Imatges de pàgina
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Effects of this Enmity.

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ing to the desires of the flesh, which the apostle implies fulfilling the desires of the flesh, ver. 3. If the love of the world be enmity to God; The friendship of the world is enmity with God, James 4. 4; then enmity to God must needs be a love of the devil; enmity to God implying a friendship with every thing that hath the same disposition against him. The love of the world, i. e. of the sin and unrighteousness of the world, necessarily includes virtually love of the god of the world, which is the devil's title, 2 Cor. 4. 4. And so a man adores Satan as a god, in loving that world the devil is the god of; that wickedness the devil is the head of, above God. Rebellion against God is called a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell, Isa. 28. 18, (not with the punishments, but principles of hell;) and being a friend of the devil, he must needs be a friend to the grand design of the devil, Isa. 14. 12, 13, 14, and ver. 4, was spoke to the king of Babylon. The knot of friendship in the world is some particular man's design, which both friends agree in, and drive on. on. Now his design seems to be affecting the throne and authority of God; for God threatening the king of Babylon, and in him, as the type, the great antichrist, compares him to Lucifer, who was not content with his station as a subject, but would mount into the chair of the supreme power.

[3.] Thy enmity against God is in some respect as much, in regard of the actual effects of it, as the devil's is, though not in regard of diposition. We declare our enmity as far as we can: we cannot pull God out of heaven; we cannot nail Christ to the cross again, and pierce his heart; we cannot rail at him to his face as the Jews did; but the despising his laws, disowning his power granted by heaven over us, is the only thing we can do against him; and this we do as much as we can, as much as the gripes of conscience and our interest in the world will give us leave. We virtually deprive him of that which was the re

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ward of his sufferings, viz. his power; of the design of his sufferings, viz. the propagation of his evangelical law in our heart. And he that would destroy the dearest things God and Christ have left in the world, and that which he gave the greatest charge for the preservation of, would act all the villanies against the person of Christ as well as against what he had in the world, and against the essence of God, were it in his power; thou dost as much in this, as the devil can do. The being of God and the person of Christ are above his reach as well as ours. All that he can do is to trample upon his laws, and list others in rebellion against God, and in this thou dost comply with him. He can do no more, and thou dost as much.

[4.] It is a worse enmity than is in hell. This enmity is more disingenuous than that in hell. Our hatred of God is worse than that of the damned, they despairingly hate him under the inevitable and unavoidable strokes of justice, thou hatest him while thou art hedged in with the expressions of his goodness. They hate him under vials of wrath, and we under showers of mercy: they in terror of damnation, and we under the sense of kindness. They hate him because he inflicts what is hurtful, and we because he commands what is profitable and holy. Our hatred of God is worse than the devil's hatred of him. hate God, who contrived our redemption, and sent his Son to accomplish it; the devils had not those obligations laid upon them. Christ came not for them, nor shed his blood for their recovery. They hate their Creator, but we our Creator and Redeemer too. The devils hate him that came to torment them and destroy their works, we hate him that came to bless us, and save our souls.

We

2. Information. God is the greatest evil in the account of every natural man. If there be in us a greater enmity to God and his law than to any thing else, it implies that we think him the greatest evil,

Accounts God the greatest Evil.

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and the worst of beings. Evil, and not good, is the . object of hatred. As love is the propension of the mind to something as good, so hatred is an alienation of the mind from something as evil, either really, or supposedly. We cannot possibly hate good as good, as we cannot possibly love evil as evil. Now nothing but sin is absolutely evil, and therefore nothing but sin should be the absolute object of our hatred. But seeing that love which should be set upon God, is set upon sin, and that hatred which should have only sin for its object, pitches upon God as its object, it is hence clear, that we account sin the highest good, and God the greatest evil.

Though a man doth not hate God as God, yet there being more of his hatred spent against God than against any thing else, it is most certain that God is virtually accounted, by us the most detestable being. Do we offend any so much as we do God? Do we love the prosecution of any thing which is distasteful to man, as we do that which is an abomination to God? Is there any thing in the world we do more rejoice in than that whereby God is prejudiced? Is there any thing we do love and pursue with greater violence, than that which is hateful and injurious to him? Are we so absolutely contrary to any man, any creature in our natural inclinations, dispositions, affections, and desires, as unto God? Is it not clearly manifest by our inward and outward carriage, that we imply, that God is the greatest evil, and we rank him who is unchangeably good, in the place of sin, which is unchangeably bad. As love is carried out in desire for the object beloved, so hatred is a flight from it. As love is accompanied with joy at the presence of a beloved object, so is hatred attended with a detestation. Are we not naturally more desirous of opportunities of sin, than opportunities of service to our maker? Are we ever so cheerful in the presence of God, and

* Plutarch's Morals, p. 536, $37.

communion with him in religious services, as in our sports, recreations, and sinful practices? What then has most of our love, what do we account our supreme happiness, and our worst misery?

3. Information. It justifies God in his acts of punitive justice. (1.) In his severest judgments in the world. Who can blame God for his severities against those that hate him, especially after riches of forbearance? Consider man as his desperate enemy, and you may more admire his clemency, than accuse his justice. You may wonder that he does not destroy the whole stock of mankind, as well as send some few drops and hailstones of judgment upon the world. We may rather stand amazed at his patience, that he suffers such creatures to live, than murmur at his judgments, for not a day but we commit many acts which manifest this hatred. For as all actions truly good partake of the nature of love to the chiefest good; so all unworthy actions which are at a distance from God the chief end, are marshalled by, and tinctured with that enmity which lurks in the soul. It is equal God should be a judge to condemn, where he is rejected as a sovereign to rule.

(2.) It justifies God in his judgments upon infants. Indeed we call infants innocent, and we are startled at the pain and sufferings of babes; but this doctrine is a sufficient curb to any accusations of God in such proceedings. Do we not kill vipers, and noxious creatures in the nest? Infants are endued with an ini:nical and hostile nature against God, though they exert it not by reason of the weakness of their organs. If Death reigned over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, Rom. 5. 14; enmity surely reigned over them. The frost which by congealing a viper, suspends its motion, does not expel its natural venom, (which it hath in as great a quantity as the liveliest) though at present it binds up the activity of it, which will show itself when outward impediments are removed by heat. Neither does the

Wonderful Patience of God.

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inability of infants exercising this enmity, discharge their nature from an inconceivable mass of it; nay you may perceive some starts of it even in them; Did you never see envy, passion, sensuality in an infant? We may more wonder that God does not dash them in pieces at their first appearance in the world, as we do young wolves and ravenous creatures, than that he should use his right over them for their original pravity, and take them out of the world.

(3). It justifies the eternity of punishment. Who can charge God with injustice, for punishing eternally a creature who doth eternally hate him; to keep that person in being to his everlasting damage, that does wish, and if it were in his power, would accomplish the destruction of God himself; can any punishment be too hard, any duration of it too long for him that is an enemy to the best of beings? To one infinitely good, and therefore disingenuous; to one infinitely powerful, and therefore intolerably foolish.

4. Information. What an admirable prospect may we take here of God's patience? With what astonishment may we review all the former as well as the present age of God's forbearance towards men! That he should preserve such a crew of disingenuous monsters, as we all naturally are; Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering, Rom. 2. 4. Had he not had riches of goodness, forbearance, and long suffering, and infinite riches too the enmity of man against him had exhausted all before this time; and being the riches of goodness as well as long suffering, it makes our enmity appear the blacker. A grain of goodness is no fit object for hatred, much less riches of it. How many millions of such haters of him, breathe every day in his air, are maintained by his bounty, have their tables spread, and their cups filled to the brim, and that in the maddest of their reiterated belchings out of this enmity against him, under sufficient provocations, to the highest indignation?

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