their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay wi the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with chil And Hazael said, But what! is thy servant a dog, that he should do this gre thing? And Elisha answered, The Lord hath showed me that thou shalt king over Syria," 2 Kings viii. 12, 13. Hazael was then a servant; he b no power in his hands to do as he pleased; and so that cruel disposition th was in him had lain hid, and he did not himself imagine that it was there: b afterwards, when he became king of Syria and was absolute, and had none control him; then it broke out and appeared, and he did as the prophet h foretold. He committed those very acts of cruelty, that he thought it was m in his heart to do. And it was want of opportunity that was the thing th made the difference. It was all in his heart before: he was such a dog the as to do this thing, but only had not had opportunity. And therefore when b seemed surprised that the prophet should say so of him, all the reason th prophet gives is, "The Lord hath showed me that thou shalt be king ove Syria."

And some natural men are such dogs as to do things, if they had opportu nity, which they do not imagine it is in their hearts to do. You object agains your having a mortal hatred against God; that you never felt any desire t kill him. But one reason has been, that it has always been conceived so im possible by you, and you have been so sensible how such desires would be in vain that it has kept down such a desire. But if the life of God were within you reach, and you knew it, it would not be safe one hour. Who knows what thought would presently arise in your heart by such an opportunity, and what disposi tion would be raised up in your heart? Who would trust your heart, that there would not presently be such thoughts as these, though they are enough to make one tremble to mention them? "Now I have opportunity to set myself at lib erty--that I need not be kept in continual slavery by the strict law of God Then I may take my liberty to walk in that way I like best, and need not be continually in such slavish fear of God's displeasure. And God has not done well by me in many instances. He has done most unjustly by me, in holding me bound to destruction for unbelief, and other things which I cannot help. He has shown mercy to others, and refused it to me. I have now an opportu nity to deliver myself, and there can be no danger of my being hurt for it: God will not be alive to revenge it. And then there will be no God for us to be terrified about, and so keep us in slavery."

Who would trust your heart, that such thoughts would not arise? And others much more horrid! Too dreadful to be mentioned! And therefore 1 forbear. Those natural men are foolishly insensible of what is in their ow hearts, who think there would be no danger of any such workings of heart, it they knew they had opportunity.

5. You little consider how much your having no more of the sensible exer cises of hatred to God, is owing to a being restrained by fear. You have al ways been taught what a dreadful thing it is to hate God. And you have been taught what a dreadful being God is, and how terrible God's displeasure is; that God sees the heart, and knows all the thoughts; and that you are in his hands, and he can make you as miserable as he pleases, and as soon as he pleases. And these things have restrained you: and the fear that has risen from these things, has kept you from appearing what you are; it has kept down your enmity, and made that serpent afraid to show its head, as otherwise it would do. If a man were wholly under the power of an enemy, though he were never so much of an enemy to him, he would be afraid to exercise his

hatred in outward acts, unless it were with great disguise.-And if it be supposed that such an enemy, in whose power he was, could see his heart, and know all his thoughts, and apprehended that he would put him to a terrible .death, if he saw the workings of malice there, how greatly would this restrain! He would be afraid so much as to believe himself, that he hated his enemy; but there would be all manner of smothering, disguise, and hypocrisy, and feigning even of thoughts and affections.

Thus your enmity has been kept under restraint; and thus it has been from your infancy. You have grown up in it, so that it has become an habitual restraint. You dare not so much as think you hate God. If you do exercise hatred, you have a disguise for it, whereby you endeavor even to hide it from your own conscience; and so have all along deceived yourself. And your de ceit is very old and habitual; and hence you are so difficultly convinced. But this has been only restraint: it has been no mortification. But there has been an enmity against God in its full strength. It has been only restrained like an enemy that durst not rise up and show himself.

6. One reason why you have not felt more sensible hatred to God, may be because you have not had much trial of what is in your heart. It may be God has hitherto in a great measure, let you alone. The enmity that is in men's hearts against God, is like a serpent, which, if he be let alone, lies still; but if any body disturbs it, will soon hiss, and be enraged, and show its serpentine spiteful nature.

Notwithstanding the good opinion you have of yourself, yet a little trial would show you to be a viper, and your heart would be set all on rage against God. One thing that restrains you now is your hope. You hope to receive many things from God. Your own interest is concerned; you hope to make great gains of God. So that both hope and fear operate together, to restrain your enmity from such sensible exercises as otherwise would be. But if once hope were gone, you would soon show what you were: you would soon feel your enmity against God in a rage.

7. If you pretend that you do not feel enmity against God, and yet act as an enemy, you may certainly conclude, that it is not because you are no enemy, but because you do not know your own heart. Actions are the best interpreters of the disposition; they show, better than any thing else, what the heart is. It must be because you do not observe your own behavior, that you question whether you are an enemy to God.

What other account can you give of your own carriage, but only your being enemy ? What other can be given of your so opposing God in your ways; walking so exceeding contrary to him, contrary to his counsels, contrary to his commands, and contrary to his glory? What other account can be given of your casting so much contempt upon God; your setting him so low; your acting so much against his authority, and against his kingdom and interest in the world? What other account can be given of your so setting your will in opposition to God's will, and that so obstinately, for so long a time, against so many warnings as you have had? What other account can be given of your joining so much with Satan, in the opposition he is making to the kingdom of God in the world? And that you will join with him against God, though it be so much against your own interest, and though you expose yourself by it to everlasting misery?

Such like behavior in one man towards another, would be looked on as sufficient evidence of a man's being an enemy to another. If he should be seen to behave thus from time to time, and that it was his constant manner, none would

want any better evidence, that he was an enemy to his neighbor. If you yourself had a servant that carried it towards you, as you do towards God, you would not think there was need of any greater evidence of his being your enemy. If your servant should manifest so much contempt of you; should disregard your commands as much as you do the commands of God; and should go so directly contrary; should in so many ways act the very reverse of your commands; and should seem to set himself in ways that were contrary to your will so obstinately and incorrigibly, without any amendinent from your repeated calls and warnings, and threatenings; and should act so cross to you day and night, as you do to God; when you sought one thing, he would seek the contrary; when you did any work, he would, as much as in him lay, undo and destroy your work; and should continually drive at such ends, as tended to overthrow the ends you aimed at; when you sought to bring to pass any design, he would endeavor to overthrow your design; and should set himself as much against your interest, as you do yourself against God's honor. And you should moreover see him, from time to time, with others that were your declared mortal enemies; and making them his counsellors as much as you do the devils, God's declared mortal enemies; and hearkening to their counsels, as much as you do to Satan's temptations: should you not think you had sufficient evidence that he was your enemy indeed?

Therefore consider seriously your own ways, and weigh your own behavior. "How canst thou say, I am not polluted? See thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done," Jer. ii. 23.

Object. II. Natural men may be ready to object, the respect they show to God, from time to time. This makes many to think that they are far from being such enemies to God. They carry it respectfully towards God: they pray to him in secret, and do it in as humble a manner as they are able. They attend on public worship, and take a great deal of pains to do it in a decent manner. It seems to them that they show God a great deal of respect; they use many very respectful terms in their prayer; they give him all the honor they can; they are respectful in their manner of speaking, and in their voice, and their gestures, and the like.

But to this, I

Answer, That all this is done in mere hypocrisy. All this seeming respect is feigned, there is no sincerity in it; there is external respect, but no respect in the heart; there is a show, and nothing else. You only cover your enmity with a painted vail. You put on the disguise of a friend, but in your heart you are a mortal enemy for all that. There is external honor, but inward contempt; there is a show of friendship and regard, but inward hatred. You do but deceive yourself with your show of respect, and endeavor to deceive God; not considering God looks not on the outward appearance, but he looks on the heart. Here consider particularly,

1. That much of that seeming respect which natural men show to God, is owing to their education. They have been taught from their infancy that they ought to show great respect to God. They have been taught to use respectful language, when speaking about God, and to behave with solemnity, when attending on those exercises of religion, wherein they have to do with God. They, from their childhood, have seen that it is the manner of others, when they pray to God, to use reverential expressions, and a reverential behavior before him. And their show of respect, which they make to God, is owing, in a great measure, to this.

Those who are brought up in places where they have commonly, from their

infancy, heard men take the name of God in vain, and swear, and curse, and blaspheme; they learn to do the same, and it becomes habitual to them so to do. And it is the same way, and no other, that you have learned to behave 'respectfully towards God; not that you have any more respect to God than they; but they have been brought up one way, and you another. In some parts of the world, men are brought up in the worship of idols of silver, and gold, and wood, and stone, made in the shape of men and beasts. "They say of them, Let the men that sacrifice, kiss the calves," Hos. xiii. 2. In some parts of the world they are brought up to worship serpents, and are taught from their infancy to carry it with great respect to them. And in some places they are brought up in worshipping the devil, who appears to them in a bodily shape; and to behave with a show of great reverence and honor towards him. And what respect you show to God has no better foundation; it comes the same way, and is worth no more.

2. That show of respect which you make is forced. You come to God, and make a great show of respect to him, and use very respectful terms, with a respectful, reverential tone and manner of speaking; and your countenance is grave and solemn; and you put on a humble aspect; and you kneel, and use humble, respectful postures, out of fear. You are afraid that God will execute his wrath upon you; and so you feign a great deal of respect, that he may not be angry with you. "Through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee," Psal. Ixvi. 3. In the original it is, " shall thine enemies lie to thee." It is rendered therefore in the margin, " shall yield feigned obedience unto thee." All that you do in religion is forced and feigned. Through the greatness of God's power, you yield feigned obedience. You are in God's power, aud he is able to destroy you; and so you feign a great deal of respect to him, that he might not destroy you. As one might do towards an enemy that had taken him captive, though he at the same time would gladly make his escape, if he could, by taking away the life of him who had taken him captive.

3. It is not real respect that moves you to behave so towards God; you do it because you hope you shall get by it. It is respect to yourself, and not respect to God, that moves you. You hope to move God to bestow the rewards of his children by it. You are like the Jews who followed Christ, and called him Rabbi, and would make him a king. Not that they honored him so much in their hearts, as to think him worthy of the honor of a king, or that they had the respect of sincere subjects; but they did it for the sake of the loaves. "Jesus perceived that they would come and take him by force to make him a king. And when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said unto him, Rabbi, when camest thou hither? Jesus answered, and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because you saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled," John vi. 15-25, 26.

These things do not argue but that you are implacable enemies to God notwithstanding. If you examine your prayers and other duties, your own consciences will tell you that the seeming respect which you have shown to God in them, has been only in hypocrisy. That oftentimes you have set forth in your prayers, that God was a great God, and glorious God, an infinitely holy God, as if you greatly honored him on the account of these attributes; and at the same time, had no sense in your heart of the greatness and gloriousness of God, or of any excellency in his holiness. And so your own consciences will tell you, that you have often pretended to be thankful; you have told God, that you thanked him that you was alive, and thanked him for these and those mercies, when you have not found the least jot of thankfulness in your heart.

you,

And so you have told God of your own unworthiness, and set forth what a vik creature you was, when you have had no humble sense of your own unwor thiness.

And if these forementioned restraints were thrown off, you would soor throw off all your show of respect. Take away fear, and take away a regar to your own interest, and there would soon be an end to all those appearance of love, honor and reverence, which now you make. All these things are no at all inconsistent with the most implacable enmity.

The devil himself made a show of respect to Christ when he was afraid that he was going to torment him; and when he hoped to persuade Christ to spare him longer. "When he saw Jesus he cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high? I beseech thee torment me not." Luke viii. 28.

Object. III. Some may perhaps object against this doctrine of their being God's enemies, the religious affections they have sometimes experienced. They may be ready to say, that when they have come before God in prayer, they have not only used respectful terms and gestures, but they have prayed with affection; their prayers have been attended with tears, which they are ready to think showed something in the heart.

Answer. These affections have risen from other causes, and not from any true respect to God.

As particularly,

1. They have risen from self-love, and not love to God. If you have wept before God, from the consideration of our own pitiful case, that has been because you loved yourself, and not because you had any respect to God. And if your tears have been from sorrow for your sins, you have mourned for your sins, because you have sinned against yourself, and not because you have sinned against God. "When you fasted and mourned, did ye at all fast unto me, even unto Me?" Zech. vii. 5.

2. Pride and a good thought of themselves, very commonly has a great hand in the affections of natural men. They have a good opinion of what they are doing when they are praying; and the reflection on that affects them; they are affected with their own goodness. Man's self-righteousness often occasions tears. A high opinion of themselves before God, and an imagination of their being persons of great account with him, has affected them in their transactions with God.

There is commonly abundance of pride in the midst of tears, and pride is, in a great measure, the source of them. And then they are so far from being an argument that you be not an enemy to God, that on the contrary, they are an argument that you be. In your very tears, you are in a vain conceit of yourself, exalting yourself against God.

3. The affections of natural men do often arise from wrong conceits that they have of God. They conceive of God, after the manner they do of men, as though he were a being liable to be wrought upon in his affections. They conceive of him as one whose heart could be drawn, whose affections can be overcome by what he sees in them. They conceive of him as being taken with them and their performances; and this works on their affections; and thus one tear draws another, and their affections increase by reflection. And oftentimes they conceive of God as one that loves them, and is a friend to them; and such a mistake may work much on their affections. But such affections that arise towards God, as they conceit him to be, is no argument that they have not the same implacable hatred towards God, considered as he really is. There is no