If we know not how to pray in a corner confessing our sins and supplicating for mercy we cannot but live miserable lives When therefore this is not done whence is it but from an enmity of mind To a Friend we can unbosom our selves not to an Enemy I might also enlarge upon Family Prayer But if Closet Prayer were seriously minded you that have Families would not dare to neglect Prayer with them too But if either be perform'd with coldness and indifferency it makes the matter worse or more plainly bad and shews it is not love or any lively affection that puts you upon praying but a frightened Conscience only And a miserably mistaken deluded one that makes you think the God you pray to will be mock'd or trifl'd with or that cannot perceive whether your Heart be with him or against him And so instead of worshipping him or giving him honour in that performance you reproach and affront him And all this while how vastly doth the temper of your mind disagree with the mind of God I would saith the blessed God have a course of Prayer run through the whole course of your lives and all this that your Hearts may be lifted up from Earth to Heaven that your Hearts may be in Heaven every day according to Mat. 6. 19. Lay not up for your selves treasures on Earth but treasures in Heaven c. Where your treasure is there will your hearts be also And so we are led to the other Precept mentioned before 2. As to a Heavenly Conversation God would not have reasonable Creatures who have intelligent spirits about them to grovel and crawl like Worms in the Dust of this lower World as if they had no nobler sort of Objects to converse with than the things of this Earth nothing fitter for the contemplation exercise and enjoyment of an immortal mind The Saints are finally design'd for an inheritance in light Colos. 1. 12. and their thoughts and affections ought to be there before hand that they may become meet for that inheritance Will it do a man any harm to have frequent fore-thoughts of the everlasting joy purity and bliss of the heavenly state How joyous and pleasant must it be And why are we called Christians if he who is our Lord and Teacher revealing his mind to us and expresly charging us to seek first the Kingdom of God to set our affections on the things above c. shall not be regarded Why is not Heaven every day in our thoughts Why will we lose the pleasure of an heavenly life and exchange it for earthly care and trouble or vanity at the best Why is it no other reason can be given but only an alienation of our minds from God 9. Another Argument to prove this alienation and enmity against God is the unsuccessfulness of the Gospel which can be resolvable into nothing else but such an enmity The design of the Gospel is to bring us into an Union with the Son of God and to believe on him whom the Father hath sent Christ seeks to gather in Souls to God but they will not be gathered This is matter of fearful consideration that when God is calling after men by his own Son that there be so few that will come to him How few are there that say give me Christ or I am lost None can reconcile me to God but Christ You are daily besought in Christ's stead to be reconciled 2 Cor. 5. 20. but in vain What doth this signify but obstinate invincible enmity 2. Another head of Arguments may be taken from several considerations that we may have of God in this matter whence it will appear that nothing but enmity on our parts keeps us at that distance from God as we generally are at And consider to that purpose 1. That God is the God of all Grace the fountain of Goodness the element of Love Why are men at that distance from him who is Goodness and Grace and Love it self The reason is not on God's part 1 Joh. 4. 16. God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him What can our so great distance from this God signify from the most perfect the most excellent goodness but the most horrid kind and the highest pitch of enmity Did men apprehend this what frightful monsters would they appear to themselves This is not only a plain but a terrible declaration of a most unaccountable enmity on our part 2. God is still pleased to continue our Race on Earth a succession of men in this World from age to age made after his own Image with minds and spirits that are intelligent and immortal which declares a strong propension in God towards such a sort of creatures the inhabitants of this lower World tho' degenerated and fall'n from him Notwithstanding all their neglect of him in former ages yet new generations of men still spring up capable of knowing and serving him Prov. 8. 31. In the foreseen heighth of man's enmity this was the steady bent of his mind towards them to rejoyce in the habitable parts of this earth and to have his delights with the sons of men Thus also in the 2 Chron. 6. 18. do we find Solomon in a rapture of admiration on this account But will God in every deed dwell with men on earth c And the Psalmist Psal. 68. 18. That gifts are given to the rebellious the most insolent of enemies that the Lord God might dwell among them How admirable and unconceivable a wonder is this The heaven of heavens cannot contain him and will he yet dwell with men on earth And we yet find notwithstanding God's great condescension that there is still a distance Whence can this be but from man's aversion and enmity of mind against God Thus are men still requiting God evil for his goodness God will dwell with men on Earth but men will not dwell with him nor admit of his dwelling with them They say to him depart from us Job 21. 14. 'T is thus from age to age and generation to generation which shews God's goodness on his part and the enmity on man's part See to this purpose Psalm 14. and 53. the beginning of each 3. Consider the forbearance of God towards you while you are continually at mercy With what patience doth he spare you though your own hearts must tell you that you are offending creatures and whom he can destroy in a moment He spares you that neglect him He is not willing that you should perish but come to the knowledge of the truth that you may be saved by which he calls and leads you to repentance Rom. 2. 4. On God's part here is a kind intention but on man's part nothing but persevering enmity 4. Consider God's large and wonderful bounty towards the Children of men in this World and the design of it Acts 17. 25 26. He giveth to all life and breath and all things that they might seek after him Psal. 68. 19.
But this man in his degenerate state will by no means admit of There are two things considerable in the Will of God which the mind of man cannot comply withall The Sovereignty and the Holiness of it 1. The Sovereignty of God's Will We must look on God's Will as absolutely Sovereign Man must look on God's Will to be above his Will so as that man must cross his own will to comport with an higher will than his But this apostatiz'd man will not do and therefore he is at enmity with God he will not submit to the Will of God as superiour to his Will And then 2. There is the Holiness of God's Will His Law is a holy Law and the renewed man therefore loves it But because 't is holy therefore the unregenerate man dislikes it 3. Lastly God is consider'd under the notion of our end our last end as he is to be glorify'd and enjoy'd by us There is a disaffection to God in the hearts of unregenerate men in this regard also The spirit of man is opposite to living to the glory of God Every one sets up for himself I will be my own end It shall be the business of my whole life to please my self Therefore when God is represented as our end as in the 1 Cor. 10. 31. Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do do all to the glory of God And as it is in the 2 Cor. 5. 15. No man is to live to himself c. The great design of our being delivered from the Law viz. as a cursing condemning Law is that we may live to God Gal. 2. 19. I am dead to the Law that I might live to God This the unrenewed heart cannot comport with The last and great design of all our actions must terminate on God Now self is set up as the great Idol in opposition to God all the world over and the spirits of men grow by custom more and more disaffected to God in this respect Again God would be owned by us for our best good This should be the sense of our Souls towards him So it was with the Psalmist Psal. 73. 25. Whom have I in heaven but thee c. But says the unregenerate Soul the World is better to me than God And it is upon this account that when Overtures are made of changing this state the unregenerate mind opposes it Thus have you this Doctrine explained and opened I come now in the 2d Place To evince the truth of this Doctrine and that by two Heads of Arguments Partly from our selves and partly from God 1. From our selves 'T is an alienation and enmity of mind that keeps men off from God and Reconciliation with him which will plainly appear 1. If we consider that our minds are capable of knowing God Such a thing is the mind of man which was originally made for such an exercise as to be taken up principally with things relating to God Our minds can apprehend what is meant by the nature of God as a Being of uncreated Perfection in whom all Power Wisdom and Goodness do meet who fills Heaven and Earth and from everlasting was God Our minds tell us that we have a capacity thus to conceive of God 'T is in the capacity of man's nature to mind God as well as to mind vanity but doth it not And whence doth this proceed but from enmity an alienation of the mind from God 2. This appears in that men are wilfully ignorant of God and are destitute of the knowledge of him out of choice ignorant and are willing to be so This speaks enmity and alienation of mind more expresly and fully That they are capable of knowing God and yet are ignorant of him leaves no other cause assignable But their desiring so to be plainly assigns this cause Rom. 1. 28. They liked not to retain God in their knowledge 'T is not grateful to them Job 21. 14. We desire not the knowledge of thy ways Men are ignorant willingly of that God who made the world and all things therein 2 Pet. 3. 5. For this they are willingly ignorant c. They will not know God though his visible Works shew his invisible Power and Godhead Rom. 1. 19 20. Now this can signify nothing but auenation and enmity of mind Men are willing and industrious to know other things and labour after the knowledge of them but they decline the knowledge of God and his ways being alienated from God through the blindness of their hearts Ephes. 4. 18. This heart-blindness is chosen and voluntary blindness signifies their having no mind or will to things of that nature But now the voluntariness of this ignorance of God and the enmity that is consequently in it appears evidently in two sorts of persons 1. In many that are of the more knowing and inquisitive sort who do all they can to make themselves notional Atheists to blot or rase the notion of God out of their minds Of them I shall say little here They do their utmost but in vain It will stick as close to them as their thinking Power But their attempt shews their enmity For they are content to admit the grossest Absurdities into their minds rather than permit that notion to remain unmolested there Rather imagine such a curious frame of things as this World is to have come by chance than that it had a wise just holy as well as powerful Maker They would count it an absurdity even unto madness to think the exquisite picture of a Man or a Tree to have happened by chance and can allow themselves to be so absurd as to think a Man himself or a Tree to be causal Productions Is not this the height of enmity 2. In the unthinking generality of whom yet unconverted out of the state of Apostacy 't is said they are fools as is the usual Language of Scripture concerning wicked or unconverted men and that such fools tho' they never offer at saying in their minds much less with their mouths yet they say in their hearts no God i. e. not there is none for there is no is in the Hebrew Text. The words may rather go in the Optative form than the Indicative O that there were none The notion is let alone while it reaches not their hearts If it do they only wish it were otherwise This speaks their enmity the more for the notion lies a continual testimony against the bent of their hearts and constant practice that while they own a God they never fear nor love him accordingly And they grosly misrepresent him sometimes as all made up of Mercy without Justice or Holiness and so think they need no Reconciliation to him he and they are well agreed already Sometimes think of him as merciless and irreconcilable and therefore never look after being reconciled to him 3. It appears hence that men do so seldom think of God when as a thought of God may be as soon thought as any other and would cost
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