Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n
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A44674
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A discourse of an unconverted man's enmity, against God Preached to a country congregation, by J.H. And publish'd by one who wrote it from his mouth.
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Howe, John, 1630-1705.
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1700
(1700)
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Wing H3022; ESTC R215391
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18,256
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57
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the Spirit of all Kindness Sweetness and Benignity which a wicked man doth despite unto Heb. 10. 29. How vile and horrid a thing to requite Grace Love and Sweetness with Spite As if the Sinner should say Thou wouldest turn me to God but I will not be turned The blessed God says Turn at my reproof I will pour out my Spirit unto you Prov. 1. 23. There are preventive insinuations upon which if we essay to turn plentiful effusions of the Spirit may be hoped to ensue For he is the Spirit of Grace When we draw back and resist or slight those foregoing good motions of that Holy Spirit this is despiting him And doth not this import enmity in an high degree That the Spirit needs strive so much that it may be overcome as with some at his own pleasure he doth with others in just displeasure he strives no more and so it is never overcome We come now to the Application Wherein the Subject would admit and require a very abundant enlargement if we were not within necessary limits Two things I shall take notice of as very necessary to be remark'd and most amazingly strange and wonderfull by way of Introduction to some further Use. 1. That ever the Spirit of man a reasonable intelligent Being God's own Off-spring and whereto he is not only a Maker but a Parent styl'd the Father of Spirits should be degenerated into so horried so unnatural a Monster What! to be an hater of God! The most excellent and all-comprehending Good and thy own Father Hear O Heavens and Earth saith the Lord I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me Isa. 1. 2. Be astonish'd O ye Heavens at this and be horribly afraid be ye very desolate As if all the blessed inhabitants of that upper World should rather forsake their glorious Mansions leave Heaven empty and run back into their original nothing than endure such a sight An intelligent Spirit hating God is the most frightful prodigy in universal Nature If all mens Limbs were distorted and their whole outer-man transformed into the most hideous shapes 't were a trifle in comparison with this deformity of thy Soul 2. That it should be thus and they never regret nor perceive it What self-loathing Creatures would men be could they see themselves so as never to endure themselves while they find they do not love God! But men are generally well pleas'd with themselves for all this Though the case is so plain they will not see it When all the mention'd indications shew it they never charge or suspect themselves of such a thing as this enmity against God! God charges them and doth he not know them The Pagan World that they are God-haters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 1. 30. even with an hellish hatred as the word there signifies They that profess his Name are apt to admit this true of the Gentiles but do we think our Lord Jesus did injuriously accuse the Jews too that they had both seen and hated him and his Father Joh. 15. 24. How remote was it from a Jew who boasted themselves God's peculiar people to think himself an hater of God! And what were they of whom he says by the Prophet loathed them and their Soul abhorred me which is presupposed Zech. 11. 8. and most justly for can there be a more loathsome thing than to abhor Goodness it self What the most perfect Benignity And those Cretians had receiv'd the Christian Faith whom the Apostle exhorts Titus to rebuke sharply that they might be sound in it and of whom he says that professing to know God in works they denied him being abominable Tit. 1. 16. Hence is our labour lost in beseeching men to be reconciled to God while they own no enmity Since this matter is so evident that this is the temper of the unconverted World Godward that they are alienated from him and enemies in their minds toward him by wicked works It is then beyond all expression strange that they never observe it in themselves as the Toad is not offended at its own poisonous nature and are hereupon apt to think that God observes it not nor is displeased with them for it It is strange they should not observe it in themselves upon so manifold evidence Do but recount with your selves and run over the several heads of evidence that have been given Can you deny you have minds capable of knowing God Cannot you conceive of Wisdom Power Goodness Truth Justice Holiness and that these may be either more manifest or in more excellent degrees even among Creatures in some Creatures more than in others but that Being in which they are in highest and most absolute perfection must be God Can you deny that you have lived in great ignorance of God much of your time that your ignorance was voluntary having such means of knowing him as you have had That you have usually been thoughtless and unmindfull of him in your ordinary course That the thoughts of him have been ungratefull and very little welcome or pleasant to you That you have had little converse with him little trust reverence delight or expectation plac'd on him as the object That you have not been wont to concern him in your affairs to consult him to desire his concurrence That you have not thought of approving your self to him in your designs and actions but lived as without him in the world That you have not designed the pleasing or obeying of him in the course of your conversation That the Gospel under which you have lived hath had little effect upon you to alter the temper of your Spirits towards him That if his Spirit hath sometimes awakened you raised some fear or some desires now and then in your Souls you have supprest and stifled and striven against such motions Do not these things together discover an enmity against God and the ways of God And is it not strange you cannot see this and perceive a disaffection to God by all this in your selves What is so near a man as himself Have you not in you a reflecting power Know ye not your own selves as the Apostle speaks 2 Cor. 13. 5. Yea generally men never find fault with themselves upon any such account and consequently think themselves in such respects very innocent in the sight of God and think he finds no fault with them Now these two things being premised will make way for the following Uses We infer therefore 1. That whereas it so evidently appears that men are at enmity with God it cannot but be consequent that God is not well pleased with them No one is well pleased to have another hate him God discerns that in the inward temper of mens minds wherewith he is not well pleased viz. this alienation of mind from him this wicked enmity that is so generally found in them They are wont to make light of secret internal sin The ill posture of their minds they think an harmless