Religion & morality > Human nature in its four-fold state ... in several practical discourses

Head I. the Underftanding. 75
Confciences be awakened, walk after their own
Lulls: Still retaining the Principle, fhat they Jball
net purely dye. And this is often improv’d to that
Perfeftion, That the Man can fay, over the Belly
of the denounced Curfe, /JhaJl have Peace though I
•walk in the Imagination of mine Heart, to add
Drunkennefs to Tbirjl, Deut. xxix. 19. Whatever
Advantage the Truths of God have over Error, by
Means of Education or otherwife; Error has always,
with the natural Man, this Advantage againlt
Truth, namely, That there is fomething within
him, which fays, O that it were true ; fo that the
Mind lyes fair for affenting to it. And here’s the
Reafon of it. The true Do&rine is, tfhe Dofirine
that is according to Godlinefs, 1 Tim. vi. 3. and the
fruth which is after Godlinefs, Tit. i, 1. Error is
the Doctrine which is according to Ungodlinefs;
for there’s never an Error in the Mind, nor an Un¬
truth vented in the World (in Matters of Religion)
but what has an Affinity, with one Corruption of the
Heart or other : According to that of the Apoftle,
2 tfhejf. ii. 12. ‘They believed not the Truth, but
had Pleafure in Unrighteoufnefs. So that Truth and
Error being otherwile attended with equal Advan¬
tages for their Reception ; Error, by this Means,
has moft ready Aceefs into the Minds of Men, in
their natural State. Wheretore, ’tis nothing ftrange,
that Men rejeft the Simplicity of Gofpel Truths and
Inftitutions, and greedily embrace Error and exter¬
nal Pomp in Religion; feeing they are fo agreeable
to the Lufts of the Heart, and the Vanity of the
Mind of the natural Man. And from hence alfo it
is, that fo many embrace Atheiftical Principles;
for none do it, but in compliance with their irregu-