rather than reason, Heb. xi. 6: ' He that cometh to God, must believe that he is.' Mark that, — •' he must believe.' Now faith goes upon the credit of the word, and takes all upon trust from its authority : he ' nnist believe that he is ;' which, as Mr. Perkins, on the place, saith, is not nakedly to know there is a God, but to know God to be God ; which reason of itself can never do. Such is the blindness and corruption of our nature, that we have very deformed and mis- shapen thoughts of him, till with the eye of faith we see his face in the glass of the word ; and therefore the same learned man affirms, that all men whoever came of Adam (Christ alone excepted) are by nature atheists ; because, at the same time that they acknowledge a God, they deny his power, presence, and justice, and allow- him to be only what pleaseth themselves. Indeed, it is natural for every man to desire to accommodate his lusts with such conceptions of God as may be most favourable to and suit best with them. God chargeth some for this : ' Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself,' Psa. 1. 21. Sinners do with God as the Ethiopians do with angels, whom they picture with black faces, that they may be like themselves. Secondly, Suppose thou wert able by reason to demonstrate what God is, yet it were dangerous to enter the list, and dispute it out, by thy naked reason, with Satan, who hath, though the worst cause, yet the nimbler head. There is more disparity between thee and Satan, than between the weakest idiot and the greatest scholar in the world. Now, who would put a cause of so great importance to such a hazard, as thou must do, by reasoning the point with him, who so far outmatches thee ? But there is a divine authority in the word which faith builds on, and this hath a throne in the conscience of the devil himself; he flies at this : for which cause, Christ, though he was able by I'eason to have baffled the devil, yet, to give us a pattern what arms to use for our defence in our conflicts with Satan, he repels him only by the word. ' It is written,' saith Christ, Luke iv. 4, and again, ver. 8, ' It is written.' And it is very obsei'vable, how powerful the word quoted by Christ was to defeat the devil ; so that he had not a word to reply to any Scripture tliat was brought ; but upon the very mention of the word, was forced to go to another argument. Had Eve but stood to her first answer, ' God hath said. Ye shall not eat of it,' Gen. iii. o, she would have been too hard for the devil ; but letting her hand go, which she had by faith on the word, presently she fell into her enemy's hand. Thus, in this particular, when the Christian, in the heat of temptation, by faith stands upon his defence, intei'posing the word between him and Satan's blows, — I believe that God is, though I cannot comprehend his nature, nor answer thy sophistry ; yet I believe the report the word makes of God : Satan may troul)le such an one, but he can- not hurt him : nay, it is probable he will not long trouble him. The devil's antipathy is so great to the word that he loves not to hear it sound in his ear ; but if thou thro west down the shield of the word, and thinkest by the dint or force of thy reason to cut tliy way through the temptation, thou may est soon see thyself surrounded by thy subtle enemy, and put beyond an lionourable retreat. This is the cause, I conceive, why, among those few which have professed themselves atheists, most of them have been great pretenders to reason : such as have neglected the word, and gone forth in the pride of their own understanding, by wliich (through the righteous judgment of God) they at last have disputed themselves into atheism. While they have turned their backs upon God and his word, and thought, by digging into the secrets and bowels of natiu-e, to be admired for their knowledge above others, that hath befallen them wliicli sometimes does to those in mines, who delve too far into the bowels of the earth — a damp from God's secret judgment hath come to put out that light which at first they carried down with them ; and so, that of the apostle is verified on them, ' Where is the disputer of the world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?' 1 Cor. i. 20. Indeed, it is the wisdom of God, that the world, by wisdom, should not know God. Thirdly, .He that assents to this truth, that there is a God, merely upon grounds of reason, and not of faith, and rests in that, he doth not quench the temptation, for still he is an infidel, and a Scripture atheist: he doth not believe there is a God, at the report of God's word, but at the rejjort of liis reason, and so indeed he doth believe but himself, and not God, and in that nuikcs himself a god, preferring the testimony of his own reason before the testimony of God's word, wliich is dangerous.
ABOVE ALL, TAKING THE SHIELD OF FAITH. 49I