or by any Creature is Blasphemous it sets the Creature in the place of God and invests it in that which is the peculiar honour of the Divinity for when any swear truly they intend the invocation of an infallible Witness and the bringing an undoubted Testimony for what they do assert While any therefore Swear by a Creature or a false God they profess that that Creature or that which they esteem to be a God is an infallible Witness which to be is only the right of God they attribute to the Creature that which is the Property of God alone to know the Heart and to be a Witness whether they speak true or no and this was accounted by all Nations the true Design of an Oath As to Swear falsely is a plain denyal of the All-Knowledg of God so to Swear by any Creature is to set the Creature upon the Throne of God in ascribing that Perfection to the Creature which Soveraignly belongs to the Creator for it is not in the Power of any to Witness to the truth of the heart but of him that is the searcher of hearts 4. We Sin against this Attribute by censuring the hearts of others An open Crime indeed falls under our Cognizance and therefore under our Judgment for whatsoever falls under the Authority of man to be punished falls under the Judgment of man to be censured as an act contrary to the Law of God yet when a censure is built upon the evil of the act which is obvious to the view if we take a step farther to judg the heart and state we leave the revealed rule of the Law and ambitiously erect a Tribunal equal with Gods and usurp a Judicial Power pertaining only to the Supream Governour of the World and consequently pretend to be possest of this Perfection of Omniscience which is necessary to render him capable of the exercise of that Soveraign Authority For it is in respect of his Dominion that God hath the supream right to Judg and in respect of his Knowledg that he hath an incommunicable capacity to Judg. In an action that is doubtful the good or evil whereof depends only upon Gods determination and wherein much of the Judgment depends upon the discerning the intention of the Agent we cannot Judg any man without a manifest invasion of Gods peculiar right such actions are to be Tryed by Gods knowledg not by our surmises God only is the Master in such cases to whom a person stands or falls Rom. 14.4 Till the true Principle and ends of an action be known by the confession of the party acting it a true Judgment of it is not in our Power Principles and Ends lye deep and hid from us and it is intollerable Pride to pretend to have a joint Key with God to open that Cabinet which he hath reserved to himself Besides the violation of the Rule of Charity in misconstruing actions which may be great and generous in their root and principle we invade Gods Right as if our ungrounded imaginations and conjectures were in joint Commission with this Sovereign Perfection and thereby we become Usurping Judges of evil thoughts James 2.4 'T is therefore a boldness worthy to be punished by the Judge to assume to our selves the Capacity and Authority of him who is the only Judg. For as the Execution of the Divine Law for the inward violation of it belongs only to God so is the right of Judging a Prerogative belonging only to his Omniscience his Right is therefore invaded if we pretend to a knowledg of it This Humor of men the Apostle checks when he saith 1 Cor. 4.5 He that judgeth me is the Lord therefore judg nothing before the time until the Lord come who will manifest the Counsels of all hearts 'T is not the time yet for God to erect the Tribunal for the tryal of mens hearts and the Principles of their Actions He hath reserv'd the glorious discovery of this Attribute for another season We must not therefore presume to Judge of the Counsels of mens hearts till God hath reveal'd them by opening the Treasures of his own Knowledg much less are we to judge any Mans final Condition Manasseh may Sacrifice to Devils and unconverted Paul tear the Church in pieces but God had Mercy on them and called them The Action may be Censur'd not the State for we know not whom God may call In Censuring Men we may doubly imitate the Devil in a false accusation of the Brethren as well as in an ambitious usurpation of the Rights of God 2. This Perfection is injured by presuming upon it or making an ill use of it As in the neglect of Prayer for the supply of Men's wants because God knows them already so that that which is an encouragement to Prayer they make the reason of restraining it before God Prayer is not to administer knowledge to God but to acknowledge this admirable Perfection of the Divine Nature If God did not know there were indeed no use of Prayer it would be as vain a thing to send up our Prayers to Heaven as to implore the senseless Statue or Picture of a Prince for a Protection We Pray because God knows for though he know our wants with a knowledge of Vision yet he will not know them with a knowledge of supply till he be sought unto All the Excellencies of God are ground of Adoration * Mat. 6.32.33 Matth. 7.11 and this Excellency is the ground of that part of Worship we call Prayer If God be to be Worshipped he is to be called upon Invocations of his name in our necessities is a chief act of Worship whence the Temple the place of solemn Worship was not called the House of Sacrifice but the House of Prayer Prayer was not appointed for Gods information as if he were ignorant but for the expression of our desires not to furnish him with a knowledge of what we want but to manifest to him by some Rational Sign convenient to our Nature our sense of that want which he knows by himself So that Prayer is not design'd to acquaint God with our wants but to express the desire of a Remedy of our wants God knows our wants but hath not made promises barely to our wants but to our asking That his Omniscience in hearing as well as his sufficiency in supplying may have a sensible honour in our acknowledgments and receits 'T is therefore an ill use of this Excellency of God to neglect Prayer to him as needless because he knows already 4. This Perfection of God is wrong'd by a practical denial of it 'T is the language of every Sin and so God takes it when he comes to reckon with Men for their Impieties Upon this he charges the greatness of the iniquity of Israel the overflowing of Blood in the Land and the perversness of the City They say the Lord hath forsaken the Earth and the Lord sees not * Ezek. 9.9 They deny his Eyes to see
his moral Power whereby it is lawful for him to do what he will Among men Strength and Authority are two distinct things A Subject may be a Giant and be stronger than his Prince but he hath not the same Authority as his Prince Worldly Dominion may be seated not in a brawny Arm but a sickly and infirm Body As knowledge and wisdom are distinguisht knowledge respects the matter being and nature of a thing Wisdom respects the harmony order and actual usefulness of a thing Knowledge searcheth the nature of a thing and Wisdom employs that thing to its proper use A man may have much Knowledge and little Wisdom so a man may have much Strength and little or no Authority A greater strength may be setled in the Servant but a greater Authority resides in the Master strength is the natural vigor of a Man God hath an infinite strength he hath a strength to bring to pass whatsoever he decrees he acts without fainting and weakness Isaiah 40.28 and impairs not his strength by the exercise of it As God is Lord he hath a right to Enact as he is Almighty he hath a power to Execute His strength is the executive power belonging to his Dominion In regard of his Soveraignty he hath a right to Command all Creatures In regard of his Almightiness he hath power to make his Commands be obey'd or to punish men for the violation of them His power is that whereby he subdues all Creatures under him his Dominion is that whereby he hath a right to subdue all Creatures under him This Dominion is a right of making what he pleases of possessing what he made of disposing of what he doth possess whereas his power is an ability to make what he hath a right to Create to hold what he doth possess and to execute the manner wherein he resolves to dispose of his Creatures 2. All the other Attributes of God referre to this perfection of Dominion They all bespeak him fit for it and are discovered in the exercise of it which hath been manifested in the discourses of those Attributes we have passed through hitherto His Goodness fits him for it because he can never use his Authority but for the good of the Creatures and conducting them to their true end His Wisdom can never be mistaken in the exercise of it his power can accomplish the Decrees that flow from his absolute Authority What can be more rightful than the placing Authority in such an infinite Goodness that hath Bowels to pity as well as a Scepter to sway his Subjects That hath a mind to contrive and a will to regulate his contrivances for his own Glory and his Creatures good and an arm of power to bring to pass what he Orders Without this Dominion some perfections as Justice and Mercy would lie in obscurity and much of his Wisdom would be shrouded from our sight and knowledge 3. This of Dominion as well as that of Power hath been acknowledged by all The High Priest was to wave the Offering or shake it to and fro Exod. 29.24 which the Jews say was customarily from East to West and from North to South the four quarters of the World to signifie Gods Soveraignty over all the parts of the World And some of the Heathens in their Adorations turned their Bodies to all quarters to signifie the extensive Dominion of God throughout the whole Earth That Dominion did of right pertain to the Deity was confest by the Heathen in the name Baal given to their Idols which signifies Lord and was not a name of one Idol adored for a God but common to all the Eastern Idols God hath interwoven the notion of his Soveraignty in the Nature and Constitution of Man in the noblest and most inward acts of his Soul in that faculty or act which is most necessary for him in his converse in this World either with God or Man 'T is stampt upon the Conscience of Man and flashes in his face in every act of self Judgment Conscience passes upon a Man Every reflection of Conscience implies an obligation of man to some Law written in his Heart Rom. 2.15 This Law cannot be without a Legislator nor this Legislator without a Soveraign Dominion these are but natural and easie consequences in the mind of Man from every act of Conscience The indelible Authority of Conscience in Man in the whole exercise of it bears a respect to the Soveraignty of God clearly proclaims not only a supream being but a supream Governor and points man directly to it that a man may as soon deny his having such a reflecting principle within him as deny Gods Dominion over him and consequently over the whole World of rational Creatures 4. This notion of Soveraingty is inseparable from the notion of a God To acknowledge the Existence of a God and to acknowledge him a Rewarder are linkt together Heb. 11.6 To acknowledge him a Rewarder is to acknowledge him a Governor Rewards being the marks of Dominion The very name of a God includes in it a supremacy and an actual rule He cannot be conceived as God but he must be conceived as the highest Authority in the World 'T is as possible for him not to be God as not to be supream Wherein can the exercise of his excellencies be apparent but in his Soveraign rule To fancy an infinite power without a supream Dominion is to fancy a mighty senseless Statue fit to be beheld but not fit to be obey'd as not being able or having no right to give out Orders or not caring for the exercise of it God cannot be supposed to be the cheif being but he must be supposed to give Laws to all and receive Laws from none And if we suppose him with a perfection of Justice and Righteousness which we must do unless we would make a lame and imperfect God we must suppose him to have an intire Dominion without which he could never be able to manifest his Justice And without a supream Dominion he could not manifest the supremacy and infiniteness of his Righteousness 1. We cannot suppose God a Creator without supposing a Soveraign Dominion in him No Creature can be made without some Law in its Nature if it had not Law it would be Created to no purpose to no regular end it would be utterly unbecoming an infinite Wisdom to create a lawless Creature a Creature wholly vain much less can a rational Creature be made without a Law if it had no Law it were not rational For the very notion of a rational Creature implies reason to be a Law to it and implies an acting by rule * Maccov Colleg. Theolog 10. Disput 18. p. 6 7. or thereabout If you could suppose rational Creatures without a Law you might suppose that they might blaspheme their Creator and Murder their fellow Creatures and commit the most abominable villanies destructive to humane Society without sin for where there is no Law there is no
the Moral Law was publisht had been a vain exhortation had there been no revelation of the mind of God in all Ages 2. The dominion of God is manifest in the extent of his Laws As he is the Governour and Soveraign of the whole World so he Enacts Laws for the whole World One Prince cannot make Laws for another unless he makes him his Subject by right of conquest Spain cannot make Laws for England or England for Spain But God having the supream Government as King over all is a Lawgiver to all to irrational as well as rational Creatures The Heavens have their Ordinances Job 38.33 All Creatures have a Law imprinted on their beings Rational Creatures have Divine Statutes Copied in their heart For men it is clear Rom. 2.14 Every Son of Adam at his coming into the World brings with him a Law in his nature and when reason clears it self up from the Clouds of sence he can make some difference between Good and Evil discern something of fit and just Every man finds a Law within him that checks him if he offends it Noâ—◠〈◊〉 without a legal indictment and a legal Executioner within them God 〈…〉 was the Author of this as a Soveraign Lord in establishing a Law iâ— man at the same time wherein as an Almighty Creator he imparted a being This Law proceeds from God's general power of governing as he is the Author of nature and binds not barely as it is the reason of man but by the Authority of God as it is a Law engraven on his Conscience And no doubt but a Law was given to the Angels God did not Govern those intellectual Creatures as he doth brutes and in a way inferior to his rule of Man Some sinned all might have sinned in regard of the changeableness of their nature Sin cannot be but against some rule Where there is no Law there is no Transgression what that Law was is not reveal'd but certainly it must be the same in part with the Moral Law so far as it agreed with their spiritual natures a love to God a Worship of him and a love to one another in their Societies and Persons 3. The dominion of God is manifest in the reason of some Laws which seem to be nothing else than purely his own Will Some Laws there are for which a reason may be rendered from the nature of the thing enjoyned as to Love Honour and Worship God For others none but this God will have it so such was that positive Law to Adam of not eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil Gen. 2.17 which was meerly an asserting his own dominion and was different from that Law of Nature God had written in his heart No other reason of this seems to us but a resolve to try mans Obedience in away of absolute Soveraignty and to manifest his right over all Creatures to reserve what he pleased to himself and permit the use of what he pleased to man and to signifie to man that he was to depend on him who was his Lord and not on his own will There was no more hurt in it self for Adam to have eaten of that than of any other in the Garden the Fruit was pleasant to the Eye and Good for Food but God would shew the right he had over his own goods and his Authority over man to reserve what he pleases of his own Creation from his touch that since man could not claim a propriety in any thing he was to meddle with nothing but by the leave of his Soveraign either discovered by a special or general License Thus God shewed himself the Lord of Man and that man was but his Steward to act by his Orders If God had forbidden man the use of more Trees in the Garden his command had been just Since as a Soveraign Lord he might dispose of his own Goods and when he had granted him the whole compass of that pleasant Garden and the whole World round about for him and his posterity it was a more tolerable exercise of his dominion to reserve this one Tree as a mark of his Soveraignty when he had left all others to the use of Adam He reserv'd nothing to himself as Lord of the Manour but this and Adam was prohibited nothing else but this one as a sign of his subjection Now for this no reason can be rendered by any man but meerly the Will of God this was meerly a fruit of his Dominion For the moral Laws a reason may be rendred to Love God hath reason to enforce it besides Gods Will viz. The Excellency of his Nature and the greatness and multitudes of his benefits To love our Neighbour hath enforcing reasons viz. the Conjunction in blood and the preservation of humane Society and the need we may stand in of their love our selves But no reason can be assign'd of this positive command about the Tree of knowledge of good and evil but meerly the pleasure of God It was a branch of his pure dominion to try mans Obedience and a mark of his Goodness to try it by so easie and light a precept when he might have extended his Authority further Had not God given this or the like order his absolute dominion had not been so conspicuous 'T is true Adam had a Law of Nature in him whereby he was obliged to perpetual Obedience and though it was a part of God's dominion to implant it in him yet his supream dominion over the Creatures had not been so visible to man but by this or a precept of the same kind What was commanded or prohibited by the Law of Nature did bespeak a comeliness in it self it appear'd Good or Evil to the reason of man but this was neither Good nor Evil in it self it receiv'd its sole Authority from the absolute Will of God and nothing could result from the fruit it self as a reason why man should not tast it but only the sole Will of God And as God's dominion was most conspicuous in this precept so man's obedience had been most eminent in observing it For in his obedience to it nothing but the sole power and Authority of God which is the proper rule of obedience could have been respected not any reason from the thing it self To this we may referre some other Commands as that of appointing the time of solemn and public Worship the seventh day though the Worship of God be a part of the Law of Nature yet the appointing a particular day wherein he would be more formally and solemnly acknowledged than on other days was grounded upon his absolute right of Legislation For there was nothing in the time it self that could render that day more Holy than another though God respected his finishing the work of Creation in his institution of that day Gen. 2.3 Such were the Ceremonial Commands of Sacrifices and Washings under the Law and the Commands of Sacraments under the Gospel The one to last till the first
Coming of Christ and his Passion the other to last till the second Coming of Christ and his Triumph Thus he made natural and unavoidable uncleannesses to be sins and the touching a dead Body to be pollution which in their own nature were not so 4. The Dominion of God appears in the Moral Law and his Majesty in publishing it As the Law of Nature was writ by his own Fingers in the Nature of man so it was Engraven by his own finger in the Tables of Stone Exod. 31.18 Which is very emphatically exprest to be a mark of God's Dominion Exodus 32.16 And the Tables were the work of God and the writing was the writing of God Engraven upon the Tables and when the first Tables were broken though he orders Moses to frame the Tables yet the writing of the Law he reserves to himself Exod. 34.1 'T is not said of any part of the Scripture that it was writ by the finger of God but only of the Decalogue herein he would have his Soveraignty eminently appear it was publish't by God in state with a numerous attendance of his heavenly Militia Deut. 32.2 And the Artillery of Heaven was shot off at the solemnity And therefore it is call'd a fiery Law coming from his right hand i. e. His Soveraign power It was publisht with all the marks of supream Majesty 5. The Dominion of God appears in the Obligation of the Law which reacheth the Conscience The Laws of every Prince are fram'd for the outward conditions of Men they do not by their Authority bind the Conscience and what obligations do result from them upon the Conscience is either from their being the same immediately with divine Laws or as they are according to the just power of the Magistrate founded on the Law of God Conscience hath a protection from the King of Kings and cannot be arrested by any humane power God hath given man but an Authority over half the man and the worst half too that which is of an Earthly original but reserved the Authority over the better and more heavenly half to himself The Dominion of earthly Princes extends only to the bodies of men they have no Authority over the Soul their punishment and rewards cannot reach it And therefore their Laws by their single Authority cannot bind it but as they are co-incident with the Law of God or as the equity of them is subservient to the preservation of humane Society a regular and Righteous thing which is the Divine end in Government and so they bind as they have a relation to God as the supream Magistrate The Conscience is only intelligible to God in its secret motions and therefore only guidable by God God only pierceth into the Conscience by his Eye And therefore only can conduct it by his Rule Man cannot tell whither we embrace this Law in our Heart and Consciences or only in appearance He only can Judge it Luke 12.3 4. And therefore he only can impose Laws upon it 't is out of the reach of humane penal Authority if their Laws be transgress'd inwardly by it Conscience is a Book in some sort as Sacred as the Scripture no addition can be lawfully made to it no substraction from it Men cannot diminish the duty of Conscience or raze out the Law God hath stampt upon it They cannot put a supersedeas to the Writ of Conscience or stop its mouth with a Noli Prosequi They can make no addition by their Authority to bind it 't is a flower in the Crown of Divine Soveraignty only 2. His Soveraignty appears in a power of dispensing with his own Laws 'T is as much a part of his Dominion to dispense with his Laws as to enjoyn them he only hath the power of relaxing his own right no Creature hath power to do it that would be to usurp a superiority over him and order above God himself Repealing or dispensing with the Law is a branch of Royal Authority 'T is true God will never dispense with those Moral Laws which have an eternal reason in themselves and their own nature as for a Creature to Fear Love and Honour God this would be to dispense with his own Holiness and the Righteousness of his Nature to fully the purity of his own Dominion it would write folly upon the first Creation of man after the Image of God by writing mutability upon himself in framing himself after the corrupted Image of man It would null and frustrate the excellency of the Creature wherein the Image of God mostly shines nay it would be to dispense with a Creatures being a Creator and make him independent upon the Soveraign of the World in Moral Obedience But God hath a right to dispense with the ordinary Laws of Nature in the inferior Creatures he hath a power to alter their course by an arrest of Miracles and make them come short or go beyond his Ordinances established for them He hath a right to make the Sun stand still or move backward to bind up the Womb of the Earth and barr the influences of the Clouds bridle in the rage of the fire and the fury of Lions make the liquid waters stand like a Wall or pull up the dam which he hath set to the Sea and command it to overflow the neighbouring Countries He can dispense with the natural Laws of the whole Creation and strain every string beyond its ordinary pitch Positive Laws he hath revers'd as the Ceremonial Law given to the Jews The very nature indeed of that Law requir'd a repeal and fell of Course when that which was intended by it was come it was of no longer significancy as before it was a useful shadow it would afterwards have been an empty one Had not God took away this Christianity had not in all likelyhood been propagated among the Gentiles This was the partition wall beetween Jews and Gentiles Eph. 2.14 Which made them a distinct Family from all the World and was the occasion of the enmity of the Gentiles against the Jews When God had by bringing in what was signified by those Rites declar'd his decree for the ceasing of them and when the Jews fond of those Divine Institutions would not allow him the right of repealing what he had the Authority of enacting he resolved for the asserting his Dominion to bury them in the ruines of the Temple and City and make them for ever uncapable of practising the main and Essential parts of them For the Temple being the pillar of the legal Service by demolishing that God hath taken away their right of sacrificing it being peculiarly annext to that place they have no Altar dignifyed with a fire from Heaven to consume their sacrifices no legal High Priest to offer them God hath by his Providence chang'd his own Law as well as by his precept Yea he hath gone higher by vertue of his Soveraignty and chang'd the whole scene and methods of his Government after the fall from King Creator
concern without appointment and pattern than Moses a servant ver 5.6 It seems to be a vote of nature to referr the Original of the modes of all worship to God and therefore in all those varieties of Ceremonies among the Heathens there was scarce any but were imagin'd by them to be the Dictates and Orders of some of their pretended Deities and not the resolves of meer Humane Authority What intrusion upon God's right hath the Papacy made in regard of Officers Cardinals Patriarchs c. not known in any Divine Order In regard of Ceremonies in worship prest as necessary to obtain the favour of God Holy-water Crucifixes Altars Images Cringings reviving many of the Jewish and Pagan Ceremonies and adopting them into the Family of Christian Ordinances as if God had been too absolute and arbitrary in repealing the one and dashing in peices the other When God had by his Soveraign order fram'd a Religion for the heart men are ready to usurp an Authority to frame one for the sence to dress the Ordinances of God in new and gaudy habits to take the eye by a vain pomp thus affecting a Divine Royalty and acting a silly childishness and after this to impose the observation of those upon the Consciences of men is a bold ascent into the Throne of God To impose Laws upon the Conscience which Christ hath not imposed hath deservedly been thought the very Spirit of Antichrist It may be call'd also the Spirit of Anti-God God hath reserv'd to himself the sole Soveraignty over the Conscience and never indulg'd men any part of it he hath not given man a power over his own Conscience much less one man a power over another's Conscience Men have a power over outward things to do this or that where it is determined by the Law of God but not the least Authority to controul any dictate or determination of Conscience The sole Empire of that is appropriate to God as one of the great marks of his Royalty What an usurpation is it of God's right to make Conscience a slave to man which God hath solely as the father of Spirits subjected to himself An usurpation which though the Apostles those extraordinary Officers might better have claim'd yet they utterly disown'd any imperious dominion over the faith of others 2 Cor. 1.24 Though in this they do not seem to climb up above God yet they set themselves in the Throne of God envy him an absolute Monarchy would be sharers with him in his Legislative power and grasp one end of his Scepter in their own hands They do not pretend to take the Crown from Gods head but discover a bold ambition to shuffle their hairy Scalps under it and wear part of it upon their own that they may rule with him not under him And would be joint Lords of his Mannour with him who hath by the Apostle forbidden any to be Lords of his Heritage 1 Pet. 5.3 And therefore they cannot assume such an Authority to themselves till they can shew where God hath resign'd this part of his Authority to them If their Exposition of that place Matth. 16.18 Vpon this rock I will build my Church be granted to be true and that the person and Successors of Peter are meant by that Rock it could be no Apology for their Usurpations 't is not Peter and his Successors shall build but I will build others are instruments in building but they are to observe the directions of the grand Architect 3. The Soveraignty of God is contemned when men prefer Obedience to mens Laws before Obedience to God As God hath an undoubted right as the Law-giver and Ruler of the World to enact Laws without consulting the pleasure of men or requiring their consent to the verifying and establishing his Edicts so are men oblig'd by their Allegiance as subjects to observe the Laws of their Creator without consulting whither they be agreeable to the Laws of his revolted Creatures To consult with Flesh and Blood whither we should obey is to Authorize Flesh and Blood above the purest and most soveraign spirit When men will obey their superiors without taking in the condition the Apostle prescribes to Servants Col. 3.22 In singleness of heart fearing God and post-pone the fear of God to the fear of man 't is to render God of less power with them than the drop of a Bucket or dust of the Ballance When we out of fear of punishment will observe the Laws of Men against the Laws of God 't is like the Egyptians to Worship a ravenous Crocodile instead of a Deity when we submit to humane Laws and stagger at Divine 't is to set man upon the Throne of God and God at the footstool of man to set man above and God beneath to make him the tail and not the head as God speaks in another case of Israel Deut. 28.13 When we pay an outward observation to Divine Laws because they are backt by the Laws of Man and humane Authority is the motive of our observance we subject Gods soveraignty to Mans Authority what he hath from us is more owing to the pleasure of men than any value we have for the Empire of God When men shall commit Murders and imbrue their hands in blood by the order of a Grandee when the worst sins shall be committed by the order of Papal dispensations When the use of his Creatures which God hath granted and sanctifi'd shall be abstain'd from for so many days in the week and so many weeks in the year because of a Roman Edict the Authority of man is acknowledg'd not only equal but superior to that of God The dominion of dust and clay is preferr'd before the undoubted right of the soveraign of the World The Commands of God are made less than humane and the orders of men more authoritative than Divine and a grand Rebels usurpation of Gods right is countenanced When men are more devout in observance of uncertain Traditions or meer humane inventions than at the hearing of the unquestionable Oracles of God When men shall squeeze their countenances into a more serious figure and demean themselves in a more religious posture at the appearance of some mock Ceremony clothed in a Jewish or Pagan garb which hath unhappily made a rent in the Coat of Christ and pay a more exact reverence to that which hath no Divine but only a humane stamp upon it than to the clear and plain Word of God which is perhaps neglected with sleepy nodds or which is worse entertain'd with prophane scoffs this is to prefer the Authority of man employ'd in trifles before the Authority of the wise Law-giver of the World Besides the ridiculousness of it is as great as to adore a Glo-worm and laugh at the Sun or for a Courtier to be more exact in his cringes and starcht postures before a puppet than before his soveraign Prince In all this we make not the Will and Authority of God our rule but the
and dispose of all his Creatures for the bringing his Purposes and his Promises to their designed perfection 6. Hence appears the necessity of a publick review of the Management of the World and of a Day of Judgment As a Day of Judgment may be inferr'd from many Attribute of God as his Soveraignty Justice Omniscience c. so among the rest from this of Wisdom How much of this Perfection will lie unvail'd and obscure if the Sins of Men be not brought to view whereby the ordering the unrighteous Actions of Men by his directing and over-ruling Hand of Providence in subserviency to his own Purposes and his Peoples good may appear in all its glory Without such a publick Review this part of Wisdom will not be clearly visible how those Actions which had a vile foundation in the Hearts and designs of Men and were formed there to gratifie some base Lust Ambition and Covetousness c. were by a secret Wisdom presiding over them conducted to amazing Ends. 'T is a part of Divine Wisdom to right it self and convince Men of the reasonableness of its Laws and the unreasonableness of their Contradictions to it The execution of the Sentence is an act of Justice but the conviction of the reasonableness of the Sentence is an act of Wisdom clearing up the Righteousness of the proceeding and this precedes and the other follows Jude 15. To convince all that are ungodly of all their ungodly deeds That Wisdom which contrived satisfaction as well as that Justice which required it is concerned in righting the Law which was enacted by it The Wisdom of a Soveraign Law-giver is engaged not to see his Law vilified and trampled on and exposed to the Lusts and Affronts of Men without being concerned in vindicating the Honour of it It would appear a Folly to enact and publish it if there were not a Resolution to right and execute it The Wisdom of God can no more associate Iniquity and Happiness together than the Justice of God can separate Iniquity from Punishment It would be defective if it did always tamely bear the Insolences of Offenders without a time of remark of their Crimes and a Justification of the Precept rebelliously spurn'd at He would be Unwise if he were Unjust Unrighteousness hath no better a Title in Scripture than that of Folly 'T is no part of Wisdom to give birth to those Laws which he will always behold ineffectual and neither vindicate his Law by a due execution of the Penalty nor right his own Authority conâ—emn'd in the violation of his Law by a just Revenge Besides What Wisdom would it be for the Soveraign Judge to lodge such a Spokesman for himself as Conscience in the Soul of Man if it should be alway found speaking and at length be found false in all that it speaks There is therefore an apparent prospect of the Day of Account from the consideration of this Perfection of the Divine Nature 7. Hence we have a ground for a mighty Reverence and Veneration of the Divine Majesty Who can contemplate the Sparklings of this Perfection in the variety of the Works of his hands and the exact Government of all his Creatures without a raised Admiration of the Excellency of his Being and a falling flat before him in a posture of Reverence to so great a Being Can we behold so great a mass of Matter digested into several Forms so exact a Harmony and Temperament in all the Creatures the proportions of Numbers and Measures and one Creature answering the Ends and Designs of another the distinct Beauties of all the perpetual Motion of all things without checking one another the variety of the Nature of things and all acting according to their Nature with an admirable Agreement and altogether like differing strings upon an Instrument emitting divers Sounds but all reduc'd to order in one delightful Lesson I say Can we behold all this without Admiring and Adoring the Divine Wisdom which appears in all And from the Consideration of this let us pass to the Consideration of his Wisdom in Redemption in reconciling divided Interests untying Hard-knots drawing one contrary out of another and we must needs acknowledge that the Wisdom of all the Men on Earth and Angels in Heaven is worse than Nothing and Vanity in comparison of this vast Ocean And as we have a greater esteem for those that invent some excellent Artificial Engines what Reverence ought we to have for him that hath stampt an unimitable Wisdom upon all his Works Nature orders us to give Honour to our Superiours in Knowledge and conside in their Counsels but none ought to be Reverenc'd as much as God since none equals him in Wisdom 8. If God be Infinitely Wise it shews us the necessity of our Address to him and Invocation of his Name We are subject to Mistakes and often overseen we are not able rightly to Counsel our selves In some cases all Creatures are too short-sighted to apprehend them and too ignorant to g ve Advice proper for them and to contrive Remedies for their ease but with the Lord there is Counsel Jer. 32.19 He is great in counsel and mighty in working great in Counsel to advise us mighty in Working to assist us We know not how to effect a design or prevent an expected Evil. We have an Infinite Wisdom to go to that is every way skilful to manage any business we desire to avert any Evil we fear to accomplish any thing we commit into his hands When we know not what to resolve he hath a Counsel to guide us Psal 73.24 He is not more Powerful to effect what is needful than Wise to direct what is fitting All Men stand in need of the Help of God as one Man stands in need of the assistance of other Men and will not do any thing without Advice and he that takes Advice deserves the Title of a Wise man as well as he that gives Advice But no Man needs so much the Advice of another Man as all Men need the Counsel and Assistance of God Neither is any mans Wit and Wisdom so far inâ—eriour to the Prudence and Ability of an Angel as the Wisdom of the wisest Man and the most sharp-sighted Angel is inferiour to the Infinite Wisdom of God We see therefore that it is best for us to go to the Fountain and not content our selves with the Streams to beg Advice from a Wisdom that is Infinite and Infallible rather than from that which is Finite and Fallible Vse II. If Wisdom be the Perfection of the Divine Majesty How prodigious is the Contempt of it in the World In General All Sin strikes at this Attribute and is in one part or other a degrading of it The first Sin directed its Venom against this As the Devils endeavoured to equal their Creator in Power so Man endeavoured to equal him in Wisdom Both indeed scorn'd to be rul'd by his Order but Man evidently exalted himself against the Wisdom
beautify our Dwellings furnish our Closets or store our VVardrobes * Psal 104.24 The whole Earth is full of his Riches Nothing but by the rich Goodness of God is exquisitely accomodated in the numerous brood of things immediately or mediately for the use of Man All in the issue conspire together to render the VVorld a delightful Residence for Man And therefore all the living Creatures were brought by God to attend upon Man after his Creation to receive a Mark of his Dominion over them by the imposition of their Names †Gen. 2.19 20. He did not only give variety of Senses to Man but provided variety of delightful Objects in the VVorld for every Sense The Beauties of Light and Colours for our Eye the Harmony of Sounds for our Ear the Fragrancy of Odours for our Nostrils and a Delicious Sweetness for our Palates Some have qualities to pleasure all every thing a quality to pleasure one or other He doth not only present those things to our view as Rich Men do in Ostentation their Goods He makes us the Enjoyers as well as the Spectators and gives us the Use as well as the Sight And therefore he hath not only given us the Sight but the Knowledge of them He hath set up a Sun in the Heavens to expose their outward Beauty and Conveniencies to our Sight and the Candle of the Lord is in us to expose their inward Qualities and Conveniencies to our Knowledge that we might serve our selves of and rejoyce in all this Furniture wherewith he hath garnisht the World and have wherewithal to employ the inquisitiveness of our Reason as well as gratifie the pleasure of our Sense And particularly God provided for Innocent Man a delightful Mansion-house a place of more special Beauty and Curiosity the Garden of Eden a delightful Paradise a Model of the Beauties and Pleasures of another World wherein he had placed whatsoever might contribute to the felicity of a Rational and Animal Life the Life of a Creature composed of Mire and Dust of Sense and Reason * Gen. 2.9 Besides the other Delicacies consign'd in that place to the use of Man there was a Tree of Life provided to maintain his Being and nothing denied in the whole compass of that Territory but one Tree that of the knowledge of Good and Evil which was no Mark of an ill will in his Creator to him but a Reserve of Gods absolute Soveraignty and a Trial of Mans voluntary Obedience What blur was it to the Goodness of God to reserve one Tree for his own propriety when he had given to Man in all the rest such numerous Marks of his Rich Bounty and Goodness VVhat Israel after Mans Fall enjoyed sensibly Nehemiah calls great Goodness †Neh. 9.25 How inexpressible then was that Goodness manifested to Innocent Man when so small a part of it indulg'd to the Israelites after the Curse upon the Ground is call'd as truly it Merits such great Goodness How can we pass through any part of this great City and cast our Eyes upon the well Furnisht Shops stor'd with all kinds of Commodities without reflections upon this Goodness of God starting up before our Eyes in such varieties and plainly telling us that he hath accommodated all things for our use suited things both to supply our need content a reasonable Curiosity and delight us in our aims at and passage to our Supream End 3. The Goodness of God appears in the Laws he hath given to Man the Covenant he made with him It had not been agreeable to the Goodness of God to let a Creature governable by a Law be without a Law to regulate him his Goodness then which had broke forth in the Creation had suffer'd an Eclipse and obscurity in his Government As Infinite Goodness was the Motive to Create so Infinite Goodness was the Motive of his Government And this appears 1. In the fitting the Law to the Nature of Man It was rather below than above his strength he had an integrity in his Nature to answer the Righteousness of the Precept * Eccles 7.29 God Created Man upright his Nature was suited to the Law and the Law to his Nature it was not above his understanding to know it nor his will to embrace it nor his passions to be regulated by it The Law and his Nature were like two exact streight Lines touching one another in every part when joyned together God exacted no more by his Law than what was written by Nature in his Heart He had a knowledge by Creation to observe the Law of his Creation and he fell not for want of a Righteousness in his Nature He was enabled for more than was commanded him but wilfully indisposed to less than he was able to perform The Precepts were easie not only becoming the Authority of a Soveraign to exact but the Goodness of a Father to demand and the Ingenuity of a Creature and a Son to pay †1 John 5.3 His Commands are not grievous the observance of them had fill'd the Spirit of Man with an extraordinary Contentment It had been no less a pleasure and a delightful satisfaction to have kept the Law in a Created State than it is to keep it in some measure in a Renew'd State The Renewed Nature finds a suitableness in the Law to kindle a delight * Psal 1.2 It could not then have anywise shook the Nature of an upright Creature nor have been a burden too heavy for his Shoulders to bear Though he had not a Grace given him above Nature yet he had not a Law given him that surmounted his Nature It did not exceed his Created strength and was suited to the Dignity and Nobility of a Rational Nature It was a just Law †Rom. 7.12 and therefore not above the Nature of the Subject that was bound to obey it And had it been impossible to be observed it had been unrighteous to be Enacted It had not been a matter of Divine Praise and that seven times a day as it is * Psal 119.164 Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy Righteous Judgments The Law was so Righteous that Adam had every whit as much reason to bless God in his Innocence for the Righteousness of it as David had with the Reliques of Enmity against it His Goodness shines so much in his Law as merits our Praise of him as he is a Soveraign Law-giver as well as a Gracious Benefactor in the imparting to us a Being 2. In fitting it for the Happiness of Man For the satisfaction of his Soul which finds a Reward in the very act of keeping it †Psal 119.165 Great peace in the loving it for the preservation of Human Society wherein consists the External felicity of Man It had been inconsistent with Divine Goodness to enjoyn Man any thing that should be oppressive and uncomfortable Bitterness cannot come from that which is altogether Sweet
there was not from Eternity any Creature under the Government of it but in regard of the foundation of it his Essence his Excellency 't is Eternal As God was from eternity Almighty but there was no exercise or manifestation of it till he began to Create Men are Kings only for a time their lives expire like a Lamp and their dominion is extinguisht with their lives they hand their Empire by Succession to others but many times it is snapt off before they are cold in their Graves How are the famous Empires of the Chaldeans Medes Persians and Greeks mouldred away and their place knows them no more And how are the wings of the Roman Eagle cut and that Empire which overspread a great part of the World hath lost most of its Feathers and is confin'd to a narrower compass The dominion of God flourisheth from one Generation to another He sits King for ever Psal 29.10 His session signifies the establishment and for ever the duration and he sits now his Soveraignty is as absolute as powerful as ever How many Lords and Princes hath this or that Kingdom had In how many Families hath the Scepter lodg'd When as God hath had an uninterrupted dominion As he hath been always the same in his Essence he hath been always glorious in his Soveraignty Among men he that is Lord to day may be stript of it to morrow the dominions in the World vary he that is a Prince may see his Royalty upon the Wings and feel himself laden with Fetters And a Prisoner may be lifted from his Dungeon to a Throne But there can be no diminution of God's Government His Throne is from Generation to Generation Lament 5.19 It cannot be shaken His Scepter like Aarons Rod is alway's green It cannot be wrested out of his hands none rais'd him to it Nâ—ne therefore can depose him from it it bears the same splendor in all humane affairs he is an eternal an immortal King 1 Tim. 1.17 As he is eternally Mighty so he is eternally Soveraign and being an eternal King he is a King that gives not a momentary and perishing but a durable and Everlasting Life to them that obey him A durable and eternal punishment to them that resist him IIII. Wherein this Dominion and Soveraignty consists and how 't is manifested 1. The first act of Soveraignty is the making Laws This is Essential to God no Creatures Will can be the first rule to the Creature but only the Will of God He only can prescribe man his duty and establish the rule of it hence the Law is call'd the Royal Law James 2.8 It being the first and clearest manifestation of Soveraignty as the power of Legislation is of the Authority of a Prince Both are joyn'd together in Isaiah 53.22 The Lord is our Law-giver the Lord is our King Legislative power being the great mark of Royalty God as a King enacts Laws by his own proper Authority and his Law is a Declaration of his own Soveraignty and of mens moral subjection to him and dependance on him * Suarez de Legib. p. 23. His Soveraignty doth not appear so much in his promises as in his precepts A man's power over another is not discovered by promising For a promise doth not suppose the promiser either superior or inferior to the person to whom the promise is made 'T is not an exercising Authority over another but over a man's self No man forceth another to the acceptance of his promise but only proposeth and encourageth to an embracing of it But commanding supposeth always an Authority in the person giving the precept It obligeth the person to whom the command is directed A promise obligeth the person by whom the promise is made God by his command binds the Creature by his promise he binds himself He stoops below his Soveraignty to lay obligations upon his own Majesty By a precept he binds the Creature by a promise he encourageth the Creature to an observance of his precept What Laws God makes man is bound by vertue of his Creation to observe that respects the Soveraignty of God What promises God makes man is bound to beleive but that respects the faithfulness of God God manifested his dominion more to the Jews than to any other people in the World He was their Lawgiver both as they were a Church and a Commonwealth As a Church he gave them Ceremonial Laws for the regulating their Worship As a State he gave them Judicial Laws for the ordering their Civil Affairs and as both he gave them Moral Laws upon which both the Laws of the Church and State were founded This dominion of God in this regard will be manifest 1. In the Supremacy of it The sole power of making Laws doth originally reside in him James 4.12 There is one Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy By his own Law he Judges of the eternal States of Men and no Law of man is obligatory but as it is agreeable to the Laws of this supream Lawgiver and pursuant to his righteous rules for the Government of the World The power that the Potentates of the World have to makes Laws is but derivative from God If their dominion be from him as it is For by him Kings Reign Prov. 8.15 Their Legislative power which is a prime flower of their Soveraignty is deriv'd from him also And the Apostle resolves it into this original when he orders us to be subject to the higher powers not only for wrath but for Conscience sake Rom. 13.5 Conscience in its operations solely respects God And therefore when it is exercised as the principle of Obedience to the Laws of Men 't is not with a respect to them singly considered but as the Majesty of God appears in their station and in their decrees This power of giving Laws was acknowledged by the Heathen to be solely in God by way of original And therefore the greatest Lawgivers among the Heathen pretended their Laws to be received from some Deity or supernatural power by special Revelation now whither they did this seriously acknowledging themselves this part of the dominion of God For it is certain that what soever just orders were issued out by Princes in the World was by the secret influence of God upon their Spirits Prov. 8.15 By me Princes Decree Justice by the secret conduct of Divine Wisdom or whither they pretended it only as a publick Engine to enforce upon people the observance of their Decrees and gain a greater credit to their Edicts yet this will result from it that the people in general entertain'd this common notion that God was the great Lawgiver of the World The first founders of their Societies could never else have so absolutely gain'd upon them by such a pretence These was always a Revelation of a Law from the mouth of God in every age The exhortation of Eliphaz to Job Job 22.22 Of receiving a Law from the mouth of God at the time before
to King Redeemer He hath revok'd the Law of works as a Covenant releas'd the penalty of it from the beleiving sinner by transferring it upon the surety who interpos'd himself by his own will and divine designation He hath establish'd another Covenant upon other promises in a higher root with greater Priviledges and easier terms Had not God had this right of Soveraignty not a man of Adam's posterity could have been blessed he and they must have lain groaning under the misery of the fall which had render'd both himself and all in his Loyns unable to observe the Terms of the first Covenant He hath as some speak dispens'd with his own Moral Law in some cases in commanding Abraham to Sacrifice his Son his only Son a Righteous Son a Son whereof he had the promise that in Isaac should his Seed be call'd yet he was commanded to Sacrifice him by the right of his absolute Soveraignty as the supream Lord of the Lives of his Creatures from the highest Angel to the lowest Worm whereby he bound his Subjects to this Law not himself Our Lives are due to him when he calls for them and they are a just forâ—â—it to him at the very moment we sin at the very moment we come into the World by reason of the venom of our nature against him and the disturbance the first sin of man whereof we are inheritors gave to his Glory Had Abraham sacrificed his Son of his own head he had sinned yea in attempting it but being Authoriz'd from Heaven his act was Obedience to the Soveraign of the World who had a power to dispense with his own Law and with this Law he had before dispens'd in the case of Cains Murder of Abel as to the immediate punishment of it with death which indeed was setled afterwards by his Authority but then omitted because of the paucity of men and for the peopling the World but setled afterwards when there was almost though not altogether the like occasion of omitting it for a time 3. His Soveraignty appears in punishing the Transgression of his Law 1. This is a branch of Gods Dominion as Lawgiver So was the vengeance God would take upon the Amalekites Exod. 17.16 The Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have War The Hebrew is the hand upon the Throne of the Lord as in the margent As a Lawgiver he saves or destroyes James 4.12 He acts according to his own Law in a congruity to the sanction of his own precepts though he be an Arbitrary Lawgiver appointing what Laws he pleases yet he is not an Arbitrary Judge As he commands nothing but what he hath a right to command so he punisheth none but whom he hath a right to punish and with such punishment as the Law hath denounced All his acts of Justice and inflictions of Curses are the effects of this Soveraign Dominion Psal 29.10 He sits King upon the Flouds Upon the deluge of Waters wherewith he drown'd the World say some 'T is a right belonging to the Authority of Magistrates to pull up the infectious weeds that corrupt a Common-Wealth 'T is no less the right of God as the Lawgiver and Judge of all the Earth to subject Criminals to his vengeance after they have rendered themselves abominable in his Eyes and carried themselves unworthy Subjects of so great and glorious a King The first name whereby God is made known in Scripture is Elohim Gen. 1.1 In the beginning God Created the Heaven and Earth A name which signifies his power of judging in the opinion of some Criticks from him it is deriv'd to earthly Magistrates their Judgment is said therefore to be the Judgement of God Deut. 1.17 When Christ came he propos'd this great motive of Repentance from the Kingdom of Heaven being at hand the Kingdom of his Grace whereby to invite men the Kingdom of his Justice in the punishment of the neglecters of it whereby to terrifie men Punishments as well as Rewards belong to Royalty it issued accordingly those that believ'd and repented came under his gracious Scepter those that neglected and rejected it fell under his Iron Rod. Jerusalem was destroy'd the Temple demolish'd the Inhabitants lost their lives by the edge of the Sword or linger'ed them out in the chains of a miserable Captivity This term of Judge which signifies a Soveraign right to govern and punish Delinquents Abraham gives him when 〈◊〉 came to root out the People of Sodom and make them the examples of his veâ—geance Gen. 18.25 2. Punishing the Transgressions of his Law This is necessary branch of Dominion His Soveraignty in making Laws would be a trifle if there were not also an Authority to vindicate those Laws from Contempt and Injury he would be a Lord only spurn'd at by Rebels Soveraignty is not preserved without Justice When the Psalmist speaks of the Majesty of God's Kingdom he tells us that Righteousness and Judgment are the Habitation of his Throne Psal 97.1 2. These are the Engines of Divine dignity which render him glorious and majestick A Legislative power would be trampled on without executive by this the reverential apprehensions of God are preserved in the Wâ—rld He is known to be Lord of the World by the Judgements which he executes Psal 9.16 When he seems to have lost his dominion or given it up in the World he recovers it by punishment When he takes some away with a Whirlwind and in his Wrath the natural consequence men make of it is this Surely there is a God that Judgeth the Earth Psal 58.9.11 He reduceth the Creature by the lash of his judgments that would not acknowledge his Authority in his precepts Those sins which disown his Government in the Heart and Conscience as Pride inward blasphemy c. he hath reserved a time hereafter to reckon for He doth not presently shoot his arrows into the marrow of every delinquent but those sins which traduce his Government of the World and tear up the Foundations of humane converse and a publick respect to him he reckons with particularly here as well as hereafter that the Life of his Soveraignty might not always faint in the World 3. This of punishing was the second discovery of his dominion in the World His first act of Soveraignty was the giving a Law the next his appearance in the State of a judge When his orders were violated he rescues the honour of them by an execution of Justice He first judg'd the Angels punishing the evil ones for their crime the first Court he kept among them as a Governour was to give them a Law the second Court he kept was as a Judge trying the Delinquents and adjudging the Offenders to be reserved in Chains of darkness till the final Execution Jude 6. And at the same time probably he confirmed the good ones in their obedience by Grace So the first discovery of his dominion to man was the giving him a precept the next was the inflicting a punishment for the
as he would have done those sinners in whose stead he suffer'd Without this Act of Soveraignty in God we had for ever perished For if we could suppose Christ laying down his life for us without the pleasure and order of God he could not have been said to have born our punishment What could he have undergone in his Humanity but a temporal death but more than this was due to us even the wrath of God which far exceeds the calamity of a meer bodily death The Soul being principal in the crime was to be principal in the punishment The wrath of God could not have dropt upon his Soul and render'd it so full of Agonies without the hand of God A creature is not capable to reach the Soul neither as to comfort nor terror and the Justice of God could not have made him a sufferer if it had not first consider'd him a sinner by imputation or by inhaerency and actual commission of a crime in his own person The latter was far from Christ who was holy harmless and undefiled He must be considered then in the other state of imputation which could not be without a Soveraign appointment or at least concession of God For without it he could have had no more Authority to lay down his life for us than Abraham could have had to have sacrific'd his son or any man to expose himself to death without a call Nor could any Plea have been entred in the Court of Heaven either by Christ for us or by us for our selves And though the death of so great a person had been meritorious in it self it had not been meritorious for us or accepted for us Christ is deliver'd up by him Rom. 8.32 in every part of that condition wherein he was and suffer'd and to that end that we might become the Righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 That we might have the Righteousness of him that was God imputed to us or that we might have a Righteousness as great and proportion'd to the Righteousness of God as God requir'd It was an act of Divine Soveraignty to account him that was Righteous a sinner in our stead and to account us who were sinners Righteous upon the merit of his death 4. This was done by the command of God by God as a Law-giver having the supream Legislative and Praeceptive Authority In which respect the whole work of Christ is said to be an answer to a Law not one given him but put into his heart as the Law of nature was in the heart of man at first Psal 40.7 8. Thy Law is within my heart This Law was not the Law of Nature or Moral Law though that was also in the heart of Christ but the command of doing those things which were necessary for our Salvation and not a command so much of doing as of dying The Moral Law in the heart of Christ would have done us no good without the Mediatory Law We had been where we were by the sole observance of the Precepts of the Moral Law without his suffering the penalty of it The Law in the heart of Christ was the Law of suffering or dying the doing that for us by his death which the blood of Sacrifices was unable to effect Legal Sacrifices thou would'st not thy Law is within my heart i. e. thy Law ordered me to be a Sacrifice It was that Law his obedience to which was principally accepted and esteem'd and that was principally his passive his obedience to death Phil. 2.8 This was the special command received from God that he should dye John 10.18 'T is not so clearly manifested when this command was given whither after the incarnation of Christ or at the point of his constitution as Mediator upon the transaction between the father and the son concerning the affair of Redemption The promise was given before the World began Tit. 1.2 Might not the Precept be given before the World began to Christ as consider'd in the quality of Mediator and Redeemer Precepts and Promises usually attend one another Every Covenant is made up of both Christ consider'd here as the Son of God in the Divine Nature was not capable of a command or promise but consider'd in the relation of Mediator between God and Man he was capable of both Promises of Assistance were made before his actual incarnation of which the Prophets are full why not Precepts for his obedience since long before his incarnation this was his speech in the Prophet thy Law is within my heart However a command a law it was which is a fruit of the Divine Soveraignty That as the Soveraignty of God was impeached and violated by the disobedience of Adam it might be own'd and vindicated by the obedience of Christ That as we fell by disloyalty to it we might rise by the highest submission to it in another head infinitely superior in his person to Adam by whom we fell 5. This Soveraignty of God appears in exalting Christ to such a Soveraign dignity as our Redeemer * Lessius de perfect divin lib. 10. p. 65. Some indeed say that this Soveraignty of Christ's Humane Nature was natural and the right of it resulted from its Union with the Divine as a Lady of mean condition when Espous'd and Marryed to a Prince hath by virtue of that a natural right to some kind of jurisdiction over the whole Kingdom because she is one with the King But to wave this the Scripture placeth wholly the conferring such an Authority upon the pleasure and will of God As Christ was a gift of God's Soveraign will to us so this was a gift of God's Soveraign will to Christ Matt. 28.28 All power is given me And he gave him to be head over all things to the Church Eph. 1.22 God gave him a name above every name Phil. 2.9 And therefore his Throne he sits upon is call'd the Throne of his Father Rev. 3.21 And he committed all Judgment to the Son i. e. All Government and Dominion An Empire in Heaven and Earth Joh. 5.22 and that because he is the son of Man v. 27. which may be understood that the Father hath given him Authority to exercise that Judgment and Government as the son of man which he Originally had as the son of God or rather because he became a servant and humbled himself to death he gives him this Authority as the reward of his Obedience and Humility conformable to Phil. 2.9 This is an act of the high Soveraignty of God to obscure his own Authority in a sence and take into association with him or vicarious subordination to him the Humane Nature of Christ as united to the Divine Not only lifting it above the heads of all the Angels but giving that person in our nature an Empire over them whose nature was more excellent than ours Yea the Soveraignty of God appears in the whole management of this Kingly Office of Christ for it is managed in every part of it
according to God's order Ezek. 37.24 25. David my servant shall be King over them and my servant David shall be their Prince for ever He shall be a Prince over them but my servant in that principality in the exercise and duration of it The Soveraignty of God is paramount in all that Christ hath done as a Priest or shall do as a King The VSE 1. For Instruction 1. How great is the contempt of this soveraignty of God Man naturally would be free from Gods Empire to be a slave under the Dominion of his own lust The soveraignty of God as a Law-giver is most abhorr'd by man Levit. 26.43 The Israelites the best people in the World were apt by nature not only to despise but abhorre his Statutes There is not a Law of God but the corrupt heart of man hath an abhorrency of How often do men wish that God had not enacted this or that Law that goes against the grain and in wishing so wish that he were no soveraign or not such a soveraign as he is in his own â—â—ture but one according to their corrupt model This is the great quarrel between God and Man whither he or they shall be the soveraign Ruler He should not by the Will of Man rule in any one Village in the World Gods vote should not be predominant in any one thing There is not a Law of his but is expos'd to contempt by the perverseness of Man Prov. 1.21 Ye have set at nought all my Counsel and would have none of my reproof Septuag Ye have made all my Counsels without Authority The nature of man cannot endure one precept of God nor one rebuke from him And for this cause God is at the expence of Judgements in the World to assert his own Empire to the Teeth and Consciences of men Psal 59.13 Lord consume them in wrath and let them know that God rules in Jacob to the ends of the Earth The Dominion of God is not slighted by any Creature of this World but Man all others observe it by observing his Order whither in their natural motions or preternaral irruptions they punctually act according to their Commission Man only speaks a Dialect against the strain of the whole Creation and hath none to imitate him among all the Creatures in Heaven and Earth but only among those in Hell Man is more impatient of the yoke of God than of the yoke of Man There are not so many rebellions committed by inferiors against their superiors and fellow Creatures as are committed against God A willing and easie sinning is an equalling the Authority of God to that of Man Hos 6.7 They like men have transgrest my Covenant * Munster They have made no more account of breaking my Covenant than if they had broken some league or compact made with a meer man so slightly do they esteem the Authority of God Such a disesteem of the divine Authority is a vertual undeifying of him To slight his soveraignty is to stab his Deity Since the one cannot be preserved without the support of the other his life would expire with his Authority How base and brutish is it for vile dust and mouldring clay to lift up it self against the Majesty of God whose Throne is in the Heavens who sways his Scepter over all parts of the World A Majesty before whom the Devils shake and the highest Cherubims tremble 'T is as if the Thistle that can presently be trod down by the foot of a wild Beast should think it self a match for the Cedar of Lebanon as the phrase is 2 Kings 14.9 Let us consider this in general and also in the ordinary practise of men First In General 1. All sin in its nature is a contempt of the Divine Dominion As every act of Obedience is a confirmation of the Law and consequently a subscription to the Authority of the Lawgiver Deut 27.26 so every breach to it is a conspiracy against the soveraignty of the Law-giver setting up our Will against the Will of God is an Articling against his Authority as setting up our reason against the methods of God is an Articling against his Wisdom the intendment of every act of sin is to wrest the Scepter out of God's hand The Authority of God is the first attribute in the Deity which it directs its edge against 't is called therefore a transgression of his Law 1 John 3.4 And therefore a slight or neglect of the Majesty of God and the not keeping his Commands is call'd a forgetting God Deut. 8.11 i. e. a forgetting him to be our absolute Lord. As the first notion we have of God as a Creator is that of his Soveraignty so the first perfection that sin struck at in the violation of the Law was his soveraignty as a Lawgiver Breaking the Law is a dishonouring God Rom. 2.23 a Snatching off his Crown to obey our own Wills before the Will of God is to preferre our selves as our own Soveraigns before him Sin is a wrong and injury to God not in his Essence that is above the reach of a Creature nor in any thing profitable to him or pertaining to his own intrinsick advantage not an injury to God in himself but in his Authority in those things which pertain to his Glory a disowning his due right and not using his goods according to his will Thus the whole world may be call'd as God calls Chaldea a Land of Rebels Jer. 50.21 Go up against the Land of Merathaim or Rebels Rebels not against the Jews but against God The mighty opposition in the heart of man to the Supremacy of God is discovered Emphatically by the Apostle Rom. 8.7 in that expression The carnal mind is enmity against God i. e. against the Authority of God because it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be It refuseth not subjection to this or that part but to the whole to every mark of Divine Authority in it it will not lay down its arms against it nay it cannot but stand upon its terms against it the Law can no more be fulfill'd by a carnal mind than it can be disowned by a soveraign God God is so Holy that he cannot alter a Righteous Law and man is so averse that he cares not for nay cannot fulfil one Tittle so much doth the Nature of man swell against the Majesty of God Now an enmity to the Law which is in every sin implies a perversity against the Authority of God that enacted it 2. All sin in its nature is the despoyling God of his sole soveraignty which was probably the first thing the Devil aim'd at That pride was the sin of the Devil the Scripture gives us some account of when the Apostle adviseth not a novice or one that hath but lately embraced the Faith to be chosen a Bishop 1 Tim. 3.6 Least being lifted up with Pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devil Least he fall into the same sin for
by theft from the Christian Granting many years indulgences upon slight performances the repeating so many Ave-Maries and Pater-Nosters in a day Canonizing Saints claiming the Keyes of Heaven and disposing of the honours and glory of it And proposing Creatures as objects of Religions Worship wherein he answers the Character of the Apostle 2 Thes 2.4 Shewing himself that he is God in challenging that power which is only the right of Divine Soveraignty exalting himself above God in indulging those things which the Law of God never allow'd but hath severely prohibited This controuling the Soveraignty of God not allowing him the rights of his Crown is the Soul and Spirit of many errors Why are the decrees of election and praeterition denyed because men will not acknowledge God the Soveraign disposer of his Creature Why is effectual calling and efficacious grace denyed because they will not allow God the proprietor and distributer of his own goods Why is the satisfaction of Christ deny'd because they will not allow God a power to vindicate his own Law in what way he pleaseth Most of the errors of men may be resolv'd into a denyal of God's Soveraignty All have a tincture of the first evil sentiment of Adam 2. The Soveraignty of God is contemned in the practices of men 1. As he is a Law-giver 1. When Laws are made and urg'd in any State contrary to the Law of God 'T is part of God's Soveraignty to be a Law-giver not to obey his Law is a breach made upon his right of Government But it is Treason in any against the Crown of God to Mint Laws with a stamp contrary to that of Heaven whereby they renounce their due subjection and vy with God for Dominion snatch the supremacy from him and account themselves more Lords than the Soveraign Monarch of the World When men will not let God be the Judge of good and evil but put in their own vote controuling his to establish their own Such are not content to be as Gods subordinate to the supream God to sit at his feet Nor co-ordinate with him to sit equal upon his Throne but paramount to him to over-top and shadow his Crown A boldness that leaves the serpent in the first temptation under the Character of a more commendable modesty who advised our first Parents to attempt to be as Gods but not above him and would enervate a Law of God but not enact a contrary one to be observ'd by them Such was the usurpation of Nebuchadnezzar to set up a Golden Image to be ador'd Dan. 3. as if he had power to mint Gods as well as to conquer men to set the stamp of a Deity upon a peice of Gold as well as his own Effigies upon his currant Coyn. Much of the same nature was that of Darius by the motion of his flatterers to prohibit any Petition to be made to God for the space of 30 dayes as though God was not to have a Worship without a License from a doting peice of clay Dan. 6.7 * Trap. in loc So Henry the Third of France by his Edict silenced Masters of Families from praying with their Houshoulds And it is a farther contempt of God's Authority when good men are opprest by the sole weight of power for not observing such Laws * Faucheur vol. 2. p. 663. 664. as if they had a real Soveraignty over the Consciences of men more than God himself When the Apostles were commanded by an Angel from God to preach in the Temple the Doctrine of Christ Act. 5.19 20. they were fetcht from thence with a Guard before the Councel v. 26. And what is the Language of those States-men to them as absolute as God himself could speak to any Transgressors of his Law ver 28. Did not we straitly command you that you should not teach in this Name 'T is sufficient that we gave you a command to be silent and publish no more this Doctrine of Jesus 'T is not for you to examine our decrees but rest in our order as Loyal Subjects and comply with your Rulers They might have added though it be with the damnation of your souls How would those over-rule the Apostles by no other reason but their absolute pleasure And though God had espous'd their cause by delivering them out of the Prison wherein they had lockt them the day before Yet not one of all this Councel had the wit or honesty to entitle it a fighting against God but Gamaliel ver 39. So foolishly fond are men to put themselves in the place of God and usurp a jurisdiction over mens Consciences And to presume that Laws made against the interest and command of God must be of more force than the Laws of God's enacting 2. The Soveraignty of God is contemn'd in making additions to the Laws of God The Authority of a Sovereign Law-giver is invaded and vilified when an inferior presumes to make orders equivalent to his Edicts 'T is a Praemunire against Heaven to set up an Authority distinct from that of God or to enjoyn any thing as necessary in matter of worship for which a Divine Commission cannot be shewn God was alway so tender of this part of his prerogative that he would not have any thing wrought in the Tabernacle not a Vessel not an instrument but what himself had prescribed Exod. 25.9 According to all that I shew thee after the pattern of the Tabernacle and the pattern of all the Instruments thereof even so shall ye make it which is strictly urg'd again ver 40. Look that thou make them after their pattern Look to it beware of doing any thing of thine own head and justling with my Authority It was so afterwards in the matter of the Temple which succeeded the Tabernacle God gave the model of it to David and made him understand in writing by his hand upon him even all the works of this pattern 1 Chron. 28.19 Neither the Royal Authority in Moses who was King in Jesurun nor in David who was a man after God's own heart and called to the Crown by a special and extraordinary providence nor Aaron and the High Priests his Successors invested in the Sacerdotal Office had any Authority from God to do any thing in the framing the Tabernacle or Temple of their own heads God barr'd them from any thing of that nature by giving them an exact pattern so dear to him was alwayes this flower of his Crown And afterwards the power of appointing Officers and Ordinances in the Church was delegated to Christ and was among the rest of those Royalties given to him which he fully compleated for the edifying of the body Ephes 4.11 12. And he hath the Elogy by the Spirit of God to be faithfull as Moses was in all his house to him that appointed him Heb. 3.2 Faithfulness in a trust implyes a punctual observing directions God was still so tender of this that even Christ the son should no more do any thing in this
with others so he will treat us and what relates to us as we will ourselves We would have God resign his Authority to our humors and our humors should be in the place of a God to him to direct him what was fit to do in our cause When things go not according to our vote our impatience is a wish that God were depos'd from his Throne that he would surrender his seat to some that would deal more favourably and be more punctual observers of our directions Let us look to our selves in regard of this sin which is too common and the root of much mischief This seems to be the first bubbling of Adam's will he was not content with the condition wherein God had placed him but affected another which ended in the ruine of himself and of Mankind 3. Limiting God in his way of working to our methods is another part of the contempt of his dominion When we will prescribe him methods of acting that he should deliver us in this or that way we would not suffer him to be the Lord of his own favors and have the priviledg to be his own director When we will limit him to such a time wherein to work our deliverance we would rob him of the power of times and seasons which are solely in his hand We would regulate his conduct according to our imaginations and assume a power to give Laws to our Soveraign Thus the Israelites limited the holy one of Israel Psal 78.41 They would controul his absolute dominion and of a Soveraign make him their slave Man that is God's vassal would set bounds to his Lord and cease to be a servant and commence Master when he would give not take directions from him When God had given them Manna and their fancies were weary of that delicious food they would prescribe Heaven to rain down some other sort of food for them When they wanted no sufficient provision in the Wilderness they quarrell'd with God for bringing them out of Egypt and not presently giving them a place of Seed of Figgs Vines and Pomegranates Numb 20.5 which is call'd a striving with the Lord ver 13. a contending with him for his Lordship When we tempt God and require a sign of him as a mark of his favour we circumscribe his dominion when we will not use the means he hath appointed but father our lazyness upon a trust in his providence as if we expected he should work a miracle for our relief when we censure him for what he hath done in the course of his providence when we capitulate with him and promise such a service if he will do us such a good turn according to our platform we would bring down his Soveraign pleasure to our will we invade his Throne and expect a submissive Obedience from him Man that hath not wit enough to govern himself would be governing God and those that cannot be their own Sovereigns affect a Soveraignty over Heaven 4. Pride and presumption is another invasion of his dominion When men will resolve to go to morrow to such a City to such a Fair and Market to traffick and get gain without thinking of the necessity of a Divine License as if our selves were the Lords of our time and of our lives and God were to lacquy after us James 4.13.15 Ye that say to day we will go into such a City and buy and sell whereas ye ought to say if the Lord will we shall live As if they had a free hold and were not Tenants at will to the Lord of the Manour When we presume upon our own strength or wit to get the better of our adversaries As the Germans as Tacitus relates assur'd themselves by the numerousness of their Army of a victory against the Romans and prepar'd chaines to fetter the Captives before the conquest which were found in their camp after their defeat When we are peremptory in expectations of success according to our will As Pharoah Exod. 15.9 I will pursue I will overtake I will divide the spoyl my lust shall be satisfied upon them I will draw my sword my hand shall destroy them He speaks more like a God than a man as if he were the Soveraign power and God only his Vicar and Lieutenant How he struts without thinking of a superiour power to curb him When men ascribe to themselves what is the sole fruit of God's Soveraign pleasure As the King of Assyria speaks a Language fit only to be spoken by God Isa 10 13 14. c. I have removed the bounds of the people my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people I have gathered all the earth which God declares to be a wrong to his Soveraignty by the title wherewith he prefaceth his threatning against him ver 16. Therefore shall the Lord the Lord of Hosts send among his fat ones leanness c. 'T is indeed a rifling if not of his Crown yet of the most glittering Jewel of it his Glory He that mocks the poor reproacheth his Maker Prov. 17.5 He never thinks that God made them poor and himself rich He owns not his riches to be dropt upon him by the divine hand Self is the great invader of God's Soveraignty doth not only spurn at it but usurp it and assume divine honorus payable only to the Universal Soveraign The Assyrian was not so modest as the Chaldean who would impute his power and victories to his Idol Hab. 1.11 whom he thought to be God though yet robbing the true God of his Authority and so much was signified by their names Nebuchadnezzar Evil-Merodach Belshazzar Nebo Merodach Bel being the Chaldean Idols and the names signifying Lord of wealth giver of riches and the like When we behave our selves proudly towards others and imagine our selves greater than our Maker ever meant us When we would give Laws to others and expect the most submissive observances from them as if God had resign'd his Authority to us and made us in his stead the rightful Monarchs of the World To disdain that any creature should be above us is to disdain God's Soveraign disposition of men and consequently his own superiority over us A proud man would govern all and would not have God his Soveraign but his Subject to over-value our selves is to under-value God 5. Slight and careless worship of God is another contempt of his Soveraignty A Prince is contemn'd not only by a neglect of those reverential postures which are due to him but in a reproachful and scornful way of paying them To behave our selves uncomely or immodestly before a Prince is a dis-esteem of Majesty Soveraignty requires aw in every address where this is wanting there is a dis-respect of Authority We contemn God's Dominion when we give him the service of the Lip the Hand the Knee and deny him that of the Heart as they in Ezekiel Ezek. 33.31 as though he were the Soveraign only of the body and not of the soul To
attempters and often oversets the disturbers of the peace of the World 3. Information God can do no wrong since he is absolute soveraign Man may do wrong Princes may oppress and rifle but it is a crime in them so to do Because their power is a power of Government and not of propriety in the goods or lives of their subjects but God cannot do any wrong whatsoever the clamours of Creatures are Because he can do nothing but what he hath a soveraign right to do If he takes away your goods he takes not away any thing that is yours more than his own since though he intrusted you with them he devested not himself of the propriety When he takes away our lives he takes what he gave us by a temporary donation to be surrendred at his call We can claim no right in any thing but by his will He is no debtor to us and since he owes us nothing he can wrong us in nothing that he takes away His own soveraignty excuseth him in all those acts which are most distastful to the Creature If we crop a medicinal plant for our use or a flower for our pleasure or kill a Lamb for our food we do neither of them any wrong Because the original of them was for our use and they had their life and nourishment and pleasing qualities for our delight and support and are not we much more made for the pleasure and use of God than any of those can be for us Of him and to him are all things Rom. 11.36 Hath not God as much right over any one of us as over the meanest Worm Though there be a vast difference in nature between the Angels in Heaven and the Worms on Earth yet they are all one in regard of subjection to God he is as much the Lord of the one as the other as much the proprietor of the one as the other as much the Governour of the one as the other Not a cranny in the World is exempt from his jurisdiction Not a mite or grain of a Creature exempt from his propriety He is not our Lord by election he was a Lord before we were in being he had no terms put upon him who capitulated with him and set him in his Throne by Covenant What Oath did he take to any subject at his first investiture in his Authority His right is as natural as eternal as himself As natural as his existence and as necessary as his Deity Hath he any Law but his own will What wrong can he do that breaks no Law that fulfils his Law in every thing he doth by fulfilling his own will which as it is absolutely soveraign so it is infinitely righteous In what soever he takes from us then he cannot injure us 't is no crime in any man to seize upon his own goods to vindicate his own honour and shall it be thought a wrong in God to do such things Besides the occasion he hath from every man and that every day provoking him to do it He seems rather to wrong himself by forbearing such a seizure than wrong us by executing it 4. If God have a soveraignty over the whole World then merit is totally excluded His right is so absolute over all Creatures that he neither is nor can be a debtor to any not to the undefiled holiness of the blessed Angels much less to poor earthly worms those blessed Spirits enjoy their glory by the title of his soveraign pleasure not by vertue of any obligation devolving from them upon God Are not the faculties whereby they and we perform any act of obedience his grant to us Is not the strength whereby they and we are enabled to do any thing pleasing to him a gift from him Can a vassal merit of his Lord or a slave of his Master by using his tools and employing his strength in his service though it was a strength he had naturally not by donation from the man in whose service it is employ'd God is Lord of all all is due to him how can we oblige him by giving him what is his own more his to whom it is presented than ours by whom it is offered * Austin He becomes not a debtor by receiving any thing from us but by promising something to us 5. If God hath a soveraign dominion over the whole World then hence it follows that all Magistrates are but soveraigns under God He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords all the Potentates of the World are no other than his Lieutenants moveable at his pleasure and more at his disposal than their subjects are at theirs Though they are dignified with the title of Gods yet still they are at an infinite distance from the supream Lord. Gods under God not to be above him not to be against him The want of the due sence of their subordination to God hath made many in the World act as soveraigns above him more than soveraigns under him Had they all bore a deep conviction of this upon their spirits such audacious language had never dropt from the mouth of Pharoah who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let Israel go Exod. 5.2 Presuming that there was no superior to controul him nor any in Heaven able to be a match for him Darius had never publisht such a doting Edict as to prohibit any petition to God Nero had never fir'd Rome and sung at the sight of the devouring flames nor ever had he ript up his mothers belly to see the Womb where he first lodg'd and received a life so hateful to his Country Nor would Abner and Joab the two Generals have accounted the death of men but a sport and interlude 2 Sam. 2.14 Let the young men arise and play before us what play it was the next verse acquaints you with thrusting their Swords into one anothers sides They were no more troubled at the death of thousands than a man is to kill a fly or a flea Had a sence of this but hover'd over their Souls People in many Countries had not been made their foot-balls and used worse than their dogs Nor had the lives of millions worth more than a World been expos'd to Fire and Sword to support some sordid lust or breach of Faith upon an idle quarrel and for the depredation of their Neighbours estates the flames of Cities had not been so bright nor the streams of blood so dâ—ep nor the cries of innocents so loud In Particular 1. If God be soveraign All under-Soveraigns are not to rule against him but to be obedient to his Orders If they rule by his Authority Prov. 8.15 they are not to rule against his interest they are not to imagine themselves as absolute as God and that their Laws must be of as soveraign Authority against his honour as the Divine are for it If they are his Leiutenants on Earth they ought to act according to his Orders No man but will account a Governour or a
any man is the more careful we are in our manner of service to him We are bound to obey God not only under the title of a Lord in regard of jurisdiction and political subjection but under the title of a true Lord and Master in regard of propriety since we are not only his subjects but servants the exactest obedience is due to God Jure servitutis Luk. 17.10 when you have done all say you are unprofitable servants because we can do nothing which we owe not to God 3. Sincere and inward Obedience As it is a part of his Soveraignty to prescribe Laws not only to man in his outward State but to his Conscience so it is a part of our subjection to receive his Laws into our will and heart The Authority of his Laws exceeds Humane Laws in the extent and riches of them and our acknowledgment of his Soveraignty cannot be right but by subjecting the faculties of our soul to the Law-giver of our souls We else acknowledge his Authority to be as limited as the Empire of man When his will not only swayes the outward action but the inward motion 't is a giving him the honour of his high Throne above the Throne of mortals The right of God ought to be preserved undamaged in affection as well as action 4. It must be sole Obedience We are order'd to serve him only Matt. 4.10 Him only shalt thou serve as the only supream Lord as being the highest Soveraign it is fit he should have the highest obedience before all Earthly Soveraigns and as being unparallell'd by any among all the Nations so none must have an obedience equal to him When God commands if the highest power on earth countermands it the Precept of God must be preferred before the countermand of the creature Act. 4.18 19. Whither it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye We must never give place to the Authority of all the Monarchs in the World to the prejudice of that obedience we owe to the Supream Monarch of Heaven and Earth this would be to place the Throne of God at the foot-stool of man and debase him below the rank of a creature Loyalty to man can never recompence for the mischief accruing from disloyalty to God All the obedience we are to give to man is to be paid in obedience to God and with an eye to his Precept therefore what servants do for their Masters they must do as to the Lord Col. 3.23 and children are to obey their Parents in the Lord Eph. 6.1 The Authority of God is to be eyed in all the services payable to man Proper and true obedience hath God solely for its principal and primary object all obedience to man that interferes with that and would justle out obedience to God is to be refus'd What obedience is due to man is but render'd as a part of obedience to God and a stooping of his Authority 5. It must be Vniversal Obedience The Laws of man are not to be Universally obey'd some may be oppressing and unjust No man hath Authority to make an unjust Law and no subject is bound to obey an unrighteous Law but God being a Righteous Soveraign there is not one of his Laws but doth necessarily oblige us to Obedience Whatsoever this supream power declares to be his will it must be our care to observe Man being his creature is bound to be subject to whatsoever Laws he doth impose to the meanest as well as to the greatest they having equally a stamp of Divine Authority upon them We are not to pick and choose among his Precepts this is to pare away part of his Authority and render him a half-soveraign It must be Universal in all places An English-man in Spain is bound to obey the Laws of that Country wherein he resides and so not responsible there for the breach of the Laws of his native Country In the same condition is a Spaniard in England But the Laws of God are to be obeyed in every part of the World wheresoever divine providence doth cast us it casts us not out of the places where he commands nor out of the compass of his own Empire He is Lord of the World and his Laws oblige in every part of the World they were order'd for a World and not for a particular Climate and Territory 6. It must be indisputable Obedience All Authority requires readiness in the Subject the Centurion had it from his Souldiers they went when he order'd them and came when he beckned to them Matt. 8.9 'T is more fit God should have the same promptness from his Subjects We are to obey his Orders though our purblind understanding may not apprehend the reason of every one of them 'T is without dispute that he is Soveraign and therefore 't is without dispute that we are bound to obey him without controuling his conduct A Master will not bear it from his slave why should God from his creature Though God admits his creatures sometimes to treat with him about the equality of his Justice and also about the reason of some commands yet sometimes he gives no other reason but his own Soveraignty Thus saith the Lord to correct the malapertness of men and exact from them an intire obedience to his unlimited and absolute Authority When Abraham was commanded to offer Isaac God acquaints him not with the reason of his demand till after Gen. 22.2 12. nor did Abraham enter any demurr to the order or expostulate with God either from his own natural affection to Isaac the hardness of the command it being as it were a ripping up his own Bowels nor the quickness of it after he had been a child of the promise and a divine donation above the course of nature Nor did Paul conferr with flesh and blood and study arguments from nature and interest to oppose the divine command when he was sent upon his Apostolical employment Galatians 1.16 The more indisputable his right is to command the stronger is our Obligation to obey without questioning the reason of his Orders 7. It must be joyful Obedience Men are commonly more cheerful in their obedience to a great Prince than to a mean Peasant because the quality of the Master renders the service more honourable 'T is a discredit to a Prince's Government when his Subjects obey him with discontent and dejectedness as though he were a hard Master and his Laws tyrannical and unrighteous When we pay obedience but with a dull and feeble pace and a sour and sad temper we blemish our great Soveraign imply his commands to be grievous void of that peace and pleasure he proclaims to be in them That he deserves no respect from us if we obey him because we must and not because we will Involuntary Obedience deserves not the Title 't is rather submission than obedience an act of the body not of the mind a Mite of Obedience with cheerfulness is better
a reason to stifle all complaints against God but not to make us careless of preventing afflictions or emerging out of them by all just ways The Hare hath a nature to shift for it self by its winding and turning and the Bird by its flight and neither of them could be blam'd if they were able should the one scratch out the Eyes of the Hounds and the other sacrifice the Hawk to its own fury 4. 'T is a folly not to submit to him Why should we strive against him since he is an unaccountable soveraign and gives no account of any of his matters Job 33.13 Who can disannul the judgement God gives There is no appeal from the supream Court a higher Court can repeal or null the sentence of an inferior Court but the sentence of the highest stands irreversible but by it self and its own Authority 'T is better to lower our Sails than to grapple with one that can shoot us under Water To submit to that soveraign whom we cannot subdue 2. It shew's us the true nature of Patience in regard of God 'T is a submission to Gods soveraignty As the formal object of Obedience is the Authority of God enacting the Law so the formal object of patience is the Authority of God inflicting the punishment As his right of commanding is to be eyed in the one so his right of punishing is to be considered in the other This was Eli's condition when he had receiv'd a message that might put flesh and blood into a mutiny the rending the Priesthood from his Family and the ruine of his House yet this consideration 'T is the Lord calms him into submission and a willing compliance with the Divine pleasure 1 Sam. 3.18 't is the Lord Let him do what seems good in his sight Job was of the same strain Job 1.21 The Lord gives and the Lord hath taken away blessed be the name of the Lord. He considers God as a soveraign who was not to be reproached or have any thing uncomly uttered of him for what he had done To be patient because we cannot avoid it or resist it is a violent not a Loyal Patience but to submit because it is the will of God to inflict To be silent because the soveraignty of God doth order it is a patience of a true complexion The other kind of patience is no other than that of an Enemy that will free himself as soon as he can and by any way though never so violent that offers it self This sort of patience is that of a subject acknowledging the supream Authority over him and that he ought to be ordered by the will and to the Glory of God more than by his own will and for his own ease I was dumb I opened not my mouth Psal 39.10 Not because I could not help it But because thou didst it thou who art my soveraign Lord. The greatness of God claimes an awful and inviolable respect from his Creatures in what way soever he doth dispose of them this is due to him since his Kingdom ruleth over all his Kingdom should be acknowledged by all and his Royal Authority submitted to in all that he doth A DISCOURSE UPON GODS Patience NAHUM I. Verse 3. The Lord is slow to Anger and great in Power and will not at all acquit the Wicked The Lord hath his way in the Whirl-wind and in the Storm and the Clouds are the dust of his Feet THE Subject of this prophesie is Gods sentence against Niniveh the Head and Metropolis of the Assyrian Empire A City famous for its strength and thickness of its Walls and the multitude of its Towers for defence against an Enemy The Forces of this Empire did God use as a scourge against the Israelites and by their hands ruin'd Samaria the chief City of the Ten Tribes and transplanted them as Captives into another Country 2 Kin. 17.5 6. about six years after Hezekiah came to the Crown of Judah 2 Kings 18. compared with the 17 chap. v. 6. In whose time or as some think later Nahum utter'd this prophesie The Name Nahum signifies Comforter though the matter of his prophesie be dreadful to Niniveh it was comfortable to the people of God For a promise is made ver 7. The Lord is good a strong hold in the day of trouble and he knoweth them that trust in him And an encouragement to Judah to keep their solemn Feasts ver 15. And also in chap. 2.3 with a declaration of the misery of Niniveh and the destruction of it Observe I. In all the fears of Gods people God will have a Comforter for them Judah might well be dejected with the calamity of their Brethren not knowing but it might be their own turn shortly after They knew not where the ambition of the Assyrian would stop but God by his Prophets calms their fears of their furious Neighbour by predicting to them the ruine of their fear'd Adversary II. The destruction of the Churches Enemies is the comfort of the Church By that God is glorifyed in his Justice and the Church secur'd in its Worship III. The Victories of Persecutors secure them not from being the triumphs of others The Assyrians that conquered and captiv'd Israel were themselves to be conquered and captiv'd by the Medes The whole oppressing Empire is threatned with destruction in the ruine of their chief City accordingly it was accomplisht and the Empire extinguisht by a greater power God burns the Rod when it hath done the work he appointed it for and the wisp of straw wherewith the vessels are scour'd is flung into the fire or upon the Dunghil Nahum begins his prophesie majestically with a description of the wrath and fury of God ver 2. God is jealous and the Lord revengeth the Lord revengeth and is furious the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries and reserveth wrath for his Enemies And therefore the whole of it is called ver 1. The burden of Niniveh as those prophesies are which are composed of threatnings of judgments which lie as a mighty weight upon the heads and backs of sinners God is Jealous jealous of his Glory and Worship and jealous for his people and their security He cannot long bear the oppressions of his people and the boasts of his Enemies He is jealous for himself and is jealous for you of Judah who retain his Worship He is not forgetful of those that remember him nor of the danger of those that are desirous to maintain his honour in the World In this first expression the Prophet uses the Covenant Name God the Covenant runs I am your God or The Lord your God mostly God without Lord never Lord without God And therefore his jealousy here is meant of the care of his people and the relation that his actions against his Enemies have to his Servants He is a lover of his own and a revenger on his Enemies The Lord Revengeth and is Furious He now describes God by a name of soveraignty and Power
office We must come to some supream Judge who can Judge Conscience it self As a man can have no surer evidence that he is a being than because he thinks he is a thinking being So there is no surer evidence in nature that there is a God than that every man hath a natural principle in him which continually cites him before God and puts him in mind of him and makes him one way or other fear him and reflects upon him whether he will or no A man hath less power over his Conscience than over any other faculty He may choose whether he will exercise his understanding about or move his will to such an object but he hath no such Authority over his Conscience he cannot limit it or cause it to cease from acting and reflecting and therefore both that and the law about which it acts are settled by some supream Authority in the mind of man and this is God Fourthly IV. The evidence of a God results from the vastness of desires in man and the real dissatisfaction he hath in every thing below himself Man hath a boundless appetite after some Soveraign Good As his understanding is more capacious than any thing below so is his Appetite larger This affection of desire exceeds all other affections Love is determined to something known Fear to something apprehended but Desires approach nearer to Infiniteness and pursue not only what we know or what we have a glimps of but what we find wanting in what we already enjoy That which the desire of man is most naturally carryed after is Bonum some fully satisfying good We desire knowledge by the sole impulse of reason but we desire Good before the excitement of reason and the desire is always after Good but not always after Knowledge Now the Soul of man finds an imperfection in every thing here and cannot scrape up a perfect satisfaction and felicity In the highest fruitions of worldly things t is still pursuing something else which speaks a defect in what it already hath The world may afford a felicity for our dust the body but not for the inhabitant in it t is two mean for that Is there any one Soul among the Sons of men that can upon a due enquiry say it was at rest and wanted no more that hath not sometimes had desires after an immaterial Good The Soul follows hard after such a thing and hath frequent looks after it Psal 63.8 Man desires a stable Good but no sublunary thing is so And he that doth not desire such a Good wants the rational nature of a man This is as natural as Understanding Will and Conscience Whence should the Soul of man have those desires How came it to understand that something is still wanting to make its nature more perfect if there were not in it some notion of a more perfect being which can give it rest Can such a capacity be supposed to be in it without something in being able to satisfie it If so the noblest Creature in the world is miserablest and in a worse condition than any other Other Creatures obtain their ultimate desires they are filled with good Psal 104.28 And shall man only have a vast desire without any possibility of enjoyment Nothing in man is in vain He hath objects for his affections as well as affections for objects Every Member of his body hath its end and doth attain it Every affection of his Soul hath an object and that in this World and shall there be none for his desire which comes nearest to infinite of any affection planted in him This boundless desire had not its original from man himself Nothing would render it self restless something above the bounds of this world implanted those desires after a higher Good and made him restless in every thing else And since the Soul can only rest in that which is infinite there is something infinite for it to rest in Since nothing in the world though a man had the whole can give it a satisfaction there is something above the world only capable to do it otherwise the Soul would be always without it and be more in vain than any other Creature There is therefore some infinite being that can only give a contentment to the Soul and this is God And that goodness which implanted such desires in the Soul would not do it to no purpose and mock it in giving it an infinite desire of satisfaction without intending it the pleasure of enjoyment if it doth not by its own folly deprive it self of it The felicity of human nature must needs exceed that which is allotted to other Creatures 4. And last Reason Fourth Reason As t is a folly to deny that which all Nations in the World have consented to which the frame of the world evidenceth which man in his Body Soul Operations of Conscience witnesseth to So t is a folly to deny the Being of God which is witnessed unto by extraordinary occurrences in the world 1. In extraordinary Judgments When a just revenge follows abominable crimes especially when the Judgment is suted to the sin by a strange Concatenation and succession of Providences methodized to bring such a particular punishment When the sin of a Nation or person is made legible in the inflicted Judgment which testifies that it cannot be a casual thing The Scripture gives us an account of the necessity of such Judgments to keep up the reverential thoughts of God in the World Psal 9.16 The Lord is known by the judgment which he executes the wicked is snared in the work of his own hand And Jealousy is the name of God Exod. 34.14 Whose name is Jealous He is distinguisht from false Gods by the Judgments which he sends as men are by their names Extraordinary Prodigies in many Nations have been the Heralds of extraordinary Judgments and presages of the particular Judgments which afterwards they have felt of which the Roman Histories and others are full That there are such things is undeniable and that the events have been answerable to the threatning unless we will throw away all human Testimonies and count all the Histories of the World Forgeries Such things are evidences of some invisible Power which orders those affairs And if there be invisible Powers there is also an efficacious cause which moves them A Government certainly there is among them as well as in the world and then we must come to some supream Governour which presides over them Judgments upon notorious offenders have been evident in all ages The Scripture gives many instances I shall only mention that of Herod Agrippa which Josephus mentions * Lib. 19. Antiq. Act. 12.21.22.23 He receives the flattering applause of the people and thought himself a God But by the suddain stroak upon him was forced by his torture to confess another I am God saith he in your account but a higher calls me away The will of the Heavenly Deity is to be endured The Angel
of the Lord smote him The Judgment here was suted to the sin he that would be a God is eaten up of Worms the vilest Creatures Tully Hostilius a Roman King who counted it the most unroyal thing to be Religious or own any other God but his Sword was consumed himself and his whole House by Lightning from Heaven Many things are unaccountable unless we have recourse to God The strange Revelations of Murderers that have most secretly committed their crimes The making good some dreadful imprecations which some wretches have used to confirme a lie and immediatly have been struck with that Judgement they wished The raising often unexpected persons to be instruments of Vengeance on a sinful and perfidious Nation The overturning the deepest and surest Counsels of men when they have had a succesful progress and came to the very point of execution the whole designe of mens preservation hath been beaten in peices by some unforeseen circumstance so that Judgments have broken in upon them without controul and all their subtilties been out-witted The strange crossing of some in their Estates though the most wise industrious and frugal persons and that by strange and unexpected wayes And it is observable how often every thing contributes to carry on a Judgment intended as if they rationally designed it All those loudly proclaim a God in the world If there were no God there would be no sin if no sin there would be no punishment 2. In Miracles The course of nature is uniforme and when it is put out of its course it must be by some superior power invisible to the world and by whatsoever invisible instruments they are wrought the efficacy of them must depend upon some first cause above nature Psal 72.18 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who only doth wondrous things by himself and his sole power That which cannot be the result of a natural cause must be the result of something supernatural What is beyond the reach of nature is the effect of a power superior to nature For it is quite against the order of nature and is the elevation of something to such a pitch which all nature could not advance it to Nature cannot go beyond its own limits If it be determined by another as hath been formerly proved it cannot lift it self above it self without that power that so determined it Natural agents act necessarily The Sun doth necessarily shine fire doth necessarilly burn That cannot be the result of nature which is above the Ability of nature That cannot be the work of nature which is against the order of nature Nature cannot do any thing against it self or invert its own course We must own that such things have been or we must accuse all the Records of former ages to be a pack of lies which whosoever doth destroys the greatest and best part of human knowledge The Miracles mentioned in the Scripture wrought by our Saviour are acknowledged by the Heathen by the Jews at this day though his greatest enemies There is no dispute whether such things were wrought the dead raised the blind restored to sight The Heathens have acknowledged the Miraculous Eclipse of the Sun at the Passion of Christ quite against the rule of nature the Moon being then in opposition to the Sun The propagation of Christianity contrary to the methods whereby other Religions have been propagated that in a few years the Nations of the world should be sprinkled with this Doctrine and give in a greater Catalogue of Martyrs courting the devouring flames than all the Religions of the world To this might be added the strange hand that was over the Jews the only people in the world professing the true God that should so often be befriended by their Conquerors so as to rebuild their Temple though they were looked upon as a people apt to rebel Dion and Seneca observe that whereever they were transplanted they prospered and gave laws to the Victors So that this proves also the Authority of the Scripture the truth of Christian Religion as well as the being of a God and a superior power over the world To this might be added the bridling the tumultuous passions of men for the preservation of human societies which else would run the world into unconceivable confusions Psal 65.7 Which stilleth the noise of the Sea and the tumults of the people As also the Miraculous deliverance of a person or Nation when upon the very brink of ruin The suddain answer of Prayer when God hath been sought to and the turning away a Judgment which in reason could not be expected to be averted and the raising a sunk people from a ruine which seemed inevitable by unexpected ways 3. Accomplishments of Prophecies Those things which are purely contingent and cannot be known by Natural signs and in their causes as Ecclipses and changes in Nations which may be discerned by an observation of the signs of the times such things that fall not within this compass if they be foretold and come to pass are solely from some higher hand and above the cause of Nature This in Scripture is asserted to be a notice of the true God Isa 41.23 Shâ—w the things that are to come hereafter that we may know that you are God and Isa 46.10 I am God declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things that are not yet done saying my Counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure And Prophecy was consented to by all the Philosophers to be from Divine illumination That power which discovers things future which all the foresight of men cannot kenn and conjecture is above nature And to foretel them so certainly as if they did already exist or had existed long ago must be the result of a mind infinitely intelligent Because it is the highest way of knowing and a higher cannot be imagined And he that knows things future in such a manner must needs know things present and past Cyrus was Prophesied of by Esay ch 44.28 45.1 long before he was born His Victories Spoils all that should happen in Babylon his bounty to the Jews came to pass according to that Prophecy and the sight of that Prophecy which the Jews shewed him as other Historians report was that which moved him to be favourable to the Jews Alexanders sight of Daniels Prophecy concerning his Victories moved him to spare Jerusalem And are not the four Monarchies plainly deciphered in that Book before the fourth rose up in the world That power which foretells things beyond the reach of the wit of man and orders all causes to bring about those predictions must be an infinite power the same that made the world sustains it and governs all things in it according to his pleasure and to bring about his own ends And this Being is God Vse 1 1. If Atheism be a folly T is then pernicious to the World and to the Atheist himself Wisdom is the band of human societies the glory
himself is an infinite Mirror of Goodness and ravishing Loveliness He is infinitely good and so universally good and nothing but good and is therefore so agreeable to a Creature as a Creature that it is impossible that the Creature while it bears itself to God as a Creature should be guilty of this but thirst after him and cherish every motion to him As no man wishes the destruction of any Creature as a Creature but as it may conduce to something which he counts may be beneficial to himself so no man doth nor perhaps can wish the cessation of the Being of God as God for then he must wish his own Being to cease also But as he considers him clothed with some perfections which he apprehends as injurious to him as his Holiness in forbidding Sin his Justice in punishing Sin And God being judged in those perfections contrary to what the revolted Creature thinks convenient and good for himself he may wish God stript of those perfections that thereby he may be free from all fear of trouble and grief from him in his fallen State In wishing God deprived of those he wishes God deprived of his Being because God cannot retain his Deity without a love of Righteousness and Hatred of Iniquity and he could not testifie his love to the one or his loathing of the other without encouraging Goodness and witnessing his Anger against Iniquity Let us now appeal to ourselves and examin our own Consciences Did we never please our selves sometimes in the thoughts how happy we should be how free in our vain pleasures if there were no God Have we not desired to be our own Lords without controle subject to no Law but our own and be guided by no Will but that of the Flesh Did we never rage against God under his afflicting Hand Did we never wish God stript of his Holy Will to command and his Righteous Will to punish c. Thus much for the general For the proof of this many considerations will bring in Evidence Most may be reduced to these two Generals Man would set himself up First as his own Rule Secondly as his own End and Happiness 1. Man would set himself up as his own Rule instead of God This will be evidenced in this Method 1. Man naturally disowns the Rule God sets him 2. He owns any other Rule rather than that of Gods prescribing 3. These he doth in order to the setting himself up as his own Rule 4. He makes himself not only his own Rule but would make himself the Rule of God and give Laws to his Creator 1. Man naturally disowns the Rule God sets him 'T is all one to deny his Royalty and to deny his Being When we disown his Authority we disown his God-head 'T is the Right of God to be the Soveraign of his Creatures and it must be a very loose and trivial assent that such men have to Gods Superiority over them and consequently to the Excellency of his Being upon which that Authority is founded who are scarce at ease in themselves but when they are invading his Rights breaking his Bands casting away his Cords and contradicting his Will Every man naturally is a Son of Belial would be without a Yoke and leap over Gods Inclosures and in breaking out against his Soveraignity we disown his Being as God For to be God and Soveraign are inseparable He could not be God if he were not Supreme nor could he be a Creator without being a Law-giver To be God and yet inferior to another is a Contradiction To make Rational Creatures without prescribing them a Law is to make them without Holiness Wisdom and Goodness 1. There is in Man naturally an unwillingness to have any acquaintance with the Rule God sets him Psal 14.2 None that did understand and seek God The refusing Instruction and casting his Word behind the back is a part of Atheism * Psal 50 1â— We are heavy in hearing the Instructions either of Law or Gospel * Heb. 5.11 12. and slow in the Apprehension of what we hear The people that God had hedged in from the Wilderness of the World for his own Garden were foolish and did not know God were sottish and had no understanding of him * Jer. 4.22 The Law of God is accounted a strange thing * Hos 8.12 a thing of a different Clymate and a far Country from the heart of Man wherewith the mind of Man had no natural acquaintance and had no desire to have any or they regarded it as a sordid thing What God accounts great and valuable they account mean and despicable Men may shew a Civility to a Stranger but scarce contract an Intimacy There can be no Amicable Agreement between the holy Will of God and the heart of a depraved Creature One is holy the other unholy one is universally good the other stark naught The purity of the Divine Rule renders it nauseous to the impurity of a carnal heart Water and Fire may as well friendly kiss each other and live together without quarrelling and hissing as the holy Will of God and the unregenerate heart of a fallen Creature The nauseating a Holy Rule is an Evidence of Atheism in the heart as the nauseating wholesome Food is of putrified Flegm in the Stomack 'T is found more or less in every Christian in the Remainders though not in a full Empire As there is a Law in his Mind whereby he delights in the Law of God so there is a Law in his Members whereby he wars against the Law of God Rom. 7.22 23 25. How predominant is this loathing of the Law of God when corrupt Nature is in its full strength without any Principle to controul it There is in the Mind of such a one a Darkness whereby it is ignorant of it and in the Will a Depravedness whereby it is repugnant to it If Man were naturally willing and able to have an intimate acquaintance with and delight in the Law of God it had not been such a signal favour for God to promise to write the Law in the heart A man may sooner engrave the Chronicle of a whole Nation or all the Records of God in the Scripture upon the hardest Marble with his bare finger than write one Syllable of the Law of God in a spiritual manner upon his heart For 1. Men are negligent in using the means for the knowledge of Gods Will. All natural men are Fools who know not how to use the price God puts into their hands * Pro. 17.16 They put not a due estimate upon opportunities and means of Grace and account that Law-Folly which is the Birth of an infinite and holy Wisdom The knowledge of God which they may glean from Creatures and is more pleasant to the natural gust of men is not improved to the Glory of God if we will believe the Indictment the Apostle brings against the Gentiles * Rom. 1.21 And most of those that have
be a guide that disdain to follow him To think we firmly believe a God without living conformable to his Law is an idle and vain imagination The true and sensible Notion of a God cannot subsist with disorder and an affected unrighteousness This contempt is seen 1. In any presumptuous breach of any part of his Law Such sins are frequently called in Scripture Rebellions which are a denial of the Allegiance we owe to him By a wilful refusal of his right in one part we root up the foundation of that rule he doth justly challenge over us His Right is as extensive to command us in one thing as in another And if it be disowned in one thing t is vertually disowned in all and the whole Statute book of God is contemned Jam. 2.10.11 Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point is guilty of all A willing breaking one part tho there be a willing observance of all the other points of it is a breach of the whole because the Authority of God which gives sanction to the whole is slighted The obedience to the rest is dissembled For the Love which is the root of all obedience is wanting For Love is the fulfilling the whole Law * Rom. 13. â—â— The rest are obeyed because they cross not carnal desire so much as the other and so t is an observance of himself not of God Besides the Authority of God which is not prevalent to restrain us from the breach of one point would be of as little force with us to restrain us from the breach of all the rest did the allurements of the flesh give us as strong a diversion from the one as from the other And tho the Command that is transgrest be the least in the whole Law yet the Authority which enjoyns it is the same with that which enacts the greatest And it is not so much the matter of the command as the Authority commanding which lays the obligation 2. In the natural averseness to the declarations of Gods Will and mind which way so ever they tend Since man affected to be as God he desires to be boundless he he would not have Fetters tho they be Golden ones and conduce to his happiness tho the Law of God be a strength to them yet they will not Isa 30.15 In returnning shall be your strength and you would not They would not have a bridle to restrain them from running into the pit nor be hedged in by the Law tho for their security As if they thought it too slavish and low Spirited a thing to be guided by the Will of another Hence man is compared to a Wild-Ass that loves to snuff up the wind in the Wilderness at her pleasure rather than come under the guidance of God * Jer. 2 2â— From whatsoever quarter of the Heavens you pursue her she will run to the other The Israelites could not indure what was Commanded * Heb. 12 â—â— tho in regard of the Moral part agreeable to what they found written in their own Nature And to the observance whereof they had the highest obligations of any people under Heaven since God had by many prodigies delivered them from a cruel slavery The memory of which prefac'd the Decalogue Exod. 20.2 I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the Land of Egypt out of the House of bondage They could not think of the rule of their duty but they must reflect upon the grand incentive of it in their Redemption from Aegyptian thraldome Yet this people were cross to God which way soever he moved When they were in the Brick-kilns they cryed for deliverance when they had heavenly Manna they longed for their Onions and Garlick In Num. 14.3 They repent of their deliverance from Egypt and talk of returning again to seek the Remedy of their Evils in the hands of their cruellest Enemies and would rather put themselves into the Irons whence God had delivered them than believe one word of the Promise of God for giving them a fruitful Land But when Moses tells them Gods Order that they should turn back by the way of the Red-Sea * ver 25. and that God had confirmed it by an Oath that they should not see the Land of Canaan * ver 28. They then run cross to this Command of God and instead of marching towards the Red-Sea which they had wished for before they will go up to Canaan as in spight of God and his threatning We will go to the Place which the Lord hath promised v. 40. which Moses calls a Transgressing the Comandment of the Lord v. 41. They would presume to go up notwithstanding Moses his Prohibition and are smitten by the Amalekites When God gives them a Precept with a Promise to go up to Canaan they long for Egypt when God commands them to return to the Red-Sea which was nearer to the place they longed for they will shift sides and go up to Canaan * Num. 21.4 5. Daillê Serm. 1 Cor. 10. Ser. 9 p. 234. 235. 40. And when they found they were to traverse the Solitudes of the Desart they took Pett against God and instead of thanking him for the late Victory against the Cananites they reproach him for his Conduct from Egypt and the Manna wherewith he nourished them in the Wilderness They would not go to Canaan the way God had chosen nor preserve themselves by the means God had ordained They would not be at Gods disposal but complain of the badness of the way and the lightness of Manna empty of any necessary juyce to sustain their Nature They murmuringly sollicite the Will and Power of God to change all that Order which he had resolved in his Council and take another conformable to their vain foolish desires And they signified thereby that they would invade his Conduct and that he should act according to their fancy which the Psalmist calls a tempting of God and limiting the Holy One of Israel Psal 78.41 To what point soever the Declarations of God stand the Will of Man turns the quite contrary way Is not the carriage of this Nation the best then in the world A discovery of the depth of our natural corruption how cross Man is to God And that charge God brings against them may be brought against all men by Nature that they despise his Judgements and have a rooted Abhorrency of his Statutes in their Soul Levit. 26.43 No sooner had they recovered from one Rebellion but they revolted to another So difficult a thing it is for mans nature to be rendred capable of conforming to the Will of God The carriage of this People is but a Copy of the Nature of Mankind and is written for our admonition 1 Cor. 10.11 From this temper men are said to make void the Law of God * Psal 119.126 To make it of no obligation an antiquated and moth-eaten Record And the Pharisees by setting up their
Traditions against the Will of God are said to make his Law of none effect to strip it of all its Authority as the word signifies Mat. 15.6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. We have the greatest slight of that Will of God which is most for his Honour and his greatest Pleasure 'T is the Nature of Man ever since Adam to do so Hos 6.6.7 God desired Mercy and not Sacrifice the Knowledge of Himself more than burnt Offering but they like men as Adam have transgressed the Covenant invade Gods Rights and not let him be Lord of one Tree We are more curious Observers of the Fringes of the Law than of the greater concerns of it The Jews were diligent in Sacrifices and Offerings which God did not urge upon them as Principals but as Types of other things but negligent of the Faith which was to be established by him Holiness Mercy Pity which concerned the Honour of God as Governour of the World and were imitations of the Holiness and Goodness of God they were Strangers to This is Gods Complaint Isa 1.11 12. and 16 17. We shall find our hearts most averse to the observation of those Laws which are Eternal and Essential to Righteousness such that he could not but command as he is a Righteous Governour in the observation of which we come nearest to him and express his Image more clearly As those Laws for an inward and spiritual Worship a supreme Affection to him God in regard of his Righteousness and Holiness of his Nature and the Excellency of his Being could not command the contrary to these But this part of his Will our hearts most swell against our corruption doth most snarle at whereas those Laws which are only positive and have no intrinsick Righteousness in them but depend purely upon the Will of the Law-giver and may be changed at his pleasure which the other that have an intrinsick Righteousness in them cannot we better comply with than that part of his Will that doth express more the Righteousness of his Nature * Psal 5◠6.17 19. such as the Ceremonial part of Worship and the Ceremonial Law among the Jews We are more willing to observe Order in some outward attendances and glavering devotions than discard secret affections to evil crucify inward lusts and delightful thoughts A hanging down the head like a bulrish is not difficult but the breaking the heart like a Potters vessel to shreds and dust a sacrifice God delights in whereby the excellency of God and the vileness of the Creature is owned goes against the grain To cut off an outward branch is not so hard as to hack at the root What God mosts loaths as most contrary to his Will we most love No sin did God so severely hate and no sin were the Jews more enclined unto than that of Idolatry The Heathen had not changed their God as the Jews had changed their glory Jer. 2.11 And all men are naturally tainted with this sin which is so contrary to the holy and excellent nature of God By how much the more defect there is of purity in our respects to God by so much the more respect there is to some Idol within or without us to humor custom and interest c. Never did any Law of God meet with so much opposition as Christianity which was the design of God from the first promise to the exhibiting the Redeemer and from thence to the end of the World All people drew Swords at first against it The Romans prepared Yokes for their Neighbors but provided Temples for the Idols those people Worshipped But Christianity the choicest design and most delightful part of the Will of God never met with a kind entertainment at first in any place Rome that entertained all others persecuted this with Fire and Sword tho sealed by greater Testimonies from Heaven than their own Records could report in favour of their Idols 4. In running the greatest hazards and exposing our selves to more trouble to cross the Will of God than is necessary to the observance of it T is a vain charge men bring against the Divine precepts that they are rigorous severe difficult When besides the contradiction to our Saviour who tells us his Yoke is easy and his Burthen light they thwart their own calm reason and Judgment Is there not more difficulty to be Vicious Covetous Violent Cruel than to be Vertuous Charitable Kind Doth the Will of God enjoyn that that is not conformable to right reason and secretly delightful in the exercise and issue And on the contrary what doth Satan and the world engage us in that is not full of molestation and hazard Is it a sweet and comely thing to combat continually against our own Consciences and resist our own light and commence a perpetual quarrel against our selves as we ordinarily do when we sin They in the Prophet Mich. 6.6 7 8. would be at the expence of thousands of Rams and ten thousand Rivers of Oyl if they could compass them yea would strip themselves of their Natural affection to their first-born to expiate the sin of their Soul rather then to do Justice love mercy and walk humbly with God things more conducible to the Honour of God the welfare of the world the security of their Souls and of a more easie practice than the offerings they wished for Do not men then disown God when they will walk in ways hedged with thorns wherein they meet with the Arrows of Conscience at every turn in their sides and slidedown to an everlasting punishment sink under an intolerable slavery to contradict the Will of God When they will prefer a sensual satisfaction with a combustion in their Consciences violation of their reasons gnawing cares and weary travels before the Honour of God the dignity of their Natures the happiness of peace and health which might be preserved at a cheaper rate than they are at to destroy them 5. In the unwillingness and awkardness of the heart when it is to pay God a service Men do evil with both hands earnestly * Mich. 7.3 but do good with one hand faintly no life in the heart nor any diligence in the hand What slight and loose thoughts of God doth this unwillingness imply T is a wrong to his providence as tho we were not under his Government and had no need of his assistance A wrong to his excellency as tho there were no aimableness in him to make his service desirable An injury to his goodness and power as if he were not able or willing to reward the Creatures obedience or careless not to take notice of it T is a sign we receive little satisfaction in him and that there is a great unsutableness between him and us 1. There is a kind of constraint in the first engagement We are rather prest to it than enter our selves Volunteers What we call service to God is done naturally much against our Wills t is not a delightful food but
a posture to be his Mate Other sins Adultery and Theft c. could not be committed by him at that time but he immediatly puts forth his hand to usurp the power of his Maker This Treason is the old Adam in every man The first Adam contradicted the Will of God to set up himself The second Adam humbled himself and did nothing but by the Command and Will of his Father This principle wherein the venom of the Old Adam lies must be Crucified to make way for the Throne of the humble and obedient principle of the New Adam or quickning Spirit Indeed sin in its owns nature is nothing else but a willing according to self and contrary to the Will of God Lusts are therefore called the Wills of the flesh and of the mind * Eph. 2.3 As the precepts of God are Gods Will So the violations of these precepts is mans Will And thus man usurps a God-head to himself by giving that Honour to his own Will which belongs to God appropriating the right of rule to himself and denying it to his Creator That Servant that acts according to his own Will with a neglect of his Masters refuseth the duty of a Servant and invades the right of his Master This Self-love and desire of Independency on God has been the root of all sin in the World The great controversy between God and man hath been whether he or they shall be God whether his Reason or theirs his Will or theirs shall be the guiding principle As Grace is the union of the Will of God and the Will of the Creature so sin is the opposition of the Will of self to the Will of God Leaning to our own understanding is opposed as a natural evil to trusting in the Lord * Pro. 3.5 a supernatural grace Men commonly love what is their own their own inventions their own fancies therefore the ways of a wicked man are called the ways of his own heart * Eccl. 11.9 and the ways of a superstitious man his own devices Jer. 18.11 We will walk after our own devices We will be a law to our selves And what the Psalmist saith of the tongue our tongues are our own who shall controul us is as truly the language of mens hearts our Wills are our own who shall check us 2. This is eviden in the dissatisfaction of men with their own Consciences when they contradict the desires of self Conscience is nothing but an actuated or reflex knowledg of a superior power and an equitable law a law imprest and a power above it impressing it Conscience is not the law-giver but the remembrancer to mind us of that law of nature imprinted upon our Souls and actuate the considerations of the duty and penalty to apply the rule to our acts and pass Judgment upon matter of fact T is to give the charge urge the rule enjoyn the practice of those notions of Right as part of our duty and obedience But man is much displeased with the directions of Conscience as he is out of love with the accusations and condemning sentence of this officer of God We cannot naturally endure any quick and lively practical thoughts of God and his Will and distast our own Consciences for putting us in mind of it They therefore like not to retain God in their knowledge * Rom. 1.28 that is God in their own Consciences they would blow it out as it is the Candle of the Lord in them to direct them and their acknowledgments of God to secure themselves against the practice of its principles They would stop all the avenues to any beam of light and would not suffer a sparkle of Divine knowledge to flutter in their minds in order to set up another directing rule suited to the fleshly appetite And when they cannot stop the light of it from glaring in their faces they rebel against it and cannot endure to abide in its paths * Job 24.13 He speaks not of those which had the written word or special Revelations but only a natural light or traditional handed from Adam Hence are all the endeavors to still it when it begins to speak by some carnal pleasures as Sauls evil Spirit with a fit of Musick or bribe it with some fits of a glavering devotion when it holds the Law of God in its commanding Authority before the mind They would wipe out all the impressions of it when it presses the advancement of God above self and entertain it with no better Complement than Ahab did Elijah hast thou found me O my Enemy If we are like to God in any thing of our natural fabrick t is in the superior and more Spiritual part of our Souls The resistance of that which is most like to God and instead of God in us is a disowning of the Soveraign represented by that Officer He that would be without Conscience would be without God whose Vicegerent it is and make the sensitive part which Conscience opposes his Law-giver Thus a man out of respect to sinful self quarrels with his natural self and cannot comport himself in a friendly behaviour to his internal implanted principles He hates to come under the rebukes of them as much as Adam hated to come into the presence of God after he turned Traytor against him The bad entertainment Gods deputy hath in us reflects upon that God whose cause it pleads T is upon no other account that men loath the upright Language of their own reasons in those matters and wish the eternal silence of their own Consciences but as they maintain the rights of God and would hinder the Idol of self from usurping his God-head and prerogative Tho this power be part of a mans self rooted in his nature as essential to him and inseparable from him as the best part of his being yet he quarrels with it as it is Gods Deputy and stickling for the honour of God in his Soul and quarrelling with that sinful self he would cherish above God We are not displeased with this faculty barely as it exerciseth a self-reflection but as it is Gods Vice-gerent and bears the mark of his Authority in it In some cases this self-reflecting act meets with good Entertainment when it acts not in contradiction to self but sutable to natural affections As suppose a man hath in his passion struck his Child and caused thereby some great mischeif to him the reflection of Conscience will not be unwelcome to him will work some tenderness in him because it takes the part of self and of natural affection But in the more Spiritual concerns of God it will be rated as a busy body 3. Many if not most actions materially good in the world are done more because they are agreeable to self than as they are honourable to God As the word of God may be heard not as his word * 1 Thes 2.13 but as there may be pleasing Notions in it or discourses against an opinion or
a humane way and not in a divine Is not this to impose Laws upon God To esteem our selves wiser than he To think him negligent of his own service and that our feeble brains can find out ways to accommodate his honour better than himself hath done Thus do men for the most part equal their own imaginations to Gods oracles As Solomon built a high place to Moloch and Chemoch upon the Mount of Olives to face on the East part Hierusalem and the Temple * 1 Kings 11.7 This is not only to impose Laws on God but also to make self the Standard of them 8. 'T is evidenc'd in suting interpretations of Scripture to their own minds and humors Like the Lacedemonians that drest the Images of their Gods according to the fashion of their own Countrey We would wring Scripture to sâ—rve our own designs and Judge the Law of God by the law of sin and make the Serpentine seed in us to be the interpreter of Divine Oracles This is like Belshazar to drink healths out of the sacred Vessels As God is the Author of his Law and Word so he is the best interpreter of it the Scripture having an impress of divine Wisdom Holiness and Goodness must be regarded according to that impress with a submission and meekness of Spirit and Reverence of God in it But when in our enquiries into the word we enquire not of God but consult flesh and blood the temper of the times wherein we live or the satisfaction of a party we side withal and impose glosses upon it according to our own fancies it is to put Laws upon God and make self the rule of him He that interprets the law to bolster up some eager appetite against the Will of the law-giver ascribes to himself as great an authority as he that enacted it 9. In falling off from God after some fair compliances when his Will grateth upon us and crosseth ours They will walk with him as far as he pleaseth them and leave him upon the first distast as tho God must observe their humors more than they his Will Amos must be suspended from Prophecying because the Land could not bear his words and his discourses condemned their unworthy practices against God * Amos. 7.10 c. The Young man came not to receive directions from our Saviour but expected a Confirmation of his own rules rather than an imposition of new * Mark 10.17 22. He rather cares for Commendations than instructions and upon the disappointment turns his back He was sad that Christ would not suffer him to be rich and a Christian together and leaves him because his Command was not suitable to the Law of his Covetousness Some truths that are at a further distance from us we can hear gladly But when the Conscience begins to smart under others if God will not observe our Wills we will with Herod be a Law to our selves * Mark 6 2â—.27 More instances might be observed Ingratitude is a setting up self and an imposing Laws on God T is as much as to say God did no more than he was obliged to do as if the Mercies we have were an Act of Duty in God and not of bounty Insatiable desires after wealth Hence are those speeches Jam. 4.13 We will go into such a City and buy and sell c. to get gain As tho they had the Command of God and God must Lacquey after their Wills VVhen our hearts are not contented with any supply of our wants but are craving an overplus for our lust When we are unsatisfied in the midst of plenty and still like the Grave cry give give Incorrigibleness under affliction c. Secondly 2. The second main thing As Man would be a Law to himself So he would be his own end and happiness in opposition to God Here four things shall be discoursed on 1. Man would make himself his own End and Happiness 2. He would make any thing his End and Happiness rather than God 3. He would make himself the End of all Creatures 4. He would make himself the End of God First 1. Man would make himself his own End and Happiness As God ought to be esteem'd the first cause in point of our dependance on him so he ought to be our last end in point of our enjoyment of him When we therefore trust in our selves we refuse him as the first cause and when we act for our selves and expect a blessedness from our selves we refuse him as the Chiefest good and last End which is an undeniable piece of Atheism For man is a Creature of a higher rank than others in the world and was not made as Animals Plants and other works of the Divine power materially to glorifie God but a rational Creature intentionally to Honour God by obedience to his Rule dependance on his goodness and zeal for his glory T is therefore as much a slighting of God for man a Creature to set himself up as his own End as to regard himself as his own Law For the discovery of this observe that there is a three-fold self-love 1. Natural which is common to us by the Law of nature with other Creatures Inanimate as well as Animate and so closely twisted with the nature of every Creature that it cannot be dissolved but with the dissolution of nature it self It consisted not with the wisdom and goodness of God to Create an unnatural nature or to Command any thing unnatural Nor doth he for when he Commands us to Sacrifice out Selves and dearest lives for himself t is not without a promise of a more noble state and being in exchange for what we lose This self-love is not only commendable but necessary as a Rule to measure that duty we owe to our Neighbour whom we cannot love as our selves if we do not first love our selvs God having planted this self-love in our nature makes this natural principle the measure of our affection to all Mankind of the same blood with our selves 2. Carnal self-love when a man loves himself above God in opposition to God with a contempt of God when our thoughts affections designs Center only in our own fleshly interest and rifle God of his honour to make a present of it to our selves Thus the natural self-love in it self good becomes Criminal by the excess when it would be superior and not subordinate to God 3. A Gracious self-love VVhen we love our selves for higher ends than the nature of a Creature as a Creature dictates Viz. in subserviency to the Glory of God This is a reduction of the revolted Creature to his true and happy order A Christian is therefore said to be Created in Christ to good works * Eph. 1 10. As all Creatures were Created not only for themselves but for the honour of God so the Grace of the new Creation carries a man to answer this end and to order all his operations to the Honour of God and his
that we might now serve God in a more spiritual manner and with more spiritual frames 6. Proposition The Service and worship the Gospel settles is spiritual and the performance of it more spiritual Spirituality is the Genius of the Gospel as Carnality was of the Law the Gospel is therefore called Spirit We are abstracted from the imployments of Sense and brought neerer to a Heavenly State The Jews had Angels Bread poured upon them we have Angels Service prescribed to us the Praises of God Communion with God in Spirit through his Son Jesus Christ and stronger foundations for spiritual affections 'T is called a reasonable service * Rom. 12.1 t is suted to a rational nature tho it finds no friendship from the Corruption of reason It prescribes a service fit for the reasonable faculties of the Soul and advanceth them while it employs them The word reasonable may be translated word service * V. Hammond in loc as well as reasonable service an Evangelical service in opposition to a Law service All Evangelical service is reasonable and all truly reasonable service is Evangelical The matter of the worship is Spiritual it consists in love of God faith in God recourse to his goodness Meditation on him and Communion with him It lays aside the Ceremonial Spiritualizeth the moral The Commands that concerned our duty to God as well as those that concerned our duty to our Neighbour were reduced by Christ to their Spiritual intention The Motives are Spiritual t is a state of more grace as well as of more truth * John 1.17 supported by Spiritual promises beaming out in Spiritual priviledges heaven comes down in it to Earth to Spiritualize Earth for Heaven The manner of worship is more Spiritual higher flights of the Soul stronger ardours of affections sincerer aims at his glory mists are removed from our minds Cloggs from the Soul more of love than fear faith in Christ kindles the affections and works by them The assistances to Spiritual worship are greater The Spirit doth not drop but is plentifully poured out It doth not light sometimes upon but dwells in the heart Christ suted the Gospel to a Spiritual heart and the Spirit changeth a carnal heart to make it fit for a Spiritual Gospel He blows upon the Garden and causes the spices to flow forth And often makes the Soul in worship like the Chariots of Aminadab in a quick and nimble motion Our blessed Lord and Saviour by his death discovered to us the nature of God and after his ascension sent his Spirit to fit us for the worship of God and converse with him One Spiritual Evangelical believing breath is more delightful to God than millions of Altars made up of the richest pearls and smoaking with the costliest oblations because it is Spiritual And a mite of Spirit is of more worth than the greatest weight of flesh One holy Angel is more excellent than a whole world of meer bodies 7. Proposition Yet the worship of God with our bodies is not to be rejected upon the account that God requires a Spiritual worship Tho we must perform the weightier duties of the Law yet we are not to omit and leave undone the lighter precepts Since both the Magnalia and minutula legis the greater and the lesser duties of the Law have the stamp of Divine authority upon them As God under the Ceremonial Law did not Command the worship of the body and the observation of outward rites without the engagement of the Spirit so neither doth he Command that of the Spirit without the peculiar attendance of the body The Schwelk sendians denied bodily worship And the indecent postures of many in publick attendance intimate no great care either of Composing their bodies or Spirits A morally discomposed body intimates a tainted heart Our Bodies as well as our Spirits are to be presented to God * Rom. 12.1 Our bodies in lieu of the Sacrifices of Beasts as in the Judaical institutions body for the whole man a living Sacrifice not to be slain as the Beasts were but living a new life in a holy posture with Crucified affections This is the inference the Apostle makes of the priviledges of Justification Adoption Coheirship with Christ which he had before discoursed of Priviledges conferred upon the person and not upon a part of man 1. Bodily worship is due to God He hath a right to an Adoration by our bodies as they are his by Creation his right is not diminisht but increased by the blessing of Redemption 1 Cor. 6.20 For you are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your bodies and your Spirits which are Gods The Body as well as the Spirit is redeemed since our Saviour suffered Crucifixion in his body as well as Agonies in his Soul Body is not taken here for the whole man as it may be in Rom. 12. But for the material part of our nature it being distinguisht from the Spirit If we are to render to God an obedience with our bodies we are to render him such Acts of worship with our bodies as they are capable of As God is the Father of Spirits so he is the God of all flesh Therefore the flesh he hath framed of the Earth as well as the noble portion he hath breathed into us cannot be denyed him without apalpable in justice The service of the body we must not deny to God unless we will deny him to be the author of it and the exercise of his providential care about it The mercies of God are renewed every day upon our bodies as well as our Souls and therefore they ought to express a fealty to God for his bounty everyday * Sherman's Greek in the Temple pa. 61.62 both are from God both should be for God Man consists of Body and Soul the service of Man is the service of both The body is to be Sanctified as well as the Soul and therefore to be offered to God as well as the Soul Both are to be glorified both are to glorifie As our Saviours Divinity was manifested in his body so should our Spirituality in ours To give God the service of the body and not of the Soul is hypocrisie to give God the service of the Spirit and not of the body is sacriledge to give him neither Atheism If the only part of man that is visible were exempted from the service of God there could be no visible Testimonies of piety given upon any occasion Since not a moiety of man but the whole is Gods Creature he ought to pay a homage with the whole and not only with a moiety of himself 2. Worship in societies is due to God but this cannot be without some bodily expressions The law of nature doth as much direct men to combine together in publick societies for the acknowledgment of God as in Civil Communities for self preservation and order And the notice of a society for Religion is more Ancient than the mention of
could not be blessed Nothing can have any complacency in it self without the Knowledg of it self Nothing can in a rational manner enjoy it self without understanding it self The Blessedness of God consists not in the knowledg of any thing without him but in the knowledg of himself and his own excellency as the principle of all things If therefore he did not perfectly know himself and his own happiness he could not enjoy a happiness for to be and not to know to be is as if a thing were not He is God blessed for ever Rom. 9.5 and therefore for ever had a Knowledg of himself 3. Without the Knowledg of himself he could Create nothing For he would be ignorant of his own Power and his own Ability and he that doth not know how far his Power extends could not act If he did not know himself he could know nothing and he that knows nothing can do nothing he could not know an Effect to be possible to him unless he knew his own Power as a Cause 4. Without the Knowledg of himself he could govern nothing He could not without the knowledg of his own Holiness and Righteousness prescribe Laws to men nor without a knowledg of his own nature order himself a manner of Worship sutable to it All Worship must be congruous to the dignity and nature of the object worshipped he must therefore know his own Authority whereby Worship was to be enacted his own Excellency to which Worship was to be suited his own Glory to which Worship was to be directed If he did not know himself he did not know what to punish because he would not know what was contrary to himself not knowing himself he would not know what was a contempt of him and what an adoration of him what was worthy of God and what was unworthy of him In fine he could not know other things unless he knew himself unless he knew his own Power he could not know how he created things unless he knew his own Wisdom he could not know the beauty of his Works unless he knew his own Glory he could not know the end of his Works unless he knew his own Holiness he could not know what was evil and unless he knew his own Justice he could not know how to punish the Crimes of his offending creatures And therefore 1. God knows himself because his Knowledg with his Will is the cause of all other things that can fall under his cognizance he knows himself first before he can knovv any other thing that is first according to our conceptions for indeed God knovvs himself and all other things at once He is the first Truth and therefore is the first object of his ovvn understanding There is nothing more excellent than himself and therefore nothing more known to him than himself As he is all Knovvledg so he hath in himself the most excellent object of Knovvledg To understand is properly to knovv ones self No object is so intelligible to God as God is to himself nor so intimately and immediately joined vvith his Understanding as himself for his Understanding is his Essence himself 2. He knows himself by his own Essence He knovvs not himself and his ovvn Povver by the effect because he knovvs himself from Eternity before there vvas a World or any effect of his Povver extant 'T is not a knovvledg by the Cause for God hath no cause nor a knovvledg of himself by any species or any thing from vvithout If it vvere any thing from vvithout himself that must be created or uncreated if uncreated it vvould be God and so vve must either ovvn many Gods or ovvn it to be his Essence and so not distinct from himself If created then his knovvledg of himself vvould depend upon a creature he could not then knovv himself from eternity but in time because nothing can be created from eternity but in time God knovvs not himself by any faculty for there is no composition in God he is not made up of parts but is a simple being some therefore have called God not intellectus understanding because that savours of a faculty but intellectio intellection God is all act in the knovvledg of himself and his knovvledg of other things 3. God therefore knows himself perfectly comprehensively Nothing in his ovvn nature is concealed from him he reflects upon every thing that he is Magalaneus There is a positive comprehension so God doth not comprehend himself for vvhat is comprehended hath bounds and vvhat is comprehended by it self is finite to it self and there is a negative comprehension God so comprehends himself nothing in his ovvn nature is obscure to him unknovvn by him For there is as great a perfection in the understanding of God to knovv as there is in the Divine nature to be knovvn The Understanding of God and the Nature of God are both infinite and so equal to one another his Understanding is equal to himself he knovvs himself so vvell that nothing can be knovvn by him more perfectly than himself is knovvn to himself He knovvs himself in the highest manner because nothing is so proportion'd to the Understanding of God as himself He knovvs his ovvn Essence Goodness Povver all his Perfections Decrees Intentions Acts the infinite capacity of his ovvn Understanding so that nothing of himself is in the dark to himself And in this respect some use this expression That the Infiniteness of God is in a manner finite to himself because it is comprehended by himself Thus God transcends all Creatures thus his Understanding is truly Infinite because nothing but himself is an infinite Object for it What Angels may understand of themselves perfectly I know not but no Creature in the World understands himself Man understands not fully the excellency and parts of his own nature upon Gods knowledg of himself depends the Comfort of his People and the Terror of the Wicked this is also a clear Argument for his Knowledg of all other things without himself he that knows himself must needs know all other things less than himself and which were made by himself When the knowledg of his own Immensity and Infiniteness is not an object too difficult for him the knowledg of a finite and limited Creature in all his actions thoughts circumstances cannot be too hard for him Since he knows himself who is Infinite he cannot but know whatsoever is Finite this is the Foundation of all his other Knowledg the knowledg of every thing present past and to come is far less than the knowledg of himself He is more incomprehensible in his own nature than all things Created or that can be Created put together can be If he then have a perfect comprehensive knowledg of his own nature any knowledg of all other things is less than the knowledg of himself this ought to be well considered by us as the Fountain whence all his other knowledg flows 2. Therefore God knows all other things whether
the Earth So Colours are made for the pleasure of the Eye Sounds for the delight of the Ear Light is formed whereby the Eye may see the one and Air to convey the Species of Colours to the Eye and Sound to the Ear all things are like the Wheels of a Watch compacted And though many of the Creatures be endowed with contrary qualities yet they are joyned in a Marriage-knot for the Publick Security and Subserviency to the Preservation and Order of the Universe As the variety of Strings upon an Instrument sending forth various and distinct sounds are temper'd together for the framing excellent and delightful Airs In this universal conspiring of the Creatures together to one end is the wisdom of the Creator apparent in tuning so many Contraries as the Elements are and preserving them in their Order which if once broken the whole Frame of Nature would crack and fall in pieces all are so interwoven and inlaid together by the Divine Workmanship as to make up one intire Beauty in the whole Fabrick As every part in the Body of Man hath a distinct Comliness yet there is besides the Beauty of the whole that results from the union of divers parts exactly fashion'd to one another and linkt together By the way Use How much may we see of the Perfection of God in every thing that presents it self to our eyes And how should we be convinc'd of our unworthy neglect of ascending to him with reverent and admiring thoughts upon the prospect of the Creatures What dull Scholars are we when every Creature is our Teacher every part of the Creature a lively Instruction Those things that we tread under our feet if used by us according to the full design of their Creation would afford rich matter not only for our heads but our hearts As Grace doth not destroy Nature but elevate it so neither should the fresher and fuller discoveries of Divine Wisdom in Redemption deface all our thoughts of his Wisdom in Creation Though the greater Light of the Sun obscures the lesser sparkling of the Stars yet it gives way in the Night to the discovery of them that God may be seen known and considered in all his Works of Wonder and Miracles of Nature No part of Scripture is more spiritual than the Psalms none filled with clearer Discoveries of Christ in the Old Testament yet how often do the Penmen consider the Creation of God and find their Meditations on him to be sweet as consider'd in his Works Psal 104.34 My meditation of him shall be sweet When why after a short History of the Goodness and Wisdom of God in the Frame of the World and the Species of the Creatures 2. The wisdom of God appears in his Government of his Creatures The regular motion of the Creatures speaks for this Perfection as well as the exact Composition of them If the exquisiteness of the Frame conducts us to the skill of the Contriver the exactness of their Order according to his Will and Law speaks no less the wisdom of the Governour It cannot be thought that a rash and irrational Power presides over a World so well disposed The disposition of things hath no less characters of Skill than the Creation of them No man can hear an excellent Lesson upon a Lute but must presently reflect upon the Art of the Person that touches it The Prudence of man appears in wrapping up the Concerns of a Kingdom in his mind for the well-ordering of it and shall not the wisdom of God shine forth as he is the Director of the World I shall omit his Government of Inanimate Creatures and confine the Discourse to his Government of Man as Rational as Sinful as Restor'd 1. In his Government of man as a Rational Creature 1. In the Law he gives to man Wisdom framed it though Will enacted it The will of God is the Rule of Righteousness to us but the wisdom of God is the Foundation of that Rule of Righteousness which he prescribes us * Castellio Dialog l. 4. p. 46. The Composure of a Musician is the Rule of singing to his Scholars yet the Consent and Harmony in that Composure derives not it self from his will but from his understanding he would not be a Musician if his Composures were contrary to the Rules of true Harmony So the Laws of men are compos'd by wisdom though they are enforc'd by will and authority The Moral Law which was the Law of Nature the Law imprinted upon Adam is so framed as to secure the Rights of God as Supream and the Rights of Men in their distinctions of Superiority and Equality 'T is therefore called holy and good Rom. 7.12 holy as it prescribes our duty to God in his worship good as it regulates the offices of human life and preserves the common interest of Mankind 1. 'T is suted to the Nature of Man As God hath given a Law of Nature a fixed Order to Inanimate Creatures so he hath given a Law of Reason to Rational Creatures Other Creatures are not capable of a Law differencing good and evil because they are destitute of Faculties and Capacities to make distinction between them It had not been agreeable to the wisdom of God to propose any Moral Law to them who had neither understanding to discern nor will to chuse 'T is therefore to be observed that whilst Christ exhorted others to the embracing his Doctrine yet he exhorted not little Children though he took them in his Arms because though they had Faculties yet they were not come to such a Maturity as to be capable of a Rational Instruction But there was a necessity for some Command for the government of man since God had made him a Rational Creature it was not agreeable to his wisdom to govern him as a Brute but as a Rational Creature capable of knowing his Precepts and voluntarily walking in them and without a Law he had not been capable of any exercise of his Reason in Services respecting God He therefore gives him a Law with a Covenant annext to it whereby man is obliged to Obedience and secured of a Reward This was enforced with severe Penalties Death with all the Horrours attending it to deterr him from Transgression Gen. 2.17 wherein is implied a Promise of continuance of Life and all its Felicities to allure him to a mindfulness of his Obligation So perfect a Hedge did Divine Wisdom set about him to keep him within the bounds of that Obedience which was both his Debt and Security that wheresoever he looked he saw either something to invite him or something to drive him to the payment of his Duty and perseverance in it Thus the Law was exactly framed to the Nature of man man had twisted in him a desire of Happiness the Promise was suted to cherish this natural Desire He had also the Passion of Fear the proper Object of this was any thing destructive to his Being Nature and Felicity this the threatning met
with In the whole it was accommodated to man as rational Precepts to the Law in his mind Promises to the natural Appetite Threatnings to the most prevailing Affection and to the implanted Desires of preserving both his Being and Happiness in that Being These were rational Motives fitted to the nature of Adam which was above the life God had given Plants and the sense he had given Animals The Command given man in Innocence was suted to his strength and power God gave him not any Command but what he had ability to observe and Since we want not power to forbear an Apple in our corrupted and impotent State he wanted not strength in his state of Integrity The Wisdom of God Commanded nothing but what was very easy to be observed by him and inferior to his natural Ability It had been both unjust and unwise to have commanded him to fly up to the Sun when he had not Wings or stop the Course of the Sea when he had not strength 2. 'T is suted to the happiness and benefit of man God's Laws are not an act of meer Authority respecting his own Glory but of wisdom and goodness respecting mans Benefit They are perfective of mans Nature conferring a Wisdom upon him rejoycing his Heart enlightning his eyes Psal 19.7 8. affording him both a knowledge of God and of himself To be without a Law is for man to be as Beasts without Justice and without Religion Other things are for the good of the Body but the Laws of God for the good of the Soul the more perfect the Law the greater the benefit The Laws given to the Iews were the honour and excellency of that Nation Deut. 1.8 What Nation is there so great that hath statutes and Judgments so righteous They were made States-men in the Judicial Law Ecclesiasticks in the Ceremonial honest men in the Second Table and Divine in the First All his Laws are suted to the true satisfaction of man and the good of Human Society Had God framed a Law only for one Nation there would have been the Characters of a particular Wisdom but now an universal wisdom appears in accommodating his Law not only to this or that particular Society or Corporation of men but to the benefit of all mankind in the variety of Climates and Countries wherein they live Every thing that is disturbing to Human Society is provided agaâ—nst nothing is enjoin'd but what is sweet rational and useful It orders us not to attempt any thing against the life of our Neighbour the honour of his Bed propriety in his Goods and the clearness of his Reputation and if well observed would alter the face of the World and make it look with another hue The World would be alter'd from a brutish to a human World It would châ—nge Lions and Wolves men of Lion-like and Wolvish disposition into reason and sweetness And because the whole Law is sum'd up in love it obligeth us to endeavour the preservation of one anothers Beings the favouring of one anothers Interests and increasing the Goods as much as Iustice will permit and keeping up one anothers Credits because love which is the Soul of the Law is not shewn by a cessation from action but signifies an ardor upon all occasions in doing good I say were this Law well observed the World would be another thing than it is It would become a Religious Fraternity the Voice of Enmity and the Noise of Groans and Cursings would not be heard in our Streets Peace would be in all Borders plenty of Charity in the midst of Cities and Countries Joy and singing would sound in all habitations Mans advantage was design'd in Gods Laws and doth naturally result from the observance of them God so ordered them by his Wisdom that the obedience of man should draw forth his Goodness and prevent those smarting Judgments which were necessary to reduce the Creature to order that would not voluntarily continue in the order God had appointed The Laws of men are often unjust oppressive cruel sometimes against the Law of nature But an universal wisdom and righteousness glitters in the Divine Law There is nothing in it but what is worthy of God and useful for the Creature so that we may well say with Job Who teaches like God Job 36.22 or as some render it who is a law-giver like God Who can say to him thou hast wrought iniquity or folly among men His Precepts were framed for the preservation of man in that rectitude wherein he was Created in that likeness to God wherein he was first made that there might be a correspondence between the Integrity of the Creature and the Goodness of his Creator by the Obedience of man that man might exercise his Faculties in Operations worthy of him and beneficial to the World 3. The Wisdom of God is seen in suting to Laws to the Consciences as well as the Interest of all Mankind Rom. 2.14 The Gentiles do by nature the things contained in the Law so great an affinity there is between the wise Law and the Reason of man There is a natural Beauty emerging from them and darting upon the Reasons and Consciences of men which dictates to them that this Law is worthy to be observed in it self The two main Principles of the Law the Love and worship of God and doing as we would be done by have an indelible impression in the Consciences of all men in regard of the Principle though they are not sutably exprest in the Practise Were there no Law outwardly publisht yet every mans Conscience would dictate to him that God was to be acknowledged worshipped loved as naturally as his Reason would acquaint him that there was such a Being as God This sutableness of them to the Consciences of men is manifest in that the Laws of the best governed Nations among the Heathen have had an agreement with them Nothing can be more exactly composed according to the Rules of right and exact Reason than this no man but approves of something in it yea of the whole when he exerciseth that dimm Reason which he hath Suppose any man not an absolute Atheist he cannot but acknowledge the reasonableness of worshipping God Grant him to be a Spirit and it will presently appear absurd to represent him by any Corporeal Image and derogate from his Excellency by so mean a resemblance with the same easiness he will grant a reverence due to the Name of God that we must not serve our turn of him by calling him to witness to a lye in a solemn Oath That as Worship is due to him so that some stated time is a circumstance necessary to the performance of that Worship And as to the Second Table will any man in his right reason quarrel with that Command that engageth his Inferiors to honour him that secures his Being from a violent murder and his goods from unjust rapine and though by the fury of his Lusts he break the Laws of Wedlock himself
yet he cannot but approve of that Law as it prohibits every man from doing him the like injury and disgrace The sutableness of the Law to the Consciences of men is further evidenced by those furious reflections and strong alarms of Conscience upon a transgression of it and that in all parts of the World more or less in all men So exactly hath Divine wisdom fitted the Law to the Reason and Consciences of men as one Tally to another Indeed without such an agreement no mans Conscience could have any ground for a Hue and Cry nor need any man be startled with the Records of it This manifests the wisdom of God in framing his Law so that the Reasons and consciences of all men do one time or other subscribe to it What Governour in the World is able to make any Law distinct from this revealed by God that shall reach all places all persons all Hearts We may add to this the extent of his Commands in ordering goodness at the root not only in action but affection not only in the motion of the Members but the disposition of the Soul which suting a Law to the inward frame of man is quite out of the compass of the wisdom of any Creature 4. His Wisdom is seen in the incouragements he gives for the studying and observing his will Psal 19.11 In keeping thy Commandments there is great reward The variety of them there is not any particular Genius in man but may find something sutable to win upon him in the revealed will of God There is a strain of Reason to satisfy the Rational of Eloquence to gratify the the Fanciful of Interest to allure the Selfish of Terror to startle the Obstinate As a skilful Angler stores himself with Baits according to the Appetites of the sorts of fish he intends to catch so in the Word of God there are varieties of Baits according to the varieties of the Inclinations of men Threatnings to work upon Fear Promises to work upon Love Examples of holy men set out for Imitation and those plainly neither his Threatnings nor his Promises are dark as the Heathen Oracles but peremptory as becomes a Soveraign Law giver and plain as was necessary for the understanding of a Creature As he deals graciously with men in exhorting and incouraging them so he deals wisely herein by taking away all Excuse from them if they ruine the interest of their Souls by denying Obedience to their Soveraign Again the Rewards God proposeth are accommodated not to the Brutish parts of man his Carnal Sense and Fleshly Appetite but to the Capacity of a Spiritual Soul which admits only of Spiritual Gratifications and cannot in its own Nature without a sordid subjection to the Humors of the Body be moved by Sensual Proposals God backs his Precepts with that which the Nature of Man longed for and with Spiritual Delights which can only satisfy a rational Appetite And thereby did as well gratifie the noblest Desires in man as Oblige him to the noblest Service and Work * Amytaut Indeed Vertue and Holiness being perfectly amiable ought chiefly to affect our Understandings and by them draw our Wills to the esteem and pursuit of them But since the desire of Happiness is inseparable from the Nature of Man as impossible to be dis-join'd as an Inclination to descend to be severed from heavy Bodies or an instinct to ascend from Light and A ry of Substances God serves himself of the Inclination of our Natures to happiness to engender in us an esteem and affection to the Holiness he doth require He proposeth the enjoyment of a supernatural Good and everlasting Glory as a Bait to that insatiable longing our Natures have for Happiness to receive the impression of Holiness into our Souls And besides he doth proportion Rewards according to the degrees of mens Industry Labour and Zeal for him and weighs out a Recompence not only suted to but above the service He that improves five Talents is to be ruler over five Cities that is a greater proportion of Honour and Glory than another Luke 19.17.18 As a wise Father excites the affection of his Children to things worthy of Praise by varieties of Recompenses according to their several Actions And it was the Wisdom of the Steward in the Judgment of our Saviour to give every one the portion that belonged to him Luke 12.42 There is no part of the Word wherein we meet not with the will and Wisdom of God varieties of Duties and varieties of Encouragement mingled together 5. The Wisdom of God is seen In fitting the Revelations of his will to after-times and for the preventing of the foreseen Corruptions of men The whole Revelation of the mind of God is stored with Wisdom in the words connexion sence It looks backwards to past and forwards to Ages to come A hidden wisdom lies in the bowels of it like Gold in a Mine The Old testament was so composed as to fortify the New when God should bring it to light The Foundations of the Gopel were laid in the Law The Predictions of the Prophets and figures of the Law were so wisely framed and laid down in such clear expressions as to be Proofs of the Authority of the New Testament and Convictions of Jesus his being the Messiah Luke 24.14 Things concerning Christ were written in Moses the Prophets and Psalms and do to this day stare the Jews so in the face that they are fain to invent absurd and Nonsensical Interpretations to excuse their Unbelief and continue themselves in their obstinate Blindness And in pursuance of the efficacy of those Predictions it was a part of the Wisdom of God to bring forth the Translation of the Old Testament by the means Ptolomy King of Egypt some hundreds of years before the coming of Christ into the Greek Language the Tongue then most known in the World And why to prepare the Gentiles by the reading of it for that gracious call he intended them and for the entertainment of the Gospel which some few years after was to be publisht among them that by reading the Predictions so long before made they might more readily receive the accomplishment of them in their due time The Scripture is written in such a manner as to obviate Errors foreseen by God to enter into the Church It may be wondred why the Vniversal Particle should be inserted by Christ in the giving the Cup in the Supper which was not in the distributing the Bread Mat. 26 27. Drink ye all of it Not at the distributing the Bread Eat you all of it And Mark in his Relation tels us They all drank of it Mark 11.23 The Church of Rome hath been the occasion of discovering to us the Wisdom of our Saviour in in s erting that Particle all since they were so bold to exclude the Communicants from the Cup by a trick of Concomitancy Christ foresaw the Error and therefore put in a little word to obviate a
incourage our Obedience as to illustrate his Glory We cannot conceive â—hat could be done greater for the salvation of our Souls and consequently what could have been done more to enforce our observance We have a Redeemer as man to copy it to us and as God to perfect us in it It would make the heart of any to tremble to wound him that hath provided such a salve for our Sores and to make Grace a warrant for Rebellion Motives capable to form Rocks into a flexibleness Thus is the Wisdom of God seen in giving us a ground of the surest confidence and furnishing us with incentives to the greatest Obedience by the horrors of wrath death and sufferings of our Saviour 8. The Wisdom of God is apparent in the Condition he hath settled for the enjoying the fruits of Redemption and this is faith a wise and reasonable Condition And the concomitants of it 1. In that it is suted to mans lapsed state and Gods Glory Innocence is not required here that had been a Condition impossible in its own nature after the Fall The rejecting of Mercy is now only condemning where mercy is proposed Had the Condition of Perfection in Works been required it had rather been a condemnation than redemption Works are not demanded whereby the Creature might ascribe any thing to himself but a Condition which continues in man a sense of his Apostacy abates all aspiring Pride and makes the reward of Grace not of Debt A Condition whereby Mercy is owned and the Creature emptied Flesh silenc'd in the Dust and God set upon his Throne of Grace and Authority The Creature brought to the lowest debasement and Divine Glory raised to the highest pitch The Creature is brought to acknowledge Mercy and seal to Justice to own the Holiness of God in the hatred of sin the Justice of God in the Punishment of sin and the Mercy of God in the pardoning of sin A condition that despoils Nature of all its pretended excellency Beats down the glory of man at the foot of God 1 Cor. 1.29.31 It subjects the Reason and Will of man to the Wisdom and Authority of God it brings the Creature to an unreserved submission and intire resignation God is made the Soveraign Cause of all the Creature continued in his emptiness and reduced to a greater dependance upon God than by a Creation depending upon him for a constant influx for an intire happiness A Condition that renders God glorious in the Creature and the fallen creature happy in God God glorious in his Condescension to Man and Man happy in his emptiness before God Faith is made the Condition of mans recovery that the lofty looks of man might be humbled and the haughtiness of man be pulled down Isa 2.11 that every towring imagination might be levelled 2. Cor. 10.5 Man must have all from without doors he must not live upon himself but upon anothers allowance He must stand to the provision of God and be a perpetual Sutor at his Gates 2. A Condition opposite to that which was the cause of the Fall We fell from God an unbelief of the Threatning he recovers us by a belief of the Promise by Unbelief we laid the Foundation of Gods dishonour by Faith therefore God exalts the Glory of his free Grace We lost our selves by a desire of self dependence and our return is ordered by a way of self-emptiness 'T is reasonable we should be restored in a way contrary to that whereby we fell We sinned by a refusal of cleaving to God t is a part of divine Wisdom to restore us in a denial of our own righteousness and strength * Laud against Fisher p. 5. Man having sinned by Pride the Wisdom of God humbles him saith one at the very root of the Tree of Knowledge and makes him deny his own Vnderstanding and submit to Faith or else for ever to lose his desired Felicity 3. It is a Condition suted to the Common Sentiment and custome of the World There is more of belief than reason in the World All Instructers and Masters in Sciences and Arts require first a belief in their Disciples and a resignation of their Understandings and Wills to them And it is the Wisdom of God to require that of man which his own reason makes him submit to another which is his fellow Creature He therefore that quarrels with the Condition of Faith must quarrel with all the World since Belief is the beginning of all Knowledge †Bradward p. 28. yea and most of the Knowledge in the World may rather come under the title of Belief than of Knowledge For what we think we know this day we may find from others such Arguments as may stagger our Knowledge and make us doubt of that we thought our selves certain of before Nay sometimes we change our Opinions our Selves without anâ— Instructor and see a reason to entertain an Opinion quite contrary to what we had before And if we found a general Judgment of others â—o vote against what we think we know it would make us give the less Credit to our selves and our own Sentiments All Knowledge in the World is only a belief depending upon the testimony or arguings of others for indeed it may be said of all men as in Job 8. Job 9. We are but of yesterday and know nothing Since therefore Belief is so universal a thing in the World the Wisdom of God requires that of us which every man must count reasonable or render himself utterly ignorant of any thing It is a Condition that is common to all Religions All Religions are Founded upon a Belief Unless men did believe future things they would not hope nor fear A Belief and Resignation was required in all the Idolatries in the World so that God requires nothing but what a universal custome of the World gives its suffrage to the reasonableness of Indeed justifying Faith is not suted to the Sentiments of men but that Faith which must precede iustifying a beliefe of the Doctrine though not comprehended by Reason is common to the custome of the World * Jâ—neway p. 88. 'T is no less madness not to submit our Reason to Faith than not to regulate our Fancies by Reason 4. This Condition of Faith and Repentances is suted to the Conscience of Men. The Law of Nature teaches us thâ—t we are bound to believe every revelation from God when it is made known to us And not only to assent to it as true but embrace it as good This Nature dictates that we are as much obligeâ— to believe God because of his Truth as to love him because of his Goodness Every mans Reason tells him he cannot obey a Precept nor depend upon a Promise unless he believes both the one and the other No man's Conscience but will inform him upon hearing the revelation of God concerning his excellent contrivance of Redemption and the way to Enjoy it that it is very reasonable he should strip off
of God and aspired to be a sharer with him in his Infinite Knowledge Would not let him be the only wise God but cherished an ambition to be his Partner Just as if a Beam were able to imagine it might be as bright as the Sun or a Spark fancy it could be as full fraught with Heat as the whole Element of Fire Man would not submit to the Infinite Wisdom of God in the prohibition of one single Fruit in the Garden when by the right of his Soveraign Authority he might have granted him only the use of one All Presumptuous sins are of thâ—s nature they are therefore called Reproaches of God Numb 15.30 the Soul that doth ought presumptuously reproacheth the Lord. All Reproaches are either for Natural Moral or Intellectual defects All Reproaches of God must imply either a Weakness or Unrighteousness in God If Unrighteousness his Holiness is denied if Weakness his Wisdom is blemished In General All Sin strikes at this Perfection two ways 1. As it defaceth the wise workmanship of God Every Sin is a deforming and blemishing our own Souls which as they are the prime Creatures in the lower World so they have greater Characters of Divine Wisdom in the Fabrick of them But this Image of God is ruin'd and broken by Sin Though the spoiling of it be a scorn of his Holiness 't is also an affront to his Wisdom for though his Power was the cause of the production of so fair a Piece yet his Wisdom was the guide of his Power and his Holiness the Pattern whereby he wrought it His Power effected it and his Holiness was exemplified in it but his Wisdom contrived it If a Man had a curious Clock or Watch which had cost him many years pains and the strength of his Skill to frame it for another after he had seen and considered it to trample upon it and crush it in pieces would argue a contempt of the Artificers Skill God hath shewn infinite Art in the Creation of Man but Sin unbeautifies Man and ravisheth his Excellency It cuts and slasheth the Image of God stampt by Divine Wisdom as though it were an Object only of Scorn and Contempt The Sinner in every Sin acts as if he intended to put himself in a better posture and in a fairer dress than the Wisdom of God hath put him in by Creation 2. In the slighting his Laws The Laws of God are highly Rational they are drawn from the depths of the Divine Understanding wherein there is no unclearness and no defect As his Understanding apprehends all things in their true Reason so his Will enjoyns all things for worthy and wise Ends His Laws are contrived by his Wisdom for the happiness of Man whose Happiness and the Mâ—thods to it he understands better than Men or Angels can do His Laws being the Orders of the Wisest Understanding every breach of his Law is a flying in the Face of his Wisdom All Human Laws though they are enforced by Soveraign Authority yet they are or ought to be in the composing of them founded upon Reason and should be particular applications of the Law of Nature to this or that particular emergency The Laws of God then who is summa ratio are the birth of the truest Reason though the Reason of every one of them may not be so clear to us Every Law though it consists in an act of the Will yet doth presuppose an act of the Understanding The act of the Divine Vnderstanding in framing the Law must be supposed to precede the act of his Will in commanding the Observance of that Law So every Sin against the Law is not only against the Will of God commanding but the Reason of God contriving and a cleaving to our own Reason rather than the Understanding or Mind of God As if God had mistaken in making his Law and we had more understanding to frame a better and more conducing to our happiness As if God were not Wise enough to govern us and prescribe what we should do and what we should avoid as if he designed not our welfare but our misfortune Whereas the Precepts of God are not tyrannical Edicts or Acts of meer Will but the fruits of Counsel and therefore every breach of them is a real declamation against his Discretion and Judgment and preferring our own Imaginations or the Suggestions of the Devil as our Rule before the Results of Divine Counsel While we acknowledge him Wise in our Opinion we speak him Foolish by our Practise when instead of being guided by him we will guide our selves No Man will question but it is a controuling Divine Wisdom to make Alterations in his Precepts dogmatically either to add some of their own or expunge any of his And is it not a Crime of the like reflection to alter them Practically When we will observe one part of the Law and not another part but pick and choose where we please our selves as our Humors and Carnal Interest prompts us It is to charge that part of the Law with Folly which we refuse to conform unto The more cunning any Man is in Sin the more his sin is against Divine Wisdom as if he thought to out-wit God He that receives the Promises of God and the Testimony of Christ sets to his Seal that God is true John 3.33 By the like strength of Argument it will undeniably follow That he that refuseth Obedience to his Precept sets to his Seal that God is foolish Were they not Rational God would not enjoyn them and if they are Rational we are Enemies to Infinite Wisdom by not complying with them If Infinite Prudence hath made the Law why is not every part of it observed if it were not made with the best Wisdom why is any part of it observed If the defacing his Image be any Sin as being a defaming his Wisdom in Creation the breaking his Law is no less a Sin as being a disgracing his Wisdom in his Administration 'T is upon this account likely that the Scripture so often counts Sinners Fools since it is certainly inexcusable Folly to contradict undeniable and infallible Wisdom yet this is done in the least Sin And as he that breaks one title of the Law is deservedly accounted guilty of the breach of the whole James 2.10 so he that despiseth the least stamp of Wisdom in the minutest part of the Law is deservedly counted as a Contemner of it in the frame of the whole Statute-Book But in Particular the Wisdom of God is affronted and Invaded 1. By introducing new Rules and Modes of Worship different from Divine Institutions Is not this a manifest reflection on this Perfection of God as though he had not been Wise enough to provide for his own Honour and model his own Sâ—rvice but stood in need of our directions and the caprichio's of our Brains Some have observed that it is a greater Sin in Worship to do what we should not than to omit what we should
his hand without his positive Will He hath an Arm not to be moved a Hand not to be wrung aside God is represented on his Throne like a Jasper Stone Revel 4.3 as one of Invincible Power when he comes to Judge the Jasper is a Stone which withstands the greatest force * Grot. in loc Though Men resist the Order of his Laws they cannot resist the Sentence of their punishment nor the Execution of it None can any more exempt themselves from the Arm of his Strength than they can from the Authority of his Dominion As they must bow to his Soveraignty so they must sink under his Force A Prisoner in this World may make his Escape but a Prisoner in the World to come cannot Job 10.7 There is none that can deliver out of thine hand There is none to deliver when he tears in pieces Psal 50.22 His Strength is uncontroulable hence his Throne is represented as a Fiery flame Dan. 7.9 As a spark of Fire hath power to kindle one thing after another and increase till it consumes a Forrest a City swallow up all combustible Matter till it consumes a World and many Worlds if they were in Being What power hath a Tree to resist the Fire though it seems mighty when it outbraves the Winds What Man to this day hath been able to free himself from that Chain of Death God clapt upon him for his Revolt And if he be too feeble to rescue himself from a Temporal much less from an Eternal Death The Devils have to this minute groaned under the Pile of Wrath without any success in delivering themselves by all their strength which much surmounts all the strength of Mankind nor have they any hopes to work their rescue to Eternity How foolish is every Sinner Can we poor Worms strut it out against Infinite Power We cannot resist the meanest Creatures when God Commissions them and puts a Sword into their hands They will not no not the Worms be startled at the glory of a King when they have their Creators Warrant to be his Executioners †Acts 12.23 Who can withstand him when he commands the Waves and Inundations of the Sea to leap over the Shore when he divides the Ground in Earthquakes and makes it gape wide to swallow the Inhabitants of it when the Air is corrupted to breed Pestilences when Storms and Showers unseasonably falling putrifie the Fruits of the Earth what Created Power can mend the matter and with a prevailing Voice say to him What dost thou There are two Atributes God will make glister in Hell to the full his Wrath and his Power Rom. 9.22 What if God willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known endured with much Longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction If it were meer Wrath and no Power to second it it were not so terrible but 't is Wrath and Power both are joyn'd together 'T is not only a sharp Sword but a powerful Arm and not only that for then it were well for the damned Creature To have many sharp blows and from a strong Arm this may be without putting forth the highest strength a Man hath But in this God makes it his design to make his Power known and conspicuous He takes the Sword as it were in both hands that he may shew the strength of his Arm in striking the harder blow and therefore the Apostle calls it 2 Thess 1.9 the Glory of his Power which puts a Sting into this Wrath and it is called Revel 19.15 the fierceness of the wrath of the Almighty God will do it in such a manner as to make Men sensible of his Almightiness in every stroke How great must that Vengeance be that is backed by all the Strength of God When there will be a powerful Wrath without a powerful Compassion when all his Power shall be exercised in Punishing and not the least mite of it exercis'd in Pitying how irresistible will be the load of such a weighty Hand How can the dust of the Ballance break the mighty Bars or get out of the Lists of a powerful Vengeance or hope for any grain of Comfort Oh that every obstinate Sinner would think of this and consider his unmeasurable boldness in thinking himself able to grapple with Omnipotence What force can any have to resist the presence of him before whom Rocks melt and the Heavens at length shall be shrivell'd up as a Parchment by the last Fire As the Light of Gods face is too dazeling to be beheld by us so the Arm of his Power is too Mighty to be opposed by us His Almightiness is above the reach of our Pot-sheard strength as his Infiniteness is above the capacity of our Purblind Understandings God were not Omnipotent if his Power could be rendred ineffectual by any Use II A Second Vse of this Point from the Consideration of the Infinite Power of God is of Comfort As Omnipotence is an Ocean that cannot be fathom'd Comfort so the Comforts from it are streams that cannot be exhausted What Joy can be wanting to him that finds himself folded in the Arms of Omnipotence This Perfection is made over to Believers in the Covenant as well as any other Attribute I am the Lord your God therefore that Power which is as essential to the Godhead as any other Perfection of his Nature is in the rights and extent of it assured unto you Nay may we not say It is made over more than any other because it is that which animates every other Perfection and is the Spirit that gives them Motion and Appearance in the World If God had exprest himself in particular as I am a True God a Wise God a Loving God a Righteous God I am yours what would all or any of those have signified unless the other also had been implyed as I am an Almighty God I am your God In Gods making over himself in any particular Attribute this of his Power is included in every one without which all his other Grants would be insignificant 'T is a Comfort that Power is in the hand of God it can never be better placed for he can never use his Power to injure his confiding Creature If it were in our own hands we might use it to injure our selves 'T is a Power in the hand of an indulgent Father not a hard-hearted Tyrant 'T is a just Power His right hand is full of Righteousness Psal 48.10 because of his Righteousness he can never use it ill and because of his Wisdom he can never use it unseasonably Men that have strength often misplace the actings of it because of their Folly and sometimes employ it to base ends because of their Wickedness But this Power in God is alway awakned by Goodness and conducted by Wisdom 't is never exercis'd by Self-will and Passion but according to the Immutable Rule of his own Nature which is Righteousness How Comfortable is it to think that you have a
such a Property that it was capable of receiving it This Capacity is from the nature of the Metal by God's Creation of it but the carving the Figure of this or that Man is not the Act of God but the Act of Man As Images in Scripture are called the Work of mens hands in regard of the imagery though the Matter Wood or Stone upon which the Image was carv'd was a Work of God's Creative Power When an Artificer frames an excellent Instrument and a Musician exactly tunes it and it comes out of their hands without a blemish but capable to be untun'd by some rude hand or receive a crack by a suddain fall if it meet with a Disaster is either the Workman or Musician to be blam'd The ruin of a House caused by the wastfulness or carelesness of the Tenant is not to be imputed to the Workman that built it strong and left it in a good Posture 2. Proposition God's Holiness is not blemisht by enjoyning Man a Law which he knew he would not observe 1. The Law as not above his strength Had the Law been impossible to be observed no Crime could have been imputed to the Subject the fault had layn wholly upon the Governour the Non-observance of it had been from a want of strength and not from a want of will Had God commanded Adam to fly up to the Sun when he had not given him Wings Adam might have a will to obey it but his Power would be too short to perform it But the Law set him for a Rule had nothing of impossibility in it it was easie to be observed the Command was rather below than above his strength and the sanction of it was more apt to restrain and fear him from the breach of it than encourage any daring Attempts against it He had as much power or rather more to conform to it than to warp from it and greater arguments and interest to be observant of it than to violate it his All was secured by the one and his Ruin ascertained by the other * 1 Joh. 5.3 The Commands of God are not grievous from the first to the last Command there is nothing impossible nothing hard to the original and created Nature of Man which were all summ'd up in a love to God which was the pleasure and delight of Man as well as his Duty if he had not by inconsiderateness neglected the dictates and resolves of his own Understanding The Law was suted to the strength of Man and fitted for the Improvement and Perfection of his Nature In which respect the Apostle calls it good as it refers to Man as well as holy as it refers to God †Rom. 7.12 Now since God Created man a Creature capable to be governed by a Law and as a Rational Creature endued with Understanding and Will not to be govern'd according to his Nature without a Law was it congruous to the Wisdom of God to respect only the future state of Man which from the Depth of his Infinite Knowledge he did infallibly foresee would be miserable by the wilful defection of Man from the Rule Had it been agreeable to the Wisdom of God to respect only this future state and not the present state of the Creature and therefore leave him lawless because he knew he would violate the Law Should God forbear to act like a wise Governour because he foresaw that Man would cease to act like an obedient Subject Shall a righteous Magistrate forbear to make just and good Laws because he foresees either from the dispositions of his Subjects their ill humour or some Circumstances which will intervene that Multitudes of them will incline to break those Laws and fall under the Penalty of them No blame can be upon that Magistrate who minds the Rule of Righteousness and the necessary Duty of his Government since he is not the Cause of those turbulent Affections in Men which he wisely foresees will rise up against his just Edicts 2. Though the Law now be above the strength of man yet is not the holiness of God blemisht by keeping it up 'T is true God hath been graciously pleased to mitigate the severity and rigour of the Law by the entrance of the Gospel yet where men refuse the terms of the Gospel they continue themselves under the Condemnation of the Law and are justly guilty of the breach of it though they have no strength to observe it The Law as I said before was not above mans strength when he was possessed of Original Righteousness though it be above mans strength since he was stript of Original Righteousness The Command was dated before man had contracted his Impotency when he had a power to keep it as well as to break it Had it been enjoyned to man only after the fall and not before he might have had a better pretence to excuse himself because of the impossibility of it yet he would not have had sufficient excuse since the impossibility did not result from the Nature of the Law but from the corrupted Nature of the Creature It was weak through the Flesh Rom. 8.3 but it was promulg'd when man had a strength proportion'd to the Commands of it And now since man hath unhappily made himself uncapable of obeying it must God's Holiness in his Law be blemisht for enjoyning it Must he abrogate those Commands and prohibit what before he enjoyned for the satisfaction of the corrupted Creature would not this be his ceasing to be holy that his Creature might be unblameably unrighteous Must God strip himself of his Holiness because man will not discharge his Iniquity He cannot be the cause of sin by keeping up the Law who would be the cause of all the unrighteousness of men by removing the Authority of it Some things in the Law that are intrinsecally good in their own Nature are indispensable and it is repugnant to the Nature of God not to Command them If he were not the Guardian of his indispensable Law he would be the Cause and Countenancer of the Creatures Iniquity So little reason have men to charge God with being the Cause of their sin by not repealing his Law to gratifie their Impotence that he would be unholy if he did God must not lose his Purity because man hath lost his and cast away the Right of his Soveraignty because man hath cast away his Power of Obedience 3. God's foreknowledge that his Law would not be observ'd lays no blame upon him Though the foreknowledge of God be infallible yet it doth not necessitate the Creature in acting It was certain from Eternity that Adam would fall that men would do such and such Actions that Judas would betray our Saviour God foreknew all those things from Eternity but it is as certain that this foreknowledge did not necessitate the will of Adam or any other Branch of his Posterity in the doing those Actions that were so foreseen by God they voluntarily run into such Courses
to it could not be displeasing to him God could never be displeased with his own Act He is not as man that he should repent 1 Sam. 15.29 What God cannot repent of he cannot but approve of 'T is contrary to the blessedness of God to disapprove of and be displeased with any act of his own Will If he hated any act of his own Will he would hate himself he would be under a torture Every one that hates his own acts is under some disturbance and torment for them That which is permitted by him is in it self and in regard of the evil of it hateful to him But as the prospect of that good which he aims at in the permission of it is pleasing to him so that act of his Will whereby he permits it is ushered in by an approving act of his Understanding Either God approved of the permission or not if he did not approve his own act of permission he could not have decreed an act of permission 'T is unconceivable that God should decree such an act which he detested and positively will that which he hated Though God hated sin as being against his Holiness yet he did not hate the permission of sin as being subservient by the Immensity of his Wisdom to his own Glory He could never be displeased with that which was the result of his Eternal Counsel as this decree of permitting sin was as well as any other decree resolved upon in his own Breast For as God acts nothing in Time but what he decreed from Eternity so he permits nothing in time but what he decreed from Eternity to permit To speak properly therefore God doth not will sin but he wills the permission of it and this Will to permit is Active and positive in God 4. This act of permission is not a meer and naked permission but such an one as is attended with a certainty of the event The decrees of God to make use of the sin of Man for the glory of his Grace in the Mission and Passion of his Son hung upon this entrance of sin Would it consist with the Wisdom of God to decree such great and stupendous things the event whereof should depend upon an uncertain Foundation which he might be mistaken in God would have sate in Councel from Eternity to no purpose if he had only permitted those things to be done without any knowledge of the event of this permission God would not have made such provision for Redemption to no purpose or an uncertain purpose which would have been if Man had not fallen or if it had been an uncertainty with God whether he would fall or no. Though the Will of God about sin was permissive yet the Will of God about that Glory he would promote by the defect of the Creature was positive and therefore he would not suffer so many positive acts of his Will to hang upon an uncertain Event and therefore he did wisely and righteously order all things to the accomplishment of his great and gracious Purposes 5. This act of permission doth not taint the holiness of God That there is such an act as permission is clear in Scripture Acts 14.16 Who in times past suffered all Nations to walk in their own ways But that it doth not blemish the Holiness of God will appear 1. From the nature of this permission 1. 'T is not a Moral permission a giving liberty of toleration by any Law to commit sin with impunity when what one Law did forbid another Law doth leave indifferent to be done or not as a Man sees good in himself As when there is a Law made among Men That no man shall go out of such a City or Country without license To go out without license is a Crime by the Law but when that Law is repealed by another that gives liberty for men to go and come at their pleasure It doth not make their going or coming necessary but leaves those which were before bound to do as they see good in themselves Such a permission makes a Fact lawful though not necessary a man is not oblig'd to do it but he is left to his own discretion to do as he pleases without being chargeable with a Crime for doing it Such a permission there was granted by God to Adam of eating of the fruits of the Garden to choose any of them for Food except the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was a Precept to him not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil but the other was a Permission whereby it was lawful for him to feed upon any other that was most agreeable to his Appetite But there is not such a Permission in the case of Sin this had been an Indulgence of it which had freed Man from any Crime and consequently from Punishment because by such a Permission by Law he would have had Authority to Sin if he pleased God did not remove the Law which he had before placed as a Bar against Evil nor ceas'd that Moral Impediment of his Threatning Such a Permission as this to make Sin Lawful or Indifferent had been a blot upon Gods Holiness 2. But this Permission of God in the case of Sin is no more than the not hindering a sinful Action which he could have prevented 'T is not so much an Action of God as a suspension of his Influence which might have hindered an Evil Act and a forbearing to restrain the Faculties of Man from Sin 't is properly the not exerting that Efficacy which might change the Counsels that are taken and prevent the Action intended As when one Man sees another ready to fall and can preserve him from falling by reaching out his hand he permits him to fall that is he hinders him not from falling So God describes his Act about Abimelech Gen 20.6 I withheld thee from sinning against me therefore suffered I thee not to touch her If Abimelech had sinned he had sinned by Gods permission that is by Gods not hindering or not restraining him by making any Impressions upon him So that Permission is only a withholding that Help and Grace which if bestowed would have been an effectual Remedy to prevent a Crime And it is rather a Suspension or Cessation than properly a Permission and Sin may be said to be committed not without Gods permission rather than by his Permission Thus in the Fall of Man God did not hold the Reins strict upon Satan to restrain him from laying the Bait nor restrain Adam from swallowing the Bait He kept to himself that Efficacious Grace which he might have darted out upon Man to prevent his Fall God left Satan to his Malice of Tempting and Adam to his liberty of Resisting and his own strength to use that sufficient Grace he had furnish'd him with whereby he might have resisted and overcome the Temptation As he did not drive Man to it so he did not secretly restrain him from it So in the
to the Innocent and Culpable Could you account him Good if he did always with pleasure behold Evil and perpetually suffer the Oppressions of the Innocent under unpunisht Wickedness How should we know the Goodness of the Divine Nature and his Affection to the goodness of his Creature if he did not by some acts of severity witness his implacable aversion against Sin and his care to preserve the good Government of the World If corrupted Creatures should always be exempt from the effects of his Indignation he would declare himself not to be Infinitely Good because he would not be really Righteous No Man thinks it a Natural Vice in the Sun by the power of its scorching heat to dry up and consume the unwholsom Vapours of the Air nor are the demonstrations of Divine Justice any blots upon his Goodness since they are both for the defence and glory of his Holiness and for the preservation of the beauty and order of the World 2. Is it not part of the Goodness of God to make Laws and annex Threatn ngs And shall it be an impeachment of his Goodness to support them The more severe Laws are made for deterring Evil the better is that Prince accounted in making such provision for the welfare of the Community The design of Laws and the design of upholding the honour of those Laws by the punishment of Offenders is to promote Goodness and restrain Evil The Execution of those Laws must be therefore pursuant to the same design of Goodness which first setled them Would it not be contrary to Goodness to suffer that which was design'd for the support of Goodness to be scorn'd and slighted It would neither be prudence nor goodness but folly and vice to let Laws which were made to promote Vertue be broken with impunity Would not this be to weaken Vertue and give a new life and vigor to Vice Not only the Righteousness of the Law it self but the Wisdom of the Law-giver would be exposed to contempt if the Violations of it remained uncontroul'd and the Violence offer'd by Men passed unpunished None but will acknowledge the Divine Precepts to be the Image of the Righteousness of God and beneficial for the common good of the World * Rom. 7.12 The Law is holy just and good and so is every Precept of it The Law was for no other end but to keep the Creature in subjection to and dependance on God This dependance could not be preserved without a Law nor that Law be kept in Reputation without a Penalty nor would that Penalty be significant without an Execution Every Law loseth the nature of a Law without a Penalty and the Penalty loseth its vigor without the infliction of it How can those Laws attain their end if the Transgressions of them be not punished Would not the wickedness of Mens hearts be encouraged by such a kind of uncomely Goodness And all the threatnings be to no other end than to engender vain and fruitless fears in the minds of Men Is it good for the Majesty of God to suffer it self to be trampled on by his Vassals To suffer Men by their Rebellion to level his Law with the wickedness of their own hearts and by impunity slight his own Glory and incourage their Disobedience Who would give any Man any Prince any Father that should do so the name of a good Governor If it were a fruit of Divine Goodness to make Laws is it contrary to Goodness to support the honour of them 'T is every whit as rational and as good to vindicate the honour of his Laws by Justice as at first to settle them by Authority As much goodness to vindicate it from Contempt as at first to Enact it As it is as much Wisdom to preserve a Law as at first to frame it Shall his Precepts be thought by him unworthy of a support that were not thought by him unworthy to be made The same reason of Goodness that led him to enjoyn them will lead him to revenge them Did Evil appear odious to him while he Enacted his Law and would not his own Goodness as well as his Wisdom appear odious to him if he did never Execute it Would it not be a denial of his own Goodness to be led by the foolish and corrupt Judgment of his Creatures and slight his own Law because his Rebels spurn at it Since he valued it before they could actually contemn it would he not misjudge his own Law and his own Wisdom discount from the true value of them condemn his own Acts censure his Precepts as Unrighteous and therefore Evil and Injurious Remove the differences between Good and Evil look upon Vice and Virtue and Wickedness as Righteousness if he thought his Commands unworthy of a Vindication How can there be any support to the honour of his Precepts without sometimes Executing the severity of his Threatnings And as to his Threatnings of Punishment for the breach of his Laws are they not designed to discourage Wickedness as the Promises of Reward were designed to encourage Goodness Hath he not multiplied the one to scare Men from Sin as well as the other to allure Men to Obedience Is not the same Truth engaged to support the one as well as the other And how could he be abundant in Goodness if he were not abundant in Truth Both are linkt together * Exod. 34.6 If he neglected his Truth he would be out of love with his own Goodness since it cannot be manifested in performing the Promises to the Obedient if it be not also manifested in executing his Threatnings upon the Rebellious Had not God annext Threatnings to his Laws he would have had no care of his own Goodness The Order between God and the Creature wherein the declaration of his Goodness consisted might have been easily broken by his Creature Man would have freed himself from subjection to God been unaccountable to him Had this consisted with that infinite Goodness whereby he loves himself and loves his Creatures As therefore the annexing Threatnings to his Law was a part of his Goodness the Execution of them is so far from being a blemish that it is the honour of his Goodness The Rewards of Obedience and the Punishment of Disobedience refer to the same end viz. the due manifestation of the valuation of his own Law the glorifying his own Goodness which enjoyned so beneficial a Law for Man and the support of that goodness in the Creatures which by that Law he demands righteously and kindly of them 3. Hence it follows That not to punish Evil would be a want of Goodness to himself The Goodness of God is an indulgent Goodness in a way of Wisdom and Reason not a fond Goodness in a way of weakness and folly Would it not be a weakness always to bear with the Impenitent A want of expressing a goodness to Goodness it self Would not Goodness have more reason to complain for a want of Justice to rescue it
Goodness would not have oblig'd the Creature to any thing but what is not only free from damaging him but wholly conducing to his VVelfare and Perfective of his Nature Infinite Wisdom could not order any thing but what was agreeable to Infinite Goodness As his Laws are the most Rational as being the contrivance of Infinite Wisdom so they are the best as being the Fruit of Infinite Goodness His Laws are not only the acts of his Soveraign Authority but the Effluxes of his Loving-Kindness and the Conductors of Man to an enjoyment of a greater Bounty He minds as well the promotion of his Creatures Felicity as the asserting his own Authority As good Princes make Laws for their Subjects benefit as well as their own honour What was said of a more difficult and burdensom Law long after Mans fall may much more be said of the easie Law of Nature in the state of Mans Innocence that it was for our good * Deut. 10.12 13. He never pleaded with the Israelites for the observation of his Commands upon the account of his Authority so much as upon the score of their benefit by them †Deut. 4.40 * Deut. 12.28 And when his Precepts were broken he seems sometimes to be more griev'd for Mens impairing their own felicity by it than for their violating his Authority †Esaiah 48.18 Oh that thou hadst hearken'd to my Commandments then had thy Peace been as a River Goodness cannot prescribe a thing prejudicial whatsoever it enjoyns is beneficial to the Spiritual and Eternal Happiness of the Rational Creature This was both the design of the Law given and the end of the Law Christ in his Answer to the Young mans Question refers him to the Moral Law which was the Law of Nature in Adam as that whereby Eternal Life was to be gained Which evidenceth that when the Law was first given as the Covenant of VVorks it was for the happiness of Man and the end of giving it was that Man might have Eternal Life by it There would else be no strength or truth in that Answer of Christ to that Ruler And therefore Stephen calls the Law given by Moses which was the same with the Law of Nature in Adam * Acts 7.38 The living Oracles He enjoyned Mens Services to them not simply for his own Glory but his Glory in Mens VVelfare As if there were any Being better than himself his Goodness and Righteousness would guide him to love that better than himself because it is Good and Righteous to love that best which is most amiable So if there were any that could do us more good and shour down more happiness upon us than himself †1 Kings 18.21 he would be content we should obey that as Soveraign and Steer our Course according to his Laws If God be God follow him but if Baal then follow him If the observance of the Precepts of Baal be more beneficial to you If you can advance your Nature by his Service and gain a more mighty Crown of Happiness than by mine follow him with all my heart I never intended to enjoyn you any thing to impair but increase your Happiness The chief design of God in his Law is the Happiness of the Subject and Obedience is intended by him as a means for the attaining of Happiness as well as preserving his own Soveraignty This is the reason why he wished that Israel had walked in his ways that their time might have endured for ever Psal 81.13 15 16. And by the same reason this was his intendment in his Law given to Man and his Covenant made with Man at the Creation that he might be fed with the finest part of his Bounty and be satisfied with Honey out of the Eternal Rock of Ages To Paraphrase his Expression there The Goodness of God appears further 3. In engaging Man to Obedience by Promises and Threatnings A Threatning is only mentioned Gen. 2.17 but a Promise is implied If Eternal Death were fixed for Transgression Eternal Life was thereby design'd for Obedience And that it was so the Answer of Christ to the Ruler evidenceth that the first intendment of the Precept was the Eternal Life of the Subject order'd to obey it 1. God might have acted in settling his Law only as a Soveraign Though he might have dealt with Man upon the score of his absolute Dominion over him as his Creature and signified his pleasure upon the right of his Soveraignty threatning only a Penalty if Man transgressed without the promising a bountiful acknowledgment of his Obedience by a Reward as a Benefactor yet he would treat with Man in gentle Methods and Rule him in a tract of Sweetness as well as Soveraignty He would preserve the rights of his Dominion in the Authority of his Commands and honour the condescensions of his Goodness in the allurements of a Promise He that might have solely demanded a compliance with his Will would kindly Article with him to oblige him to observe him out of love to himself as well as Duty to his Creator that he might have both the interest of avoiding the Threatned Evil to affright him and the interest of attaining the promised Good to allure him to Obedience How doth he value the Title of Benefactor above that of a Lord when he so kindly Sollicites as well as Commands and engageth to Reward that Obedience which he might have absolutely claim'd as his due by enforcing fears of the severest Penalty His Soveraignty seems to stoop below it self for the elevation of his Goodness and he is pleased to have his Kindness more taken notice of than his Authority Nothing imported more condescension than his bringing forth his Law in the Nature of a Covenant whereby he seems to humble himself and vail his Superiority to treat with Man as his equal that the very manner of his Treatment might oblige him in the richest Promises he made to draw him and the startling Threatnings he pronounced to link him to his Obedience And therefore is it observable that when after the Transgression of Adam God comes to deal with him he doth not do it in that thundring Rigor which might have been expected from an enrag'd Soveraign but in a gentle Examination * Gen. 3.11 13. Hast thou eaten of the Tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat To the Woman he said no more than What is this that thou hast done And in the Scripture we find when he cites the Israelites before him for their Sin he Expostulates with them not so much upon the absolute right he had to challenge their Obedience as upon the equity and reasonableness of his Law which they had transgrest That by the same Argument of sweetness wherewith he would attract them to their Duty he might shame them after their Offence †Isaiah 1.2 * Ezek. 18.25 2. By the Threatnings he manifests his Goodness as well as by his Promises He Promises that
support our security by something which might appear more formal and solemn than a bare word By this the Divine Goodness provides against our Spiritual faintings and shews us by real Signs as well as Verbal Declarations that the Covenant sealed by the Blood of Christ is unalterable and thereby would fortifie and mount our hopes to degrees in some measure suitable to the kindness of the Covenant and the dignity of the Redeemer's Blood And it 's yet a further degree of his Goodness that he hath appointed us so often to Celebrate it whereby he shews how careful he is to keep up our tottering Faith and preserve us constant in our obedience obliging himself to the performance of his Promise and obliging uâ— to the payment of our Duty 2. His Goodness is seen in the Sacrament in giving us in it an union and communion with Christ There is not only a Commemoration of Christ dying but a Communication of Christ living The Apostle strongly asserts it by way of Interrogation * 1 Cor 1â— The Cup of Blessing which we bless is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ The Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ In the Cup there is a communication of the Blood of Christ a conveyance of a Right to the Merits of his Death and the Blessedness of his Life We are not less by this made one Body with Christ than we are by Baptism †1 Cor. 12.13 And put on Christ living in this as well as in Baptism * Gal. 3.27 That as his taking our infirm Flesh was a real Incarnation so the giving us his Flesh to eat is a Mystical Incarnation in Believers whereby they become one Body with him as Crucified and one Body with him as Risen For if Christ himself be receiv'd by Faith in the Word †Colos 2.6 He is no less received by Faith in the Sacrament When the Holy Ghost is said to be receiv'd the Graces or Gifts of the Holy Ghost are receiv'd So when Christ is receiv'd the Fruits of his Death are really partaked of The Israelites that eat of the Sacrifices did partake of the Altar * 1 Cor. 10.18 i. e. had a communion with the God of Israel to whom they had been Sacrificed and those that eat of the Sacrifices offer'd to Idols had a fellowship with Devils to whom those Sacrifices were offer'd Verse 20. Those that partake of the Sacraments in a due manner have a communion with that God to whom it was Sacrificed and a communion with that Body which was Sacrificed to God Not that the Substance of that Body and Blood is wrapped up in the Elements or that the Bread and Wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ but as they represent him and by vertue of the Institution are in Estimation himself his own Body and Blood by the same reason as he is call'd Christ our Passeover he may be call'd Christ our Supper †1 Cor. 5.7 For as they are so reckon'd to an unworthy Receiver as if they were the real Body and Blood of Christ because by his not discerning the Lords Body in it or making light of it as common Bread he is judged guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ guilty of treating him in as base a manner as the Jews did when they Crown'd him with Thorns * 1 Cor. 11.27.29 By the same reason they must be reckon'd to a worthy Receiver as the very Body and Blood of Christ So that as the unworthy Receiver eats and drinks Damnation the worthy Receiver eats and drinks Salvation It would be an empty Mystery and unworthy of an Institution by Divine Goodness if there were not some communion with Christ in it There would be some kind of deceit in the Precept Take Eat and Drink this is my Body and Blood a conveyance of Spiritual vital influences to our Souls For the natural End of eating and drinking is the nourishment and increase of the Body and preservation of Life by that which we eat and drink The infinite Wise gracious and true God would never give us empty Figures without accomplishing that which is signified by them and suitable to them How great is this Goodness of God he would have his Son in us one with us straitly joyn'd to us as if we were his proper Flesh and Blood In the Incarnation Divine Goodness united him to our Nature in the Sacrament it doth in a sort unite him with his purchas'd Priviledges to our Persons we have not a communion with a part or a Member of his Body or a drop of his Blood but with his whole Body and Blood represented in every part of the Elements The Angels in the Heaven enjoy not so great a priviledge They have the honour to be under him as their Head but not that of having him for their Food they behold him but they do not taste him And certainly that Goodness that hath condescended so much to our weakness would impart it to us in a very glorious manner were we capable of it But because a Man cannot behold the Light of the Sun in its full splendor by reason of the infirmities of his Eyes he must behold it by the help of a Glass and such a communication through a coloured and Opake-glass is as real from the Sun it self though not so glorious but more shrowded and obscure 'T is the same light that shines through that Medium as spreads it self gloriously in the open Air though the one be maskt and the other open-fac'd To conclude this by the way we may take notice of the neglect of this Ordinaâ—â—â— If it be a token of Divine Goodness to appoint it 't is no sign of our estimation of Divine Goodness to neglect it He that values the kindness of his friend will accept of his invitation if there be not some strong impediments in the way or so much familiarity with him that his refusal upon a light occasion would not be unkindly taken But though God put on the disposition of a Friend to us yet he looseth not the authority of a Soveraign and the humble familiarity he invites us to doth not diminish the conditiâ—n and duty of a Subject A Soveraign Prince would not take it well if a Favourite should refuse the offer'd honour of his Table The Viands of Godare not to be slighted Can we live better upon our poor pittance than upon his Dainties Did not Divine Goodness condescend in it to the weakness of our Faith and shall we conceit our Faith stronger than God thinks it If he thought fit by those Seals to make a Deed of Gift to us shall we be so unmannerly to him and such enemies to the security he offers us over and above his word as not to accept it Are we unwilling to have our Souls enflamed with love our Hearts filled with comfort and arm'd against the attempts of our Enemies 'T
neither one nor other can be denied him without a sordid and disingenuous ingratitude God therefore aggravates the Rebellion of the Jews from the cares he had in the bringing them up * Isaiah 2.2 and the miraculous deliverance from Egypt †Jer. 11.7 8. implying that those Benefits were strong Obligations to an ingenuous observance of him 2. It is Establisht upon this That God can enjoin the observance of nothing but what is good He may by the Right of his Soveraign Dominion command that which is indifferent in its own Nature As in positive Laws The not eating the Fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil which had not been evil in it self set aside the Command of God to the contrary and likewise in those Ceremonial Laws he gave the Jews But in regard of the transcendent Goodness and Righteousness of his Nature he will not he cannot Command any thing that is evil in it self or repugnant to the true interest of his Creature And God never oblig'd the Creature to any thing but what was so free from damaging it that it highly conduced to its good and welfare and therefore it is said * 1 Joh. 5.3 That his Commands are not grievous Not grievous in their own Nature nor grievous to one possest with a true Reason The Command given to Adam in Paradise was not grievous in it self nor could he ever have thought it so but upon a false supposition instill'd into him by the Tempter There is a pleasure results from the Law of God to a holy Rational Nature a sweetness tasted both by the Understanding and by the Will for they both rejoice the heart and enlighten the Eyes of the Mind * Psal 19.8 God being Essentially Wisdom and Goodness cannot deviate from that Goodness in any Orders he gives the Creature whatsoever he Enacts must be agreeable to that Rule and therefore he can Will nothing but what is good and excellent and what is good for the Creature As a Heathen Maximus Tyrius Dissert 22. p. 220. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For since he hath put Originally into Man a Natural Instinct to desire that which is good He would never Enact any thing for the Creatures observance that might controul that desire imprinted by himself but what might countenance that Impression of his own hand for if God did otherwise he would contradict his own Natural Law and be a Deluder of his Creatures if he imprest upon them desires one way and order'd directions another The truth is all his Moral Precepts are Comely in themselves and they receive not their goodness from Gods positive Command but that Command supposeth their goodness If every thing were good because God loves it or because God wills it i. e. That Gods loving it or willing it made that good which was not good before then as Camero well argues somewhere Gods goodness would depend upon his loving himself He was good because he loved himself and was not good till he loved himself whereas indeed Gods loving himself doth not make him good but supposeth him good He was good in the Order of Nature before he loved himself and his being good was the ground of his loving himself because as was said before if there were any thing better than God God would love that For it is inconsistent with the Nature of God and Infinite Goodness not to love that which is good and not to love that supreamly which is the Supream Good Further to understand it you may consider If the Question be askt Why God loves himself You would think it a reasonable Answer to say Because he is good But if the Question be askt Why God is good You would think that Answer because he loves himself would be destitute of Reason but the true Answer would be Because his Nature is so and he could not be God if he were not good Therefore Gods goodness is in order of our conception before his self-love and not his self-love before his goodness So the Moral things God Commands are good in themselves before God Commands them and such that if God should Command the contrary it would openly speak him evil and unrighteous Abstract from Scripture and weigh things in your own Reason Could you conceive God good if he should Command a Creature not to love him Could you preserve the Notion of a good Nature in him if he did Command Murder Adultery Tyranny and Cutting of Throats You would wonder to what purpose he made the World and fram'd it for Society if such things were order'd that should deface all Comeliness of Society The Moral Commands given in the Word appeared of themselves very beautiful to meer Reason that had no knowledge of the Written Law they are good and because they are so his goodness had moved his Soveraign Authority strictly to enjoyn them Now this goodness whereby he cannot oblige a Creature to any thing that is evil speaks him highly worthy of our Observance and our Disobedience to his Law to be full of unconceivable Malignity That is the last thing 2. Use is a Use of Comfort He is a Good without mixture Good without weariness none good but God none good purely none good inexhaustibly but God because he is good we may upon our speaking expect his instruction * Psal 25.8 Good is the Lord therefore will he teach Sinners in his way His goodness makes him stoop to be the Tutor to those Worms that lie prostrate before him and though they are Sinners full of filth he drives them not from his School nor denies them his Medicines if they apply themselves to him as a Physician He is good in removing the Punishment due to our Crimes and good in bestowing Benefits not due to our Merits because he is good Penitent Believers may expect forgiveness * Psal 86.5 Thou Lord art good and ready to forgive He acts not according to the rigor of the Law but willingly grants his Pardon to those that flie into the Arms of the Mediator His goodness makes him more ready to forgive than our necessities make us desirous to enjoy He charged not upon Job his impatient Expressions in Cursing the day of his Birth his goodness passed that over in silence and extolls him for speaking the thing that is right right in the main * Job 42.7 when he charges his Friends for not speaking of him the thing that is right as his Servant Job had done He is so good that if we offer the least thing sincerely he will graciously receive it If we have not a Lamb to offer a Pigeon or Turtle shall be accepted upon his Altar He stands not upon Costly presents but sincerely tender'd Services All Conditions are sweeten'd by it whatsoever any in the World enjoy is from a redundancy of this goodness but whatsoever a good Man enjoys is from a propriety in this goodness 1. Here is Comfort in our Addresses to him If
best that saith the Psalmist speaks only according to the opinion of the vulgar and his design was not to write a Natural History Growth always accompanies Grace as well as it doth Nature in the Body not that it is without its qualms languishing fits as Children are not but still their distempers make them grow Grace is not an idle but an active principle 'T is not like the Psalmist means it of the strength of the Body or the prosperity and stability of his Government but the vigor of his Grace and Comfort since they are spiritual blessings here that are the matter of his song The healing the Disease conduceth to the sprouting up and flourishing of the Body 'T is the Nature of Grace to go from strength to strength 7. When sin is pardoned 't is perfectly pardon'd Verse 11 12. As far as the East is from the West so far hath he removed our transgressions from us The East and West are the greatest distance in the World the terms can never meet together When sin is pardoned it is never charged again the guilt of it can no more return than East can become West or West become East 8. Obedience is necessary to an interest in the mercy of God Verse 17. The mercy of the Lord is to them that fear him to them that remember his Commandments to do them Commands are to be remembered in order to practice a vain speculation is not the intent of the publication of them After the Psalmist had enumerated the benefits of God he reflects upon the greatness of God and considers him on his Throne encompast with the Angels the Ministers of his Providence Verse 19. The Lord hath prepared his Throne in the Heavens and his Kingdom Rules over all He brings in this of his Dominion just after he had largely treated of his mercy Either 1. To signifie That God is not only to be praised for his mercy but for his Majesty both for the heighth and extent of his Authority 2. To extoll the greatness of his mercy and 〈◊〉 What I have said now Oh my Soul of the mercy of God and his paternal pity is commended by his Majesty his Grandeur hinders not his Clemency Though his Throne be High his Bowels are Tender He looks down upon his meanest Servants from the height of his Glory Since his Majesty is Infinite his Mercy must be as great as his Majesty It must be a greater pity lodging in his Breast than what is in any Creature since it is not dampt by the greatness of his Soveraignty 3. To render his Mercy more Comfortable The Mercy I have spoken of Oh my Soul is not the Mercy of a Subject but of a Soveraign An Executioner may torture a criminal and strip him of his Life and a vulgar pity cannot releive him but the Clemency of the Prince can perfectly pardon him 'T is that God who hath none above him to controul him none below him to resist him that hath performed all the acts of Grace to thee If God by his supream Authority pardons us who can reverse it If all the Subjects of God in the World should pardon us and God withhold his grant what will it profit us Take comfort Oh my Soul since God from his Throne in the highest and that God who rules over every particular of the Creation hath granted and sealed thy pardon to thee What would his Grace signifie if he were not a Monarch extending his Royal Empire over every thing and swaying all by his Scepter 4ly To render the Psalmists confidence more firm in any pressures Verse 15 16. He had considered the misery of man in the shortness of his Life his place should know him no more he should never return to his Authority Employments Opportunities that death would take from him but howsoever the Mercy and Majesty of God were the ground of his confidence He draws himself from poring upon any Calamities which may assault him to heaven the place where God orders all things that are done on the Earth He is able to protect us from our dangers and to deliver us from our distresses whatsoever miseries thou mayst lie under Oh my Soul cast thy Eye up to Heaven and see a pitying God in a Majestick Authority A God who can perform what he hath promised to them that fear him since he hath a Throne above the Heavens and bears sway over all that envy thy happiness and would stain thy felicity A God whose Authority cannot be curtailed and dismembered by any When the Prophet sollicites the sounding of the Divine Bowels he urgeth him by his dwelling in Heaven the habitation of his Holiness Isaiah 63.15 His Kingdom ruleth over all There is none therefore hath any Authority to make him break his Covenant or violate his promise 5. As an incentive to Obedience The Lord is merciful saith he to them that Remember his Commandments to do them verse 17 18. And then brings in the Text as an encouragement to observe his ' Precepts he hath a Majesty that deserves it from us and an Authority to protect us in it if a King in a small spot of Earth is to be Obeyed by his Subjects how much more is God who is more Majestick than all the Angels in Heaven and Monarchs on Earth who hath a majesty to exact our Obedience and a Mercy to allure it We should not set upon the performance of any Duty without an Eye lifted up to God as a great King It would make us willing to serve him the more Noble the Person the more Honourable and Powerful the Prince the more glorious is his Service A view of God upon his Throne will makes us think his Service our Priviledge his Precepts our Ornaments and Obedience to him the greatest Honour and Nobility It will make us weighty and serious in our performances It would stake us down to any duty The reason we are so loose and unmannerly in the carriage of our Souls before God is because we consider him not as a great King Malachy 1.14 Our Father which art in Heaven in regard of his Majesty is the Preface to Prayer Let us now consider the words in themselves The Lord hath prepared his Throne in the Heavens and his Kingdom rules over all The Lord hath prepared The word signifies Establisht as well as prepared and might so be rendered Due preparation is a natural way to the Establishment of a thing Hasty resolveâ—â—eak and moulder This notes 1. The infiniteness of his Authority He prepares it none else for him 'T is a Dominion that originally resides in his Nature not deriv'd from any by birth or commission he alone prepar'd it He is the sole cause of his own Kingdom his Authority therefore is unbounded as infinite as his Nature None can set Laws to him because none but himself prepared his Throne for him As he will not impair his own Happiness so he will not abridge himself of his own Authority
actions than the Actor it self The Actor hath a Soveraignty over others in action but the end for which any one works hath a Soveraignty over the Agent himself A Limner hath a Soveraignty over the Picture he is framing or hath fram'd but the end for which he fram'd it either his profit he design'd from it or the honor and credit of skill he aimed at in it hath a Dominion over the Limner himself The end moves and excites the Artist to work it spirits him in it conducts him in his whole business possesses his mind and sits triumphant in him in all the progress of his work 'T is the first cause for which the whole work is wrought Now God in his actual Creation of all is the Soveraign end of all for thy pleasure they are and were created Rev. 4.11 The Lord hath made all things for himself Prov. 16.4 Man indeed is the subordinate and immediate end of the lower Creation And therefore had the Dominion over other Creatures granted to him But God being the ultimate and principal end hath the Soveraign and principal Dominion all things as much referre to him as the last end as they flow from him as the first Cause So that as I said before if the World had been compacted together by a jumbling chance without a wise hand as some have foolishly imagined none could have been an Antagonist with God for the Government of the World but God in regard of the excellency of his nature would have been the Rector of it unless those Atomes that had composed the World had had an ability to Govern it Since there could be no universal end of all things but God God only can claim an intire right to the Government of it For though man be the end of the lower Creation yet man is not the end of himself and his own being he is not the end of the Creation of the supream Heavens he is not able to govern them they are out of his ken and out of his reach None fit in regard of the excellency of Nature to be the chief end of the whole World but God And therefore none can have a right to the Dominion of it but God In this regard Gods Dominion differs from the Dominion of all Earthly Potentates All the subjects in Creation were made for God as their end so are not People for Rulers but Rulers made for People for their protection and the preservation of Order in Societies 4. The Dominion of God is founded upon his preservation of things Ps 95.3 4. The Lord is a great King above all Gods Why In his hand are all the deep places of the Earth While his hand holds things his hand hath a Dominion over them He that holds a stone in the Air exerciseth a dominion over its natural inclination in hindring it from falling The Creature depends wholly upon God in its preservation as soon as that Divine hand which sustains every thing were withdrawn a languishment and swooning would be the next turn in the Creature He is call'd Lord Adonai in regard of his sustentation of all things by his continual influx The Word coming of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a basis or pillar that supports a building God is the Lord of all as he is the sustainer of all by his power as well as the Creator of all by his Word The Sun hath a Soveraign dominion over its own beams which depend upon it so that if he withdraws himself they all attend him and the World is left in darkness God maintains the vigor of all things conducts them in their operations so that nothing that they are nothing that they have but is owing to his preserving power The Master of this great Family may as well be called the Lord of it since every member of it depends upon him for the support of that being he first gave them and holds of his Empire As the right to govern resulted from Creation so it is perpetuated by the preservation of things 5. The dominion of God is strengthened by the innumerable benefits he bestows upon his Creatures The benefits he conferrs upon us after Creation are not the original ground of his dominion A man hath not Authority over his Servant from the kindness he shews to him but his Authority commenceth before any act of kindness and is founded upon a right of purchase conquest or compact Dominion doth not depend upon meer benefits Then Inferiors might have dominion over Superiors A Peasant may save the Life of a Prince to whom he was not subject he hath not therefore a right to step up into his Throne and give Laws to him And Children that maintain their Parents in their poverty might then acquire an Authority over them which they can never climb to Because the benefits they conferre cannot parallel the benefits they have received from the Authors of their Lives The bounties of God to us add nothing to the intrinsick right of his natural dominion they being the effects of that Soveraignty as he is a Rewarder and Governour As the benefits a Prince bestows upon his favorite increases not that right of Authority which is inherent in the Crown but strengthens that dominion as it stands in relation to the receiver by increasing the obligation of the favorite to an observance of him not only as his natural Prince but his gracious Benefactor The beneficence of God adds though not an original right of power yet a foundation of a stronger upbraiding the Creature if he walks in a violation and forgetfulness of those benefits and pull in peices the links of that ingenuous duty they call for and an occasion of exercising of Justice in punishing the delinquent which is a part of his Empire Isaiah 1.2 Hear O Heavens and give Ear O Earth the Lord hath spoken I have nourished Children and they have rebelled against me Thus the fundamental right as Creator is made more indisputable by his relation as a Benefactor and more as being so after a forfeiture of what was enjoyed by Creation The benefits of God are innumerable and so magnificent that they cannot meet with any compensation from the Creature And therefore do necessarily require a submission from the Creature and an acknowledgement of Divine Authority But that benefit of Redemption doth add a stronger right of dominion to God Since he hath not only as a Creator given them Being and Life as his Creatures but paid a price the price of his Sons blood for their rescue from Captivity so that he hath a Soveraignty of Grace as well as Nature and the ransom'd ones belong to him as Redeemer as well as Creator 1 Cor. 6.19 20. Ye are not your own For ye are bought with a price therefore your Body and your Spirit are Gods By this he acquir'd a right of another kind and bought us from that uncontroulable Lordship we affected over our selves by the sin of Adam that he might use us
station of every Regiment in a Battalia Or he calls them by Name i. e. He imposeth names upon them a sign of dominion The giving Names to the inferior Creatures being the first act of Adam's derivative dominion over them These are under the Soveraignty of God The Starrs by their influences fight against Sisera Judg. 5.20 And the Sun holds in its Reins and stands stone still to light Joshua to a compleat victory Josh 10.12 They are all marshall'd in their ranks to receive his word of command and fight in close order as being desirous to have a share in the ruine of the Enemies of their Soveraign And those Creatures which mount up from the Earth and take their place in the lower Heavens Vapours whereof Hail and Snow are form'd are part of the Army and do not only receive but fulfill his word of Command Psal 148.8 These are his stores and Magazines of Judgment against a time of trouble and a day of Battle and Warr Job 38.22 23. The Soveraignty of God is visible in all their motions in their going and returning If he says go they go if he say come they come if he say do this they gird up their Loyns and stand stiff to their duty 2. The Hell of Devils belong to his Authority They have cast themselves out of the Arms of his Grace into the Furnace of his Justice they have by their revolt forfeited the Treasure of his Goodness but cannot exempt themselves from the Scepter of his dominion when they would not own him as a Lord Father they are under him as a Lord Judge they are cast out of his affection but not freed from his yoke He rules over the good Angels as his Subjects over the evil ones as his Rebels In whatsoever relation he stands either as a Friend or Enemy he never loses that of a Lord. A Prince is the Lord of his Criminals as well as of his Loyallest Subjects By this right of his Soveraignty he uses them to punish some and be the occasion of benefit to others on the wicked he employs them as instruments of vengeance towards the Godly as in the case of Job as an Instrument of kindness for the manifestation of his sincerity against the intention of that malicious Executioner Though the Devils are the Executioners of his Justice 't is not by their own Authority but God's as those that are employed either to rack or execute a Malefactor are Subjects to the Prince not only in the quality of Men but in the execution of their function * Suarez vol. 2. lib. 8. cap. 20. p. 736. The Devil by drawing men to sin acquires no right to himself over the sinner For man by sin offends not the Devil but God and becomes guilty of punishment under God When therefore the Devil is us'd by God for the punishment of any 't is an act of his Soveraignty for the manifestation of the order of his Justice And as most Nations use the vilest persons in Offices of execution so doth God those vile Spirits He doth not ordinarily use the good Angels in those Offices of vengeance but in the preservation of his People When he would solely punish he employs evil Angels Psal 78.49 A Troop of Devils His Soveraignty is extended over the deceiver and the deceived Job 12.16 Over both the Malefactor and the Executioner the Devil and his Prisoner He useth the natural malice of the Devils for his own just ends and by his Soveraign Authority orders them to be the Executioners of his Judgments upon their own vassals as well as sometimes inflicters of punishments upon his own Servants 3. The Earth of men and other Creatures belongs to his Authority Psal 47.7 God is King of all the Earth and rules to the ends of it Psal 59.13 Ancient Atheists confin'd Gods dominion to the heavenly Orbs and bounded it within the Circuit of the Celestial Sphear Job 22.14 He walks in the Circuit of Heaven i. e. he exerciseth his dominion only there * Bolduc in loc Pedum positio was the sign of the possession of a piece of Land and the Dominion of the possessor of it and Land was resign'd by such a Ceremony as now by the delivery of a Twig or Turf But his Dominion extends 1. Over the least Creatures All the Creatures of the Earth are listed in Christ's Muster-roll and make up the number of his Regiments He hath an Host on Earth as well as in Heaven Gen. 2.1 The Heavens and the Earth were finished and all the Host of them And they are all his Servants Psal 119.91 and move at his peasure And he vouchsafes the Title of his Army to the Locust Caterpillar and Palmer Worm Joel 2.25 And describes their motions by Military Words climbing the walls marching not breaking their ranks Verse 7. He hath the command as a great General over the highest Angel and the meanest Worm all the kinds of the smallest Insects he presseth for his service By this Soveraignty he muzled the devouring nature of the fire to preserve the three Chiâ—dren and let it loose to consume their adversaries and if he speaks the word the stormy Waves are hush as if they had no Principle of rage within them Psal 89.9 Since the meanest Creature attains it end and no arrow that God hath by his power shot into the World but hits the mark he aim'd at we must conclude that there is a Soveraign hand that governs all Not a spot of Earth or Air or Water in the World but is his possession not a Creature in any Element but is his Subject 2. His Dominion extends over Men. It extends over the highest Potentate as well as the meanest Peasant the proudest Monarch is no more exempt than the most languishing Beggar He lays not aside his Authority to please the Prince nor strains it up to terrifie the indigent He accepts not the persons of Princes nor regards the rich more than the Poor For they are all the work of his hands Job 34.19 Both the powers and weaknesses the Gallantry and Peasantry of the Earth stand and fall at his pleasure Man in innocence was under his Authority as his Creature and man in his revolt is further under his Authority as a Criminal As a Person is under the Authority of a Prince as a Governour while he obeys his Laws and further under the Authority of the Prince as a Judge when he violates his Laws Man is under God's dominion in every thing in his settlement in his calling in the ordering his very Habitation Acts 17.26 He determines the bounds of their Habitations He never yet permitted any to be universal Monarch in the World nor over the fourth part of it though several in the Pride of their heart have design'd and attempted it The Pope who hath bid the fairest for it in Spirituals never attain'd it and when his power was most flourishing there were multitudes that would never acknowledge his Authority 3. But
must be resolved into his own will Yet not into a Will without Wisdom God did not choose hand over head and act by meer Will without Reason and Understanding an infinite Wisdom is far from such a kind of procedure but the reason of God is inscrutable to us unless we could understand God as well as he understands himself the whole ground lies in God himself no part of it in the Creature Rom. 9.15 16. Not in him that Wills nor in him that Runs but in God that shews Mercy Since God hath revealed no other cause than his will we can resolve it into no other than his Soveraign Empire over all Creatures 'T is not without a stop to our curiosity that in the same place where God asserts the absolute Soveraignty of his mercy to Moses he tells him he could not see his face Exod. 33.19 20. I will be Gracious to whom I will be Gracious and he said Thou canst not see my face The rayes of his infinite Wisdom are too bright and dazling for our weakness The Apostle acknowledged not only a Wisdom in this proceeding but a riches and treasure of Wisdom not only that but a depth and vastness of those riches of Wisdom but was unable to give us an Inventory and Scheme of it Rom. 11.33 The secrets of his Counsels are too deep for us to wade into in attempting to know the reason of those acts we should find our selves swallowed up into a bottomless Gulf. Though the understanding be above our capacity yet the admiration of his Authority and Submission to it are not We should cast our selves down at his feet with a full resignation of our selves to his Soveraign pleasure * This was Dr. Goodwins Speech when he was in trouble This is a more comely carriage in a Christian than all the contentious endeavours to measure God by our line 2. In bestowing Grace where he pleases God in Conversion and Pardon works not as a natural Agent putting forth strength to the utmost which God must do if he did renew man naturally as the Sun shines and the fire burns which always act ad extremum virium unless a Cloud interpose to eclipse the one and water to extinguish the other But God acts as a voluntary Agent which can freely exert his power when he please and suspend it when he please Though God be necessarily good yet he is not necessitated to manifest all the Treasures of his Goodness to every Subject he hath power to distill his dews upon one part and not upon another If he were necessitated to express his Goodness without a liberty no thanks were due to him Who thanks the Sun for shining on him or the fire for warming him None Because they are necessary Agents and can do no other What is the reason he did not reach out his hand to keep all the Angels from sinking as well as some or recover them when they were sunk What is the reason he engrafts one man into the true Vine and lets another remain a wild Olive Why is not the efficacy of the Spirit always linkt with the motions of the Spirit Why doth he not mould the Heart into a Gospel frame when he fills the Ear with a Gospel sound Why doth he strike off the chains from some and tear the vail from the Heart while he leaves others under their natural slavery and Aegyptian darkness Why do some lie under the bands of death while another is rais'd to a spiritual life What reason is there for all this but his absolute Will The Apostle resolves the question if the question be askt why he begets one and not another Not from the Will of the Creature but his own Will is the determination of one James 1.18 Why doth he work in one to will and to do and not in another Because of his good pleasure is the answer of another Phil. 2.13 He could as well new create every one as he at first created them and make Grace as universal as Nature and Reason but it is not his pleasure so to do 1. 'T is not from want of strength in himself The power of God is unquestionably able to strike off the chains of unbeleief from all he could surmount the obstinacy of every child of wrath and inspire every Son of Adam with Faith as well as Adam himself He wants not a vertue superior to the greatest resistance of his Creature a victorious beam of light might be shot into their understandings and a flood of Grace might overspread their Wills with one word of his mouth without putting forth the utmost of his power What hinderance could there be in any created spirit which cannot be easily peirced into and new moulded by the Father of Spirits Yet he only breaths this efficacious vertue into some and leaves others under that insensibility and hardness which they love and suffers them to continue in their benighting ignorance and consume themselves in the embraces of their dear though deceitful Dalilahs He could have conquered the resistance of the Jews as well as chased away the darkness and ignorance of the Gentiles No doubt but he could over power the Heart of the most malicious Devil as well as that of the simplest and weakest man But the breath of the Almighty Spirit is in his own power to breath where he lists John 3.8 'T is at his liberty whither he will give to any the feeling of the invincible efficacy of his Grace He did not want strength to have kept man as firm as a Rock against the temptation of Satan and pour'd in such fortifying Grace as to have made him impregnable against the powers of Hell as well as he did secure the standing of the Angels against the Sedition of their fellows But it was his will to permit it to be otherwise 2. Nor is it from any prerogative in the Creature He converts not any for their natural perfection Because he seizeth upon the most ignorant Nor for their moral perfection Because he converts the most sinful Nor for their Civil perfection Because he turns the most despicable 1. Not for their natural perfection of knowledge He opened the minds and hearts of the more ignorant Were the nature of the Gentiles better manur'd than that of the Jews or did the Tapers of their understandings burn clearer No the one were skil'd in the Prophesies of the Messiah and might have compared the Predictions they own'd with the Actions and Sufferings of Christ which they were spectators of He let alone those that had expectations of the Messiah and expectations about the time of Christ's appearance both grounded upon the Oracles wherewith he had intrusted them The Gentiles were unacquainted with the Prophets and therefore destitute of the expectations of the Messiah Eph. 2.12 They were without Christ Without any Revelation of Christ because aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the Covenant of Promise having no hope and without God in
the World without any knowledge of God or promises of Christ The Jews might sooner in a way of reason have been wrought upon than the Gentiles who were ignorant of the Prophets by whose writings they might have examined the Truth of the Apostles Declarations thus are they refus'd that were the kindred of Christ according to the Flesh and the Gentiles that were at a greater distance from him brought in by God Thus he catcheth not at the subtle and mighty Devils who had an original in spiritual nature more like to him but at weak and simple man 2. Not for any Moral perfection Because he converts the most Sinful The Gentiles steept in Idolatry and Superstition He sow'd more Faith among the Romans than in Jerusalem more Faith in a City that was the common Sewer of all the Idolatry of the Nations conquered by them than in that City which had so signally been own'd by him and had not practised any Idolatry since the Babylonish Captivity He planted Saintship at Corinth a place notorious for the infamous Worship of Venus a Superstition attended with the grossest uncleanness At Ephesus that presented the whole World with a Cup of Fornication in their Temple of Diana Among the Colossians Votaries to Cybele in a manner of Worship attended with beastly and lascivious Ceremonies And what character had the Cretians from one of their own Poets mentioned by the Apostle to Titus whom he had plac'd among them to further the progress of the Gospel but the vilest and most abominable Tit. 1.12 Lyars not to be credited Evil Beasts not to be associated with Slow Bellies fit for no service What prerogative was there in the nature of such putrefaction As much as in that of a Toad to be elevated to the dignity of an Angel What steam from such Dunghils could be welcome to him and move him to cast his eye on them and sweeten them from Heaven What treasures of worth were here to open the treasures of his Grace Were such filthy snuffs fit of themselves to be kindled by and become a lodging for a Gospel beam What invitements could he have from Lying Beastliness Gluttony but only from his own Soveraignty By this he plucked firebrands out of the fire while he left straiter and more comely sticks to consume to ashes 3. Not for any Civil Perfection Because he turns the most despicable He elevates not nature to Grace upon the account of Wealth Honour or any Civil station in the World he dispenseth not ordinarily those Treasures to those that the mistaken World foolishly admire and dote upon 1 Cor. 1.26 Not many Mighty not many Noble A purple Robe is not usually deckt with this Jewel He takes more of mouldy Clay than refin'd dust to cast into his Image and lodges his Treasures more in the earthly Vessels than in the World 's Golden ones He gives out his richest doles to those that are the scorn and reproach of the World Should he impart his Grace most to those that abound in wealth or honour it had been some foundation for a conception that he had been mov'd by those vulgarly esteem'd excellencies to indulge them more than others And such a conceit languisheth when we behold the Subjects of his Grace as void originally of any allurements as they are full of provocations Hereby he declares himself free from all Created engagements and that he is not led by any external motives in the object 4. 'T is not from any obligation which lies upon him He is indebted to none disoblig'd by all No man deserves from him any Act of Grace but every man deserves what the most deplorable are left to suffer He is obliged by the Children of wrath to nothing else but showers of wrath owes no more a debt to fall'n man than to fall'n Devils to restore them to their first station by a superlative Grace how was he more bound to restore them than he was to preserve them to catch them after they fell than to put a barr in the way of their falling God as a Soveraign gave Laws to men and a strength sufficient to keep those Laws What obligation is there upon God to repair that strength man willfully lost and extract him out of that condition into which he voluntarily plung'd himself What if man sinned by temptation which is a reason alledged by some Might not many of the Devils do so too Though there was a first of them that sinned without a temptation yet many of them might be seduced into Rebellion by the Ringleader Upon that account he is no more bound to give Grace to all men than to Devils If he promis'd life upon Obedience he threatned death upon Transgression By man's disobedience God is quit of his promise and owes nothing but punishment upon the violation of his Law Indeed man may pretend to a claim of sufficient strength from him by Creation as God is the Author of Nature and he had it but since he hath extinguisht it by his sin he cannot in the least pretend any obligation on God for a new strength If it be a peradventure whither he will give Repentance as it is 2 Tim. 2.25 There is no tye in the case a tye would put it beyond a peradventure with a God that never forfeited his obligation * Claudes sur la parabole des Noces p. 29. No Husbandman thinks himself oblig'd to bestow cost and pains manure and tillage upon one field more than another though the nature of the ground may require more yet he is at his liberty whither he will expend more upon one than another He may let it lie Fallow as long as he please God is less oblig'd to till and prune his Creatures than man is oblig'd to his Feild or Trees If a King proclaim a pardon to a company of Rebels upon the condition of each of them paying such a summe of Money their Estates before were capable of satisfying the condition but their Rebellion hath reduc'd them to an indigent condition the proclamation it self is an act of Grace the condition requir'd is not impossible in it self the Prince out of a tenderness to some sends them that summe of Money he hath by his Proclamation oblig'd them to pay and thereby enabled them to answer the condition he requires the first he doth by a Soveraign Authority the second he doth by a Soveraign bounty he was oblig'd to neither of them punishment was a debt due to all of them if he would remit it upon condition he did relax his Soveraign right and if he would by his largess make any of them capable to fulfil the condition by sending them presently a sufficient summe to pay the fine he acted as proprietor of his own goods to dispose of them in such a quantity to those to whom he was not oblig'd to bestow a mite 5. It must therefore be an Act of his meer Soveraignty This can only sit arbitrator in every gracious act
long can be referred to nothing but the same cause What is the reason the vail continues so long upon the heart of the Jews that is promised one time or other to be taken off Why doth God delay the accomplishment of those glorious predictions of the happiness and interest of that people is it because of the sin of their Ancestors a reason that cannot bear much weight If we cast it upon that account their conversion can never be expected can never be effected if for the sins of their Ancestors is it not also for their own sins Do their sins grow less in number or less venimous or provoking in quality by this delay Is not their Blasphemy of Christ as malitious their hatred of him as strong and rooted as ever Do they not as much approve of the bloody act of their Ancestors since so many ages are past as their Ancestors did applaud it at the time of the Execution Have they not the same disposition and will discovered sufficiently by the scorn of Christ and of those that profess his Name to act the same thing over again were Christ now in the same state in the world and they invested with the same power of Government If their Conversion were deferr'd one age after the death of Christ for the sins of their prâ—ceding Ancestors is it to be expected now since the present generation of the Jews in all Countries have the sins of those remote the succeeding and their more immediate Ancestors lying upon them This therefore cannot be the reason but as it was the Soveraign pleasure of God to foretell his intention to overcome the stoutness of their hearts so it is his Soveraign pleasure that it shall not be perform'd till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in Rom. 11.25 As he is Lord of his own Grace so he is Lord of the Time when to dispense it Why did God create the world in 6 days which he could have erected and beautified in a moment Because it was his pleasure so to do Why did he frame the World when he did and not many ages before Because he is Master of his own work Why did he not resolve to bring Israel to the fruition of Canaan till after four hundred years Why did he draw out their deliverance to so long time after he began to attempt it Why such a multitude of Plagues upon Pharoah to work it when he could have cut short the work by one mortal blow upon the Tyrant and his accomplices It was his Soveraign pleasure to act so though not without other reasons intelligible enough by looking into the story Why doth he not bring man to a perfection of stature in a moment after his Birth but let him continue in a tedious infancy in a semblance to beasts for want of an exercise of reason Why doth he not bring this or that man whom he intends for service to a fitness in an instant but by long tracts of Study and through many Meanders and Labyrinths VVhy doth he transplant a hopeful person in his youth to the pleasures of another VVorld and let another of an eminent Holiness continue in the misery of this and wade through many Floods of Afflictions VVhat can we chiefly referre all these things to but his Soveraign pleasure The times are determined by God Acts 17.26 3. The Dominion of God is manifested as a Governor as well as a Law-giver and Proprietor 1. In disposing of States and Kingdomes Psa l. 75.7 God is Judge he puls down one and sets up another Judge is to be taken not in the same sence that we commonly use the word for a judicial Minister in a way of tryal but for a Governour as you know the extraordinary Governours rais'd up among the Jews were call'd Judges whence one intire Book in the Old Testament is so denominated the Book of Judges God hath a Prerogative to change times and seasons Dan. 2.21 i. e. The Revolutions of Government whereby times are alter'd * Mr. Mede in one of his Letters How many Empires that have spread their wings over a great part of the world have had their Carkasses torn in peices and unheard off Nations pluckt of the wings of the Roman Eagle after it had prey'd upon many Nations of the World And the Macedonian Empire was as the dew that is dried up a short time after it falls He erected the Chaldaean Monarchy us'd Nebuchadnezzar to overthrow and punish the ungrateful Jews and by a Soveraign act gave a great parcel of Land into his hands and what he thought was his right by conquest was Gods donative to him You may read the Chartâ—r to Nebuchadnezzar whom he terms his Servant Jer. 27.6 And now I have given all those Lands the Lands are mentioned verse 3. Into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon my Servant Which Decree he pronounceth after his asserting his right of Soveraignty over the whole Earth ver 5. After that he puts a period to the Chaldaean Empire and by the same Soveraign Authority decrees Babylon to be a spoil to the Nations of the North Countrey and delivers her up as a spoil to the Persian Jer. 50.9 10. And this for the manifestation of his Soveraign Dominion that he was the Lord that made peace and created evil Isaiah 45.6 7. God afterwards overthrows that by the Grecian Alexander prophesied of under the figure of a Goat with one horn between his Eyes Dan. 8. The swift current of his Victories as swift as his motion shew'd it to be from an extraordinary hand of Heaven and not either from the policy or strength of the Macedonian His strength in the Prophet is described to be less being but one horn running against the Persian describ'd under the figure of a Ramm with two horns * Josephus And himself acknowledg'd a Divine motion exciting him to that great attempt when he saw Joddus the High Priest coming out in his Priestly Robes to meet him at his approach to Jerusalem whom he was about to Worship acknowledging that the Vision which put him upon the Persian War appear'd to him in such a garb What was the reason Israel was rent from Judah and both split into two distinct Kingdoms Because Rehoboam would not hearken to sober and sound Counsels but follow the advice of upstarts What was the reason he did not harken to sound advice since he had so advantagious an Education under his Father Solomon the wisest Prince of the World The Cause was from the Lord. 1 Kings 12.15 That he might perform what he had before spoke In this he acted according to his Royal Word but in the first resolve he acted as a Soveraign Lord that had the disposal of all Nations in the world And though Ahab had a numerous posterity Seventy Sons to inherit the Throne after him yet God by his Soveraign Authority gives them up into the hands of Jehu who strips them of their lives and hopes together not
have devout figures of the face and uncomely postures of the soul is to exclude his dominion from our spirits while we own it only over our outward man we render him an insignificant Lord not worthy of any higher adorations from us than a sensless statue We demean not our selves according to his Majestical Authority over us when we present him not with the Cream and Quintessence of our souls The greatness of God requir'd a great house and a costly Palace 1 Chron. 29.11.16 David speaks it in order to the building God a house and Temple God being a great King expects a Male the best of our flock Mal. 1.14 a Masculine and vigorous service When we present him with a sleepy sickly rheumatick service we betray our conceptions of him to be as mean as if he were some petty Lord whose dominion were of no larger extent than a Mole hill or some inconsiderable Village 6. Omission of the service he hath appointed is another contempt of his Soveraignty This is a contempt of his dominion whereby he hath a right to appoint what means and conditions he pleaseth for the enjoyment of his proffered and promised benefits 'T is an enmity to his Scepter not to accept of his terms after a long series of precepts and invitations made for the restoring us to that happiness we had lost and providing all means necessary thereunto nothing being wanting but our own concurrence with it and acceptance of it by rendring that easy homage he requires By with-holding from him the service he enjoyns we deny that we hold any thing of him As he that payes not the quit rent though it be never so small disowns the Soveraignty of the Lord of the Manour It implyes that he is a miserable poor Lord having no right or destitute of any power to dispose of any thing in the World to our advantage Job 22.17 They say unto God depart from us what can the Almighty do for them They will have no commerce with him in a way of duty because they imagine him to have no Soveraign power to do any thing for them in way of benefit as if his dominion were an empty title and as much destitute of any Authority to command a favour for them as any Idol They think themselves to have as absolute a disposal of things as God himself What can he do for us What can he confer upon us that we cannot invest our selves in As though they were Soveraigns in an equality with God Thus men live without God in the World Eph. 2.12 as if there were no supream being to pay a respect to or none fit to receive any homage at their hands With-holding from God the right of his time and the right of his service which is the just claim of his Soveraignty 7. Censuring others is a contempt of his Soveraignty When we censure mens persons or actions by a rash judgment when we will be judges of the good and evil of mens actions where the law of God is utterly silent we usurp God's place and invade his right we claim a superiority over the Law and judge God defective as the rector of the World in his prescriptions of good and evil Jam. 4.11.12 He that speaks evil of his Brother and judgeth his Brother speaks evil of the Law and judgeth the Law There is one Law-giver who is able to save and to destroy Who art thou that judgest another Do you know what you do in judging another You take upon you the garb of a Soveraign as if he were more your servant than God's and more under your Authority than the Authority of God 't is a setting thy self in God's Tribunal and assuming his rightful power of judging thy Brother is not to be govern'd by thy fancy but by God's Law and his own Conscience 2. Information Hence it follows that God doth actually govern the World He hath not only a right to rule but he rules over all so saith the Text. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords what to let them do what they please and all that their lusts prompt them to hath God an absolute Dominion Is it good and is it wise Is it then a useless prerogative of the Divine Nature Shall so excellent a power lye idle as if God were a lifeless Image Shall we fancy God like some lazy Monarch that solaceth himself in the Gardens of his Palace or steeps himself in some charming pleasures and leaves his Lieutenants to govern the several Provinces which are all Members of his Empire according to their own humour Not to exercise this Dominion is all one as not to have it To what purpose is he invested with this Soveraignty if he were careless of what were done in the world and regarded not the oppressions of men God keeps no useless excellency by him He actually reigns over the Heathen Psal 47.8 and those as bad or worse than Heathens It had been a vanity in David to call upon the Heavens to be glad and the earth to rejoyce under the rule of a sleepy Deity 1 Chron. 16.31 No his Scepter is full of eyes as it was painted by the Egyptians He is always waking and always more than Ahashuerus reading over the records of Humane actions Not to exercise his Authority is all one as not to regard whither he keep the Crown upon his head or continue the Scepter in his hand If his Soveraignty were exempt from care it would be destitute of Justice God is more Righteous than to resign the ensigns of his Authority to blind and oppressive man to think that God hath a power and doth not use it for just and righteous ends is to imagine him an unrighteous as well as a careless Soveraign such a thing in a man renders him a base man and a worse Governor 'T is a vice that disturbs the World and overthrows the ends of Authority as to have a power and use it well is the greatest virtue of an Earthly Soveraign What an unworthy conception is it of God to acknowledge him to be possessed of a greater Authority than the greatest Monarch and yet to think that he useth it less than a petty Lord that his Crown is of no more value with him than a Feather This represents God impotent that he cannot or unrighteous and base that he will not administer the Authority he hath for the noblest and justest end But can we say that he neglects the government of the World How come things then to remain in their due order How comes the Law of nature yet to be preserved in every man's Soul How comes Conscience to check and cite and judge If God did not exercise his Authority what Authority could Conscience have to disturb man in unlawful practises and to make his sports and sweetness so unpleasant and sour to him Hath he not given frequent notices and memorials that he holds a curb over corrupt inclinations puts rubs in the way of malicious
though Divines take notice of other sins in the fall of Adam yet God in his tryal chargeth him with none but this and doth put upon his question an Emphasis of his own Authority Gen. 3.11 Hast thou eaten of the Tree whereof I commanded ye that thou shoâ—ld'st not eat This I am displeased with that thou shouldest disown my dominion over thy self and this Garden This was the inlet to all the other sins as the acknowledgment of God's soveraignty is the first step to the practice of all the duties of a Creature so the disowning his soveraignty is the first spring of all the extravagancies of a Creature Every sin against the soveraign Law-giver is worthy of Death The Transgression of this positive command desâ—rved death and procured it to spread it self over the face of the World God's dominion cannot be despis'd without meriting the greatest punishment 1. Punishment necessarily follows upon the Doctrine of Soveraignty 'T is a faint and a feeble Soveraignty that cannot preserve it self and vindicate its own wrongs against râ—bellious subjects The height of God's dominion infers a vengeance on the contemners of it If God be an Eternal King he is an Eternal Judge Since sin unlinks the dependance between God the Soveraign and man the subject if God did not vindicate the rights of his Soveraignty and the Authority of his Law he would seem to despise his own dominion be weary of it and not act the part of a good Governour But God is tender of his prerogative and doth most bestir himself when men exalt themselves proudly against him Exod. 18.11 In the thing wherein they dealt proudly he will be above them When Pharaoh thought himself a mate for God and proudly rejected his commands as if they had been the messages of some petty Arabian Lord God rights his own Authority upon the life of his enemy by the ministry of the Red Sea He turned a great King into a beast to make him know that the most high ruled in the Kingdoms of men Dan. 4.16 17. The demand is by the word of the Holy ones to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the Kingdoms of men And that by the Petitions of the Angels who cannot endure that the Empire of God should be obscur'd and diminisht by the pride of man Besides the tender respect he hath to his own glory he is constantly presented with the sollicitations of the Angels to punish the proud ones of the earth that darken the glory of his Majesty 'T is necessary for the rescue of his honour and necessary for the satisfaction of his illustrious attendants who would think it a shame to them to serve a Lord that were always unconcern'd in the rebellions of his creatures and tamely suffer their spurns at his Throne and therefore there is a day wherein the haughtiness of man shall be bowed down the Cedars of Lebanon over-thrown and high Mountains levell'd that God may be exalted in that day Isa 2.11 12. c. Pride is a sin that immediately swells against God's Authority this shall be brought down that God may be exalted not that he should have a real exaltation as if he were actually depos'd from his Government but that he shall be manifested to be the Soveraign of the whole World 'T is necessary there should be a day to chase away those clouds that are upon his Throne that the lustre of his Majesty may break forth to the confusion of all the children of pride that vaunt against him God hath a dominion over us as a Law-giver as we are his creatures and a dominion over us in away of Justice as we are his criminals 2. This punishment is unavoidable 1. None can escape him He hath the sole Authority over Hell and Death the Keyes of both are in his hand The greatest Caesar can no more escape him than the meanest Peasant Who art thou O great Mountain before Zerubbabel Zac. 4.7 The height of Angels is no match for him much less that of the mortal grandees of the World they can no more resist him than the meanest person But are rather as the highest Steeples the fittest marks for his crushing thunder If he speaks the word the principalities of men come down and the Crown of their glory Jer. 13.18 He can take the Mighty away in a moment and that without hands i. e. without instruments Job 34.20 The strongest are like the feet of Nebuchadnezzar's Image Iron and Clay Iron to man but Clay to God to be crumbled to nothing 2. What comfort can be reapt from a creature when the Soveraign of the World arms himself with terrors and begins his visitation Isa 10.3 What will you do in the day of visitation to whom will you flie for help and where will you leave your glory The torments from a Subject may be releived by the Prince but where can there be an appeal from the Soveraign of the World Where is there any above him to controul him if he will overthrow us who is there to call him to account and say to him what dost thou He works by an uncontroulable Authority he needs not ask leave of any Isa 43.13 He works and none can let it As when he will relieve none can afflict so when he will wound none can relieve If a King appoint the punishment of a rebel the greatest Favorite in the Court cannot speak a comfortable word to him The most beloved Angel in Heaven cannot sweeten and ease the spirit of a man that the Soveraign power is set against to make the butt of his wrath The Devils lye under his sentence and wear their chains as marks of their condemnation without hope of ever having them filed off since they are laid upon them by the Authority of an unaccountable Soveraign 3. By his Soveraign Authority God can make any creature the instrument of his vengeance He hath all the creatures at his beck and can Commission any of them to be a dreadful scourge Strong winds and tempests fulfil his word Psal 148.8 The Lightnings answer him at his call and cry aloud here are we Job 38.35 By his Soveraign Authority he can render Locusts as mischievous as Lions forge the meanest creatures into Swords and Arrows and commission the most despicable to be his Executioners He can cut off joy from our spirits and make our own hearts be our tormentors our most confident friends our persecutors our nearest relations to be his avengers They are more his who is their Soveraign than ours who place a vain confidence in them Rather than Abraham shall want children he can raise up stones and adopt them into his Family And rather than not execute his vengeance he can array the stones in the streets and make them his armed subjects against us If he speak the word a hair shall drop from our heads to choak us or a vapour congeal'd into Rheum in our heads shall dropdown and putrifie our
Corruptions will certainly be subdued in his voluntary subjects The Covenant I will be your God implyes protection government and relief which are all grounded upon Soveraignty That therefore which is our greatest burden will be remov'd by his Soveraign power Micah 7.19 He will subdue our iniquities If the outward enemies of the Church shall not bear up against his Dominion and perpetuate their rebellions unpunisht those within his people shall as little bear up against his Throne without being destroy'd by him The billows of our own hearts and the raging waves within us are as much at his beck as those without us And his Soveraignty is more eminent in quelling the corruptions of the heart than the commotions of the World in reigning over mens Spirits by changing them or curbing them more than over mens bodies by pinching and punishing them The remainders of Satans Empire will moulder away before him since he that is in us is a greater Soveraign than he that is in the World 1 Joh. 4.4 His enemies will be laid at his feet and so neveâ— shall prevail against him when his Kingdom shall come He could not be Lord of any man as a happy creature if he did not by his power make them happy and he could not make them happy unless by his Grace he made them holy He could not be praised as a Lord of Glory if he did not make some creatures glorious to praise him And an Earthly Creature could not praise him perfectly unless he had every grain of enmity to his Glory taken out of his heart Since God is the only Soveraign he only can still the commotions in our spirits and pull down all the Ensigns of the Devil's royalty he can wast him by the powerful word of his lips 4. Hence is a strong encouragement for Prayer My King was the strong compellation David us'd in Prayer as an argument of comfort and confidence as well as that of My God Psal 5 2. Hearken to the voice of my cry my King and my God To be a King is to have an Office of Government and Protection He gives us liberty to approach to him as the Judge of all Heb. 12.23 i. e. As the Governour of the World we pray to one that hath the whole Globe of Heaven and Earth in his hand and can do whatsoever he will Though he be higher than the Cherubims and transcendently above all in Majesty yet we may soar up to him with the wings of our Soul Faith and Love and lay open our cause and find him as gracious as if he were the meanest subject on Earth rather than the most soveraign God in Heaven He hath as much of tenderness as he hath of Authority and is pleased with Prayer which is an acknowledgment of his Dominion an honouring of that which he delights to honour For Prayer in the notion of it imports thus much that God is the Rector of the World that he takes notice of humane affairs that he is a careful just wise Governour a store-house of blessing a fountain of goodness to the indigent and a releif to the oppressed What have we reason to fear when the soveraign of the World gives us liberty to approach to him and lay open our case That God who is King of the whole Earth not only of a few Villages or Cities in the Earth but the whole Earth and not only King of this dreggy place of our dross but of Heaven having prepar'd or established his Throne in the most glorious place of the Creation 5. Here is comfort in afflictions As a soveraign he is the Author of Afflictions as a soveraign he can be the remover of them he can command the waters of affliction to go so far and no farther If he speaks the Word a disease shall depart as soon as a servant shall from your presence with a Nod. If we are banisht from one place he can command a shelter for us in another If he orders Moab a Nation that had no great kindness for his people to let his outcasts dwell with them they shall entertain them and afford them sanctuary Isaiah 16.4 Again God chastneth as a soveraign but teacheth as a Father Psal 99.12 The exercise of his Authority is not without an exercise of his goodness He doth not correct for his own pleasure or the Creature 's torment but for the Creature 's instruction though the rod be in the hand of a soveraign yet it is tinctur'd with the kindness of divine bowels He can order them as a soveraign to mortifie our flesh and try our Faith In the severest tempest the Lord that rais'd the Wind against us which shatter'd the ship and tore its rigging can change that contrary wind for a more happy one to drive us into the Port. 6. 'T is a comfort against the projects of the Churches adversaries in times of publick commotions The consideration of the Divine soveraignty may arm us against the threatnings of mighty ones and the menaces of persecutors God hath Authority above the Crowns of men and a Wisdom superior to the cabals of men None can move a step without him he hath a negative voice upon their Counsels a negative hand upon their motions their politick resolves must stop at the point he hath prescrib'd them Their formidable strength cannot exceed the limits he hath set them their overreaching wisdom expires at the breath of God There is no Wisdom nor Vnderstanding nor Counsel against the Lord. Prov. 21.30 Not a bullet can be discharg'd nor a Sword drawn a wall battered nor a person dispatcht out of the world without the leave of God by the mightiest in the World The instruments of Satan are no more free from his soveraign restraint than their inspirer they cannot pull the hook out of their nostrils nor cast the bridle out of their mouths This soveraign can shake the Earth rend the Heavens overthrow Mountains the most Mountainous opposers of his interest Though the Nations rush in against his people like the rushing of many waters God shall rebuke them they shall be chased as the chaff of the Mountains before the Wind and like a rolling thing before the Whirlwind Isaiah 17.13 So doth he often burst in pieces the most mischievous designs and conducts the oppressed to a happy port He often turns the severest tempests into a calm as well as the most peaceful calm into a horrible storm How often hath a well-rigg'd ship that seemed to spâ—rn the Sea under her feet and beat the waves before her to a foam been swallowed up into the bowels of that Element over whose back she rode a little before God never comes to deliver his Church as a Governour but in a wrathful posture Ezek. 20.23 Surely saith the Lord with a mighty hand and with an out stretched arm and with fury pour'd out will I rule over you not with fury poured out upon the Church but fury pour'd out upon her Enemies as the words
change the security he may have upon the height of a Rock to expect it from the dwarfishness of a Mole-hill To put confidence in any inferiour Lord more than in the Prince is a folly in civil converse but a rebellion in Divine God only being above all can only rule all can command things to help us and check other things which we depend on and make them fall short of our expectations The due consideration of this Doctrine would make us pierce through second causes to the first and look further than to the smaller sort of Sailers that clime the ropes and dress the Sails to the Pilot that sits at the Helm the Master that by an indisputable Authority orders all their motions We should not depend upon second causes for our support but look beyond them to the Authority of the Deity and the dominion he hath over all the works of his hands Zach. 10.1 Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain When the seasons of the year conspire for the producing such an effect when the usual time of rain is wheel'd about in the year stop not your thoughts at the point of the Heavens whence you expect it but pierce the Heavens and sollicite God who must give order for it before it comes The due meditation of all things depending on the Divine Dominion would strike off our hands from all other holds so that no creature would engross the dependance and trust which is due to the first cause As we do not thank the Heavens when they pour out rain so we are not to depend upon them when we want it God is to be sought to when the Womb of 2d causes is open'd to relieve us as well as when the Womb of 2d causes is barren and brings not forth its wonted progeny 2. It would make us diligent in worship The consideration of God as the supream Lord is the Foundation of all Religion Our Father which art in Heaven prefaceth the Lord's Prayer Father is a name of Authority in Heaven the place where he hath fixed his Throne notes his Government not my Father but our Father notes the extent of this Authority In all worship we acknowledge the object of our worship our Lord and our selves his vassals If we bear a sense that he is our Soveraign King it would draw us to him in every exigence and keep us with him in a reverential posture in every address When we come we should be careful not to violate his right but render him the homage due to his Royalty We should not appear before him with empty souls but fill'd with Holy thoughts We should bring him the best of our flock and present him with the prime of our strength Were we sensible we hold all of him we should not with-hold any thing from him which is more worthy than another Our hearts would be fram'd into an awful regard of him when we consider that glorious and fearful name the Lord our God Deut. 28.58 We should look to our feet when we enter into his house if we considered him in Heaven upon his Throne and our selves on Earth at his Footstool Eccles 5.2 lower before him than a worm before an Angel It would hinder garishness and lightness The Jews saith Capel on the 1 Tim. 1.17 repeat this expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 King of Worlds or Eternal King Probable the first Original of it might be to stake them down from wandring When we consider the Majesty of God cloathed with a Robe of light sitting upon his high Throne adorn'd with his Royal Ensigns we should not enter into the presence of so great a Majesty with the Sacrifice of fools with light motions and foolish thoughts as if he were one of our companions to be droll'd with We should not hear his word as if it were the voice of some ordinary Pesant The consideration of Majesty would engender reverence in our service It would also make us speak of God with honour and respect as of a great and glorious King and not use defaming expressions of him as if he were an infamous being And were he consider'd as a terrible Majesty he would not be frequently sollicited by some to pronounce a damnation upon them upon every occasion 3. It would make us charitable to others Since he is our Lord the great proprietor of the World 't is sit he should have a part of our goods as well as our time he being the Lord both of our goods and time The Lord is to be honour'd with our substance Prov. 3.9 Kings were not to be approached to without a present Tribute is due to Kings but because he hath no need of any from us to bear up his state maintain the charge of his wars or pay his Military Officers and Host 't is a debt due to him to acknowledge him in his poor to sustain those that are a part of his substance Though he stands in no need of it himself yet the poor that we have alwayes with us do As a 7th part of our weekly time so some part of our weakly gains are due to him There was to be a weekly laying by in store somewhat of what God had prosper'd them for the relief of others 1 Cor. 16.1 2. the quantity is not determin'd that is left to every man's Conscience according as God hath prosper'd him that week If we did consider God as the donor and proprietor we should dispose of his gifts according to the design of the true owner and act in our places as Stewards intrusted by him and not purse up his part as well as our own in our coffers We should not deny him a small quit rent as an acknowledgment that we have a greater income from him We should be ready to give the inconsiderable pittance he doth require of us as an acknowledgment of his propriety as well as liberality 4. It would make us watchfull and arm us against all temptations Had Eve stuck to her first Argument against the Serpent she had not been instrumental to that destruction which Mankind yet feel the smart of Gen. 3.3 God hath said ye shall not eat of it The great Governour of the World hath laid his Soveraign command upon us in this point The temptation gain'd no ground till her heart let go the sense of this for the pleasure of her eye and palate The repetition of this the great Lord of the World hath said or order'd had both unargumented and disarm'd the Tempter A sence of God's Dominion over us would discourage a temptation and put it out of countenance It would bring us with a vigorous strength to beat it back to a retreat If this were as strongly urg'd as the temptation it would make the heart of the tempted strong and the motion of the tempter feeble 5. It would make us entertain afflictions as they ought to be entertain'd viz. with a respect to God When men make light of
an earth-worm a mean animal as man be afraid to speak irreverently of so great a King among his pots and Strumpets Not to fear him not to reverence him is to pull his Throne from under him and make him of a lower Authority than our selves or any creature that we reverence more 5. Prayer to God and trust in him is inferr'd from his Soveraignty If he be the supream Soveraign holding Heaven and Earth in his hand disposing all things here below not committing every thing to the influence of the stars or the humours of men we ought then to apply our selves to him in every case implore the exercise of his Authority we hereby own his peculiar right over all things and persons He only is the supream head in all causes and over all persons Thine is the Kingdom concludes the Lord's Prayer both as a motive to pray Mat. 6.13 and a ground to expect what we want He that believes not God's Government will think it needless to call upon him will expect no refuge under him in a strait but make some creature-reed his support If we do not seek to him but rely upon the dominion we have over our own possessions or upon the Authority of any thing else we disown his Supremacy and Dominion over all things we have as good an opinion of our selves or of some creature as we ought to have of God We think our selves or some natural cause we seek to or depend upon as much Soveraigns as he and that all things which concern us are as much at the dispose of an inferior as of the great Lord. 'T is indeed to make a God of our selves or of the Creature When we seek to him upon all occasions we own this divine eminency we acknowledge that it is by him mens hearts are order'd the World govern'd all things dispos'd And God that is jealous of his glory is best pleas'd with any duty in the creature that doth acknowledge and desire the glorification of it which Prayer and dependance on him doth in a special manner Desiring the exercise of his Authority and the preservation of it in ordering the affairs of the World 6. Obedience naturally results from this Doctrine As his justice requires fear his goodness thankfulness his faithfulness trust his truth belief so his Soveraignty in the nature of it demands Obedience As it is most fit he should rule in regard of his excellency so it is most fit we should obey him in regard of his Authority He is our Lord and we his Subjects he is our Master and we his servants 't is righteous we should observe him and conform to his will He is every thing that speaks an Authority to command us and that can challenge an humility in us to obey As that is the truest Doctrine that subjects us most to God so he is the truest Christian that doth in his practice most acknowledge this subjection And as soveraignty is the first notion a Creature can have of God so obedience is the first and chief thing Conscience reflects upon the Creature Man holds all of God and therefore owes all the operations capable to be produced by those faculties to that soveraign power that endowed him with them Man had no being but from him he hath no motion without him he should therefore have no being but for him and no motion but according to him To call him Lord and not to act in subjection to him is to mock and put a scorn upon him Luk. 6.46 Why call you me Lord Lord and do not the things that I say 'T is like the Crucifying Christ under the Title of a King 'T is not by professions but by observance of the Laws of a Prince that we manifest a due respect to him By that we reverence that Authority that enacted them and the prudence that fram'd them This doctrine affords us motives to obey and directs us to the manner of Obedience 1. Motives to obey 1. 'T is Comely and Orderly Is it not a more becoming thing to be ruled by the will of our soveraign than by that of our lusts To observe a wise and gracious Authority than to set up inordinate appetites in the room of his Law Would not all men account it a disorder to be abominated to see a slave or vassal controul the just orders of his Lord and endeavour to subject his Masters will to his own Much more to expect God should serve our humour rather than we be regulated by his Will 'T is more orderly that subjects should obey their Governours than Governours their Subjects that Passion should obey Reason than Reason obey Passion When good Governours are to conform to Subjects and reason vail to passion 't is monstrous the one disturbs the order of a community and the other defaceth the beauty of the Soul Is it a comely thing for God to stoop to our meanness or for us to stoop to his greatness 2. In regard of the Divine Soveraignty 't is both honourable and advantagious to obey God 'T is indeed the glory of a Superior to be obey'd by his Inferior but where the soveraign is of transcendent excellency and dignity 't is an honour to a mean person to be under his immediate commands and enrolled in his service 'T is more honour to be Gods Subject than to be the greatest worldly Monarch his very service is an Empire and disobedience to him is a slavery * Servire deo regnare est 'T is a part of his soveraignty to reward any service done him Other Lords may be willing to recompence the service of their Subjects but are often rendred unable but nothing can stand in the way of God to hinder your reward if nothing stand in your way to hinder your obedience Levit. 18.5 If you keep my Statutes you shall live in them I am the Lord. Is there any thing in the World can recompence you for Rebellion against God and obedience to a Lust Saul cools the hearts of his Servants from running after David by Davids inability to give them Fields and Vineyards 1 Sam. 22.7 Will the Son of Jesse give every one of you Fields and Vineyards and make you Captains of thousands and Captains of hundreds that you have conspired against me But God hath a Dominion to requite as well as an Authority to command your obedience He is a great soveraign to bear you out in your observance of his precepts against all reproaches and violences of men and at last to crown you with eternal honour If he should neglect vindicating one time or other your loyalty to him he will neglect the maintaining and vindicating his own soveraignty and greatness 3. God in all his dispensations to man was careful to preserve the rights of his soveraignty in exacting obedience of his Creature The second thing he manifested his soveraignty in was that of a Law-giver to Adam after that of a Proprietor in giving him the possession of the
Garden one follow'd immediately the other Gen. 2.15 16. The Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and the Lord God commanded the man saying of every Tree of the Garden thou mayest freely eat but of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it c. Nothing was to be enjoyed by man but upon the condition of obedience to his Lord and it is observ'd that in the description of the Creation God is not call'd Lord till the finishing of the Creation and particularly in the forming of man Gen. 2.7 And the Lord God form'd man Though he was Lord of all Creatures yet it was in man he would have his soveraignty particularly manifested and by man have his Authority specially acknowledged The Law is prefac'd with this Title I am the Lord thy God Exod. 20.2 Authority in Lord sweetness in God the one to enjoyn the other to allure obedience and God enforceth several of the commands with the same Title And as he begins many precepts with it so he concludes them with the same Title I am the Lord Levit. 19.37 and in other places In all his communications of his Goodness to man in ways of blessing them he stands upon the preservation of the rights of his soveraignty and manifests his graciousness in favour of his Authority I am the Lord your God your God in all my perfections for your advantage but yet your soveraign for your obedience In all his condescensions he will have the rights of this untoucht and unviolated by us When Christ would give the most pregnant instance of his condescending and humble kindness he urgeth his Authority to ballast their Spirits from any presumptuous eruptions because of his humility John 13.13 You call me Master and Lord and you say well for so I am He asserts his Authority and presseth them to their duty when he had seem'd to lay it by for the demeanour of a Servant and had below the dignity of a Master put on the humility of a mean underling to wash the Disciples feet all which was to oblige them to perform the command he then gave them ver 14. in Obedience to his Authority and imitation of his Example 4. All Creatures obey him All Creatures punctually observe the Law he hath imprinted on their nature and in their several capacities acknowledge him their soveraign they move according to the inclinations he imprinted on them The Sea contains it self in its bounds and the Sun steps not out of its sphear the Stars march in their Order they continue this day according to thy Ordinance for all are thy Servants Psal 119.91 If he Orders things contrary to their primitive nature they obey him When he speaks the word the devouring fire becomes gentle and toucheth not a hair of the Children he will preserve The hunger-starv'd Lions suspend their ravenous nature when so good a morsel as Daniel is set before them And the Sun which had been in perpetual motion since its Creation obeys the writ of ease God sent it in Joshua's time and stands still Shall insensible and sensible Creatures be punctual to his Orders passively acknowledge his Authority Shall Lions and Serpents obey God in their places and shall not man who can by reason argue out the soveraignty of God and understand the sence and goodness of his Laws and actively obey God with that will he hath enricht him with above other Creatures Yet the truth is every sensitive yea every senseless Creature obeys God more than his rational more than his gracious Creatures in this World The rational Creatures since the fall have a prevailing principle of corruption Let the Obedience of other Creatures incite us more to imitate them and shame our remissness in not acknowledging the dominion of God in the just way he prescribes us to walk in Well then let us not pretend to own God as our Lord and yet act the part of Rebels Let us give him the reverence and pay him that obedience which of right belongs to so great a King Whatsoever he speaks as a true God ought to be beleiv'd whatsoever he orders as a Soveraign God ought to be obey'd Let not God have less than man nor man have more than God 'T is a common principle writ upon the reason of all men that respect and observance is due to the Majesty of a man much more to the Majesty of God as a Law-giver 2. As this Doctrine presents us motives so it directs us to the manner and kind of our Obedience to God 1. It must be with a respect to his Authority As the veracity of God is the formal object of faith and the reason why we believe the things he hath reveal'd so the Authority of God is the formal object of our obedience or the reason why we observe the things he hath commanded There must be a respect to his will as the rule as well as to his Glory as the end 'T is not formally obedience that is not done with a regard to the order of God though it may be materially obedience as it answers the matter of the Precept As when men will abstain from excess and rioting because it is ruinous to their health not because it is forbidden by the great Law-giver This is to pay a respect to our own conveniency and interest not a Conscientious observance to God a regard to our health not to our Soveraign a kindness to our selves not a justice due to the rights of God There must not only be a consideration of the matter of the Precept as convenient but a consideration of the Authority of the Law-giver as Obligatory Thus saith the Lord Ushers in every order of his directing our eye to the Authority enacting it Jeroboam did God's will of prophesie in taking the Kingdom of Israel And the devils may be subservient in God's will or providence but neither of them are put upon the account of obedience because not done intentionally with any Conscience of the Soveraignty of God God will have this owned by a regular respect to it So much he insists upon the honour of it that the Sacrifice of Christ God-man was most agreeable to him not only as it was great and admirable in it self but also for that ravishing obedience to his will which was the Life and Glory of his Sacrifice whereby the justice of God was not only owned in the Offering but the Soveraignty of God owned in the Obedience Phil. 2.8 He became obedient unto death Wherefore God highly exalted him 2. It must be the best and most exact obedience The most Soveraign Authority calls for the exactest and lowest observance the highest Lord for the deepest homage being he is a great King he must have the best in our flock Mal. 1. Obedience is due to God as King and the choicest obedience is due to him as he is the most excellent King The more majestick and noble
a day or two but continually In whatsoever day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye but not understanding his dying that very day he should eat of it Referring day to the extensiveness of the prohibition as to time But to leave this as uncertain it may be answered that as in some threatnings a condition is implyed though not exprest as in that positive denouncing of the destruction of Niniveh Jonah 3.4 Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroy'd the condition is imply'd unless they humble themselves and repent for upon their Repentance the sentence was deferred So here in the day thou eatest thereof thou shall dye the death or certainly dye unless there be a way found for the expiation of thy crime and the righting my honour This condition in regard of the event may as well be asserted to be implyed in this threatning as that of Repentance was in the other Or rather thou shalt dye thou shalt die spiritually thou shalt loose that image of mine in thy nature that Righteousness which is as much the Life of thy Soul as thy Soul is the life of thy Body that Righteousness whereby thou art enabled to live to me and thy own happiness What the Soul is to the Body a quickning Soul that the image of God is to the Soul a quickning image Or thou shalt dye the death or certainly dye thou shalt be liable to death * Perer in loc And so it is to be understood not of an actual death of the Body but the merit of death and the necessity of death thou wilt be obnoxious to death which will be avoided if thou dost forbear to eat of the forbidden fruit thou shalt be a guilty person and so under a sentence of death that I may when I please inflict it on thee Death did come upon Adam that day because his nature was vitiated He was then also under an expectation of death he was obnoxious to it though that day it was not poured out upon him in the full bitterness and gall of it As when the Apostle saith Rom. 8.10 The Body is dead because of sin he speaks to the Living and yet tells them the body was dead because of sin he means no more than that it was under a sentence and so a necessity of dying though not actually dead So thou shalt be under the sentence of death that day as certainly as if that day thou shouldst sink into the dust And as by his Patience towards man not sending forth death upon him in all the bitter ingredients of it his Justice afterwards was more eminent upon mans surety than it would have been if it had been then employ'd in all its severe operations upon man So was his Veracity eminent also in making good this threatning in inflicting the punishment included in it upon our nature assum'd by a mighty person and upon that person in our nature who was infinitely higher than our nature 2. His justice and righteousness are not prejudiced by his patience There is a hatred of the sin in his holiness and a sentence past against the sin in his justice though the execution of that sentence be suspended and the person reprieved by patience which is implyed Eccles 8.11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil Sentence is past but a speedy execution is stopt Some of the Heathens who would not imagine God unjust and yet seeing the villanies and oppressions of men in the World remain unpunisht and frequently beholding prosperous wickedness to free him from the charge of injustice denyed his providence and actual Government of the World for if he did take notice of humane affairs and concern himself in what was done upon the Earth they could not think an infinite goodness and Justice could be so slow to punish oppressors and relieve the miserable and leave the World in that disorder under the injustice of men They judged such a patience as was exercised by him if he did govern the World was drawn out beyond the line of fit and just Is it not a presumption in men to prescribe a rule of Righteousness and conveniency to their Creator It might be demanded of such whether they never injur'd any in their lives and when certainly they have one way or other would they not think it a very unworthy if not unjust thing that a person so injur'd by them should take a speedy and severe revenge on them And if every man should do the like would there not be a speedy dispatch made of Mankind Would not the World be a shambles and men rush forwards to one anothers destruction for the wrongs they have mutually received If it be accounted a virtue in man and no unrighteousness not presently to be all on fire against an offence by what right should any question the consistency of Gods patience with his justice Do we praise the lenity of Parents to children and shall we disparage the long suffering of God to men We do not censure the righteousness of Physitians and Chirurgeons because they cut not off a corrupt member this day as well as to morrow And is it just to asperse God because he doth deferr his vengeance which man assumes to himself a right to do We never account him a bad Governour that deferrs the tryal and consequently the condemnation and execution of a notorious offender for important reasons and beneficial to the publick either to make the nature of his crime more evident or to find out the rest of his complices by his discovery A Governour indeed were unjust if he commanded that which were unrighteous and forbad that which were worthy and commendable But if he delayes the execution of a convict offender for weighty reasons either for the benefit of the state whereof he is the Ruler or for some advantage to the offender himself to make him have a sence of and a regret for his offence we account him not unjust for this God doth not by his patience dispense with the holiness of his Law nor cut off any thing from its due Authority If men do strengthen themselves by his long suffering against his Law 't is their fault not any unrighteousness in him He will take a time to vindicate the Righteousness of his own commands if men will wholly neglect the time of his patience in forbearing to pay a dutiful observance to his Precept If Justice be natural to him and he cannot but punish sin yet he is not necessitated to consume sinners as the fire doth stubble put into it which hath no command over its own qualities to restrain them from acting But God is a free agent and may choose his own time for the distribution of that punishment his nature leads him to Though he be naturally just yet it is not so natural to him as to deprive him of a dominion over his own acts and a
Will of man Disclaim our dependance on God to hang upon the uncertain breath of a Creature in all this God is made less than man and man more than God God is depos'd and man enthron'd God made a slave and man a soveraign above him To this we may referre the solemn Addresses of some for the maintenance of the Protestant Religion according to Law the Law of Man not so much minding the Law of God resolving to make the Law the Church the State the Rule of their Religion and change that if the Laws be chang'd steering their Opinions by the compass of the Magistrates Judgment and Interest 2. The Dominion of God as a Proprietor is practically contemned 1. By Envy When we are not as flush and gay as well spread and sparkling as others this passion gnaws our Souls and we become the Executioners to wrack our selves because God is the Executor of his own pleasure The foundation of this passion is a quarrel with God to envy others the enjoyment of their Propriety is to envy God his right of disposal and consequently the propriety of his own Goods 'T is a mental Theft committed against God we rob him of his right in our will and wish 't is a Robbery to make our selves equal with God when it is not our due which is implied Phil. 2.6 when Christ is said to think it no Robbery to be equal with God We would wrest the Scepter out of his hand wish he were not the conductor of the world and that he would resign his Soveraignty and the right of the distribution of his own goods to the Capricios of our humor and ask our leave to what Subjects he should dispense his favours All Envy is either a tacit accusation of God as an usurper and assuming a right to dispose of that which doth not belong to him and so it is a denyal of his propriety or else charges him with a blind or unjust distribution and so it is a bespattering his wisdom and righteousness When God doth punish envy he vindicates his own Soveraignty as though this passion cheifly endeavoured to blast this perfection Ezek. 25.11 12. As I live saith the Lord I will do according to thy anger and according to thy envy and thou shall know that I am the Lord. The sin of envy in the Devils was immediately against the Crown of God and so was the sin of envy in the first man envying God the sole Prerogative in knowledge above himself This base humor in Cain at the preference of Abels sacrifice before his was the cause that he deprived him of his life Denying God first his right of choice and what he should accept and then invading Gods right of propriety in usurping a power over the Life and Being of his brother which solely belong'd to God 2. The Dominion of God as a proprietor is practically contemned by a violent or sâ—rreptitious taking away from any what God hath given him the possession of Since God is the Lord of all and may give the possession and dominion of things to whom he pleaseth all Theft and Purloyning all cheating and cousening another of his right is not only a crime against the true possessor depriving him of what he is intrusted with but against God as the absolute and universal proprietor having a right thereby to confer his own goods upon whom he pleaseth as well as against God as a Lawgiver forbidding such a violence The snatching away what is an others denyes man the right of possession and God the right of donation The Israelites taking the Egyptians Jewels had been Theft had it not been by a Divine license and order but cannot be slander'd with such a term after the proprietor of the whole World had alter'd the Title and alienated them by his positive grant from the Egyptians to conferr them upon the Israelites 3. The Dominion of God as a proprietor is practically contemned by not using what God hath given us for those ends for which he gave them to us God passeth things over to us with a condition to use that for his Glory which he hath bestowed upon us by his bounty He is Lord of the end for which he gives as well as Lord of what he gives the donors right of propriety is infringed when the Lands and legacies he leaves to a particular use are not employ'd to those ends to which he bequeathed them The right of the Lord of a Mannour is violated when the Copy-hold is not us'd according to the condition of the conveyance So it is an invasion of Gods soveraignty not to use the Creatures for those ends for which we are intrusted with them when we deny our selves a due and lawful support from them hence Covetousness is an invasion of his right or when we unnecessarily wast them hence prodigality disowns his propriety Or when we bestow not any thing upon the relief of others hence uncharitableness comes under the same title appropriating that to our selves as if we were the Lords when we are but the usufructuaries for our selves and Stewards for others this is to be rich to our selves not to God Luke 12.21 for so are they who employ not their wealth for the service and according to the intent of the donor Thus the Israelites did not own God the true proprietor of their Corn Wine and Oyl which God had given them for his Worship when they prepared offerings for Baal out of his Stock Hos 2.8 For she did not know that I gave her Corn and Wine and Oyl and multiplied her Gold and Silver which they prepar'd for Baal as if they had been sole proprietors and not Factors by Commission to improve the Goods for the true owner 'T is the same invasion of Gods right to use the parts and gifts that God hath given us either as fuel for our pride or advancing self or a witty scoffing at God and Religion When we use not Religion for the honour of our Soveraign but a stool to rise by and observe his precepts outwardly not out of regard to his Authority but as a stale to our interest and furnishing self with a little concern and triflle When men will wrest his word for the favour of their lusts which God intended for the checking of them and make interpretations of it according to their humors and not according to his Will discovered in the Scripture this is to pervert the use of the best goods and depositum he hath put into our hands even divine Revelations Thus hypocrisie makes the soveraignty of God a nullity 3. The Dominion of God as a Governour is practically contemned I. In Idolatry Since Worship is an acknowledgment of Gods soveraignty to adore any Creature instead of God or to pay to any thing that homage of trust and confidence which is due to God though it be the highest Creature in Heaven or Earth is to acknowledg that soveraignty to pertain to a Creature which is challeng'd by
Province a Rebel if he disobeys the Orders sent him by the soveraign Prince that commission'd him Rebellion against God is a crime of Princes as well as Rebellion against Princes a Crime of Subjects Saul is charg'd with it by Samuel in a high manner for an act of simple disobedience though intended for the service of God and the enriching his Country with the spoils of the Amalekites 1 Sam. 15.23 Rebellion is as the sin of Witchcraft like Witchcraft or Covenanting with the Divel acting as if he had received his commission not from God but from Sathan Magistrates as commission'd by God ought to act for him Doth humane authority ever give a Commission to any to rebel against it self did God ever depute any earthly soveraignty against his glory and give them leave to out-law his Laws to introduce their own No when he gave the vicarious dominion to Christ he calls upon the Kings of the Earth to be instructed and be Wise and kiss the Son Psal 2.10.12 i. e. To observe his orders and pay him homage as their Governour What a silly doltish thing is it to resist that supream Authority to which the Arch-Angels submit themselves and regulate their employments punctually by their instructions Those excellent Creatures exactly obey him in all the acts of their subordinate Government in the World those in whose hand the greatest Monarch is no more than a silly fly between the fingers of a Giant A contradiction to the interest of God hath been fatal to Kings The four Monarchies have had their wings clipt and most of them have been buried in their own ashes they have all like the imitators of Lucifers pride fallen from the Heaven of their Glory to the depth of their shame and misery All Governours are bound to be as much obedient to God as their Subjects are bound to be submissive to them Their Authority over men is limited Gods Authority over them is absolute and unbounded Though every Soul ought to be subject to the higher powers yet there is a higher power of all to which those higher powers are to subject themselves they are to be keepers of both the Tables of the Law of God and are then most soveraigns when they set in their own practice an example of obedience to God for their Subjects to write after 2. They ought to imitate God in the exercise of their soveraignty in ways of Justice and Righteousness Though God be an absolute soveraign yet his Government is not Tyrannical but managed according to the rules of Righteousness Wisdom and Goodness If God that created them as well as their Subjects doth so exercise his Government 't is a duty incumbent upon them to do the same Since they are not the Creators of their people but the conductors As Gods Government tends to the good of the World so ought theirs to the good of their Countries God committed not the government of the World to the Mediator in an unlimited way but for the good of the Church in order to the Eternal Salvation of his people Eph. 1.22 He gave him to be head over all things to the Church He had power over the Devils to restrain them in their temptation and malice power over the Angels to order their Ministry for the Heirs of Salvation So power is given to Magistrates for the Civil preservation of the World and of humane Society They ought therefore to consider for what ends they are placed over the rest of mankind and not exercise their Authority in a licentious way but conformable to that Justice and Righteousness wherein God doth administer his government and for the preservation of those who are committed to them 3. Magistrates must then be obey'd when they act according to Gods order and within the bounds of the divine Commission They are no friends to the soveraignty of God that are Enemies to Magistracy his Ordinance Sam was a good Governour though none of the best men and the despisers of his Government after Gods choice were the Sons of Belial 1 Sam. 10.27 Christ was no Enemy to Caesar To pull down a faithful Magistrate such an one as Zerubbabel is to pluck a Signet from the hand of God For in that capacity he accounts him Hag. 2.23 Gods servants stand or fall to their own Master How doth he check Aaron and Miriam for speaking against Moses his servant Numb 12.8 Were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses against Moses as related to you in the capacity of a Governour against Moses as related to me in the capacity of my servant To speak any thing against them as they act by Gods order is an invasion of Gods soveraign right who gave them their Commission To act against just power or the justice of an Earthly power is to act against Gods Ordinance who ordained them in the World but not any abuse or ill use of their power 2. USE How dreadful is the consideration of this doctrine to all rebels against God Can any man that hath brains in his head imagine it an inconsiderable thing to despise the soveraign of the World It was the sole crime of disobedience to that positive Law whereby God would have a visible memorial of his soveraignty preserved in the eye of Man that showered down that deluge of misery under which the World groans to this day God had given Adam a Soul whereby he might live as a rational Creature and then gives him a Law whereby he might live as a dutiful Subject For God forbidding him to eat of the fruit of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil declared his own supremacy over Adam and his propriety in the pleasant World he had given him by his bounty he let him know hereby that man was not his own Lord nor was to live after his own sentiments but the directions of a superior * Chrysost in Gen. Hom. 16. As when a great Lord builds a magnificent Palace and brings in tanoher to inhabit it he reserves a small duty to himself not of an equal value with the House but for an acknowledgment of his own right that the Tenant may know he is not the Lord of it but hath his grant by the liberality of another God hereby gave Adam matter for a pure Obedience that had no foundation in his own Nature by any implanted Law he was only in it to respect the will of his soveraign and to understand that he was to live under the power of a higher than himself There was no more moral evil in the eating of this fruit as considered distinct from the command than in eating of any other fruit in the Garden Had there been no prohibition he might with as much safety have fed upon it as upon any other No Law of nature was transgrest in the act of eating of it but the soveraignty of God over him was denied by him and for this the death threatned was inflicted on him and his posterity For