The Cause and Cure of Ignorance, Section 70
SECT. 70.
They that beleeve not the threa…s can yet pre…ume upon Gods mercy.Ob. BUT here it will be objected, That the wickedest man that lives, presumes upon Gods mercy in Christ, and thinkes he shall be saved, as well as the …heife upon the Crosse; yea, hee will prove by Scripture, that at what time soever h… repents, his sinnes shall be pardoned, Ezech. 18.21, 22. Yea, there is scarce a man on earth, but hee thinkes to goe to Heaven.
Answ. True, the flesh prophesies prosperity to sin; yea life, and salvation, as the Pope promised the Powder Traytors; …nd to this the Devill sets his s…ale: whe…upon while prosperity lasteth, they can turne the grace of God into want…n…esse, and even apply Christ's Passion, as a warrant for their licenciousnesse; and take his death, as a licence to sin; his Crosse, as a Letters Pattent to doe mischeife.
Yea, the Devill and sinne so infatuates and besots them,The devill and sin do infatuate and besot the wicked. that they thinke to have part in that merit, which in every pa…t they have so abused; to be purged by that blood which now they take al occasions to disgrace; to be saved by the same wounds, which they swear by, and so often swear away; to have Christ an Advocate for them in the next life, when they are Advocates against Christ in this; and that Heaven will meet them at their last hour, when all their life long they have galloped in the beaten road toward Hell.
The Devil makes large promises, and perswades his, they shall have what they desire; yet ever disappoints them of their hopes, as he did our first Parents: Diabolus mentitur, ut fallet; vitam pollicetur, ut perimat, A carnall heart is flint to God, wax to the Devil.saith Saint Cyprian.
But all one, their carnall hearts shall be flint unto God, wax to the Devil, who blowes this presumption into them; whereby they believe the promises, let go the threatnings: You shall die, saith God, is heard, but You shall not die, saith the Devil, is believed, as it fared with Eve, when she eat the forbidden fruit. Yea, they believe the promises, that they shall have them; but they believe not the precepts, to do them; nor the threatnings, that they shall suffer them, for their not believing and disobedience; which shewes, that they truly believe neither. Yea, this makes it plain, that either they believe there is no God at all, or else that God is not just, and true, nor speakes as he meanes in his word; which is worse:Carnall men believe the promises but not the precepts nor threats or if they do believe that he is a just and true God, they believe also that they shall be punished (as he threatens) for their provoking of him; and they provoke him, that they may be punished; which is worst of all. So that take them in the best sense, they are but like David's fool, which saith in his heart there is no God, and lives thereafter: which is never a whit strange, for it is usuall with them to thinke there is no God, for whom it would make that there were none: what we would have to be, we are apt to believe.
I confesse, it is hard for men to believe their own unbelief in this case: they that be most dangerously sicke,Hard for men to believe their own unbeliefe. are least sensible of their own sicknesse; much more hard to make them confesse it; for he whose heart speakes Atheisme, will confesse with his tongue, that he believes there is a God, and that he is just, and true, and that every tittle of his Word is equally …rue: which being granted, this must necessarily follow, that God will as well punish the disobedient, as reward the obedient; which in another fit they are apt enough, yea too forward to believe.
For it is Satan's method,Wicked men either presume or despaire. first to make men so senselesse, as not to feel their sinnes at all; and then so desperate, that they feel them too much: in the first fit men live as if there were no Hell: in the last they die as if there were no Heaven; for wicked men are altogether in extremes; at first they make question whether this or that be a sin, at last they apprehend it such a sin, that they make question whether it can be forgiven: either God is so mercifull, that they may live how they list; or so just, that he will not pardon them upon their repentance.