_Direct._ XXII. But if men are resolved to join with the devil, and shut their eyes, and cavil against all that God speaketh to them to prevent their misery, and know not, because they will not know; what remedy is left, or who can save men against their wills? "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. He that doth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved," John iii. 19, 20. In Scripture, "some things are hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable, wrest to their own destruction," 2 Pet. iii. 16. Of particulars read the end of my "Treatise of Conversion."
_Tempt._ XXIII. Yea, Satan will do his worst to make them heretics, and teach them some doctrine of licentiousness suitable to their lusts. It is hard being wicked still against conscience in the open light. This is kicking against the pricks; too smarting work to be easily borne; therefore the devil will make them a religion which shall please them and do their sins no harm. Either a religion made up of loose opinions, like the familists, ranters, libertines, and antinomians, and the Jesuits too much; or else made up of trifling formalities, and a great deal of bodily exercise, and stage actions, and compliments, as much of the popish devotion is: and a little will draw a carnal heart to believe a carnal doctrine. It is easier to get such a new religion, than a new heart. And then the devil tells them that now they are in the right way, and therefore they shall be saved. A great part of the world think their case is good, because they are of such or such a sect or party, and of that which (they are told by their leaders) is the true church and way.
_Direct._ XXIII. But remember, that whatever law you make to yourselves, God will judge you by his own law. Falsifying the king's coin is no good way to pay a debt, but an addition of treason to your former misery. It is a new and a holy heart and life, and not a new creed, or a new church or sect, that is necessary to your salvation. It will never save you to be in the soundest church on earth, if you be unsound in it yourselves, and are but the dust in the temple that must be swept out: much less will it save you, to make yourselves a rule, because God's rule doth seem too strict.
_Tempt._ XXIV. Another way of the tempter is, to draw men to take up with mere convictions, instead of true conversion. When they have but learnt that it is but necessary to salvation, to be regenerate, and have the Spirit of Christ, they are as quiet, as if this were indeed to be regenerate, and to have the Spirit. As some think they have attained to perfection, when they have but received the opinion that perfection may here be had; so abundance think they have had sanctification and forgiveness, because now they see that they must be had, and without sanctification there is no salvation: and thus the knowledge of all grace and duty shall go with them for the grace and duty itself; and their judgment of the thing, instead of the possession of it: and instead of having grace, they force themselves to believe that they have it.
_Direct._ XXIV. But remember God will not be mocked: he knoweth a convinced head from a holy heart. To think you are rich, will not make you rich: to believe that you are well, or to know the remedy, is not enough to make you well. You may dream that you eat, and yet awake hungry, Isa. xxix. 8. All the land or money which you see, is not therefore your own. To know that you should be holy, maketh your unholiness to have no excuse. Ahab did not escape by believing that he should return in peace. Self-flattery in so great and weighty a case, is the greatest folly. "If you know these things, happy are ye if ye do them," John xiii. 17.
_Tempt._ XXV. Another great temptation is, by hiding from men the intrinsic evil and odiousness of sin. What harm, saith the drunkard, and adulterer, and voluptuous sensualist, is there in all this, that preachers make so great ado against it? what hurt is this to God or man, that they would make us believe that we must be damned for it, and that Christ died for it, and that the Holy Ghost must mortify it? "Wherefore," say the Jews, Jer. xvi. 10, "hath God pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed?" He that knoweth not God, knoweth not what sin against God is; especially when the love of it and delight in it blindeth them.
[Sidenote: Psal. xl. 12. Psal. li.]