(4.) But there is one more feature in the description; viz., this, that _these scoffers are_ “_willingly ignorant_.” The ignorance here predicted has special reference to the creation and the flood; but the point to which I would draw your most especial attention is the _willingness_ of its character. Ignorance in many cases is the result of circumstances, and in some of grave misfortune. There are some who long for knowledge, but have no opportunity of obtaining it; and there are many others who, though they show no such thirst, cannot be blamed; for they have never known enough even to excite an appetite. But the prophecy describes men who are determinately and wilfully ignorant; who are ignorant, not because they _cannot_ know, but because they _will_ not. They are like those persons described in Romans i. 28: “Even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge.” Such are the people described in this prophecy—persons who are profoundly ignorant of the whole purpose of God in Christ Jesus; who know absolutely nothing of that knowledge of the true God and of “Jesus Christ, whom He has sent,” which the Lord Himself declared to be “life eternal;” and who do not wish to know it, but had rather remain without the knowledge. The result is, that they will read no Christian evidence, will care for no books but those of infidels, and will never search their Bible, unless it be to find out something which they may make the subject of their mockery. Such is the willing ignorance most clearly predicted in this prophecy.