Lewd and corrupt ministers are a hatred and abomination in the house of the Lord to all serious good people, and are therefore obliged to make themselves a party of those that are like themselves, whose favour they cannot have without indulging them in their lusts. Hence they prophesy peace to the vilest and worst of men, who have no patience of being daily alarmed with hearing of the wrath of God due and like to come upon them for their sins. Hence they promise no evil to those that walk according to the counsels of their own heart, that is, sinfully, for, Genesis 6:5, Every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart is only evil, and that continually. Hence a sinful course is very often expressed in Scripture under this notion of walking after the imaginations of our own heart, as Deuteronomy 29:19; but it is most in prophecy; see Jeremiah 3:17, Jeremiah 7:21 9:14 13:10 16:12 18:12. Hence a religious walking is called a self denying. None have a worse guide of their actions in their lapsed state, before regeneration, than their own hearts.

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