WHY DO INFIDELS HATE GOD ?

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The real Christian, in the exercise of Gospel submission, prays to God, "Father, thy will be done." And, in the devotional language of an ancient saint, he gratefully acknowledges entire dependence on the sovereignty of God for all temporal and spiritual blessings. "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name, and forget not all his benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies." But, the virtual language of all practical Atheists, is, "What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit should we have, if we pray to him?" Insultingly, therefore they say unto God, "Depart from us for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways."

Why are Infidels so much opposed to God and his laws, seeing that it is in Him they live, and move, and have a being? The reason is obvious. God is a holy Sovereign. His laws are holy, and impose restraint on human sensuality. The Bible contains the revealed code of Divine laws for the sovereign government of mankind. Infidels of every degree are sinful men of the fallen race of Adam. They possess carnal minds, full of enmity to God and his laws, and to the book that contains them. They hate the God of love and goodness. They are impenitent; unbelievers in God and his truth; self-exalted, self-conceited, self-wise, high-minded, determined on the gratification of their own will; and impatient and obstinate under every degree of moral restraint. In a word, they are just such men as the prophets of God, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, foretold, would come in the last days, viz., "Boasters, proud, blasphemers, despisers of those that are good." Hence, the very existence of such men, and all their opposition to

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DIVINE SUPERINTENDENCE

God, to the Bible, its laws and religion, is proof, incontestable proof to a demonstration, that the Bible is true. And for this very reason, Infidels are opposed to God and to the Bible, and wish its existence annihilated. And such are the reasons why wicked men in every age of the world have manifested their enmity to the sovereign and holy government of God, by opposition to his laws; by devices to counteract his purposes, and by hostility to the religion of the Bible and its adherents. That such facts have existed, belongs to our

II. Proposition, which was to show, that individual human attempts to frustrate God's purposes, have been uniformly and divinely defeated.

Providential restraints have often prevented wicked men from doing the evil which was in their hearts to do. Divine interposition has counteracted the designs of the wicked in all ages, or so controlled them as to render that which they were permitted to do, subservient to the Divine glory. This doctrine, which is abundantly verified by Scripture facts, affords a solid foundation for the friends of God and holiness to hope, and believe that all existing evils, and threatening dangers occasioned by the plots of the wicked against God, against. his holy word, against his laws and government, and against those who love his truth, will either be restrained or divinely overruled to subserve the cause of godliness, and secure the everlasting welfare of all who love God and delight in his law and ordinances. For "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of Judgment to be punished." And he both can and will defeat the plots of his adversaries, and save them that put their trust in his holy name. These truths have been exemplified in every

OVER DEVICES OF THE WICKED.

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age of the world, from the apostasy in Eden to the present time.

It was the will of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to destroy all the family of Israel, consisting of more than 600,000 men of twenty years old and upwards, besides all the Levites, old men, women and children, in their flight from Egypt on the bank of the Red Sea! Perhaps in all there were nearly one million of souls, comprising the whole church of God at that time, children of the promise of God to Abraham, worn down to a state of depression of spirits by long oppressive bondage and slavery in Egypt; now exiles from Egypt, emigrants for the land of promise; all on foot, divinely guided by a moving pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night, till all arrived to the bank of the Red Sea, at a place divinely appointed, where there was an inaccessible mountain on each side of them, and an impassable sea in front. In this fearful emergency, Pharaoh with his chariots and war forces rushed upon them in the rear!!! Unarmed, unprepared for defence, and unable to escape by flight, what but death, in one general massacre, could be looked for or expected? Truly, if the God of the Bible had not interposed, all must have perished. But God spake; the sea divided; all Israel passed over on dry land; and their enemies perished to a man, in the overwhelming flood, by an attempt to follow them!!!

It was the plot of Haman, (the Agagite, who was promoted in the Court of Ahasuerus, king of the MedoPersian Empire,) to destroy the whole nation of the Jews, God's ancient covenant people, by the massacre of a single day's human butchery with the sword, because one Jew refused obeisance to him. But the God of the Bible delivered his people from death, by

112 PRINCES OF MEDIA. HEROD THE GREAT.

the providential instrumentality of Queen Esther; and the plotter of the indiscriminate murder of a nation, was hung upon the gallows, fifty cubits high, which he had prepared for MORDECAI the Jew, whose unwavering piety forbade homage to the unworthy aspirant.

It was the will of the presidents and princes of Media and Persia, to destroy the Prophet Daniel, for the crime of praying to the God of heaven, in violation of a heathen king's decree, which had been designedly obtained by stratagem against the life of the prophet, whose love to God and his ordinances had excited the hatred of his inferiors in office, which led to the plot of murderous revenge. But the God of heaven saw their wickedness; and the death which they had devised for the holy prophet, was, by a divine interposition, turned upon their own heads and households to their utter destruction.

It was the will of Herod the Great, king of Judea, to destroy the infant Saviour among the martyred babes of Bethlehem. But it was God's plan to remove the child Jesus to a land of safety, until an army of worms, more numerous than the murdered children, should attack the monarch in person, and torture him to death, as executioners of divine vengeance on a hater of God's truth.

It was the will of the Infidel Jews, (in consequence of their unbelief in a fulfilment of Scripture prophecy, and their hatred of God's anointed Emmanuel,) to put Jesus Christ to death as an impostor and malefactor. This act God permitted them to do, in the exercise of their own free malicious will, which constituted them murderers in the sight of God. Thus their guilt was charged upon them by an inspired Apostle. "Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth,

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AWFUL CASE OF BLOOD FOR BLOOD!!"

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a man approved by God among you, by miracles, and wonders, and signs which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know; Him, being delivered, by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." Thus they murdered the Lord Jesus, and mockingly imprecated his blood upon themselves and children; adding blasphemy to wilful, malicious murder. And the penalty of death, "blood for blood," was executed on one million one hundred thousand of those murderers and their children, by sword, famine, and pestilence, at the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman army under the command of Titus, about forty years after the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. But God overruled that murderous act; and also the obedient sufferings unto death of the Son of his eternal love. An all-sufficient atonement was thus made for the sin of fallen man, that all believers in Christ crucified, "should not perish, but have eternal life.”

By the faithful discharge of the apostolic commission to preach Christ crucified for the salvation of sinners, Christianity increased, amidst trials, after the ascension of Christ, until the wicked world became alarmed at the prospect of its prevailing influence. It hence became the will of the heathen Roman Emperors (ten in number, from Nero A.D. 64, to Dioclesian's death, A.D. 312,) to endeavor to drive Christianity from the world, by persecuting its adherents, even to the most dreadful tortures and death. This was also divinely permitted to be done. Thousands of Christians were cruelly put to death by heathen persecutors, in fulfilment of the prophetic Revelation of Jesus Christ to his servant John on the isle of Patmos, by the opening of the Fifth seal of the book of