confessing his hand in them they should be obliged to be more Religions than sutes the Interest of their Lusts Whence in the calamities which at any time befall themselves or others those of them who pretend to but the least smattering in Philosophy seek for causes to assign them to either in the general order of Nature moved when once set a going without any special hand of God governing the motion of it self or in the Influence of superiour Bodies upon the inferiour by the Conjunctions and Oppositions or other Aspects of Planets in imaginary Houses which the inventions of jugling Astrologers have built for them in the Heavens to consult and quarrel in about the government of the lower world or to the distempers at some seasons naturally corrupting the Elements and by them the bodies yea and the very minds of men Others of a lower rank in their Intellectuals through an ignorant malice suspect the evil Tongues of some persons who have some way or other and often undeservedly gotten an evil Name among their Neighbours or it may be accuse the Devil himself for paying them some ill turns he owed them though they were never known to have carried themselves so towards him as to deserve any such usage from him In all which and the like conjectures it is the main business of the champions of Ignorance and Prophaneness to cast a mist before their own eyes and other mens to obscure the Providence of God in those Judgments which he executeth lest he should be known by them Which certainly is a crime of the greatest magnitude for it argues an envy at the glory which Gods wonderful Providences are wont to procure him in the world than which there can hardly any attempt be conceived more Satanical 3. We may hence infer How great Reason there is that such Judicial Providences should be exactly taken notice of and with all the notable circumstances which most manifest God recorded and transmitted to Posterity The learned and judicious Lord Verulam takes notice of it as a defect in the historical part of Learning De aug â— ent l. 2. that there is not extant an impartial and well-attested Historia Nemeseos as he calls it an account of the most remarkable Judgments of God on notorious offenders and complains of it And it were to be wished that God would put it into the heart of some supreme Magistrates to promote so godly a Design by their Authority that the great Judgments of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords might be preserved in publique avowed Records as their own Judgments are For certainly it would be a great check to the Atheism that so reigns in the world at this day to have such publique testimonies preserved against them to stop their prophane mouths withal when they take liberty to cry down God and Providence And such a work cannot be done effectually to such a purpose but with their encouragement and assistance who are able to oblige the Relators of such signal Providential strokes by the sacred tye of an Oath to speak the Truth all the Truth and nothing but the Truth in Gods cause as well as mens and severely to punish those persons who shall appear upon due examination to lye for God or against him But seeing such a design is rather to be wished than hoped to be carried on in such an Age as this I forbear to insist longer on this Point and in the fourth place infer 4. That those private Persons in the defect of more publique endeavours in this kind do God good service and much oblige Posterity who take what honest pains they can in so profitable a discovery by enquiring into and informing themselves and others from good Evidence of such Instances of Gods just Providence as their Ages and the places they live in afford For however some Atheistical spirits are according to their wont apt to slight and despise them yet abundance of serious and considering Persons do and 't is to be supposed will in after-Ages make great advantages by them 5. And yet this must be attempted with great care and caution as a thing which we cannot lay out too much circumspect diligence and industry Which also follows from my Text and Doctrine For those Judgments by which the Lord is known must be first known to be and to be his Judgments that is it must be known that such things as to matter of Fact are certain and that they are accompanied with such circumstances as carry in them a moral certainty also as I before told you that they are inflicted by God upon such an account because if there be a rational doubt of the one or the other there must be an equal uncertainty in the conclusions drawn from such uncertain Premises Wherefore it is certainly a foul and hainous crime and a thing highly injurious both to God and man for any Person or Persons either out of a misguided zeal for God or out of a particular fond affection to any Party in Religion and much more upon the account of any more unjustifiable Passion to become a forger of Divine Judgments or a busic reporter and spreader of such Forgeries For this is to speak wickedly for God Job 1â— 7 and talk deceitfully for him which Job chargeth with great abhorrency upon his friends as judging it a most unbecoming thing to endeavour to prop up the Cause of the God of Truth with falshoods Nor indeed is it less mischievous than it is unsutable to the interest it pretends to defend For though one or two such pious frauds may prove at the first in some juncture of Time wherein simple and well-meaning devotion prevails over the inquisitive humour of Mankind to be some way serviceable to the Design they were coined for yet in process of Time as the state of Religion alters and men having it may be discovered the fallacy grow more nice of belief in such matters the case is quite different For then strikes in ordinarily the subtil Atheist or misbeliever and aggravates the flaws he finds in such stories as are really obnoxious to the blemishing the Reputation of the most undoubted Records of Christianity it self And it can hardly be imagined what a foul imputation upon that holy Religion of our blessed Saviour amongst Atheists and other Infidels those Cart-loads of Monkish stories in the Romish Church have occasioned wherein the Miracles of their fictitious Saints and the Judgments of God upon their pretended Adversaries are equally numerous and yet both so grosly contrived that the unskilfulness of the bungling Inventers saves the confuters of them the pains of any studied Arguments to disprove them And yet with such a fottish credulity are the generality of that Religion possessed that there is hardly any one who was eminently instrumental in the Reformation but they can tell you of some miraculous Judgment of God that brought him to his End which they believe with equal faith to what they have
most part Exod. 12.22 and conversed intermixedly each with other How was it that the waters of the Red Sea stood as a wall on both sides whilst the Israelites were marching through it and returned to their course Exod. 14. so soon as they came on dry land to overwhelm Pharaoh and his Host who were in pursuit of them When the three glorious Confessours were adjudged to the fiery Furnace by Nebuchadnezzar whence came it that the fire so ragingly hot as it was abstained from touching so much as one hair of their heads or singing their Garments and to burn only their bonds asunder and set them at liberty to walk in it Dan. 3.22 to 27. who were cast in bound and yet to lick up and devour even without the mouth of the Furnace those who cast them in And when Daniel himself was cast into the Lions Den and lodged among them in the bottom of the Den one whole night whence was it that the hungry and cruel beasts did not the least hurt to him and yet the very same Lions when his Accusers and their Relations were cast in thither had the mastery of them Dan. 6.22 23 24. and brake all their bones in pieces before they came to the bottom of the Den Lastly to name no more Examples of this nature when the Lion according to the prediction of the old Prophet at Bethel 1 Kings 13. slew the Man of God that against Gods Commandment had eaten and drunk there was he directed by meer chance so to do Did he being hungry and seeking for Prey light on him casually only If so why according to the usual wont of such beasts of prey as they observe who have been in those Countries to forbear falling on Men but when they can light on no other food did he not seize on his Ass rather but kill him and not touch his Ass that as unconcerned in the danger was afterwards found standing by his side Verse 28. Why did he only kill him and not devour him and then withdraw to his Den but rather choose to stand by him as resolved to avouch the fact and that all the while the news was carrying to the City and came by report to the old Prophet and his Horse sadling and he and his company travelling to the place of that sad spectacle And when they came why did he suffer them to carry away his prey so tamely as it seems he did Do these things look like meer Casualties Is it not rather evident that such Agents acting so differently from their own nature and inclination so as to punish only the guilty and single them out among others equally within their reach were directed by an Intelligent Cause by whose order and Commission they made this difference And this is our second Proposition to be proved upon this Head That seeing these things cannot fall out by meer chance or any thing else of like nature they must be governed by Divine Providence which I make good by these steps of rational Argumentation Such Events as fall not out by chance fall out according to choice or contrivance That choice and contrivance in matter of punishment must either be the choice and contrivance of the Sufferer or Inflicter Sufferers are not wont to choose and contrive their own harms but rather to avoid and use what means they can to guard themselves from them If the Inflicter then choose and contrive the punishmenes mentioned then as the contrivance argues him to be a rational Being so the bringing his contrivances to pass by such Instruments as have been mentioned and with such certainty argues him to be such a Being as hath a predominant power over Nature it self which can be no other then Divine and these effects mentioned and the like can be no other then the products of his Infinite Power and Wisdom as you will see more anon Against the force of these Arguments I cannot imagine how the Atheist can guard his Principles but by excepting against the Evidence of the matter of fact in the Instances before mentioned Seeing there is no clear proof of them in most of the cases but from the H. Scriptures which though we own and reverence yet he looks on with contempt and scorn as not owning the Authority we allow them But he ought to consider that it is not in this whole process of Argumentation in Question before us whether these writings be divinely inspired or no There is herein no other esteem required to be given them by him but only what is due to credible Histories And it is enough for our present purpose if they can justifie themselves to be true Records of those matters which fell out in those Ages which they undertake to account for And so much I can hardly imagine how any man can have the forehead to deny considering that they have all those Motives of credibility for them with the advantage of indisputable Antiquity and the having been owned by so great a part of the World for so many Ages which other Histories whatsoever can pretend to Whence it must appear to all unbiassed Judges that he that will allow upon the Motives mentioned Plutarch and Thucydides and Livy and Tacitus and other such Historians to be competent witnesses of the matters of fact related by them must needs be governed by prejudice rather then Reason if he deny the same to Moses and other Jewish Historians concerning the matters falling out among them who are and have been always in greater esteem in their own Nation who best knew their own story then those mentioned ever were either in Greece or Rome But if yet notwithstanding all that hath been said to the contrary the Atheist will still persist in denying the matters of fact upon which the former Arguments are bottomed because they are for the greatest part only recorded in that book which it is the Interest of his Irreligion to disbelieve What will he say to two Instances which I have purposely reserved to this place because they are so great as to prove themselves to be the effects of a Divine Providence Vid. H. Grot. Annot. ad libros suos de ver Rel. Chr. and because they are confirmed by several Heathen Authors too as well as related in the Holy Scripture I mean the universal Deluge and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah For if these Instances de facto be true to which there is such a concurring Evidence he will find it very difficult to persuade himself that I say not others that so vast a quantity of waters as so covered all the face of the earth and overflowed the highest Mountains could be collected by any power less then Divine and much less come together by chance and will be no less puzled to shew by what inferior Agent such a fire as burnt those Cities could be kindled and burn with that vehemence as to preserve its remembrance without alteration in a Lake
this alone is not a sufficient character to warrant us to pronounce such a stroke to be a Divine Judgment how severe soever it be except there appear as evident and notorious a crime in conjunction with it For the judging by the former mark singly misled Jobs friends in his Case and the men of Melita in the censure they passed upon St. Paul Acts 28.4 when they saw the Viper hanging on his hand And it may mislead us in like cases For if we interpret all such great and remarkable severities on whomsoever they fall to be Divine Judgments we shall be often endangered unjustly to condemn the Generation of Gods best Children Psal 73.15 But where both these in the same persons meet with equal Evidence we can hardly be mistaken except all Mankind be supposed to be so too who commonly argue in such cases from this character in calling such Providences Judgments of God or if we be mistaken it is in a sort a safe errour as that which if we make a religious use of our apprehensions about it will mislead us only into such affections and actions as tend to Gods glory and our own benefit and advantage 3. And a far greater evidence is given in this Case many times to make Divine Judgments manifest by the fair and legible Impression and Image of the very offence it self upon the punishment inflicted Exod. 14. The drowning of Pharaoh and the Egyptians in the Red Sea was a punishment so like their sin in drowning all the male Children of the Israelites in the River Exod. 1.20 Levi◠10.1 ◠the burning Nadab and Abihu with a strange fire from Heaven was a Divine stroke so aptly suted to their offence in offering Incense with strange fire to Heaven the incestuous defilement of Davids Concubines by Absalom 2 Sam. 12.11 had so express a signature of the defilement of Vriahs wife by David and to mention no more Examples at present the cutting off the Thumbs and great Toes of Adonibezek himself Judges 1.7 was so signal a requital of the like cruelty shewed by him to 70 Kings before that no man needs to doubt the lawfulness of calling them by the Name they have always born that of remarkable Divine Judgments And it can rationally be no matter of scruple to any one to give Providences of the like stamp the same name still 4. And it makes much to the strengthning the Evidence in such matters when such remarkable Divine strokes tread close upon the heels of some notorious offence as oftentimes they do yea so close as to surprise the offender in the very Act. Gen. 19.11 The striking the Sodomites blind in the very attempt of a foul sin not to be named and the firing of the whole City the next morning with a storm of flaming Brimstone Num. 16.32 the cleaving of the Earth to swallow Korah and his company even whilst they stood daringly in the face of God and the Congregation to avouch a foul Rebellion against Moses and a sacrilegious usurpation of Aarons Priesthood the running through of Zimri and Cosbi Num. 25.8 in the very act of bold and audacious uncleanness the slaying of Belshazzar the very night following his profane debauch acted by the abuse of Gods Consecrated Vessels to drunkenness Dan. 5.30 at an Idols feast the turning of his Grandfather Nebuchadnezzar a-grazing among oxen when that vaunting brag was scarce out of his mouth Dan. 4.31 32 33. Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the Kingdom by the might of my power Acts 5.5 10.12.22 23. the smiting Ananias and Saphira dead with a lye in their mouths to cover their sacrilege the eating up Herod by worms so closely attending upon his owning the blasphemous flattery of the people and many more like Instances to these none ever gave a softer Title to than that of Divine Judgments And wherefore the drunkards breaking his neck in his drunkenness and the hectoring challengers being slain in a Duel and the perjured persons being smitten dumb or dead in his perjury and the like penal events befalling other sinners in the very act of other sins of as hainous a nature may not still by a parity of Reason pass for Providences of the same denomination I cannot imagine 5. When such penal Providences are the evident and notorious consequents of provoking and daring Appeals Applications or Addresses to God of any kind or of contests with him there is all the Reason in the world why we should take them for Divine Judgments extorted by an impious importunity or provoking Insolence 1. In case of Appeals to God implicit or explicit When the bitter water under the Law envenomed by the imprecation of the disloyal wife against her self in case she was guilty of the fact she was suspected of caused her belly to swell and her thigh to rot Num. 5.22 the implicit Appeal to Gods Decision in this case made the event evidently to be a Divine Judgment When Korah and his Complices dare put it to a Divine determination Num. 16.5 whether they had not as much right to offer Incense as Aaron and his Sons The Event in this Case declared that God judged the cause in which he was thus appealed to against them And when the wicked Jews by tumultuous out-cries call on Pilate to crucifie Jesus for a Malefactor and encourage him when his Conscience boggles at so foul an act of Injustice with this fearful imprecation in the nature of such an Appeal that if he were not guilty God would lay his blood on them and their children and the Event of so many Ages hath declared the said guilt not to be yet washed off from their whole Posterity None but an hardened Jew will ever doubt whether there be a Divine Judgment in this case or no. Lastly When holy Job against the unjust charges of his censorious friends who among other crimes taxed him with breaking the arms of the fatherless Job 22.9 i. e. That by his power he had so crushed them that they were disabled to maintain their right against him had appealed to God for his vindication and imprecated against himself that if he were guilty of this Crime his Arm might fall from his Shoulder-blade Job 31.21 22. and be broken from the bone i. e. That the flesh might rot from the bone till his Arm fell from his Shoulder if a little after that Arm had dropped off according to ☜ his Execration and some concurring evidence withal had appeared to prove him guilty of the fact which he so disclaimed I say if it had so faln out which it did not because he was innocent had not his friends been justified if they had cryed out in the words of the Psalmist Behold the Lord is known by the Judgment that he executeth 2. In case of Address or Application to him in matters of another nature As in promissory Oaths
for the Gospel it self even that of Luthers body being carried away out of his Coffin by the Devil which he himself lived to disprove by his own Pen. And it were well if it could be said of them only that they prop up a cause with lying wonders as is prophesied of them that needs it 2 Thes 2.9 and that the indiscreet zeal of others who would be thought to have better Consciences as they have wherein they differ from them a better Cause did not make use of their Example too much and treat their Brethren of different Judgments in the petty disputes that divide them into Parties in the same uncharitable manner At least it were to be desired if such hot spirits will needs continue with Solomons Mad-man to cast Fire-brands one at another Prov. 26.18 that they would not with the Poets Prometheus steal fire from Heaven to kindle them withall by forging miraculous Providences to blast the Reputation of those Causes they are prejudiced against in the Persons of those that defend them 6. Lastly we may learn hence on all hands to make a more beneficial use of Gods Judicial Providences to wit that of the Text to endeavour to advance in the knowledge of God by them Which Duty according to the usual extent of that Phrase in Scfipture includes many particulars 1. As first If any of us be sufferers under any such strokes as our own Consciences suggest to us are Divine Judgments we are betwixt God and our own souls to endeavour to take up the Controversie which he seems to have with us betimes and in order thereunto to acknowledge and bewail those known sins which we are convinced of and in a more special manner those which our own hearts seize on in fresh pursuit as the particular causes of that displeasure from God under which we lie to humble our selves under his mighty Hand and remove by serious reformation and amendment of life out of his sight whatever is offensive to those pure eyes which cannot behold evil Hab. 1.13 or look on iniquity And if it be not clear to us what particular quarrel God hath with us or that he hath an especial cause given him beyond the ordinary frailties of humanity so that as to any known great crime we are as clear as Job himself yet we are as he is well advised and also of himself resolves before that advice to say to God Job 10.2.34.31 32. shew me wherefore thou contendest with me and that which I see not teach thou me and if I have done iniquity I will do so no more This is to be done betwixt God and our own Consciences if none but God and they be acquainted with our circumstances But if our Cases and our Crimes too be already by Gods Providence exposed to the publique notice it is our duty in this Case to go farther and to evidence our true Repentance to the world by a true free and ingenious acknowledgement justifying God and giving glory to him Ps 51.4 Josh 7.19 as David and Achan did and warning others not to offend him in like manner by our Example And in all these cases if the present Judgment be upon such courses taken removed and Gods Hand turned away from us we are our selves to take heed we sin thus no more lest a worse thing come unto us and not provoke him John 5 1â— by a feigned humiliation whilst we are under his correcting hand destitute of real amendment to do as he threatens i. e. punish us seven times more and augment his severities till our wound become incurable Lev. 26. Jer. 15.18 2 Chron. 26.16 and past remedy 2. If we be as in Epidemical Judgments sufferers in common with others our duty is instead of shifting off the blame upon others each man in particular to own his own share in the common guilt 1 King 8.38 as knowing the plague of his own heart and by true Repentance and amendment to lessen the publique Load which he hath contributed to greaten and call on others as he hath opportunity to do the like and lastly when he hath rendred himself fit for that charitable office to the publique by having recovered his own Innocence to intercede earnestly and affectionately using his renewed Interest with a reconciled God for the society to which he doth belong 3. If we be bare hearers or beholders of Gods great severities upon others and our selves free we are then 1. Wisely to consider his doings Ps 64. â— so as to observe carefully what of God more than ordinary appears in them that we may give him the glory of those perfections which he hath thereby rendred most conspicuous for which those that have pleasure in his works specially study them 2. And particularly to endeavour to reduce Gods Providences of this kind as well as all others to the Rule of his written word and observe the correspondency they bear each to other For this will serve us to very great purposes in order to a firm faith in him and fear of him when we can say Lev. 10.3 with Moses in the case of Nadab and Abihu This is that which the Lord hath said 3. To lay them up in memory as a choice treasure to be made use of when occasion serves For God expects his great works should make deep Impressions in the minds of men And therefore some Interpreters read that clause of Psal Psala 111. A. Vers Tig. 111. which we render He hath made his wonderful works to be remembred Memorioe consecravit he hath devoted or consecrated them to remembrance Wherein they imply that it carries in it a kind of sacrilege to let them slip through our memories as common and inconsiderable things And he takes notice of it himself as a great crime in the Israelites That they remembred not his hand Psal â—8 â—â— 43. how he wrought his signs in Egypt and his wonders in the field of Zoan 4. And to improve that remembrance as occasion is offered by applying it to our selves and others according to the sutableness that those Providences bear to the cases to which they are applicable So when the Israelites were apt to be afraid of the mighty and numerous Enemies they were to encounter at their entrance into Canaan God sutably recalls to their memories Dent. 7.16 17. what he did to Phaaoh and all Egypt And when our Saviour would fortifie his Disciples against the Tentations to compliance with the obstinate and unbelieving Jews in holding out the siege of Jerusalem out of affection to their concerns there having before told them of that great day of the Revelation of the Son of Man in his Judgments on that City Luke 17. and that there wanted nothing to compleat its destruction in proportion to Sodom but only the removing the Christians thence 29 30 31 34. as they went afterwards to Pella out of the City in conformity to Lots going out of