A fourth volume containing one hundred and fifty sermons on several texts of Scripture…

1. Ignorance is a Branch of Ungodliness; and I name it in the first place, because it is the Cause of all our Disorder in Worship and Conversation. This is the first cause of all Wickedness, to be ignorant of God. The Apostle seconds the Observation, 3 Epist. John, 11. He that doth Evil, hath not seen God. Certainly he that makes a Trade of Sin, hath not a right sight and sense of God; he knows not God. A true sight and sense of God keepeth the Soul from Sin. There is nothing that keeps in the Fire of Religion, nor maintains Respect between Man and Man, nothing that preserves Honesty and Piety so much as right Thoughts and Apprehensions of God. But now generally People are ignorant of God; they know him as blind Men do Fire. A Man that is born blind, can tell there is such a thing as Fire, because he feels it warm; but what a kind […] thing it is, he that never saw it, cannot tell. So the whole World, and Conscience, proclaim there is a God; the blindest Man may see that, but little do they know of his Nature and Essence, what God is according as he hath revealed himself in the Word. Look as the Athenians built an Altar, and the Inscription was [Greek or Hebrew], to the unknown God, Acts 17.23. so do most Christians worship an unknown God. And as Christ taxed the Samaritans, John 4.22. Ye worship ye know not what: so generally do People worship they know not what. Ask them what God is? and whom they worship? they cannot tell, they are carried on by Custom, and dark and blind Superstition, and they mutter over their Prayers to an unknown Power; such blind and wild Conceits have they of the Nature of God, till they see him by the Light of his own Spirit. This Ignorance is sad, because it is a sign of no Grace, and it is a pledge of future Judgment. In these days of Gospel-Light it is a sign of no Grace; Jer. 31.34. They shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the Lord. God hath no Child so little, but he knows his Father. In the days of the Gospel, now it is so clearly preached, it is required of the meanest sort as well as those that have the advantages of better Education. And it is a Pledge of future Judgment, 2 Thess. 1.8