Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

5. Here we see the reason of unbelief. That which hath most of God in it, meets with most aversion from us: That which hath least of God, finds better and stronger inclinations in us. What is the reason, that the heart of Man is more unwilling to embrace the Gospel, than acknowledge the equity of the Law? Because there is more of Gods Nature and perfection evident in the Gospel than in the Law: Besides there is more reliance on God, and distance from self commanded in the Gospel. The Law puts a man upon his own strength, the Gospel takes him off from his own bottom: The Law acknowledges him to have a power in himself, and to act for his own reward; the Gospel strips him of all his proud and towering thoughts^*, brings him to his due place, the foot of God; orders him to deny himself as his own Rule, Righteousness and End; and henceforth not to live to himself. ^*This is the true reason why men are more against the Gospel than against the Law; because it doth more deify God, and debase Man. Hence it is easier to reduce men to some Moral Virtue, than to Faith; to make men blush at their outward Vices, but not at the inward impurity of their Natures. Hence it is observed; that those that asserted, that all happiness did arise from something in a mans self, as the Stoics and Epicureans did; and that a wise man was equal with God; were greater Enemies to the truths of the Gospel than others, Acts 17.18. because it lays the Axe to the root of their principal Opinion. Takes the one from their self-sufficiency, and the other from their self-gratification: It opposeth the brutish principle of the one, which placed happiness in the pleasures of the body, and the more noble principle of the other, which placed happiness ⟨p. 102⟩in the virtue of the mind: The one was for a sensual, the other for a moral self; both disowned by the Doctrine of the Gospel.

5. Here we see the reason of unbelief. That which hath most of God in it, meets with most aversion from us: That which hath least of God, finds better and stronger inclinations in us. What is the reason, that the heart of Man is more unwilling to embrace the Gospel, than acknowledge the equity of the Law? Because there is more of Gods Nature and perfection evident in the Gospel than in the Law: Besides there is more reliance on God, and distance from self commanded in the Gospel. The Law puts a man upon his own strength, the Gospel takes him off from his own bottom: The Law acknowledges him to have a power in himself, and to act for his own reward; the Gospel strips him of all his proud and towring thoughts