doth not metamorphose free Agents into necessary ones that is because he doth not unmake what he hath made and subvert the Laws of his own Creation or is it reasonable that we who are the only Authors of Sin should blame the Providence of God for suffering us to be so For if Sin be an Evil it is an Evil to us and consequently we are much more concerned to prevent it than the Providence of God and if when we may we will not do it it is unreasonable that we should blame God for not forcing us to prevent it whether we will or no. So that all the Quarrel we can have against God's Providence is only this that it doth not tie our Hands and fetter our Liberty in the Chains of an Adamantine Necessity that is that he doth not undo his own Workmanship and thereby confess himself overseen in his Creation of us when there is no kind of Reason for it For I beseech you what hurt is it for Men to be made free Agents and left to their own Choice whether they will be happy or miserable And if it was no Fault at all for God to make us so what Reason have we to blame him for continuing us what he made us If therefore while he continues us free Agents we will needs chuse what is evil and misimploy the Talent of our natural Liberty the Fault is ours and not God's and we may thank our selves for all the bad Consequents of it and since not only Sin but most of the other Evils that are in the World proceed from our ill Use of our own Liberty we ought in all Reason to charge them upon our selves and not upon the good Providence of God 2 ly That many Things seem evil to us in the Course of God's Providence that are not so in themselves by Reason that we commonly take false Measures of Good and Evil. We think it a very great Evil for Instance that good Men are not blessed with great Plenty and Abundance and that bad Men are because we imagin Plenty and Abundance to be a very great Good and the contrary a very formidable Evil And this makes us blame the Providence of God because we see the good Things of this World so promiscuously distributed without any Discrimination of Persons whereas in reality Plenty and Abundance approaches nearer to the Nature of an indifferent Thing than of a very great and desirable Good For if we consult our own Experience we shall find that all worldly Goods are just what we make them and that they do as commonly prove Plagues as Blessings to the Owners of them that they intangle their Affections insnare their Innocence disturb their Peace provoke and pamper their extravagant Lusts and betray them first into Luxuries then into Gouts or Dropsies Catarrhs or Consumptions and these most commonly prove the Effects of outward Abundance So that in it self 't is almost of an indifferent Nature and doth good or Hurt to us according as we use and improve it and threfore though God sometimes suffers good Men to want and bad Men to enjoy it we have no Cause to quarrel at it for he understands the just Value of things though we do not he knows that the best of worldly Things are bad enough to be thrown away upon the worst of Men and so expresses his scorn of the admired Vanities of this World by scattering them with such a careless Hand and indulging the Enjoyment of them to the most despicable Persons So that we ought to conclude that he sets no great Value upon them since he concerns himself no more in their Distribution for why should he partake in the Errors of vulgar Opinion by expressing himself so regardful of these Trifles as to put them in golden Scales and weigh them out to Mankind by Grains and Scruples 3 ly That many other Things seem evil to us in the Course of God's Providence that are not so merely because we often mistake bad Men for good and good Men for bad For I dare say that that Observation upon which we ground our Quarrel against the Providence of God viz that it fares worst with the best and best with the worst of Men is not half so general as we make it for it is to be considered that generally we pity the miserable and envy the prosperous and these Passions of ours do commonly bribe our Judgments and make us think worse of the one and better of the other than either of them do deserve For those whom we pity we are inclined to love and those whom we love we are inclined to think well of and if we think well of them whether we have Reason for it or no we conclude that God ought to be as fond of them as we As on the contrary those whom we envy we always hate and those whom we hate we are inclined to think ill of and if we think ill of them we think that God is obliged to think so too And because we are so unreasonably inclined by our Passions to pass such false Judgments upon Men is it fit that we should quarrel at God because he doth not judge as unreasonably as our selves or because he doth not reward and punish Men according to the sentence that our blind Pity or Envy passes upon them If we could but strip our selves of all Passion and were but able to judge of Men not by what they appear but by what they really are I doubt not but we should find that even in this Life it fares best with the best and worst with the worst of Men but since we are not competent Judges of this Matter we should have a Care of reproaching the Providence of God with a Maxim that hath no other Foundation in the Nature of things but our own fallacious Observation 4 thly That many Things seem evil to us in the Course of Gods Providence that are not so because we are acquainted but with a small Part of the World and do judge of what is good or evil for the Whole by what we find is good and evil for this small Part. We are never able to comprehend how far the Dominions of the divine Providence extend nor how many Orders of Beings as well above as below us are concerned in its Empire and Government but unless we could do this we cannot be capable Judges of what is good or bad in the general Course of its Actions For that is good or bad in the Providence of God that is good or bad for its whole Empire and Dominion and though this or that may be an Inconvenience to this or that Part of it yet these particular Inconveniencies may be a great Convenience to the Whole As for Instance suppose a Man should come into the Country of Syberia which is a great Part of the Empire of Russia whither that Emperor is wont to banish all great Malefactors he would there find the Inhabitants in a most
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
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
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