commandment of man, though in case of idolatry, but like snails creep after the commandment of God, if they move at all. So they made the king glad with their lies, they cheered his heart with their ready obedience to his command for idolatry, against the counsel of God, and warnings of the prophets. And they, contrary to the speech of Christ, fear him that cap kill the body, more than that God who can destroy both body and soul; and are scared more by the frowns of men, than the power of God. It is natural in all ages. It was Hierom's complaint,* timent leges humanas, at non divinas; quasi majora sint imperatorum scuta quam Christi, leges timemus, evangelia contemnimus. Without question, man is obliged to obey his Creator, without consulting whether his commands are agreeable to the institutions of men. For if we obey him because men's laws enjoin the same, we obey not God but man, human laws being the chief motive of our obedience. This is to vilify God's sovereignty, and lay it under the hatches of men's authority, since we thus slight the duty which in point of right he may demand of us, and pay with ungrateful returns so liberal a benefactor for men whose laws we principally regard, were never the principal author of our being; and the instrumental preservation we have by them, is not without the providential influence of that Lord whose authority we subject to theirs. Why should we readily submit to human laws, and stagger at divine? Why should we depose God from his right of governing the world, and value men's laws above our Maker's? Why should we make God's authority of a less concern to us than that of a justice of peace, or a pettyconstable; as though they were God's superiors, and obedience more rightfully due to them, than to him? What a contempt of God is this: It is to tell God, * Hierom. vol. 1. Epist. 2. p. 11. b. Unwillingness to have his Laws observed. 41 I will break the sabbath, swear, revile, revel, were it not for the curb of national laws, for all thy precepts to the contrary. 9. In man's unwillingness to have God's laws observed by any. Man would not have God have a loyal subject in the world. What is the reason else of the persecution of those who would be the strictest observers of God's injunctions, as if they were the most execrable persons under the cope of heaven? What is the reason the seed of the serpent hates the seed of the woman, with as much vehemency as the holy angels do the most prodigious villains? It is ordinary for profane men to look upon such as would walk before God unto all well pleasing, as strange and abominable monsters. Wherein they think it strange, that you run not with them to the same excess of riot; speaking evil of you, 1 Pet. 4. 4. Speaking evil of you; BraconuevTec, railing, libeling the whole profession, loading them with many opprobrious epithets: because they will not be as diffusive in sensuality as themselves: because they run not, εις άσωτιας αναχυοιν ; thus censuring those acts of theirs, which are pleasing to God, at the bar of prophaneness. It is not for any wrong done to them, that they thús hate them, but because they will not injure God, and transgress his laws so much as themselves do. How clear a discovery is this of men's natural unwillingness to suffer God to have the least grain of obedience in the world, when they are angry that any bear a veneration to his laws, and that others will not run into the same career, and be in arms against God as well as they? Hence it is that the holiest persons have been most persecuted: amongst the Jews, Isaiah sawed to death, Jeremiah stoned, Zacharias killed at the altar, Elias put to flight. Among the christians, all the apostles but John put to death: the holiest men have been the greatest sufferers. Among the heathen, Socrates condemned to poison. And the reason is, because they have more honourable thoughts of God, and would maintain the interest of God in the world. 10. In the pleasure we take to see his laws broken by others. Sin is the greatest evil that can happen to God; and there is nothing man doth more caress and gratify himself in, than to see a creature bemired with it. And indeed, sin is the very essence of most of the mirth in the world, Job so well knew it, that he rose every morning to make an atonement for his sons, who he knew could not be without many erratas in their jollities. This indictment the apostle brings among the rest against the Gentiles; Not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them, Rom. 1. 32. Do not men often make that the object of their laughter, which is the object of God's infinite hatred ? Are not other men's sins the subject of our sport and mirth, which should be the subject of our pity and sorrow? Pity to the sinner, and sorrow for the sin. What is this but an evidence of a rooted hatred of God in our nature, when we please ourselves with any dishonour done to him by others? For it is put among the noble attributes of love, 1 Cor. 13. 6, that it rejoiceth not in iniquity; neither its own iniquity, nor other men's. To rejoice in it then must be an accursed quality belonging to hatred; yet how many are there in the world, that cannot see others dishonour God, without some sort of satisfaction; they are displeased with his glory, and pleased with his dishonour. Secondly. We are enemies to God's sovereignty, in setting up other sovereigns in the stead of God. If we did dethrone God to set up an angel, or some virtuous man, it would be a lighter affront; but to place the basest and filthiest thing in his throne, is intole rable. What we love better than God, what we sacrifice all our industry to, what we set our hearts most upon, what we grieve most for, when we miss of our end, we prefer before God. Man sets up other Sovereigns. 43 1. Idols. Though so palpable idolatry be not committed by us, yet it was natural to mankind; since we know all nations were over-run with it, Josh. 24. 2. Since the father of the faithful was an idolater before he was a believer. And his posterity the Jews, who had heard God himself speak to them from Mount Sinai, were no sooner departed from the foot of the mountain, but they adored a golden calf in his stead; and this sin did run in the blood of all their posterity; since we find God charging them with it through the whole Old Testament; and it was not rooted out till the seventy years' captivity in Babylon. And that the naturalness of it to mankind may further appear, consider what incentives against it the Jews had. They had the greatest appearances of God, particular marks of his favour, his judgments and statutes, which the Psalmist (Psal. 147. 19, 20.) sets an emphasis upon, that he had not dealt so with every nation, no, not with any nation. They had the visible signs of his presence, the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day; they were more particularly under his indulgent care; he had altered the course of nature, and wrought miracles for their deliverance; rained manna from heaven to spread their table, carried them in his bosom; yet those wretches were throwing down God, to make room for their golden calf. This idolatry is as absolute a degrading and vilifying of God as hell itself could invent; it is a real calling him by the names of all those loathsome, senseless creatures so odious, as images of him. As if God were no better than a stone, a piece of carved brass or wood, of no greater excellency than an image or puppet; this is a denying of God. Job speaking, that he had not kissed his hand, or made obeisance to idols; for then, saith he, I should have denied the God that is above, Job 31. 28. It is called a loathing God, who is the husband of christians; a loathing of all his authority over them, Ezek. .16. 45. The giving ado ration to an image which belongs to God, is a making it equal to him, if not above him; for by such a veneration they evidence, that God is no better in their apprehension than the stock they worship. The heathen world is at this day drenched in this kind of idolatry, and most part of the christian world are subject to the remains of this pagan sin; as the papists, who adore for their Saviour a little wafer, which perhaps the mice have bitten, and flies have cast their excrements upon. 2. We are enemies to God's sovereignty in setting up self. Man imagined at first, that by eating the forbidden fruit, he should have a knowledge of good and evil, as to be independent upon God, and founded upon himself, and his own will. This self in us is properly the old Adam, the true offspring of the first corrupted man. This is the great antichrist, the great anti-god in us, which sits in the heart, the temple of God, and would be adored as God, would be the chiefest, as the highest end. This is the great usurper in the world, for it invades the right of God; it is the most direct compliance, and likeness to the devil, whose actions centre wholly in malicious selfwill; in this respect I suppose the devil is called the god of this world, because he acts so, as if the world should only serve his ends. Self is the centre of many men's religious actions; while God seems to be the object. Self is the end; Did you fast unto me? Zech. 7. 5. This being the motive of hypocrisy, makes it more idolatry, and so more odious to God; other sins subject only the creature to self, but this subjects the soul, and even God himself, to corrupt self. Self-love leads the van; Men shall be lovers of their own selves, 2 Tim. 3. 2; to that black catalogue he seems to speak of that black regiment which march behind it, and is concluded with a form of godliness, and denying the power of it; and a denying the power of godliness, is a denying the sovereignty of God. The righteousness a man |