CORRIIPTION OR DEPRAVATION nature, but also in the lawand gospel, and yet affirms that the carnal mind which is in every man, is enmity against him. And in enmity there is neither disposition .nor inclination to love. In such persons there can be no more true love of God, than is consistent with enmity to him and against him. Sect. 48. All discourses therefore about the accept- ance they shall find with God, who love him above all for his goodness, without any farther communications of Christ, or the Holy Spirit onto them, are vain and empty, seeing there never was, nor 'ever will be, any one dram of such love unto God in the world. For whatevermen may fancy concerning the love of God, where this enmity arising from darkness is unremoved by the Spirit ofgrace and love, it is but a self= pleasing with those false notions of God which this darkness sug- gests unto them. With these they either please them- selves, or are terrified, as they represent things to their corrupt reason and fancies. Men in this state destitute ofdivine revelation, did of old seek after God, Acts xvii. 27. as men groping in the dark. And although they did, in some measure, find him, and know him, so far as that from the things that were made, they tame to be acquainted with his eternal power and God head, Rom. i. 20, 21. yet he was still absolutely unto them the unknown God, Acts xvii. 28. whom they it norantly worshipped; that is, they directed some wor- ship to him in the dedication of their altars, but knew him not; Je &iuvernç is,,tevre. And that they entertained all ofthem false notions of God, is from hence evident, that none of them, either by virtue of their knowledge of him, did free themselves from gross idolatry, which is the greatest enmity unto him; or did notcountenance themselves in many impieties or sins, from those notions they had received of God andhis goodness, Rom. i. 20, 21. The issue oftheir disquisitions after the nature of God was, that they glorified him not, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Upon the common principles of,the -- first be- ingand the chiefest good, their fancy or imaginations raised such notions of God,, as pleased and delighted them, and drewout their affections, which was not in- deed unto God and his goodness but unto the effect and product of their own imaginations. And hence it was, that those that had the most raised apprehensions 'con- cerning the nature, being, and goodness of God, with the highest expressions of a constant admiration of him, and love unto him, when by any means the true God indeed was declared unto them ashe bath revealedhina.. self, and as he will be known, these great admirers and lovers of divine goodness were constantly the greatest opposers of him, and enemies unto him. And an un- controulable- evidence this is, that the love of divine goodness, which some do fancy in persons destitute of supernaturalrevelation and other aids of grace, was, in the best of them, placedon the products of their own imaginations, and not on God himself. Sect. 4.9. But; omitting them, we may consider the effects of this darkness working by enmity in the minds of themwho have the word preached unto them; even in these, until effectually prevailed on by victorious grace, either closely or openly it exerts itself. And however they may be doctrinally instructed in true no- tions concerning God and his attributes; yet, in the applicationof them unto themselves, or in the consider- ation of their own concernment in them, they always err in their hearts. All the practical notions they have of God tend to alienatetheir hearts from him; and that either by contempt, or by an undue dread and terror. For some apprehend him slow and regardless of what they do, at least one that is not so severely displeased with them, as that it should be necessary for them to seek a change of their state and condition. They think that God is such an one as themselves, Psal. 1. 21. at least that he doth approve them, and will accept them, although they should continue in their sins. Now this is a- fruit of the highest enmity against God, though palliated with the pretence of the most raised notions and apprehensions of his goodness. For as it is an hein- ous -crime to imaginé an outward shape of the divine nature, and that God is liketo men or beasts, the height of the sin of the most gross idolaters, Rom. i. 23. Psal. cvi. 20. so it is a sin of an higher provocation, to con- ceive him so far like unto bestial men, as to approve and accept of them in theirsins. Yet this false notion of -God, even when his nature and will are objectively revealed in the word, this darknessdoth and will main- tain in the minds of men, whereby they are made ob- stinate in -their sin to the - uttermost. And where this fails, it will, on the other hand, represent God all fire and fury, inexorable and intractable. See Micah vi. 6. Isa. xxxiii. 14. Gen. iv. 13.
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