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judicially harden the hearts and blind the eyes of men, that such means shall be of no use unto them. See Isa. vi. 9, 10; Acts xiii. 40, 41; Rom. i, 21, 28; 2 Thess. 11. 11, 12.
(2.) The contempt of gospel light and Christian religion, as it is supernatural (which is the beginning of transgression unto all atheists among us), begets in and leaves on the mind such a de- praved, corrupt habit, such a, congeries of all evils that the hatred of the goodness, wisdom, and grace of God can produce, that it can- not but be wholly inclined unto the worst of evils, as all our origi- nal vicious inclinations succeeded immediately on our rejection and loss of the image of God. The best things, corrupted, yield the worst savour; as manna stunk and bred worms. The knowledge of the gospel being rejected, stinking worms take the place of it in the mind, which grow into vipers and scorpions. Every degree of apos- tasy from gospel truth brings in a proportionate degree of incli- nation unto wickedness into the hearts and minds of men, 2 Pet. ii. 21; and that which is total, unto all the evils that they are capable of in this world. Whereas, therefore, multitudes, from their dark- ness, unbelief, temptation, love of sin, pride and contempt of God, do fall off from all subjection of soul and conscience unto the gospel, either notionally or practically, deriding or despising all supernatural revelations, they are a thousand times more disposed unto down- right atheism than persons who never had the light or benefit of such revelations. Take heed of decays! Whatever ground the gospel loseth in our minds, sin possesseth it for itself and its own ends.
Let none say it is otherwise with them. Men grow cold and neg- ligent in the duties of gospel worship, public and private; which is to reject gospel light. Let them say and pretend what they please, that in other things, in their minds and conversations, it is well with them: indeed it is not so. Sin will, sin doth, one way or other, make an increase in them proportionate unto these decays, and will. sooner or later discover itself so to do; and themselves, if they are not utterly hardened, may greatly discover it, inwardly im their peace, or outwardly in their lives.
(8.) Where men are resolved not to see, the greater the light is that shines about them the faster they must close their eyes. All atheism springs from a resolution not to see things invisible and eternal. Love of sin, a resolved continuance in the practice of it, the effectual power of vicious inclinations in opposition unto all that is good, make it the interest of such men that there should be no God to call them to an account; for a supreme, unavoidable judge, an eternal rewarder of good and evil, is inseparable from the first notion of a Divine Being. Whereas, therefore, the most glorious
CHAP, VIII.] OBJECTS OF SPIRITUAL THOUGHTS IN HEAVEN. 355
light and uncontrollable evidence of these things shines forth in the Scripture, men that will abide by their interest to love and live in sin must close their eyes with all the arts and powers that they have, or else it will pierce into their minds unto their torment. This they do by downright atheism, which alone pretends to give them security against the light of divine revelation. Against all other convictions they might take shelter from their fears under less de- grees of it.
- It is not, therefore, unto the disparagement but honour of the gospel that so many avow themselves to be atheists, in those places wherein the truth of it is known and professed; for none can have the least inclination or temptation thereunto until they have be- forehand rejected the gospel, which immediately exposeth them unto the worst of evils.
Nor is there any means for the recovery of such persons, The opposition that hath been made unto atheism, with arguments for the divine being and existence of God, taken from reason and natu- ral light, in this and other ages, hath been of good use to cast con- tempt on the pretences of evil men to justify themselves in their folly; but that they have so much as changed the minds of any I much doubt. No man is under the power of atheistical thoughts, or can be so long, but he that is ensnared into them by his desire to live securely and uncontrollably in sin. Such persons know it to be their interest that there should be no God, and are willing to take shelter under the bold expressions and reasonings of them who by the same means have hardened and blinded their minds into such foolish thoughts. But the most rational arguments for the being of the Deity will never prove an effectual cure unto a pre- dominant love of and habitual course in sin, in them who have re- sisted and rejected the means and motives unto that end declared in divine revelation; and unless the love of sin be cured in the heart, thoughts in the acknowledgment of God will not be fixed in the mind.
2. There are those of whom also it may be said that “ God is not in all their thoughts,’ though they acknowledge his essence and being; for they are not practically influenced in any thing by the notions they have of him. Such is the person of whom this is affirmed, Ps. x. 4. He is one who, through pride and profligacy, with hardness in sin, regards not God in the rule of the world, verses 4, 5, 11, 13. Such is the world filled withal at this day, as they are described, Tit. i. 16, “ They profess that they know God, but in works deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work repro- bate.” They think, they live, they act in all things as if there were no God, at least as if they never thought of him with fear and rever-