we are pertinacious in any doubtful opinion, and assume to ourselves infallibility of judgment, as if our sentiments were as firm as divine decrees; what is this, but an exalting ourselves above all that is called God, to erect an unlimited power over other men's reasons and judgments, as though it were as infallible as God, and all others differing from us under blindness and error.

3. Usurping God's prerogative, in prescribing rules of worship which ought only to be appointed by God. In putting out, or leaving in, what they think fit to be the rule of worship; in prescribing by human laws, what they judge good and right in divine. All the reason under heaven could not have informed us what God was in himself, or what worship he expected of us, without supernatural revelation: therefore, when God hath fixed it, for men to be making alterations in it, and additions to it, is an intolerable invading of his right, at least it is an equalling our own fallible inventions with his infallible oracles, imperiously to obtrude upon people human inventions with as much authority as if they had been signed and sealed in heaven, and were unquestionably warranted by God himself. The prescribing the manner of worship, is a part of God's sovereignty; therefore in the two last chapters of Exodus, where the erecting of the tabernacle is described, those words, As the Lord commanded, are seventeen times inserted. And to prescribe any thing which God hath not commanded (though he hath not forbidden it) is such an invasion of his prerogative, that he hath punished it by a remarkable judgment. Lev. 10. 1. When Nadab and Abihu took strange fire, i. e. other fire than what was upon the altar, wherewith to kindle their incense, though God had given no command to the contrary, yet because he had not commanded the offering with strange fire, he cut them off by a terrible judgment.

And it is to be observed, that none are more

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irreconcilable enemies to the true power and spirit of godliness, than the usurpers of this prerogative of God, the Lord in just judgment leaving them to the dotages of their own minds, and the enmity of their hearts against him, being successors of the pharisees in their judicial blindness, as well as their usurpations of God's authority.

4. In subjecting the truths of God to the trial of reason, or trying God's oracles at the tribunal of our shallow reason. It is a part of God's sovereignty to be the interpreter, as well as maker of his own laws, as it is a right inherent in the legislative power among men. So that it is an invasion of his right to fasten a sense upon his declared will, which doth not naturally flow from the words: for to put any interpretation according to our pleasure upon divine as well as human laws, contrary to the true intent, is a virtual usurpation of this power; because if laws may be interpreted according to our humours, the power of the law would be more in the interpreter than in the legislator. And it is the worse when men try the word not by their reasons, but by their fancies and humours, and put allegories, the brats of crazy or humorous fancy, as the genuine meaning of the word of God.

5. In judging future events, as if we had been of God's privy-council when he first undertook any great action in the world.

6. In censuring others' state. It is an intruding into God's judicial authority. Who hath made me a jndge? was Christ's plea, Luke 12. 14. Who art

thou that judgest another's state, as though thou wert Lord of the heart of thy brother, and God had given over his jurisdiction over the heart to thee; as though he were to stand or fall to thy censure?

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PART III.

ENMITY AGAINST THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD IN

GENERAL.

Swearing under religious pretensions-Charging sin upon God-Hating the image of God's holiness in others-Indulging debasing notions of the holy nature of God-High offence to God-Carnal imaginations of God-Unworthy addresses to God-Defacing the image of God in the soul-Enmity to the wisdom of God-Slighting his laws-Defacing the workmanship of God-Censuring his ways-Prescribing to God-Enmity against the sufficiency of God-Against the omniscience-Against the mercy of God-Against the justice of God-Against the truth of God-Threatenings and promises-Against the providence of God-Against sovereign pleasure.

II. ENMITY to the holiness of God.

This hating his holiness is a virtual depriving him of his being; for if he did not infinitely hate evil, he would not be infinitely good, and consequently would not be God. God can never endure sin, no not to look upon it; and to cherish that, which is so contrary to his purity, is a denial of his holiness. Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, thou canst not look on iniquity, Hab. 1. 13.

First, in sinning under a pretence of religion. Many resolve upon some ways of wickedness, and

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then rake the scripture to find out at least excuses and evasions for it, if not a justification for their crimes. This was the devil's method to Christ, to bring scripture for self-murder. Saul resolves not to obey God, but would preserve the spoils of the Ama, lekites, and then thinks to qualify all with offering a few sacrifices; as though God's holiness would not bate sin, that had a religious pretext. Many that have wrung estates from the tears of widows and heart blood of orphans, think to wipe off all their oppression by some charitable legacies at their death. It is abomi nable to make charity, the transcript of God's goodness, a covert for sin; and religion which is to bring us near to God, to patronize our tyranny. When men will speak wickedly and talk deceitfully for God Job 13.7. i. e. will sin for God's glory, and make, the honour of his service a stalking-horse to the affront of his holiness.

2. In charging sin upon God. Every man naturally is willing to find the inducement to sin in another, rather than in himself. This is an act of hatred, to bespot the reputation of others by imputing our crimes to them, and accusing them as the authors or occasions of our transgressions. It is an act of fear, which is the companion of hatred; if men can make God a sinner against his own law, they blemish his holiness, they think they are secure from the punishment they did dread. * For we fear not man, who is faulty as well as ourselves. When men have done all that they can to blot out a sense of a Deity, and see they cannot do it, they will raze out the reverence of it. And if we find a way to lay our sins at God's door, when he chargeth them upon us, we think then to escape the rigour of his justice, and that he cannot be unrighteous to punish us for those crimes which he is guilty of as well as ourselves. But it is a foolish consideration; for if we can fancy an unholy God, we

* Manton on James, p. 92.

have no reason to think him a righteous God. That you may see that this very thing which looks so horrible, runs in our blood, take notice of the two first discourses God had with man after his fall, and they will both discover this.

When God examines Adam about his transgression, he excuses himself by laying it upon God; The woman whom thou gavest me to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat, Gen. 3. 12. Hadst thou not given me the woman, I had not been tempted; and had I not been tempted, I had not sinned; and this sin was committed presently after the woman was given me, as if thou hadst given me this woman to be my immediate tempter; and infused such a love in my heart to her, that it could not resist her allurements. For he seems by the speech to intimate, that God gave him the woman on purpose to draw him into sin. The next is Cain; some think Cain here lays the fault upon God; Am I my brother's keeper? Gen. 4. 9; as if he should have said, Art not thou the keeper and governor of the world, why didst not thou hinder me from killing my brother? David, a holy man, follows him in those steps, and charges a sin of his own contrivance upon the providence of God; when the news of Uriah's death was brought, he wipes his mouth, and saith, the sword devours one as well as another. He fastens that solely on the divine providence, which was his own wicked contrivance, 2 Sam. 11. 25.

3. In hating the image of God's holiness in others. The more holy any man is, and the more active in the severest duties of religion, the more is he the object of the scoffs of others; and not only barked at by tippling drunkards on the ale bench, but by formal and grave judges on the seat of justice. David, though a king, whose example might have been powerful to have brought them to an outward pretended love to holiness, was spoke against by them that sat in the gate, and was the song of the drunkards, and