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Such Theists, altho’ they have a true Notion of God in their Mind, The Lord of the World, The Lord of All, or the like; yet, because they apply it not to him to whom it belongeth, they are not Theists truly such, they do not know, or acknowledge, him, who is Lord of the World, or Lord of All.

      It is not possible, that God’s Religionists should have the same Deity of a Religion in common with the Gentiles that know not God, which being their genuin and usual Character, we may infer from it, by way of Consectary, these five Branches of their Heathenism, and of ours too, so far as we symbolize with them. 1. Their Atheous Darkness, as to matter of Understanding. 2. Their Atheousness and Flagitiousness of Life. 3. The Agreeableness of Heathenism of Religion to them. 4. The Badness of their Virtue and Goodness. 5. The Deadliness of their State and Condition. For all these are our criminal not knowing God.

      Heathenism is the State of Atheous Ignorance.

      Consect. 1. Heathenism is the State of Atheous Ignorance. Agreeably to Platonism, the Christian Theology contra distinguisheth two opposite States and Conditions, and two opposite Kinds of People, Parties, and Families, the one Divine and of Light, the other Atheous and of Darkness. Matt.5. 14. Luk. 4. 18. Job 9. 6. and 12. 46. &c. The Apostle of the Gentiles was sent upon this Errand, “to turn them from Darkness to Light,” (Act. 26.18.) from Heathenism to Theism and Christianism of Condition, which was “a calling them out of Darkness into marvellous Light.” (1 Pet. 2. 9.) Heathenism is the Darkness of this World, of which the infernal Powers are the Rulers, Ephe. 6. 12. and therefore the Apostle saith (Ephe. 5. 8) “Ye were sometimes Darkness, but now are ye Light in the Lord.” And, because of the direct Opposition of these two States, therefore the Apostle asketh, “What Communion hath Light with Darkness?” 2 Cor. 6. 14. The Region of outer Darkness has been well explain’d by the Blindness of the Wicked; a Region of Blindness, or not-discerning, as well as of Darkness; and the Inhabitants of it are the Fools and Blind,²⁵⁴ the Blind Leaders of the Blind, the blind People that have Eyes and see not, the Wretched and Miserable, Poor and Blind. He that lacketh these Things (Divine Graces) is Blind, living in a State of Gracelessness and Wickedness, they had need to have their Eyes open’d. Act. 26. 18. They were blind and unintelligent, to a prodigy, in the matters of Holiness and Salvation (Ephe. 4. 18.) “walking in the” (Heathenish, or Atheous) “Vanity of their Mind, having the Understanding darken’d,” (having obliterated, or at least obscured, their natural Notices of the matters of God and Godliness,) “being alienated from the Life of God, through the” (Atheous kind of) “Ignorance, that was in them, because of the Blindness of their Heart.” Their Wise Men (Rom. 1. 21, 22.) “professing themselves to be Wise, became Fools,” (unwise and unintelligent in the matters of God,) “and becoming vain in their Imaginations,” (full of Heathenish and Idolatrous Conceits, which are Atheous,) “their foolish Heart was darken’d.” The Words of Philo are lively expressive of the sad benighted Estate of the Heathen World; “The Region of the Wicked, where there is no Sun, but depth of the Night, endless Darkness, and vast Multitude of Shades, Ghosts, and Spectres, and Dreams.”²⁵⁵ These are always stirring in the night-time of sottish Superstition, (the Day-Light banisheth them,) they are the Issue and resembling Progeny of the dark Region of Paganism, wherein Mankind seem “to have been fetter’d by a long Night, as Prisoners of Darkness,” Wisd. 17. 2. Had the Aegyptians Eyes, who deified that blind Animal Mus Araneus, μυγαλήν, because they suppos’d Darkness elder than Light?²⁵⁶ Or the generality of the Pagans, were they not as blind as that Aegyptian Deity, who affix’d all manner of Infamy and Villainy to their Gods, yet thought themselves Pious? They had a Notion of Piety, Purity, Sanctity, and Justice towards their Deity; but their Sanctity was Sin; their Piety was Villainy; their Purity, Pollution; their Laver was their Stain, and their Righteousness, the highest Wickedness; they counted Evil Good, and Good Evil; Darkness Light, and Light Darkness.

      All Mankind, therefore, natively and originally, want their Eye-Sight, and must be denoted such as are born Blind, an effect of Man’s Fall. There would be no need of a divine Physician, to heal and open the Eyes of Men; nor of divine Illumination, nor of a new Birth, whereby we are born into the Region of Light, if Mankind were not in some degree born Blind: No Account can be given of that more-than-Cimmerian Darkness, which for many Ages involv’d the World of Mankind, but from this Hypothesis, that they are born without their Eye-Sight; as without the Life, so without the Light, Spiritual; as in some degree Heathen ungodly Sinners, so Heathen Sons of Darkness. Upon the loss of the divine Image, which is the Soul’s Life and Light, an opposite Darkness succeedeth; for such is the Reign of the Animal-Sensitive Nature, the Flesh, which is blind and foolish, unintelligent and unreasonable, the occasion of Blindness, Error, and Folly, to the Mind; as suggesting atheous Conceits, (vain and heathenish Imaginations, Rom. 1. 21.) as being full of vile and corrupt Affections; as being productive of all Vice and Wickedness, (“their own Wickedness hath blinded them,” Wisd. 2. 27.) and the Mind, concurring therewith, becometh a fleshly Mind.²⁵⁷ For, being moulded after the Flesh, she becometh carnally Minded, affected, and addicted; of an atheous, carnal, and mundan Genius and Disposition; which is an Indisposition of the Soul to unite itself to God in any respect (in her Discernments, Apprehensions, and Conceits, Opinion and Judgment, Sentiment and Estimation of Things, as also in her Designs, Elections, and Pursuits;) and a Propension to the blind and carnal Conceits of mundan Religionists, and to the various sorts of Atheous Error and Folly. Such an Atheous and Heathen-kind of Genius, in some degree native to Mankind, is by degrees increas’d, as vitious Affections grow to greater Height, and as Sinning against God becomes their Trade and Practice. Bad Education also, Converse and Company, Example, prevailing Custom, publick reigning Error and Vice, bad Government and Laws, beget, confirm, and encrease, Atheousness of Mind. From these concurrent Causes, all, or many of them, the antient Times of the Heathen were “the Times of Ignorance.” (Act. 17. 30.) And thence it is, that the generality of Mankind, in all Times, are criminally involv’d in Atheous Darkness, Error, Ignorance, and Foolishness, touching Matters of Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Just and Unjust, Virtue and Vice, Nobility and Baseness, Sanctity and Sin, God and his Service, and the divine Kind of Things, the World also and its sensitive Good and Evil, touching themselves, their Interest, and their Happiness, their Souls and their future State, they prodigiously deceive themselves through Pride and Self-Love; and touching their present State, and their Ways, “not knowing what they do, nor whither they are going, because the Darkness hath blinded their Eyes.” (Luk. 23. 34. 1 Joh. 2. 11.)

      The principal and summary Reason of the Heathens Blindness was, They did not emerge out of the State of Gracelessness and Wickedness; and, therefore, they were in the State of Atheous Ignorance. From whence it follows, that all Men, who are in the same State of Gracelessness and Wickedness, are in the State of Atheous Ignorance, and want their Eye-Sight, as well as they. Flashes of Light, and some Convictions of Mind, are consistent with this Estate; and there may be in it a superficial and ineffectual knowing the matters of Religion; yet, because all that are in it have a Veil upon their Minds, they are necessarily in the State of Atheous Ignorance. As was the Case of those false Religionists, the carnal Jews; who, if they had had their Eyes, must have discern’d the Light of the World shining in their View; could not have mistaken God for the Devil; or thought themselves Virtuous, when they were Vile; or Wise, when they were Fools; or Safe, when they were in their Sins; nor could they have made their Religion, their Sin and Delusion. Both Jews and Gentiles shew, what Man is in his Unregenerate State; that this being the State of reigning Wickedness and Ungodliness, is the State of reigning Atheous Ignorance, Error and Folly.

      Atheous Mankind being themselves, in great degree, unreasonable, the things of the Holy Spirit seem to them absurd, foolish, and unreasonable, 1 Cor. 2. 14. “The natural Man receiveth not the

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