unthankfulness in it, and
truly heathens have so abhorred unthankfulness towards men, that they
could not digest the reproach of it,--_Ingratum si dixeris, omnia dixeris,_
if you call me unthankful, you may call me any thing or all things.(153)
It is a compend of all vices. It is even iniquity grown to maturity and
ripeness. But that such a fruit should grow out of such a holy and good
soil, so well dressed and manured by the Lord was a wonder! Lord, what was
man that thou didst so magnify him, and make him a little lower than the
angels,--that thou didst put all things sublunary under his feet, and exalt
him above them! For that creature chosen and selected from among all, to
be his minion, to stand in his presence, adorned and beautified with such
gifts and graces, magnified with such glorious privileges, made according
to the most excellent pattern, his own image, to forget all, and forget so
soon, and when he had such a spacious garden to make use of as is supposed
to make up the third part of the earth, to eat of no fruit but that which
was forbidden,--there is no such monstrous ingratitude can be imagined as
here was acted! But then consider the two fountains from which this
flowed, unbelief and pride, and you shall find it the heaviest sin in the
world,--unbelief of his word and threatening. First, he was brought to
question it, and to doubt of it, and then to deny it. A word so solemnly
and particularly told him by the truth itself, that ever a question of it
could arise in his mind or get entry, what else was it than to impute
iniquity to the holy One, and that iniquity, falsehood and lying, which
his nature most abhors? What was it but to blaspheme the most high and
faithful God, by hearkening to the suggestions of his enemy, and to credit
them more than the threatenings of God,--to give the very flat
contradiction to God,--we shall not die, and to assent so heartily to
Satan's slanders and reproaches of God? And this unbelief opened a door to
ambition and pride, the most sacrilegious ingredient of all, which is most
opposite to God, and unto which he most opposed himself from the
beginning: "Ye shall be as gods." Was he not happy enough already, and
according to God's image? Nay, but this evil principle would arise up to
the throne of God, and sit down in his stead. Pride hath atheism in it; to
deny the true God, and yet would be a god itself! For the footstool to
lift up itself thus, what an indignity was it