it self why did it not produce it self before Why was it one moment out of being * Petav. Theol. Dogmat. Tom. 1. l. 1. c. 10.11 If there be any existence of things 't is necessary that that which was the first Cause should exist from Eternity Whatsoever was the immediate Cause of the world yet the first and chief Cause wherein we must rest must have nothing before it if it had any thing before it it were not the first He therefore that is the first Cause must be without beginning nothing must be before him If he had a beginning from some other he could not be the first Principle and Author of all things If he be the first Cause of all things he must give himself a beginning or be from Eternity He could not give himself a beginning whatsoever begins in time was nothing before and when it was nothing it could do nothing it could not give it self any thing for then it gave what it had not and did what it could not If he made himself in time why did he not make himself before What hindred him It was either because he could not or because he would not if he could not he always wanted power and always would unless it were bestowed upon him and then he could not be said to be from himself If he would not make himself before then he might have made himself when he would How had he the power of willing and nilling without a Being Nothing cannot will or nill Nothing hath no faculties So that it is necessary to grant some eternal Being or run into inextricable Labyrinths and Mazes If we deny some eternal being we must deny all being our own being the being of every thing about us unconceivable absurdities will arise So then if God were the Cause of all things He did exist before all things and that from Eternity The third thing is Eternity is only proper to God and not communicable * Bapt. 'T is as great a madness to ascribe Eternity to the Creature as to deprive the Lord of the Creature of Eternity 'T is so proper to God that when the Apostle would prove the Deity of Christ he proves it by his immutability and eternity as well as his creating power * Heb. 1.10 11 12. Thou art the same and thy years shall not fail The Argument had not strength if Eternity belonged essentially to any but God and therefore he is said only to have Immortality * 1 Tim. 6.16 All other things receive their being from him and can be deprived of their being by him All things depend on him he of none All other things are like Clothes which would consume if God preserved them not Immortality is appropriated to God i. e. an independent Immortality Angels and Souls have an Immortality but by donation from God not by their own Essence dependent upon their Creator not necessary in their own nature God might have annihilated them after he had created them so that their duration cannot properly be called an Eternity it being extrinsical to them and depending upon the will of their Creator by whom they may be extinguisht It is not an absolute and necessary but a precarious Immortality Whatsoever is not God is temporary Whatsoever is eternal is God 'T is a contradiction to say a Creature can be eternal as nothing eternal is created so nothing created is eternal What is distinct from the nature of God cannot be eternal Eternity being the Essence of God Every Creature in the notion of a Creature speaks a dependence on some Cause and therefore cannot be eternal * Lessius de Perfect l. 4. c. 2. As it is repugnant to the nature of God not to be eternal so it is repugnant to the nature of a Creature to be eternal for then a Creature would be equal to the Creator and the Creator or the Cause would not be before the Creature or Effect It would be all one to admit many Gods as many Eternals and all one to say God can be created as to say a Creature can be uncreated which is to be eternal 1. Creation is a producing something from nothing What was once nothing cannot therefore be eternal not being was eternal therefore it s being could not be eternal for it should be then before it was and would be something when it was nothing 'T is the nature of a Creature to be nothing before it was created what was nothing before it was cannot be equal with God in an Eternity of Duration 2. There is no Creature but is mutable therefore not eternal As it had a change from nothing to something so it may be changed from being to not being If the Creature were not mutable it would be most perfect and so would not be a Creature but God for God only is most perfect 'T is as much the Essence of a Creature to be mutable as it is the Essence of God to be immutable Mutability and Eternity are utterly inconsistent 3. No Creature is infinite therefore not eternal To be infinite in Duration is all one as to be infinite in Essence * Lessius de Perfect l. 4. c. 2. 'T is as reasonable to conceive a Creature immense filling all places at once as eternal extended to all ages because neither can be without infiniteness which is the Property of the Deity A Creature may as well be without bounds of place as limitations of time 4. No effect of an intellectual free Agent can be equal in duration to its Cause The Productions of natural Agents are as antient often as themselves the Sun produceth a Beam as old in time as its self But who ever heard of a piece of wise Workmanship as old as the wise Artificer God produced a Creature not necessarily and naturally as the Sun doth a Beam but freely as an intelligent Agent The Sun was not necessary it might be or not be according to the pleasure of God * Crellius de Deo cap. 18. p. 43. A free act of the Will is necessary to precede in order of time as the Cause of such effects as are purely voluntary Those Causes that act as soon as they exist act naturally necessarily not freely and cannot cease from acting But suppose a Creature might have existed by the Will of God from Eternity yet as some think it could not be said absolutely and in its own nature to be eternal because Eternity was not of the Essence of it The Creature could not be its own Duration for though it were from Eternity it might not have been from Eternity because its Existence depended upon the free Will of God who might have chose whether he would have created it or no. God only is eternal the first and the last the beginning and the end who as he subsisted before any Creature had a being so he will eternally subsist if all Creatures were reduced to nothing IV. Vse 1. Information 1. If God
Job 18.4 Joseph had reason to be displeased with his Brothers if they had muttered because he gave Benjamin a double portion and the rest a single It was unfit that they who had deserved no gift at all should prescribe him rules how to dispense his own doles much more unworthy it is to deal so with God yet this is too rife 5. It is evidenced in corrupt matter or ends of Prayer and praise When we are importunate for those things that we know not whither the righteousness holiness and wisdom of God can grant because he hath not discovered his Will in any promise to bestow them we would then impose such conditions on God which he never oblidged himself to grant when we pray for things not so much to glorifie God which ought to be the end of Prayer as to gratifie our selves We acknowledg indeed by the act of petitioning that there is a God but we would have him un-God himself to be at our beck and debase himself to serve our turns When we desire those things which are repugnant to those attributes whereby he doth manage the Government of the world When by some superficial services we think we have gained indulgence to sins Which seems to be the thought of the Strumpet in her paying her vows to wallowmore freely in the mire of her sensual pleasures * Pro. 7.14 I have peace offerings with me this day I have paid my vows I have made my peace with God and have entertainment for thee Or when men desire God to bless them in the Commission of some sin As when Balack and Balaam offered Sacrifices that they might prosper in the Cursing of the Israelites Numb 25.1 c. So for a Man to pray to God to save him while he neglects the means of Salvation appointed by God Or to renew him when he slights the Word the only Instrument to that purpose This is to impose Laws upon God contrary to the declared Will and wisdom of God and to desire him to slight his own institutions When we come into the presence of God with lusts reeking in our hearts and leap from sin to duty we would impose the Law of our corruption on the holiness of God While we pray the Will of God may be done self-love wishes its own will may be performed as tho God should serve our humors when we will not obey his precepts And when we make vows under any affliction what is it often but a secret conontrivance to bend and flatter him to our conditions We will serve him if he will restore us we think thereby to compound the business with him and bring him down to our terms 6. T is evidenced In positive and bold interpretations of the Judgments of God in the world To interpret the Judgments of God to the disadvantage of the sufferer unless it be an unusual Judgment and have a remarkable hand of God in it and the sin be rendred plainly legible in the affliction is a presumption of this nature When men will Judge the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with the Sacrifices greater sinners than others and themselves righteous because no drops of it were dasht upon them Or when Shimei being of the House of Saul shall Judge according to his own interest and desires Davids flight upon Absoloms rebellion to be a punishment for invading the rights of Sauls Family and depriving him of the succession in the Kingdom 2 Sam. 16.5 as if he had been of Gods Privy Counsel when he decreed such acts of Justice in the world Thus we would fasten our own Wills as a Law or motive upon God and interpret his acts according to the Motions of self Is it not too ordinary when God sends an affliction upon those that bear ill will to us to Judge it to be a righting of our cause to be a fruit of Gods concern for us in revenging our wrongs as if we had heard the secrets of God or as Eliphaz saith had turned over the records of heaven Job 15.8 This is a judgment according to self-love not a divine rule and imposeth Laws upon Heaven implying a secret wish that God would take care only of them make our concerns his own not in ways of kindness and justice but according to our fancies And this is common in the prophane World in those curses they so readily spit out upon any affront as if God were bound to draw his Arrowes and shoot them into the heart of all their offenders at their beck and pleasure 7. It is evidenc'd In mixing rules for the worship of God with those which have been ordered by him Since men are most prone to live by sense 't is no wonder that a sensible worship which affects their outward sence with some kind of amazement is dear to them and spiritual worship most loathsome Pompous rites have been the great Engine wherewith the Devil hath deceived the souls of men and wrought them to a nauseating the simplicity of divine worship as unworthy the Majesty and excellency of God * 2 Cor. 11.3 Thus the Jews would not understand the glory of the second Temple in the presence of the Messiah because it had not the pompous grandeur of that of Solomons erecting Hence in all Ages men have been forward to disfigure Gods models and dress up a brat of their own as though God had been defective in providing for his own honour in his institutions without the assistance of his Creature This hath alwayes been in the world the old World had their imaginations and the new World hath continued them The Israelites in the midst of miracles and under the memory of a famous deliverance would erect a Calf The Pharises that sate in Moses Chair would coyn new Traditions and enjoyn them to be as currant as the Law of God * Mat. 13.6 Papists will be blending the Christian appointments with Pagan Ceremonies to please the carnal fancies of the common people Altars have been multiplied under the knowledge of the Law of God * Hos 8.12 Interest is made the ballance of the conveniency of Gods injunctions Jeroboam fitted a worship to politick ends and posted up Calves to prevent his subjects revolting from his Scepter which might be occasioned by their resort to Hierusalem and converse with the body of the people from whom they were separated * 1 Kings 12.27 Men will be putting in their own dictates with Gods Laws and are unwilling he should be the sole Governour of the World without their Counsel They will not suffer him to be Lord of that which is purely and solely his concern How often hath the practice of the Primitive Church the Custom wherein we are bred the Sentiments of our Ancestors been owned as a more authentick rule in matters of Worship than the mind of God delivered in his word 'T is natural by Creation to worship God and it is as natural by corruption for man to worship him in
Plea from it in the mouth of Adam he knew as much as any man ever since knew of the nature of God as discoverable in Creation he could not in Innocence fancy an ignorant God a God that knew nothing of future things he could not be so ignorant of his own action but he must have perceived a force upon his Will had there been any had he thought that Gods Prescience impos'd any necessity upon him he would not have omitted the Plea especially when he was so daring as to charge the Providence of God in the Gift of the Woman to him to be the cause of his Crime Gen. 3.12 How come his Posterity to invent new charges against God which their Father Adam never thought of who had more knowledg than all of them He could find no cause of his Sin but the liberty of his own Will he charges it not upon any necessity from the Devil or any necessity from God nor doth he alledg the gift of the Woman as a necessary cause of his Sin but an occasion of it by giving the Fruit to him Judas knew that our Saviour did foreknow his Treachery for he had told him of it in the hearing of his Disciples John 13.21 26. yet he never charg'd the necessity of his Crime upon the foreknowledg of his Master if Judas had not done it freely he had had no reason to repent of it his Repentance justifies Christ from imposing any necessity upon him by that foreknowledg No man acts any thing but he can give an account of the motives of his action he cannot father it upon a blind necessity the Will cannot be compelled for then it would cease to be Will God doth not root up the foundations of Nature or change the order of it and make men unable to act like men that is as free Agents God foreknows the actions of irrational Creatures this concludes no violence upon their nature for we find their actions to be according to their nature and spontaneous 3. Gods foreknowledg is not simply considered the cause of any thing It puts nothing into things but only beholds them as present and arising from their proper causes The knowledg of God is not the Principle of things or the cause of their existence but directive of the action nothing is because God knows it but because God Wills it either positively or permissively God knows all things possible yet because God knows them they are not brought into actual existence but remain still only as things possible Knowledg only apprehends a thing but acts nothing 't is the rule of acting but not the cause of acting the Will is the immediate Principle and the Power the immediate cause to know a thing is not to do a thing for then we may be said to do every thing that we know But every man knows those things which he never did nor never will do Knowledg in it self is an apprehension of a thing and is not the cause of it A Spectator of a thing is not the cause of that thing which he sees that is he is not the cause of it as he beholds it We see a man Write we know before that he will Write at such a time but this foreknowledg is not the cause of his Writing We see a man Walk but our vision of him brings no necessity of Walking upon him he was free to Walk or not to Walk Rawley of the World lib. 1. cap. 1. sect 12. We foreknow that Death will seize upon all men we foreknow that the Seasons of the Year will succeed one another yet is not our foreknowledg the cause of this succcession of Spring after Winter or of the Death of all men or any man We see one man fighting with another our sight is not the cause of that contest but some Quarrel among themselves exciting their own Passions As the knowledg of present things imposeth no necessity upon them while they are acting and present so the Knowledg of future things imposeth no necessity upon them while they are coming We are certain there will be men in the World to morrow and that the Sea will Ebb and Flow but is this knowledg of ours the cause that those things will be so I know that the Sun will rise to morrow 't is true that it shall rise but 't is not true that my foreknowledg makes it to rise If a Physician Prognosticates upon seeing the Intemperances and Debaucheries of men that they will fall into such a distemper is his Prognostication any cause of their Disease or of the sharpness of any Symptoms attending it The Prophet foretold the cruelty of Hazael before he committed it but who will say that the Prophet was the cause of his Commission of that evil And thus the foreknowledg of God takes not away the liberty of mans Will no more than a foreknowledg that we have of any mans actions takes away his liberty We may upon our knowledg of the temper of a man certainly foreknow that if he falls into such Company and get among his Cups he will be Drunk but is this foreknowledg the cause that he is Drunk no the cause is the liberty of his own Will and not resisting the Temptation God purposes to leave such a man to himself and his own ways and man being so left God foreknows what will be done by him according to that corrupt nature which is in him tho' the Decree of God of leaving a man to the liberty of his own Will be certain yet the liberty of mans Will as thus left is the cause of all the extravagancies he doth commit Suppose Adam had stood would not God certainly have foreseen that he would have stood yet it would have been concluded that Adam had stood not by any necessity of Gods foreknowledg but by the liberty of his own Will Why should then the foreknowledg of God add more necessity to his falling than to his standing * Rivet in Isa 53.1 p. 16. And though it be said sometimes in Scripture that such a thing was done that the Scripture might be fulfilled as John 12.38 that the saying of Esaias might be fulfilled Lord who hath believed our report the word That doth not infer that the Prediction of the Prophet was the cause of the Jews unbelief but infers this that the Prediction was manifested to be true by their unbelief and the event answered the Prediction this Prediction was not the cause of their Sin but their foreseen Sin was the cause of this Prediction and so the Particle That is taken Psal 51.6 against thee thee only have I sinned that thou mightest be justified c. the justifying God was not the end and intent of the Sin but the event of it upon his acknowledgment 4. God foreknows things because they will come to pass but things are not future because God knows them Foreknowledg presupposeth the object which is foreknown a thing that is to come to pass
the things known were the cause of his Knowledg and so before his knowledg and therefore before his action Bradward lib. 1. cap. 15. God would not then be the first in the order of knowing Agents because he would not act by Knowledg but act before he knew and know after he had acted and so the Creature which he made would be before the act of his Understanding whereby he knew what he made Again since Knowledg is a Perfection if Gods knowledg of the Creatures depended upon the Creatures he would derive an excellency from them they would derive no excellency from any Idea in the Divine mind he would not be infinitely perfect in himself if his Perfection in Knowledg were gained from any thing without himself and below himself he would not be sufficient of himself but be under an indigence which wanted a supply from the things he had made and could not be eternally perfect till he had created and seen the effects of his own Power Goodness and Wisdom to render him more wise and knowing in Time than he was from Eternity Who can fancy such a God as this without destroying the Deity he pretends to adore for if his Understanding be perfected by something without him why may not his Essence be perfected by something without him that as he was made knowing by something without him he might be made God by something without him How could his Understanding be infinite if it depended upon a finite object as upon a cause Is the Majesty of God to be debas'd to a Mendicant condition to seek for a supply from things inferior to himself Is it to be imagin'd that a Fool a Toad a Fly should be assistant to the knowledg of God that the most noble Being should be perfected by things so vile that the supream cause of all things should receive any addition of knowledg and be determin'd in his Understanding by the notion of things so mean To conclude this particular all things depend upon his knowledg his knowledg depends upon nothing but is as independent as himself and his own Essence Proposition 4. God knows all things distinctly His understanding is infinite in regard of clearness God is light and in him is no darkness at all John 1.5 he sees not through a Mist or Cloud there 's no blemish in his Understanding no mote or beam in his eye to render any thing obscure to him Man discerns the surface and outside of things little or nothing of the Essence of things we see the noblest things but as in a glass darkly 1 Cor. 13.12 the too great nearness as well as the too great distance of a thing hinders our sight the smallness of a mote escapes our eye and so our knowledg also the weakness of our understanding is troubled with the multitude of things and cannot know many things but confusedly But God knows the forms and essence of things every circumstance nothing is so deep but he sees to the bottom he sees the mass and sees the motes of Beings his Understanding being infinite is not offended with a multitude of things or distracted with the variety of them he discerns every thing infinitely more clearly and perfectly than Adam or Solomon could any one thing in the Circle of their knowledg What knowledg they had was from him he hath therefore infinitely a more perfect knowledg than they were capable in their natures to receive a communication of All things are open to him Heb. 4.13 the least fibre in its nakedness and distinct frame is transparent to him as by the help of Glasses the mouth feet hands of a small Insect are visible to a man which seem to the eye without that assistance one intire piece not diversified into parts All the causes qualities natures properties of things are open to him he brings out the Host of Heaven by number and calleth them by Names Isa 40.26 he numbers the Hairs of our heads what more distinct than number thus God beholds things in every unity which makes up the heap He knows and none else can every thing in its true and intimate causes in its original and intermediate causes in himself as the cause of every particular of their Being every Property in their Being Knowledg by the causes is the most noble and perfect Knowledg and most suited to the infinite excellency of the Divine Being he created all things and ordered them to a universal and particular end he therefore knows the essential Properties of every thing every activity of their nature all their fitness for those distinct ends to which he orders them and for which he governs and disposeth them and understands their darkest and most hidden qualities infinitely clearer than any eye can behold the clear Beams of the Sun He knows all things as he made them he made them distinctly and therefore knows them distinctly and that every individual therefore God is said Gen. 1.31 to see every thing that he had made he took a review of every particular Creature he had made and upon his view pronounced it good To pronounce that good which was not exactly known in every Creek in every Mite of its nature had not consisted with his veracity for every one that speaks truth ignorantly that knows not that he speaks Truth is a Liar in speaking that which is true God knows every act of his own Will whether it be positive or permissive and therefore every effect of his Will We must needs ascribe to God a perfect Knowledg but a confus'd Knowledg cannot challenge that Title To know things only in a heap is unworthy of the Divine Perfection for if God knows his own ends in the Creation of things he knows distinctly the means whereby he will bring them to those ends for which he hath appointed them No Wise man intends an end without a knowledg of the means conducing to that end an ignorance then of any thing in the World which falls under the nature of a means to a Divine end and there is nothing in the World but doth would be inconsistent with the Perfection of God it would ascribe to him a blind Providence in the World As there can be nothing imperfect in his Being and Essence so there can be nothing imperfect in his Understanding and Knowledg and therefore not a confus'd Knowledg which is an Imperfection Darkness and Light are both alike to him Psal 139.12 he sees distinctly into the one as well as the other what is Darkness to us is not so to him Proposition 5. God knows all things infallibly His Understanding is infinite in regard of certainty every Tittle of what he knows is as far from failing as what he speaks our Saviour affirms the one Math. 5.18 and there is the same reason of the certainty of one as well as the other his Essence is the measure of his Knowledg whence it is as impossible that God should be mistaken in the knowledg of the least
it runs thus To the alone Wise God through Jesus Christ to him be glory for ever But we must not understand it as if God were Wise by Jesus Christ but that Thanks is to be given to God through Christ because in and by Christ God hath revealed his Wisdom to the World The Greek hath a Repetition of the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not exprest in the Translation To him be glory Beza expungeth this Article but without reason for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To him and joyning this The only Wise God with the 25th Verse To him that is of Power to establish you Reading it thus To him that is of Power to establish you the only Wise God leaving the rest in a Parenthesis it runs smoothly To him be glory through Jesus Christ And Crellius the Socinian observes that this Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which some leave out might be industriously inserted by the Apostle to shew that the Glory we ascribe to God is also given to Christ We may Observe That neither in this place nor any where in Scripture is the Virgin Mary or any of the Saints associated with God or Christ in the Glory ascrib'd to them In the Words there is 1. An Appropriation of Wisdom to God and a Remotion of it from all Creatures Only wise God 2. A Glorifying him for it The Point I shall insist upon is Doctr. That Wisdom is a transcendent Excellency of the Divine Nature We have before spoken of the Knowledge of God and the Infiniteness of it The next Attribute is the Wisdom of God Most confound the Knowledge and Wisdom of God together but there is a manifest distinction between them in our conception I shall handle it thus 1. Shew what Wisdom is Then lay down 2. Some Propositions about the Wisdom of God And shew 3. That God is Wise and only Wise 4. Wherein his Wisdom appears 5. The Vse I. What Wisdom is Wisdom among the Greeks first signified an eminent Perfection in any Art or Mystery so a good Statuary Engraver or Limner was called Wise as having an excellent Knowledge in his particular Art But afterwards the Title of Wise was appropriated to those that devoted themselves to the contemplation of the highest things that served for a Foundation to Speculative Sciences †A myrant Moral Iom 3. p. 123. But ordinarily we count a Man a Wise Man when he conducts his Affairs with discretion and governs his Passions with moderation and carries himself with a due proportion and harmony in all his concerns But in Particular Wisdom consists 1. In acting for a right End The chiefest part of Prudence is in fixing a right End and in chusing fit Means and directing them to that scope To shoot at random is a mark of Folly As he is the wisest Man that hath the noblest End and fittest Means so God is Infinitely Wise as he is the most excellent Being so he hath the most excellent End As there is none more excellent than himself nothing can be his End but himself As he is the Cause of all so he is the End of all and he puts a true Byass into all the Means he useth to hit the Mark he aims at Of him and through him and to him are all things Rom. 11.36 2. Wisdom consists in observing all Circumstances for Action He is counted a Wise man that lays hold of the fittest Opportunities to bring his designs about that hath the fullest foresight of all the little Intrigues which may happen in a Business he is to manage and Times every part of his Action in an exact harmony with the proper Minutes of it God hath all the Circumstances of things in one entire Image before him he hath a prospect of every little Creek in any design He sees what Second Causes will act and when they will act this or that yea he determines them to such and such Acts so that it is impossible he should be mistaken or miss of the due Season of bringing about his own Purposes As he hath more Goodness than to deceive any so he hath more Understanding than to be mistaken in any thing Hence the Time of the Incarnation of our Blessed Saviour is called the Fulness of Time the proper Season for his coming Every Circumstance about Christ was Tim'd according to the Predictions of God even so little a thing as not parting his Garment and the giving him Gall and Vinegar to drink And all the Blessings he showrs down upon his People according to the Covenant of Grace are said to come in his season Ezek. 34.25 26. 3. Wisdom consists In willing and acting according to the right Reason according to a right Judgment of things We never count a Wilful man a Wise man but him only that acts according to a right Rule when right Counsels are taken and vigorously executed The Resolves and Ways of God are not meer Will but Will guided by the Reason and Counsel of his own Infinite Understanding Eph. 1.11 Who works all things according to the counsel of his own will The Motions of the Divine Will are not rash but follow the Proposals of the Divine Mind He chooses that which is fittest to be done so that all his Works are graceful and all his Ways have a comeliness and decorum in them Hence all his Ways are said to be Judgment Deut. 32.4 not meer Will Hence it appears that Wisdom and Knowledge are two distinct Perfections Knowledge hath its seat in the Speculative Understanding Wisdom in the Practical Wisdom and Knowledge are evidently distinguish'd as two several gifts of the Spirit in Man 1 Cor. 12.8 To one is given by the Spirit the word of Wisdom to another the word of Knowledge by the same Spirit Knowledge is an understanding of general Rules and Wisdom is a drawing Conclusions from those Rules in order to particular cases A Man may have the Knowledge of the whole Scripture and have all Learning in the Treasury of his Memory and yet be destitute of Skill to make use of them upon particular Occasions and unty those knotty Questions which may be proposed to him by a ready application of those Rules Again Knowledge and Wisdom may be distinguish'd in our Conception as two distinct Perfections in God The Knowledge of God is his Understanding of all things his Wisdom is the Skilful resolving and acting of all things And the Apostle in his Admiration of him owns them as distinct Oh the depths of the riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God Rom. 11.33 Knowledge is the Foundation of Wisdom and antecedent to it Wisdom the Superstructure upon Knowledge Men may have Knowledge without Wisdom but not Wisdom without Knowledge according to our common Proverb The greatest Clerks are not the wisest Men. All Practical Knowledge is founded in Speculation either Secundum rem as in a Man or Secundum rationem as in God They agree
Jews Crucifying our Saviour God did not imprint upon their Minds by his Spirit a consideration of the greatness of the Crime and the horrour of his Justice due to it And being without those Impediments they run furiously of their own accord to the Commission of that Evil. As when a Man lets a Wolf or Dog out upon his Prey he takes off the Chain which held them and they presently act according to their Natures †Lawson pag. 64. In the Fall of Angels and Men Gods Act was a leaving them to their own strength In Sins after the Fall 't is Gods giving them up to their own Corruption The first is a pure suspension of Grace the other hath the nature of a Punishment Psal 81.12 So I gave them up to their own hearts lusts The first Object of this Permissive Will of God was to leave Angâ—ls and Men to their own liberty and the use of their Free-will which was Natural to them ‖ Suarez Vol. 4. p. 414. not adding that Supernatural Grace which was necessary not that they should not at all sin but that they should infallibly not sin They had a strength sufficient to avoid Sin but not sufficient infallibly to avoid Sin a Grace sufficient to preserve them but not sufficient to confirm them 3. Now this Permission is not the cause of Sin nor doth blemish the Holiness of God It doth not intrench upon the Freedom of Men but supposeth it establisheth it and leaves Man to it God acted nothing but only ceased to Act and therefore could not be the Efficient cause of Mans Sin As God is not the Author of good but by willing and effecting it so he is not the Author of Evil but by willing â—nd effecting it But he doth not positively will Evil nor effect it by any Efficacy of his own Permission is no Action nor the cause of that Action which is permitted but the will of that Person who is permitted to do such an Action is the cause * Suarez de Legib. p. 43. God can no more be said to be the cause of Sin by suffering a Creature to act as it will than he can be said to be the cause of the not Being of any Creature by denying it Being and letting it remain Nothing 'T is not from God that it is Nothing 't is Nothing in it self Though God be said to be the Cauâ—e of Creation yet he is never by any said to be the Cause of that Nothing which was before Creation This Permission of God is not the Cause of Sin but the cause of not hindering Sin Man and Angels had a Physical Power of sinning from God as they were created with Free-will and supported in their Natural strength but the Moral power to sin was not from God He counsell'd them not to it laid no obligation upon them to use their Natural power for such an end He only left them to their freedom and not hinder'd them in their acting what he was resolved to permit 2. The Holiness of God is not tainted by this because he was under no obligation to hinder their Commission of sin Ceasing to act whereby to prevent a Crime or mischief brings not a Person permitting it under guilt unless where he is under an obligation to prevent it But God in regard of his Absolute Dominion cannot be charged with any such Obligation One Man that doth not hinder the Murder of another when it is in his power is guilty of the Murder in part but it is to be considered that he is under a Tye by Nature as being of the same kind and being the others Brother by a communion of Blood also under an obligation of the Law of Charity enacted by the Common Soveraign of the World But what tye was there upon God since the Infinite Transcendency of his Nature and his Soveraign Dominion frees him from any such obligation Job 9.12 If he takes away who shall say What dost thou God might have prevented the Fall of Men and Angels he might have confirm'd them all in a state of perpetual Innocency but where is the Obligation He had made the Creature a Debtor to himself but he ow'd nothing to the Creature Before God can be charged with any guilt in this case it must be proved not only that he could but that he was bound to hinder it No Person can be justly charged with anothers Fault meerly for not preventing it unless he be bound to prevent it else not only the First sin of Angels and Man would be imputed to God as the Author but all the sins of Men. He could not be obliged by any Law because he had no Supeiour to impose any Law upon him and it will be hard to prove that he was obliged from his own Nature to prevent the entrance of Sin which he would use as an occasion to declare his own Holiness so transcendent a Perfection of his Nature more than ever it could have been manifested by a total exclusion of it viz. in the Death of Christ He is no more bound in his own Nature to preserve by Supernatural Grace his Creature from Falling after he had framed him with a sufficient strength to stand than he was obliged in his own Nature to bring his Creature into Being when it was Nothing He is not bound to create a Rational Creature much less bound to create him with Supernatural gifts though since God would make a Rational Creature he could not but make him with a Natural Uprightness and rectitude God did as much for Angels and Men as became a Wise Governour He had publish'd his Law back'd it with severe Penalties and the Creature wanted not a Natural strength to observe and obey it Had not Man a power to obey all the Precepts of the Law as well as one How was God bound to give him more Grace since what he had already was enough to shield him and keep up his Resistance against all the Power of Hell It had been enough to have pointed his Will against the Temptation and he had kept off the force of it Was there any Promise past to Adam of any further Grace which he could plead as a tye upon God No such voluntary Limit upon Gods Supream Dominion appears upon Record Was any thing due to Man which he had not Any thing promis'd him which was not perform'd What Action of Debt then can the Creature bring against God Indeed when Man began to neglect the light of his own Reason and became Inconsiderate of the Precept God might have enlightned his Understanding by a special flash a Supernatural beam and imprinted upoâ— him a particular consideration of the Necessity of his Obedience the Misery he was approaching to by his Sin the folly of any such Apprehension of an equality in Knowledge he might have convinc'd him of the falsity of the Serpents Arguments and uncas'd to him the Venom that lay under those Baits But how doth it
of a spiritual life Did not all lie wallowing in their own filthy blood and what could the steam and noysomness of that deserve at the hands of a pure Majesty but to be cast into a sink furthest from his sight Were they not all considered in this deplorable posture with an equal proportion of poyson in their nature when God first took his pen and singled out some Names to write in the Book of life It could not be merit in any one peice of this abominable Mass that should stir up that resolution in God to set apart this person for a Vessel of Glory while he permitted another to putrifie in his own gore He loved Jacob and hated Esau though they were both parts of the common Mass the Seed of the same Loyns and lodg'd in the same Womb. 2. Nor could it â—e any foresight of works to be done in time by them or of Faith that might determine God to choose them What good could he foresee resulting from extream corruption and a nature alienated from him What could he foresee of good to be done by them but what he resolved in his own will to bestow an ability upon them to bring forth His choice of them was to a Holiness not for a Holiness preceding his determination Eph. 1.4 He hath chosen us that we might be Holy before him he ordained us to good works not for them Eph. 2.10 What is a Fruit cannot be a moving cause of that whereof it is a fruit Grace is a stream from the spring of electing love the branch is not the cause of the Root but the Root of the Branch nor the stream the cause of the spring but the spring the cause of the stream Good works suppose Grace and a good and right habit in the person as rational acts suppose reason Can any man say that the rational acts man performs after his Creation were a cause why God Created him This would make Creation and every thing else not so much an act of his will as an act of his Understanding God foresaw no rational act in man before the act of his will to give him reason nor foresees faith in any before the act of his will determining to give him Faith Eph. 2.8 Faith is the gift of God In the Salvation which grows up from this first purpose of God he regards not the works we have done as a principal motive to settle the top-stone of our happiness but his own purpose and the Grace given in Christ 2 Timothy 1.9 Who hath saved us and call'd us with a holy Calling not according to our own works but according to his own purpose and Grace which was given to us in Christ before the World began The honour of our Salvation cannot be challeng'd by our works much less the honour of the Foundation of it It was a pure gift of Grace without any respect to any spiritual much less natural perfection Why should the Apostle mention that circumstance when he speaks of God's loving Jacob and hating Esau when neither of them had done good or evil Rom. 9.11 if there were any foresight of mens works as the moving cause of his love or hatred God regarded not the works of either as the first cause of his choice but acted by his own Liberty without respect to any of their actions which were to be done by them in time If Faith be the fruit of Election the prescience of Faith doth not influence the Electing act of God Tit. 1.1 'T is called the Faith of Gods Elect. Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ according to the Faith of Gods Elect. i. e. Setled in this Office to bring the Elect of God to Faith If men be chosen by God upon the foresight of Faith or not chosen till they have Faith they are not so much God's Elect as God their Elect they choose God by Faith before God chooseth them by love It had not been the Faith of Gods Elect i. e. Of those already chosen but the Faith of those that were to be chosen by God afterwards * Dalle in loc Election is the cause of Faith and not Faith the cause of Election Fire is the cause of heat and not the heat of Fire the Sun is the cause of the day and not the day the cause of the rising of the Sun Men are not chosen because they beleive but they beleive because they are chosen The Apostle did ill else to appropriate that to the Elect which they had no more interest in by vertue of their Election than the veriest Reprobate in the World If the foresight of what works might be done by his Creatures was the motive of his choosing them why did he not choose the Devils to Redemption who could have done him better service by the strength of their Nature than the whole Mass of Adam's posterity Well then there is no possible way to lay the original Foundation of this act of Election and preterition in any thing but the absolute Soveraignty of God Justice or Injustice comes not into consideration in this case There is no debt which Justice or Injustice always respects in its acting If he had pleased he might have chosen all if he had pleased he might have chosen none It was in his supream power to have resolved to have left all Adam's posterity under the rack of his Justice if he determined to snatch out any it was a part of his dominion but without any injury to the Creatures he leaves under their own guilt Did he not pass by the Angels and take man And by the same right of Dominion may he pick out some men from the common Mass and lay aside others to bear the punishment of their Crimes Are they not all his Subjects All are his Criminals and may be dealt with at the pleasure of their undoubted Lord and Soveraign This is a work of arbitrary power Since he might have chosen none or chosen all as he saw good himself 'T is at the liberty of the Artificer to determine his Wood or Stone to such a figure that of a Prince or that of a Toad and his materials have no right to complain of him since it lies wholly upon his own liberty They must have little sence of their own vileness and God's infinite excellency above them by right of Creation that will contend that God hath a lesser right over his Creatures than an Artificer over his Wood or Stone If it were at his liberty whither to redeem Man or send Christ upon such an undertaking 't is as much at his liberty and the prerogative is to be allow'd him what persons he will resolve to make capable of enjoying the fruits of that Redemption One Man was as fit a subject for Mercy as another as they all lay in their orginal guilt Why would not Divine Mercy cast its eye upon this Man as well as upon his Neighbour There was no cause in the Creature but all in God it
of the Heaven c. How could this great heap be brought into being unless a God had framed it Every plant every Atome as well as every Star at the first meeting whispers this in our Ears I have a Creator I am witness to a Deity who ever saw Statues or Pictures but presently thinks of a Statuary and Limner Who beholds Garments Ships or Houses but understands there was a Weaver a Carpenter an Architect * Philo. ex Petav. Theolo Dog Tom 1. li. 1. cap. 1 pa. 4. somewhat changed Who can cast his eyes about the world but must think of that power that formed it and that the goodness which appears in the formation of it hath a perfect Residence in some Being those things that are good must flow from somthing perfectly good that which is chief in any kind is the cause of all of that kind Fire which is most hot is the cause of all things which are hot There is some being therefore which is the cause of all that Perfection which is in the Creature and this is God Aquin. 1 qu. 2. Artic. 3. All things that are demonstrate something from whence they are All things have a contracted perfection and what they have is Communicated to them Perfections are parcelled out among several Creatures Any thing that is imperfect cannot exist of it self We are led therefore by them to consider a fountain which bubbles up in all perfection a hand which distributes those several degrees of Being and Perfection to what we see we see that which is imperfect our minds conclude somthing perfect to exist before it our eye sees the streams but our understanding riseth to the head as the eye sees the shadow but the understanding informs us whither it he the shadow of a man or of a beast God hath given us Sense to behold the objects in the World and Understanding to reason his Existence from them the understanding cannot conceive a thing to have made it self that is against all reason * Rom. 1.20 As they are made they speak out a Maker and cannot be a trick of chance since they are made with such an immense Wisdom that is too big for the grasp of all humane understanding Those that doubt whither the Existence of God be an implanted Principle yet agree that the effects in the world lead to a supream and universal cause And that if we have not the knowledge of it rooted in our Natures yet we have it by discourse since by all Masters of reason a Processus in Infinitum must be accounted impossible in subordinate causes This will appear in several things First I. The World and every Creature had a beginning The Scripture Ascertains this to us * Gen. 1. By Faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God c. David who was not the first man gives the praise to God of his being curiously wrought c. Psal 139.14.15 God gave being to Men and Plants and Beasts before they gave being to one another He gives being to them now as the Fountain of all being though the several Modes of being are from the several natures of second causes * Heb. 11.3 T is true indeed we are ascertained that they were made by the true God that they were made by his word that they were made of nothing and not only this lower world wherein we live but according to the Jewish division the world of Men the the world of Stars and the world of Spirits and Souls We do not waver in it or doubt of it as the Heathen did in their disputes we know they are the workmanship of the true God of that God we adore not of false Gods By his Word without any instrument or engin as in earthly Sâ—ructures of things which do not appear without any preexistent matter as all Artificial works of men are framed Yet the proof of the beginning of the world is affirmed with good reason and if it had a beginning it had also some higher cause than it self Every effect hath a cause * Daille 20. Serm. Psa 102.26 pa. 13. 14. The World was not Eternal or from Eternity The matter of the world cannot be Eternal Matter cannot subsist without form nor put on any form without the action of some cause this cause must be in being before it acted that which is not cannot act The cause of the world must necessarily exist before any matter was endued with any form that therefore cannot be Eternal before which another did subsist if it were from Eternity it would not be subject to mutation If the whole was from Eternity why not also the parts what makes the changes so visible then if Eternity would exempt it from mutability 1. Time cannot be infinite and therefore the World not Eternal * Daille ut Supra All motion hath its beginning if it were otherwise we must say the number of Heavenly revolutions of days and nights which are past to this instant is actually infinite which cannot be in nature If it were so it must needs be granted that a part is equal to the whole because infinite being equal to infinite the number of days past in all Ages to the beginning of one year being Infinite as they would be supposing the World had no beginning would by consequence be equal to the number of days which shall pass to the end of the next whereas that number of days past is indeed but a part and so a part would be equal to the whole 2. Generations of Men Animals and Plants could not be from Eternity * Petar Theo. Dogmat. tom 1. lib. 1. cap. 2. pag. 15. If any Man say the world was from Eternity then there must be propagations of living Creatures in the same manner as are at this day For without this the World could not consist what we see now done must have been perpetually done if it be done by a necessity of nature But we see nothing now that doth arise but by a mutual propagation from another If the world were Eternal therefore it must be so in all Eternity take any particular species suppose a man if men were from Eternity then there were perpetual generations some were born into the World and some died Now the natural condition of generation is that a man doth not generate a man nor a Sheep a Lamb as soon as ever it self is brought into the World but get strength and vigour by degrees and must arrive to a certain stated age before they can produce the like for whilst any thing is little and below the due age it cannot increase its kind Men therefore and other Creatures did propagate their kind by the same Law not as soon as ever they were born but in the interval of some time and Children grew up by degrees in the Mothers Womb till they were fit to be brought forth If this be so then there could not be an Eternal
he needed not have sought without himself for his own preservation and comfort What depends upon another is not of it self and what depends upon things inferiour to it self is less of it self Since nothing can subsist of it self since we see those things upon which Man depends for his nourishment and subsistence growing and decaying starting into the world and retiring from it as well as man himself some preserving cause must be concluded upon which all depends 5. If the first Man did produce himself why did he not produce himself before It hath been already proved that he had a beginning and could not be from Eternity Why then did he not make himself before Not because he would not For having no being he could have no will he could neither be willing nor not willing If he could not then how could he afterwards if it were in his own power he could have done it he would have done it if it were not in his own power then it was in the power of some other cause and that is God How came he by that power to produce himself If the power of producing himself were communicated by another then Man could not be the cause of himself That is the cause of it which communicated that power to it But if the power of being was in and from himself and in no other nor communicated to him man would always have been in act and always have Existed no hinderance can be conceived For that which had the power of being in it self was invincible by any thing that should stand in the way of its own being We may conclude from hence the excellency of the Scripture that it is a Word not to be refused credit It gives us the most rational account of things in the 1. and 2. of Genesis which nothing in the world else is able to do Thirdly III. Proposition no Creature could make the world No Creature can create another If it creates of nothing t is then Omnipotent and so not a Creature If it makes something of matter unfit for that which is produced out of it then the inquiry will be who was the cause of the matter and so we must arrive to some uncreated being the cause of all Whatsoever gives being to any other must be the highest being and must possess all the perfections of that which it gives being to what visible Creature is there which possesses the perfections of the whole world If therefore an invisible Creature made the world the same enquiries will return whence that Creature had its being for he could not make himself If any Creature did Create the World he must do it by the strength and vertue of another which first gave him being and this is God For whatsoever hath its Existence and vertue of acting from another is not God If it hath its vertue from another t is then a second cause and so supposeth a first cause It must have some cause of it self or be Eternally Existent If Eternally Existent t is not a second cause but God if not Eternally Existent we must come to somthing at length which was the cause of it or else be bewildred without being able to give an account of any thing We must come at last to an Infinite Eternal Independent Being that was the first cause of this Structure and Fabrick wherein we and all Creatures dwell The Scripture proclaims this aloud * Isa 45.6.7 Deut. 4.35 I am the Lord and there is none else I Form the light and I Create darkness Man the Noblest Creature cannot of himself make a man the chiefest part of the World If our Parents only without a Superior power made our Bodies or Souls they would know the frame of them as he that makes a Lock knows the Wards of it he that makes any curious peice of Arras knows how he setts the various colours together and how many threads went to each division in the Web he that makes a Watch having the Idea of the whole work in his mind knows the motions of it and the reason of those motions But both Parents and Children are equally ignorant of the nature of their Souls and Bodies and of the reason of their motions God only that had the Supream hand in forming us in whose Book all our members are written Psal 139.16 which in continuance were fashioned knows what we all are ignorant of If man hath in an ordinary course of generation his being chiefly from an higher cause than his Parents the World then certainly had its being from some infinitely wise intelligent Being which is God If it were as some fancy made by an Assembly of Atomes there must be some infinite intelligent cause that made them some cause that separated them some cause that mingled them together for the piling up so comely a structure as the world T is the most absurd thing to think they should meet togeither by hazard and rank themselves in that order we see without a higher and a wise agent So that no Creature could make the world For supposing any Creature was formed before this visible world and might have a hand in disposing things yet he must have a cause of himself and must act by the virtue and strength of another and this is God Fourthly IV. Proposition From hence it follows that there is a first cause of things which we call God There must be somthing supreme in the order of nature somthing which is greater than all which hath nothing beyond it or above it otherwise we must run in infinitum We see not a River but we conclude a Fountain a Watch but we conclude an Artificer As all number begins from unity so all the multitude of things in the world begins from some unity Oneness as the principle of it T is natural to arise from a view of those things to the conception of a nature more perfect than any As from heat mixed with cold and light mixed with darkness men conceive and arise in their understandings to an intense heat and a pure light And from a Corporeal or bodily substance joyned with an incorporeal as man is an earthly body and a Spiritual Soul we ascend to a conception of a substance purely incorporeal and Spiritual So from a multitude of things in the world Reason leads us to one choice being above all And since in all natures in the World we still find a superior nature the nature of one beast above the nature of another the nature of man above the nature of beasts and some invisible nature the worker of strange effects in the Air and Earth which cannot be ascribed to any visible cause we must suppose some nature above all those of unconceivable perfection * Coccei sum Theol. cap. 8. § 33. c. Every Sceptick one that doubts whither there be any thing real or no in the World that counts every thing an appearance must necessarily own a first cause They cannot
a humane way and not in a divine Is not this to impose Laws upon God To esteem our selves wiser than he To think him negligent of his own service and that our feeble brains can find out ways to accommodate his honour better than himself hath done Thus do men for the most part equal their own imaginations to Gods oracles As Solomon built a high place to Moloch and Chemoch upon the Mount of Olives to face on the East part Hierusalem and the Temple * 1 Kings 11.7 This is not only to impose Laws on God but also to make self the Standard of them 8. 'T is evidenc'd in suting interpretations of Scripture to their own minds and humors Like the Lacedemonians that drest the Images of their Gods according to the fashion of their own Countrey We would wring Scripture to sâ—rve our own designs and Judge the Law of God by the law of sin and make the Serpentine seed in us to be the interpreter of Divine Oracles This is like Belshazar to drink healths out of the sacred Vessels As God is the Author of his Law and Word so he is the best interpreter of it the Scripture having an impress of divine Wisdom Holiness and Goodness must be regarded according to that impress with a submission and meekness of Spirit and Reverence of God in it But when in our enquiries into the word we enquire not of God but consult flesh and blood the temper of the times wherein we live or the satisfaction of a party we side withal and impose glosses upon it according to our own fancies it is to put Laws upon God and make self the rule of him He that interprets the law to bolster up some eager appetite against the Will of the law-giver ascribes to himself as great an authority as he that enacted it 9. In falling off from God after some fair compliances when his Will grateth upon us and crosseth ours They will walk with him as far as he pleaseth them and leave him upon the first distast as tho God must observe their humors more than they his Will Amos must be suspended from Prophecying because the Land could not bear his words and his discourses condemned their unworthy practices against God * Amos. 7.10 c. The Young man came not to receive directions from our Saviour but expected a Confirmation of his own rules rather than an imposition of new * Mark 10.17 22. He rather cares for Commendations than instructions and upon the disappointment turns his back He was sad that Christ would not suffer him to be rich and a Christian together and leaves him because his Command was not suitable to the Law of his Covetousness Some truths that are at a further distance from us we can hear gladly But when the Conscience begins to smart under others if God will not observe our Wills we will with Herod be a Law to our selves * Mark 6 2â—.27 More instances might be observed Ingratitude is a setting up self and an imposing Laws on God T is as much as to say God did no more than he was obliged to do as if the Mercies we have were an Act of Duty in God and not of bounty Insatiable desires after wealth Hence are those speeches Jam. 4.13 We will go into such a City and buy and sell c. to get gain As tho they had the Command of God and God must Lacquey after their Wills VVhen our hearts are not contented with any supply of our wants but are craving an overplus for our lust When we are unsatisfied in the midst of plenty and still like the Grave cry give give Incorrigibleness under affliction c. Secondly 2. The second main thing As Man would be a Law to himself So he would be his own end and happiness in opposition to God Here four things shall be discoursed on 1. Man would make himself his own End and Happiness 2. He would make any thing his End and Happiness rather than God 3. He would make himself the End of all Creatures 4. He would make himself the End of God First 1. Man would make himself his own End and Happiness As God ought to be esteem'd the first cause in point of our dependance on him so he ought to be our last end in point of our enjoyment of him When we therefore trust in our selves we refuse him as the first cause and when we act for our selves and expect a blessedness from our selves we refuse him as the Chiefest good and last End which is an undeniable piece of Atheism For man is a Creature of a higher rank than others in the world and was not made as Animals Plants and other works of the Divine power materially to glorifie God but a rational Creature intentionally to Honour God by obedience to his Rule dependance on his goodness and zeal for his glory T is therefore as much a slighting of God for man a Creature to set himself up as his own End as to regard himself as his own Law For the discovery of this observe that there is a three-fold self-love 1. Natural which is common to us by the Law of nature with other Creatures Inanimate as well as Animate and so closely twisted with the nature of every Creature that it cannot be dissolved but with the dissolution of nature it self It consisted not with the wisdom and goodness of God to Create an unnatural nature or to Command any thing unnatural Nor doth he for when he Commands us to Sacrifice out Selves and dearest lives for himself t is not without a promise of a more noble state and being in exchange for what we lose This self-love is not only commendable but necessary as a Rule to measure that duty we owe to our Neighbour whom we cannot love as our selves if we do not first love our selvs God having planted this self-love in our nature makes this natural principle the measure of our affection to all Mankind of the same blood with our selves 2. Carnal self-love when a man loves himself above God in opposition to God with a contempt of God when our thoughts affections designs Center only in our own fleshly interest and rifle God of his honour to make a present of it to our selves Thus the natural self-love in it self good becomes Criminal by the excess when it would be superior and not subordinate to God 3. A Gracious self-love VVhen we love our selves for higher ends than the nature of a Creature as a Creature dictates Viz. in subserviency to the Glory of God This is a reduction of the revolted Creature to his true and happy order A Christian is therefore said to be Created in Christ to good works * Eph. 1 10. As all Creatures were Created not only for themselves but for the honour of God so the Grace of the new Creation carries a man to answer this end and to order all his operations to the Honour of God and his
inferior things And it is likely the Psalmist considers not only the beginning of Redemption but the compleating of it at the second coming of Christ for he complains of those evils which shall be removed by his second coming viz. The shortness of life persecutions and reproaches wherewith the Church is afflicted in this world and comforts not himself with those attributes which are directly opposed to sin as the mercy of God the Covenant of God but with those that are opposed to mortality and calamities as the unchangeableness and Eternity of God and from thence infers a perpetual establishment of believers * Ver. 28. The Children of thy Servants shall continue and their seed shall be established before thee So that the Psalm it self seems to aim in the whole discourse at Christ and asserts his Divinity which the Apostle as an interpreter doth fully evidence applying it to him and manifesting his Deity by his immutability as well as Eternity * Daile Melang des Sermons Part 2. Sect. 1. p. 8. 9. 10 c. While all other things lose their forms and pass through multitudes of variations he constantly remains the same and shall be the same when all the Empires of the world shall slide away and a Period be put to the present motions of the Creation And as there was no change made in his being by the Creation of things so neither shall there be by the final alteration of things he shall see them finish as he saw them rise up into being and be the same after their reign as he was before their original he is the first and the last * Revel 1.17 2. Here is ground and encouragement for Worship An Atheist will make another use of this If God be immutable why should we worship him why should we pray to him Good will come if he wills it evil cannot be averted by all our supplications if he hath ordered it to fall upon us But certainly since unchangeableness in knowing and willing goodness is a perfection An adoration and admiration is due to God upon the account of this excellence If he be God he is to be reverenced and the more highly reverenc'd because he cannot but be God Again what comfort could it be to pray to a God that like the Chamaeleon changed colours every day every moment What encouragement could there be to lift up our eyes to one that were of one mind this day and of another mind to morrow Who would put up a Petition to an Earthly Prince that were so mutable as to grant a Petition one day and deny it another and change his own act But if a Prince promise this or that thing upon such or such a condition and you know his promise to be as unchangeable as the Laws of the Medes and Persians would any Man reason thus because it is unchangeable we will not seek to him we will not perform the condition upon which the fruit of the Proclamation is to be enjoyed Who would not count such an inference ridiculous What blessings hath not God promised upon the condition of seeking him Were he of an unrighteous nature or changeable in his mind this would be a bar to our seeking him and frustrate our hopes But since it is otherwise is not this excellency of his nature the highest encouragement to ask of him the blessings he hath promised and a beam from Heaven to fire our zeal in asking If you desire things against his Will which he hath declared he will not grant Prayer then would be an act of disobedience and injury to him as well as an act of folly in it self his unchangeableness then might stifle such desires But if we ask according to his Will and according to our reasonable wants what ground have we to make such a ridiculous argument He hath Willed every thing that may be for our good if we perform the condition he hath required and hath put it upon record that we may know it and regulate our desires and supplications according to it If we will not seek him his immutability cannot be a bar but our own folly is the cause and by our neglect we despoil him of this perfection as to us and either imply that he is not sincere and means not as he speaks or that he is as changeable as the Wind sometimes this thing sometimes that and not at all to be confided in If we ask according to his revealed Will the unchangeableness of his Nature will assure us of the Grant and what a presumption would it be in a Creature dependent upon his Soveraign to ask that which he knows he has declared his Will against since there is no good we can want but he hath promised to give upon our sincere and ardent desire for it God hath decreed to give this or that to Man but conditionally and by the means of enquiring after him and asking for it * Ezek. 36.37 Mat. 7.7 Ask and you shall receive as much as to say you shall not receive unless you ask When the highest promises are made God expects they should be put in sute Our Saviour joyns the Promise and the Petition together the Promise to encourage the Petition and the Petition to enjoy the Promise He doth not say perhaps it shall be given but it shall that is it certainly shall your heavenly Father is unchangeably willing to give you those things We must depend upon his Immutability for the thing and submit to his Wisdom for the time Prayer is an acknowledgment of our dependence upon God which dependence could have no firm foundation without unchangeableness Prayer doth not desire any change in God but is offered to God that he would conferr those things which he hath immutably willed to communicate but he willed them not without Prayer as the means of bestowing them The light of the Sun is ordered for our comfort for the discovery of visible things for the ripening the fruits of the Earth but withal t is required that we use our faculty of seeing that we employ our industry in sowing and planting and expose our fruits to the view of the Sun that they may receive the influence of it If a man shuts his eyes and complains that the Sun is changed into darkness it would be ridiculous the Sun is not changed but we alter our selves Nor is God changed in not giving us the blessings he hath promised because he hath promised in the way of a due address to him and opening our Souls to receive his influence and to this his Immutability is the greatest encouragement 3. This shews how contrary Man is to God in regard of his inconstancy What an infinite distance is there between the immutable God and mutable Man and how should we bewail this flittingness in our Nature There is a Mutability in us as Creatures and a Creature cannot but be mutable by Nature otherwise it were not a Creature but God The establishment of
cannot be sever'd from his Power nor his Power from his Essence for the Power of God is nothing but God acting and the wisdom of God nothing but God knowing As the power of God is always so is his Essence as the power of God is every where so is his Essence whatsoever God is he is alway and every where To confine him to a place is to measure his Essence as to confine his actions is to limit his power his Essence being no less infinite than his Power and his Wisdom can be no more bounded than his Power and Wisdom but they are not separable from his Essence yea they are his Essence if God did not fill the whole World he would be determin'd to some place and excluded from others and so his substance would have bounds and limits and then something might be conceived greater than God for we may conceive that a Creature may be made by God of so vast a greatness as to fill the whole World for the power of God is able to make a body that should take up the whole space between Heaven and Earth and reach to every corner of it but nothing can be conceived by any Creature greater than God he exceeds all things and is exceeded by none God therefore cannot be included in Heaven nor included in the Earth cannot be contained in either of them for if we should imagine them vaster than they are yet still they would be finite and if his Essence were contain'd in them it could be no more infinite than the World which contains it As water is not of a larger compass than the Vessel which contains it If the Essence of God were limited either in the Heavens or Earth it must needs be finite as the Heaven and Earth are But there is no proportion between finite and infinite God therefore cannot be contain'd in them If there were an infinite body that must be every where certainly then an infinite Spirit must be every where Unless we will account him finite we can render no reason why he should not be in one Creature as well as in another if he be in Heaven which is his Creature why can he not be in the Earth which is as well his Creature as the Heavens 2. Reason Because of the continual operation of God in the World This was one reason made the Heathen believe that there was an infinite Spirit in the vast body of the World acting in every thing and producing those admirable motions which we see every where in Nature That cause which acts in the most perfect manner is also in the most perfect manner present with its effects God preserves all and therefore is in all the Apostle thought it a good induction Acts 17.27 He is not far from us for in him we live For being as much as because shews that from his operation he concluded his real presence with all 'T is not his vertue is not far from every one of us but He his Substance himself for none that acknowledge a God will deny the absence of the vertue of God from any part of the World He works in every thing every thing lives and works in him therefore he is present with all * Pont. or rather if things live they are in God who gives them life If things live God is in them and gives them life If things move God is in them and gives them motion If things have any Being God is in them and gives them Being if God withdraws himself they presently lose their Being and therefore some have compar'd the Creature to the impression of a Seal upon the water that cannot be preserved but by the Presence of the Seal As his Presence was actual with what he Created so his Presence is actual with what he preserves since Creation and Preservation do so little differ if God creates things by his Essential Presence by the same he supports them If his substance cannot be disjoyn'd from his preserving Power his power and wisdom cannot be separated from his Essence where there are the marks of the one there is the presence of the other for it is by his Essence that he is powerful and wise no man can distinguish the one from the other in a simple Being God doth not preserve and act things by a vertue diffus'd from him N.B. It may be demanded whether that vertue be distinct from God if it be not 't is then the Essence of God if it be distinct 't is a Creature and then it may be ask't how that vertue which preserves other things is preserved it self it must be ultimately resolv'd into the Essence of God or else there must be a running in infinitum or else * Amyrald de Trinitat p. 106. 107. is that vertue of God a substance or not Is it endued with understanding or not If it hath understanding how doth it differ from God If it wants understanding can any imagine that the support of the World the guidance of all Creatures the wonders of Nature can be wrought preserv'd manag'd by a vertue that hath nothing of understanding in it If it be not a substance it can much less be able to produce such excellent Operations as the preserving all the kinds of things in the World and ordering them to perform such excellent ends this Vertue is therefore God himself the infinite Power and Wisdom of God and therefore wheresoever the effects of these are seen in the World God is essentially present some Creatures indeed act at a distance by a vertue diffus'd but such a manner of acting comes from a limitedness of nature that such a nature cannot be every where present and extend its substance to all parts To act by a vertue speaks the Subject finite and it is a part of indigence Kings act in their Kingdoms by Ministers and Messengers because they cannot act otherwise but God being infinitely perfect works all things in all immediately 1 Cor. 12.6 Illumination Sanctification Grace c. are the immediate Works of God in the heart and immediate Agents are present with what they do 't is an Argument of the greater Perfection of a Being to know things immediately which are done in several places than to know them at the second hand by Instruments 't is no less a Perfection to be every where rather than to be tyed to one place of action and to act in other places by Instruments for want of a Power to act immediately it self God indeed acts by means and second causes in his Providential Dispensations in the World but this is not out of any Defect of Power to Work all immediately himself but he thereby accommodates his way of acting to the nature of the Creature and the Order of Things which he hath setled in the World And when he Works by means he acts with those means in those means sustains their faculties and vertues in them concurs with them by his Power so
All People are under Gods Care but he has a particular regard to his Church This is the Signet on his hand as a Bracelet upon his arm this is his Garden which he delights to dress if he prunes it it is to purge it if he Digs about his Vine and wounds the Branches 't is to make it more Beautiful with new Clusters and restore it to a fruitful Vigour 2. All great deliverances are to be ascrib'd to God as the principal Author whosoever are the Instruments The Lord doth build up Jerusalem he gathers together the outâ—â—â—s of Israel This great deliverance from Babylon is not to be ascrib'd to Cyrus or Darius or the rest of our favourers 't is the Lord that doth it we had his Promise for it we have now his Performance Let us not ascribe that which is the effect of his Truth only to the good Will of men 't is Gods act not by Might nor by Power nor by Weapons of War or strength of Horses but by the Spirit of the Lord. He sent Prophets to comfort us while we were exiles and now he hath stretched out his own Arm to work our deliverance according to his Word blind man looks so much upon Instruments that he hardly takes notice of God either in Afflictions or Mercies and this is the cause that robs God of so much Prayer and Praise in the World Verse 3. He heals the broken in heart and binds up their Wounds He hath now restored those who had no hope but in his Word he hath dealt with them as a tender and skilful Chirurgeon he hath applyed his curing Plaisters and dropped in his Soveraign Balsams he hath now furnisht our fainting hearts with refreshing Cordials and comforted our Wounds with strengthning Ligatures How gracious is God that restores Liberty to the Captives and Righteousness to the Penitent mans misery is the fittest opportunity for God to make his Mercy illustrious in it self and most welcome to the Patient He proceeds verse 4. Wonder not that God calls together the out-casts and singles them out from every corner for a return why can he not do this as well as tell the number of the Stars and call them all by their Names Ver. 4. There are none of his People so despicable in the eye of man but they are known and regarded by God tho' they are clouded in the World yet they are the Stars of the World and shall God number the inanimate Stars in the Heavens and make no account of his living Stars on the Earth no wherever they are dispersed he will not forget them however they are afflicted he will not despise them the Stars are so numerous that they are innumerable by man some are visible and known by men others lie more hid and undiscovered in a confused Light as those in the Milky-way man cannot see one of them distinctly God knows all his People As he can do what is above the power of man to perform so he understands what is above the skill of man to discover shall man measure God by his scantiness Proud man must not equal himself to God nor cut God as short as his own Line He tells the number of the Stars and calls them all by their Names He hath them all in his List as Generals the Names of their Soldiers in their Muster-Roll for they are his Host which he Marshals in the Heavens as Isa 40.26 where you have the like Expression he knows them more distinctly than man can know any thing and so distinctly as to call them all by their Names He knows their Names that is their natural offices influences the different degrees of heat and light their order and motion and all of them the least glimmering Star as well as the most glaring Planet this man cannot do Tell the Stars if thou be able to number them Gen. 15.5 saith God to Abraham whom Josephus represents as a great Astronomer yea they cannot be numbred Jer. 33.22 and the uncertainty of the Opinions of men evidenceth their ignorance of their number some reckoning 1022 others 1025 others 1098 others 7000 besides those that by reason of their mixture of Light with one another cannot be distinctly discern'd and others perhaps so high as not to be reach'd by the eye of man To impose Names on things and Names according to their Natures is both an Argument of Power and Dominion and of Wisdom and Understanding from the imposition of Names upon the Creatures by Adam the Knowledg of Adam is generally concluded and it was also a fruit of that Dominion God allowed him over the Creatures Now he that Numbers and Names the Stars that seem to lie confus'd among one another as well as those that appear to us in an unclouded Night may well be suppos'd accurately to know his People tho' lurking in secret Caverns and know those that are fit to be Instruments of their deliverance the one is as easy to him as the other and the Number of the one as distinctly known by him as the Multitude of the other For great is our Lord and of great Power his Vnderstanding is Infinite Ver. 5. He wants not Knowledg to know the objects nor Power to effect his Will concerning them Of great Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Much Power plenteous in Power so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is rendred Psal 5.15 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a multitude of Power as well as a multitude of Mercy a Power that exceeds all Created Power and Understanding His Vnderstanding is Infinite You may not imagine how he can call all the Stars by Name the multitude of the visible being so great and the multitude of the invisible being greater but you must know that as God is Almighty so he is Omniscient and as there is no end of his Power so no account can exactly be given of his Understanding His Vnderstanding is Infinite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No number or account of it and so the same Words are rendred Joel 1.6 a Nation strong and without number No end of his Understanding Syriack no measure no bounds †His Essence is Infinite and so is his Power and Understanding and so vast is his Knowledg that we can no more comprehend it than we can measure spaces that are without limits or tell the minutes or hours of Eternity Who then can fathom that whereof there is no number but which exceeds all so that there is no searching of it out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he knows Universals he knows Particulars We must not take understanding here as noting a faculty but the use of the understanding in the knowledg of things and the Judgment in the consideration of them and so it is often used In the Verse there is a description of God 1. In his Essence great is our Lord. 2. In his Power of great Power 3. In his Knowledg his Vnderstanding is Infinite his Understanding is his Eye
by their observation of the motion of Heavenly Bodies many years before they happen Cusanus can they be hid from God with whom are the reasons of all things Fuller's Pifgab l. 2. p. 2â—1 an expert Gardener by knowing the Root in the depth of Winter can tell what Flowers and what Fruit it will bear and the Month when they will peep out their heads and shall not God much more that knows the Principles of all his Creatures and is exactly privy to all their natures and qualities know what they will be and what operations shall be from those Principles Now if God did know things only in their causes his Knowledg would not be more excellent than the knowledg of Angels and men tho' he might know more than they of the things that will come to pass from every cause singly and from the concurrence of many Now as God is more excellent in Being than his Creature so he is more excellent in the objects of his Knowledg and the manner of his Knowledg well then shall a certain knowledg of something future and a conjectural knowledg of many things be found among men and shall a determinate and infallible knowledg of things to come be found no where in no Being If the conjecture of future things savours of ignorance and God knows them only by conjecture there is then no such thing in Being as a perfect intelligent Being and so no God 4. God knows his own Decree and Will and therefore must needs know all future things If any thing be future or to come to pass it must be from it self or from God not from it self then it would be independent and absolute if it hath its futurity from God then God must know what he hath decreed to come to pass those things that are future in necessary causes God must know because he willed them to be causes of such effects he therefore knows them because he knows what he willed The knowledg of God cannot arise from the things themselves for then the knowledg of God would have a cause without him and Knowledg which is an eminent Perfection would be conferred upon him by his Creatures But as God sees things possible in the glass of his own power so he sees things future in the Glass of his own Will in his effecting Will if he hath Decreed to produce them in his permitting Will as he hath Decreed to suffer them and dispose of them Nothing can pass out of the rank of things meerly possible into the order of things future before some Act of Gods Will hath passed for its futurition Chequell 'T is not from the infiniteness of his own Nature simply considered that God knows things to be future Coccei sum Theol. p. 50. for as things are not future because God is infinite for then all possible things should be future so neither is any thing known to be future only because God is infinite but because God hath Decreed it his declaration of things to come is founded upon his appointment of things to come Coccei sum Theol. p. 50. In Isa 44.7 it is said and who as I shall call and declare it since I appointed the ancient people and the things that are coming Gamaul in Aquin Part 1. q. 14. cap. 3. p. 124. Nothing is Created or ordered in the World but what God Decreed to be Created and ordered God knows his own Decree and therefore all things which he hath Decreed to exist in time not the minutest part of the World could have existed without his Will not an action can be done without his Will as Life the Principle so Motion the fruit of that Life is by and from God as he decreed Life to this or that thing so he decreed motion as the effect of Life and Decreed to exert his Power in concurring with them for producing effects natural from such causes for without such a concourse they could not have acted any thing or produced any thing and therefore as for natural things which we call necessary causes God foreseeing them all particularly in his own Decree foresaw also all effects which must necessarily flow from them because such causes cannot but act when they are furnisht with all things necessary for action He knows his own Decrees and therefore necessarily knows what he hath Decreed or else we must say things come to pass whether God will or no or that he Wills he knows not what but this cannot be for known unto God are all his Works from the beginning of the World Acts 15.18 Now this necessarily flows from that Principle first laid down That God knows himself since nothing is future without Gods Will if God did not know future things he would not know his own Will for as things possible could not be known by him unless he knew the fulness of his own Power so things future could not be known by his Understanding unless he knew the resolves of his own Will Maimonid More Nevoch Part 3. Cap. 21. P. 393. 394. Thus the Knowledg of God differs from the Knowledg of men Gods knowledg of his Works precedes his Works mans knowledg of Gods works follows his works just as an Artificers knowledg of a Watch Instrument or Engine which he would make is before his making of it he knows the motions of it and the reason of those motions before it is made because he knows what he hath determin'd to Work he knows not those motions from the consideration of them after they were made as the Spectator doth who by viewing the Instrument after it is made gains a knowledg from the sight and consideration of it till he understands the reason of the whole so we know things from the consideration of them after we see them in being and therefore we know not future things But Gods Knowledg doth not arise from things because they are but because he Wills them to be and therefore he knows every thing that shall be because it cannot be without his Will as the Creator and maintainer of all things knowing his own substance he knows all his Works 5. If God did not know all future things he would be mutable in his Knowledg If he did not know all things that ever were or are to be there would be upon the appearance of every new object an addition of Light to his Understanding and therefore such a Change in him as every new knowledg causes in the mind of a man or as the Sun works in the World upon its rising every morning scattering the darkness that was upon the face of the Earth if he did not know them before they came he would gain a knowledg by them when they came to pass which he had not before they were effected his Knowledg would be new according to the newness of the objects and multiplyed according to the multitude of the objects If God did not know things to come as perfectly as he knew things
the suggestions of their Carnal Wisdom The Brats of Soul-destroying Errors may walk about the World in a garb and disguise of good words and fair speeches as it is in the 18th Verse by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple And for their encouragement to a constancy in the Gospel Doctrine he assures them that all those that would dispossess them of Truth to possess them with Vanity are but Satans Instruments and will fall under the same Captivity and Yoke with their Principal Verse 18. The God of Peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly Whence observe 1. All Corrupters of Divine Truth and Troublers of the Churches Peace are no better than Devils Our Saviour thought the Name Satan a Title merited by Peter when he breathed out an Advice as an Ax at the Root of the Gospel the Death of Christ the foundation of all Gospel Truth and the Apostle concludes them under the same Character which hinder the superstructure and would mix their Chaff with his Wheat Mat. 16.23 Get thee behind me Satan 'T is not Get thee behind me Simon or Get thee behind me Peter but Get thee behind me Satan thou art an offence to me Thou dost oppose thy self to the Wisdom and Grace and Authority of God to the Redemption of Man and to the good of the World As the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Truth so is Satan the Spirit of Falshood As the Holy Ghost inspires Believers with Truth so doth the Devil corrupt Unbelievers with Error Let us cleave to the Truth of the Gospel that we may not be counted by God as part of the Corporation of Fallen Angels and not be barely reckon'd as Enemies of God but in league with the greatest Enemy to his Glory in the World 2. The Reconciler of the World will be the subduer of Satan The God of Peace sent the Prince of Peace to be the Restorer of his Rights and the Hammer to beat in pieces the Usurper of them As a God of Truth he will make good his Promise as a God of Peace he will perfect the design his Wisdom hath laid and begun to act In the subduing Satan he will be the Conqueror of his Instruments He saith nor God shall bruise your Troublers and Hereticks but Satan The fall of a General proves the rout of the Army Since God as a God of Peace hath delivered his own he will perfect the Victory and make them cease from bruising the heel of his Spiritual Seed 3. Divine Evangelical Truth shall be Victorious No Weapon formed against it shall prosper The Head of the Wicked shall fall as low as the Feet of the Godly The Devil never yet bluster'd in the World but he met at last with a disappointment His Fall hath been like Lightning sudden certain vanishing 4. Faith must look back as far as the foundation Promise The God of Peace shall bruise c. The Apostle seems to allude to the first Promise Gen. 2.15 A Promise that hath vigor to nourish the Church in all Ages of the World 'T is the standing Cordial out of the Womb of this Promise all the rest have taken their birth The Promises of the Old Testament were designed for those under the New and the full performance of them is to be expected and will be enjoyed by them 'T is a mighty strengthning to Faith to trace the footsteps of Gods Truth and Wisdom from the Threatning against the Serpent in Eden to the bruise he received in Calvary and the Triumph over him upon Mount Olivet 5. We are to confide in the Promise of God but leave the season of its accomplishment to his Wisdom He will bruise Satan under your feet therefore do not doubt it and shortly therefore wait for it Shortly it will be done that is quickly when you think it may be a great way off or shortly that is seasonably when Satans Rage is hottest God is the best Judge of the seasons of distributing his own Mercies and darting out his own Glory 'T is enough to encourage our waiting that it will be and that it will be shortly but we must not measure God's shortly by our Minutes The Apostle after this concludes with a comfortable Prayer That since they were liable to many Temptations to turn their backs upon the Doctrine which they had learned yet he desires God who had brought them to the knowledge of his Truth would confirm them in the belief of it since it was the Gospel of Christ his dear Son and a Mystery he had been chary of and kept in his own Cabinet and now brought forth to the World in pursuance of the ancient Prophesies and now had publish'd to all Nations for that end that it might be obeyed and concludes with a Doxology a voice of Praise to him who was only Wise to effect his own purposes Verses 25 26 27. Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the Mystery which was kept secret since the World began but now is made manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the commandment of the Everlasting God made known to all Nations for the obedience of Faith This Doxology is interlac'd with many Comforts for the Romans He explains the causes of this glory to God Power and Wisdom Power to establish the Romans in Grace which includes his Will This he proves from a Divine Testimony viz. the Gospel the Gospel committed to him and preached by him which he commends by calling it the preaching of Christ and describes it for the instruction and comfort of the Church from the Adjuncts the obscurity of it under the old Testament and the clearness of it under the New It was hid from the former Ages and kept in silence not simply and absolutely but comparatively and in part because in the Old Testament the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ was confin'd to the limits of Judea preached only to the Inhabitants of that Country To them he gave his Statutes and his Judgments and dealt not so magnificently with any Nation †Psal 147.19 20. but now he causes it to spring with greater Majesty out of those narrow bounds and spread its Wings about the World This manifestation of the Gospel he declares first from the subject All Nations 2. From the principal efficient cause of it The Commandment and Order of God 3. The Instrumental cause The Prophetick Scriptures 4. From the End of it Gomarus in loc The obedience of Faith 1. Observe The glorious Attributes of God bear a comfortable respect to Believers Power and Wisdom are here mention'd as two props of their Faith his Power here includes his Goodness Power to help without Will to assist is a dry Chip The Apostle mentions not Gods Power simply and absolutely considered for that of it self is no more comfort to Men than it is to Devils but
as considered in the Gospel Covenant his Power as well as his other Perfections are ingredients in that Cordial of Gods being our God We should never think of the Excellency of the Divine Nature without considering the Duties they demand and gathering the Hony they present 2. Obs The stability of a gracious Soul depends vpon the Wisdom as well as the Power of God It would be a disrepute to the Almightiness of God if that should be totally vanquish'd which was introduc'd by his Mighty Arm and rooted in the Soul by an irresistible Grace It would speak a want of Streng h to maintain it or a change of Resolution and so would be no honour to the Wisdom of his first design 'T is no part of the wisdom of an Artificer to let a work wherein he determin'd to shew the greatness of his Skâ—ll to be dash'd in pieces when he hath power to preserve it God design'd every gracious Soul for a piece of his workmanship * Eph. 2.10 What to have the Skill of his Grace defeated If any Soul which he hath graciously conquer'd should be wrested from him what could be thought but that his Power is enfeebled If deserted by him what could be imagin'd but that he repented of his labour and alter'd his Counsel as if rashly undertaken These Romans were rugged Pieces and lay in a filthy quarry when God came first to smooth them for so the Apostle represents them with the rest of the Heathen Rom. 1.19 and would he throw them away or leave them to the power of his Enemy after all his pains he had taken with them to fit them for his Building Did he not foresee the designs of Satan against them what stratagems he would use to defeat his Purposes strip him of the honour of his work and would God so gratifie his Enemy and disgrace his own Wisdom The deserting of what hath been acted is a real Repentance and argues an Imprudence in the first resolve and attempt The Gospel is called the Manifold wisdom of God Eph. 3.10 the fruiâ— of it in the heart of any Person which is a main design of it hath a Title to the same Character and shall this Grace which is the product of this Gospel and therefore the birth of Manifold Wisdom be supprest 'T is at Gods hand we must seek our fixedness and establishment and act Faith upon these two Attributes of God Power is no ground to expect stability without Wisdom interesting the Agent in it and finding out and applying the Means for it Wisdom is naked without Power to act and Power is useless without Wisdom to direct They are these two Excellencies of the Deity the Apostle here pitches the Hope and Faith of the Converted Romans upon for their stability 3. Obs Perseverance of Believers in Grace is a Gospel Doctrine According to my Gospel My Gospel Ministerially according to that Gospel Doctrine I have taught you in this Epistle for as the Prophets were Comments upon the Law so are the Epistles upon the Gospel This very Doctrine he had discours'd of Rom. 8.38 39. where he tells them that neither death nor life the Terrors of a cruel death or the Allurements of an honourable and pleasant life nor Principalities and Powers with all their subtilty and strength not the things we have before us nor the Promises of a future felicity by either Angels in Heaven or Devils in Hell not the highest Angel nor the deepest Devil is able to separate us us Romans from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus So that According to my Gospel may be according to that Declaration of the Gospel which I have made in this Epistle which doth not only promise the first creating Grace but the perfecting and crowning Grace for not only the being of Grace but the health liveliness and perpetuity of Grace is the fruit of the New Covenant Jer. 32.40 4. Observe That the Gospel is the sole Means of a Christians Establishment According To my Gospel that is By my Gospel The Gospel is the Instrumental cause of our Spiritual life 't is the cause also of the Continuance of it 't is the Seed whereby we were born and the Milk whereby we are nourish'd †1 Pet. 1.23 't is the Power of God to salvation ‖ 1 Pet. 2.2 and therâ—fore to all the degrees of it John 17.17 Sanctifie them by thy Truth or through thy Truth by or through his Truth he sanctifies us and by the same Truth he establisheth us The first Sanctification and the progress of it the first lineaments and the last colours are wrought by the Gospel The Gospel therefore ought to be known studied and considered by us 'T is the Charter of our Inheritance and the security for our standing The Law acquaints us with our Duty but contributes nothing to our strength and settlement 5. Observe The Gospel is nothing else but the Revelation of Christ Verse 25. According to my Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ The discovery of the Mystery of Redemption and Salvation in and by him 'T is Genitivus objecti that Preaching wherein Christ is declared and set out with the Benefits accruing by him This is the priviledge the Wisdom oâ— God reserved for the latter Times which the Old Testament-Church had only under a Vail 6. 'T is a part of the Excellency of the Gospel that it had the Son of God for its Publisher The Preaching of Jesus Christ It was first preached to Adam in Paradise by God and afterwards publish'd by Christ in Person to the Inhabitants of Judea It was not the Invention of Man but Copied from the bosom of the Father by him that lay in his Bosom The Gospel we have is the same which our Saviour himself preached when he was in the World He preached it not to the Romans but the same Gospel he preached is transmitted to the Romans It therefore Commands our respect who ever slights it 't is as much as if he slighted Jesus Christ himself were he in Person to sound it from his own Lips The validity of a Proclamation is derived from the Authority of the Prince that dictates it and orders it yet the greater the Person that publisheth it the more dishonour is cast upon the Authority of the Prince that enjoyns it if it be contemn'd The Everlasting God ordain'd it and the Eternal Son publish'd it 7. The Gospel was of an Eternal Resolution though of a temporary Revelation Verse 25. According to the Revelation of the Mystery which was kept secret since the World began 'T is an Everlasting Gospel It was a Promise before the world began Tit. 1.2 It was not a new Invention but only kept secret among the Arcana in the Breast of the Almighty It was hidden from Angels for the depths of it are not yet fully made known to them their desire to look into it speaks yet a deficiency in their Knowledge of it * 1
in this that they are both Acts of the Understanding but Knowledge is the Apprehension of a thing and Wisdom is the Appointing and Ordering of things Wisdom is the splendor and lustre of Knowledge shining forth in Operations and is an Act both of Understanding and Will Understanding in Counselling and Contriving Will in Resolving and Executing Counsel and Will are link'd together Ephes 1.11 II. The Second thing is to lay down some Propositions in general concerning the Wisdom of God 1. There is an Essential and a Personal Wisdom of God The Essential Wisdom is the Essence of God the Personal Wisdom is the Son of God Christ is called Wisdom by himself Luke 7.35 The Wisdom of God by the Apostle 1 Cor. 1.24 The Wisdom I speak of belongs to the Nature of God and is considered as a necessary Perfection The Personal Wisdom is called so because he opens to us the Secrets of God If the Son were that Wisdom whereby the Father is Wise the Son would be also the Essence whereby the Father is God If the Son were the Wisdom of the Father whereby he is Essentially Wise the Son would be the Essence of the Father and the Father would have his Essence from the Son since the Wisdom of God is the Essence of God and so the Son would be the Father if the Wisdom and Power of the Father were originally in the Son 2. Therefore Secondly The Wisdom of God is the same with the Essence of God Wisdom in God is not a Habit added to his Essence as it is in Man but it is his Essence 'T is like the splendor of the Sun the same with the Sun it self or like the brightness of Chrystal which is not communicated to it by any thing else as the Brightness of a Mountain is by the Beam of the Sun but it is one with the Chrystal it self 'T is not a Habit superadded to the Divine Essence that would be repugnant to the Simplicity of God and speak him compounded of divers Principles it would be contrary to the Eternity of his Perfections If he be Eternally Wise his Wisdom is his Essence for there is nothing Eternal but the Essence of God * Maimon Mor. Part 1. cap. 53. As the Sun melts some things and hardens others blackens some things and whitens others and produceth contrary qualities in different Subjects yet it is but one and the same quality in the Sun which is the cause of those contrary Operations So the Perfections of God seem to be diverse in our Conceptions yet they are but one and the same in God The Wisdom of God is God acting Prudently as the Power of God is God acting Powerfully and the Justice of God is God acting Righteously And therefore 't is more truly said that God is Wisdom Justice Truth Power than that He is Wise Just True c. as if he were compounded of Substance and Qualities All the Operations of God proceed from one Simple Essence as all the Operations of the Mind of Man though various proceed from one faculty of Understanding 3. Wisdom is the Property of God alone He is only Wise 'T is an Honour peculiar to him Upon the account that no Man deserved the Title of Wise but that it was a Royalty belonging to God †Laert. lib. 1. Proem Pythagoras would not be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Title given to their Learned Men but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Name Philosopher arose out of a respect to this transcendent Perfection of God 1. God is only Wise necessarily As He is necessarily God so he is necessarily Wise for the Notion of Wisdom is inseparable from the Notion of a Deity When we say God is a Spirit is True Righteous Wise we understand that he is transcendently these by an intrinsick and absolute necessity by virtue of his own Essence without the Efficiency of any other or any Efficiency in and by himâ—â—lf God doth not make himself Wise no more than he makes himself God As â—e is a necessary Being in regard of his Life so he is necessarily Wise in regard oâ—â—is Understanding Synesius saith that God is Essentiated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by his Vnderstanâ—ing He places the Substance of God in Vnderstanding and Wisdom Wisdom is the first vital Operation of God He can no more be Unwise than he can be Untrue for Folly in the Mind is much the same with Falsity in Speech Wisdom among Men is gained by Age and Experience furthered by Instructions and Exercise but the Wisdom of God is his Nature As the Sun cannot be without Light while it remains a Sun and as Eternity cannot be without Immortality So neither can God be without Wisdom As he only hath Immortality 1 Tim. 6.16 not arbitrarily but necessarily so he only hath Wisdom Not because he will be Wise but because he cannot but be Wise He cannot but contrive Counsels and exert Operations becoming the Greatness and Majesty of his Nature 2. Therefore only Wise originally God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men acquire Wisdom by the loss of their fairest years but his Wisdom is the Perfection of the Divine Nature not the birth of Study or the growth of Experience but as necessary as Eternal as his Essence He goes not out of himself to search Wisdom He needs no more the Brains of Creatures in the contrivance of his Purposes than he doth their Arm in the execution of them He needs no Counsel he receives no Counsel from any Rom. 11.34 Who hath been his Counsellor and Isai 40.14 With whom took he counsel and who instructed him or taught him in the path of Judgment and taught him Knowledge and shewed to him the path of Vnderstanding He is the only Fountain of Wisdom to others Angels and Men have what Wisdom they have by communication from him All created Wisdom is a spark of the Divine Light like that of the Stars borrowed from the Sun He that borrows Wisdom from another and doth not originally possess it in his own Nature cannot properly be called Wise As God is the only Being in regard that all other Beings are derived from him so he is only Wise because all other Wisdom slows from him He is the Spring of Wisdom to all none the Original of Wisdom to him 3. Therefore only Wise perfectly There is no cloud upon his Understanding He hath a distinct and certain Knowledge of all things that can fall under action As he hath a perfect Knowledge without Ignorance so he hath a Beautiful Wisdom without Mole or Wart Men are wise yet have not an Understanding so vast as to grasp all things nor a Perspicacity so clear as to penetrate into the depths of all Beings Angels have more delightful and lively sparks of Wisdom yet so imperfect that in regard of the Wisdom of God they are charged with folly Job 4.18 Their Wisdom as well as their Holiness is vailed in the Presence of God It vanisheth
acts of the Divine will yet we must not think that they were acts of meer will without wisdom but they are represented so to us because we are not capable of understanding the infinite Reason of its acts His Soveraignty is more intelligible to us than his Wisdom We can better know the Commands of a Superiour and the Laws of a Prince than understand the reason that gave birth to those Laws We may know the Orders of the Divine will as they are publish'd but not the sublime Reason ot his will Though Election be an act of God's Soveraignty and he hath no cause from without to determine him yet his infinite wisdom stood not silent while meer Dominion acted Whatsoever God doth he doth wisely as well as soveraignly though that wisdom which lies in the secret places of the Divine Being be as incomprehensible to us as the effects of his Soveraignty and Power in the World are visible God can give a reason of his proceeding and that drawn from himself though we understand it not The causes of things visible lye hid from us Doth any man know how to distinguish the seminal vertue of a small Seed from the Body of it and in what nook and corner that lies and what that is that spreads it self in so fair a Plant and so many Flowers Can we comprehend the Justice of God's proceedings in the prosperity of the wicked and the afflictions of the Godly Yet as we must conclude them the fruits of an unerring righteousness so we must conclude all his actions the fruits of an unspotted wisdom though the concatenation of all his counsels is not intelligible to us for he is as essentially and necessarily wise as he is essentially and necessarily good and righteous God is not only so wise that nothing more wise can be conceiv'd but he is more wise than can be imagin'd something greater in all his Perfections than can be comprehended by any Creature 'T is a foolish thing therefore to question that which we cannot comprehend we should adore it instead of disputing against it and take it for granted that God would not order any thing were it not agreeable to the Soveraignty of his wisdom as well as that of his will Though the reason of man proceed from the wisdom of God yet there is more difference between the reason of man and the wisdom of God than between the light of the Sun and the feeble shining of the Glowworm yet we presume to censure the ways of God as if our purblind reason had a reach above him 7. God is only wise infallibly The wisest men meet with rubs in the way that make them fall short of what they aim at they often design and fail then begin again and yet all their counsels end in smoak and none of them arrive at perfection If the wisest Angels lay a plot they may be disappointed for though they are higher and wiser than man yet there is one higher and wiser than they that can check their Projects God always compasseth his end never fails of any thing he designs and aims at all his undertakings are counsel and will as nothing can resist the efficacy of his will so nothing can countermine the skil of his counsel There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord Prov. 21.30 He compasseth his ends by those actions of Men and Devils wherein they think to cross him they shoot at their own Mark and hit his Lucifer's plot by Divine wisdom fulfilled God's purpose against Lucifer's mind The counsel of Redemption by Christ the end of the Creation of the World rode into the World upon the back of the Serpents Temptation God never mistakes the means nor can there be any disappointments to make him vary his Counsels and pitch upon other means than what before he had ordain'd His word that goeth forth of his mouth shall not return to him void but it shall accomplish that which he pleases and it shall prosper in the thing whereto he sent it Isa 55.11 What is said of his word is true of his counsel it shall prosper in the thing for which it is appointed it cannot be defeated by all the Legions of Men and Devils for as he thinks so shall it come to pass and as he hath purposed so shall it stand The Lord hath purposed and who shall disanul it Isa 14.24 27. The wisdom of the Creature is a drop from the wisdom of God and is like a drop to the Ocean and a shadow to the Sun and therefore is not able to mate the wisdom of God which is infinite and boundless No wisdom is exempted from mistakes but the Divine He is wise in all his Resolves and never calls bâ—ck his words and purposes Isa 31.2 III. The third General is to prove that God is wise This is ascrib'd to God in Scripture Dan. 2.20 Wisdom and might are his Wisdom to contrive and Power to effect * Culverwell light of Nature p. 30. Where should Wisdom dwell but in the head of a Deity and where should Power triumph but in the arm of Omnipotency All that God doth he doth artificially skilfully whence he is called the Builder of the Heavens Heb. 11.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an artificial and curious Builder a Builder by Art And that word Prov. 8.30 meant of Christ Then I was by him as one brought up with him some render it Then was I the curious Artificer and the same word is translated a cunning workman Cant. 7.5 For this cause Counsel is ascrib'd to God †Isa 46.10 Jer. 22.19 Great in counsel Job 12.13 He hath counsel and understanding not properly for Counsel implies something of Ignorance or Irresolution antecedent to the consultation and a posture of will afterwards which was not before Counsel is properly a laborious deliberation and a reasoning of things An invention of means for the attainment of the end after a discussing and reasoning of all the doubts which arise pro re natâ about the matter in counsel But God hath no need to deliberate in himself what are the best means to accomplish his ends He is never ignorant or undetermin'd what course he should take as men are before they consult But it is an expression in condescension to our Capacity to signifie that God doth nothing but with reason and understanding with the highest prudence and for the most glorious ends as men do after consultation and the weighing of every foreseen circumstance Though he acts all things Soveraignly by his will yet he acts all things wisely by his understanding and there is not a decree of his will but he can render a satisfactory reason for in the face of Men and Angels As he is the Cause of all things so he hath the highest wisdom for the ordering of all things If wisdom among men be the knowledge of Divine and Human things God must be infinitely wise since knowledge is most radiant in
cannot be well governed but by one endowed with infinite Discretion Providential government can be no more without infinite wisdom than infinite wisdom can be without Providence Reas 3. The Creatures working for an end without their own knowledge demonstrates the wisdom of God that guides them All things in the World work for some end the ends are unknown to them though many of their ends are visible to us As there was some prime Cause which by his power inspir'd them with their several instincts so there must be some supream wisdom which moves and guides them to their end As their Being manifests his power that endowed them so the acting according to the rules of their Nature which they themselves understand not manifests his wisdom in directing them Every thing that acts for an end must know that end or be directed by another to attain that end The Arrow doth not know who shoots it or to what end it is shot or what Mark is aimed at but the Archer that puts it in and darts it out of the Bow knows A Watch hath a regular motion but neither the Spring nor the Wheels that move know the end of their motion no man will judge a wisdom to be in the Watch but in the Artificer that dispos'd the Wheels and Spring by a joint combination to produce such a motion for such an end Doth either the Sun that enlivens the Earth or the Earth that travels with the Plant know what Plant it produceth in such a Soil what temper it should be of what fruit it should bear and of what colour What Plant knows its own medicinal qualities it s own beautiful flowers and for what use they are ordain'd When it strikes up its head from the Earth doth it know what proportion of them there will be Yet it produceth all these things in a state of ignorance The Sun warms the Earth concocts the humours excites the vertue of it and cherishes the Seeds which are cast into her lap yet all unknown to the Sun or the Earth Since therefore that Nature that is the immediate cause of those things doth not understand its own quality nor operation nor the end of its action that which thus directs them must be conceived to have an infinite wisdom When things act by a Rule they know not and move for an end they understand not and yet work harmoniously together for one end that all of them we are sure are ignorant of it mounts up our minds to acknowledge the wisdom of that supream Cause that hath rang'd all these inferiour Causes in their order and imprinted upon them the Laws of their motions according to the Ideas in his own Mind who orders the Rule by which they act and the end for which they act and directs every motion according to their several Natures and therefore is possessed with infinite wisdom in his own Nature Reas 4. God is the fountain of all wisdom in the creatures and therefore is infinitely wise himself As he hath a fulness of being in himself because the streams of being are derived to other things from him So he hath a fulness of wisdom because he is the spring of wisdom to Angels and men That Being must be infinitely wise from whence all other wisdom derives its original For nothing can be in the effect which is not eminently in the cause the cause is alway more perfect than the effect If therefore the creatures are wise the Creator must be much more wise If the Creator were destitute of wisdom the creature would be much more perfect than the Creator If you consider the wisdom of the Spider in her web which is both her house and net the artifice of the Bee in her Comb which is both her chamber and granary the provision of the Pismire in her repositories for corn the wisdom of the Creator is illustrated by them whatsoever excellency you see in any creature is an Image of some excellency in God The skill of the artificer is visible in the fruits of his Art a workman transcribes his spirit in the work of his hands But the wisdom of rational creatures as men doth more illustrate it All Arts among men are the rayes of divine Wisdom shining upon them and by a common gift of the Spirit enlightning their minds to curious inventions as Prov. 8.12 I wisdom find out the knowledge of witty inventions that is I give a faculty to men to find them out without my wisdom all things would be buried in darkness and ignorance Whatsoever wisdom there is in the World it is but a shadow of the wisdom of God a small Rivulet derived from him a spark leaping out from Uncreated Wisdom Isa 54.16 He created the Smith that bloweth the coals in the fire and makes the Instruments The skill to use those weapons in War-like Enterprises is from him I have created the waster to destroy 'T is not meant of creating their Persons but communicating to them their Art He speaks it there to expell fear from the Church of all war-like preparations against them He had given Men the skill to form and use Weapons and could as well strip them of it and defeat their purposes The Art of husbandry is a fruit of divine teaching Isa 28.24 25. If those lower kinds of Knowledge that are common to all Nations and easily learn'd by all are discoveries of Divine Wisdom much more the nobler Sciences intellectual and Political Wisdom Dan. 2.21 He gives Wisdom to the wise and knowledge to them that know understanding speaking of the more abstruse parts of knowledge The inspiration of the Almighty gives Vnderstanding Job 32.8 Hence the Wisdom which Solomon exprest in the Harlots case 1 Kings 3.28 was in the Judgment of all Israel the Wisdom of God that is a fruit of Divine Wisdom a beam communicated to him from God Every mans Soul is endowed more or less with those noble qualities The Soul of every man exceeds that of a Brute If the streams be so excellent the Fountain must be fuller and clearer The first Spirit must infinitely more possess what other Spirits derive from him by Creation Were the Wisdom of all the Angels in Heaven and men on Earth collected in one Spirit it must be infinitely less than what is in the Spring for no Creature can be equal to the Creator As the highest Creature already made or that we can conceive may be made by Infinite Power would be infinitely below God in the Notion of a Creature so it would be infinitely below God in the Notion of Wise IV. The fourth Thing is Wherein the Wisdom of God appears It appears 1. In Creation 2. In Government 3. In Redemption 1. In Creation As in a Musical Instrument there is first the skill of the Workman in the frame then the skill of the Musician in stringing it proper for such Musical Notes as he will express upon it and after that the tempering of the Strings by
Stock for the Redeemer yet God gave a Son from that Unlawful Bed whereof Christ came according to the flesh Gen. 38.29 compared with Mat. 1.3 Jonahs Sin was probably the first and remote occasion of the Ninivites giving credit to his Prophesy His Sin was the cause of his Punishment and his being slung into the Sea might facilitate the reception of his Message and excite the Ninivites Repentance whereby a Cloud of severe Judgment was blown away from them 'T is thought by some That when Jonah passed through the Streets of Niniveh with his Proclamation of Destruction he might be known by some of the Mariners of that Ship from whence he was cast Over-board into the Sea and might after their Voyage be occasionally in that City the Metropolis of the Nation and the place of some of their Births and might acquaint the People that this was the same Person they had cast into the Sea by his own consent for his acknowledg'd running from the Presence of the Lord for that he had told them Jonah 1.10 and the Marriners Prayer Verse 14. evidenceth it whereupon they might conclude his Message worthy of Belief since they knew from such Evidences that he had sunk into the Bowels of the Waters and now saw him safe in their Streets by a Deliverance unknown to them and that therefore that Power that delivered him could easily verifie his Word in the threatned Judgment Had Jonah gone at first without committing that Sin and receiving that Punishment his Message had not been judged a Divine Prediction but a fruit of some Enthusiastick madness His Sin upon this account was the first occasion of averting a Judgment from so great a City 3. The good of the Sinner himself is sometimes promoted by Divine Wisdom ordering the Sin As God had not permitted Sin to enter upon the World unless to bring Glory to himself by it so he would not let Sin remain in the little World of a Believers Heart if he did not intend to order it for his good What is done by Man to his damage and disparagement is directed by Divine Wisdom to his advantage not that it is the intent of the Sin or the Sinner but it is the event of the Sin by the Ordination of Divine Wisdom and Grace As without the Wisdom of God permitting Sin to enter into the World some Attributes of God had not been Experimentally known so some Graces could not have been exercis'd For where had there been an Object for that Noble Zeal in vindicating the Glory of God had it not been invaded by an Enemy The intenseness of Love to him could not have been so strong had we not an Enemy to hate for his sake Where had there been any place for that Noble part of Charity in holy Admonitions and Compassion to the Souls of our Neighbours and Endeavours to reduce them out of a destructive to a happy Path Humility would not have had so many grounds for its growth and exercise and holy Sorrow had had no fewel And as without the appearance of Sin there had been no exercise of the Patience of God so without Afflictions the Fruits of Sin there had been no ground for the exercise of the Patience of a Christian one of the Noblest parts of Valour Now Sin being Evil and such as cannot but be Evil hath no respect in it self to any good and cannot work a gracious End or any thing profitable to the Creature nay it is a hindrance to any good and therefore what good comes from it is Accidental occasioned indeed by Sin but efficiently caused by the over-ruling Wisdom of God taking occasion thereby to display it self and the Divine Goodness The Sins and Corruptions remaining in the Heart of a Man God orders for good and there are good effects by the direction of his Wisdom and Grace I. As the Soul respects God 1. God often brings forth a sensibleness of the necessity of Dependance on him The Nurse often lets the Child slip that it may the better know who supports it and may not be too venturous and confident of its own strength Peter would trust in Habitual Grace and God suffers him to Fall that he might trust more in Assisting Grace Mat. 26.35 Though I should die with thee yet I will not deny thee God leaves sometimes the brightest Souls in an Eclipse to manifest that their Holiness and the preservation of it depend upon the darting out his Beams upon them As the Falls of Men are the effects of their coldness and remisness in Acts of Faith and Repentance so the fruit of these Falls is often a running to him for Refuge and a deeper sensibleness where their Security lies It makes us Lower our swelling Sails and come under the Lee and Protection of Divine Grace When the Pleasures of Sin answer the expectations of a Revolted Creature he reflects upon his former state and sticks more close to God when before God had little of hâ—s Company Hos 2.7 I will return to my first husband for then it was better with me than now As God makes the Sins of Men sometimes an occasion of their Conversion so he sometimes makes them an occasion of a further Conversion Onesimus run from Philemon and was met with by Paul who proved an Instrument of his Conversion Philem. 10. My Son Onesimus whom I have begotten in my Bonds His slight from his Master was the occasion of his Regeneration by Paul a Prisoner The Falls of Believers God orders to their further stability He that is fallen for want of using his Staff will Lean more upon it to preserve himself from the like Disaster God by permitting the Lapses of Men doth often make them despair of their own strength to subdue their Enemies and rely upon the strength of Christ wherein God hath laid up Power for us and so becomes stronger in that strength which God hath ordained for them We are very apt to trust in our selves and have confidence in our own worth and strength and God lets loose Corruptions to abate this swelling humor This was the reason of the Apostle Pauls Thorn in the flesh 2 Cor. 12.9 whether it were a Temptation or Corruption or Sickness that he might be sensible of his own inability and where the sufficiency of Grace for him was placed He that is in danger of Drowning and hath the Waves come over his head will with all the might he hath lay hold upon any thing near him which is capable to Save him God lets his People sometâ—mes sink into such a condition that they may lay the faster hold on him who is near to all that call upon him 2. God hereby raiseth higher Estimations of the value and virtue of the Blood of Christ As the great Reason why God permitted Sin to enter into the World was to honour himself in the Redeemer so the Continuance of Sin and the Conquests it sometimes makes in Renewed Men are to honour the Infinite
Will which no Effects which he hath wrought can drain and put to a stand As he can raise Stones to be Children to Abraham * Mat. 3.9 so with the same mighty Word whereby he made one World he can make Infinite numbers of Worlds to be the Monuments of his Glory After the Prophet Jeremy 32.17 had spoke of Gods Power in Creation he adds And nothing is too hard for thee For one World that he hath made he can create Millions For one Star which he hath beautified the Heavens with he could have garnisht it with a Thousand and multiplied if he had pleased Rom. 4.17 every one of those into Millions for he can call things that are not not some things but all things possible The barren Womb of Nothing can no more resist his Power now to educe a World from it than it could at first No doubt but for one Angel which he hath made he could make many Worlds of Angels He that made one with so much ease as by a Word cannot want Power to make many more till he wants a Word The Word that was not too weak to make One cannot be too weak to make Multitudes If from One Man he hath in a way of Nature multiplied so many in all Ages of the World and covered with them the whole Face of the Earth he could in a Supernatural way by One Word multiply as many more 'T is the breath of the Almighty that gives life Job 33.4 He can create infinite Species and kinds of Creatures more than he hath created more variety of Forms For since there is no searching of his Greatness there is no conceiving the numberless possible effects of his Power The Understanding of Man can conceive Numberless things possible to be more than have been or shall be And shall we imagine that a Finite Understanding of a Creature hath a greater Omnipotency to conceive things possible than God hath to produce things possible When the Understanding of Man is tyr'd in its Conceptions it must still be concluded That the Power of God extends not only to what can be conceiv'd but infinitely beyond the measures of a Finite faculty Touching the Almighty we cannot find him out he is excellent in power and in judgment Job 36.23 For the Understanding of Man in its Conceptions of more kind of Creatures is limited to those Creatures which are It cannot in its own Imagination conceive any thing but what hath some foundation in and from something already in Being It may frame a new kind of Creature made up of a Lion a Horse an Ox but all those parts whereof its Conception is made have distinct Beings in the World though not in that composition as his Mind mixes and joyns them But no question but God can create Creatures that have no resemblance with any kind of Creatures yet in Being 'T is certain that if God only knows those things which he hath done and will do and not all things possible to be done by him his knowledge were finite so if he could do no more than what he hath done his Power would be finite 1. Creatures have a power to act about more objects than they do The Understanding of man can frame from one Principle of Truth many Conclusions and Inferences more than it doth Why cannot then the Power of God frame from one first Matter an infinite number of Creatures more than have been created The Almightiness of God in producing real Effects is not inferiour to the Understanding of man in drawing out real Truths An Artificer that makes a Watch supposing his liâ—e and health can make many more of a different form and motion And a Limner can draw many Draughts and frame many Pictures with a new variety of Colours according to the richness of his Fancy If these can do so that require a preexistent Matter fram'd to their hands God can much more who can raise beautiful Structures from nothing As long as men have matter they can diversifie the matter and make new Figures from it So long as there is nothing God can produce out of that nothing whatsoever he pleases We see the same in Inanimate Creatures A spark of Fire hath a vast Power in it it will kindle other things increase and enlarge it self Nothing can be exempt from the active force of it It will alter by consuming or refining whatsoever you offer to it It will reach all and refuse none and by the efficacious power of it all those new Figures which we see in Metals are brought forth When you have exposed to it a multitude of things still add more it will exert the same strength yea the vigour is increased rather than diminisht The more it catcheth the more fiercely and irresistibly it will act you cannot suppose an end oâ— its operation or a decrease of its strength as long as you can conceive its duration and continuance This must be but a weak shadow of that infinite Power which is in God Take another Instance in the Sun It hath power every year to produce Flowers and Plants from the Earth and as is able to produce them now as it was at the first lighting it and rearing it in the Sphear wherein it moves And if there were no kind of Flowers and Plants now created the Sun hath a power residing in it ever since its first Creation to afford the same warmth to them for the nourishâ—ng and bringing them forth Whatsoever you can conceive the Sun to be able to do in regard of Plants that can God do in regard of Worlds produce more Worlds than the Sun doth Plants every year without weariness without languishment The Sun is able to influence more things than it doth and produce numberless effects but it doth not do so much as it is able to do because it wants matter to work upon God therefore who wants no matter can do much more than he doth He can either act by second Causes if there were more or make more second Causes if he pleas'd 2. God is the most free Agent Every free Agent can do more than he will do Man being a free Creature can do more than ordinarily he doth will to do God is most free as being the Spring of Liberty in other Creatures He acts not by a necessity of Nature as the waves of the Sea or the motions of the Wind and therefore is not determin'd to those things which he hath already called forth into the World If God be infinâ—tely wise in contrivance he could contrive more than he hath and therefore can effect more than he hath effected He doth not act to the extent of his Power upon all occasions 'T is according to his will that he works Eph. 1. 'T is not according to his work that he wills his work is an evidence of his will but not the rule of his will His Power is not the rule of his Will but hâ—s Will is the disposer of
cause of the evil actions of men God acts nothing but withholds his Power he doth not enlighten their minds nor encline their wills so powerfully as to expel their darkness and root out those evil Habits which possess them by Nature God could if he would savingly enlighten the minds of all men in the World and quicken their hearts with a new Life by an invincible Grace but in not doing it there is no positive act of God but a cessation of Action We may with as much reason say that God is the Cause of all the sinful Actions that are committed by the Corporation of Devils since their first Rebellion because he leaves them to themselves and bestows not a new Grace upon them As say God is the Cause of the sins of those that he overlooks and leaves in that state of Guilt wherein he found them God did not pass by any without the consideration of sin so that this act of God is not repugnant to his Holiness but conformable to his Justice 4. Proposition The Holiness of God is not blemisht by his secret will to suffer sin to enter into the World God never willed sin by his preceptive Will It was never founded upon or produced by any word of his as the Creation was He never said Let there be sin under the Heaven as he said Let there be Water under the Heaven Nor doth he will it by infusing any Habit of it or stirring up Inclinations to it no God tempts no man James 1.13 Nor doth he will it by his approving Will 't is detestable to him nor ever can be otherwise He cannot approve it either before Commission or after 1. The Will of God is in some sort concurrent with sin He doth not properly will it but he wills not to hinder it to which by his Omnipotence he could put a bar If he did positively will it it might be wrought by himself and so could not be evil If he did in no sort will it it would not be committed by his Creature Sin entred into the World either God willing the permission of it or not willing the permission of it The latter cannot be said for then the Creature is more powerful than God and can do that which God will not permit God can if he be pleased banish all sin in a moment out of the World He could have prevented the Revolt of Angels and the Fall of Man they did not sin whether he would or no He might by his Grace have stept in the first Moment and made a special impression upon them of the Happiness they already possessed and the Misery they would incur by any wicked attempt He could as well have prevented the sin of the fallen Angels and confirmed them in Grace as of those that continued in their happy state He might have appeared to man informed him of the Issue of his Design and made secret impressions upon his heart since he was acquainted with every avenue to his Will God could have kept all sin out of the world as well as all Creatures from breathing in it he was as well able to bar sin for ever out of the World as to let Creatures lye in the Womb of nothing wherein they were first wrapped To say God doth will sin as he doth other things is to deny his Holiness to say it entred without any thing of his Will is to deny his Omnipotence If he did necessitate Adam to fall what shall we think of his Purity If Adam dâ—d fall without any concern of God's Will in it what shall we say of his Soveraignty The one taints his Holiness and the other clips his Power If it came without any thing of his Will in it and he did not foresee it where is his Omniscience If it entred whether he would or no where is his Omnipotence Rom. 9.19 Who hath resisted his Will There cannot be a lustful Act in Abimelech if God will withhold his Power Gen. 20.6 I withheld thee Nor a cursing word in Balaam's Mouth unless God give power to speak it Numb 22.38 Have I now any power at all to say any thing The Word that God puts in my mouth that shall I speak As no Action could be sinful if God had not forbidden it so no sin could be committed if God did not will to give way to it 2. God doth not will sin directly and by an efficacious Will He doth not directly will it because he hath prohibited it by his Law which is a discovery of his Will So that if he should directly will sin and directly prohibite it he would will good and evil in the same manner and there would be Contradictions in God's Will To will sin absolutely is to work it Psal 115.3 God hath done whatsoever he pleased God cannot absolutely will it because he cannt work it * Rispolis God wills good by a positive decree because he hath decreed to effect it He wills evil by a privative decree because he hath decreed not to give that Grace which would certainly prevent it †Bradward lib. 1 cap. 34. God wills it secundum quid God doth not will sin simply for that were to approve it but he wills it in order to that Good his Wisdom will bring forth from it He wills not sin for it self but for the event To will sin as sin or as purely evil is not in the capacity of a Creature neither of Man nor Devil The Will of a Rational Creature cannot will any thing but under the appearance of good of some good in the sin it self or some good in the issue of it Much more is this far from God ‖ Aquin. cont Gent. l. 1. c. 95. who being infinitely good cannot will evil as evil and being infinitely knowing cannot will that for good which is evil Infinite Wisdom can be under no Errour or Mistake To will sin as sin would be an unanswerable blemish on God but to will to suffer it in order to good is the glory of his Wisdom It could never have peep'd up its head unless there had been some decree of God concerning it And there had been no decree of God concerning it had he not intended to bring good and glory out of it If God did directly will the discovery of his Grace and Mercy to the World he did in some sort will sin as that without which there could not have been any appearance of Mercy in the World For an Innocent Creature is not the Object of Mercy but a Miserable Creature and no Rational Creature but must be sinful before it be miserable 3. God wills the permission of sin He doth not positively will sin but he positively wills to permit it And though he doth not approve of sin yet he approves of that act of his Will whereby he permits it For since that sin could not enter into the World without some concern of God's Will about it that act of his Will that gave way
of the Act As the good Judge that Condemned the Prisoner out of Conscience concurred with the evil Judge who condemned the Prisoner out of private Revenge not in the Principle and Motive of Condemnation but in the Material part of Condemnation So God assists in that Action of a Man wherein Sin is placed but not in that which is the Formal reason of Sin which is a privation of some Perfection the Action ought Morally to have 3. It will appear further in this that hence it follows that the Action and the viciousness of the Action may have two distinct Causes That may be a cause of the one that is not the cause of the other and hath no hand in the producing of it God concurs to the Act of the Mind as it Counsels and to the external Action upon that Counsel as he preserves the Faculty and gives strength to the Mind to consult and the other parts to execute yet he is not in the least tainted with the Viciousness of the Action Though the Action be from God as a concurrent Cause yet the ill quality of the Action is solely from the Creature with whom God concurs The Sun and the Earth concur to the production of all the Plants that are formed in the womb of the one and Midwiv'd by the other The Sun distributes Heat and the Earth communicates Sap 't is the same Heat dispersed by the one and the same Juyce bestowed by the other It hath not a sweet Juyce for one and a sowr Juyce for another This general Influx of the Sun and Earth is not the immediate cause that one Plant is poysonous and another wholsom but the Sap of the Earth is turned by the Nature and quality of each Plant If there were not such an Influx of the Sun and Earth no Plant could exert that poyson which is in its Nature but yet the Sun and Earth are not the cause of that poyson which is in the Nature of the Plant. If God did not concur to the motions of Men there could be no sinful Action because there could be no Action at all yet this Concurrence is not the cause of that Venom that is in the Action which ariseth from the Corrupt Nature of the Creature no more than the Sun and Earth are the cause of the Poyson of the Plant which is purely the effect of its own Nature upon that general Influx of the Sun and Earth The Influence of God pierceth through all Subjects but the Action of Man done by that Influence is vitiated according to the Nature of its own Corruption As the Sun equally shines through all the Quarrels in the Window if the Glass be bright and clear there is a pure splendor if it be Red or Green the splendor is from the Sun but the discolouring of that Light upon the Wall is from the quality of the Glass †Zanch. Tom. 2. lib. 3. cap. 4. qu. 4. p. 226. But to be yet plainer The Soul is the Image of God and by the Acts of the Soul we may come to the knowledge of the Acts of God the Soul gives motion to the Body and every Member of it and no Member could move without a concurrent virtue of the Soul if a Member be Paralitick or Gouty whatsoever motion that Gouty Member hath is derived to it from the Soul but the Goutyness of the Member was not the Act of the Soul but the fruit of Ill humors in the Body the lameness of the Member and the motion of the Member have two distinct causes the motion is from one cause and the Ill motion from another As the Member could not move irregularly without some Ill humor or cause of that distemper so it could not move at all without the activity of the Soul So though God concur to the act of Understanding Willing and Execution why can he not be as free from the Irregularity in all those as the Soul is free from the Irregularity of the mâ—â—ion of the Body while it is the cause of the motion it self There are two Illustrations generally used in this case that are not unfit the motion of the Pen in writing is from the hand that holds it but the Blurs by the Pen are from some fault in the Pen it self And the Musick of the Instrument is from the hand that touches it but the Jarring from the faultiness of the Strings both are the causes of the motion of the Pen and Strings but not the blurs or jarrings 4. 'T is very congruous to the Wisdom of God to move his Creatures according to their particular Natures but this Motion makes him not the cause of Sin Had our Innocent Nature continued God had moved us according to that Innocent Nature but when the state was changed for a Corrupt one God must either forbear all concourse and so annihilate the World or move us according to that Nature he finds in us If he had overthrown the World upon the entrance of Sin and created another upon the same terms Sin might have as soon defac'd his second Work as it did the first and then it would follow that God would have been alway building and demolishing It was not fit for God to cease from acting as a Wise Governour of his Creature because Man did cease from his Loyalty as a Subject Is it not more agreeable to Gods Wisdom as a Governour to concur with his Creature according to his Nature than to deny his concurrence upon every Evil determination of the Creature God concurr'd with Adams mutable Nature in his first act of Sin he concurr'd to the act and left him to his Mutability If Adam had put out his hand to eat of any other unforbidden Fruit God would have supported his Natural faculty then and concurr'd with him in his motion When Adam would put out his hand to take the Forbidden Fruit God concurr'd to that Natural action but left him to the choice of the Object and to the use of his mutable Nature And when Man became Apostate God concurs with him according to that condition wherein he found him and cannot move him otherwise unless he should alter that Nature Man had contracted God moving the Creature as he found him is no cause of the Ill motion of the Creature As when a Wheel is broken the space of a foot it cannot but move ill in that part till it be mended He that moves it uses the same motion as it is his Act which he would have done had the Wheel been sound the motion is good in the Mover but bad in the Subject 'T is not the fault of him that moves it but the fault of that Wheel that is moved whose breaches came by some other cause A Man doth not use to lay aside his Watch for some Irregularity as long as it is capable of motion but winds it up Why should God cease from concurring with his Creature in its vital Operations and other actions of his
long can be referred to nothing but the same cause What is the reason the vail continues so long upon the heart of the Jews that is promised one time or other to be taken off Why doth God delay the accomplishment of those glorious predictions of the happiness and interest of that people is it because of the sin of their Ancestors a reason that cannot bear much weight If we cast it upon that account their conversion can never be expected can never be effected if for the sins of their Ancestors is it not also for their own sins Do their sins grow less in number or less venimous or provoking in quality by this delay Is not their Blasphemy of Christ as malitious their hatred of him as strong and rooted as ever Do they not as much approve of the bloody act of their Ancestors since so many ages are past as their Ancestors did applaud it at the time of the Execution Have they not the same disposition and will discovered sufficiently by the scorn of Christ and of those that profess his Name to act the same thing over again were Christ now in the same state in the world and they invested with the same power of Government If their Conversion were deferr'd one age after the death of Christ for the sins of their prâ—ceding Ancestors is it to be expected now since the present generation of the Jews in all Countries have the sins of those remote the succeeding and their more immediate Ancestors lying upon them This therefore cannot be the reason but as it was the Soveraign pleasure of God to foretell his intention to overcome the stoutness of their hearts so it is his Soveraign pleasure that it shall not be perform'd till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in Rom. 11.25 As he is Lord of his own Grace so he is Lord of the Time when to dispense it Why did God create the world in 6 days which he could have erected and beautified in a moment Because it was his pleasure so to do Why did he frame the World when he did and not many ages before Because he is Master of his own work Why did he not resolve to bring Israel to the fruition of Canaan till after four hundred years Why did he draw out their deliverance to so long time after he began to attempt it Why such a multitude of Plagues upon Pharoah to work it when he could have cut short the work by one mortal blow upon the Tyrant and his accomplices It was his Soveraign pleasure to act so though not without other reasons intelligible enough by looking into the story Why doth he not bring man to a perfection of stature in a moment after his Birth but let him continue in a tedious infancy in a semblance to beasts for want of an exercise of reason Why doth he not bring this or that man whom he intends for service to a fitness in an instant but by long tracts of Study and through many Meanders and Labyrinths VVhy doth he transplant a hopeful person in his youth to the pleasures of another VVorld and let another of an eminent Holiness continue in the misery of this and wade through many Floods of Afflictions VVhat can we chiefly referre all these things to but his Soveraign pleasure The times are determined by God Acts 17.26 3. The Dominion of God is manifested as a Governor as well as a Law-giver and Proprietor 1. In disposing of States and Kingdomes Psa l. 75.7 God is Judge he puls down one and sets up another Judge is to be taken not in the same sence that we commonly use the word for a judicial Minister in a way of tryal but for a Governour as you know the extraordinary Governours rais'd up among the Jews were call'd Judges whence one intire Book in the Old Testament is so denominated the Book of Judges God hath a Prerogative to change times and seasons Dan. 2.21 i. e. The Revolutions of Government whereby times are alter'd * Mr. Mede in one of his Letters How many Empires that have spread their wings over a great part of the world have had their Carkasses torn in peices and unheard off Nations pluckt of the wings of the Roman Eagle after it had prey'd upon many Nations of the World And the Macedonian Empire was as the dew that is dried up a short time after it falls He erected the Chaldaean Monarchy us'd Nebuchadnezzar to overthrow and punish the ungrateful Jews and by a Soveraign act gave a great parcel of Land into his hands and what he thought was his right by conquest was Gods donative to him You may read the Chartâ—r to Nebuchadnezzar whom he terms his Servant Jer. 27.6 And now I have given all those Lands the Lands are mentioned verse 3. Into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon my Servant Which Decree he pronounceth after his asserting his right of Soveraignty over the whole Earth ver 5. After that he puts a period to the Chaldaean Empire and by the same Soveraign Authority decrees Babylon to be a spoil to the Nations of the North Countrey and delivers her up as a spoil to the Persian Jer. 50.9 10. And this for the manifestation of his Soveraign Dominion that he was the Lord that made peace and created evil Isaiah 45.6 7. God afterwards overthrows that by the Grecian Alexander prophesied of under the figure of a Goat with one horn between his Eyes Dan. 8. The swift current of his Victories as swift as his motion shew'd it to be from an extraordinary hand of Heaven and not either from the policy or strength of the Macedonian His strength in the Prophet is described to be less being but one horn running against the Persian describ'd under the figure of a Ramm with two horns * Josephus And himself acknowledg'd a Divine motion exciting him to that great attempt when he saw Joddus the High Priest coming out in his Priestly Robes to meet him at his approach to Jerusalem whom he was about to Worship acknowledging that the Vision which put him upon the Persian War appear'd to him in such a garb What was the reason Israel was rent from Judah and both split into two distinct Kingdoms Because Rehoboam would not hearken to sober and sound Counsels but follow the advice of upstarts What was the reason he did not harken to sound advice since he had so advantagious an Education under his Father Solomon the wisest Prince of the World The Cause was from the Lord. 1 Kings 12.15 That he might perform what he had before spoke In this he acted according to his Royal Word but in the first resolve he acted as a Soveraign Lord that had the disposal of all Nations in the world And though Ahab had a numerous posterity Seventy Sons to inherit the Throne after him yet God by his Soveraign Authority gives them up into the hands of Jehu who strips them of their lives and hopes together not
own affections according to the holiness of his own Will As it is the effect of his power so it is an argument of his power the greatness of the effect demonstrates the fulness and sufficiency of the Cause The more feeble any man is in reason the less command he hath over his passions and he is the more heady to revenge Revenge is a sign of a Childish mind the stronger any man is in reason the more command he hath over himself Prov. 16.32 He that is slow to Anger is better than the mighty and he that rules his own Spirit than he that takes a City He that can restrain his Anger is stronger than the Coesars and Alexanders of the World that have fill'd the Earth with slain Carcasses and ruin'd Cities By the same reason God's slowness to Anger is a greater argument of his Power than the creating a World or the power of dissolving it by a Word In this he hath a Dominion over Creatures in the other over himself This is the reason he will not return to destroy because I am God and not Man Hosea 11.9 I am not so weak and impotent as man that cannot restrain his Anger This is a strength possessed only by a God wherein a Creature is no more able to parallel him than in any other So that he may be said to be the Lord of himself as it is in the verse before the Text that he is the Lord of Anger in the Hebrew instead of furious as we translate it so he is the Lord of Patience The end why God is Patient is to shew his Power Rom. 9.22 What if God willing to shew his Wrath and to make his Power known endured with much Long-suffering the Vessels of Wrath fitted to destruction To shew his Wrath upon Sinners and his Power over himself in bearing such indignities and forbearing punishment so long when men were vessels of wrath fitted for destruction of whom there was no hopes of amendment Had he immediately broken in peices those Vessels his power had not so eminently appear'd as it hath done in tolerating them so long that had provoked him to take them off so often There is indeed the power of his Anger and there is the power of his Patience and his power is more seen in his Patience than in his Wrath. 'T is no wonder that he that is above all is able to crush all But it is a wonder that he that is provok't by all doth not upon the first provocation rid his hands of all This is the reason why he did bear such a weight of provocations from vessels of wrath prepar'd for ruine that he might 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shew what he was able to do the Lordship and Royalty he had over himself The power of God is more manifest in his Patience to a multitude of Sinners than it could be in Creating Millions of Worlds out of nothing this was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a power over himself 5. This Patience being a branch of Mercy the exercise of it is founded in the Death of Christ Without the consideration of this we can give no account why Divine Patience should extend it self to us and not to the fallen Angels The threatning extends it self to us as well as to the fallen Angels The threatning must necessarily have sunk man as well as those glorious Creatures had not Christ stept into our relief * Testaâ—d de natur Grat. Thes 119. Had not Christ interposed to satisfie the Justice of God man upon his sin had been actually bound over to punishment as well as the fall'n Angels were upon theirs and been fettered in chains as strong as those Spirits feel The reason why man was not hurl'd into the same deplorable condition upon his sin as they were is Christs promise of taking our nature and not theirs Had God design'd Christ's taking their nature the same Patience had been exercised towards them and the same offers would have been made to them as are made to us In regard of these fruits of this Patience Christ is said to buy the wickedest Apostates from him 1 Pet. 2.1 Denying the Lord that bought them such were bought by him as bring upon themselves just destruction and whose damnation slumbers not ver 3. he purchased the continuance of their lives and the stay of their execution that offers of Grace might be made to them This Patience must be either upon the account of the Law or the Gospel for there are no other rules whereby God governs the World a fruit of the Law it was not that spake nothing but Curses after Disobedience not a letter of Mercy was writ upon that And therefore nothing of Patience Death and Wrath was denounced no slowness to Anger intimated It must be therefore upon the account of the Gospel and a fruit of the Covenant of Grace whereof Christ was Mediator Besides this perfection being God's waiting that he might be Gracious Isaiâ—h 30.18 that which made way for Gods Grace made way for his waiting to manifest it God discovered not his Grace but in Christ And therefore discovered not his Patience but in Christ 't is in him he met with the satisfaction of his Justice that he might have a ground for the manifestation of his Patience And the Sacrifices of the Law wherein the Life of a beast was accepted for the sin of a man discovered the ground of his forbearance of them to be the expectation of the great sacrifice whereby sin was to be compleatly expiated Gen. 8.21 The publication of his Patience to the end of the World is presently after the sweet savor he found in Noah's sacrifice The promised and design'd coming of Christ was the cause of that Patience God exercised before in the World And his gathering the Elect together is the reason of his Patience since his death 6. The naturalness of his Veracity and Holiness and the strictness of his Justice are no barrs to the exercise of his patience 1. His Veracity In those threatnings where the punishment is exprest but not the time of inflicting it prefixt and determined in the threatning his veracity suffers no dammage by the delaying Execution so it be once done though a long time after the credit of his Truth stands unshaken As when God promises a thing without fixing the time he is at liberty to pitch upon what time he pleases for the performance of it without staining his faithfulness to his Word by not giving the thing promised presently Why should the deferring of Justice upon an offender be any more against his Veracity than his delaying an answer to the petitions of a suppliant But the difference will lie in the threatning Gen. 2.17 In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death The time was there setled In that day thou shalt dye some referre day to eating not to dying and render the sentence thus I do not prohibit thee the eating this fruit for
not by any impulsion God's Knowledge was not suspended between certainty and uncertainty He certainly foreknew that his Law would be broken by Adam he foreknew it in his own Decree of not hindering him by giving Adam the efficacious Grace which would inâ—allibly have prevented it yet Adam did freely break this Law and never imagin'd that the foreknowledge of God did necessitate him to it He could find no cause of his own sin but the liberty of his own will He charges the occasion of his sin upon the woman and consequently upon God in giving the woman to him * Gen. 3.12 He could not be so ignorant of the Nature of God as to imagine him without a foresight of future things since his knowledge of what was to be known of God by Creation was greater than any mans since in all probability But however if he were not acquainted with the Notion of God's foreknowledge he could not be ignorant of his own act there could not have been any necessity upon him any kind of constraint of him in his action that could have been unknown to him and he would not have omitted a Plea of so strong a nature when he was upon his Trial for Life or Death especially when he urgeth so weak an Argument to impute his Crime to God as the gift of the Woman as if that which was design'd him for a help were intended for his ruine If God's prescience takes away the liberty of the Creature there is no such thing as a free action in the World for there is nothing done but is foreknown by God else we render God of a limited understanding nor ever was no not by God himself ad extra For whatsoever he hath done in Creation whatsoever he hath done since the Creation was foreknown by him he resolved to do it and therefore foreknew that he would do it Did God do it therefore necessarily as necessity is oppos'd to liberty As he freely decrees what he will do so he effects what he freely decreed Foreknowledge is so far from intrenching upon the liberty of the will that predetermination which in the notion of it speaks something more doth not dissolve it God did not only foreknow but determine the suffering of Christ †Acts 4.27 28. It was necessary therefore that Christ should suffer that God might not be mistaken in his foreknowledge or come short of his determinate decree But did this take away the liberty of Christ in suffering Eph. 5.2 Who offered himself up to God that is by a voluntary act as well as design'd to do it by a determinate Counsel It did infallibly secure the event but did not annihilate the liberty of the Action either in Christ's willingness to suffer or the Crime of the Jews that made him suffer God's prescience is God's prevision of things arising from their proper Causes As a Gardiner foresees in his Plants the Leaves and the Flowers that will arise from them in the Spring because he knows the strength and nature of their several Roots which lye under ground but his foresight of these things is not the cause of the rise and appearance of those Flowers If any of us see a Ship moving towards such a Rock or Quick-sand and know it to be govern'd by a negligent Pilot we shall certainly foresee that the Ship will be torn in pieces by the Rock or swallowed up by the Sands but is this foresight of ours from the Causes any cause of the effect or can we from hence be said to be the Authours of the miscarriage of the Ship and the loss of the Passengers and Goods The fall of Adam was foreseen by God to come to pass by the consent of his Freewill in the choice of the proposed Temptation God foreknew Adam would sin and if Adam would not have sinned God would have foreknown that he would not sin Adam might easily have detected the Serpents fraud and made a better Election God foresaw that he would not do it God's foreknowledge did not make Adam guilty or innocent whether God had foreknown it or no he was guilty by a free choice and a willing neglect of his own Duty Adam knew that God foreknew that he might eat of the Fruit and fall and dye because God had forbidden him the foreknowledge that he would do it was no more a cause of his Action than the foreknowledge that he might do it Judas certainly knew that his Master foreknew that he should betray him for Christ had acquainted him with it John 13.21 26. yet he never charg'd this foreknowledge of Christ with any guilt of his Treachery 3. The third Proposition The Holiness of God is not blemisht by decreeing the eternal Rejection of some men Reprobation in its first Notion is an act of preterition or passing by A man is not made wicked by the act of God but it supposeth him wicked and so 't is nothing else but God's leaving a man in that guilt and filth wherein he beholds him In its second Notion 't is an Ordination not to a Crime but to a Punishment Jude 4. An ordaining to Condemnation And though it be an eternal act of God yet in order of Nature it follows upon the foresight of the Transgression of Man and supposeth the Crime God considers Adam's Revolt and views the whole Mass of his corrupted Posterity and chuses some to reduce to himself by his Grace and leaves others to lye sinking in their Ruins Since all Mankind fell by the fall of Adam and have Corruption conveyed to them successively by that Root whereof they are Branches All men might justly be left wallowing in that miserable Condition to which they were reduced by the Apostacy of their Common Head and God might have pass'd by the whole Race of Man as well as he did the fallen Angels without any hope of Redemption He was no more bound to restore Man than to restore Devils nor bound to repair the Nature of any one Son of Adam and had he dealt with Men as he dealt with the Devils they had had all of them as little just ground to complain of God for all Men deserved to be left to themselves for all were concluded under sin But God calls out some to make Monuments of his Grace which is an act of the Soveraign Mercy of that Dominion whereby he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy Rom. 9.18 Others he passes by and leaves them remaining in that Corruption of Nature wherein they were born If men have a power to dispose of their own Goods without any unrighteousness why should not God dispose of his own Grace and bestow it upon whom he pleases since it is a Debt to none but a free guift to any that enjoy it * Amyral defence de Calv. p. 145. God is not the cause of sin in this because his operation about this is negative 't is not an action but a denial of action and therefore cannot be the