OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. 155 This they do by downright atheism, which alone pre- tends to give them security against the light of divine revelation. Against all other convictions, they might take shelter from their fears, under less degrees of it. It is not, therefore, to the disparagement, but honor of the gospel, that so many avow themselves to be atheists, in those places wherein the truth of it is known and professed : for none can have the least in- clination or temptation thereto, until they have before- hand rejected the gospel, which immediately exposeth them to the worst of evils. Nor is there any means for the recovery of suchper sons. The opposition that hath been made to atheism, with arguments for the divine being and existence of God, taken from reason and natural light, in this and otherSages, hath been of good use to cast contempt on the pretences of evil men, to justify themselves in their folly. But that they have 'so much as changed the minds of any, I much doubt. No man is under the power of atheistical thoughts, or can be so long, but he that is ensnared into them by his desire to live securely and uncontrollable in sin. Such persons know it to be their interest, that there should be no God, and are willing to take shelter under the bold expressions and reasonings of them, who by the same means have liar- dened and blinded their minds into such foolish thoughts. But the most rational arguments for the being of the Deity will never prove an effectual cure to a predominant love of, and habitual course in sin, in them who have resisted and rejected the means and motives to that end, declared in divine revelation. And unless the love of sin be cured in the heart, thoughts of the acknowledgement of God will not be fixed in the mind.
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