These things fhew how defperately prone mankind are to blindness and delufion, how addicted they are to darknefs..

God now and then, by his inftruction, lifts fome na→ tions out of fuch grofs darknefs: but then how do they fink down into it again, as foon as his hand is withdrawn like an heavy stone, which, though it may be , forced upwards by ftrength of hand, yet, if it be let go, finks down again, and will continue to fink lower and lower with a fwift progrefs, if no ftop be put to it, if there be nothing without to reftrain it: there is a strong bent that way. That is the tendency of the mind of mari fince the fall, notwithstanding his noble powers and faculties, to fink down into a kind of brutality, to lose and extinguish all ufeful light, and to gather darkness: and to fink lower and lower into darkness.

5. The extreme and brutish blindness that poffeffes the hearts of men naturally, appears in their being fo confident in grofs errors and delufions. Some things that have been already faid, fhow how confident and affured they are; as particularly, their running fuch great ventures upon it, as offering up their children, and cutting and mangling themfelves. Multitudes live and die in the most foolish and abfurd notions and principles, and never seem to make any doubt of their being in the right.

The Mahometans feem to make no doubt but that when they die they fhall go to fuch a paradife as Ma, homet has promised them where they fhall live in all manner of fenfual pleafures; and fhall spend their time in gratifying the lufts of the flefh:

Mahomet promised them, that all that die in war for the defence of the Mahometan religion, fhall go to this paradife and they make no doubt of it; and therefore many of them, as it were, willingly rush on upon the point of the fword.

The Papifts, many of them make no doubt of the truth of thofe foolish notions of a purgatory, and the power of the pricfts to deliver them out of it, and give them eter,

nal:

nal life. And therefore will not spare vaft fums of money to purchase deliverance for themfelvs, from thofe imaginary torments. And how confident are many heretics in the groffeft herefies; many Quakers in their Quakerifm; and how bold are many Deifts in their infidelity!

SERMON IV.

PSALM XCIV. 8, 9, 10, 11..

Understand, ye brutish among the people and ye fools, when will ye be be wife? He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, Shall he not fee? He that chaftifeth the Heathen, Shall he not correct? he that teacheth man knowledge, fhall he not know? The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.

DOCTRINE.

There is an extreme and brutish blindness in things of religion, which naturally poffeffes the hearts of mankind.

I HAVE undertaken to fhow, how manifeft this is in thofe things that appear in mens open profeffion. In order to this, I have already confidered five particulars. I now proceed to. obferve,

6. The defperatenefs of that blindness which is in the heart of man, appears in that no nation or people in the world ever have had any remedy or deliverance from fuch grofs ignorance and delufion, from themselves.

There is no inftance can be mentioned of any peo-. ple whatsoever, who have once fallen into Heathenish darkness, or any other grofs fuperftitious, and ridiculQus opinions in religion, that ever had any remedy by any wifdom of their own; or that have of themselves be thought themselves, & grown wifer by the improvement

of

of their own faculties, and by inftructing one another; or that ever had any remedy at all, by the teaching of any wife men, who did not profeffedly act, not as of themfelves, but as moved and directed of God and did not declare, that they had their inftructions in the firft place from him.

Thus in the Heathen world: before Chrift's time the whole world, excepting the Jews, lay in their dark nefs for a great many hundred years, even time out of mind, beyond all time that they had any certain history of among them. And there was no remedy, nor appearance of any remedy; but fo they continued ages after ages, rather waxing worfe and worse, finking deeper and deeper. Among all the many nations that were in the world, no one ever bethought themselves, and emerged out of their brutifh dark nefs. There were fome nations in that time that emerged out of flavery to other nations, and caft off the yoke of their enemics, and grew great, and conquered great part of the world; but never conquered the blindnefs of their own hearts.

.

There were fome nations that excelled in other knowledge the Greeks and Romans did fo. They excelled in policy, and in the form of their civil government. They had wife politic rulers; they had excellent civil laws for regulating their civil ftate; many of which have been looked upon, and imitated as a pattern by many Chriftian nations fince. They excelled many other nations in arts, and government, and i civility almoft as much as men do beafts..

Yet they never could deliver themfelves from their Heathenifm. Though they were fo wife in other things, yet in matters of religion they were very abfurd and brutish. For even the Greeks and Romans, in their most flourishing ftate, worshipped innumerable gods; and fome to whom they afcribed great vices ; and fome they worshipped with moft obfcene and horrid rites. To fome they offered human facrifices. The Romans had a temple dedicated to the fúries,

which they worshipped as a god. And they had a multitude of childish notions and fables about their gods.

And though there were raised up fome wife men and philofophers among the Greeks and Romans, who borrowed fome things concerning the true God from the Jews; yet their inftructions never were effectual to deliver any one people, or even one city or town, from their barbarous Heathenifm, or fo much as to get any one fociety or company of men to unite in the public worship of the true God. And these philofophers themselves had many grofsly abfurd opinions mingled with thofe fcraps of truth which they had gathered up.

And the Jews, when fell away to idolatry, as they of ten did, never recovered of themfelves. Never any re medy appeared, unless God raised up, and extraordinarily moved fome perfon to reprove and instruct

them.

And in this age of knowledge, an age wherein learning is carried to fuch a great height, even many learned men feem really to be carried away with the grofs errors and fooleries of the Popish religion.

Europe is a part of the world the most famed for ci. vility, and for arts and fciences of any and thefe things have been carried to a much greater height in this age than in any others; yet many learned men in Europe at this day, who do greatly excel in human arts and literature, are ftill under Popifh dark nefs. A deceived heart has turned them afide; nor do they feem to have any power to deliver their fouls; nor does it come into their minds, that there is a lie in their right hands.

Many men, in France and other countries, who are indeed men of vaft learning and knowledge, and great abilities, yet feem really to think that the church of Rome is the only true church of Chrift; and are zealous to uphold and propagate it. And though now within this hundred years, human learning has been very much promoted, and has risen to a greater height

than

than ever in the world, and has greatly increased, not only in our nation, but in France and Italy, and other Popish countries; yet there feems to be no fuch effect of it, as any confiderable turning from Popifh delufions; but the church of Rome has rather increafed of late, than otherwise.

And in England, a land wherein learning flourishes as much as in any in the world, and which is perhaps the most favoured with light of any; there are many men of vaft learning, and great and arong reafon, who have embraced, and do at this day, embrace the grofs errors of the Arians and Deifts. Our nation, in all its light and learning, is full of infidels, and thofe that are further from Chriftianity than the very Mahometans themselves. Of fo little avail is human ftrength, and human reafon and learning, as a remedy against the extreme blindness of the mind of man. The blindness

of the mind of man, or an inclination to delufion in things of religion is fo ftrong, that it will overcome the greatest learning, and the ftrongest natural reason, and, as it were, fwallow up these things.

ઃઃ

Men, if let alone, will not help one'another; nor will they help themselves. The disease always proves without remedy, unless God delivers. This was obferved of old: "And none confidereth in his heart, neither is there "knowledge nor understanding to fay, I have burnt part of it in the fire, yea alfo I have baked bread upon the coals thereof: I have roafted flesh and eaten of it, and fhall I make the refidue thereof an abomination? Shall I fall down to the flock of a tree? He feedeth of ashes a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that "he cannot deliver his foul, nor fay, Is there not a lie "in my right hand4" Ifai. xliv 19, 20.

66

If God lets men alone, no light arifes; but the darknefs grows thicker and thicker. How is it now at this day among all the nations where the light of the gospel has not come? Many of whofe ancestors, without doubt, have been in the midnight darknefs of Heathenism for above three thousand years; and not one people have delivered