The saints dignity and duty· Together with the danger of ignorance and hardness. /…The saints dignitie and dutie· Together with the danger of ignorance and hardnesse. /…

Add hereunto in the second place, that as they have blindness in their mind, and ignorance in their judgement, so they are mere natural men: and no further then God is pleased by a supernatural work of the spirit to go along with men in the use of the means, is it possible that they should be effectual. Naturally men are careless and negligent to attend and wait upon God with faithful painfulness in the use of the means, and so they will continue, till God put another spirit into them, and work that in them which will enable them to do what nature never can do: And hence it cometh to pass, that so long as they continue meet natural men, they are not able to receive that sweetness, nor reap that benefit, that otherwise they might from the ⟨p. 196⟩[…] ⟨p. 197⟩[…] ⟨p. 198⟩Word of God: they have no mind to it, they hear, it may be, but they are not whether they hear or no. Job telleth us, that wicked men say unto God, Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways, Job 21.14. It is a place worthy some observation; They say unto God, Depart from us; How doth a man say to the Almighty, Depart from me? I do not conceive, that a company of men will be so desperate, as openly to out-face God in his Ordinances, and bid him depart from them, or openly to profess it to all the world, that they desire not the knowledge of God, nor of his ways: But they said it in their hearts, and professed it in their lives, being careless of God, and regardless of the means of life and salvation. When the Word came with counsel, with reproof, with admonition, and the like, alas they flighted it, they made no regard of it, they neglected it; and as they behaved themselves toward the counsels and admonitions of the Word, so they are said to have behaved themselves towards God. And, my brethren, it is all one, if hearing the Minister speak unto you the word of God, and bring home to you the reproofs, and admonitions, and counsels thereof, you kick his Word from you, and happily take up arms against him; it is all one (I say) as if you take up arms against God and despised him: It is a plain case; our Saviour himself hath said it, He that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me,