fib 154 OP SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. conscience to the gospel, either notionally or practi- cally, deriding or despising all supernatural revela- tions ; theyare a thousand times more disposed to down- right atheism, than persons who never had the light or benefit of such revelations. Take heed of decays ; whatever ground the gospel loseth in our minds, sin possesseth itself of for its own ends. Let none say it is otherwise with them. Men grow cold and negligent in the duties of gospel worship, public and private, which is to reject gospel light. Let them say and pretend what they please, that in other; things in their minds and conversations, it is well with them; indeed it is not so. Sin will sin doth, one way or other, make an increase in them, proportionate to these decays, and will sooner or later discover itself so to do. And themselves, if they are not utterlyhar- dened, may greatly discover it, inwardly in their peace, or outwardly in their lives. 3. Where men are resolved not to see, the greater the light is that shines about them, the faster they must close their eyes. All atheism springs from a resolu- tion not to see things invisible and eternal. Love of sin, a resolved continuance in the practice of it, the ef- fectual power of vicious inclinations, in opposition to all that is good, make it the interest of such men that there should be no God to call them to anaccount. For a supreme unavoidable Judge, aneternal Rewarder of good and evil, is inseparable from the first notion of a Divine Being. Whereas, therefore, the most glori- ous light, and uncontrollable evidence of these things shines forth in the scripture, men that will abide bytheir interest to love and live in sin, must close their eyes with all the arts and powers that they have, or else they will pierce into their minds to their torment.
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