Commission of secret Sins.

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God's omnisciency. He that practically denies God's omnisciency, denies his godhead: for a man may as well deny that there is a sun, as deny that it shines, and disperseth its light and influence into every

corner.*

This appears,

1. When we commit sin upon the ground of secrecy. If all hearts, surely then all places are open to God's eye; no private bench for a drunkard, or secret stew for an adulterer, but is obvious to him.. Common modesty before man, is not practised before God: men are ashamed to have their actions seen by man's eye, but not by God's. Maxima debetur pueris reverentia. Filthy actions cannot endure the presence of a child's eye, much less of man's. Shall the presence of a child have more power over us than the presence of God; and men's observing, more than God's censuring eye? Is not this a denial of him, when the eye of God is of less force to restrain thee, than the eye of man; as if men only could see, and God were blind? All the sin thou committest before the eye of the holiest man in the world, cannot make him hate thee so much as God hates thee; because his holiness is infinitely short of God's holiness, and consequently his hatred is infinitely short of God's.

It is an aggravation of a man's sin, to be committed in the presence of God, Gen. 10. 9. A mighty

hunter before the Lord. As it was of Haman's offence, when he lay upon Esther's bed, that he would force the queen before the king's face. It seems to be David's conceit in his sin, that God would not see him, both by Nathan's charge, Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight? 2 Sam. 2. 19, and by his own confession, This evil have I done in thy sight, Psal. 51. 4. Every penitent takes notice of the wrong he doth to God's all-seeing eye. It is a high provocation for

See more of this in the discourse of God's omnipresence.

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a servant to do ill when his master's eye is upon him, or a thief to cut a purse before the Judge's face. God observes all wickedness; wickedness under lock and key. If he registers all thy members in his book, he will also register the sins of those members, what use thou puttest them to, whether to his service, or the devil's drudgery; whether thy eye rove about in wanton glances, or thy tongue be let loose in profane language, or thy ear open to ungodly discourse, or thy feet more swift to carry thee to an alehouse than a sermon.

It was once a check a young man gave to a harlot, who had enticed him, and carried him from one room to another for secresy; Oh, saith he, can none see us here? Can we be hid from God's eye? Yet sinners in their practice make their boast, as they, in express words, Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he sees not, and he walks in the circuit of heaven: Job. 22. 14. As though God's eye could not pierce the thick clouds; as though his cares were confined only to celestial things, and earth were too low an orb for his eyes to roll about. If we think a word in the presence of a grave religious man may disgrace us, we are troubled in our minds; but we regard not an injury done to God. We are more cast down, if a foolish action of ours comes to the knowledge of men, than to the knowledge of God.

2. When men give liberty to inward sins. God often sets forth himself by that expression, that he trieth the heart, and searcheth the reins. The heart hath many valves and ventricles, but God searches all the valves, which cannot be espied and discerned but by a curious eye. God sees all the contrivances of it. The reins are partly hid, most inward, surrounded with fat. The most inward thoughts cannot be hid from God's piercing eye, for all is open before him, like dissected sacrifices when the bowels are ripped up, and all the inwards discovered. God is more within the soul of a creature, than any one hidden thought

Wandering in Duty.

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can be, and knows it before the heart that mints it has a full discovery of it. What do the actings of sin in our fancies import, but as though God's eye could not pierce into the remoteness and darkness of our minds?

Manasseh is blamed for setting up strange altars in the house of God; much more may we for setting up strange imaginations in the heart, which should belong to God. This is to deny God's judicial prerogative; this is the attribute which speaks him fit to be a judge, and yet men can possess their hearts with this, that he is defective in this attribute, and so make him incapable of judging the world. Hypocrisy is a plain denial of this omnisciency. When men have a religious lip, and a black soul; an outside swept and garnished, and a legion of devils garrisoned within. This derogates from God, as though his eye were as easily deceived as men's, and an outward appearance limited God's observation. Are we not more slight in the performance of private devotions before God, than we are in our attendances in public in the sight of men.

3. When men give way to diversions in a duty, it is a denial of God's omniscience. Love is the cause of fixedness. The angels have a pure affection to God, and therefore they have an uninterrupted attention in his presence. If thou thinkest God does not mind thee, why dost thou pray at all? If thou thinkest he does mind thee, why dost thou not pray more fervently, fixedly, and hear more attentively? This attention consists in the frame of the soul; for bodily exercise is required for our sakes, not for God's. Gesture and speech are to quicken our affections. Christ has given us a short pattern of prayer, and can our hearts be steady upon God in the repetition of it? Duties are visits we pay to God; would it not be an affront, if when we were to visit a prince, we should send a noisome rotten carcase in our stead? Do we not deal so with God, when we come without

our heart, as though God were ignorant, and could be put off with any thing, the worst in our flocks, as well as the best.

It wrongs the majesty of God's presence, that when he speaks to us, we will not give him so much respect as to regard him; and when we speak to him, we do not regard ourselves. What a vain thing is it, to be speaking to a scullion when the king is in presence? Every careless diversion to a vain object, is a denial of God's presence in the place. It is a wrong to God's excellency, that when we come to God for what we count sweet and desirable, we presently turn our backs, as though our address were an act of imprudence and folly; as much as to say, there is no sweetness in him, no beauty that we should desire him.

6. Enmity to the mercy of God. God is not wronged more in any attribute by devils and men, than in his mercy. Man would deprive God of the

honour of his own mercy; of the objects of mercy; when God's mercy to others comes in competition with his self-love and credit. Jonah's pride would null the goodness of God. With what an unreasonable passion doth he fly in the face of God, for reprieving the humbled Ninevites? He would rather have had his own credit preserved in the destruction of them according to his prediction, than God's tenderness magnified in their preservation. Some fancy a God made up altogether of mercy, a childish merey; as if his mercy had nothing else to do, but to wrong all his other perfections; to make him belie his truth, extinguish his justice, discard his wisdom, and enslave his power.

This appears, 1. In the severe and jealous thoughts men have of God. Men are apt to charge God with tyranny, whereby they strip him of the riches of his glorious mercy. The devil's design at first was to belie God to man, that he might have hard and contracted thoughts of God, to think him strait-handed

Enmity to Gods Mercy.

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towards his creature. Therefore he is called a liar from the beginning, in urging man to misbelieve his Creator to be an unjust, hard, and cruel master, and that envied him comforts necessary for him; which frightful thoughts of the deity have haunted man ever since. If man in creation was so ready to entertain jealousies of God, man in corruption, with the load of guilt upon him, is much more prone.

The heathens (by the devil's instigation), as the Indians, have their notions, that mercy flows not naturally from God, but must be wrested by a multitude of services; that he will do nothing without the bribe of a sacrifice; which they offer, lest he should hurt them. As if God only created men, to make sport with their misery: as if God had no other design in the creation, than to load his creatures with chains, and govern that world by tyranny, which he made by an efflux of powerful goodness. The worship of many men is founded upon this conceit, whereby they are frighted into some actions of adoration, not sweetly drawn. This representation of God doth debase the soul, and fills it with that tyrannical passion of fear, which is always accompanied with hatred; for we hate what we fear. Thus the devil accuses God to troubled consciences, persuading them that he has no mercy for them, that so he may drive them to despair. This he attained in Cain, who cries in despair, My punishment is greater than I can bear; i. e. my sin is greater than can be pardoned, Gen. 4. 13.

When any soul is like to be snatched out of Satan's hands, he makes it interpret those acts wherein God means favour, to be acts of enmity. So that the main work God has to do after conviction, is to persuade the soul to have good thoughts of him. Hence arises that unwillingness in the soul to come to God. How can we approach to him, of whom we have such narrow thoughts, and judge of according to our own revengeful humours? How can we do otherwise but