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A44070 The creatures goodness, as they came out of God's hands, and the good mans mercy to the brute creatures, which God hath put under his feet in two sermons : the first preached before the University of Oxford : the second at the lecture at Brackley / by Thomas Hodges ... Hodges, Thomas, d. 1688. 1675 (1675) Wing H2319; ESTC R17986 37,570 50

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Life bears fruit every month which some think is a restoring of it to its primitive fruitfulness and for want of which some think the Fig-tree was cursed in the Gospel so Mr. Brightman And there are who think that one day Sodom and Gomorrah now a dead Sea shall again become a fruitful and pleasant Land And for this see Ezek. 16.53.55 There are too who think that the Creatures waiting groaning and longing to be delivered into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God Rom. 8. doth hint some Restitution of the Creatures to their first good and sound state Which whether it do or no I leave it to you to judge Only this I say that if the visible World shall pass through a purgatory-fire at the day of Judgment and if it shall be continued for the blessed Saints to contemplate God's goodness therein at first and the glory of Christ the second Adam who came to repair the ruins which the first made that then it is not improbable that the Creatures may then attain to their primitive goodness However sure I am that the Humane Nature is already in the Person of Christ advanced far above what it was in Adam at first The first Adam was of the Earth earthly the second Adam was the Lord from Heaven heavenly And again That all those that are Christs are already in part and shall hereafter in Heaven perfectly be restored to the Image of God wherein they were made at first and to a better and more happy estate then ever Adam had in Paradise V. There 's one Query more to be briefly spoken unto and then we shall have done with the Fifth thing propounded in the beginning of our Discourse and that is what is required of us towards the repair of the ruins of the Creation to restore the Creatures to their primitive goodness and beauty To this I answer 1. That God doth not require that we should repair the Angelical Nature that we should pour Wine and Oyl into their wounds or bind up their bruises their stroke is incurable there is no Balm in Gilead no Physician for their disease Only we must by endeavouring to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fit our selves to fill up those vacant places in the Heavens from whence they fell God can make of us if we duly apply our selves to him although we be but earthen Pitchers Vessels of Grace and Vessels of Glory Vessels every way fit for our Masters use both in Earth and in Heaven Col. 3.9 10 2. God doth expect that we should put off the old Man with his deeds and put on the new Man which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him That being in Christ id est being indeed Christians we should become new Creatures be renewed in the spirit of our minds and walk in newness of life that as in Adam we all dyed and became dead in Sins and trespasses so in Christ the second Adam and by a lively Faith in him we should all be made aliue And because Adam was the Son of God by Creation at first that we should all be Partakers of the Divine Nature be his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works Live and walk as the Sons of God all as the Children of the most High that the Lord may take pleasure in us again as he did in Adam in Paradise before he sinned 3. We must make a good use of all God's good Creatures getting a new right to use them although the old one be not utterly lost and using them alway aright according to the Creators will and for his glory Many are the good uses we may make of the Creatures this Doctrine of the Creatures usefulness and goodness U I Hence we may be informed that God made not sin For all that he made was good and Sin that is evil and as Sin only evil and that continually There was no Anomy or Ataxy in all God's works but Sin it self is an Anomy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then God is not the Author of this evil and confusion This is the Truth we teach in all the Churches of the Saints and not as we are slanderously reported by the Romanists that we say that God is the Author of Sin God is Summum Bonum yea Goodness it self but Sin is Summum Malum the chiefest Evil and so bad that Hell and the Devil cannot make it worse Ye cannot call it worse than to call it by an Epithite drawn from its own name viz. sinful Sin This calls the Devil Father and Author God the good Husbandman sow'd nothing but good Seed in his Field 't is the Devil that Enemy that sow'd these tares Again hence we infer that Sin is very evil because it hath poyson'd so many good things yea hath been the cause of all evils in the World For at the first God made every thing very good That must needs be bitter indeed which hath imbittered so many and so great sweets Sin is the great Troubler of the World this is it which makes God's good things turn to be evil to us that curses our Blessings that makes a Garden of Eden a desolate Wilderness that turns the World upside down and makes that when Jeremy looked upon the Land of Canaan that Garden of God Chap. 4.22 23. He beheld the Earth and lo it was a Tohu Vabohu without sorm and void and the Heavens and they had no light Further hence we may learn that the Lord Jesus Christ is very good a Fountain of goodness For God made all good Col. 1.16 and he created all things by Christ By him not as a mere Instrument but a Co-worker with him He is the beginning of the Creation of God in this sense also Is there any good in the World and the Lord Christ hath not done it and he hath done all things Well Heaven and Earth are full of the goodness of our Lord Jesus and there 's No Man good but one and that is one who is God and Man the Man Christ Jesus Lastly as to information hence we are taught that the work of Redemption is very good exceeding good For this is a better and greater work than that of Creation If that deserve thousands of praises this doth ten thousands The song of the Lamb is to be a higher Note than the song of Moses Creation was a work of God's fingers but in our Redemption there was put forth the strength of his holy arm by which he got himself us the victory Behold now a new Heaven a new Earth the light of the Moon is as the light of the Sun the light of the Sun is seven-fold Old things are passeth away all things are become new And therefore if when God laid the foundation the Corner-stone of the World the Morning-stars sang together all the Sons of God shouted for joy No marvel now that Christ by whom all things were made