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knowledgeth of himself, while he opposed the truth of Christianity, he was mad against all that were of that way.

VIII. And lastly, to mention no more, infidelity and opposition to the truth is usually attended with bloody and inhuman perfecution, a certain argument of a weak cause, and which wants better means of conviction. Thus the Jews treated our Saviour; when they could not deal with him by reason, they perfecuted him, and fought to kill him, John v. 16. and chap. viii. 59. When our Saviour had anfwered all their objections, and they had nothing to reply upon him, They took up stones to cast at him; a sign their reasons were spent, and that their arguments were at an end. Thus infidelity and error betrays its own weakness and wanting of reason on its side, by making use of fuch brutish and unreasonable weapons in its own defence. Our blessed Saviour and his Apostles never thought of propagating their religion by these inhuman and barbarous ways. These methods are proper to the destroyer; but not to the Lamb of God, and Saviour of men. The Son of man came not to destroy mens lives, but to save them; to do good to the bodies and to the fouls of men, and not to destroy their bodies, no, not in order to the faving of their fouls. All the means that he or his Apostles used, were teaching and perfuading, and that with great meekness: Learn of me, for I am meek, faith our Lord: and the Apostles every where command the teachers of this religion, to shew all gentleness to all men, and in meekness to instruct those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth. They did not go about to convert men by armed force, and ways of violence and cruelty. It is a sign that reason runs very low with that religion, which had no better arguments to perfuade men to it than dragoons and the gallies; these are carnal, and therefore not Christian weapons. So St. Paul tells us, The weapons of our warfare are not carnal; and yet they were mighty through God to of the world to the belief and obedience edience of the Chri

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stian religion. Thus I have done with the fourth particular in the text, the unreasonableness of infidelity, and opposition to the truth. The two remaining ones I shall dispatch in a few words.

Fifthly, therefore, I observed the true reason and account of mens opposition to the truth, and rejection of it; Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. And indeed darkness is more fuitable to a wicked and vicious life, because the deformity of it is not so easily discovered as in the light; this makes the evil of mens actions more manifest, and their faults more inexcusable. Men may pretend other reasons for their infidelity and oppofition of the truth, and may seem to argue against the principles of religion in good earnest, and against the reasonableness and truth of Christianity, from a real contrary perfuafion: but no man that hath these things fairly proposed to him, and with all the advantages they are capable of, and hath the patience to confider the true nature and design of the Christian doctrine, but must acknowledge it, not only to be the most reasonable, but the most divine, most likely to come from God, and to make men like to God, of any religion that ever yet appeared in the world. If any man reject it, it is not because he hath good and fufficient reasons against it; but because he is swayed by some unreasonable prejudice and passion, or biaffed by fome luft or interest, which he is strongly addicted to, and loth to part with, and yet he must part with it, if he entertain this religion, and fubmit himfelf to the terms and rules of of it. it. This is that which commonly lies at the bottom of infidelity, and is the true reason of their opposition to the truth, that their deeds are evil. And it is natural for every man to defend himself, and justify his doings as well as he can; and if religion be clearly against him, to set himself with all the despite and malice he can against religion; and to hate, and with all his might to oppose that which contradicts that course which he is in love with, and is resolved to continue in: for as our Saviour reasons in a like cafe, No man can serve two masters; but either he will hate the one, and love

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the other; or he will cleave to the one and quit the o ther. Men cannot entertain the truth, and retain their lusts; and therefore, as our Saviour tells us immediately after the text, Every one that doth evil hateth the light, neither cometh he to the light, left his deeds should be reproved. The light of truth is as grievous to a bad man, as the light of the fun is to fore eyes; because it lays open and discovers the faults and vices of men, and if they entertain it, will urge them, and put them upon a necessity of reforming their wicked lives, and because they have no mind to this, therefore they refift the light and endeavour to keep it out. The vices and lufts of men are so many diseases; and men naturally loath physick, and put it off as long as they can: and this makes many inconfiderate and wilful men to favour their disease, and take part with it against all counsel and advice; and when the great Physician of fouls comes and offers them a remedy, they flight and reject him, and will rather perish than follow his prescriptions.

And this was the true reason why the Jews rejected the gospel: they were vicious in their lives, and loth to undergo the feverity of a cure; they were not willing to be saved by so sharp and upleasant a remedy. And this is still the true reason at this day, of mens enmity and opposition to religion, because it declares against their evil deeds, and proclaims open war against those vices and lufts which they love, and are resolved to live in; so that they have no other way to justify themselves and their actions, but by condemning and rejecting that which reproves and finds fault with them.

And here I might shew more particularly, that there are two accounts to be given why bad men are so apt to resist and reject divine truth, even when it is revealed and proposed to them in the fairest manner, and with the clearest evidence.

1. Because their minds are not so rightly prepared and disposed for their receiving of divine truth. And,

2. Because they have an interest against it, their designs and deeds are evil, they have some worldly intereft

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interest to carry on, or they are in love with fome vice or lust which they cannot reconcile with the truths of God and religion. But this I have done at large elsewhere. [See Serm. 87, 88, 89.] I proceed therefore to the

Sixth and last particular in the text, namely, the great guilt of those who reject the doctrine of the gofpel. By this very act of theirs they are condemned, nay, they condemn themselves; because they reject the only means of their salvation. This is the condemnation, this very thing argues the height of their folly and guilt, that when light is come, they prefer darkness before it. If any thing will condemn men, this will; and if any thing will aggravate their condemnation, and make it above measure heavy and intolerable, this will. If it were in a doubtful matter that men made fo ill and foolish a choice, the thing would admit of fome excufe: but the dispute is between light and darkness. If the Christian religion had not so plainly the advantage of any other institution that ever was; if that holiness which the gospel commands, and that happiness which it promiseth, were not infinitely to be preferred before the ways of fin and death, the unbeliever and the disobedient might have something to say for themselves; but the cafe is plainly otherwife, so that whoever having the Christian religion fairly and fully proposed to him, doth not believe it, or profefsing to believe it, doth not live according to it, hath no cloak for his fin; neither the one for his infidelity, nor the other for his disobedience: and if any thing will aggravate the condemnation of men, this will; for the greater light men fin against, the greater is their guilt; and the greater any man's guilt is, the heavier will be his doom. The Heathen world that lived for many ages in darkness and the shadow of death, shall be condemned for finning against that imperfect knowledge of their duty, which they had from the glimmering of natural light; but they shall be beaten with few stripes, their punishment shall be gentle in comparison: but what punishment can be severe enough for those obstinate infidels that reject the light, and prefer darkness before it; for those impu

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dent offenders, who admit the light of the gospel, and yet rebel against it; who do the works of darkness in the midst of this light, at noon-day, and in the face of the fun ? This confideration the scripture frequently urgeth upon those who enjoy the light of the gospel. I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, for Sodom and Gomorrah, the very worst and wickedest of the Heathen, than for you. How shall we escape, if we neglect so great falvation? If either we reject the knowledge of the truth, or fin wilfully after we have received it, that is, apostatise either to infidelity, or impiety of life, there remains no more facrifice for fin, nothing but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, to consume the adversary, that is, such implacable enemies of God and his truth; in so doing, we refift and reject our last remedy; and after God hath fent and facrificed his only Son for our salvation, we cannot in reason think there remains any more facrifice for fin. I have gone over the several particulars in the text: I shall only make two or three infer

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First, If the great design of the Son of God was to enlighten the world with the knowledge of divine truth, what shall we think of those who make it their great endeavour to stiffe and suppress this light, and to hinder the free communication of it? who conceal the word of life from the people, and lock up the knowledge of salvation, contained in the holy fcriptures, in an unknown tongue ?

Secondly, Having represented the unreasonableness of infidelity, and the evil concomitants of it in the Jews, Let us take heed left there be in any of us an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God, and lest any of us fall after the same example of infidelity. Let us not reject the principles of religion, because they are inconfiftent with our evil practices, but let us rather endeavour to reconcile our lives to the rules of religion, and resolve to reform those faults which religion reproves, and which the reason of our own minds, if we would attend to it, reproves as much as religion; a clear evidence that L3

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