never be able to forbear admiring the Skill and adoring the Wisdom and Goodness of the great Harmostes But since 't is so impossible for us to discern all the Connections and Tendencies of God's Actions how unreasonable is it for us to censure the Goodness of his Nature because there are some Actions of his and some Effects of those Actions whose Goodness at present we are not able to discover Wherefore if we have either Reason or Modesty in us we ought to be satisfied with those Arguments of his Goodness that are drawn from the Principles of his Nature and though we cannot account for the Goodness of all his Actions in particular yet firmly to resolve that nothing but Good can come from a good God PSALM CXIX 68 Thou art good and thou dost good I Proceed to the second Part of the Text viz. the Operations of God that flow from the immutable Goodness of his Nature Thou dost good And these as they flow from the Goodness of God's Nature so they are plain Proofs and Indications of it For as the Nature of Things is demonstrable by their Effects as well as their Causes so the Goodness of God may be as well demonstrated by the Operations it exerts and the Effects it produces in the World as by those Principles and Perfections of his Nature from whence it necessarily arises And it is as certain that that Being must be good that hath all the necessary Causes and Principles of Goodness in it for if it were indifferent to the Almighty whether he did Good or Evil he would doubtless either retire from Action and do neither or else he would do as much Mischief as Good or if he were inclined to do ill he would do it and not force himself to act contrary to his own Inclinations Wherefore since he doth Good so constantly and so universally he can neither be supposed to be averse nor indifferent to it and if he be neither of these his doing Good must necessarily proceed from the immutable Inclination of his Nature thereunto If therefore we can prove from the whole Course and Series of God's Operations that he doth Good it will be an infallible Argument that he is so Now all those Operations of God that pass out of himself and terminate upon others are reducible to Creation and Providence both which will afford us abundant Instances of the Truth of the Text that God doth Good I. I begin with the first viz. Creation in which it is apparent that God hath done an infinite deal of Good And hence the Psalmist tells us that the whole earth is full of the goodness of the Lord Psalm xxxiii 5 so also Psalm civ 24 O Lord how manifold are thy works in wisdom hast thou made them all the earth is full of thy Riches i. e. the Riches of his Goodness and so is the great and wide Sea And God himself after his great Work of Creation upon a general Survey of the whole Fabrick of Beings pronounces all to be very good Gen. i. 31 But to demonstrate more particularly the great Goodness that God hath expressed in his Creation I shall briefly give you these four Instances of it 1. That whatsoever Beings are incapable of Happiness in themselves he hath made them so far as they can be subservient to the Happiness of others 2. That he hath given actual Existence to all kinds of Beings that are capable of any Degree of Happiness 3. That he hath furnished them with all the sufficient Means and Abilities to obtain the utmost Happiness that they are capable of 4. That in all those Beings that are capable of Happiness he hath implanted a natural Disposition of Doing Good to others 1. That whatsoever Beings are incapable of Happiness in themselves he hath made them so far as they can be subservient to the Happiness of others For it is impossible that all Beings that are capable of Happiness could ever have been actually happy had not God created some Beings that are utterly incapable of it For thus all the Heavenly Bodies the Air and Earth and Fire and Water are Beings utterly incapable of Happiness they being all inanimate and consequently void of all Sense and Perception either of Happiness or Misery but yet it cannot be denied but they are indispensably necessary to the Happiness of a World of animated Beings that are capable of some Degrees of Happiness Thus for instance the Happiness of all sublunary Things of Men and Beasts of the Fowls of the Air and the Fishes of the Sea depends in a great Measure on those dead inanimated Elements and therefore if God had not created some Beings incapable of Happiness there are many Beings that are capable of it must either have not been or have been miserable And therefore God hath not only created these but out of his great Goodness to his living Creatures he hath created them in such an Order as renders them as subservient as they can be to their Welfare and Happiness Thus the Sun whom God hath ordained the universal Foster-father of all sublunary Beings though he feels no Happiness himself is created by our great Benefactor in such a Form and put in such a Course of Motion as renders him most serviceable to all those animated Beings that are capable of Happiness For first he is created of a fiery Substance by which he not only enlightens this lower World but warms and cherishes it with a fruitful and vigorous Heat And then God hath cast all its mighty Substance into the Figure of a perfect Globe that so if the Earth moves round it it might be able to communicate the comfort of its Light and Heat to it throughout all the Circle of its Motion or that if it moves round the Earth it may by its Figure which is most apt for Motion be the better enabled to walk his Rounds about the World and so visit all his Foster-Children and refresh them with his Light and Warmth as oft as their Necessities require And then for his Situation in the World what an exact Care hath the good Father of Beings taken to place him in such a convenient Distance as that he might neither be too near us nor too far from us both which would have been equally mischievous For had he been advanced higher in the Heavens he would have left us continually frozen and benighted had he been thrust lower he would have perpetually scorched us with the too near Neighbourhood of his Flames But from that Orb wherein he is placed all his Aspects on us are benigne and Thanks be to a good God we neither want his Heat or Light nor are we scorched and dazled by it For if God had not been very careful of the Publick Good he might as well have fixed the Sun in the Orb of the Moon as where it now is and then as its Nearness to us would have turned the World into a Torrid Zone so it would have
see those fare well whom we have seen deserve well and when any unjust Violence is offered them our Nature shrinks at and abhors it We pity and compassionate the Miserable when we know not why and are ready to offer at their Relief when we can give no Reason for it which is a plain Evidence that these Things proceed not merely either from our Education or deliberate Choices but from some natural Instinct antecedent to both and that in the very Frame of our Nature there is implanted by the Author of it a Sympathy with Virtue and an Antipathy to Vice And hence it is that in the Beginnings of Sin our Nature is so shy of an evil Action and doth so startle and boggle at it that it approaches it with such a modest Coyness and goes blushing to it like a Virgin to an Adulterers Bed that it passes into Sin with such Regret and Reluctancy and looks back upon it with such Shame and Confusion which in our tender Years when we are not as yet arrived to the Exercise of our Understandings cannot be supposed to proceed from Reason or Conscience but from some secret Instinct of Nature which by these and such like Indications declares it self violated and offended And this plainly shews the mighty Respect that God hath to Righteousness that he hath woven into our Beings such a grateful Sense of it and such a Horror of its Contraries For this natural Sense was doubtless intended by God to be the first Guide of humane Nature that so when as yet 't is not capable of following Reason and Conscience it might be led on to Righteousness by its own necessary Instincts that these might dispose us to our Duty and keep us out of all wicked Prejudices till we come under the Conduct of our Reason that so this may then lead us forward with more Ease and Facility in the Paths of Righteousness What a plain Indication therefore is this of God's Love of Righteousness that he hath taken so much Care to incline our Natures to it that he hath not only given us reasonable Faculties that do naturally direct us to Righteousness but hath also taken so much Care to lead us to it by Instinct till we are grown up to the Exercise of those Faculties and are capable of being guided by them 3 ly Another Indication of God's Love of Righteousness is his coupling good Effects to righteous Actions and bad ones to their Contraries For if we consult the Consequents of humane Actions we shall generally find that all moral Good resolves into natural in the Health and the Pleasure the Credit and Tranquility of those that practise it For so the first Great Mover in that Course and Series of Things which he hath established in the World hath ordered and disposed it that every Action which is morally Good should ordinarily tend to and determine in some natural Benefit and Advantage that the good Government of every Passion should tend to the Tranquility of our Minds and the due Regulation of every Appetite center in the Health and Pleasure of our Bodies that Abstinence and Humility Honesty and Charity should have happy Effects chained to them that they should contribute to our Good both private and publick and that their contrary Vices should be always pregnant with some mischievous Inconvenience that they should either untune the Organs of our Reason or impair the Vigour and Activity of our Tempers or imbroil the Peace and Tranquility of our Minds or invade the Common-weal of Societies which includes the Interest of each particular Member Such contrary Effects as these are as necessary to vertuous and vicious Actions in that Course of Things which God hath established as Light is to the Sun or Heat to the Fire by which he hath plainly demonstrated how contrarily he is affected to those contrary Causes For by those natural Goods and Evils which are appendent to humane Actions he hath plainly distinguished them into moral Goods and Evils and those good and bad Effects which he hath annexed to them are most sensible Marks of his Love of the one and his Hatred of the other For to be sure he would never have made Righteousness the Cause of so much good to us if he had not loved it nor Wickedness the Spring of so many Mischiefs and Inconveniences if he had not hated and abhorred it The Effects of Righteousness are ordinarily a Reward and the Consequents of Sin a Punishment to it self and this by God's own Order and Disposal and pray by what Significations can a Law-giver more effectually declare his Love and Hatred of Actions than by rewarding and punishing them 4 thly And lastly Another Indication of God's Love of Righteousness is the natural Presages and Abodings which he hath implanted in our Natures of the future Reward of righteous Actions and the future Punishment of their Contraries That there are such Abodings as these in humane Nature is apparent by this that antecedently to all divine Revelation Men of all Ages Nations and Religions have felt and experienced them yea and that it hath been experienced not only among the politer and more learned Nations who may be supposed to be persuaded of a future State by the probable Arguments of Philosophy but also among the most barbarous and uncultivated who cannot be supposed to have believed it upon Principles of Reason For though some of them have been so rude as to disband Society and live like Beasts without Laws and Government yet have they not been able to extinguish these their natural Hopes and Fears of future Rewards and Puishments which is an unanswerable Evidence how deeply the Sense of another World is imprinted upon humane Nature And as we have such a natural Sense of a future State as we cannot easily stifle so our Minds do naturally abode that we shall fare well or ill in it according as we behave our selves righteously or unrighteously in this Life When we do well and reflect upon it it leaves a delicious Farwel on our Minds our Conscience smiles and promises glorious Things that we shall reap from it most happy and blessed Fruits in the other World And as the Sense of doing well doth naturally suggest to us the most ravishing Hopes and blisful Expectations so the sense of doing ill fills our Minds with sad and dire Presages our Conscience abodes us a black and woful Eternity wherein we shall dearly pay for our sinful Delights and Gratifications And though for the present we can divert and stifle this troublesome sense of our Natures yet Naturam expellas is true in this also though we thrust off Nature with a Fork yet 't will return again upon us and a Fit of Sickness a sudden Calamity or a serious Thought will soon awake and revive in it these black Prognosticks of our future Torment And hence we generally find that bad Men are most afraid of Eternity when they are nearest to it their Fear like
weaker and that Pleasure and Ease that Tranquility of Mind and Peace of Conscience which we shall feel accruing to us out of the Discharge of our Duty will by Degrees so indear and connaturalize it to us that at last it will be much harder for us to sin than to obey Wherefore let us stand no longer like naked Boys shivering upon the Brinks of Religion wishing that we were in but afraid to venture but let us consider seriously resolve sincerely and then leap in boldly and though at first we may find it difficult to swim against the Stream and stem the Tyde of our own bad Inclinations yet if we can but hold out couragiously a while we shall feel the Current slacken by Degrees till the Tyde of Nature turn and run the contrary Way and then we shall be carried on with Ease and Delight and swim chearfully and pleasantly down with the Stream For when once we have conquered the bad Inclinations of our Nature Religion will be a mighty Ease and Refreshment to us and we shall feel a thousand times more Pleasure and Satisfaction in it than ever we did in all our sinful Enjoyments so that then we shall find the Truth of the Text and be able to pronounce from our own Experience that God's Commandments are not grievous PSALM CXIX 68 Thou art good and thou dost good I Have been discoursing concerning the Necessity of our loving of God in order to our being truly Religious and shewed you at large that this is not only the great Principle of all Religion but that of all others it is the most fruitful and operative And now that I may lay this Foundation of true Religion in you I shall explain to you the infinite Cause and Reason that we have to love him and because Goodness is the Beauty of a reasonable Nature and Beauty is the Object of Love I shall endeavour to demonstrate to you the infinite Goodness of God that I may thereby affect you with his Beauty and if possible inflame all your Souls with the Love of him And that I may the more fully convince you of the divine Goodness I shall endeavour to prove it from four distinct Topicks 1. From the Nature of God 2 ly From the Creation of God 3 ly From the Providence of God And 4 ly From the Revelations he hath made to the World And these I intend shall be the Arguments of four distinct Discourses the three first of which lie plainly in the Text Thou art good and thou dost good Thou art good That plainly denotes what God is in himself that he is naturally and essentially good that he is of a most loving kind and benevolent Nature and hath a most vehement Propension to do good to others founded in his immutable Being Thou dost good that denotes the Exercise and Out-going of this his essential Benevolence in the Works of his Creation and Providence and that this his natural Propension to do good is not at all sleepy or unactive that it is not a lazy and restive Woulding or Volition but that it always sallies forth into Action and doth most vigorously exercise it self either in making of Objects to imploy it self about or in upholding and governing them when they are made So that the Words contain these two things 1. What God is in himself Thou art good 2 ly What he is in those Actions that are determined without himself Thou dost good 1. I begin with the first of these What God is in himself Thou art good i. e. Thou art so essentially and according to the unalterable Propension of thy Nature And this as I told you I shall in the first Place endeavour to demonstrate from the Nature of God that is from that intire Complexion of all possible Perfections whereof his Nature is composed For in Order to our handling of this Argument this must be premised that God is a Being endowed with all possible Perfections and consequently thereunto that he is infinitely powerful and infinitely wise and consequently to that that he is infinitely Happy and consequently to this that he loves himself infinitely and that all this is so is very evident from the Nature of the Thing For first we must necessarily suppose one Original Cause of all Things for else we can give no possible Account how those Things that once were not could ever come into Being and we must also as necessarily suppose that this Original Cause was Self-originated i. e. that it received its Being and Existence from none but it self for else it cannot be the Original Cause but must it self be the Effect of some other Cause that was in Being before it That existing of it self without any Cause it is infinitely removed from Not-being for that which is without any Cause can ever be without any Cause meerly from that exuberant Fulness of Essence that is in it self And that which can be for ever without any Cause must necessarily be so because this is a most necessary Act and as such must be exerted ad extremum virium Agentis consequently to which we must also suppose that that which is infinitely removed from Not-being hath the utmost Perfection of Essence in it For the Notion of Essence nakedly considered is to be and therefore by how much the more remote any Essence is from Not-Being by so much the more perfect it must necessarily be Again in Consequence to this we must also suppose that that which hath in it self without any Cause the utmost Perfection of Essence must have in it self also the utmost of all other Perfections that by way of Adjunct or Attribute such an inexhaustible Essence is capable of that is that it must be Powerful and Wise and whatsoever else is a possible Perfection of Essence For Plenitude of Essence consists in being as much as it can be and so long as any Being is capable of being any more than it is it hath not all the possible Degrees of Essence in it for every Perfection that Essence by way of Attribute is capable of is a Degree of positive Entity Thus Wisdom and Power are not meer Privations of Weakness and Folly but Things that have some Degree of real positive Essence in them and consequently what Being soever hath not these must necessarily have it in some Degrees of Not-Being and 't is impossible that any Essence should be infinitely removed from Not-Being which hath any Degree of Not-Being in it Lastly consequently to this we must also suppose that a Being endowed with all possible Perfections being infinitely Powerful and infinitely Wise must needs be infinitely Happy for wheresoever those great Perfections are they must necessarily supply whatsoever is necessary to an infinite Happiness And then from hence it nessarily follows that a Being that is thus infinitely Happy must needs infinitely love and delight in it self because within the vast Circumference of its own Being it hath every Thing that it needs desires or affects
miserable Condition they being there exposed to Hunger and Cold and perpetual Slavery So that if a Man should judge of the whole Empire by this Part of it he would conclude that Emperor to be a most savage Tyrant and his Country to be the most miserable Place in the World whereas in Reality all the other Parts of that Empire are rendred more happy by the Miseries of this Place which serve to strike an Aw into all the other Subjects of it and to restrain them within the Bounds of their Loyalty and Duty And so unless we had as full a Prospect of the whole Dominion of Gods Providence as we have of this little Spot of it we ought not to censure his Government of the Whole by the little Inconveniencies that occur in his Government of a Part for in such a vast Dominion as God's is there may be a thousand good Reasons that we know not of why some Parts of it should be more unhappy than others and if in some particulars he incommodes this Part for the publick Commodity of the Whole we are so far from having any Reason to complain that we ought in all Justice to praise and adore his Goodness for it It is enough for us that we understand so much of Gods Nature as we do and have such apparent Instances of his Goodness in the Works of his Creation and Providence and therefore if we in this little Part of Gods Empire suffer some small Inconveniencies we ought to bless and adore his Goodness for those greater Goods we enjoy and to rest satisfied with this that our particular Inconveniencies may for all we know be great Conveniencies to the Publick 5 thly That many other Things seem evil to us in the Course of Gods Providence because we judge of them by their present sensible Effects and are not able to comprehend the universal Drift and Connexion and Dependence of them For as I have already shewn you in the former Discourse on this Argument there is a continued Juncture and Dependence from first to last between all the Actions and Contrivances of divine Providence and every one hath a Relation to every one from the Beginning to the End of all that mighty Chain of Causes whereof it consists So that 't is impossible to judge rightly of one Part of Providence separately from the rest because we see not the Relation it hath either to what went before or to what is to follow after and though singly considered it may be hurtful yet in Conjunction with all the rest it may be exceedingly advantagious He that looks only on the first Links of that curious Chain of Providence in the History of Joseph will be apt to entertain a very bad Opinion of the Whole first he is thrown into a desolate Pit then sold a Slave then falsely accused then cast into Prison Lord what a tragical Prologue is here But then take all those Things in Conjunction with what follows and you shall presently see that Scene clear up and all those sad Preparations ending in a joyful Conclusion And if we consider that most glorious Part that ever Gods Providence acted on the Stage of the World viz. the History of our blessed Saviour how dark and gloomy doth the former Part of it look if we view it separately from the Antecedents and Consequents of it Surely if any Thing would justify our hard Censures of God's Providence it would be the beholding of such a rare and excellent Person exposed to so many Miseries and Calamities to see him cast forth to the wide World as a helpless Prey to the Rage of his Enemies to behold him hanging upon the Cross deserted of his Friends mock'd and tormented by his barbarous Murderers and in the most bitter Agonies breathing out his white and innocent Soul O good Lord What a dismal Prospect of thy Providence is here But stay a little let us but see the glorious Light that in Conclusion broke out of this dismal Darkness first he is raised from the Dead then he ascends up to Heaven where at the right Hand of his Father he reigns an eternal King in full Power and Authority to give Gifts unto Men and bestow those immortal Rewards on them which he purchased for them with his Blood So that though singly and apart the first Scenes of this great Providence were very dismal and affrighting yet considered altogether how beautiful and harmonious doth it appear So true is that of the Preacher Eccles. 3.11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time Also he hath set the world in their heart so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end And therefore because we are not able to see from the Beginning to the End of God's Providence it is an unreasonable Thing for us to censure the Whole because of some seeming Inconveniencies that we see in those Parts of it that lie before us Let us stay but till the winding up of the Bottom till all is finished and Present it one intire Piece to our View and then we shall have leave to censure if we can find any Reason for it 6 thly And lastly many other Things seem evil to us in the Course of God's Providence which are not so merely because we understand very little of the other World It seems to us a mighty Evil in Providence that so great a Part of the World is left in Darkness and Ignorance and in so great a Measure deprived of the vast Advantages of true Religion but how do we know how God will dispose of them in the other World what Abatements he will make them and by what Measures he will judge them whether he will not allow them some farther Time of Tryal and so make good to them there whatsoever hath been wanting to them here But whatsoever he doth or will do this we may be sure of that he will damn none but those that are first self-condemned but those that knowingly and willingly miscarry and if so then he will exact of them but in Proportion to their Abilities and will not require Brick where he hath given no Straw But which way soever he deals with them to be sure first or last he will not be wanting in any Degrees of Kindness to them that are fit either for a wise Sovereign to grant or a reasonable Subject to demand and if he will do so as undoubtedly he will how unreasonably do we complain of his Providence towards us And though in this Life we see many good Men reduced to a very calamitous Condition yet how do we know how necessary this may be to the securing of their Happiness in the World to come For since our main State and Interest is in that other World there is no doubt but the Providence of God over us doth chiefly Respect that and if so how unreasonably do we censure it upon the Score of the present Evils it exposes us
place having obtained eternal Redemption for us And in Virtue of this Blood which he poured out as a Sacrifice of our Sins upon the Cross he now pleads our Cause at the right Hand of his Father and ever lives to make Intercession for us So that you see the Death of Christ had in it all the necessary Ingredients of a propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the World and having so what a prodigious Instance is it of the Love of God to us that rather than destroy us he would give up his own Son to be a Sacrifice for us I do not deny but if he had pleased he might have pardoned and saved us without any Sacrifice at all but he knew very well that if he should do so it would be much worse for us He knew that if he should pardon our Sins without giving us some great Instance of his implacable Hatred of them we should be too prone to presume upon his Lenity and thereupon to return again to our old Vomit and Uncleanness and therefore though it would have been more for the Ease and Interest of his blessed Son to have pardoned us without any Sacrifice at all yet such was his Love to us that because he foresaw that this Way of pardoning would prove fatal and dangerous to us he was resolved that he would not do it without being moved thereunto by the greatest Sacrifice the World could afford him and that no less a Propitiation should appease his Wrath against Offenders than the Blood of his own Son that so by beholding his Severity against our Sins in this unvaluable Sacrifice of the Blood of his Son we might be sufficiently terrified from returning again to them by the very same Reason that moved him to pardon them that we might not think light of that which God would not forgive without such a vast Consideration but might tremble to think of repeating those Sins the Price of whose Pardon was the dearest Blood of the Son of God Hence is that of the Apostle Rom. iii. 25 26. whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his Blood to declare his Righteousness that is his righteous Severity against Sin for the remission of Sins that are past through the forbearance of God to declare I say at this time his Righteousness that he might be just that is sufficiently severe against the Sins of Men so as to warn them from returning and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus So that now he hath reduced Things to an excellent Temper having so provided that neither himself nor we might be damnified that we might not suffer by our doing again what we have done and that he might not suffer by our doing still the same that he might be what he is a pure and a holy Saviour and that we might be what we ought dutiful and obedient Subjects Now what an amazing Instance of God's Love is this that he should so far consult the good of his Creatures as to Sacrifice his own Son to their Benefit and Safety How inexpressibly must he needs love us that for our sakes could behold his most dearly beloved Son hanging on the Cross covered with Wounds and Blood forsaken by his Friends despised and spit on by his Barbarous Enemies that could hear him complain in the Bitterness of his Soul My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And yet suffer him to continue under that unsufferable Agony till he had given up his white and innocent Soul an unspotted Sacrifice for the Sins of the World Yea that notwithstanding the infinite Love that he bore him and the piteous Moans that his Torments forced from him was so far from relieving him that for our sakes he inflicted upon him the utmost Misery that human Nature could bear that so having an experimental Sense of the most grievous Suffering that Mankind is liable to and being touched with the utmost Feeling of our Infirmities and in all Points tempted like unto us he might carry a more tender Commiseration for us to Heaven and know the better how to pity us in all our Griefs and Extremities For in all things it behoved him saith the Apostle to be made like unto his Brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest Heb. ii 17 Hear O Heavens and give Ear O Earth and let all the Creation attend with Astonishment to this stupendous Story of Love which so far exceeds all the heroick Kindnesses that ever any Romance of Friendship thought of that no less Evidence than that of Miracles could have ever rendred it credible Well then might the Apostle say herein is love not that we loved God for after such vast Obligations this is no great Wonder but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our Sins 1 Joh. iv 10 And thus you see what an unspeakable Instance of the Love of God his giving his only begotten Son is I shall now conclude this Argument with a few practical Inferences from the whole 1. From hence I infer what monstrous Ingratitude it would be in us to deny any Thing to God that he demands at our Hands who hath been so liberal to us as to give up his only begotten Son for our sakes O blessed God! If it were possible for us to do or suffer for thee a thousand Times more than at present we are able what a poor Return were this for the Gift of thy Son that unspeakable Expression of thy Goodness And can we deny thee any Thing after such an Instance of Love especially when thy Demands are so gentle and reasonable When he requires nothing of us but what is for our good and the Requital he demands for all his Love to us is only that we should love our selves and express this Love in doing those Duties which he therefore enjoyns because they tend to our Happiness and avoiding those Sins which he therefore forbids because he knows they will be our Bane and Poyson Can any of my Lusts be as dear to me as the only begotten Son was to the Father of all things And yet he parted with him out of Love to me and shall not I part with these for the Love of him How can we pretend to any Thing that is modest or ingenuous tender or apprehensive in humane Nature when nothing will oblige us no not this astonishing Love of God in sending his Son from Heaven to live and die Miserably for our sakes Lord What do thy holy Angels think of us How do thy blessed Saints resent our Unkindness towards thee Yea how justly do the Devils themselves reproach and upbraid our Baseness who bad as they are were never so much Devils yet as to make an ungrateful Return of such a vast Obligation 2 ly From hence I infer how desperate our Condition will be if we defeat the End of this Gift of the Son of God and render it ineffectual to us For God hath no
all other natural Motions being swiftest when 't is nearest it's Center For so Plato hath observ'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When Men are near Death or suppose themselves near it there arises in them great Fear and Thoughtfulness of a future State which before they never thought of And that this springs not from Superstition but from Nature is evident by this that Atheists themselves who are most remote from Superstition when they come to die are rarely able to suppress this ominous Dread and Fear of another World but in despight of themselves are forced into those dismal Expectations which before they laughed at A clear Demonstration that these ill Abodings spring from something within them that they cannot conquer and that what their Minds now speak is not so much the Sense of their Opinion as their Nature And this Language of Nature is a clear Expression of God's Love of Righteousness for the Voice of Nature is only the Voice of the God of Nature ecchoed and rebounded and to be sure whatever he imprints upon our Natures is the Sense and Meaning of his own Heart since his Veracity will not permit him to print any Falshood there And since by these our natural Abodings the God of Nature proposes to us a future Reward if we are righteous and a future Punishment if we are wicked he hath hereby as certainly declared to us how much he loves Righteousness and hates the Contrary as he can possibly do by the most express Promise which he hath made to reward the one or Threatning to punish the other And thus you see what natural Indications and Discoveries God hath made of his unfeigned Love of Righteousness which are such as without any additional Revelation are sufficient to convince considering Men that God is a most sincere and affectionate Lover of Righteousness and righteous Men and that if we will but unfeignedly submit our selves to the eternal Laws of Goodness we shall thereby make our selves the best Friend who is a never-failing Fountain of Goodness and who will do us more good than all the Beings in the World should they conspire to be our Benefactors and that on the Contrary if we persist in Sin and Unrighteousness we shall most certainly provoke him to be our mortal Enemy and render our selves eternally odious and hateful in his Eyes that his incensed Wrath will sooner or later break forth upon us and prosecute us with eternal Vengeance and that we can expect nothing but black and dismal Issues while we are hated by him who is the Fountain of all Love and Goodness All this we may be sufficiently convinced of by seriously attending to those natural Discoveries which God hath made of his Love of Righteousness But yet because he saw Mankind so unattentive to the Voice of their Natures so unobservant of it's Language and Meaning as to run headlong on notwithstanding all it's Countermands into the greatest Impiety and Wickedness he hath been graciously pleased to add to these natural Discoveries of his Love of Righteousness sundry great and eminent supernatural ones such as one would think were sufficient to rouze and awake the most stupid and insensible Creatures into a serious Attention to them all which are reducible to these following Heads 1. His conferring such great and miraculous Favours upon righteous Persons and inflicting such severe Judgments on the Wicked 2. His making so many Revelations to the World for the promoting of Righteousness and discountenancing of Sin 3. His sending his own Son into the World to transact such mighty Things for the Incouragement of Righteousness and discouragement of Sin 4. His promising such vast Rewards to us upon Condition of our being righteous and denouncing such fearful Punishments against us in Case we do neglect it 5. His grantaing his blessed Spirit to us to excite us to and assist us in our Endeavours after Righteousness 1. One supernatural Expression of God's Love of Righteousness is his conferring great and miraculous Favours upon righteous Persons and inflicting severe Judgments upon the Wicked And of this we have infinite Instances in the several Ages of the World there being scarce any History either sacred or prophane which abounds not with them several of which both Blessings and Judgments do as plainly evince themselves to be intended for Rewards and Punishments as if they had been attended with a Voice from Heaven declaring the Reasons for which they were bestowed and inflicted For how many famous Instances have we of the miraculous Deliverances of Righteous Persons who by an invisible Hand have been rescued from the greatest Dangers when in all outward Appearance their Condition was hopeless and desperate and of wonderful Blessings that have happened to them not only without but contrary to all secondary Causes Of some that have been so eminently rewarded in Kind as that the Good which they received was a most visible token of the Good which they did of others that have received the Blessings they ask'd whilst they were praying for them and obtained the Grant of them with such distinguishing Circumstances as did plainly signify them to be the Answers and Returns of their devout Desires And so on the contrary how many notable Examples are there of such miraculous Judgments inflicted upon unrighteous Persons as have either exceeded the Power of all secondary Causes or else have been caused by them contrary to their natural Tendency of Men that have been punished in the very Act of their Sin and sometimes in the very Part by which they have offended that have had the Evil of their Sin retaliated upon them in a correspondent Evil of Suffering and been punished with those very Judgments which they have imprecated on themselves in Justification of a Falshood Now though in the ordinary Course of Things that of the Wise Man is most true that we know neither love nor hatred by any thing that is before us because ordinarily all things come alike to all and there is one Event to the Righteous and the Wicked Eccles. ix 1 2. yet when the Providence of God so visibly steps out of it's ordinary Course to bless the Righteous and punish the Wicked it is a plain Indication of his Love to the one and his Hatred to the other For these irregular Providences have plain and visible Tokens of God's Love and Anger imprinted on their Foreheads and it would be Stupidity to attribute them either to a blind Chance or the necessary Revolutions of secondary Causes when they are stamp'd with such legible Characters of their being designed and intended for Rewards and Punishments For if these were either casual or necessary why should they not happen alike to all as well as ordinary Providences Why should not there be as many Examples of the miraculous Blessings and Deliverances of the Vnrighteous as there are of the Righteous Why should not as many Men have suffered as remarkably the Evils which they have imprinted on themselves in attesting the