Ana. 1. If you do but observe yourself, and search your own heart, unless you are strangely blinded, you may be sensible of these things wherein enmity does fundamentally consist. As particularly, you may be sensible that you have at least had a low and contemptible estcem of God; and that you in your esteem set the trifles and vanities of this world far above him; so as to esteem the enjoyment of these things far before the enjoyment of God, and to value these things better than his love. And you may be sensible that you despise the authority of God, and value his commands and his honor but very little. Or if by some means you have blinded yourself now, so as to think you do regard them now, doubtless you can look back and see that you have not regarded them. You may be sensible that you have had a disrelish and aversion towards God; an opposition to thinking of God, or to have any thing to do with him; so that it would have been a very uncomfortable task to have been confined to it for any time; and that when the vanities of the world, at the same time, have been very pleasing to you; and you have been all swallowed up in them, while you have been averse to the things of religion.

If you look into your heart, it is there plain to be seen, that there in an enmity in your will, that your will is contrary to God's will; for you have been opposing the will of God all your life long. These things are plain in natural men; it is nothing but some great delusion that can hide them from you. And these things are the foundation of all enmity; if these things be in you, all the rest that we have spoken of will follow of course.

2. One reason why you have not more sensibly felt the exercises of malice against God is, that your enmity is now exercised partly in your unbelief of God's being; and this prevents its appearing in other ways, that otherwise it would. Man has naturally a principle of Atheism in him; an indisposition to realize God's being, and a disposition to doubt of it. The being of God does not ordinarily seem real to natural All the discoveries that there are of God's being, in his works, will not overcome the principle of Atheism that is

men.

in the heart. And though they seem in some measure to be rationally convinced, yet it does not appear real; the conviction is faint, there is no strong conviction impressed on the mind, that there is a God: And oftentimes they are ready to think that there is none. Now this will prevent the exercise of this enmity that otherwise would be felt; particularly, it may be an occasion of there not being those sensible exercises of hatred, that otherwise there would be.

It may in some measure be illustrated by this: If you had a rooted malice against another man, a principle that had been long established there; if you should hear that he was dead, and so should conceive that he had no being, the sensible workings of your malice would not be felt, as when you realized it that he was alive, or that there was such a person; and that although there be the same thing in the foundation, which would appear, if you should afterwards hear the news contradicted, and perceive that your enemy was still alive; you would feel the same workings of hatred that you did before. And when you thought he was dead, you might feel the exercise of your enmity, in being glad of it. And thus your not realizing it, that God has a being, may prevent those sensible workings of hatred, that otherwise you would have. If wicked men in this world were sensible of the reality of God's being, as the wicked are in another, they would feel more of that hatred, that men in another world do. The exercise of corruption in one way, may, and often does prevent it working in other ways. As covetousness may prevent the exercise of pride, so atheism may prevent malice; and yet it may be no argument of there being any the less of a principle of enmity in the heart; for it is the same enmity working in another way. The same enmity that in this world works by atheism, will in another world where there will be no room for Atheism, work by malice and blasphemy. The same mortal enmity that, if you saw there was a God, might make you to wish him dead, and to desire, if it were possible, to kill him, may now dispose and incline to think there is none. Men are very often apt to think things are so as they would have them to be. The same principle disposes you to

think God has no life, which, if you knew he had, would dispose you, if it were possible, to take it away.

3. If you think that there is a God, yet you do not realize it, that he is such a God as he is. You do not realize it, that he is so holy a God as he is: You do not realize it, that he has such an hatred of sin as indeed he has. You do not realize it,

that he is so just a God as he is, that will by no means clear the guilty. But that in the Psalms is applicable to you: "These things hast thou done, and I kept silence: Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself." Psal. 1. 21. So that if you think there is a God, you do not think there is such a God as there is. And your atheism appears in this, as well as in thinking there is no God. For that God that you think there is, is not that God that indeed is, but another, one of your own feigning, the fruit of your own vain, deluded imagination. So that your objection arises from this, that you do not find such a sensible hatred against that God which you have formed, to suit yourself; a god that you like better than the true God. But this is no argument that you have not bitter enmity against the true God; for it was your enmity against the true God, and your not liking him, that has put you upon forming up another in your imagination, that you like better. It is your enmity against those attributes of God's holiness and justice, and the like, that has put you upon conceiting another, who is not so holy as he is, and does not hate sin so much, and will not be so strictly just in punishing it; and whose wrath against sin is not so terrible.

But if you was sensible of the vanity of your own conceits, and that God was not such an one as you have imagined; but that he is, as he is indeed, an infinitely holy, just, sin hating, and sin revenging God, who will not tolerate nor endure the worship of idols, you would be much more liable to feel the sensible exercises of enmity against him, than you are now. And this experience confirms. For we see that when men come to be under convictions, and to be made sensible that God is not as they have heretofore imagined; but that he is such a jealous, sin hating God, and whose wrath against sin is so dreadful, they are much more apt to have sensible exercises of enmity against God than before.

4. Your having always been taught that God is infinitely bove you, and out of your reach, has prevented your enmity's being exercised in those ways that otherwise it would have been. You have always from your infancy been taught, that God is so high, that you cannot hurt him; that notion has grown up with you. And hence you be not sensible, that you have any disposition to hurt him; because it has been conceived so impossible, that it has not come into your mind. And hence your enmity has not been exercised in revengeful thoughts; because revenge has never found any room here; it has never found any handle to take hold of; there has been no conception of any such thing, and hence it has lain still, A serpent will not bite, or spit poison at that which it sees at a great distance; which if it saw near, would do it immediately. Opportunity shows what men be often times, whether friends or enemies. Opportunity to do, puts men in mind of doing; wakens up such principles as lay dormant before. Opportunity stirs up desire to do, where there was before a disposition that without opportunity would have lain still. If a man has had an old grudge against another, and has a fair opportunity to be revenged, this will revive his malice, and wak, en up a desire of revenge.

If a great and sovereign prince injures a poor man, and though what he does is looked upon very cruel, that will not ordinarily stir up that passionate revenge, as if he sustained no bigger an injury from one of his equals, because he is so much above him, and out of his reach. Many a man that has appeared calm and meek when he has had no power in his hands, and has not appeared, either to himself or others, to have any disposition to these and those cruel acts; that yet afterwards, when he came to have opportunity by unexpected advancement or otherwise, has appeared like a ravenous wolf, or devouring lion. So it was with Hazael. "And Hazael said, why weepeth my lord? And he answered, because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: Their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child. And Hazael said, but what

thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing! And Elisha answered, the Lord hath showed me that thou shalt be king over Syria.” 2 Kings viii. 12, 13. Hazael was then a servant; he had no power in his hands to do as he pleased; and so that cruel disposition that was in him had lain hid, and he did not himself imagine that it was there: But afterwards, when he became king of Syria and was absolute, and had none to control him; then it broke out and appeared, and he did as the prophet had foretold. He committed those very acts of cruelty, that he thought it was not in his heart to do. And it was want of opportunity that was the thing that made the difference. It was all in his heart before: He was such a dog then as to do this thing, but only had not had opportunity. And therefore when he seems supprised that the prophet should say so of him, all the reason the prophet gives is, "The Lord hath showed me that thou shalt be king over Syria."

But

And some natural men are such dogs as to do things, if they had opportunity, which they do not imagine it is in their hearts to do. You object against your having a mortal hatred against God; that you never felt any desire to kill him. one reason has been, that it has always been conceived so impossible by you, and you have been so sensible how much desires would be in vain, that it has kept down such a desire. But if the life of God were within your reach, and you knew it, it would not be safe one hour. Who knows what thoughts would presently arise in your heart by such an opportunity, and what disposition would be raised up in your heart! Who would trust your heart, that there would not presently be such thoughts as these, though they are enough to make one tremble to mention them? "Now I have opportunity to set myself at liberty.....that I need not be kept in continual slavery by the strict law of God. Then I may take my liberty to walk in that way I like best and need not be continually in such slavish fear of God's displeasure. And God has not done well by me in many instances. He has done most unjustly by me, in holding me bound to destruction for unbelief, and other things which I cannot help.....He has shown mercy to others, and re