fruit of the womb as a blessing and blesseth him that hath his quiver full of these shafts but now the poor man knoweth not how to understand this and it is hard for him not to repine at the multiplying of it a great error doubtless but such as for ought I know good people may fall into we cannot trust God to provide for those which he giveth us if this hath been thy error God but pays thee in thy own kind by shortning thy number and maketh thy own secret sinful wish now to be thy Plague and Torment but this ordinarily is the sin of the poorer and meaner sort of Christians 2. Didst thou not let thy heart run out too much upon thy Children God is jealous and it is the nature of jealousy not to suffer a rival in the object beloved be it a person or a thing God is the object and he will be the prime object of his peoples love desire and delight It is his Law Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy strength it may be thy Child had more of thy heart more of thy love and and delight than God had no wonder if he hath taken it from thee this is now usually the sin of those whose circumstances in the world are better they have a fair estate in the world and Children few enough to leave it to and in such cases it is a very hard thing to keep our hearts within due bounds but our affections are ready to overflow especially if there be nothing in the temper or behaviour of the Child that takes off the edge of our affections to it 3. Doth not thy heart smite thee for the neglect of thy duty to thy Child especially if it were of any years Thy duty in instructing it or thy duty in reproving and admonishing it Elie's Sons were indeed men grown but God cut off his Children though their personal guilt justified God in his severity against them yet Eli smarted in their punishments for honouring his Sons more than God for dealing too gently with them for their most enormous wickednesses Thou mayest also neglect thy duty towards them in instructing them in making them acquainted with the holy Scriptures in admonishing them to keep the Lords Sabbaths and seeing to their external Sanctification of them This is undoubtedly a second piece of thy duty upon such a dispensation and to be humbled before God for those sins which thy conscience smiteth thee for and suggesteth to thee as probable causes of this rod of God upon thee 3. It is doubtless thy duty whatsoever thou findest to be satisfied with Gods good pleasure Rachel mourned sinfully while she so mourned as that she refused to be comforted If thou findest that probably God hath punished thy sin in the sickness pain and death of thy Child it is indeed matter of humiliation to thee it offers thee a just opportunity to resolve for the time to come to amend thy errors as to any survivors which God shall lend thee but yesterday cannot be called back again God hath done what pleased him It may be in mercy to thy Child though it be in judgment unto thee thou hast no reason to quarrel or murmure at God for any of his dispensations If it be for thy Child 's Original sin still thou hast no reason to blame God he is just and righteous in what he hath done But if God hath done it to give thy Child a quicker passage to Heaven to bring it sooner to a state of perfection to deliver it from an evil to come here thou hast reason to admire and adore the Divine goodness rather than to quarrel at Divine Justice There are a great many things that may conduce to the relief of a godly man or woman disturbed at this dispensation of Divine Providence It is a very ordinary dispensation of God though therefore it may look like a digression from the principal argument of my discourse yet it may possibly be not so judged by some of you whose case it either at present is or may be to instance in some heads of arguments which occasionally you may make use of for the quieting of your Spirits 1. Consider what-ever was the moving cause on Gods part yet the will of God is revealed The will of God is such a thing to satisfy a Christian with as nothing can be more nothing greater We have our Heaven by the will of God fear not little flock it is your Fathers will to give you a Kingdom We have all our grace all our glory from the will of God and shall we not thankfully accept a cross when it is the will of our Father to lay it upon our necks We pray thy will be done and shall we murmure against it when we see it done This silenced Aaron David Heli Hezekiah it leaves no room for a good Christians reply to it it is our Fathers will that is enough It is our Fathers will revealed by an Act of his Providence The Lord hath given saith Job and the Lord hath taken blessed be the name of the Lord. 2. Consider how many sadder cases than thine there have been Thou hast lost a Child an infant Job lost all his Children when they were grown up feasting at their elder Brothers house Aarons was a sad cause he lost his two Sons grown up in an act of sinning yet he held his peace Helies case was sad to lose two such wicked Sons in a Battel Davids case was sad God had expresly told him the Child should dye because of his sin and that by it he had made the enemies of God to blaspheme What doth David do He fasteth he prayeth he humbleth himself before God so long as the Child lived and while he had any hope but when the will of God was revealed when the Child was dead he ariseth and eateth bread as he was wont to do he saith that he should go to it it should not return to him 3. Consider Let the case be as sad as it will yet if thou lookest round about it there is mercy in it either mercy to thy Child or mercy to thee or mercy to both if thy Child be gone to Heaven there is mercy in that if it be delivered from evil to come upon the World or that part of the world where it should have had its portion there is mercy in that David's case was as sad as one can well think of any of this nature yet there was this mercy in it the living monument and remembrance of David's sin and shame was taken away 4. Suppose that God hath for thy sin taken it away and thou canst not satisfie thy self but it is so yet consider God eternally punisheth none for the sins of their correlates God may punish persons with bodily and temporal punishments for the sins of their Parents but not eternally as to those punishments every soul shall bear no
maketh the wrath and rage of bloody men to praise him I might go on and shew you how God makes use of the wars and fightings the envy emulation and strife which often arise amongst the men of the world and James 3.1 Whence come all these but from the lusts that war in our members to gain his people liberty and protection But I have spoken enough to justifie this Observation but it may be some will say to me Why doth God do this Could not God do his work by other instruments And were it not more suitable to the Holiness of God to bring about his designs by better instruments To which the answer were good enough to say Who art thou that disputest with God It is enough for us that thus it pleaseth him and that this is consistent enough both with his Holiness and Wisdom It is not inconsistent with his holiness to mean and to turn that for good which men mean and intend for evil as in Joseph's case Gen. 50.20 for God doth not put this malice into their hearts he only suffereth them to walk in their own ways and then governeth their lusts to his own praise and glory But I shall shew you that this is a very reasonable motion and working of Divine Providence which will appear to you by the following Considerations 1. That God by this sheweth his infinite wisdom and power by how much there is the less aptitude and disposition in a cause to bring forth an effect by so much must the power and wisdom of the efficient cause be made more glorious Now there is nothing in nature less disposed to the Glory of God nor that hath so much antipathy to the Glory of God as sin and lust What cannot that God do that can make mens lusts to praise him Lust of its own nature opposeth God nothing is so contrary to his designs for God to make this now to serve his designs and to bring about his Counsels this must glorifie God as an Almighty God that can do whatsoever he pleaseth and by what means soever he pleaseth yea and by this means God maketh his Wisdom admirable When he taketh the wise in their own craftiness Come saith Pharaoh let us deal wisely with them God makes Pharaoh's wisdom to destroy his people a great means to deliver his people What an infinitely-wise God did he by this declare himself Turning Pharaoh's wisdom into folly and making it to operate directly contrary to his deliberations 2. A second Consideration is this That it is but reasonable that God should make some use of the worst of men The worst of men are the Lords creatures he hath made them he doth much for them they live upon his hand of Providence 't is reasonable they should do him some service now intentionally and designedly a wicked man will do God no service at all his heart is quite another way his life is a pursuit of one lust or other if God did not get glory on him besides his intention he could have no service at all from him There is no reason that leud and wicked men covetous ambitious men bloody and cruel men should live in the world for nothing and be maintained from Gods basket for nothing without doing him any service they will not serve God as reasonable creatures should do offering up their bodies as a living acceptable sacrifice to God which the Apostle Rom. 12.1 determines our reasonable service The Apostle therefore to the Thessalonians calls wicked men unreasonable They shall therefore serve God as brute creatures as the beasts of the field serve him not knowing what they do as a meer machine and engine serveth us by the force of our hand nay in a worse degree quite contrary to their own counsels intentions and designs God could have no service from wicked men if he did not get himself a glory from their lusts as he got himself glory upon Pharaoh 3. There is something in Gods Counsels to be produced in the world that is fit for no other hands than the hands of sinners and is hard to be effected any way but from their lusts These are the acts of his Punitive Justice upon his People God is compelled by his Justice sometimes to kindle a fire in Sion and to set up a furnace in Hierusalem to melt and to try his people in order to the purging out of their dross and taking away their tin Now as it is lust which kindleth all fires so ordinarily it is the lust of Gods Enemies of wicked men which bloweth up this fire Sometimes indeed Ephraim is against Mamasses and Manasses against Ephraim but ordinarily it is the Assyrian or Egyptian or Babylonian that must destroy Israel Men do not use to set sheep to hunt and tear sheep but to make use of dogs for that work 4. This is a reasonable motion of Providence to incourage the people of God never to despair but continually to hope in the Lords mercy That which usually discourageth our hope in God for any good as to his Church is the heighth of the rage of Enemies the sad and forlorn state of things the appearance of never an instrument like to do any service for God or for his People But none of all this is a sufficient ground for discouragement if God can make use of the worst of men and make the lusts of people serviceable to his own wise counsels and bringing about his purposes I might also have added that these motions of Providence are reasonable to shew wicked men their folly and how vainly they set themselves against the counsels and purposes of God who ordinarily taketh them by guile and overthroweth them in their own craftiness But I have enlarged enough upon the doctrinal part of this Observation I now come to the Application of it Vse 1. In the first place let us here admire the infinite power and the wisdom of God and learn at all times to trust in his word What cannot that God do What will not the wisdom of that God extend to who can make the highest and proudest Enemies which his glory hath to serve the designs and counsels of his glory The work of Creation is not so much a work of infinite power and wisdom as this work of Providence In Creation God only produceth being out of not being here God brings out his glory from that which hath an unmeasurable contrariety to his glory nothing is so desperately opposite to the glory of God as the sordid lusts of mans heart no creature is so opposite to the honour and glory of God as a resolved malitious sinner is Now for God to make such a wretch to serve him nay to make such a wretch in the hottest pursuit of his lusts to serve him and by the satisfaction of his lusts to serve the great design of his glory O what an Almighty Power what an infinite wisdom must this speak in God! And this I say should recommend God
to heaven ordinarily with broken bones and a bleeding heart So that you see that Gods getting himself glory from his peoples sin gives no man a ground of presumption to go on in a course of sin against God Vse 4. In the last place Let this observation mind us in this case to be workers together with God Have we sinned and come short of the glory of God Let us do our indeavour to make our sins to turn to the furtherance of the glory of God Let us indeavour to make the best of our own bad markets What is done we cannot re-call let us indeavour if possible to make an advantage of our former miscarriages You will say How should that be Answ 1. Let the sense of your sins hasten your pace to the Lord Jesus Christ God hath a great deal of glory from our believing in him whom he hath sent The soul that accepteth of the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour giveth unto God the glory of his Power Wisdom Justice Goodness Truth it gives him the glory of the exceeding riches of his free-grace 2. Make use of your sins to increase your Confession your Repentance and Humiliation Confession giveth glory to God my Son saith Joshua Confess and give glory to God Let your former sins give you the further advantage for sorrowing after a godly sort that will bring forth carefulness indignation fear vehement desires zeal revenge as it did in the Church of Corinth 2 Cor. 7.11 3. Let the remembrance of them cause you to walk softly all the days of your life This is that which God requireth of all to walk humbly with their God The remembrance of your sins may be of notable use to you for this to keep down that pride which is naturally in all our hearts that swelling in an opinion of our selves of our own duties and performances that uncharitable judging and censuring and triumphing over others when we see them fallen in the day of temptations 4. Lastly Let the consideration of how many sins God hath forgiven you make you love much Thus the woman Luk. 7.37 47 made an improvement even of her former sins her much that was forgiven ingaged her to love that God much who had forgiven her so much This improvement St. Paul made 1 Cor. 15.9 10. I am saith he the least of all the Apostles and not meet to be called an Apostle because I persecuted the Church of God But by the grace of God I am that I am and his grace which was bestowed on me was not in vain but I laboured more abundantly than they all O this will be an excellent improvement even of your sins if your former unholiness shall now help to make you more holy your former unrighteousness shall help to make you more righteous for the time to come your reflexions upon how much you have done against God and his Saints shall now engage you to do more for God and the cause and people of God A good husband and house-wife will lose nothing but make some advantage of every rag every bit of wood c. I would have you be like them you have been formerly great sinners and done much to the dishonour of God your consciences can shew you a great dunghil of sin which you made in your state of vanity God hath changed your state changed your hearts let not that dunghil be lost look upon it often to help to raise up your hearts in the praises and admiration of Gods free-grace and the engaging your hearts more for God in your contrary duties for the time to come But so â—uch shall serve for this Observation also SERMON XXVI Psalm CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Am still going on instructing you to that spiritual Wisdom which the Text telleth you may be gained by and is declared in the Observation of the motions of Actual Providence I am now proceeding to a Twelfth Observation of this nature which I shall give you thus Observ 12. The Providence of God in the distribution of the good things of this life doth in a great measure move circularly though mostly to the seeming advantage of ungodly men In my enlargments upon this notion I shall keep much to the same method which I observed in the former 1. Opening it unto you 2. Justifying the observation by instances 3. Shewing you the reasonableness of this motion of Divine Providence And lastly Making some suitable Application 1. My observation as you see concerneth the motions of Actual Providence as to its distribution of the portions of this life The Pagan Philosophers distributed all the good things they had any knowledg of into three sorts The good things of the body amongst which they reckoned long-life health strength beauty c. The good things of the mind the rich endowments of it such as knowledg invention judgment wit memory and moral vertue c. and the good things of fortune such as birth ingenuous education honours riches All these have a goodness in them which lyeth in their suitableness to the use of humane life or society The blind Heathen not seeing the fountain-head of these beautiful streams ascribed them to fortune But they are all in the hand of Providence that giveth to one a longer to another a shorter life to one greater to another lesser measures of health and strength c. to one more judgment wit c. than to another But I chiefly understand my Observation of the good things which the Heathen called Bona fortunae the good things of fortune such as honours riches c. These also are the Lords he it is saith Moses That gives us power to get wealth And the Holy Ghost by another pen-man telleth us That promotion cometh neither from the east nor from the west but God pulleth down one and setteth up another Promotion doth mostly depend upon the favour of the great men of the Earth and you shall observe the Scripture everywhere maketh God the Author of the favour and grace which persons have found in the eyes of the Princes of the world 2. Now I observe in the first place That the wheel of Providence in making this distribution doth for the most part move circularly My meaning is that good and evil of this nature hath as all humane things its turns and vicissitudes sometimes to good men sometimes to bad men The Heathen had some prospect of this though what we call Providence they ascribed to fortune to whom they gave a wheel to signifie the rotation of all these sublunary contentments in which you know the same spokes are not always up nor down but sometimes these spokes are uppermost by and by they are at the ground and those that but now were below are up in their place And this is most perspicuous in bodies of people which are made up of those two sorts of men that divide the world godly
life as they can I say which way soever men will consider themselves or whatsoever they will place their ultimate felicity in whether it be in the enjoyment and vision of God to eternity or in living long and happy Still it is their highest wisdom both in their personal capacities and in their relative capacities as they stand related to others in their political or oeconomical relations as Princes Subjects Husbands Wives Parents Children Masters or Servants to govern them according to the rules and by the square of the word of God Now the observation I say of these ordinary dispositions of Divine Providence must therefore be exceedingly conducive to the increase of spiritual wisdom in our souls 2. This Observation will also teach us to understand the loving kindness of the Lord. The glory of God is by all Christians confessedly the end of mans creation and ought to be made the end of his action but herein appeareth the transcendent goodness of God That no man can act for his glory but he must also by the same actions consult his own good and be wise for himself So that in truth there is no man serveth God for nothing but in the same action by and in which he obeyeth God he also consulteth his own life health riches success in business and whatsoever can contribute not only to his eternal felicity but to his felicity and happiness in this life Now how wonderfully doth this speak the love of God to the children of men Every mans reason will tell him that there is a duty of homage and honour which is due from man unto God God is our Creator we are his creatures In him we live move and have our being and equally depend upon him for our preservation and sustentation from his Providence as derive from him as our Creator and the first Author of beings to us Now as it is in the power of any man in the cause to prescribe the honour and homage which shall be grateful and acceptable to him so undoubtedly it was in the power of God and free to him to have prescribed us an homage and service that should have impeached and prejudiced or some way disadvantaged us as to our external felicity and the accommodations of this life which should make it sweet to us But in this see the great loving kindness of the Lord That no man can possibly at more advantage serve himself and the good of his Family or City or Country than by serving God and indeavouring to square his whole converse to the rule of Gods word governing himself by the Scriptures and the rules of life which it gives nor doth God require any thing of us that is ungrateful to that true Reason which is in every man All the commands of God do but pinch us in the exercise of our Lusts and Passions the exercise of which if they have their liberty and were not by a Divine Law restrained would have no better an effect from their natural tendency than the imbittering of our lives by aches and pains and grievous diseases by the rebellion crosness and undutifulness of our relations by a liberty to injustice fraud deceit and oppression This is a great demonstration of Gods loving kindness that in his rules for the government of us he hath twisted our interest with his own and made it necessary for those who most consult his honour and glory most to consult their own good and happiness and that not only as to a life to come but as to this life also Vse 2. We may learn from hence the true reason why the most of men are cursed with the want of temporal blessings I say the most of men for what I told you before must be remembred that from these general rules we must always except those particular causes where God either for the punishment of some sins in his people or for the trial of their faith and patience having reserved a better portion for them in the world to come doth think fit to exercise them with the denial of the sensible blessings of this life But setting aside those cases the general cause is their not living up to that conformity or square to the Divine rule to which they ought to live but either failing in the duties of piety and exercise of Religion to which the Divine law bindeth them or in the duties of probity and moral honesty justice temperance sobriety unity and amity which the same Law doth require of them What wonder is it to see the lazy sluggard poor Hath not God said to him Prov. 6.9 How long wilt thou sleep O sluggard when wilt thou arise out of sleep v. 11. So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth and thy want as an armed man Or to see Oppressors and Gripers of their neighbour-poor God hath told them Prov. 10.15 The destruction of the poor is their poverty Or to see the penurious man grow poor hath not God told us That to withhold more than is meet tendeth to poverty Prov. 11.24 What wonder is it to see Drunkards and Gluttons poor Hath not God said The Drunkard and Glutton shall come to poverty and drousiness shall cloth a man with rags Prov. 23.21 what wonder is it to see those that are companions of leud persons drunkards adulterers Gamesters c. grow poor Hath not God again said Prov. 28.19 That he who followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough O Israel saith God by the Prophet Hoseah Thou hast destroyed thy self but in me is thy help Hos 13.9 it is true as to mens eternal ruine but the Prophet there primarily speaks of mens destroying themselves by being the causes of punishments in this life to themselves men destroy their own lives healths bodys by drunkenness gluttony uncleanness their estates by sloth and luxury the comforts of their own lives by giving an unbridled liberty to their lusts and passions indulging the lustings of their flesh The righteous God is not to be accused for any of these things He hath given men a righteous law which to their reason approveth it self to be holy spiritual just and good but they are carnal sold unto sin slaves to their appetites to their sensual faculties and either ruine themselves by their irreligious or immoral behaviours and doing those things over which if God had not by his severe threatnings in his word hung a sword of Divine Vengeance yet in themselves and of their own nature they have a tendency to destroy life health to wast and consume estates and to deprive them of all those good things which may accommodate their lives and make them sweet and pleasant to them and in the day of their affliction they must lay the fault upon themselves and excuse God in the motions of his Providence acknowledging that it hath but fulfilled his word and brought to pass the just threatnings of his word nay not so only but that it hath only brought natural things to
alive thou shalt live and that eternally if thou fittest still if thou goest on in thy sinful courses thou shalt certainly dye 4. Hast thou not as much encouragement to repent and to believe as ever any had Have not thousands and ten thousands of the Saints of God upon no other encouragement than thou hast broken off sinful courses and sought the Lord while he might be found and have they not succeeded and found rest for their souls Did God yet ever from the beginning of the world encourage any soul in its first motions by faith and repentance toward him by assuring them that their names were written in the Book of Life Or that Christ did dye for them in particular Is it not encouragement enough to thee to tell the thou hast as good a ground of hope and encouragement as the three thousand that were converted at St. Peters Sermon as any of those servants of God had of whose conversion thou readest in the Acts of the Apostles what art thou that thou shouldst look for more 5. Consider That there is no other way for thee to know that thou art elected and that Christ hath paid a price for thee but by thy turning unto God and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ The election of God is in it self sure and certain but it must be made sure and certain unto us by our repentance and faith Did ever any one hear of any soul reaking in its lusts and going on in its course of sin ascertained that God had chosen it unto life that Christ was the head and surety of a better Covenant for it or dyed for it first our calling then our election must be made sure and we must not think to pervert Gods order 6. What hast thou to do with Gods effectual Grace until thou hast improved his common Grace There is a common Grace which God denieth to no man by vertue of which men may read hear pray live a civil life and conversation leave gross and flagitious courses of sin why complainest thou of God for not giving thee his special distinguishing grace inabling thee to exert true spiritual acts while thou dost not use his common Grace and do what in thee lies to reform and amend thy ways and to turn unto God 7. Lastly Though no exercise of common grace can be meritorious of the special Grace of God yet I dare assure thee that God neither ever yet was nor ever will be wanting in his further grace unto those souls that have made a due improvement of his common grace and done what in them lay towards their own salvation Let us therefore leave our enquiring into the Counsels of God and disputing questions which are insignificant to our greatest concerns Let us leave quarrelling with his truths and our little foolish and vain indeavours to argue an inconsistency of his Counsels with his Actual Providence when we have done and said all we can it will be found that God is consistent to himself and that his ways are equal and the iniquity and crookedness is only in our own hearts and ways We cannot with our spoon comprehend it may be the Ocean the great Ocean of his Wisdom and Counsel Let us apply our selves to our own duty and do what he commandeth us for which as you have heard we have encouragement enough SERMON XXXVII Rom. V. 20. Where Sin abounded there Grace did much more abound I Am indeavouring to open to you the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hard Chapters in the book of Divine Providence solving those Phaenomena's or appearing difficulties which Atheistical Wits have raised to make the holy God appear otherwise than he is his Counsels Truths and Works other than indeed they are I have already spoken to one relating to the making and establishing a Covenant of Works with Adam after the settlement of mans salvation upon the Covenant of Grace The other relating to the dispensation of Providence in the exhibition and publication of the Covenant of Grace I come now to some relating to the Actual Providence of God in the permission of sin and sinners so much sin and so many sinners in the world And for this discourse as an head to it I have chosen this text which in it containeth two great points The abounding of sin and the aboundings of grace The Apostle brings in these words in a magnifying of Christ whom he had compared with the first Adam The first Adam brought mankind under sin and guilt The second brought him under a state of Redemption and Salvation bringing life and immortality to light First the Apostle sheweth whence sin came then whence grace came Paraeus telleth us that the Apostle in this part of the Chapter openeth to us the use of the Law lest any one upon what he had before said should ask Wherefore the law was given he telleth us That the law entred that sin might abound for though the law of it self doth not cause sin yet by accident it doth for where there is no law there is no transgression and the corruption of mans nature enclineth him the more to what is forbidden him Nitimur in vetitum sed hic de actione peccati sermo est quae fit per manifestationem saith a learned Author upon my Text The law maketh sin to abound by way of manifestation as the glass maketh the spots in a man or womans face to abound that is discovereth them that are P. Martyr reckons five ways by which the Law contributeth to the aboundings of sin 1. By forbidding it 2. By increasing the guilt of it 3. By assigning the punishment of it 4. Multiplying it by the variety of the precepts in it 5. By accusing him and condemning him for it Well But why should the law enter that sin might abound hath God then any pleasure or delight in the aboundings of sin The text telleth you that Gods design was to advance grace that where sin abounded grace might much more abound But my design is not largely and strictly to handle my text but only to make use of it in pursuit of my further design to open to you the difficult things of Actual Providence which is by all confessed to have an influence upon mens sins that is to permit them and to govern them the first of these is what I have here to do with What the Providence of God doth or doth not in the permission of sin I have before shewed you and may by and by again speak shortly unto it The Question is Quest How it can consist with the holiness of a pure and mighty God having it in his power to restrain and hinder sin yet to permit it and so much of it in the world The difficulty of our apprehensions in this matter ariseth from these things 1. That God in his own nature is a most pure and holy being Who as he hath nothing in him that defileth so neither can he abide any iniquity This seemeth to have stumbled
for destruction there is a great deal in that verse 1. The Apostle hinteth us in that text that we are Clay and God is our Potter it was what God had said of old by his Prophet Jeremiah chap. 18. vers 6. and Isaiah chap. 45. vers 9. and what the Apostle himself had said in the two verses immediately preceding upon this account it is that he here calls such as perish vessels of wrath Earthen-vessels with relation to the Potter before-mentioned 2. Being such Potters vessels God had undoubtedly a jus absolutum an absolute right and dominion over the Sons of men vers 21. Hath not the Potter power over the Clay of the same lump to make one a vessel of honour another a vessel of dishonour 3. He sheweth that God doth destinate some to dishonour not using his absolute right and prerogative meerly but for just and righteous causes and he instanceth in three things 1. Gods will to shew his wrath The wrath of God is nothing else but his just will to punish Violaters of his Law God is willing to shew his hatred of sin in the just punishment of it 2. Gods will to make his power known that is in breaking the stubbornness of sinners thus ver 17. it is said of Pharaoh For this same purpose have I raised thee up that I might shew my power in thee and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth and this God calleth a getting himself glory upon Pharaoh Exod. 14.17 18. 3. The third reason he gives is That they are fitted for destruction Divines start a question from these words How or from whom they are fitted for destruction Some say of God as their Potter others will have it to be from Satan others from themselves the different notions may be reconciled Paraeus telleth us there are three things to be considered in these vessels of wrath their nature their sin the end as to their nature they are not from themselves nor from Satan but from God he is the Maker of all As to their pravity and natural corruption that is not from God but from themselves and from the Devil the end is either preximate that is their own dishonour and destruction or remote and ultimate that is the shewing forth the Justice and Power of God Neither of these saith that learned Author is from themselves for they do not ordain themselves to destruction nor design the manifestation of the Lords Power and Justice Thus therefore saith he are the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction according to nature they are created and made by no other than by God as to their sin and corruption by which they are made children of wrath guilty of sin and subject unto wrath they are made so by Satan by their own spontaneous fall and that sin which followed it as to the ends they are from God and according to his eternal Counsel of predestination And this is the reason as is not only observed by Paraeus but by P. Martyr probably why the Apostle only saith fitted and not by whom fitted for destruction that fittedness referring partly to God partly to themselves as they are by sin fitted it is their own act Now when he speaks of the vessels of mercy he speaks in the active voice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 23. Which he had before prepared unto glory So that it being the work of the sinner to fit himself for destruction by the multiplyings and aboundings of sin and God glorifying his Justice and Power in breaking and destroying sinners it is easie to understand how Gods suffering the aboundings of sin tendeth to the glorifying of his Power and Vindicative Justice And thus I have shewed how the various Attributes of God are glorified by his permission of sin But this is but one way by which God hath glory from the permission of sin 2. He hath glory from it from those exercises of grace which are occasioned by it from his own people and these are more internal or more external for such as are more internal repentance faith humility several other graces have either their Original motions from this Providence or are greatly advantaged in their exercise by it 1. For repentance that is considerable either in the inward affection or more external act As to the former if no sin were permitted how could there be any humiliation for sin any godly shame or sorrow any bleeding or brokenness of heart in the sense of sin Were no sin permitted there could be no repentance no godly sorrow for sin c. 2. God hath a great deal of glory by mens believing on the Lord Jesus Christ It is a great piece of the Will of God that men should believe on him whom God hath sent and God is glorified by our doing his Will It were a large Theme to discourse to you how variously God is glorified by mens receiving of the Lord Jesus Christ and believing in him But God had had none of this glory if there had been no permission of sin in the world what is it to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ but to accept of him as our Saviour to expect Salvation from free grace through the merits of Christ and to depend upon him for it Now should God permit no sin there would be no need of a Saviour no occasion for a redeemer no need of going out of our selves relinquishing all confidences in the flesh and in our selves Believing in Christ as our redeemer and Saviour supposeth sin making us lost undone Creatures to stand in need of such a Salvation 3. Again Humility is another habit of grace in the exercise of which God is glorified it is one of those things which God by his Prophet telleth us that he requires of man to walk humbly with his God nothing more contributes to this than a Child of Gods continual walking in a view of his own past and renewing Sins Thus far even the best of Gods people are beholden to their sins they make them walk more softly and to have more humble and mean opinions of themselves and to be more low in their own eyes neither exalting themselves against God nor censoriously and rashly judging their brethren and the more or less that any Christian looks at home and considereth himself and his own ways the more or less he walks humbly towards God and charitably towards his brethren 4. Finally in the 2 Cor. 7.11 You shall find a whole quire of graces all singing forth the praises of God and all occasioned by sin The Corinthians had offended in the business of the incestuous person the Apostle in his former Epistle had brought them to a sense of their sin and to a godly sorrow for it Now saith he this self-same thing that you sorrowed after a godly sort what carefulness it wrought in you Yea what clearing of your selves Yea what indignation what fear what vehement desire yea what zeal what revenge these now are all exercises of
moneth in which God may take them The Children by adoption are picked out of the Children of wrath Reservat Deus injustos misericordiae per inducias justitiae God by the truce of his justice as Nierembergius phraseth it that is by forbearing the execution of his punitive and vindicative Justice reserveth unrighteous persons for mercy This is one end doubtless of Gods enduring so many sinners in the World that he might bring some of them even so many as he hath chosen unto life to obtain eternal Salvation But yet some will say why doth God permit such as he knows his long suffering and patience will never lead to repentance let me a little answer thy curiosity in this and shew thee that even in this the Lords ways are equal and his wisdom infinite 2. Whether they well repent and turn or no it is but reasonable that that God who hath sworn by his life that be desires not the death of a sinner but had rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live should give them a time to repent and how should this be if God should not bear with them and give them a space of life If they never were suffered to think a thought how should their own thoughts another day accuse them It is an aggravation of judgment against sinners That God gives them a space of repentance and they do not repent How should God condemn them for their filthy speeches their hard speeches their Oathes and Blasphemies if God should not suffer them to vent these things How should they repent if they had no time to repent If they will abuse the patience of God and after the hardness and impenitency of their hearts treasure up wrath against the day of wrath their blood is upon their own heads God is vindicated in his Justice 3. The permission of sinners in the world seemeth reasonable that if they will not be made better others may be made good by Gods patience toward them and forbearance of them If there were none of these Briars and Thorns in the world how could God teach his people by them Indeed this is one of Gods great ends in the permission of sinners But let me open this a little in two or three particulars 1. God by the exemplary punishment of them for their sins oft-times turns others from their sins It is true God doth not make all prodigious sinners examples of his judgment in this life but some he doth and by it makes others to fear and tremble and to avoid those Rocks upon which their Souls split If I remember right it is reported of Waldus the Father of the Waldenses that he was converted by the sudden death of one of his companions I know that examples of judgments are not Gods ordinary means of conversion nay they are rare instances of converts that are made that way especially where the word is ordinarily preached When Dives in the gospel fancied that if one were sent to his brethren from the dead they would believe and avoid those flames he was told by Abraham they had Moses and the Prophets and if upon the reading and hearing of them they would not believe if one should go from the dead they would not believe Those that harden their hearts under the word are ordinarily judicially hardned against judgments or other means that to the eye of reason seem probable means to change their hearts but are not under a Divine institution for that end as the word of God is But yet to some they are so far sanctified God sometimes goeth out of his ordinary road Besides though such examples of judgment seldom prove sole and principal causes or means yet they often prove partial causes and social means and together with the word conduce much to such a blessed end I have known one my self that hath owned the ringing of Bells giving notice of persons that he knew who probably died in their sins as a great means to awaken him to a consideration of his ways and a change of heart and life whiles his Soul reflected upon the sound and he said to himself what should become of me if this Bell now rang for me if my Soul as this poor wretched creatures Soul were now before the Judgment seat of Jesus Christ Princes the time they go to School use to have their Vmbraes some other person I forget it may be the name they use to give them that they may be corrected for them and their Prince by their correction might learn to take heed of errors The elect of God those whom he hath foreordained to eternal life they cannot die in their sins but God suffers some vile and wicked neighbours they have to perish in their reaking lusts and maketh this a means to awaken them to consider what sin will at last bring them to 2. God defameth sin by a plenty of sinners It is one of the idle pretences men in this age have for their filthy stage-plays that sin is there discredited by the representation of it and shewing the Spectators how ill it becomes men to be debaucht the truth is vertue and sobriety is discredited there for in the debauchery of them our age hath exceeded all Heathens But for those that will see the vileness and ugliness of sin they need not see it in a play in effigy they may see it more livelily in the converse of their neighbours and I doubt not but much sin is restrained in the world by the much sin that is committed in the world the reeling of the drunkard from one side of the street to another defameth drunkenness and the indecent immoralities of others both in their words and actions make sin more abominable to many considerate Souls as they say the fire is hotter in winter by the Antiperistasis of the cold so the heat of love to God and zeal for him is advantaged by the excess of hatred to God and his ways which they see in others 3. There is yet a third way by which the sinners of the world do good to the Saints and that is augendo fidem ampliando patientiam increasing their faith and patience every sinner is a grieving thorne and a pricking briar to the house of Israel and by these briars and thorns God teacheth them as it is said that Gideon taught the men of succoth It was the saying of an ancient writer Nullus bonorum habet inimicum nisi malum qui ideo esse permittitur ut vel ipse corrigatur vel per ipsum malus exerceatur that is no good man hath any enemy but a wicked man whom God doth therefore permit that either himself may be amended or the good man may by him be exercised Thou that wondrest why God permits so many sinners in the world wonder why there are so many rods and ferulars for Children why there are so many whipping-posts and racks so many bride wells c. Assyria is the rod of Gods anger Isa 10.
and sicknesses of little ones all are warned to be continually upon their watch not knowing when the Lord will call for them every little Bell that telleth us a child is gone soundeth to us would we but understand it Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth before the evil days come Further yet God by this dispensation in which as you have heard he is just doth mind all of the duty they owe unto their children to bring them up in the knowledge of the Scriptures in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and particularly not to defer the ordinance of Baptism beyond a reasonable time It is doubtless Gods ordinance as to children not only a sign of Gods Covenant but a medium in order to salvation though efficacious only when God is pleased to make it so not ex opere operato upon the work done I have now shewed you the equity of God in this particular way of his Providence Vse It is a dispensation under which there are few Parents that are not brought Let me therefore enlarge a little upon some practical Application of this Discourse shewing you what may be our duty reasonably concluded from this dispensation I shall open to you something of it in three or four particulars 1. It is doubtless our duty yea the duty of all flesh To be silent before the Lord under such Providences The loss of a child especially if it be a first-born or an only child sometimes goeth very near us But oh let us not be tempted from it to open our mouths against the God of Heaven nor to entertain a thought in our souls derogatory to the justice and goodness of God Our children are sinners and obnoxious to the justice of God God may in justice punish them for their own sins or for our sins I hinted to you before that it was a beam of Arminius his new light that none should be condemned for original sin only and he is followed in it by all the Remonstrants in their Confessions Apologies as also by others of that tribe Socinus also and his followers shake hands with them in that notion Yet Arminins answering Mr. Perkins who to disprove Arminius his doctrine of Gods rejection of any because he foresaw they would reject the grace of the Gospel had pinched him telling him this could be no cause of the rejection of infants out of the pale of the Church God could not foresee they would reject the Gospel who he foresaw should never have the Gospel preached or tendred to them answereth him thus At inquam ego in parentibus abavis avis atavis tritavis evangelii gratiam repudiarunt quo actu meruerunt ut a Deo deserantur That is But I say saith he they rejected the Gospel in their Parents their Grandfathers their great Grandfathers or former Progenitors Now how this is consistent with his other doctrine I cannot understand for certainly if God may be justified in rejecting the souls of some infants from eternity because he foresaw that their Great-Grandfathers would reject and refuse the Gospel when-as they by no personal act should do any such thing he may be justified even in the eternal condemnation of children for the sin of Adam or the personal obliquity and corruption of their natures and so it is not unrighteous with God eternally to condemn a child for its original corruption only But we are not now speaking of eternal condemnation but of bodily and temporal yea and temporary punishments which may very well consist with the eternal salvation of the soul and it is very absurd for us to think that for such punishments the infant may not be punished without the impeaching of the justice of God though it hath been guilty of no actual sin deserving so early a chastisement of it Oh therefore suffer not in such cases your hearts or lips to transgress God may do it in righteousness He may thus justly punish original sin in the child he may justly punish our sins upon the backs of our children Speak not a word against God in this Providence 2. Do what in thee lyeth secondly to find out the cause When the Jews queried our Saviour concerning the man that was born blind for whose sin it was whether his or his parents Our Saviour answereth them that it was neither for his sin nor yet for his Parents but that the glory of God might appear in that famous miracle which our Saviour wrought in restoring him to his sight It is an hard thing to find out Gods ends in his dispensations of punitive Providence God may sometimes afflict and take away little ones for their own sins for the sin of Adam for the iniquity in which they were conceived and the sin in which they were brought forth God may sometimes do it for the Parents sins Sometimes he may do it principally neither for the one nor for the other of these ends but for the good of the Parents or for the good of the Children you have heard that this motion of Divine Providence is highly reasonable upon more then one account But yet when we feel the smart of such a dispensation we know not how to look upon it otherwise than as a punishment but now our business under such providences is to enquire what sin in us God doth in that manner revenge The Scripture will guide us a little in the finding out of this and we may possibly find out some other helps to make us understand these dispensations It was threatned to David 2 Sam. 12. For his sins in the matter of Vriah and his wife and for that by them he had given occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme It is one of those common scourges with which God chastiseth some Parents for their sinful lives and whoso is conscious to himself of a sinful course of life need not enquire much for what cause God brings him under such dispensations It is matter of more narrow enquiry why God thus chasteneth his own people Possibly if they will search narrowly under such a Providence they may find if not the very sin for which God contendeth with them yet some laps of their lives of that nature as may give them a just ground of jealousy and suspicion that that is the sin for which God so troubleth them I shall not be positive in this determination lest I seem too boldly to inquire into the secret counsels of God men should do well under these Providences to listen to their own consciences which oft times tell them the truth in such cases But let me ask of thee or rather desire thee to ask thy self these two or three following Questions 1. Didst thou never sinfully distrust the Providence of God concerning thy Children And secretly repine at Gods bounty to thee in them this is now a temptation incident to such as are of meaner condition in the world and not so able as others to maintain their Families God promiseth the
dispensations all discontentment at their own low estate all displeasure at Gods dealings with others all accusations of God of injustice or hard dealings with his people whatsoever as a fruit or indication of any of those passions is certainly here forbidden us under the notions of fretting being angry or envious Let me now press this negative or prohibitive part of your duty upon you by some few arguments 1. I beseech you to consider the exceeding sinfulness of it when God said to the Prophet Jonah Dost thou well to be angry it is certainly implyed that he did not well It is in this Psalm twice forbidden us twice in the Book of Proverbs at least Envy is by the Apostle reckoned up as one of the fruits of the flesh now certainly if no more could be said than this It is the will of God that if thou seest the wicked prosper grow rich and great thou shouldst not be displeased at God nor envy them c. This should be enough to engage the people of God to take heed to their Spirits in this thing and indeed we had need watch for we shall find our Souls under very great temptations in the case and that it is a very hard thing for a good man to look with a good Eye upon the prosperity of wicked men 2. But I shall shew you that it is a sin which receiveth more than ordinary aggravations 1. As first it is against the express letter of the Divine Law 1 Kings 11.9 10. It is said that the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing that he should not go after other Gods God hath commanded us concerning this thing this particular thing and hath been pleased to make it the matter of a precept many times repeated If God had commanded us some great thing should we not have obeyed him in it How much more in the forbearing of a little Iust or passion It is not concluded a sin meerly from consequence of Scripture or to be concluded from some precepts that are laid down there it is the express letter of Scripture he that runs may read the will of God concerning this 2. Again by how much the more precepts are violated by any sinful action by so much the sin is greater you have heard this is a Sin against both Tables a sin against the duty which we owe unto God and the duty which we owe to our Neighbour that which we are forbidden in many Scriptures those so plain that he who runs may read them 3. Again Some sins are in their own nature more heinous than others amongst others the sin of Murther is a very great transgression Solomon saith Prov. 6.32 Men do not despise a thief if he stealeth to satisfy his Soul when he is hungry but v. 32. whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding he doth injury to his neighbour of an higher nature But now Murther that is an higher transgression St. John tells us no Murtherer hath eternal life Our Saviour reduceth Anger and Envy under the commandment Thou shalt not kill and makes him that is angry with his Brother without a cause no less than a Murtherer 4. Further yet a sin that breaketh out at the lips in sinful words or in the conversation by irregular actions is greater than that which is only in the heart defiling that Now it is a very hard thing for men to keep the fire of anger and envy within the chimney of their corrupt hearts Even the best men have not been able to keep it in 5. Finally by how much any sin is more the mother of Sin and brings forth more sins by so much the greater it is This fretting and envying at the prosperity of sinners besides the discontent and impatience of the Spirit which constantly attendeth it bringeth forth a world of sin at our lips and in our conversation reviling speeches detracting words spightful thoughts words and actions c. 2. Again this sin receiveth an aggravation from the persons offending In that Text 1 Kings 11.4 9. I observe two aggravations of Solomons sin of Apostacy The first that he did it when he was old so had he great experiences of God v. 9. there 's another expression it was after God had appeared to him twice for men that know not God nor have had any experience of his ways to fret and vex that others have more of the world than they have is not such a guilt as for the people of God to do it They are called the Children of Light and that not only in respect of grace and mercy which may be compared to light of which they are Children but with respect to knowledg they are a people who know better things than others and should know the riches the honours all the good things of the world are not worth valuing now for you after that you have been thus far enlightened still to be so enamoured upon them as to fret vex and be envious because others have more of them than you have must be a great transgression Especially to consider that you are the Children of God hears of grace yea and of glory too Thus I remember the Father of the Prodigal rebuked his Son fretting for the fatted Calf slain for his Brother Son saith he remember thou art always with me and all that I have is thine for those whom God hath made the heirs of grace and glory the heirs of the Kingdom to whom God hath said All that I have is thine I say for these to fret vex and repine that wicked men prosper in this world and have a little of this worlds goods must be a great provocation And to this there are not many of Gods people but in one degree or other have had an experience of the incertainty and vanity of all these things enough to depretiate them and render them invaluable to any good and gracious heart Further yet what doth any man get by fretting vexing or being envious at the prosperity of sinners as our Saviour said of thought-fulness none can by thinking add one cubit to his stature So I may say none by fretting vexing or envy can either detract a cubit from the stature of a sinner in prosperity nor add a cubit to his own it is a sin that can end in nothing but murmurings and repinings against God in tormenting and macerating of our selves and in the discomposure of our Spirits To shut up this discourse by how much any sin is more causeless by so much the greater it is there is neither so much good in the highest prosperity a sinner is capable of nor so much evil in the lowest and most afflicted estate of the people of God as to give a reasonable ground or occasion for a Child of God to give himself the disturbance so much as of one hour or to wile his
in me is thy help I Am now come to the second general Proposition which I promised you to discourse upon a little In my last exercise I discoursed to you of the Fountain of Life and Grace which we found to be the free-will of God There is no other account to be given of Gods shewing mercy but because he will shew mercy which is most certainly true as of Gods eternal acts of Grace so of his Acts of Providence as to the dispensation of his first Grace The next Proposition I mentioned was this 2. Prop. That God in his providential Dispensations of punishment never acteth by meer Prerogative but according to the demerit of his Creatures In his Dispensations of Grace and the means of it he acteth meerly from his own Will he will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy and there is no other account to be given of those Dispensations he sendeth the Gospel to this place rather than another because he will send it he changeth this Man or Womans heart and turneth it to himself because he will shew mercy But the case is otherwise in his penal Dispensations there God acteth not upon Prerogative God there hath a Prerogative for may not the Potter do what he will with his Clay But it is one thing to have Jus absolutum an absolute right and power which we must claim for God so long as we know him to have an absolute right and Soveraignty over the works of his hands 't is another thing for God agere secundum jus absolutum to act according to his Soveraignty and absolute power this we say God doth not I pray observe I restrain my Discourse to Gods Dispensations of actual Providence I shall not meddle with the eternal Councils of God in this case that is quite beyond my Subject propounded It is unquestionable that the punishments of Sinners both in this Life and that which is to come as well as the other great issues of his Providence concerning the rewards of righteous men were set in order by an Eternal deliberation but whether by a meer negative or positive Decree whether upon consideration of sin or no are points I am not at all concerned to interest my self in having all along restrained my discourse to the motions of Actual Providence and certain it is that God in those Dispensations doth punish none either here or hereafter meerly because he will but upon consideration of Sinners demerits Shewing mercy is an Act of Grace punishments are Acts of Justice The gift of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Eternal Life that is a guift and what is freer than gift But the Wages of Sin is Death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Man must earn Death before he hath it from the hand of a merciful God but Eternal Life must be given him if ever it be his Portion so saith my Text. O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self I will open this in two or three conclusions 1. I understand it of all kind of destructions possibly the Text may chiefly relate to temporal destructions 't is Ephraim to whom the Prophet is speaking and it is about a bodily destruction but the Conclusion is general and the Text is well enough applyed by Divines to Eternal destruction all destructions whether of Body or Soul are of our selves yea I take the Aphonimy of the Text to be more eminently true of the destruction of the Soul than of the destruction of the Body A Child may dye for the sins of the Parents Subjects may dye for the sin of their Prince as in the case of Saul's Children that were hanged in David's time and in the case of those many thousands which in David's time were cut off for his sin in numbring of the People The Children of God may be involved in a common destruction and suffer as they are a part of a sinful Nation God may take them off to deliver them from an evil to come as in the case of Abijam the Son of Jeroboam God may punish his people with afflictions of this Life for the trial and exercise of their graces but in Eternal destructions God can have no other end than the punishment of the person and all such destruction is for a mans sin his personal sin 3. When we say that Mens destruction is of themselves you must understand of themselves as the meritorious cause not of themselves as the principal efficient cause God is rightly enough entituled to all the Evil of punishment in the City It is no dishonour to his Majesty to be the Author of his own Judgments which is all that Mr. Calvin or any of the same mind with him have said which hath made some so clamour against them as having asserted God to be the Author of Sin For God to be the Author of punishments is no stain to his Glory but a Declaration of his Justice and of his Righteousness Christ himself shall come as the Apostle telleth us in flaming fire to take Vengeance upon them who know not God and obey not his glorious Gospel God shall say to those on his left hand depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels But our destruction is from our selves as the proximate and meritorious cause though from God as the efficient cause It is not from the Soveraign will of God meerly but from the stubborn and rebellious will of Man that any Soul perisheth Divines do say that though God cannot will the doing of any Sin yet he may will that it should be done The Holy Ghost telleth us that Herod and Pilate and the Jews employed in accusing condemning crucifying of Christ did no more than what the Council of God had determined should be done But I say notwithstanding this the proximate cause of mans Damnation is not because God hath willed their Damnation it is the guilt of their own Sins the demerit of their own Transgressions which bringeth them to the Pit of Destruction The Gracious God sheweth mercy and saveth all who are saved by Prerogative by Grace you are saved saith the Apostle he hath the same Prerogative in matters of Death that he hath in matters of Life but he useth it not but there acteth according to his Statute-Law The Soul that sinneth shall dye He who saveth men without themselves damneth none without themselves Men are saved by Grace but they are damned by Sin The wages of Sin is Death Omne peccatum est voluntarium all Sin is of ourselves it must have something of our own will and consent to and in it 3. Thirdly Although this be certain that all destruction all punishment is for Sin yet the particular proximate cause of some punishments is unknown to us I will instance in one particular a punishment undoubtedly a most severe punishment The withholding the Gospel and so the ordinary means of Grace and Salvation from the far greatest part of the world They hear nothing of the Lord Jesus
they have not the Oracles of God the ordinary means of Grace are hidden from them There is no doubt but their own wilful sinning is the cause of it But whether the Sin of their Progenitors who had the Gospel and sinned it away which to me seemeth a little hard for I can hardly be brought to agree that God for the sins of Relations punisheth their Correlates in Spiritual things Or that prodigious sinning which they are guilty of not living up to what may by them by their natural Light be seen of God for the Apostle Rom. 1. gives you a true Copy of the lives of all Heathens is not so easie to determine I should incline much to fix the cause here they have though not the Book of Scripture yet the Book of Gods Works and Nature though not Men Ministers of the Gospel to them yet the Heavens declaring the Glory of God and the Earth shewing his handy-work those standing Preachers of the Power Glory and Greatness of God whose sound is gone out and going dayly out over all the world they have the Sun and Moon they see much of God in and by them and may learn much of God from them but knowing God and not glorifying him as God but becoming vain in their imaginations they worship Devils and Stocks and Stones the work of their own hands and shutting their eyes against the Light of those common notions which are engraven in all reasonable Natures they give up themselves to commit all filthiness and unrighteousness So not using the Light of Nature and Reason which God hath given them God justly with-holdeth from them the Talent of the Gospel If God doth grant it to others which yet it may be are guilty of the same sottish abuse of their natural Light and Reason therein he is good and gracious but if he denieth it unto them therein he is not unjust or unrighteous But I say there may be some particular instances as to which it may be hard for us to assign what particular sins God so securely proceedeth against the Nations Families or Persons for but this is certain Sin is certainly the next cause of all severe dispensations of punishment Now this will appear to us 1. From the evidence of Scripture 2. From the evidence of Reason concluding from Scripture-Principles 1. First from the plain evidence of Scripture In the case of the Heathen amongst whom the Devil hath the greatest harvest of perishing Souls of these the Apostle speaketh Rom. 1.18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men Observe the words God doth not reveal his wrath against the Heathen meerly upon the account of his Soveraign Power because he will do it but against the ungodliness and unrighterusness of men he goeth on declaring their ungodliness and their unrighteousness Vers 21. Because when they knew God they glorified him not as God They had light enough from the Works of God in Nature to shew them other kind of Ideas of the Divine Being than it was possible for them to find amongst created beings but they turned the Incorruptible God into the image of a corruptible man yea of creeping things and four-footed beasts The Apostle telleth them also of their unrighteousness Vers 29. Fornication wickedness covetousness malitiousness they were full of envy murders debates deceits c. Now for these things the wrath of God was revealed against them The Apostle telleth us Rom. 2.14 That when the Gentiles which have not the Law do by nature the things which are contained in the Law they are a Law to themselves And Vers 26. If the uncircumcision keep the Law their uncircumcision shall be accounted to them for circumcision I am not of their mind who think that the Heathen have light enough to shew them the way to Heaven I know not Isa 9.2 Mat. 4.16 Luk. 1.7 9. if that were true why the Scripture should set them out under the notion of persons or people that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death until Christ as the day-spring from on high hath visited them But I am sure they have sin enough to justifie God in damning them and permitting them to walk in their own ways until they have filled up the measure of their iniquities and brought judgment upon themselves I also believe that if there be found a Job in the Land of Vz If there be one found amongst the Heathen who feareth God and escheweth evil who walketh up to his natural light God hath his secret way to reveal and apply Christ to them so as he shall not perish But yet I cannot believe that his natural light shall save him because the Scripture telleth us That there is no other name under heaven than the name of Jesus Christ by which any can be saved neither is there Salvation in any other There are several things in nature that we know are so but we do not know the way of them In the matters of grace there are several things also which we understand not the way of God in Three come into my mind at present The way of God with an infant we are not sure that all infants no not that all Baptized infants shall be saved but we doubt not but of many such is the Kingdom of God but for the way of God with the Soul of one that liveth not up to the exercises of reason and the intelligentness of the ordinary means of Faith and Regeneration this we do not understand 2. The way of God with a thief upon the Cross I mean with a sinner forgetting or neglecting to turn unto God until his last hour we do believe that God hath mercy upon some such Souls but how God worketh in them these habits of grace which are necessary according to the ordinary rule how they are born again of the Spirit and Baptized not with water only but with the Holy Ghost and with fire this we do not understand And so Thirdly The way of God with an Heathen that never cometh to the light of the Gospel nor hath any external Revelation of Christ I say how the Spirit of God moveth and which way it cometh into such a Soul this we do not understand but leave it amongst the unsearchable things of Divine Providence which we believe and revere If there be as I said before a Job in the Land of Vz he shall know that his Redeemer lives and that he shall stand at the last day upon the earth and he shall see him with his eyes But which way God revealeth this to him we understand not In the mean time these hidden things being left to God revealed things belong to us and to our children and this is revealed That the wrath of God as to the Heathen is revealed against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men 2. But this is much more evident concerning such as live under the means of grace and offers of salvation Oh
by the way of efficiency Therefore God must be the Author or these Divines make him the Author Or because God is the Author of his own judgments and paenal dispensations and God sometimes punisheth sin with sin therefore God must be the Author of sin taken properly as it is an oblique action contrary to his Law This is forsooth their proof of that crimination when-as there are no Divines in the world but think it not only blasphemy but non-sense to talk of God as the Author of sin which must be an action contrary to the will liking and approbation of God as the very nature of sin doth import 2. Their second Crimination is That God hath damn'd his creatures out of his meer Prerogative and Soveraignty We do indeed think and must so think till our Adversaries can possess us with other Idea's and notions of God than either Scripture or reason will help us with That there is nothing which either hath or shall come to pass in the world but God did know from all eternity neither can we conceive how God should know any thing but because he willed it either in a way of efficiency or to permit it We do say that God had a jus absolutum from eternity an absolute right over his creatures to determine how he pleased concerning them But we also say That in his paenal dispensations he acteth not according to his Soveraignty and absolute right and that every mans destruction is of himself and the proximate and meritorious cause of the punishment and eternal ruin of any Soul is his own sin God doth not condemn any Soul but for sin recompensing their own iniquities upon their heads and whatsoever is absolute and Soveraign right his Law from which he never varieth in the motions of his Providence is The soul that sinneth shall die Where is the difference then What maketh this great clamour and odious representation of eminent Divines as to the method of Gods proceedings in his actual Providence Papists Arminians Calvinists all are agreed That the wages of sin is death The soul that sinneth shall die God will condemn none but for sin Only it seems they are not agreed as to the Nature and Attributes and Prerogatives of God Those Divines whom they call Calvinists must assert God to have the same Power over his creatures which a Potter hath over the clay This the other will not understand though God expressly told it the Prophet Jeremy and the Apostle from him hath expressly told it us and this is all the difference that I can understand 3. Vse Thirdly you may from hence learn How the Righteousness of God shall be cleared in the last day in the condemnation of sinners although it hath not pleased him to give to all a power to that which is truly and Spiritually good This is a point which very many in this Generation also will not understand but the fault is in themselves If God say they hath not given to all men a power to repent and to believe how shall he be righteous in the condemning of Sinners There is no consequence at all in this but upon this Hypothesis That except men have a power to do that which is Spiritually good they are in no capacity to do that which is morally evil Whether they have a power to repent or to believe without the effectual Grace of God yea or no Certainly they have a power in a thousand things to break the Law of God yea and to do also many things which are contained in the Law of God and although the doing of these things would not save them yet certainly the omiting of them or doing contrary to them may give God a righteous cause to condemn them Suppose one of you who are Fathers to have two Sons both of them wild and fond of their play and eager at it you call them both to come to you and tell them that if they will come you will give them both mony to go and buy such things but if by such a time they have not those things and appear to you in and with them you will certainly whip them One of these Children hearkens to you leaves his play comes running to you and begs the money you promised him then procures the things and appeareth to you in the habit you desired and you are well pleased with him The other Child is mad of his play which if he would he might leave he could not have the things without mony out of his Fathers Purse but he will not leave his play nor stir a foot towards his Father nor so much as ask his Father for mony his Father indeed sends him no mony but shuts him out of his sight and ordereth him to be severely whipt because that he would not leave his idle game and come to him and ask the mony of him which he promised and because he had not bought the things and appeared before him in that habit and dress which he had commanded will not one say this foolish Child is right served shall his Father be judged unrighteous or severe because he gave the Child no mony as he did the other and the Child could come by the things without mony and if it had them not could not appear in or with them before his Father The case is much the same betwixt God and us God seeth two Men or Women both his Creatures alike in Adam both born in Trespasses and Sins wildly playing over the hole of the Asp and the den of the Cockatrice sporting themselves in Sin and in an hourly danger of Hell-fire God calleth them by his Ministers to leave their Sins and to turn unto him he saith let him that hath been drunk be drunk no more let him that hath been unclean be unclean no more let him that hath told a lye that hath broke my Sabbaths lye and break my Sabbaths no more let him read my Word and hear my Word and let him come and pray unto me and beg of me an heart to believe and to repent and I will give it him and he that believeth shall be saved but in the great day it shall be found That he who hath not repented and hath not believed shall be damned One of these sinners leaveth off his leud courses falls to an external Discipline readeth the Word heareth the Word of God applyeth himself to God by Prayer beggeth of God an heart to repent and to believe his Gospel God hears him gives him a power gives him repentance unto Life and a saving Faith in Christ and he obtaineth everlasting Salvation The other is mad of his Lusts and after them he will go let what will be the issue of it he will not read the Word not hear that his Soul may live nor so much as ask special Grace of God not to plead with God for Faith or Repentance God giveth them not to him he dieth in his impenitency and unbelief God throweth him into Hell
for his not repenting not believing according to his Word Is there any unrighteousness with God in this case more than in the Fathers dealing with the Child upon the former Supposition What pretence is there for it The Sinner you will say could not repent could not believe without the special Grace of God which was never given him No more could the Child buy those things the Father willed it to have and come before him with unless the Father first gave it mony the Child had no mony of its own But the Child might have left its play it might have read and heard the Word he might have come to God by Prayer and begg'd of him a soft and contrite heart and a believing heart he had power to do all this and had he done this God had not been wanting to him in his further Grace To him that hath shall be given saith our Saviour that is to him that hath and useth and proveth what Gifts and Graces he hath as he ought to do shall be given more Grace But this the poor wretch hath not done but dieth an hard-hearted an impenitent and unbelieving wretch what unrighteousness is there with God in his condemnation he perisheth in his own iniquity his blood is upon his own head his damnation lieth at his own door his destruction is of himself his help might have been from God if he had not been wanting to himself O sinful men are not the Lords ways equal Yes yes they are our own ways that are unequal the straight ways of the Lord are only made crooked by our idle fancies our proud hearts and corrupt reasons and foolish misprisions Vse 4. In the last place let me apply this discourse by way of Exhortation it will afford matter of Exhortation 1. To the people of God 2. To the men of the World those I mean that are not yet converted unto God 1. To Gods People 1. To you it speaketh to make you more afraid of sin for the time to come Sin in Scripture is ordinarily resembled by sickness and a disease Now what is true of sickness is true of Sin every sickness is not unto death but every sickness hath something of death in it it leadeth to the Grave it is not the last stroke at the giving of which the Tree falleth but it is a blow in order to the fall of it Every sin doth not bring forth death yea as to you No sin shall bring forth death because Rom. 8.1 There is no condemnation to them that are in Jesus Christ but every sin hath something of the nature of a self-ruining and destruction in it The wages of every sin is death the natural tendency of every sin is unto death It is the Gift and Free-Grace of God that as to you prevents it and although your sins do not bring forth an Eternal ruine and destruction to you because the Blood of Christ and the Intercession of Christ hath prevented and will prevent that yet your sins may bring forth many lesser deaths to you for them you may be in deaths often for them there may be a death of your peace and comforts as there are no temporal Evils which sin may not bring upon the people of God so there are few spiritual Evils on this side of Hell to which it doth not subject them So that although you be not under the danger of an Eternal ruine yet you are under the danger of so many deaths so many destructions as may justly lay a Law upon you and make you afraid of sinning against God 2. But Secondly This calleth to all of you to admire the Divine Grace by which you are saved I hope it is the portion of many of you to whom I am speaking you are not yet got up to the new Hierusalem but you are in the right way that leadeth thereunto O cry Grace Grace unto the hand which set you upon that Shore It is true of you you also by sin had destroyed your selves by Grace you are saved you were once Fire-brands as well as any others are you now brands pluckt out of the Fire It was the hand of Grace that pluck'd you out You hath he quickned saith the Apostle Ephes 2.1 who were dead in Trespasses and sins Amongst whom also we had our conversation of old according to the Lusts of the Flesh you also were once acted by the Prince of the Air who yet worketh in the Children of Disobedience and were by Nature the Children of Wrath as much as others It is a sweet though in some sence a bitter meditation to cast a thought back and think Lord How had I also destroyed my self How near was I going to the Pit of Eternal ruine and destruction Nay how often yet is our Salvation from God We are every day destroying our selves we lye down with sin enough to justify God in destroying us before the Morning and rise up every day with sin enough to justify God in destroying us before the Evening By Grace we are saved 2. But Secondly let me speak to those which can have no such good hope through Grace They yet are in their natural State and condition in the Gall of bitterness and in the very bands of iniquity Sirs it is that which I have often told you and I wish the sound of it may never be out of your Ears you are Creatures ordained to Eternity when you dye you dye not like brute-Beasts Death will not determine your beings you shall be either Eternally happy or Eternally miserable All that I have to say to you is to plead with you that you would not ruine your selves and let me tell you that if ever you perish it must be because you have destroyed your selves Do not fright your selves with thoughts of Gods eternal decrees secret things belong to God revealed things to us Whatever Gods secret counsels and purposes be this is his revealed will The Soul that sinneth and that alone shall dye Trouble not your selves with any such thoughts as these If I be not elected do what I will I shall be damned If God hath cast me off I shall labour in vain It is the Sluggard saith Solomon which saith There is a Lion in the way We cannot ascend up into Heaven to search Gods Books there is no need of it The Word is near us even in our mouths that telleth us that God never destroyeth any Soul but the meritorious cause of it is in himself and this we know that all sin is voluntary O then take heed of destroying your selves by wilful and presumptuous sinning against God Nature teacheth every Man to look to himself as to his Life Health Estate and shall not our reasonable Nature instructed by the Word of God prompt us to take care of our selves as to our Eternal Interest You will say unto me what shall we do that we may not de destroyed for who liveth and sinneth not against God I have before told you that
of it I think is that to David which we have Psal 89. from the 20 to the 35. v. Vers 28. he tells him That he will keep his mercy with him for evermore and his covenant should stand fast with him but yet he reserveth himself a liberty to punish him and his seed for sins vers 30. If his children for sake my law and walk not in my judgments if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments then will I visit their transgressions with the rod and their iniquity with stripes nevertheless my loving-kindness I will not utterly take from him nor suffer my faithfulness to fail my Covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips So that notwithstanding the Covenant of Grace for eternal life and pardon of sin and all grace in order to the obtaining of this life and notwithstanding the blood of Christ which was the blood of this Covenant God hath yet a liberty to visit the transgressions of his people even their past as well as renewing transgressions with rods and their iniquity with stripes yet he doth not break his Covenant nor alter any thing that is gone out of his lips 3. Nor is it reasonable that any should fancy that God by the establishment of the Covenant of Grace or by acceptance of the satisfaction of his Son as the blood of this Covenant to make an atonement and reconciliation for iniquity should have barred himself of his liberty to punish the sins of his people or that any who hath accepted this Covenant upon the exhibition of it in the Gospel should be excused from such chastisements if we consider 1. That some of these chastenings are made the matters of a promise Mark 10.30 Persecutions are reckoned amongst Christs rewards in this life Heb. 12.6 7 8. Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth c. Thence the ancients were wont to call Martyrdom a Crown and Luther was wont to complain That God would not honour him to wear that Crown Saint Paul prayeth to be made conformable to the death of Christ if the Saints did not fight how could they triumph how should they conquer yea be more than conquerers 2. That afflictions are the path-way to death and death the door into eternal life Every affliction is a blow at the root of our tree preparing it for its fall and if we did not dye how should we live in Heaven We must all dye or be changed or our corruptible could never put on incorruption nor our mortal put on immortality It is reported of Zaleucus a lawgiver amongst the Indians that he should say If God had not appointed that all should dye it had been reasonable for men to have made a law in the case and we read of some Indians who being asked why they worshipped the Sun gave this reason Because it was the Author of death Give me leave to say That death is so necessary and afflictions are so wholesom for Christians that they deserve rather to be reckoned amongst those things which Christ hath purchased for them than such things as he hath purchased them a liberty from 1. All sorts of afflictions of this life are means of grace not so much means of begetting as reviving and increasing grace for as the fire softneth the wax and hardneth the clay so I have usually observed That afflictions make the wicked man worse but godly men better they revive repentance they are times when usually men call sin to remembrance they draw out the exercises of faith and both work and exercise patience Tribulation saith the Apostle worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope David before that he was afflicted went astray after he learned to keep Gods Statutes God while he punisheth his people for their sins doth not barely chasten them but he also teacheth them out of his Law 2. They secondly prepare the Saints for glory and this not only as they restrain sin and tend to perfect grace but as it pleaseth God of his grace to reward the sufferings of his people and the faith and patience of his people shewed in and under their sufferings with the greater glory Thus the Apostle saith 2 Cor. 4.17 That our light and momentany afflictions work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory And thus much may serve to have cleared this Objection that I may hasten to the practical Application of this Observation This motion of Divine Providence in punishing with temporal punishments past and pardoned sins even in the best of Gods People appears exceeding reasonable 1. In regard of the Justice of God The Justice of God having taken a satisfaction in the blood of his Son and been paid a price for the sins of his people will not allow him to punish them with an eternal punishment yet it is reasonable they should not go altogether unpunished that the world may see that he is a God of purer eyes than to behold iniquity in any I remember what God said by the Prophet Jeremiah to the Jews Jer. 30.11 I will not make a full end of thee but I will correct thee in measure and will not leave thee altogether unpunished You have the same again Jer. 46.28 2. It is reasonable secondly in order to the eternal salvation of their souls 1 Cor. 11.32 When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world It is P. Martyrs note upon that Text that the Apostle in that passage particularly respecteth such as fear God for the case is otherwise with wicked men whose punishment but begun in this life shall be perfected in the world that is to come But I have spoken enough to the Doctrinal part of this Observation Let me now come to some practical Observation shewing you what use we may and ought to make of it Vse 1. This in the first place serves to justifie God in those sore afflictions which we often see him bringing upon his own people When we look upon the holiness of a Job and see him a man fearing God and eschewing evil and see such a person under sharp tryals of affliction we are ready to startle at it and cannot understand Divine Justice in it But God is many ways to be justified 1. Who liveth and sinneth not enough against God to justifie the severest dispensations under which God exerciseth him 2. If he did not yet it is an ordinary thing and very righteous for God to write bitter things against his people for the sins of their youth though past and pardoned Now who hath so passed his youth that he hath not been guilty of sin enough to justifie God in his punishments yea and to make him acknowledg that he hath been punished seven times less than he hath deserved And if neither of these could be seen as a meritorious cause yet God hath a liberty by afflictions to try the faith
and patience of his people but that is not the subject of my present discourse I remember when they asked our Saviour concerning him that was born blind whether it were for his own sin or for his parents Our Saviour replys for neither but that the glory of God might appear So I doubt not but Gods end in afflicting his people is neither at all times the punishment of the persons late sins nor former sins but that both the grace and glory of God might appear in strengthning supporting and upholding of his poor creatures and that he might be glorified by them in the fires by the exercise of their faith and patience c. Vse 2. This speaketh loud to all especially to young men to take heed of presumptuous sinnings against God Presumption of mercy is that which much enticeth out the lusts of our hearts there are some that will fancy God an Idol of mercy and will say Let them do what they list yet it shall be well with them they will not believe any such thing as Hell or a Revelation of the wrath of God against sinners God did not make them to damn them c. God of old foresaw there would be a generation that when they heard the words of his curse would bless themselves in their hearts saying They should have peace although they walked after the imaginations of their own hearts adding drunkenness to thirst Deut. 29.19 Observe v. 20. what God saith as to such The Lord will not spare him but the anger of the Lord and his jealousie shall smoke against that man and all the curses that are written in this book shall lye upon him and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven c. But blessed be God there are not many of these in the age wherein we live not many but will acknowledg an Heaven and an Hell and profess to believe that there is a reward for the righteous and for the unrighteous for the Saint and for the sinner So that what incourageth the most of men in sinful courses is not any hope of a total and final impunity but a presumption of pardon and obtaining mercy with God before they dye They are taught by some wild teachers that it is in the power of man to repent to believe to turn to God when he pleaseth and this imboldneth them to out-stare all the terrors of the Lord and to put off all the tenders of the Gospel to indulge their lusts and to say It is not yet time to turn unto God if they obtain pardon at last they shall be well enough if they turn to God and they are told they can do it when they please it is but taking up a resolution in their old age when they have had the fill of their lusts in their youth Now if this Doctrine had any truth in it it would quite destroy an old argument we had to press men to a speedy repentance because that God who always giveth pardon to them who truly repent will not always give unto sinners an heart to repent No need of that say our new Teachers man hath a freedom in his own will he may repent whensoever he can but get himself of the mind he labours under no more than a moral impotency his lusts are so strong that he cannot obtain leave of himself that is all But friend admit this were true that thou hadst repentance in thy own hand and that thou shouldest upon thy repentance obtain pardon of thy sins from God yet God may as to the punishments of this life make thee go mourning to thy grave for the sins of thy youth he may plague thee in thy own person and plague thee in thy posterity God had pardoned Davids sin Nathan told him The Lord had put away his iniquity yet the child dyed the sword never departed from his house Absolom requited him by going into his Concubines in the sight of the Sun he was weary with his groaning all the night long he made his bed to swim and watered his couch with his tears his eyes were consumed with grief Psal 6. His bones waxed old through his roaring all the day-long Gods hand was heavy upon him night and day so as his moisture was turned into the drought of summer Psal 32. Who would not fear such kind of dispensations Alas there is no such thing as mans having a power in himself to repent and turn to God Can the Blackamore change his skin or the Leopard his spots Everywhit as soon as he who is accustomed to do evil can do well but admit you could I say it is a thousand to one but God in the punishments of this life will visit your youth-sins upon you young men that are wise will take heed of wounds and strains in their youth or surfeits which though they feel little of in the heat of their youth they will be sure enough to feel in their bones when old age overtaketh them and certainly if sensual sinners would give but their reason leave to guide them it would guide them also to take heed of those sins in their youth for which they may so severely smart by wounds and terrors of Conscience by doubts and horrors and fears by diseases and other kind of punishments there is a great deal of difference betwixt being saved smoothly and a being saved but through fire O let me plead with you who have little else to say for the cares and pains of your youth but that by it you are but providing quiet and rest for your selves when you come to be old that you would admit the force of that Argument also to perswade you to remember your Creator in the days of your youth and to take heed of the sins of youth which God often so severely punisheth upon gray-hairs yea and that to his own people whose iniquities yet he hath pardoned so as they shall not eternally condemn him Vse 3. But that I may shut up this discourse what you have heard upon this Observation may offer the best of us some matter which possibly we have not thought of both of daily humiliation and particular humiliation when the rod of God is upon us I say 1. Of daily repentance and humiliation We are ready to speak after the language of Agag whom Saul had spared upon the slaughter of the Amalekites surely the bitterness of death is past If we find that God hath changed our hearts that we are not what we were we are very prone to think that all the follies and vanities of our youth are forgotten But let us not mistake God sealeth up the sins of impenitent sinners in a bag for to be brought forth to their eternal ruine in the day of the revelation of Gods wrath he sealeth up the sins of his redeemed ones in a bag to chasten them oft-times in this life with the rods and stripes of men God wrought bitter things against Job for the sins of his