Some think it strange that any men should be called "haters of God;" and I believe you will find it hard to meet with that man that will confess it by himself, till converting grace or hell constrain him. And indeed if God himself had not charged men with that sin, and called them by that name, we should scarce have found belief or patience when we had endeavoured to convince the world of it. Entreat but the worst of men to repent of hating God, and try how they will take it. Yet they may read that name in Scripture, Rom. i. 30; Psal. lxxxi. 15; Luke xix. 14. Did not the Jews hate Christ, think you, when they murdered him? and when they hated all his followers for his sake? Matt. x. 22; Mark xiii. 13. And doth not Christ say, "that they shall be hated for his sake, not only of the Jews, but also of all nations, and all men," Matt. xxiv. 9; x. 22; even by the "world," John xvii. 14; xv. 17-19, &c. And this was a hating "both Christ and his Father," John xv. 23, 24. But you will say, it is not possible that any man can hate God. I answer, how then came the devils to hate him? Yea, every ungodly man hateth God: indeed no man hateth him as good, or as merciful to them; but they hate him as holy and just, as one that will not let them have the pleasure of sin, without damning them; as one engaged in justice to cast them into hell, if they die without conversion; and as one that hath made so pure and precise a law to govern them, and convinceth them of sin, and calls them to that repentance and holiness which they hate. Why did the world hate Christ himself? He tells you, John vii. 7, "The world cannot hate you, but me it hateth, because I testify against it, that the works thereof are evil." John iii. 19, "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." Nay, it is a wonder of blindness, that this God-hating world and age should not perceive that they are God-haters, while they hate his servants to the death, and implacably rage against them, and hate his holy ways and kingdom, and bend all their power and interest in most of the kingdoms of the world, against his interest and his people upon earth: while the devil fighteth his battles against Christ through the world, by their hands, they will yet confess the devil's malice against God, but deny their own; as if he used their hands without their hearts. Well! poor, wretched worms! instead of denying your enmity to him, lament it, and know that he also taketh you for his enemies, and will prove too hard for you when you have done your worst. Read Psal. ii. and tremble, and submit. This is especially the case of persecutors and open enemies; but in their measure also of all that would not have him to reign over them. And therefore Christ came to reconcile us unto God, and God to us; and it is only the sanctified that are reconciled to him. See Col. i. 21; Phil. iii. 18; 1 Cor. xv. 25; Rom. v. 10. "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God; nor indeed can be," Rom. viii. 7. Mark that text well.
2. As long as you are unsanctified, you are unjustified and unpardoned: you are under the guilt of all the sins that ever you committed: every sinful thought, word, and deed, of which the least deserveth hell, is on your score, to be answered for by yourself: and what this signifieth, the threatenings of the law will tell you. See Acts xxvi. 18; Mark iv. 12; Col. i. 14. There is no sin forgiven to an impenitent, unconverted sinner.
[Sidenote: Rom. viii. 9.]
3. And no wonder, when the unconverted have no special interest in Christ. The pardon and life that is given by God, is given in and with the Son: "God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son: he that hath the Son, hath life; and he that hath not the Son, hath not life," 1 John v. 10-12. Till we are members of Christ, we have no part in the pardon and salvation purchased by him: and ungodly sinners are not his members. So that Jesus Christ, who is the hope and life of all his own, doth leave thee as he found thee: and that is not the worst; for,