the midst of the Fire lest ye corrupt your selves and make you a graven Image the Similitude of any Figure What a pitiful Evasion is it that a graven Image is only forbidden when also is expresly forbidden the Similitude of any Figure and the Reason added is general For ye saw no manner of Similitude The Fire out of the midst of which God spake is there expressed to be no Similitude or Figure of God or the Sun for which there might be the greatest Pretence yea it is made one of the ten Words of the Decalogue After all this shall we imagine that God hath changed this Precept which was not Ceremonial but opposite to Ceremonies Is it not an horrid and impious Boldness to leave that Command out of the Decalogue rather than to forbear the worshipping of or by Images as the Church of Rome does avow and practise I adore Thee the only pure Spirit that thou hast not left me to my Imagination to apprehend Thee as being any way like a Body or Matter by Extension or Diffusion of Substance or being excluded where any other Substance is or can be whether a Body or created Spirit it being so incident to Man that is born of a Woman to have all his first Thoughts by Imagination of Bodies and their Resemblances except the Son of God alone for it was the Pleasure of the Father that in him all Fulness should dwell I lament and pity their Weakness that frame a Conception of the infinitely glorious God as a Body or any thing like a Body though it were the most pure Air or AEther that Reason convinceth to be every where in this World as the mean of Communication throughout the World without which no Creature at distance could communicate its Thoughts or Actings to another which scarce can the Imagination apprehend but only the purer Reason and which is conceived so pure that it is invisible impalpable unperceivable by any Sense in resomblance to which Men conceive Angels or their own Souls as Substances like some part of the purest Air that can pass without Stop through all Bodies though of never so close Contexture and are apt to apprehend God by the like Resemblance because God is invisible and can fall under no Sense yet is far more clearly conceivable purely by the Mind I pray God it be not imputed to those who through Weakness have so low and unsutable Thoughts of the ever blessed God MEDITATION III. Upon the Self-Existence and Eternity of God BY Self-Existence I understand the Existence of a Being which hath no Cause of the Existence thereof and which hath its Existence in it self for if it had an efficient Cause it behoved to derive its Being from that Cause as the Author thereof A self-existent Being can have no constituent or component Parts whether they be essential Parts or integral Parts or of whatsoever Composition can be supposed for then it behoved to owe its Original to these component Parts for such Parts though they be not the efficient Cause of that Compound yet they are the material formal or essential Causes thereof A self-existent Being can have no final Cause or any End ulteriour to it self but the Design thereof must necessarily be it self as the ultimate and last End and cannot be a Mean or Mids towards any other End but all things designed and acted thereby must necessarily be designed for and terminate upon it self as the last End A self-existent Being hath been acknowledged by all Sects who have pretended to any Learning in the World Those whose Minds could not be so far elevated as to apprehend a Possibility of Creation or any thing that could be so powerful as to give Existence to a Substance which had no Existence before and yet were not Atheists did acknowledg a Deity knowing and capable to do all things possible which did necessarily suppose a self-existent active Cause as the first Cause and a self-existent passive or material Cause of and upon which the first Cause made all Productions and Alterations whether that Cause were one similar Substance which most of them did with the greater Probability suppose to be Water or Air or whether it were an Heterogenious Mass or Chaos whereby the active Cause could only segregate the immutable Particles of that Chaos and unite them in Compounds of divers Shapes but none of them could ever distinctly propose whence Life and Perception arose and therefore were necessitated to suppose that there had preceded eternal Trains of all Animals and that there was no self-existent percipient Cause but these first active Causes only Yea all the Atheistical Philosophers who did not acknowledg a Deity yet did acknowledg a self-existent Being both active and passive and yet attributing no Knowledg to the active Cause and so working without Choice by fatal Necessity but they did acknowledg no percipient Being to be self-existent but either by eternal Generation or by Production from the Earth not only Plants but Animals These things first arising which are less perfect and need less Elaboration so that Mankind was esteemed to be the last Birth of the Earth I rejoice that all these phantastick Suppositions are evanished and that not only Revelation but Reason also have concurred that Creation is not only possible but true and I do admire and resent that even some Christian Philosophers and many of them by Profession Divines maintain the impossiblity of Vacuity without any Body or any real Extension because such a Vacuity is inconceivable without conceiving Longitude Latitude and Profundity which are the necessary intrinsick Properties of a Body and therefore must be from Eternity And therefore God could not annihilate the whole or any part of Matter leaving nothing where it was nor could give existence to any Body where nothing was before And therefore the Universe must necessarily be so far extended that there could be no further extension thereof By these Opinions there is supposed an eternal passive Cause from Eternity to Eternity and there cannot be imagined an Evasion that this passive Cause must be Self-existent or that God from Eternity did give it Existence and yet it cannot be truly said that he gave it Existence if it proceeded from him by Emanation without Choice Nor is there any ground to suppose that by Choice he gave it Existence from Eternity much less that he gave it an independent Existence that he could not annihilate it in the whole or any part of it It exceeds my Capacity to imagine how these things are consistent with the Wisdom of God and with his relation of the World's Creation I have elsewhere cleared my own Judgment that there is no Solidity in that Consequence that Vacuity could not be imagined to be without Longitude Latitude and Profundity and that all the Demonstrations thereupon were as true as upon any Body I shall only say here that the truth of attribution of Properties and Consequences doth not import the real existence of the
called intrinsically evil God may excite these Acts where the Intention or Direction only is evil God's Intention being quite different so he may excite the giving of Alms intending thereby the relief of the Poor but the directing of the Alms to be seen of Men is a distinct separate Act. There is no ground inferring that God excites to that end much less that he excites to Acts intrinsically evil which no Intention can make good and where there are not different Parts or different Acts Therefore God doth not foreknow Acts intrinsically evil or the evil Intention of Acts that otherwise might be good or indifferent in his Decree to excite them but only in his permissive Decree not to hinder the free Creatures in acting them wherein I am convinced by many pregnant Reasons First God's foreseeing such Acts in his purpose to excite the Creature to them and his being an immediate and total Actor of them appears to me inconsistent with his immaculate Purity but thereby he behoved to be the Author of Sin I know many good Men perceive not this Consequence and are far from acknowledging it and are forced to harsh Concessions to shun it as that God is the immediate Cause of the Act but not of the Vitiosity of the Act which is only Privative and requires no Cause nor any Efficiency but Deficiency which importeth nothing as to evil Intention or Acts intrinsically Evil but only as to Acts that would be Good if right directed and is well illustrated by riding of a Lame Horse where the Rider is the cause of the Riding but the Lameness of the Horse is the cause of the Halting but this cannot be applicable to an indivisible Act whence Sin necessarily results and so the whole Act or the Act of Intention is totally Evil And thereby there cannot be one part attributed to God and another to the Creature if God be not the immediate and total Actor but that the Creature hath a different Act the forefight of that Act could not be by the Decree of God to act it and so all free Acts could not be foreseen that way The more Ingenuous are forced to recur to this Evasion that God is under no Law and so the same Act may be Sin in the Creature and no Sin in God but this overturns the Being of Acts morally Good or Evil in congruity to the Nature of God which are not so because God willeth them to be or not to be but he so willeth them because they are absolutely and immutably Good and not alone by the Will or Decree of God God is above his positive Law but he is neither above nor under his moral Law but is a Law to himself else God could make Vertue Vice and Vice Vertue for whatever depends upon Acts of the Will can be altered by another Act of the same Will So God hath altered many of his positive Laws and Precepts because they are only Good in that they are willed and commanded Secondly God hath expresly declared that he hath hindered many Acts of his Creatures which must necessarily import that they would have been acted if they had not been hindered for it is inconsistent to say that God decreed to be an Actor with the Creature and yet decreed to hinder that same Act Thus God declareth that he had hindered Abimelech to touch Sarah whom he had taken on design to make her his Concubine but God disabled him that he could neither meddle with her nor any other Thirdly There are many Sins of Omission wherein the Sinner doth not resolve to omit but by Carelesness and Inconsideration omits here there is no Act of the Creature And if God hinder the Creature to consider he must be sole Actor in these Sins and if not there is no positive Act or Excitation in them and so no Decree for such Acts and therefore they cannot be foreseen in that Decree and yet they are certainly foreseen Fourthly If it were sufficient to clear the Divine Purity that Sin is only a Privation requiring no Efficiency but Deficiency that could not but also vindicate the Creature albeit a total Actor of the same Act. Fifthly If God decree without foresight of what the Creature using its proper Power would act then he behoved to decree the torment of his Creatures without consideration of their future Sins voluntarily to be acted by them which is very inconsistent with his Justice and forces the Authors of this Opinion to acknowledg That God might eternally torment his innocent Creatures and that it is greater Goodness to give them a miserable Being than no Being at all which is neither consistent with his Justice nor his Goodness and gives a most unlovely Representation of him Sixthly There is nothing more inculcated in Scripture than the Efficacy of Prayer for it is said That the fervent Prayer of the Righteous availeth much But if God did determine all future things without Foresight and Consideration of the Prayers of his People Prayer were of no value but a meer Formality without any Efficacy For to what purpose should any pray to an unchangeable God who had already determined all things without consideration of Prayer I know no Evasion can be made but that God hath determined not only the Matter but the Manner of what was to come to pass and so determined many things to be after antecedent Prayer but then Prayer were a meer antecedent Formality and no efficacious Mean availing much But if God did determine many things upon the foresight and consideration of the earnest Prayer of his People they might with as much Confidence pray as if he were undetermined when they prayed I know there are many specious Reasons accustomed to be brought for God's being the immediate total Actor in all the Acts of his Creatures which I consider as Objections 1st It is objected If God decreed any thing upon Foresight and Consideration of any thing in his Creatures he were not altogether independent but behoved to depend upon such Considerations and be pedissequous to his Creatures This Reason can conclude nothing against God's Foresight and Consideration of what he foresaw in the Creature as given by himself above their natural Strength for thereby he depended on nothing but on his own Supernatural Grace It is true that if God's Election were upon the foresight of the Creatures Faith or good Works by that common Power all Men had by their Birth they might glory in themselves and the Election could not be said to be of Free Grace and God might be thought pedissequous to the Creatures and therefore that Opinion of Papists and Arminians is justly rejected But God cannot be said to be pedissequous to the Creatures he foresees would maliciously or obstinately and finally reject the offer of Grace because he decrees to let them follow their own Ways and in Justice to punish them whom he doth not follow but crosseth And though God doth not decree to damn the Reprobate
Whereas it is demonstrably clear by the Context that by the Vessels of Dishonour are meant the hardened obstinate Sinners and by the Vessels of Honour the Elect whose Heart God softneth which appeareth clearly First From the words preceding Why doth he yet find fault For who hath resisted his Will that is no Man can resist his Will if he please to soften him And therefore why doth God complain that so many are hardened The meaning cannot be Why doth God find fault that so many are reprobated For God cannot complain of his own Act of Reprobation which is an Act of his Justice Yea tho it were an Act of his Soveraignty only it is still his own Act but he complaineth of their hardening and therefore it cannot be by his Act but by his Permission which is yet more clear by the words following God willing to shew his Wrath and to make his Power known endured with much Long-suffering the Vessels of Wrath fitted to Destruction and that he might make known the Riches of his Glory on the Vessels of Mercy which he had before prepared unto Glory Where I do remark That God ascribeth unto himself the preparing the Vessels of Mercy unto Glory but that he did not prepare the Vessels of Wrath for Destruction but with much long-suffering Patience endured them which is a clear Evidence that he did only permit them to harden their Hearts and was no way active in it So then the Vessels of Honour are far better said to be the regenerate and softned and the Vessels of Dishonour to be those who have hardened their own Hearts So it is as free for God to have Mercy and soften whom he will and to endure and permit others to harden themselves as it is to the Potter of one Lump to make one Vessel to Honour and another to Dishonour The 6th Reason brought for universal Predetermination is That seeing Freedom is by both Parties acknowledged to be a Power to do or not to do all things requisite for doing being in readiness therefore if God did not determine that Freedom in all Cases it were impossible for him to know how the Creature would determine it self All the Strength of this Reason is That we must deny God's universal Knowledg unless we can show how he knoweth wherein there is no shadow of Consequence for many things certainly we know that they are and yet it is as certain that we know not how they are Shall we therefore because God hath said Who can search the Almighty to Perfection that is none can so search him conclude that he cannot so search himself Yet tho I be far from the Presumption to give a full account how God doth foreknow the Actings of all his Creatures I shall endeavour to clear my self therein so far as my Reach goeth by applying what general Thoughts I have formerly shown more particularly First then I do perceive that of the Actings of Creatures some only may be others must be and a third sort shall be which is more than may be and less than must be These three kinds are evidently distinct and different and seeing God is Omniscient he must not only know what may be and what must be but what shall be tho not necessarily and all the three with equal Clearness and Certainty For there is a great difference between Necessity and Certainty it is true where-ever there is Certainty there is a necessity of Consequence that is that that Knowledg is infallible but not a necessity of Causality that the Cause of that thing certainly known must act necessarily and not freely God knows all his own future free Acts certainly and yet he knows many of them to be by the Freedom of Indifference and not to flow from Necessity that he must have so acted The Acts of Creatures that only may be are known to God by the Faculties and Capacities he hath given to his several Creatures many Acts whereof might be and yet never come to exist As to this Point of God's Knowledg there can be no doubt Secondly The Acts of Creatures which must be are first the Acts of inscient Matter which cannot alter its own Actings because it cannot perceive or know when and where to alter and therefore all these Alterations are from extrinsick Force either from other inscient Matter or from the Force of free Actors So all the Actings and Alterations of inanimate Bodies in the Universe tho they seem to us contingent and accidental yet are all necessary and so may be known by God not only as certain but as necessary except in so far as they are altered by free Actors which come to be considered among free Acts. Thirdly The Acts of Brutes tho they determine themselves by the Perception of Objects yet they do it not freely nor can they act variously all the Circumstances being the same and therefore their Acts are also necessary supposing the Objects which they perceive So that seeing God knows the Objects perceived he must know what Acts will thereupon follow Fourthly There are Acts of free Creatures which are not free but do proceed as the Instincts of Brutes that upon Perception of their proper Objects they will certainly follow Such is the Desire of Well-being or Happiness which Rational Creatures thinking upon it can neither counteract nor suspend These may be known in their Causes no less than the Actings of Brutes and as God hath freely given these useful Propensions he can give the like either as to a singular Act or as to a whole kind of Acts. Fifthly The only Difficulty remains as to God's Knowledg or Fore-knowledg of the free Acts of the free Creatures As to which I perceive that I and it 's like many others have been much mistaken in apprehending the way of the acting of free Creatures supposing that their Appetites and Aversions were altogether free as to most Objects and were directly in their own Power and that Pleasure was a kind of Appetite and Grief of Aversion which were in our Power as other Appetites But upon more accurate Consideration I find that Pleasure and Pain or Grief are neither Acts of our Understanding nor of our Will or Appetite but of a different Faculty given us by God not by necessary Connection with or Consequence from Human Nature but freely at his Option There may be a general Pain or Grief from the tearing of the tender Parts of the Organs of Sense and a common Pleasure from the easy Access of Objects to these Senses But tho all Animals have five Senses these could not make the Diversity of the Pleasures and Pains they find arising from the Perception of Objects One kind of Animals have Pleasure from the Perception of one Object and another kind of Animals have Grief from the Perception of the same tho both have the same Senses and Complexion that such Objects give such variety of Tastes and Smells to the same Senses of different Animals that Men have
they came to pass evidently prove his Fore-knowledg of Mens most indifferent Choices as Daniel's Prophecies of the Monarchies the Prophecies of Cyrus and of Josiah by Name and of their Circumstantiate Actings What can be more Arbitrary than what Name a Father will give his Child which himself seldom knoweth many Days before he give it Cyrus's Father was a Heathen who neither knew nor believed this Prophecy nor did many Kings call their Sons Cyrus that they might be capable of these Predictions There is little Controversy concerning the extent of the Divine Knowledg though some eminent among the Arminians doubted that God knew the individual Persons that would believe and be saved And some have been so absurd as to hold that God either could not or would not know the number of all the Individuals or the different Accidents but only their Kinds and common Accidents If Men had rested in the Universality of God's Knowledg and had not been too inquisitive in the manner of it tho God had shewn them that it was impossible fully to reach it by that strong Negation implied in that Question Who can search the Almighty to perfection his Wisdom is unsearchable and his Ways past finding out And thereby had not raised Intricacies interfering the Divine Perfections making less evident the Purity and Amiableness of God It had not only been a Folly but a Fault to concur with the Atheist or the Ungodly in that Question How doth God know And is there Knowledg in the most High But seeing so much hath been said concerning the manner of God's Foreknowledg of the Choices and Actings of free Creatures amongst good learned and for the main Orthodox Divines not only in different but in the same Communion I thought it my Duty to improve what Capacity God had given me with all the Reverence and Humility I could attain to extricate my Thoughts and to clear up the immaculate Purity and infinite Loveliness of God which might most powerfully excite me to delight in him To which end I thought it necessary to consider the prevalent Opinions of Philosophers and Divines concerning the manner of God's Knowledg That old exploded and now reviv'd Opinion of some Philosophers is That Second Causes had no Activity but God at the presence of such things as were not the Causes but the Tokens of what would follow so that Fire did not heat or burn or Water cool or quench but the First Cause alone at the presence of Fire and of Water That there neither is nor can be any intrinsick Principle of Motion or Activity in Matter that it cannot attempt or thrust when it doth not prevail That Men do not move any of their Members but only God moveth them as Man willeth and that God makes such Thoughts in the Mind to result from such Motions of Matter without any extrinsick Impression or Activity of the Objects So that neither the Motions of Matter nor the Thoughts of the Spirits are from the Activity of Creatures but from God alone On this ground it is easy to infer that God must know all the Actings which seem to be from Creatures being indeed only from himself These grounds cannot take with any that truly acknowledg Creation for it God could give Existence to Matter which before had none how can it be doubted that he could give it an attempt or pressure to move such an uniform course of Motion which it would ever follow if it were not hindered and would always be effectual when the Impediment were removed much more that as he created a Spirit of nothing he might give it its proper Activities as well as to Matter and that upon real Impressions and Changes made in it from other Creatures Suppose then he could do all things by himself alone or many things by Second Causes it cannot be doubted that it is more consonant to his Wisdom and Revelation that he hath given such Activities The Scripture saith That on the Seventh day God rested from his Labours Shall we then think that he acteth now in the same way that he did the first six Days If these grounds hold there can be no Distinction between God's Permission and his Operation Excitation or Concurrence with the Creatures 5. The more common Opinion How God knows all future Actions is That though God hath given Activities to Creatures and that they have a true Operation yet they cannot exert these Activities without a distinct Excitation and such a Concurrence of God as every Act is as well immediately his Act as the Creature 's yea every Act must be totally his Act and totally the Creature 's For if there be one Act of the Creator and a several Act of the Creature by which they concur then that several Act of the Creature is immediately its own alone tho God be also the cause of it as preserving the Creature and its Activity in vigour But certainly it is less conceiveable how one Act can be from two Actors immediately and totally than how God can know all future Acts of free Creatures These Men think they magnify the Power of God in this way and therefore extend it not only to free Actions but even to the Actions of Brutes and inanimate Creatures that Fire cannot burn nor any thing move without an excitation beside its natural Power given by Creation which improperly enough they call a Premotion as if Creatures were moved before they mov'd and a Predetermination of free Creatures as if they were determined before they were determined which indeed might be properly said of God's Decree to determine them in Time and of his Preparation when he added or altered their pre-existing Powers unless the Order of Nature or Dignity not of Time be understood which is most improper Hence these Men do hold That God knoweth all Things by the Inspection of his own Decree to excite and stir up his Creatures to act them and that he can foreknow nothing that Creatures would act of themselves without such Excitation or which they would chuse or incline to act and that not only in Actions good and indifferent but in those evil Acts where the whole is evil and no separable part could be good or indifferent I acknowledg that Creatures can do nothing unless God preserve them and the Activities he has given them by Nature or Grace in vigour removing by his Providence those things that would hinder them to work and that he oft-times increaseth or diminisheth the Activities he hath given them He made the Diurnal Motion to cease when Joshua prosecuted his Victory he made it retrograde ten Degrees in the Dial of Achaz which was not by hinderance of a natural Cause which could be no other than an Angel And there is no ground to infer that the Angels either do move or stopt the Diurnal Motion but as God freely gave that power of Motion in the former he withdrew it and in the latter he gave a power of contrary Motion and did
gives only the Existence of Things whose Essence was eternal and so are the Essences of all things that are not inconsistent tho they were never to have Existence And of late some have asserted that the real Existence of Matter and all its Properties are eternal For supposing this World had never been or were destroyed yet it 's impossible to conceive but there behoved to be Longitude Latitude and Profundity which are inseparable from a Body All these are but the Births of Man's Brain inconsistent with the Infinite Perfections of God incroaching upon his Power his Freedom his Wisdom On his Power that he could not annihilate any thing beside himself on his Freedom and the dependence of all things upon him For if these eternal Entities were freely from God he could have forborn to create them if not then they behoved to flow from him by Emanation and so their Being did not depend upon him if they were freely from God yet they were not by Creation for that gives Existence and they have found no Term to express how they were from God but the Wisdom of God is exerted according to his Decrees of Creation and Providence It is sufficiently clear that Possibility is only an extrinsick Denomination from the Power of God having no extrinsick real Object more than the Imagination can give to its Object or that the sight of an Object can operate something real in it As to the eternal Verities that are not concerning the Eternal God they import only an identick Implication in the Terms whereby the Subject is supposed to be of such a nature in which the Attributes are necessarily implied as that every Triangle hath three Angles which is no more than that every Triangle is a Triangle or that every Triangle hath an Angle which is an identick Proposition to each of its Angles but inadequate to the whole which imports no Reality or absolute Entity but only that whenever there is a Triangle it must have Angles but doth not import that the Triangle or Angles have a Being or are real neither is there any more Reality That our Fancy cannot apprehend a non ens but by resemblance of an Entity and so it apprehends Vacuity as a Body having Dimensions which imports no more Reality than when it apprehends Darkness as Blackness Therefore God's Power is not circumscribed by Possibility or Consistency as by the Narrowness or Incapacity of the Object but because the Divine Perfections cannot jar or counteract one another There is another no less groundless and inconsistent Imagination That God by his Power preserves himself and that he is the Cause of his own Being whereas God neither has nor can have a Cause and Preservation is never competent but to that which had a Cause and is a dependent Being The regulated Power of God abates nothing of its Infiniteness because the Exercise of that Power is only limited by his Will and Choice not by the Power it self which still remaineth when it acteth not God's Power is regulated by all his active Perfections as by Will by the unchangeableness of his Decree by his Purity and Holiness by his Bounty and Mercy by his Justice and Fidelity and by his Truth And as it is said it is impossible for God to lie not by his absolute but by his regulate Power so it is no less impossible he should change his Purpose or his Works according to it or that he should not be good just faithful and true God's Power is exerted not only according to his Will but for any thing I can perceive by Reason or Revelation by the sole Acts of his Will whereby he willeth any thing presently to be which the Scripture expresseth by the Word of his Power and that he commanded and it came to pass not by such Commands as he gives to the Rational Creatures which do but express his Pleasure and their Duty But a Command to Things to exist must import his present Will and therefore the Word of his Power must be such a Word of Command as when Christ said to the Leper I will be thou clean and immediately his Leprosy was cleansed He both proved that the Divine Power is exercised by sole Will and that himself was God God's regulate Power by his Wisdom operates by the easiest and most accommodate way and doth nothing in vain that is not requisite for the End proposed but if the End proposed be not only the Production of such an Effect but with it the manifestation of the Greatness of his Power he would choose the way fit for that End and not for the Effect only as when he increased the Oil that sustained Elijah and the Widow of Sareptah but he followed a more natural way when he fed him by the Raven whose swift Wings could soon reach places where the Famine had not reached Christ in preserving Lazarus might have prevented his Death but he shews that he did it to glorify God So he did feed the five thousand and the four thousand by multiplying the Loaves and Fishes tho he could have sustained their Strength a more accommodate but a less evidently miraculous way Yet God will not alter the ordinary course of Nature tho thereby some Inconveniences arise to his own he worketh by the Powers of Nature without Creation or Miracle by preserving the Vigor of the Powers he gave and he doth over-rule the voluntary Powers whose Effects he ordinarily alters by giving Inclination to do those things they would not otherwise do whether as to a single Act or to a kind of Acts by stopping and diverting them towards other Objects or by permitting them to misapply their natural Powers in that which is evil I know no Warrant to pray for the change of Weather but in extraordinary cases or to exercise Faith about these any further than concerns the Mind to make a good use of them Many have stumbled at God's Power of Creation and therefore that God behoved to have a Subject to work upon which were eternal which the more propagated the Opinion of the impossibility of Vacuity and the infinite Extension of Matter tho the Authors of it do no less stiffly maintain Creation than others do That God is not the Author of Sin tho he be the principal Actor of it but that eases not the Difficulty unless they suppose also that Angels and Souls are but the Motions of Matter which some are so grosly absurd as to affirm or that they are eternal which others more famous have professed or that they are Particles of the Divine Nature which is yet more absurd than any of the rest supposing an extended and divisible Deity Is there any Inconsistency that that which once existed not should after exist How much must they derogate from the Power and Glory of God that would attribute nothing to him but to give Matter Figure and Motion and that not by an intrinsick Principle but in the same way that he operated the
can comprehend them distinctly altogether Therefore it is that glorified Creatures will have an excellent and eternal Exercise of their Minds by apprehending distinctly the several Perfections of God and his manifold Decrees and Dispensations which will yield fresh and renewed Pleasures for ever We find by Experience that our Thoughts turning upon a few delightful Objects give a fresh continuance of Pleasure albeit the Perfection of the Objects be but low How fresh then and how great must that Pleasure be that hath the Variety of God's Existence and Nature in being a pure immaterial Spirit and all his Divine Perfections natural and moral and all his Decrees and Dispensations brought to an unalterable Condition Secondly The Delight and Pleasure of God in himself is infinite and is capable of no higher Degree but Creatures are incapable of any infinite Perfection therefore their Delight might by the Power of God be made still greater yet it is fully satisfactory in the degree that God freely gives it and tho there be different degrees of glorified Angels and Saints yet all of them are satisfied without Envy Emulation or desire of more than what they do receive after the Resurrection and Union of the Souls of Men and their glorified Bodies Thirdly The Delight of glorified Creatures is not upon Grounds from themselves but from the free Gift of God nor from Perfections wholly in themselves but in the Power and Love of God preserving them from falling in all occasions of Danger MEDITATION X. Upon God's Holiness or Godlikeness HAving meditated upon the glorious Divine Perfections of God which are natural necessary and immanent so far as my narrow Capacity doth reach and apprehend and in that natural Order whereby the Antecedent doth always make way for the distinct apprehension of the Subsequent the first and absolute Attribute being a Spirit all the rest being relative supposing a Subject to which they relate of which the nearest to the purely immaterial Spirit of God is Omniscience and next thereto Activity by his Will choosing and effectuating according to his Pleasure and then his Omnipotence extending not only to what he chooseth or willeth but to all that is possible and consistent all which are in himself without any Caufe whereby he is self-existent and eternal self-sufficient infinitely delighting in himself and thereby blessed and as to all transient Acts absolutely free and fully independent in his Being Power Choice or Operations I come now to apply my most serious and humble Thoughts to his voluntary Perfections the Effects whereof are terminate upon Creatures and I have earnestly endeavoured to find the natural Order of these as of the former which I perceive not only to be antecedent and consequent but that they are as Causes and Effects which doth not import that any thing in God hath an extrinsick Cause or a real Multiplicity or Difference I do conceive that God alone doth act immediately by his Being some have extended that to Creatures but if without Injury I think not without Error Supposing for instance that the Soul of Man perceiveth judgeth reasoneth chooseth by its own Substance as it is a Spirit and that it is but Mens Fancy that imagine superadded Powers such as the Understanding or Will wherein they seem as much to err in the Defect as the common course of the Schoolmen do in the Excess multiplying real Entities as they imagine as the eternal Essences and Attributes of these things that have existed or do exist and of the real being of things possible that do not never did nor never shall exist And supposing a multitude of Accidents really distinct from any-Substance and that the same individual Accidents are separable from one individual Substance in which they are subjected unto another and which consequently could subsist without any Substance and so not differ from a Substance by subsisting without a Subject but are differenced by having a fitness to perfect a Subject by actual inhering in it and differing also from Modes that these imply an individual Subject from which they are inseparable yet they durst not be so gross as to attribute such Accidents to God which indeed cannot escape to infer a Composition of separable things It seems inconsistent with a created Substance to act by its Substance or immediately It is true that if we suppose all the multitude of Species to differ by Substantials and consequently by separably subsistent Parts and so should conceive the Intellect and the Will to be such then the Soul would substantially comprehend the Intellect and the Will and must act immediately but tho the Capacity to Reason and Choice be no substantial Parts separable from the Soul they may still be essential tho not substantial Differences and then the Soul acts not immediately but by the addition of these and I conceive it an abusive Speech and if properly taken derogatory to God that he could not withdraw the Power of Reasoning or free Choice from the Soul of Man without annihilating its Substance but only changing it unto another kind which yet might essentially differ from a Brute which cannot judg nor compare no more than reason but only perceive by Sense and act by Instinct It doth much more quadrate to the Glory of God that he freely gave these Powers by which the Soul hath the special Nature of Man and not of Necessity That such Powers must be freely superadded to the Substance of Creatures I satisfy my self with this Reason that there are no Substances but Spirits and Matter that all the Species of Creatures are by superadded Powers or Modes which are not separable Beings and therefore if a Spirit by its Substance can reason choose worship or adore then all Spirits behoved necessarily so to do or if Matter as such could move or act all Bodies behoved so to do therefore something must be superadded to make the difference which is neither Body nor Spirit therefore it is the incommunicable Property of God to act immediately That the transient Acts of God's Perfections are Causes and Effects it doth sufficiently satisfy me that I do not unsutably think of God when I enquire Why doth God punish Sin and resolve that it is because he is just And if I yet further inquire Why is God unchangeably just I cannot but think it is either because it is congruous to his glorious Nature to be unchangeably just or that he is unchangeably just only because he will be so I see no reason for any third Ground or Rise whence all God's Decrees and Dispensations do flow I know there be some who think that it would be derogatory to the Freedom and Absoluteness of God if all his Dispensations did not arise only from his Will but that very Reason infers the contrary Conclusion because it brings a Reason why all must flow from God's Will to wit his Freedom and Absoluteness which yet are not his Will nor from his Will nor are they moral but natural Perfections
now think on is God's active Unchangeableness whereby all his Decrees are sutable to himself and all his Actings are unchangeably conform to his Decrees I know that in the right Apprehension of this as in all other the Divine Perfections there is great need of Wariness and Caution lest one of them should be conceived to be inconsistent with or incroach upon another and therefore I might be apt to mistake as others have done the Unchangeableness of God as if it were inconsistent with his Unchangeableness that upon different occasions he should act differently I have seen of late and not without Abhorrence and Admiration published in Print by one that pretends to be a great Divine in the Roman Communion that God is only a common Cause working like the Sun Moon or Stars without Consideration of any particular Circumstances but that all Specialities are acted by Christ whose Understanding being finite as Man cannot comprehend all things at once and therefore the Specialities arise as things fall in his Thoughts It is another strange enough Misapprehension of the Unchangeableness of God as if it did import that he could not have Consideration of the Actings of his free Creatures in any of his Decrees but behoved with as little Consideration of deserving to design the Rejection and eternal Misery of some as of the giving of Grace and eternal Glory and Blessedness unto others It were injurious to imagine that Learned and even Pious and for the main Orthodox Divines could have admitted so harsh a Character of the blessed and infinitely amiable God if their Mistake of the precise Import of God's Unchangeableness had not carried them unto that Supralapsarian Way Others apprehend it must imply a Changeableness in God if his Divine Perfections had any Effect at one time that they had not at another and when they see Scripture and Providence full of the contrary For instance that the Power of God was not always exerting it self in Creation or in the punishing of some and pardoning accepting and glorifying of others yet to maintain their Misapprehension of God's Unchangeableness they strain their Invention to find a Reconciliation and say that there was not any other Act of the Divine Will Power or Perception but his eternal Decree from which alone all these Effects followed so that the Act of Creation was only that Decree as breaking forth in its Effect yea to exclude Changeableness in Knowledg they must also allow that in the beginning God knew not that he was creating or that Creatures were brought forth and not till then which did import no alteration of the Perfection of God's Knowledg because he did as clearly know all things that were to come to pass from Eternity as when they did come to pass yea and knew no more as to the Matter but as to the Being future present or preterit No Invention can avoid that God knows that the World was once to come and now is and that the Flood was to be and is now past Could they also give an account how the same Decree could take Effect by one Act of the Divine Will and yet at so immense distance of Time Certainly there was no Act of God's Power different from his Will in the Decree and if there was a Power different from the Will it did not then begin to exert it self how then should that Act of the Will be efficacious that from Eternity had no Effect till the beginning of Time And how should the Will of the ending of Time be so long after the beginning which could not be by the meer Negation of willing but behoved to be by a positive Act of the Divine Will that such Acts of the same Will should be longer without Effect than others So that one Act of his Will should suspend the Effect of another whereas the Scripture doth always distinguish God's Decrees from his Dispensations and Working Our Saviour saith expresly Hitherto my Father worketh and I work Must we thence say Hitherto my Father decrees and I decree And tho it be said that all God's Purposes take Effect it is also said that all things come to pass according to God's Purpose which explaineth the manner of their taking Effect not by his Purpose but by the Performance of it in working according to it The genuine and proper Subject of Changeableness or Unchangeableness as to Acting originally is in the Purpose or Intention for no rational Being can operate rationally but by an Intention to work whether the Intention be before or with the Operation and therefore is changed by the change of the Intention Therefore God's Unchangeableness doth precisely consist in this that his eternal Purpose or Intention being fully sutable to his Divine Nature could therefore never be changed and by his Omnipotence it could never fail of the intended Effect So that his Unchangeableness is not that he acteth ever the same thing but that he acteth ever sutably to his glorious Nature and doth unchangeably perform what he purposeth No Creature could know God's eternal Purposes Decrees or Intentions or what his Will were without Revelation but by knowing what were congruous and sutable to the Divine Nature Our innate Conceptions of the Divine Actings are chiefly in our Apprehension of what is sutable to the Divine Nature from whence we infer his Unchangeableness Justice Benignity Mercy Faithfulness and Truth which we do not perceive so soon or so clearly as the other We may and do oft doubt concerning several Dispensations whether they flow from God's Justice Benignity or Mercy being yet very clear that they are congruous to his glorious and blessed Nature God's Unchangeableness doth not import that he hath always the same Love of Beneplacence and Beneficence to his Elect before they were converted as after and when they fall in presumptuous Sins for which he withdraws his Countenance their Peace and Joy and doth correct them as when they consider their Ways and repent and he cherisheth and comforteth them albeit his Love of Benevolence to them is ever the same because in all these he acts sutably to himself I abhor their Folly who think that Sin is no more Sin nor no more to be sorrowed for in the Regenerate or that God hath relaxed his Justice in making that which was Sin against his Moral Law to become no more Sin which would indeed import a Mutability in him It is also a groundless and empty Notion to infer from God's Unchangeableness that there can be no more nor no less Motion in the World than at the Creation or that there shall be no more or fewer saved of Mankind than fell of the Angels I do also admire and abhor their Error who hold that God's Love of Benevolence to the same Creature can change seeing it flows from his meer Grace and from no good thing in the Object Whence then should the occasion of the Change arise This Imagination not only incroaches upon the Unchangeableness of God but
Works he hath whereof to glory but not before God as if it were any thing whereof he could glory in himself for all Glorying and Boasting is excluded but Abraham's glorying is in God who freely justified him and he rejoiced from that Act of Faith concerning his Son evidencing the Soundness of the saving Faith and the Manifestation of his Justification thereby both to himself and other Men whereby he glorieth before Men and not before God And whereas it is said That Faith worketh by Love it cannot be understood that Acts of Love are Acts of Faith for they are Graces essentially distinct but that Faith is Man's Part of the Covenant whereby Love is given upon God's Part nor doth it follow that because Faith is perfected by Love therefore its Essence is not distinct from Love Man is perfected by Love yet it is no part of his Being That Historical Faith believing the Truth of the Gospel is specifically different from saving Faith and yet it is said That whosoever believeth Christ is come in the Flesh is born of God for no Man can call Jesus Lord but by the Spirit of God which imports no more than a Sign of saving Faith at that time when there was so general an Opposition against Christ when no Man did avow or own Christ hypocritically 7. The Church of Rome hath more exceeded in bringing Works as Man's Part of the Covenant of Grace than any other Society of Christians for they have made Works the whole and only Part of Man in the Covenant of Grace and have given no Preheminence to Faith but to Charity or Love consequently enough to that Principle As it is said of the three eminent Christian Vertues that of these the greatest is Charity so that if Faith did save as a good Work Love would much more save They acknowledg no Justification distinct from Sanctification they do not require good Works as the Condition of Salvation but as the meritorious Cause of Salvation that God in Justice could not deny Celestial Glory to those that live holily and which is yet more extravagant Supererrogation is the common Opinion publickly preached in that Church and when the Council of Trent was call'd on purpose to amend Errors in Doctrine and Manners that had crept into that Church not one Word in any of their Canons disapproving Works of Supererrogation and the Treasure thereof out of which the Pope by Assignment of the superfluous Merits of the Saints may supply the Merits of others and bring them to Heaven either immediately upon Death or shortning their purging by the purgatorial Fire as soon as he thinks fit and yet they dispute vehemently against the Imputation of the Holiness of Christ. They do acknowledg that Christ's Sufferings have satisfied the Justice of God that without encroaching thereupon he may give Pardon of Sin and they do not ascribe the Pardon of Sin to the Merit of their Holiness but only to the Expiation by Christ's Sufferings and inconsistently enough they require purging by the purgatorial Fire which cannot be thought Correction to amend them and therefore could only be to cleanse and expiate in which they derogate even from the Sufferings of Christ. But to give them the most benign Interpretation they think the Forgiveness of Sin could not exalt Men to heavenly Blessedness but that as in the Covenant of Works every one behoved to merit that Exaltation by their Works which could not be after the Fall because of Original Sin whereby the eating of forbidden Fruit did condemn all Mankind descending from Adam by Ordinary Generation until Christ's Suffering had satisfied that Debt and even the actual Transgressions of those in the Covenant of Grace yet tho Men be still sinful their Sins being pardoned as satisfied by Christ's Sufferings Mens good Works lose not their Effect to merit Heaven as well as Adam's which is the only Difference they make between the Covenant of Grace and the Covenant of Works Nothing can be more contrary to the Covenant of Grace and to the Way of Salvation inculcated in the Gospel wherein 1. All Glorying or Boasting of the Creature attributing any Part of its Salvation to it self is excluded Where is boasting then It is excluded by what Law of Works Nay but by the Law of Faith Therefore we conclude saith the Apostle That a Man is justified by Faith without the Deeds of the Law But God who is rich in Mercy for his great Love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in Sin hath quickned us together with Christ where it is twice repeated by Grace you are saved through Faith not of Works lest any Man should boast Yea Boasting is so far excluded that Man cannot boast of Faith as it is his Part of the Covenant of Grace for it is said By Grace you are saved through Faith and that not of your selves it is the Gift of God What could be more said to exclude Works from Man's Part of the Covenant of Grace not only that there cannot be an equivalent Cause deserving Glory but not so much as the Terms upon which Glory was to be freely given For it is expressy said that we are God's Workmanship created in Christ to good Works which God hath before ordained or prepared that we should walk in them and God hath not predestinated Men to Salvation for their Works foreseen or performed For whom he did foresee them he did predestinate to be conformed to the Image of his Son which Image is Holiness which is not the Cause but the End and Effect of Predestination Good Works indeed are Via Regni but not Gausa Regnandi and they are the Evidences of true and saving Faith to be diligently followed not only by reason of the indispensible Law and Duty anterior in order to any Covenant but as the Means to evidence true Grace and give solid Peace and therefore it is said Strait is the Gate and narrow is the Way that leadeth unto Life and that the Kingdom of God is taken by Violence and the Violent enter it by Force which doth import no more than the Way to the Kingdom And where it is said Blessed are they that do his Commandments that they may have Right to the Tree of Life it doth not import Right by Merit the Word being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that Works can no more properly be called Right than the Evidence of Lands or Inheritance are called the Rights thereof as sighifying the same and therefore the explicatory Words are subjoined and may enter in through the Gates to the City All others but the Romanists that bring in Works to the Covenant of Grace bring them in as the Conditions of it but not as a deserving meritorious Cause much less as a superfluous supererrogatory Merit seeing Christ hath declared so clearly that the first and great Command of God is Thau shait love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart with all thy Soul and with all thy Mind