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
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
to when we know so little of the future State to which all its Transactions do chiefly relate Wherefore let us forbear a while till we come into the other World and understand the whole Design and Contrivance and then we shall see that all will be right and well yea and infinitely better than ever we could imagin But for us to censure now when we know so little of our future State which is the main and ultimate Scope of Providence is just as if a Man should pass his Judgment on a Picture when he sees nothing of it but some few rude Lines and very imperfect Strokes Let us have but the Patience to suspend our Judgment a while till God hath finished the whole Draught and given it all its natural Colours and Proportions and then I am sure we shall see Cause enough forever to admire his Skill and adore his Wisdom and Goodness And thus you see by apparent Instances how good God is in his Providence towards us and how unreasonable it is for us to censure his Goodness notwithstanding all those seeming Evils that happen in the World And now what remains but that with all Humility and Chearfulness we resign up our selves into the Hands of our most merciful Father concluding as most certainly we may that whatsoever he doth with us or howsoever he disposes of us it will be all for our good in the later End if it be not through our own Default For where can we be safer than in the Hands of an Omnipotent and Omniscient Goodness a Goodness that knows what is best for us and wills what it knows to be so and doth whatsoever it wills Surely in such Hands our Condition is a thousand times better and safer than if we had full Power to effect our own Wishes and all the Events that concern us were in our own Disposal And if God should shake us off from all Dependence on him and resign up the whole Conduct of our Affairs into our own Hands if he should say to us since you mislike of my Conduct I will no more intermedle with you or any thing that concerns you take your selves into your own Disposal and manage all your Concernments as you please If I say he should do thus with us we should be left in a most forlorn and deplorable Condition and unless we were wholly abandoned of our own Reason as well as Gods Providence we should on our bended Knees resign up all into his Hands again and beseech him for his Pity and his Mercy sake to do any Thing with us that will consist with his Goodness to scourge and chasten us for our Frowardness as much and as long as his own fatherly Bowels will endure it rather then give us up to our own Conduct or leave our Affairs in the Disposal of our own blind and precipitant Wills For so long as God is so powerfully and so wisely good as he is it is the Interest of every Creature in Heaven and Earth to be at his Disposal and to take up that self-resigning Prayer of our Saviour Father not our Wills but thy Will be done For since God wills our good as much or more than our selves it must doubtless be our Interest that his Will should take place whensoever it stands in Competition with ours because he doth not only wish well to us as much as we do to our selves but he knows what is best for us a great deal better than we Wherefore let us learn in all Conditions to repose our Minds in the good Providence of God and to satisfy our selves in its Managment and Disposal of us for whatsoever Condition it may bring us into whilst we are wandring through this Vale of Tears this is most certainly and eternally true that God is good and doth good JOHN III. 16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life THE Three first Topicks from whence I undertook to prove the Goodness of God I have already handled on another Text and shewed 1 st from his Nature 2 ly from his Creation and 3 dly from his Providence That he is infinitely good I proceed now to the 4 th and last viz. from Principles of Revelation the main of which is comprehended in the Text God so loved the World c. It is indeed a most glorious Instance of the Goodness of God that when he had imprinted his Laws upon our Nature in such legible Characters and given them such apparent Sanctions in the Nature of Things having made such a sensible Distinction between Moral Good and Evil by those natural good and evil Consequents which he hath inseparably intailed on them And when Mankind by their wilful Wickedness and Inadvertency had almost obliterated the Law of their Nature and extinguished their natural Sense of Good and Evil and immersed themselves in the most barbarous Impieties and Immoralities Notwithstanding all this that he had done for us and we against our selves he should still be so kind and compassionate as to put forth a new Edition of his Laws and reveal his Will anew to us in such an extraordinary manner that when he had implanted a Light in our Natures that was sufficient to have directed us into the several Paths of our Duty and we by our own Neglect and Abuse of it had almost extinguished this Candle of the Lord in us and consequently involved our selves in Midnight Darkness and Ignorance he should then be so compassionate as to hang out a Light from Heaven to us to rectify our Wanderings and guid our Feet in the Paths we should walk in was such a glorious Expression of his Goodness as for ever deserves our most thankful Acknowledgments But then that he should not only reveal to us what he had before imprinted on our Nature and we had most unworthily rased out and obliterated but also discover so much more to us than ever we did or could have known by the Light of our Nature that he should not only repeat his former Kindness to us which we had so shamefully abused but make such stupendous Additions to it as he hath done in the Revelation of his Gospel that manger all those Impieties and Provocations by which for so many Ages we had excited his Patience he should not only so love us as to restore to us the Light which we had almost extinguished but to give his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish c. is such an amazing Instance of Goodness as can hardly be reflected on without an Extasy of Admiration In which Words you have God's revealed Love and Goodness to the World measured by a two-fold Standard 1. By the Greatness of the Gift which he hath bestowed upon the World God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son 2. The blessed End for which he did bestow him that whosoever believeth in him
blessed Master that with vast Wages he hires his Servants to a Work that is a noble Reward to it self and courts them with the Promise of Heaven to be kind and merciful to themselves O thou boundless and bottomless Love What Tongue is able to express thy Beneficence that hast prepared and promised a Heaven of endless and ravishing Joys and Pleasures only to tempt and bribe thy Creatures to do what is good for themselves and without any Prospect of Self-advantage hast obliged us to be our own Benefactors by promising to reward us for being so with a most glorious and blisful Immortality 3 dly The Condition is small and easie to be performed but the Reward is immense and boundless For what doth the Lord our God require of us bot only to act like Men and follow the Prescriptions of Right Reason Which if there had never been any Law given to the World nor any Reward annexed to the keeping it would have prescribed to us to live soberly righteously and godly in this present World for prescinding from all Obligations of Law and Conscience to do thus becomes all reasonable Natures and is much more for their Interest and Happiness than the contrary And is this so hard a Restraint to be confined to do nothing but what becomes us and with-hold from nothing but counter-mining our own Happiness But then if we consider how our Duty is sweetned over with Pleasure encouraged with the Smiles of God and backt with the Approbations of our own Consciences with what gentle Mitigations it is required with what puissant Motives it is inforced and with what powerful Grace it is assisted and promoted we must needs acknowledge it to be a most gracious easie and gentle Yoke But if we measure it by the Vastness of the Reward I confess it looks like some great and mighty Thing For if we value God's Bounty by our own we cannot but conclude that sure he would never have made such vast Preparations for our Happiness nor planted such a Paradise of Pleasures to entertain us but upon some mighty Condition to be performed on our Part. And indeed had he imposed the hardest Condition in the World sent us to row in the Gallies or dig in the Mines for a thousand Years together such a vast Reward would have been sufficient to have rendred it not only tollerable but easie and delightful But that he should promise us such a mighty Recompence as the Joys of an everlasting Heaven includes a Recompence as large as our utmost Capacities and as lasting as our longest Duration and this upon no other Condition but our sincere Belief of and Obedience to his Gospel whose Precepts are all natural and easie and pregnant with unspeakable Pleasure and Delight is such a Prodigy of Goodness as we can never sufficiently admire and adore That meerly for believing a Revelation of whose Truth we have such convincing Evidence and practising suitably to our Belief we should from wretched mortal Worms be advanced to an equal Pitch of Bliss and Glory with immortal Angels and live as happily for ever as all the Joys of Heaven can make us is doubtless such an Instance of Love and Bounty as could only proceed from infinite Goodness 4 thly In performing the Condition God operates more than we but in receiving the Reward we only are concerned For to our sincere Belief and Obedience of the Gospel it is plain that God contributes much more than we for besides that he is the Author of all those Faculties by which we do believe and obey him of all those Evidences by which we are convinced of the Truth of his Gospel and of all those Motives by which we are animated in our Obedience to it besides all which I say he is also the Author of all that inward Grace and Assistance by which our pious Endeavours are excited and crowned with a blessed Success And considering how much all these Things do operate upon our Performance of the Gospel-Condition it is not only true that without God's Grace we should never have performed it but also that in our Performance of it that is the main and principle Agent and no Man ever yet became a hearty Believer and Disciple of Jesus but was much more beholding to the Grace of God than to his own Activity and Endeavour And hence we are said to be created in Christ Jesus unto good works Eph. ii 10 not but that God exacts the Concurrence of our Endeavours with his Grace and that in the Performance of the Gospel-condition as well as in any other Affair of our Lives For it is the Blessing of the Lord that makes Men rich as well as Good and we may as well expect that he should make us rich without Industry as good without Diligence and Endeavour But when we have done our utmost 't is to the Grace of God as to the principal Cause that all our good is to be attributed But yet though 't is he that works this Condition in us that is the Author and Finisher of our Faith yet the Reward doth wholly redound to ourselves as if we had been the Authors and Finishers of all and though he hath the greatest Share in the Work yet he substracts nothing at all from the Wages but pays us infinitely more than the utmost Merit of the Work amounts to He gives us Faith and then he crowns his own Gift with Glory and Honour and Immortality He sows and cultivates our Nature that we may reap the Crop and Harvest So infinitely liberal is our blessed Master as to reward his Servants for his own Work to undergo the greatest Part of their Labour and when 't is done to pay them Ten Thousand Fold for it 5 thly The Condition is momentary and temporal but the Reward is eternal It is but a little little while that the Labour of our Duty lasts for Constancy and Perseverance will soon render it natural and easie and if it did not yet Death will quickly put an end to all and within these very few Days or Years we shall see an everlasting Period of all the Pains of our Watchfulness of all the Severities of Mortification and of all the Sorrows of Repentance but then the Reward abides to all Eternity and lasts out to a never-ending Duration So that though we shall soon see an End of our Work yet the Wages is so vast that we shall be spending on it for ever and Myriads of Myriads of Ages hence shall be rejoycing in the Fruits of our present Labour and reaping the blisful Effects of our Faith and Obedience to the latest Moment of Eternity O thou liberal Rewarder of Men Who can sufficiently admire thy Goodness that remuneratest our short Pains with endless Pleasures and exchangest with us an Eternity of Happiness for the Labour and Service of a Moment For when we are arrived into that vast Eternity of Bliss all the Pains we have taken in our Voyage thither will
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