and crocodiles, were greater abominations, and a greater despite done to God, than the image of jealousy at the gate of the altar. Ezek. viii. 5, 6. 10.

And let not any excuse themselves, that it is but one lust or one creature which is preferred as the end: is not he an idolater that worships the sun or moon, or one idol, as well as he that worships the whole host of heaven?

The inordinacy of the heart to one lust may imply a stronger contempt of him, than if a legion of lusts did possess the heart. It argues a greater disesteem, when he shall be slighted for a single vanity. The depth of Esau's profaneness in contemning his birthright, and God in it, is aggravated by his selling it for one morsel of meat, Heb. xii. 16, and that none of the daintiest, none of the costliest, a mess of pottage; implying, had he parted with it at a greater rate, it had been more tolerable, and his profaneness more excusable. And it is reckoned as a high aggravation of the corruption of the Israelite judges, that "they sold the poor for a pair of shoes," Amos ii. 6; that is, that they would betray the cause of the poor for a bribe of no greater value, than might purchase them a pair of shoes. To place any one thing as our chief end, though never so light, does not excuse: he that will not stick to break with God for a trifle, a small pleasure, will leap the hedge upon a greater temptation.

Nay, and if wealth, riches, friends, and the best thing in the world, our own lives, be preferred before God, as our chief happiness and end but one moment, it is an infinite wrong; because the infinite goodness and excellency of God is denied. As though the creature or lust we love, or our own life which we prefer in that short moment before him, had a goodness in itself superior to, and more desirable than the blessedness in God. And though it should be but one minute, and a man in all the periods of his days both before and after that failure, should actually and intentionally prefer God before all other things; yet he does him an infinite wrong, because God in every moment is infinitely good, and absolutely desirable, and can never cease to be good, and cannot have the least shadow of change in him and his perfections.

It is a denying of God.

"If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand; this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge; for I should have denied the God that is above," Job xxxi. 26-28. This denial of God is not only the act of an open idolater, but the consequent of a secret confidence, and immoderate joy in worldly goods: this denial of God is to be referred to ver. 24, 25. When a man saith to gold, "Thou art my confidence," and rejoices because his wealth is great; he denies that God who is superior to all those, and the proper object of trust: both idolatries are coupled here together; that which has wealth, and that which has those glorious creatures in heaven for its object. And though some may think it a light sin, yet the crime being of deeper guilt, a denial of God, deserves a severer punishment, and falls under the sentence of the just Judge of all the earth, under that notion; which Job intimates in those words, "This also were an iniquity to be punished by the Judge."

The kissing the hand to the sun, moon, or any idol, was an external sign of religious worship among those and other nations. This is far less than an inward, hearty confidence, and an affectionate trust; if the motion of the hand be, much more is the affection of the heart to a creature or a brutish pleasure, a denial of God, and a kind of an abjuring of him, since the supreme affection of the soul is undoubtedly and solely the right of the Sovereign Creator, and not to be given in common to others, as the outward gesture may in a way of civil respect. Nothing that is an honour peculiar to God, can be given to a creature, without a plain exclusion of God to be God; it being a disowning the rectitude and excellency of his nature. If God should command a creature such a love, and such a confidence in any thing inferior to him, he would deny to himself his own glory. He would deny himself to be the most excellent being. Can the Romanists be free from this, when they call the cross "Spem unicam," "The only hope," and say to the virgin, " In te, Domina, speravi," " In thee, Lady, have I hoped," as Bonaventure has it.

Good reason therefore have worldlings and sensualists, persons of immoderate fondness to any thing in the world, to reflect upon themselves; since though they own the being of a God, they are guilty of so great disrespect to him, that it cannot be excused from the title of an unworthy atheism: and those that are renewed by the Spirit of God, may here see ground of a daily humiliation for the frequent and too common excursions of their souls after creature confidences and affections, whereby they fall under the charge of an act of practical atheism, though they may be free from a habit of it.

(3.) The third thing is, man would make himself the end of all creatures. Man would sit in the seat of God, and set his heart as the heart of God, as the Lord saith of Tyrus. Ezek. xxviii. 2. What is the consequence of this, but to be esteemed the chief good and end of other creatures? A thing, that the heart of God cannot be set upon, it being an inseparable right of the Deity, who must deny himself, if he deny this affection of the heart.

Since it is the nature of man derived from this root, to desire to be equal with God, it follows that he desires no creature should be equal with him, but subservient to his ends and his glory. He that would make himself God, would have the honour proper to God: he that thinks himself worthy of his own supreme affection, thinks himself worthy to be the object of the supreme affection of others: whosoever counts himself the chiefest good and last end, would have the same place in the thoughts of others. Nothing is more natural to man than a desire to have his own judgment, the rule and measure of the judgments and opinions of the rest of mankind. He that sets himself in the place of the prince, does by that act challenge all the prerogatives and dues belonging to the prince; and apprehending himself fit to be a king, apprehends himself also worthy of the homage and fealty of the subjects. He that loves himself chiefly, and all other things and persons for himself, would make himself the end of all creatures. It has not been once or twice only in the world that some vain princes have assumed to themselves the title of gods, and caused divine adorations to be given to them, and altars to smoke with sacrifices for their honour. What has been practised by one, is by nature seminally in all: we would have all pay an obedience to us, and give to us the esteem that is due to God.

This is evident,

[1.] In pride. When we entertain a high opinion of ourselves, and act for our own reputes, we dispossess God from our own hearts; and while we would have our fame to be in every man's mouth, and be admired in the hearts of men, we would chase God out of the hearts of others, and deny his glory a residence any where else; that our glory should reside more in their minds than the glory of God; that their thoughts should be filled with our achievements, more than the works and excellency of God; with our image, and not with the Divine. Pride would be paramount with God in the affections of others, and justle God out of their souls; and by the same reason that man does thus in the place where he lives, he would do so in the whole world, and press the whole creation from the service of their true Lord to his own service. Every proud man would be counted by others as he counts himself, the highest, chiefest piece of goodness; and be adored by others, as much as he adores and admires himself. No proud man, in his self-love and self-admiration, thinks himself in an error: and if he be worthy of his own admiration, he thinks himself worthy of the highest esteem of others; that they should value him above themselves, and value themselves only for him. What did Nebuchadnezzar intend by setting up a golden image, and commanding all his subjects to worship it, upon the highest penalty he could inflict, but that all should aim only at the pleasing his humour?

[2.] In using the creatures contrary to the end God has appointed. God created the world and all things in it, as steps whereby men might ascend to a prospect of him, and the acknowledgment of his glory; and we would use them to dishonour God and gratify ourselves. He appointed them to supply our necessities, and support our rational delights; and we use them to cherish our sinful lusts. We wring groans from the creature in diverting them from their true scope, to one of our own fixing, when we use them not in his service, but purely for our own, and turn those things he created for himself to be instruments of rebellion against him to serve our turns; and hereby endeavour to defeat the ends of God in them, to establish our own ends by them. This is a high dishonour to God, a sacrilegious undermining of his glory; to reduce what God has made, to serve our own glory and our own pleasure:1 it perverts the whole order of the world, and directs it to another end than what God has constituted; to another intention, contrary to the intention of God, and thus man makes himself a God by his own authority. As all things were made by God, so they are for God: but while we aspire to the end of the creation, we deny and envy God the honour of being Creator. We cannot make ourselves the chief end of the creatures against God's order, but we imply thereby that we were their first principle; for if we lived under a sense of the Creator of them while we enjoy them for our use, we should return the glory to the right owner.

This is diabolical: though the devil for his first affecting an authority in heaven, has been hurled down from the state of an angel of light into that of darkness, vileness, and misery, to be the most accursed creature living; yet he still aspires to match God, contrary to the knowledge of the impossibility of success in it. Neither the terrors he feels, nor the future torments he doth expect, do a jot abate his ambition to be competitor with his Creator. How often has he since his first sin arrogated to himself the honour of a god from the blind world, and attempted to make the Son of God by a particular worship, count him as the chiefest good and benefactor of the world? Matt. iv. 9. Since all men by nature are the devil's children, the serpent's seed, they have something of this venom in their natures, as well as others of his qualities. We see that there may be, and is a prodigious atheism lurking under the belief of a God. The devil knows there is a God, but acts like an atheist, and so do his children.

(4.) Man would make himself the end of God. This necessarily follows upon the former. Whosoever makes himself his own law and his own end in the place of God, would make God the subject in making himself the sovereign: he that steps into the throne of a prince, sets the prince at his footstool; and while he assumes the prince's prerogative, demands a subjection from him. The order of the creation has been inverted by the entrance of sin. God implanted an affection in man with a double aspect, the one to pitch upon God, the other to respect ourselves, but with this proviso, that our affection to God should be infinite, in regard of the object and centre in him as the chiefest happiness and highest end.1 Our affections to ourselves should be finite, and refer ultimately to God as the original of our being; but sin has turned man's affections wholly to himself. Whereas he should love God first, and himself in order to God; he now loves himself first, and God in order to himself; love to God is lost, and love to self has usurped the throne. As God by creation put all things under the feet of man, Psal. viii. 6, reserving the heart for himself; man by corruption has dispossessed God of his heart, and put him under his own feet. We often intend ourselves, when we pretend the honour of God, and make God and religion a handle to some designs we have in hand; our Creator a tool for our own ends.

This is evident,

[1.] In our loving God, because of some self-pleasing benefits distributed by him. There is in men a kind of natural love to God, but it is but a secondary one, because God gives them the good things of this world, spreads their table, fills their cup, stuffs their coffers, and does thein some good turns by unexpected providences. This is not an affection to God for the unbounded excellency of his own nature, but for his beneficence, as he opens his hand for them; an affection to themselves, and those creatures, their gold, their honour, which their hearts are most fixed upon, without a strong spiritual inclination that God should be glorified by them in the use of those mercies. It is rather a disowning of God, than any love to him; because it postpones God to those things they love him for. This would appear to be no love, if God should cease to be their benefactor, and deal with them as a Judge; if he should change his outward smiles into afflicting frowns, and not only shut his hand, but strip them of what he sent them. The motive of their love being expired, the affection raised by it must cease for want of fuel to feed it: so that God is beholden to sordid creatures, of no value, but as they are his creatures, for most of the love the sons of men pretend to him. The devil spake truth of most men, though not of Job, when he said, They love not God for nought, Job i. 9; it is but while he makes a hedge about them and their families, whilst he blesses the works of their hands, and increases their honour in the land. It is

Pascal, Pensées. § 30. p. 294.