ill will to us, to judge it to
be a righting of our cause, to be a fruit of God's concern for us in revenging our wrongs, as if we had heard the secrets of God, or as Eliphaz saith, had turned over the records of heaven, Job xv. 8. This is a judgment according to self-love, not a divine rule, and imposeth laws upon heaven, implying a secret wish that God would take care only of them, make our concerns his own, not in ways of kindness and justice, but according to our fancies. And this is common in the profane world, in those curses they so readily spit out upon any affront ; as if God were bound to draw his arrows and shoot them into the heart of all their offenders at their beck and pleasure.
(7.) It is evidenced, in mixing rules for the worship of God, with those
222 CHABNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. XIY. 1.
which have been ordered by him. Since men are most prone to live by sense, it is no wonder that a sensible worship, which affects their outward sense with some kind of amazement, is dear to them, and spiritual worship most loathsome.
Pompous rites have been the great engine wherewith the devil hath deceived the souls of men, and wrought them to a nauseating the simplicity of divine worship, as unworthy the majesty and excellency of God, 2 Cor. xi. 3. Thus the Jews would not understand the glory of the second temple in the presence of the Messiah, because it had not the pompous grandeur of
that of Solomon's erecting.
Hence in all ages men have been forward to disfigure God's models, and dress up a brat of their own ; as though God had been defective in providing for his own honour in his institutions without the assistance of his creature. This hath always been in the world : the old world had their imaginations, and the new world hath continued them. The Israelites, in the midst of miracles, and under the memory of a famous deliverance, would erect a
calf. The Pharisees, that sat in Moses's chair, would coin new traditions, and enjoin them to be as current as the law of God, Mat. xxiii. 6. Papists will be blending the Christian appointments with pagan ceremonies, to please the carnal fancies of the common people. Altars have been multi plied, under the knowledge of the law of God, Hos. viii. 12. Interest is
made the balance of the conveniency of God's injunctions. Jeroboam fitted a worship to politic ends, and posted up calves to prevent his subjects revolt ing from his sceptre, which might be occasioned by their resort to Jerusa lem, and converse with the body of the people from whom they were separated,
1 Kings xii. 27. Men will be putting their own dictates with God's laws, and are unwilling he should be the sole governor of the world without their counsel : they will not suffer him to be the Lord of that which is purely and solely his concern. How often hath the practice of the primitive church, the custom wherein we are bred, the sentiments of our ancestors, been owned as a more authentic rule in matters of worship, than the mind of God deli vered in his word ! It is natural by creation to worship God ; and it is as natural by corruption for man to worship him in a human way, and not in a divine. Is not this to impose laws upon God ? to esteem ourselves wiser than he ? to think him negligent of his own service, and that our feeble brains can find out ways to accommodate his honour better than himself hath done ? Thus do men for the most part equal their own imaginations
to God's oracles : as Solomon built a high place to Moloch and Chemosh, upon the mount of Olives, to face on the east part Jerusalem and the temple, 1 Kings xi. 7. This is not only to impose laws on God, but also to make self the standard of them.
(8.) It is evidenced, in fitting interpretations of Scripture to their own minds and humours. Like the Lacedemonians, that dressed the images of their gods according to the fashion of their own country, we would wring Scripture to serve our own designs, and judge the law of God by the law of sin, and make the serpentine seed in us to be the interpreter of divine oracles. This is like Belshazzar; to drink healths out of the sacred vessels. As God is the author of his law and word, so he is the best interpreter of it ; the Scripture having an impress of divine wisdom, holiness, and good ness, must be regarded according to that impress, with a submission and meekness of spirit and reverence of God in it. But when in our inquiries into the word, we inquire not of God, but consult flesh and blood, the tem per of the times wherein we live, or the satisfaction of a party we side withal, and impose glosses upon it according to our own fancies, it is to
PS. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 223
put laws upon God, and make self the rule of him. He that interprets the law to bolster up some eager appetite against the will of the lawgiver, ascribes to himself as great an authority as he that enacted it.
(9.) In falling off from God after some fair compliances, when his will grateth upon us and crosseth ours. They will walk with him as far as he pleaseth them, and leave him upon the first distaste, as though God must observe their humours more than they his will. Amos must be suspended
from prophesying, because * the land could not bear his words,' Amos vii. 10, &c., and his discourses condemned their unworthy practices against God. The young man came not to receive directions from our Saviour, but expected a confirmation of his own rules, rather than an imposition of new, Mark x. 17, 22. He rather cares for commendations than instructions, and
upon the disappointment turns his back : ' he was sad,' that Christ would not suffer him to be rich and a Christian together, and leaves him because his command was not suitable to the law of his covetousness. Some truths that are at a further distance from us we can hear gladly ; but when the conscience begins to smart under others, if God will not observe our wills, we will with Herod be a law to ourselves, Mark yi. 20, 27.
More instances might be observed. Ingratitude is a setting up self, and an imposing laws on God. It is as much as to say God did no more than he was obliged to do ; as if the mercies we have were an act of duty in God, and not of bounty. Insatiable
desires after wealth : hence are those speeches, James iv. 13, ' We will go into such a city, and buy and sell,' &c., ' to get gain;' as though they had the command of God, and God must lacquey after their wills. When our hearts are not contented with any supply of our wants, but are craving an overplus for our lust ; when we are unsatisfied in the midst of plenty, and still, like the grave, cry, Give, give.
Incorrigibleness under affliction, &c. II. The second main thing. As man would be a law to himself, so he would be his own end and happiness in opposition to God.
Here four things shall be discoursed on : 1. Man would make himself his own end and happiness. 2. He would make any thing his end and happiness rather than God. 3. He would make himself the end of all creatures. 4. He would make himself the end of God.
1. Man would make himself his own end and happiness. As God ought to be esteemed the first cause, in point of our dependence on him, so he ought to be our last end, in point of our enjoyment of him. When we therefore trust in ourselves, we refuse him as the first cause ; and when we act for ourselves, and expect a blessedness from ourselves, we refuse him as the chiefest good, and last end, which is an undeniable piece of atheism ; for man is a creature of a higher rank than others in the world, and was not made, as animals, plants, and other works of the divine power, materially to glorify God ; but a rational creature, intentionally to honour God by obe dience to his rule, dependence on his goodness, and zeal for his glory. It is therefore as much a slighting of God, for man, a creature, to set himself up as his own end, as to regard himself as his own law.
For the discovery of this, observe that there is a threefold self-love. (1.) Natural, which is common to us by the law of nature with other creatures, inanimate as well as animate, and so closely twisted with the nature of every creature, that it cannot be dissolved but with the disso lution of nature itself. It consisted not with the wisdom and goodness of
God to create an unnatural nature, or to command any thing unnatural :
224 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. XIV. 1.
nor doth he ; for when he commands us to sacrifice ourselves, and dearest
lives for himself, it is not without a promise of a more noble state and being in exchange for what we lose. This self-love is not only commendable, but necessary, as a rule to measure that duty we owe to our neighbour, whom we cannot love as ourselves, if we do not first love ourselves : God having planted this self-love in our nature, makes this natural principle the measure of our affection to all mankind of the same blood with ourselves.
(2.) Carnal self-love ; when a man loves himself above God, in opposi tion to God, with a contempt of God; when our thoughts, affections, designs, centre only in our own fleshly interest, and rifle God of his honour,
to make a present of it to ourselves. Thus the natural self-love, in itself good, becomes criminal by the excess, when it would be superior and not subordinate to God.
(3.) A gracious self-love. When we love ourselves for higher ends than the nature of a creature, as a creature dictates, viz., in subserviency to the glory of God, this is a reduction of the revolted creature to his true and happy order. A Christian is therefore said to be ' created in Christ to good works,' Eph. ii. 10. As all creatures were created, not only for themselves, but for the honour of God, so the grace of the new creation carries a man to answer this end, and to order all his operations to the honour of God and
his well-pleasing.
The first is from nature, the second from sin, the third from grace. The first is implanted by creation, the second the fruit of corruption, the third is by the powerful operation of grace.
This carnal self-love is set up in the stead of God as our last end ; like the sea, which all the little and great streams of our actions run to, and rest in. And this is,
1. Natural. It sticks as close to us as our souls ; it is as natural as sin,
the foundation of all the evil in the world. As self-abhorrency is the first stone that is laid in conversion, so an inordinate self-love was the first inlet to all iniquity. As grace is a rising from self to centre in God, so is sin a shrinking from God into the mire of a carnal selfishness. Since every creature is nearest to itself, and, next, to God, it cannot fall from God, but
must immediately sink into self ; * and therefore all sins are well said to be branches or modifications of this fundamental passion. What is wrath but a defence and strengthening self against the attempts of some real or imagi nary evil ? Whence springs envy, but from a self-love, grieved at its own wants in the midst of another's enjoyment, able to supply it ? What is impatience, but a regret that self is not provided for at the rate of our wish, and that it hath met with a shock against supposed merit ? What is pride, but a sense of self-worth, a desire to have self of a higher elevation than others ? What is drunkenness, but a seeking a satisfaction for sensual self in the spoils of reason ? No sin is committed as sin, but as it pretends a
self-satisfaction. Sin indeed may well be termed a man's self, because it is, since the loss of original righteousness, the form that overspreads every part of our souls. The understanding assents to nothing false, but under the notion of true, and the will embraceth nothing evil, but under the notion of good ; but the rule whereby we measure the truth and goodness of pro posed objects is not the unerring word, but the inclinations of self, the gra tifying of which is the aim of our whole lives.
Sin and self are all one. What is called a ' living to sin' in one place, Rom. vi., is called a living to self in another: 2 Cor. v. 15, * That they that live should not live unto themselves.' And upon this account it is
* More, Dial. ii. sect. 17, page 274.
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that both the Hebrew word NtOH, and the Greek word apagrdveiv, used in Scripture to express sin, properly signify to miss the mark, and swerve from that white to which all our actions should be directed, viz., the glory of God. When we fell to loving ourselves, we fell from loving God ; and therefore, when the psalmist saith, Ps. xiv. 2, there were none that sought God, viz.,
as the last end, he presently adds, * they are all gone aside,' viz., from their true mark, and therefore become filthy.
2. Since it is natural, it is also universal. The not seeking God is as universal as our ignorance of him. No man in a state of nature but hath it predominant ; no renewed man on this side heaven but hath it partially : the one hath it flourishing, the other hath it struggling. If to aim at the glory of God as the chief end, and not to live to ourselves, be the greatest mark of the restoration of the divine image, 2 Cor. v. 15, and a conformity to Christ, who glorified not himself, Heb. v. 5, but the Father, John xvii. 4, then every man wallowing in the mire of corrupt nature pays a homage to self, as a renewed man is biassed by the honour of God.
The Holy Ghost excepts none from this crime : Philip, ii. 21, * All seek their own.' It is rare for them to look above or beyond themselves ; what soever may be the immediate subject of their thoughts and inquiries, yet the utmost end and stage is their profit, honour, or pleasure. Whatever it be, that immediately possesses the mind and will, self sits like a queen, and sways the sceptre, and orders things at that rate, that God is excluded, and
can find no room in all his thoughts : Ps. x. 4, ' The wicked through the pride of his countenance will not seek after God ; God is not in all his
thoughts.' The whole little world of man is so overflowed with a deluge of self, that the dove, the glory of the Creator, can find no place where to set its foot ; and if ever it gain the favour of admittance, it is to disguise and be a vassal to some carnal project ; as the glory of God was a mask for the mur dering his servants.
It is from the power of this principle that the difficulty of conversion ariseth. As there is no greater pleasure to a believing soul than the giving itself up to God, and no stronger desire in him than to have a fixed and unchangeable will to serve the designs of his honour, so there is no greater torment to a wicked man than to part with his carnal ends, and lay down the Dagon of self at the feet of the ark. Self-love and self-opinion in the Pharisees, waylaid all the entertainment of truth : John v. 44, « They sought honour one of another, and not the honour which comes from God.' It is of so large an extent, and so insinuating nature, that it winds itself into the exercise of moral virtues, mixeth with our eharity, Mat. vi. 2, and finds nourishment in the ashes of martyrdom, 1 Cor. xiii. 3.
This making ourselves our end will appear in a few things.
(1.) In frequent self-applauses, and inward overweening reflections. Nothing more ordinary in the natures of men, than a dotage on their own perfections, acquisitions, or actionsin the world. Most * think of themselves above what they ought to think,' Rom. xii. 8, 4. Few think of themselves so meanly as they ought to think : this sticks as close to us as our skin ; and as humi lity is the beauty of grace, this is the filthiest soil of nature. Our thoughts run more delightfully upon the track of our own perfections than the excel lency of God ; and when we find any thing of a seeming worth, that may make us glitter in the eyes of the world, how cheerfully do we grasp and embrace ourselves ! When the grosser profanenesses of men have been dis carded, and the floods of them dammed up, the head of corruption, whence they sprang, will swell the higher within, in selfapplauding speculations of their own reformation, without acknowledgments of their own weaknesses,
VOL. I. P
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and desires of divine assistance to make a further progress. * I thank God I am not like this publican,' Luke xviii. 11. A selfreflection, with a con tempt rather than compassion to his neighbour, is frequent in every Pha risee. The vapours of self-affections in our clouded understandings, like those in the air in misty mornings, alter the appearance of things, and make them look bigger than they are. This is thought by some to be the sin of the fallen angels, who, reflecting upon their own natural excellency, superior to other creatures, would find a blessedness in their own nature, as God did in his, and make themselves the last end of their actions. It is from this principle we are naturally so ready to compare ourselves, rather with those that are below us, than with those that are above us ; and often think those that are above us inferior to us, and secretly glory that we are become none of the meanest and lowest in natural or moral excellencies.
How far were the gracious penmen of the Scripture from this, who when possessed and directed by the Spirit of God, and filled with a sense of him, instead of applauding themselves, publish upon record their own faults to all the eyes of the world ! And if Peter, as some think, dictated the Gospel, which Mark wrote as his amanuensis, it is observable that his crime in deny ing his Master, is aggravated in that gospel in some circumstances, and less spoken of his repentance than in the other evangelists : ' When he thought thereon, he wept,' Mark xiv. 72 ; but in the other, ' he went out, and wept bitterly,' Luke xxii. 62.
This is one part of atheism and self-idolatry, to magnify ourselves, with the forgetfulness and to the injury of our Creator.
(2.) In ascribing the glory of what we do or have to ourselves, to our own wisdom, power, virtue, &c. How flaunting is Nebuchadnezzar at the pros pect of Babylon, which he had exalted to be the head of so great an empire :
Dan. iv. 30, ' Is not this great Babylon that I have built ? For,' &c. He struts upon the battlements of his palace, as if there were no God but himself in the world, while his eye could not but see the heavens above him to be none of his own framing ; attributing his acquisitions to his own arm, and refer ring them to his own honour, for his own delight ; not for the honour of God, as a creature ought ; nor for the advantage of his subjects, as the duty of a prince. He regards Babylon as his heaven, and himself as his idol, as if he were all, and God nothing. An example of this we have in the present age ; but it is often observed that God vindicates his own honour, brings the most heroical men to contempt and unfortunate ends, as a punishment of their
pride, as he did here : Dan. iv. 31, « When the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven,' &c.* This was Herod's crime, to suffer others to do it. He had discovered his eloquence actively, and made himself his own end passively, in approving the flatteries of the people, and offered not with one hand to God the glory he received from his people with the other, Acts xii. 22, 23. Samosatenus is reported to put down the hymns which were sung for the glory of God and Christ, and caused songs to be sung in the temple for his own honour.
When anything succeeds well, we are ready to attribute it to our own prudence and industry. If we meet with a cross, we fret against the stars and fortune and second causes, and sometimes against God, as they curse God as well as their king, Isa. viii. 21, not acknowledging any defect in themselves. The psalmist, by his repetition of ' Not unto us, not unto us, but to thy name give glory,' Ps. cxv. 1, implies the naturality of this temper, and the difficulty to cleanse our hearts from those self-reflections.
If it be angelical to refuse an undue glory stolen from God's throne, Rev.
* Sanderson's Sermons.
PS. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 227
xxii. 8, 9, it is diabolical to accept and cherish it. ' To seek our own glory
is not glory,' Prov. xxv. 27. It is vile, and the dishonour of a creature, who, by the law of his creation, is referred to another end. So much as we sacrifice to our own credit, to the dexterity of our hands, or the sagacity of our wit, we detract from God.
(3.) In desires to have self-pleasing doctrines. When we cannot endure to hear anything that crosses the flesh, though the wise man tells us, ' It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than the song of fools,' Eccles. vii. 5. If Hanani the seer reprove king Asa for not relying on the Lord, his pas sion shall be armed for self against the prophet, and arrest him a prisoner, 2 Chron. xvi. 10. If Micaiah declare to Ahab the evil that shall befall him, Amon the governor shall receive orders to clap him up in a dungeon. Fire
doth not sooner seize upon combustible matter than fury will be kindled, if self be but pinched. This interest of lustful self barred the heart of Herodias against the entertainment of the truth, and caused her savagely to dip her hands in the blood of the Baptist, to make him a sacrifice to that inward idol, Mark vi. 18, 19, 28.
(4.) In being highly concerned for injuries done to ourselves, and little or not at all concerned for injuries done to God. How will the blood rise in us, when our honour and reputation is invaded, and scarce reflect upon the dishonour God suffers in our sight and hearing, violent passions will trans form us into Boanergeses in the one case, and our unconcernedness render us Gallios in the other. We shall extenuate that which concerns God, and aggravate that which concerns ourselves. Nothing but the death of Jonathan, a firstborn and a generous son, will satisfy his father Saul, when the authority of his edict was broken by his tasting of honey, though he had recompensed his crime, committed in ignorance, by the purchase of a gallant
victory. But when the authority of God was violated in saving the Ama-
lekites' cattle against the command of a greater sovereign than himself, he can daub the business, and excuse it with a design of sacrificing. He was not
so earnest in hindering the people from the breach of God's command, as he was in vindicating the honour of his own, 1 Sam. xv. 21. He could hardly
admit of an excuse to salve his own honour ; but in the concerns of God's honour pretends piety, to cloak his avarice.
And it is often seen, when the violation of God's authority and the stain of our own reputation are coupled together, we are more troubled for what disgraces us than for what dishonours God. When Saul had thus trans gressed, he is desirous that Samuel would turn again to preserve his own honour before the elders, rather than grieved that he had broken the com mand of God, ver. 30.
(5.) In trusting in ourselves; when we consult with our own wit and wisdom, more than inquire of God, and ask leave of him. As the Assyrian,
Isa. x. 13, ' By the strength of my hands I have done it, and by wisdom, for I am prudent.' When we attempt things in the strength of our own heads and parts, and trust in our own industry, without application to God for direction, blessing, and success, we affect the privilege of the Deity, and make gods of ourselves ; the same language in reality with Ajax in Sophocles, ' Others think to overcome with the assistance of the gods, but I hope to gain honour without them.' Dependence and trust is an act due from the creature only to God. Hence God aggravates the crime of the Jews in trusting in Egypt : Isa. xxxi. 3, ' The Egyptians are men, and not gods.' Confidence in ourselves is a defection from God, Jer. xvii. 5. And when we depart from and cast off God to depend upon ourselves, which is but an arm of flesh, we choose the arm of flesh for our god ; we rob God of that
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confidence we ought to place in him, and that adoration which is due to him, and build it upon another foundation. Not that we are to neglect the reason and parts God hath given us, or spend more time in prayer than in consulting about our own affairs, but to mix our own intentions in business, with ejaculations to heaven, and take God along with us in every motion ; but certainly it is an idolising of self when we are more diligent in our
attendance on our own wit then fervent in our recourses to God.
(6.) The power of sinful self, above the efficacy of the notion of God, is evident in our workings for carnal self against the light of our own con sciences. When men of sublime reason, and clear natural wisdom, are voluntary slaves to their own lusts, row against the stream of their own consciences, serve carnal self with a disgraceful and disturbing drudgery, making it their god, sacrificing natural self, all sentiments of virtue, and the quiet of their lives to ths pleasure, honour, and satisfaction of carnal self, — this is a prostituting God in his deputy conscience to carnal affec tions, when their eyes are shut against the enlightnings of it, and their ears deaf to its voice, but open to the least breath and whisper of self ; a debt that the creature owes supremely to God.
Much more might be said, but let us see what Atheism lurks in this, and how it intrencheth upon God.
1. It is a usurping God's prerogative. It is God's prerogative to be his own end, and act for his own glory, because there is nothing superior to him in excellency and goodness to act for. He had not his being from anything without himself, whereby he should be obliged to act for anything but him self. To make ourselves, then, our last end, is to co-rival God in his being, the supreme good and blessedness to himself, as if we were our own prin ciple, the author of our own being, and were not obliged to a higher power than ourselves for what we are and have. To direct the lines of all our motions to ourselves is to imply that they first issued only from ourselves. When we are rivals to God in his chief end, we own or desire to be rivals to him in the principle of his being. This is to set ourselves in the place of God. AH things have something without them, and above them as their end. All inferior creatures act for some superior order in the rank of creation ; the lesser animals are designed for the greater, and all for man. Man therefore for something nobler than himself. To make ourselves, therefore, our own end, is to deny any superior, to whom we are to direct our actions. God alone, being the supreme being, can be his own ultimate end. For if there were anything higher and better than God, the purity and righteousness of his own nature would cause him to act for and toward that as his chiefest mark. This is the highest sacrilege, to alienate the proper good and rights of God, and employ them for our own use ; to steal from him his own honour, and put it into our own cabinets, like those birds that ravished the sacrifice from
the altar and carried it to their own nests.* When we love only ourselves, and act for no other end but ourselves, we invest ourselves with the dominion which is the right of God, and take the crown from his head ; for as the crown belongs to the king, so to love his own will, to will by his own will and for himself is the property of God, because he hath no other will, no other end above him to be the rule and scope of his actions.
When therefore we are by self-love transformed wholly into ourselves, we make ourselves our own foundation, without God and against God ; when we mind our own glory and praise, we would have a royal state equal with
God, who ' created all things for himself,' Prov. xvi. 4. What can man do more for God than he naturally doth for himself, since he doth all those things
* Sabunde tit. 146.
PS. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 229
for himself which he should do for God ? We own ourselves to be our own creators and benefactors, and fling off all sentiments of gratitude to him.
2. It is a vilifying of God. When we make ourselves our end, it is plain language that God is not our happiness. We postpone God to ourselves, as if he were not an object so excellent and fit for our love as ourselves are (for it is irrational to make that our end which is not God, and not the chiefest
good). • It is to deny him to be better than we, to make him not to be so good as ourselves, and so fit to be our chiefest good as ourselves are, that he hath not deserved any such acknowledgment at our hands by all that he hath done for us. We assert ourselves his superiors by such kind of acting, though we are infinitely more inferior to God than any creature can be to us. Man cannot dishonour God more than by referring that to his own glory
which God made for his own praise, upon" account whereof he only hath a right to glory and praise, and none else. He thus ' changeth the glory of the incorruptible God into a corruptible image,' Rom. i. 23 ; a perishing fame and reputation, which extends but little beyond the limits of his own habitation, or, if it doth, survives but a few years, and perishes at last with «the age wherein he lived.
3. It is as much as in us lies a destroying of God. By this temper we destroy that God that made us, because we destroy his intention and his honour. God cannot outlive his will and his glory, because he cannot have any other rule but his own will, or any other end but his own honour. The setting up self as our end puts a nullity upon the true Deity ; by paying to ourselves that respect and honour which is due to God, we make the true
God as no God. Whosoever makes himself a king of his prince's rights and territories, manifests an intent to throw him out of his government. To choose ourselves as our end is to undeify God, since to be the last end of a rational creature is a right inseparable from the nature of the Deity, and there fore not to set God but self always before us, is to acknowledge no being but ourselves to be God.
II. The second thing ; man would make anything his end and happiness rather than God. An end is so necessary in all our actions, that he deserves not the name of a rational creature that proposeth not one to himself. This is the distinction between rational creatures and others ; they act with a formal intention, whereas other creatures are directed to their end by a natural instinct, and moved by nature to what the others should be moved by reason. When a man therefore acts for that end, which was not intended him by the law of his creation, nor is suited to the noble faculties of his soul, he acts contrary to God, overturns his order, and merits no better a title than that of an atheist.
A man may be said two ways to make a thing his last end and chief good.
1. Formally. When he actually judges this or that thing to be his chiefest good, and orders all things to it. So man doth not formally judge sin to be good, or any object which is the incentive of sin to be his last end. This cannot be while he hath the exercise of his rational faculties.
2. Virtually and implicitly. When he loves anything against the command of God, and prefers in the stream of his actions the enjoyment of that before the fruition of God, and lays out more strength and expends more time in the gaining that than answering the true end of his creation. When he acts so as if something below God could make him happy without God, or that God could not make him happy without the addition of some thing else. Thus the glutton makes a god of his dainties, the ambitious man of his honours, the incontinent man of his lust, and the covetous man of his wealth, and consequently esteems them as his chiefest good, and the
CHAENOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. XIV. 1.
most noble end to which he directs his thoughts ; thus he vilifies and lessens the true God, which can make him happy, in a multitude of false gods, that can only render him miserable. He that loves pleasure more than God, says in his heart there is no god but his pleasure. He that loves his belly more than God, says in his heart there is no god but his belly. Their happiness is not accounted to lie in that God that made the world, but in the pleasure or profit they make their god.
In this, though a created object be the immediate and subordinate term to which we turn, yet principally and ultimately the affection to it terminates in self; nothing is naturally entertained by us, but as it affects our sense or mingles with some promise of advantage to us.
This is seen, 1. In the fewer thoughts we have of God than of anything else. Did we apprehend God to be our chiefest good and highest end, should we grudge
him the pains of a few days' thoughts upon him ? Men in their travels are frequently thinking upon their intended stage ; but our thoughts run upon new acquisitions to increase our wealth, rear up our families, revenge our
injuries, and support our reputation. Trifles possess us, but ' God is not iu. all our thoughts,' Ps. x. 4, seldom the sole object of them. We have durable thoughts of transitory things, and flitting thoughts of a durable and eternal good. The covenant of grace engageth the whole heart to God, and bars anything else from engrossing it ; but what strangers are God and the souls of most men ! Though we have the knowledge of him by creation, yet he is for the most part an unknown God in the relations wherein he
stands to us, because a God undelighted in. Hence it is, as one observes,* that because we observe not the ways of God's wisdom, conceive not of him in his vast perfections, nor are stricken with an admiration of his goodness, that we have fewer good sacred poems than of any other kind. The wits of men hang the wing when they come to exercise their reasons and fancies about God. Parts and strength are given us, as well as corn and wine to the Israelites, for the service of God, but those are consecrated to some cursed Baal, Hosea ii. 8. Like Venus in the poet, we forsake heaven to follow some Adonis.
2. In the greedy pursuit of the world. f When we pursue worldly wealth or worldly reputation with more vehemency than the riches of grace or the favour of God. When we have a foolish imagination that our happiness consists in them, we prefer earth before heaven, broken cisterns which can hold no water before an ever springing fountain of glory and bliss, and, as though there were a defect in God, cannot be content with him as our por tion without an addition of something inferior to him ; when we make it our hopes to say to the wedge, Thou art my confidence, and rejoice more because it is great and because our hand hath gotten much, than in the privilege of communion with God and the promise of an everlasting fruition of him, Job xxxi. 24, 25, this is so gross, that Job joins it with the idolatry of the sun and moon, which he purgeth himself of, ver. 26. And the apostle, when he mentions covetousness or covetous men, passes it not over without the title of idolatry to the vice, and idolater to the person, Col. iii. 5, Eph. v. 5, in that it is a preferring clay and dirt as an end more desirable than the original of all goodness, in regard of affection and dependence.
3. In a strong addictedness to sensual pleasures, Philip, iii. 19. Who make their belly their God, subjecting the truths of God to the maintenance
of their luxury. In debasing the higher faculties to project for the satis-
* Jaekson, book i. cap, 14, p. 48. t Quod quisque prse cseteris petit, summum judicat bonum. — Boet. lib. 3, p. 24.
PS. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 231
faction of the sensitive appetite as their chief happiness, whereby many render themselves no better than a rout of sublimated brutes among men,
and gross atheists to God. When men's thoughts run also upon inventing new methods to satisfy their bestial appetite, forsaking the pleasures which are to be had in God, which are the delights of angels, for the satisfaction of brutes ; this is an open and unquestionable refusal of God for our end, when our rest is in them, as if they were the chief good, and not God.
4. In paying a service upon any success in the world to instruments, more than to God the sovereign author. When ' they sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their drag,' Hab. i. 16. Not that the Assyrian did offer a sacrifice to his arms, but ascribed to them what was due only to God, and appropriated the victory to his forces and arms. The prophet alludes to those that worshipped their warlike instruments, whereby they had attained great victories, and those artificers who worshipped the tools by which they had purchased great wealth in the stead of God, preferring them as the causes of their happiness before God who governs the world.
And are not our affections, upon the receiving of good things, more closely . fixed to the instruments of conveyance than to the chief benefactor from
whose coffers they are taken ? Do we not more delight in them, and hug them with a greater endearedness, as if all our happiness depended on them, and God were no more than a bare spectator ? Just as if when a man were warmed by a beam he should adore that, and not admire the sun that darts it out upon him.
5. In paying a respect to man more than God. When in a public attend ance on his service, we will not laugh or be garish, because men see us ; but our hearts shall be in a ridiculous posture, playing with feathers and trifling fancies, though God see us ; as though our happinesss consisted in the pleasing of men, and our misery in a respect to God. There is no fool that saith in his heart there is no God, but he sets up something in his heart as a god.
This is,
1. A debasing of God. (1.) In setting up a creature. It speaks God less amiable than the creature, short of those perfections which some silly sordid thing which hath engrossed their affections is possessed with ; as if the cause of all being could be transcended by his creature, and a vile lust could equal, yea, surmount the loveliness of God ; it is to say to God as the rich to the poor, James ii. 3, ' Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool ;' it is to sink him below the mire of the world, to order him to come down from his glorious throne, and take his place below a contemptible creature, which in regard of its infinite distance is not to be compared with him. It strips God of the love that is due to him by the right of his nature
and the greatness of his dignity, and of the trust that is due to him as the first cause and the chiefest good, as though he were too feeble and mean to
be our blessedness. This is intolerable, to make that which is God's foot stool, the earth, to climb up into his throne ; to set that in our heart which God hath made even below ourselves, and put under our feet ; to make
that which we trample upon to dispose of the right God hath to our hearts ;* it is worse than if a queen should fall in love with the little image of the prince in the palace, and slight the beauty of his person, and as if people should adore the footsteps of a king in the dirt, and turn their backs upon his presence.
(2.) It doth more debase him to set up a sin, a lust, a carnal affection, as our chief end. To steal away the honour due to God, and appropriate
* Nuremberg de adorat. p. 30.
232 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. X1Y. 1.
it to that which is no work of his hands, to that which is loathsome in his sight, hath disturbed his rest, and wrung out his just breath to kindle a hell for its eternal lodging, a God-dishonouring and a soul-murdering lust, is worse than to prefer Barabbas before Christ. The baser the thing, the worse is the injury to him with whom we would associate it. If it were some generous principle, a thing useful to the world, that we place in an equality with, or a superiority above him, though it were a vile usage, yet it were not altogether so criminal ; but to gratify some unworthy appetite, with the displeasure of the Creator, something below the rational nature of man, much more infinitely below the excellent majesty of God, is a more unworthy usage of him. To advance one of the most virtuous nobles in a kingdom as a mark of our service and subjection, is not so dishonourable to a despised prince, as to take a scabby beggar, or a rotten carcass to place in his throne. Creeping things, abominable beasts, the Egyptian idols, cats and crocodiles, were greater abominations, and a greater despite done to God, than the image of jealousy at the gate of the altar, Ezek. viii. 5, 6, 10.
And let not any excuse themselves, that it is but one lust or one creature which is preferred as the end. Is not he an idolater that worships the sun or moon, one idol, as well as he that worships the whole host of heaven ?
The inordinancy of the heart to one lust may imply a stronger contempt of him, than if a legion of lusts did possess the heart. It argues a greater
disesteem when he shall be slighted for a single vanity. The depth of Esau's profaneness in contemning his birthright, and God in it, is aggravated by
his selling it for ' one morsel of meat,' Heb. xii. 16, and that none of the daintiest, none of the costliest, ' a mess of pottage,' implying, had he parted with it at a greater rate, it had been more tolerable, and his profaneness more excusable. And it is reckoned as a high aggravation of the corruption
of the Israelite judges, Amos ii. 6, that * they sold the poor for a pair of shoes ;' that is, that they would betray the cause of the poor for a bribe of no greater value than might purchase them a pair of shoes. To place any one thing as our chief end, though never so light, doth not excuse. He that will not stick to break with God for a trifle, a small pleasure, will leap
the hedge upon a greater temptation.
Nay, and if wealth, riches, friends, and the best thing in the world, our own lives, be preferred before God, as our chief happiness and end but one moment, it is an infinite wrong, because the infinite goodness and excellency of God is denied. As though the creature or lust we love, or our own life which we prefer in that short moment before him, had a goodness in itself, superior to, and more desirable than the blessedness in God. And though it should be but one minute, and a man in all the periods of his days both before and after that failure, should actually and intentionally prefer God before all other things, yet he doth him an infinite wrong, because God in every moment is infinitely good, and absolutely desirable, and can never cease to be good, and cannot have the least shadow or change in him and his perfections.
2. It is a denying of God. Job. xxxi. 26-28, ' If I beheld the sun when it shined, and the moon walking in its brightness ; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand, this also were iniquity
to be punished by the judge : for I should have denied the Lord above.' This denial of God is not only the act of an open idolater, but the conse quent of a secret confidence, and immoderate joy in worldly goods ; this denial of God is to be referred to, ver. 24, 25. When a man saith to
gold, * Thou art my confidence,' and rejoices because his wealth is great, he denies that God which is superior to all those, and the proper object of
PS. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 233
trust. Both idolatries are coupled here together, that which hath wealth, and that which hath those glorious creatures in heaven for its object. And though some may think it a light sin, yet the crime being of deeper guilt, a denial of God deserves a severer punishment, and falls under the sentence of the just judge of all the earth, under that notion ; which Job intimates
in those words, ' this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge.' The kissing the hand to the sun, moon, or any idol, was an external sign of religious worship among those and other nations. This is far less than an inward hearty confidence, and an affectionate trust. If the motion of the hand be, much more is the affection of the heart to an excrementitious
creature, or a brutish pleasure, is a denial of God, and a kind of an abjuring of him, since the supreme affection of the soul is undoubtedly and solely the right of the sovereign creator, and not to be given in common to others, as the outward gesture may in a way of civil respect. Nothing that is an honour peculiar to God, can be given to a creature, without a plain exclusion of
God to be God, it being a disowning the rectitude and excellency of his nature. If God should command a creature such a love, and such a confi dence in anything inferior to him, he would deny himself his own glory, he would deny himself to be the most excellent being. Can the Komanists be free from this, when they call the cross spem unicam, and say to the virgin, In te domina speravi, as Bonaventura, &c.
Good reason therefore have worldlings and sensualists, persons of immoderate fondness to anything in the world, to reflect upon themselves ; since though they own the being of a God, they are guilty of so great disrespect to him, that cannot be excused from the title of an unworthy atheism. And those that are renewed by the Spirit of God, may here see ground of a daily humiliation for the frequent and too common excursions of their souls in creature confidences and affections, whereby they fall under the charge of an act of practical atheism, though they may be free from an habit of it.
III. The third thing is, man would make himself the end of all creatures. Man would sit in the seat of God, and ' set his heart as the heart of God,' as the Lord saith of Tyrus, Ezek. xxviii. 2. What is the consequence of this, but to be esteemed the chief good and end of other creatures ? — a thing that the heart of God cannot but be set upon, it being an inseparable right of the Deity, who must deny himself, if he deny this affection of the heart.
Since it is the nature of man derived from this root, to desire to be equal with God, it follows that he desires no creature should be equal with him, but subservient to his ends and his glory. He that would make himself God, would have the honour proper to God ; he that thinks himself worthy of his own supreme affection, thinks himself worthy to be the object of the supreme affection of others ; whosoever counts himself the chiefest good and last end, would have the same place in the thoughts of others. Nothing is more natural to man, than a desire to have his own judgment the rule and measure of the judgment and opinions of the rest of mankind He that sets himself in the place of the prince, doth by that act challenge all the prero gatives and dues belonging to the prince ; and apprehending himself fit to be a king, apprehends himself also worthy of the homage and fealty of the subjects. He that loves himself chiefly, and all other things and persons for himself, would make himself the end of all creatures. It hath not been once or twice only in the world, that some vain princes have assumed to themselves the title of gods, and caused divine adorations to be given to them, and altars to smoke with sacrifices for their honour. What hath been
practised by one, is by nature seminally in all. We would have all pay an obedience to us, and give to us the esteem that is due to God.
234 CHAENOCZ'S WORKS. [Ps. XIV. 1.
This is evident ; — 1. In pride. When we entertain an high opinion of ourselves, and act for our own reputes, we dispossess God from our own hearts ; and while we
would have our fame to be in every man's mouth, and be admired in the hearts of men, we would chase God out of the hearts of others, and deny his glory a residence anywhere else ; that our glory should reside more in their minds than the glory of God ; that their thoughts should be filled with our achievements, more than the works and excellency of God, with our image and not with the divine. Pride would paramount God in the affections of others, and justle God out of their souls ; and by the same reason that man doth thus in the place where he lives, he would do so in the whole world, and press the whole creation from the service of their true Lord, to his own service. Every proud man would be counted by others as he counts him self, the highest, chiefest piece of goodness, and be adored by others, as much as he adores and admires himself. No proud man in his self-love, and self-admiration, thinks himself in an error ; and if he be worthy of his own admiration, he thinks himself worthy of the highest esteem of others ; that they should value him above themselves, and value themselves only for him. What did Nebuchadnezzar intend, by setting up a golden image, and commanding all his subjects to worship it, upon the highest penalty he could inflict, but that all should aim only at the pleasing his humour ?
2. In using the creatures contrary to the end God has appointed. God created the world and all things in it, as steps whereby men might ascend to a prospect of him, and the acknowledgment of his glory ; and we would use them to dishonour God, and gratify ourselves. He appointed them to supply oar necessities, and support our rational delights ; and we use them to cherish our sinful lusts. We wring groans from the creature in diverting them from their true scope, to one of our own fixing, when we use them not in his service, but purely for our own, and turn those things he created for himself to be instruments of rebellion against him to serve our turns ; and hereby endeavour to defeat the ends of God in them, to establish our own ends by them. This is a high dishonour to God, a sacrilegious undermin
ing of his glory,* to reduce what God hath made to serve our own glory, and our own pleasure ; it perverts the whole order of the world, and directs it to another end than what God hath constituted, to another intention con trary to the intention of God ; and thus man makes himself a god by his own authority. As all things were made by God, so they are for God ; but while we aspire to the end of the creation, we deny and envy God the honour of being creator. We cannot make ourselves the chief end of the
creatures against God's order, but we imply thereby that we were their first principle ; for if we lived under a sense of the Creator of them while we enjoy them for our use, we should return the glory to the right owner.
3. This is diabolical; though the devil, for his first affecting an authority in heaven, has been hurled down from the state of an angel of light, into that of darkness, vileness, and misery, to be the most accursed creature living, yet he still aspires to mate God, contrary to the knowledge of the impossi bility of success in it. Neither the terrors he feels, nor the future tor ments he doth expect, do a jot abate his ambition to be competitor with his Creator. How often hath he, since his first sin, arrogated to himself the honour of a God from the blind world, and attempted to make the Son of God, by a particular worship, count him as the chiefest good and benefactor
of the world ! Mat. iv. 9. Since all men by nature are the devil's children, the serpent's seed, they have something of this venom in their natures, as
* Sabunde Tit. 200, p. 352.
PS. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 235
well as others of his qualities. We see that there may be, and is, a prodi gious atheism lurking under the belief of a God. The devil knows there is a God, but acts like an atheist, and so do his children.
IV. Man would make himself the end of God. This necessarily follows upon the former. Whosoever makes himself his own law and his own end in the place of God, would make God the subject in making himself the sovereign. He that steps into the throne of a prince, sets the prince at his
foot-stool, and while he assumes the prince's prerogative, demands a sub jection from him. The order of the creation has been inverted by the
entrance of sin.* God implanted an affection in man with a double aspect, the one to pitch upon God, the other to respect ourselves ; but with this proviso, that our affection to God should be infinite in regard of the object, and centre in him, as the chiefest happiness and highest end ; our affec tions to ourselves should be finite, and refer ultimately to God as the
original of our being. But sin hath turned man's affections wholly to him self. Whereas he should love God first, and himself in order to God, he now loves himself first, and God in order to himself. Love to God is lost, and love to self hath usurped the throne. As God by creation « put all things under the feet' of man, Ps. viii. 6, reserving the heart for himself, man by corruption hath dispossessed God of his heart, and put him under his own feet. We often intend ourselves when we pretend the honour of God, and make God and religion a stale to some designs we have in hand, our Creator a tool for our own ends.
This is evident,
1. In our loving God because of some self-pleasing benefits distributed by him. There is in men a kind of natural love to God ; but it is but a secondary one, because God gives them the good things of this world, spreads their table, fills their cup, stuffs their coffers, and doth them some good turns by unexpected providences. This is not an affection to God for the unbounded excellency of his own nature, but for his beneficence, as he opens his hand for them ; an affection to themselves, and those creatures, their gold, their honour, which their hearts are most fixed upon, without a strong spiritual inclination that God should be glorified by them in the use of those mercies. It is rather a disowning of God than any love to him, because it postpones God to those things they love him for. This would appear to be no love, if God should cease to be their benefactor, and deal with them as a judge ; if he should change his outward smiles into afflicting frowns, and not only shut his hand, but strip them of what he sent them. The motive of their love being expired, the affection raised by it must cease, for want of fuel to feed it ; so that God is beholden to sordid creatures of no value (but as they are his creatures) for most of the love the sons of men pretend to him. The devil spake truth of most men, though not of Job, when he said, Job i. 10, they * love not God for nought ;' but while he makes a hedge about them and their families, whilst he blesseth the works
of their hands, and increaseth their honour in the land. It is like Peter's sharp reproof of his Master, when he spake of the ill usage, even to death,
he was to meet with at Jerusalem, « This shall not be unto thee.' It was as much out of love to himself as zeal for his Master's interest, knowing his Master could not be in such a storm without some drops lighting upon him self. All the apostasies of men in the world are witnesses to this. They fawn whilst they may have a prosperous profession, but will not bear one chip of the cross for the interest of God. They would partake of his bless ings, but not endure the prick of a lance for him, as those that admired the
* Pascal, Pens. sec. 30. p. 294.
236 CHARNOCK'S WOBKS. [Ps. XIY. 1.
miracles of our Saviour, and shrunk at his sufferings. A time of trial dis covers these mercenary souls to be more lovers of themselves than their Maker. This is a pretended love of friendship to God, but a real love to a
lust, only to gain by God. A good man's temper is contrary. Quench hell, burn heaven, said a holy man, I will love and fear my God.
2. It is evident, in abstinence from some sins, not because they offend God, but because they are against the interest of some other beloved corrup tion, or a bar to something men hunt after in the world. When temperance is cherished, not to honour God, but preserve a crazy carcass ; prodigality forsaken, out of a humour of avarice ; uncleanness forsaken, not out of a hatred of lust, but love to their money ; declining a denial of the interest
and truth of God, not out of affection to them, but an ambitious zeal for their own reputation. There is a kind of conversion from sin, when God is not made the term of it: Jer. iv. 1, ' If thou wilt return, 0 Israel, return unto me, saith the Lord.'* When we forbear sin as dogs do the meat they love ; they forbear not out of a hatred of the carrion, but fear of the cudgel. These are as wicked in their abstaining from sin as others are in their furious committing it. Nothing of the honour of God and the end of his appointments is indeed in all this, but the conveniences self gathers from them. Again, many of the motives the generality of the world uses to their friends and relations to draw them from vices are drawn from self, and used to prop up natural or sinful self in them. Come, reform yourself, take other courses, you will smut your reputation, and be despicable ; you will destroy your estate, and commence a beggar ; your family will be un
done, and you may rot in a prison ; not laying close to them the duty they owe to God, the dishonour which accrues to him by their unworthy courses, and the ingratitude to the God of their mercies. Not that the other motives are to be laid aside and slighted. Mint and cummin may be tithed, but the weightier concerns are not to be omitted. But this shews that self is the bias not only of men in their own course, but in their dealings with others. What should be subordinate to the honour of God, and the duty we owe to him, is made superior.
3. It is evident, in performing duties merely for a selfish interest ; mak ing ourselves the end of religious actions ; paying a homage to that, while we pretend to render it to God: Zech. vii. 5, < Did you at all fast unto me, even unto me ? ' Things ordained by God may fall in with carnal ends affected by ourselves, and then religion is not kept up by any interest of God in the conscience, but the interest of self in the heart. We then sanctify not the name of God in the duty, but gratify ourselves. God may be the object, self is the end, and a heavenly object is made subservient to a carnal design. Hypocrisy passes a compliment on God, and is called
flattery : Ps. Ixxviii. 36, « They did flatter him with their lips,' &c. They gave him a parcel of good words for their own preservation. Flattery, in the old notion among the heathens, is a vice more peculiar to serve our own turn, and purvey for the belly. They knew they could not subsist without God, and therefore gave him a parcel of good words, that he might spare