VkR. 6.] SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. 127
3. I would handle this argument — That there is a God, because it is good to detain the heart a little in the view of this truth, and to revive it in our souls. There is a double reading of that place : Ps. x. 4, ' God is not in all his thoughts ; ' or else, all his thoughts are that there is no God ; the one makes wa}'' for the other. It is a great evil, when we cannot endure to think of God, and to fasten our meditations upon his being and the perfections of his nature, for by degrees his memory is defaced and blotted out of our minds ; therefore a forgetfulness of God is a kind of denial of him : Ps. ix. 17, ' The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.' Mark, not only they that deny God, but forget God ; that is the portion of them that do not mind nor regard him and his judgments ; and therefore we should often meditate of God, and think of him, not by starts and sudden glances, but have deliberate thoughts of him. And therefore, that you may have some hints of meditation whereby to enlarge yourselves in the thoughts of God, and to give us some help to hold our minds in the view of it, it is of great use in the spiritual life to prosecute this argument.
Having premised these things concerning the usefulness of such a discourse, I shall speak to this point, to prove that there is a God.
Here we may appeal not only to scripture, but to nature. We say that principles can only be demonstrated tesfimonits, effectis el ahsur- dis : principles, when we would come to demonstrate them, must be proved by testimonies, by effects, and by showing the absurdities of the contrary ; and such kind of arguments I shall produce.
[1.] That there is a God may be proved by conscience, which is as a thousand witnesses. The heathens, which never heard of scripture, yet had a conscience that did accuse and excuse — fiera^v aWrjXwv — by turns, Pom. ii. 15. There is something within men that will chide them for sin ; yea, for secret sins, to which none are privy but them- selves. Wicked men seek to blot out these feelings of conscience, but can never wholly extinguish them — * The sinners in Sion are afraid/ Isa. xxxiii. 14. Wicked men are without faith, yet they are never without I'eai'. There is a conscience in men that appals the stoutest sinner, after the commitment of any gross evil ; though it be secret and beyond the cognisance and vengeance of man, yet conscience will be smiting him, his heart will reproach him for it, therefore surely there is a God. You shall see the Holy Ghost, when he lays down the atheism of men, yet he observes this order, Ps. liii. 1, ' The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.' Now, how doth he prove, there is a God ? It follows, ver. 5, ' There were they in great fear where no fear was ; ' that is, where there was no outward cause of fear, where none sought to hurt them, yet were they under a fear ; he speaks of those that live most atheistically. This appears by the in- stance of Joseph's brethren, accusing themselves when none else could accuse them : Gen. xlii. 21, ' We are verily guilty concerning our brother's blood ; ' conscience began to accuse them. Though a man should hide himself from all the world, he cannot hide himself from himself; his heart will pursue him, and represent his guilt, Now that there is such a hidden fear in men's hearts after sinning, that the heart will smite us for evil when the crime is secret, this argues there is a
128 SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XL [SeR. XXX
God ; yea, there is a fear to be found in tlie most obstinate sinners, and those that are of greatest power and place in the world, that can carry on their wickedness without control, as the most powerful princes. Caligula,, it is noted of him that he would sometimes counterfeit the thunder, yet when it thundered indeed, how was he terrified and afraid! Those tliat would study to cast away all conceit of God, yet they have this fear upon them. And it is not a fear that they may be found out by man, and punished by man ; for sometimes this fear prevails so far, as they would have counted man's punishment a favour, and therefore have sought it, or else have laid violent hands upon themselves. What should be the reason of all this, but that they have a fear of an avenger and judge that will call them to an account; and therefore they can- not prevent or dissemble their gripes, so greatly have these fears of conscience been increased upon them — ' They know the judgment of God,' as the apostle speaks of the heathens, Rom. i. 28 ; that is, they have a sense that there is a just avenger of sin, and that therefore they are liable to judgment ; yea, those that have been professed atheists, yet have been smitten with these horrors of conscience, AJfirmant inierdiu, nochi tamen duhitanty saith Seneca — Though they will speak with confidence against God in the day, yet in the darkness of the night they are in doubt. Esj)ecially, in distress and trouble, then are these notions revived. As another heathen observes. When it thunders, then they wax pale and are affrighted. Diagoras, an atheist among the heathens, denied there was a God ; yet when he was troubled with a strangury, he acknowledged a deity Calvin, in his comment upon the 115th Psalm, gives us a story of a scoffing atheist, a merry fellow, whom he met with in an inn, that would talk very slightly and con- temptuously of God and of religion, and dropping out his atheism upon all occasions, and jeering. When Calvin reproved him for it, he would put him off with this, Ccelum cceli Domino — ' The heavens of heavens was the Lord's;' God must content himself with heaven, 'but he hath given the earth to the children of men : ' here we may do what we please ; God was shut up in the heavens, and he had no care nor sense of things below. But before they parted, this man was exceed- ingly gripped with the colic, and twinged with his pain ; then he would be crying out — 0 Deus, 0 Deus — 0 God, 0 God ! Now, saith Calvin, the heaven of heavens is the Lord's, and the earth belongeth to the children of men. When God doth awaken conscience by any sickness or trouble, they are arrested by conscience in the name of the great God whom they deny. Belshazzar seemed a jovial fellow, and a man of great confidence and bravery, but when he was besieged by a great army of Persians, and danger was at his doors, he falls a quaffing and carousing, as if he would out-laugh his danger ; and not only so, but bids a defiance to the God of heaven, and he doth it in the vessels of the temple. But see how soon God takes off the edge of his spirit ! Dan. v. ; a trembling doth seize upon him, and a few letters upon the wall make his knees smite one against the other for fear. So how merrily soever these men do carry it for a while, and how much they may seem to smother their fears while they wallow in their sins ; yet when the Lord stings them with his hornet, and puts them to pain ; when he casts them into sickness, or when they are solitary, then there