adherence to liiin and his doctrine, and hath told ns, Mat. x. 37, ' He that loveth lather and mother more than me, is not worthy of me,' and Luke xiv. 2G, ' Ciinnot be my disciple.' This is a love to which all other loves must give way and be subordinate. Many love the truth a little, but love other things more, will be at no cost for it. Solomon giveth advice, Prov. xxiii. 23, ' Buy the truth and sell it not.' In lesser points we must do nothing against the truth, for though the matter contended for be never so small, yet sincerity is a great point ; but in the greater truths we should purchase the knowledge of them at any rate, and be faithful to Christ whatever it costs us. (4.) This slight love may arise from worldly respects. Kow in the text it is said, 'Tliey received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.' It should arise upon eternal reasons and considerations of the other world, which only produce abiding affections : Heb. x. 3'j, ' We are not of them that draw back to perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.' In closing with Christianity, that must be fixed as our scope, not to spare the flesh, but to save the soul, and to save the soul with the loss of other things ; and that will make us true to Christ. But there are many foreign reasons for which men may show some love to religion. As, first, policy.; as Jehu took up Jehonadab into the chariot with him, 2 Kings x. 15 — there is his compliment to him. Jehonadab was a good man, and this honoured him before the peo])le, to see Jehu and Jehonadab so well acquainted. Sometimes respect to others upon whom we dej)end. Many seem to be good because they dare not dis- please others that have authority over them, or an interest in them ; as Joash Avas religious all the days of Jehoiada, for he stood in awe of him, 2 Chron. xxiv. 2. Now such sorry religion dependeth on foreign ac- cidents, the life of others or presence of others, and therefore it cannqt be durable ; whereas, in presence or absence, we should ' work out our salvation with fear and trembling,' Phil. ii. 12 ; otherwise men only keep within compass for a while, but they have the root of sin within them still. Or it may l)e novelty, as our Lord telleth the Jews, 'John was a burning and shining light, and ye were willing to rejoice in his light for a season.' John was an eminent man for pureness of doctrine and vigour of zeal, and the more corrupt sort of Jews, pharisees as well as others, admir(;d him for a while, but they soon grew weary of him — it was a fit of zeal for the i)re.sent. Lastly, This love may be to the excellency of gifts bestowed upon some minister or instrument whom God raiseth up, or some countenance of great men given to their ministry may stir up some love and attendance on their ministry ; and some respect is given for their sakes when men have no sound grace in their hearts. There is a receiving of the word as the word of man, and a receiving of the word as the word of God, as the apostle in- timateth, 1 Tiies. ii. 13. The receiving of the word as the word of man, so it worketh only a human passion, a delight in the gifts of the ministry used : Ezek. xxxiii. 32, ' Tliou art to them as a lovely song of one that hath a ])leasant voice.' Then tliere is a receiving it as the word of God, and then we receive it with nnich assurance and joy iu the Holy Giiost : 1 Thes. i. 5, ' Our gosjjel came to you, not in word, but in iiower, and much assurance, and joy in the Holy Ghost.' Now if we do not receive the truth upon Gods recommendation and con-
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firmation, wc do not love truth as trutli ; our contest is not who hath most wit and parts, but most grace. (.5.) They do not receive the love of the truth, when it doth not produce its solid effects, wliich is a change of heart and Hfe, and they are not brouglit by the gospel to a sincere repentance and conversion to God, or receive the trutli so as to live by it ; but whilst they have the names of Christians, have the lives and hearts of atheists and infidels. These were those that debauched Christianity, and meritorie and effective, by their provocations and negligence, brought this degeneracy into the church and judgment on the Christian world. Certainly a man hateth that religion which he doth profess when he will not live by it. This perfidiousness and breach of covenant was that which provoked God to permit these delusions in the church ; the worldly, sensual, carnal Christians, that hate that life which their religion calleth for. The godly Christian and the carnal Christian have the same Bible, the same creed, the same baptism, yet they hate one another as if they were of different religions, and confound the distinction between the world and the church, because the world is in the church. And of sensual and godless men we must speak as heathens, as if they were without God : they abhor that religion which they do profess ; that is, they abhor not the name, but they abhor those that are faithful to it and serious in it, who desire to know God in Christ, and desire to love him, and live to him. It was that Christ taxed in the pharisees ; they honoured the dead saints and abhorred the living: Mat. xxiii. 29-31, 'Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites ! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say. If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.' Christ hath not worse enemies in the world than those that usurp his name, and pre- tend to be his officers, and yet eat and drink with the drunken, and beat their fellow-servants. Mat. xxiv. 49. Christ will disown such at the day of judgment : Mat. vii. 22, 23, ' Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils ? and in thy name done many wonderful works ? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you : depart from me, ye that work iniquity.' And such do most dishonour him in the world. A righteous, sober, godly life is the best evidence of our love to the truth. [2.] How just tins punishment is : — (1.) Because God hath ever held this course on the pagan world, who kept not the natural knowledge of God : ' He gave them up to vile affections,' Rom. i. 28. The Jews who rejected Christ: John v. 43, 'I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not : another will come in his own name, and him will ye receive.' When Christ cometh merely for our benefit, the unthankful world will not make him welcome, but they will take worse in his room. So towards Christians. At first men would not receive the gospel while it was pure and in its simplicity, as taught by Christ and his apostles, and sealed by the blood of the martyrs, till it was backed by a worldly interest, and corrupted into a worldly design ; and then they had it and all manner of superstitions together, and with these strong delusions there came just damnation. So still the pure