thy gifts to man Sometimes unite The Indian nut alone Is clothing meat and trencher drink and cann Boat cable sail and needle all in one Most herbs that grow in brooks are hot and dry Cold fruits warm kernels help against the wind The limons juice and rind cure mutually The whey of milk doth loose the milk doth bind Thy creatures leap not but express a feast Where all the guests sit close and nothing wants Frogs marry fish and flesh bats bird and beast Sponges non-sense and sense mines th' earth and plants To shew thou art not bound as if thy lot Were worse than ours sometimes thou shiftest hands Most things move th' under-jaw the Crocodile not Most things sleep lying th' Elephant leans or stands But who hath praise enough nay who hath any None can express thy works but he that knows them And none can know thy works which are so many And so compleat but only he that owes them All things that are though they have sev'ral ways Yet in their being join with one advice To honour thee and so I give thee praise In all my other hymns but in this twice Each thing that is although in use and name It go for one hath many ways in store To honour thee and so each hymn thy fame Extolleth many ways yet this one more A DISCOURSE Concerning ACTUAL PROVIDENCE PART I. Concerning the Nature and principal Acts of Divine Providence to all created Beings SERMON I. Ephes I. 11. Who worketh all things according to the Counsel of his Will THE Relative Particle who in the front of the Text must necessarily relate to God spoken of vers 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Many of these spiritual blessings are enumerated from that third verse to my Text. He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world predestinated us unto the adoption of sons vers 5. Made us accepted in him vers 6. And here again ver 11. Predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will All this is written to those at Ephesus who were faithful in Christ Jesus Ephesus was a City in the lower Asia A City famous for Trade and as famous for their Idolatrous Worship of the great Goddess Diana Paul came thither Act. 18.19 20. but tarried not being to keep the feast at Hierusalem Acts 19. You find him returned thither where he stayeth two years and three months as you may gather from Acts 20. You may in that Chapter find him forced thence by an uproar of the people during the time of his abode there God used him to plant a Gospel-Church He left the charge of it with Timothy 1 Tim. 1.3 As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus while I went into Macedonia We cannot gather from any thing in this Epistle that any such corruptions in Doctrine or manners had crept into this Church as had done into the Churches of Rome Corinth and Galatia but the blessed Apostle knew that although they stood they were concerned to take heed lest they fell and that the common temptations of those times might influence them to obviate which he writeth this Epistle unto them In the Preface contained in the two first verses he after his manner saluteth them In the third verse he begins the matter of his Epistle minding them of the wonderful benefits and acts of Grace which God had made them partakers of in and through Christ He instanceth in the Election of them to eternal life as the end and the Predestination of them to the means in order to that end ver 4 5 6 7. Thence he proceedeth to a discourse about Redemption vers 8 9 10. In this Verse he returneth again to the business of Predestination In whom also saith he we have received an inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of him Who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will Where you have two things affirmed concerning God 1. That God worketh all things As he at first created all things so he worketh all things some by way of Efficiency and special influence others by way of Permission or he worketh all things whatsoever is not sinful 2. That he doth it according to the counsel of his will I am aware that there are some Divines who restrain the Universal Particle all things to the things before spoken of or at least to all those things which God worketh in a way of Efficiency The latter is Bellarmine's sense for which he quoteth Hierome I do rather encline to those Interpreters who think all things are to be interpreted more generally Nor is there any fear that by this interpretation we should make God the Author of sin for besides that after Bellarmine had spit his Venom against Calvin and Beza Bellar. de amiss Gratiae statu peccati cap. 15. he could find out a way himself to entitle God to all things yet not to sin for he tells us right Peccatum facere est deficere certainly all actions as things or natural motions must be from him in whom we live move and have our being though the irregularity obliquity malice and deformity and crookedness of actions in which alone lyes the sinfulness of them is not from God but from the corruption and malice of the sinners hearts Now the very esse formale of sin if it be not improper to say so lyeth not in the natural action but in the obliquity and deviation of the action from the Divine rule and this neither Calvin nor Beza nor any valuable person ever ascribed unto God And therefore the All things of the Text may safely be understood of all beings natural motions and actions and to entitle God to them is no more than to say after the Apostle In him we live and move and have our being Now the Text doth not only say That God worketh all things but that he worketh all things according to the counsel of his will that is an eternal Decree made in infinite wisdom So that two Propositions are plain enough in the Text 1. Prop. 1 That there hath been an eternal purpose and counsel of the Divine will concerning all things 2. Prop. 2 That according to this eternal counsel of the Divine will the Lord worketh all things I begin with the first of these Nothing hath come to pass nor ever shall but what the will and counsel of God hath before determined that it shall be observe that phrase That it shall be There are many things have been done and are every day done or doing in the world which the purity and holiness of God will allow him to have no efficiency in but there is no effect which he hath not willed should be done Indeed concerning the means the primary efficient or instrumental causes of actions Gods VVill hath moved variously For all good
VERA EFFIGIES IOHANNIS COLLINGS S.T.P. ANNO DOM 1678. AETATIS 55. Man 's but a shadow and a Picture is That shadow's shadow yet don't judge amiss Though here you onely on the shadow look What followes read The Substance is i'th'book R. White ad Vâ—â—um delin et sculp 167â— SEVERAL DISCOURSES Concerning the Actual Providence OF GOD. DIVIDED INTO THREE PARTS The First Treating concerning the Notion of it establishing the Doctrine of it opening the principal ACTS of it Preservation and Government of created Beings With the particular Acts by which it so preserveth and governeth them The Second Concerning the Specialties of it the Vnsearchable things of it and several Observable things in its motions The Third concerning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or hard Chapters of it in which an attempt is made to solve several appearances of difficulty in the motions of Providence and to vindicate the Justice Wisdom and Holiness of God with the reasonableness of his dealing in such Motions By JOHN COLLINGES D.D. LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst and are to be sold by Edward Giles Bookseller in St. Andrews Parish in Norwich 1678. To the Right Honourable the Lady Frances Thompson MADAM I Beseech your Honour to believe me telling you that I have been these thirteen years ever since I had the happiness to know your Ladiship watching an opportunity as to let your Ladiship know the sense I have of the obligations you have been pleased to lay upon me so to let the world know the honour I have for your Ladiship growing up from my first observations of you which was in your Ladiships near approaches to and in your state of Widowhood I then observed Madam that your Ladiship like the child of so Honourable and pious Parents had very early entertained just noble and most honourable thoughts of the living God which had produced in you as early a choice of him as your God and of his ways as your ways with a zeal beyond the proportion which could be expected from your years Having therefore perfected the following Discourses I congratulated my self when I had thought of your Ladiship as a fit person to entitle to them and the rather because your Ladiship having not yet seen many years shall I hope have many days to observe the motions of Divine Providence both as to Polities and Persons and from thence both to conclude how true those few Observations are which I have made and to give some more eminent Divine many a subject more of this nature from your own observation Madam in the few years you have yet lived you have seen as many and as quick and inexpected rotations of Providence as the like number of years have at any time as yet produced or are like to produce and yet the wheel seems to run nimbly and a further multitude of years may add to your Ladiships wisdom in this thing I crave leave most humbly to recommend to your Honour as the observation of Issues so the confirmation of Divine Promises and Threatnings in the fulfilling of them I doubt not but your Ladiship will every day see that it is that God who cannot lye who hath commanded his Ministers at all times to say unto the righteous it shall be well with them for they shall eat of the fruit of their doings and to say Wo unto the wicked it shall be ill with them for the reward of their hands shall be given them If Madam the actual Providence of God at any time seemeth to look another way it is but keeping your patient foot a while at the Promise and Providence like the Bee will come home to the word of Promise or Threatning bringing along with it a body laden with honey to reward the godly and righteous man and a sting to smite and pierce those through who have wrought wickedness and provoked a jealous God Our blessed Lord Madam tells us Joh. 17.3 That it is life eternal for men to know God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent The promise or predication in the proposition of that Text makes it evident that by the knowledg of the Father and Jesus Christ is meant more than the bare comprehension of the nature and things of God in our understanding as indeed knowledg and most other terms of sense do ordinarily signifie in Scripture the Greek complying with its elder sister the Hebrew which hath a great penury of words so that to know God and Christ in the true sense of that text is not only in our understandings to comprehend what may be and is necessary to be known of God but to adore love fear him believe in him to chuse him for our God In short it comprehends all those acts of our minds which are either just consequents or may rationally be inferred as duties from a just understanding and due comprehension of him but in regard according to the workings of our reasonable natures those acts will not indeed cannot be exerted without a praevious apprehension of him proportionable to what he indeed is and so as to make him an adequate object for our affections a just comprehension of God in our understandings is necessary in order to those other acts of internal homage wherein the Creature standeth indebted to his great Creator So that Solomon Prov. 19.2 did but conclude rationally That the soul should be without knowledg is not good And the great Apostle of the Gentiles askt but a reasonable question Rom. 10. How shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard All Knowledg comes into the Soul either by the Exterior senses or by reasoning and discourse or thirdly by Divine impression and revelation The two former are the more ordinary the latter a rarer and more extraordinary means of knowledg in these latter days since God hath spoken to us by his Son I speak of Knowledg strictly taken for the comprehension of things in our understanding for if we take it in the large sense even now mentioned neither sense nor reason is a sufficient mean to it By sense we can directly comprehend nothing of God for who hath seen him at any time he is an Incorporeal immaterial substance and cometh not under the cognisance of any sense nor indeed can we so know any spiritual being but in regard the effects both of him who is the Father of Spirits and of spiritual beings that are creatures are sensible Our Senses afford us oft-times an auxiliary help from which our reason draweth just conclusions concerning God from Principles which it at first it establisheth by the help of sense For example That the World is and Man is are matters of sense Now Reason concludes Nothing unless a first being can be the cause of its own existence Hence it gathers there must be a God a first being and a first cause Again when Sense hath shewed us Man a reasonable creature Reason works and tells us He that made this noble Creature must needs be more noble
more reasonable more excellent What we know then of God must needs be from Reason or Revelation Reason brings us in knowledg by raising Conclusions from Principles These Principles are of two sorts Philosophical or Scriptural I call those Philosophical Principles which reason as it now resideth in us justifieth and which without the help of the Word of God are allowed by all or the most of men especially if cultivated by any ingenuous education being either common natural principles or such as are established by studies upon deliberate thoughts with the help of sense and improvement of discourse and ratiocination Thus Reason will tell us that there is a God but one God That he must be the first being the first cause more excellent in the perfections of his being than any creature and an hundred things of a like evidence Or else it concludeth from revealed Principles having first a sufficient evidence That the holy Scriptures are the word of God who cannot speak falsly These Principles now are such propositions as without the surer word of Prophesie we could never have had any just evidence of Such now are the Doctrines of the Trinity The Incarnation of Christ The Personal union of the Divine and Humane Nature in him and many others In the discovery and justification of such Conclusions as Reason gathereth from the first sort of Principles lyeth the work of a Philosopher as a Philosopher In the discovery and proof of such Propositions as are partly evidenced from Reason but more fully from Scripture lies the work of a Christian Philosopher In the discovery proving and applying of such Propositions as have their Evidence partly from Reason and more fully from holy Writ or as cannot be at all concluded unless building upon Scriptural foundations but are founded in Scripture and may be illustrated imperfectly from reason and shewed not to be improbable nor unreasonable lyes the work of the Minister of the Gospel who is to convey the knowledg of God to his people And the true reason why some even of these silver Trumpets which belong to the Sanctuary give an incertain sound is because neither the Principles of natural Reason nor Revelation appear to all men in the same light We say The best Philosopher is not as yet born Our age tells us how generally Principles of Philosophy are exploded and it may be some of them justly too which we when we were boys thought to lye very near Demonstration and doubtless in the next age something now admitted will be judged as faulty It hath pleased God to subject our understandings to this vanity Now we having no way unless God would from Heaven speak to us to know any proposition of Truth but from the exercise of our Reason concluding either from Principles purely natural or from Propositions of Revelation in Scripture every one naturally judging himself obliged to believe according to the evidence he hath from his understanding there must and will be different apprehensions until which will never be men have all either the same degrees of Natural Reason or Scriptural knowledg which will be advantaged if there be any who think that all Propositions are to be weighed by the ballance of Natural Reason and that the holy Scripture as to the sense of it must come into that scale and make but in-weight giving only an auxiliary help to the Evidence of the most sublime Propositions of truth Nor is there any help for this The Church of Rome which your Ladiship knows pretends to wondrous Miracles hath indeed devised a palliating cure for this setting up an Infallible cheat to judg of all Controversies and by fire and faggots and all barbarous cruelties and inhumanities forcing men to acquiesce in the Decisions of that ridiculous Judg. But in the mean time mens Consciences apprehend themselves before one who is no Judg in the ease and the sore festreth and rotteth to the bone for the Pope can make none to alter his mind And a little reason might tell the Quacks of that Colledg that if it be not in the power of a man to believe what he hath a mind to believe it is much less in the power of a foreign power to compell him to it The Protestant cure is certainly more humane and reasonable yea and more Apostolical too They set forth sums of sound Doctrine to which they only annex that of the Apostle Phil. 3.15 Let us therefore as many as be perfect be thus minded and if any in any thing be otherwise minded God shall reveal even this unto you Only Protestants require as the same Apostle directs Rom. 14. That if any hath a particular faith different from that of the Church wherein he liveth he should have it to himself before God Thus the Knowledg of God is acquired from his word reading it being Catechised out of it hearing it opened and preached by the comparing of spiritual things with spiritual by the use of reason and discourse in the Velitation of Questions arising from the seeming contradictions in Holy Writ c. But there is also another mean of Divine Knowledg that is by his exterior works by which much of the Knowledg of God is gained improved and encreased These works are either of Creation or of Providence Creation was the work of the first six days from which God hath ceased long since but the things created remain and much of the Knowledg of God is to be gained from thence by the help of sense which sheweth us the things and reason which helpeth us to conclude that there being so many noble effects there must be a first and more noble cause there being so many excellent Beings there must be a first and most perfect and excellent Being Nothing created could give an Existence to it self Hence the Apostle telleth us That the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen from the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead Rom. 1.20 So that they are without excuse because that when they knew God they glorified him not as God For the Book of Scriptures we blessed be God! have it in our Vernacular Tongue we have means to teach us to read we have Catechisms and Confessions of Faith containing the Epitome and substance of them we have the various labours of holy and learned men to make us to understand them scarce any thing seemeth to be wanting to this age for the gaining of this excellent knowledg by this mean but persons giving themselves up to Reading Hearing Meditation Christian Conferences and Prayer For the Book of Creation methinks it is like a great Bible in some Religious Gentlemans Hall that lyes always open we cannot move a step in the world nor lift up an eye to Heaven but our eye is upon one page or another of it If men will not read the Wisdom of God in the sagacity and wisdom of some Creatures nor the power and greatness of God in the
greatness and power of others and so for other perfections it is not because they want means but because they want an heart to seek after God as to this there is no want of any thing but a wise contemplation of them and a rational concluding from the perfections of the effects to the greater excellency and perfection of the first cause and being The Book of Creation will learn us much of the nature and admirable perfections of the Divine Being The Book of Scripture will learn us more of it and instruct us in sublimer Mysteries than Reason could discover The Doctrine of the Trinity the two Natures united in the Person of the Mediator They will tell us of Gods Covenants of Christs performances of the Covenant of Redemption of the Will of God to be done by us and the Will of God to be done unto and upon us in his Promises and threatnings The Apostle sums up all when he tells us they are able to make the man of God wise to salvation throughly furnished to every good work But there is yet another Book which is less obvious to the eye of sense than the Book of Creation is and to the eye of Reason too and upon which fewer Commentaries have been wrote than upon the Books of holy Scripture that is the Book of Actual Providence A Book in which much of God is written and from which much of God may be learned but it is commonly taken for the Vision of a book that is sealed which is given to one who is learned with a command to read it but he saith I cannot for it is sealed Some more brutish than the Heathens deny any such Book dreaming of the old Pagan Fate or blind Fortune Others will allow it in part but will have much of it spurious dreaming that the World is like a Clock which once set in order and wound up goes alone without further use of the Workmans hand Others will allow Divine Providence a more universal influence but yet love not to hear of any Specialties of it Some again highly conceited of their own reason will subject the Providence of God to their rational Conclusions Few or none make any observations upon the motions of Divine Providence though certainly nothing more conduceth to true Spiritual wisdom Others stumbling at some difficulties relating to the motions of Providence either wholly deny it or form to themselves strange Ideas of God which no way agree to his most holy and perfect essence This Madam hath encouraged me to attempt something both to recover the Actual Providence of God from the Atheism of this age and the groundless prejudices which vain men have taken up against it and by it to recover for God that just Fear Faith Love Patience and other homage which both the excellency of his being and of his holy working calleth for And certainly Madam if learned men have thought it worth their while as some have done to give the World a rational account of Divine Offices of the Modes and circumstances of Ecclestastical constitutions in Rites and Garments Liturgies and Ceremonies c. It must needs be a noble work to undertake to give the world a Rational of Divine Operations Such especially which seem to be the hardest Chapters in the book of Providence and least easie to be understood and indeed this was my original design But while my thoughts were exercised in this my work grew upon my hand considering especially the Atheism of the age in which we live together with the circumstances of the Church and people of God in most European parts of the world and the particular temptations I have observed attending many and those very excellent persons I was further drawn on by the pleasantness and usefulness of the subject in all but especially in evil times and the apparent tendency of it to make men fear and love hope and trust in and with patience to wait upon God These things Madam made me resolve to open the Doctrine of Providence more fully though not in its full compass and latitude resolving always to carry along with me the capacity of those to whom I spake or wrote I was Madam the more encouraged in this from my observation that amongst the many excellent Books with which this age doth abound there are fewer of this Argument than any other Mr. Obadiah Sedgwick a great Divine treats in two or three Sermons about the Specialties of Providence and the late eminent Bishop Wilkins hath in a short Tract learnedly and piously discoursed the symmetry and beauty of it Another in a larger Discourse called an Introduction into the Doctrine of Providence hath made and a little enlarged upon several Observations upon the motions of it I projected and have at last finished a fuller Discourse than any of these though possibly much more imperfect so far as they did discourse this excellent argument and resolved to divide my discourse into three parts which accordingly I have done In the first Part Madam after two Preliminary Discourses the first concerning Gods Predeterminations where I had no mind to meddle with any present Controversies that was not a popular work the second concerning Creation Your Ldiship will find me plainly discoursing of the Nature of Providence in the notion in which alone I intended to speak to it There I have from Scripture and Reason proved That there is a constant care of God extended to the whole Creation That the Creature stands not in its own strength nor moveth meerly from a principle within it self nor is governed meerly by its fellow-creatures in a superior order much less acteth casually or under the necessity of any fate but is under the daily inspection government care and influence of the first cause its great Creator who both preserveth and governeth it There I have shortly shewed the particular acts by which God preserveth and governeth created Beings in their several capacities A point Madam of inexpressible use to possess us of a true notion of God of our daily dependencies upon him and consequently our duty toward him David saith he was fearfully and wonderfully made we are fearfully and wonderfully preserved In the second Part I have discoursed 1. Of the Specialties of Providence more especially to the Church and to every individual soul that loves and fears him shortly opening wherein they lye and shewing the reasonableness of it 2. Then I more shortly discourse the unsearchable things of it for Madam who dare pretend more than to shew a part of his ways Who can by searching find out God Who can find out the Almighty to Perfection This I have done to check curiosity and keep off good people from vain guesses and Prophetical conclusions without bottom 3. From that the discourse will lead your Ladiship to consider the duty of a good Christian in the observation of the motions of Providence and the advantage from it resulting to an observing soul To help my Reader in this
things motions or actions that have any goodness in them himself hath willed to do 'em and to concur as a principal efficient cause The A postle telleth us that every good and perfect gift cometh down from above which is not only true of spiritual gifts habits and influences but of natural actions and motions such as are purely so and abstractly considered from any malice and filthiness or irregularity cleaving to them for the Apostle telleth us In him we live and move Now whereas all motions and actions are either good or evil as to the first it is readily granted the first mover must be the efficient of motions God is the fountain and original of all good And in this sense that of our Saviour is true There is none good but God There is a goodness in natural habits and actions a goodness of being considering the motions and actions purely as natural without the tincture of a vitiated will or affections and passions debauched There is a further goodness in spiritual habits and actions All is from God and concerning every good action or motion in either sense there hath passed an eternal purpose or counsel The only doubt can be is concerning evil actions vitiated from the corrupt and debauched will and affections and passions of men As to which it is on all hands most readily granted That God is not the author of them as such nor willed to effect them he hath neither commanded them nor approved them but he hath willed that these should be done he hath willed the permission of them And this is so evident both from Scripture and from Reason raising conclusions from scriptural principles that it can with no modesty be denied I will prove it but from one instance of Scripture but that so high as nothing can be higher and so plainly asserted as nothing can be plainer You shall find it Acts 4.27 Acts 4.27 28. 28. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus whom thou hast anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the children of Israel were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done There certainly never was nor is it possible there ever should be an higher act of wickedness committed in the world than the adjudging to death and crucifying the Lord Jesus Christ who was the eternal Son of God and the most just and righteous person that ever was in the world There was a great Combination as to this murther Herod Pontius Pilate Judas the Jews the Gentiles Judas betrayed him Herod mock't him Pontius Pilate condemned him the Jews accused him the Jews and Gentiles crucified him They all did their highly sinful parts Now one would think and may reasonably conclude that if there ever had been or could have been an action done in the world which had slipped the eternal will and counsel of God and come to pass whiles the watchman of Israel had been asleep or which God never thought on it should have been this action But saith the Apostle they all in this act this horrid act did no more than what Gods hand and counsel had before determined to be done The words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods Counsel determined not to do it but that it should be done The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is often used in holy writ and usually it is translated predestinated as ver 5. of this Chapter and in my Text and so also Rom. 8.29 Whom he predestinated in 1 Cor. 2.7 it is translated ordained It apparently signifieth a Predetermination of persons or things and is used with reference to both and that both as to good and evil things I shall only further give you the note of a very great Divine upon it that it signifieth such a Predetermination of things as not only comprehendeth the end but the means leading to that end But in a further evidence of this let us use our reason a little though still exercising it upon scriptural Principles My first argument shall be First From Gods certain fore-knowledg of all things I will open it in three things 1. God from all eternity did certainly and infallibly foreknow whatsoever should come to pass in the world The holy Scripture is very plentiful in asserting the perfection of the Divine knowledg Prov. 5.21 The ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord and he pondereth all their goings Prov. 15.3 His eyes are everywhere beholding the evil and the good Psal 139.3 Thou art acquainted with all my ways Jer. 16.17 Mine eyes are upon all thy ways Heb. 4.13 Neither is there any creature but is manifest in his sight but all things are naked and open to that God with whom we have to do 1 John 3.20 God is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things Now all things considered from eternity were either such things which it was possible might be but never were nor are nor shall be God knew these things He calleth the things that are not as if they were Rom. 4.17 he saw them in suo potenti as he was able to have produced them This Divines call scientiam simplicis intelligentiae Or secondly They are such things as have been now are or shall be These things also God knew from eternity Divines say God knoweth these In suo volenti per scientiam visionis He from eternity saw them in a certain futurity as things which should certainly be for God doth not know things as we do by succession one thing to day another thing to morrow for then there must have been a time when God was ignorant of some things which were blasphemy to assert but such is the perfect nature of God that he must by the same Act and at the same time have a perfect knowledg of all things that ever were to come to pass in the created world 2. Supposing now that God from all eternity had such a perfect knowledg of things it followeth of necessity That they were certainly to be and have a certain existence for God could not know and see those things in a future existence of whose future existence there was no certainty which by the way is a concludent argument against the new device of Molina Fonseca Suarez Lessius and some other Jesuites since embraced by Vorstius Arminius Grevinchovius and their followers who have devised a middle kind of conditional knowledg in God Thus they say that God knew that if Peter or James were in such circumstances they would believe But this is to say nothing for if there were no certainty of Peter's believing from eternity God could not certainly know what was not certainly to be 3. Now I would gladly be instructed by any who stumbleth at this Counsel and purpose of God what but the will of God determining the event could give a certainty of being or existence to any event If the things that are might not have been then as I said before God from
man who hath by the Law of Creation a Dominion and Rule over all must cry out Who is like unto thee O Lord who is like unto thee glorious in holiness fearful in praises working wonders We may from hence observe the vanity of those Philosophers of this world who would either make the world Vse 3 as fitted and joynted together to be eternal and without a beginning or at least some Chaos or heap of confused matter to have been so as also of those who as to the Creation of the world will have God at first to have made such a confused Chaos or Mass and then out of that to have made all things The Potter indeed must have such an heap of Clay before he can make his Pots of several sizes and fashions but if he were to create this Clay certainly he would go the furthest way about for by the same power that he must first have to give being to his Clay he might make his several sorts and sizes of Vessels and save himself that double labour I conclude by Faith we understand that the worlds were made by the Power or by the Word of God His Power was the efficient cause of it his Goodness the final cause of its Creation his Wisdom the exemplary cause 4. Vse 4 We may from hence learn the usefulness necessity and excellency of faith Faith taken for the object of it Faith taken for the habit and act of it The Word of God the habit of Faith the exercise of it they are all useful We have great magnifyings of Reason and indeed Reason is a noble faculty it is that to the soul which the eye is to the body which light is to the eye but Faith is not useless because Reason is useful yea Reason must ride but in the second Chariot Reason would have taught us little of Spirits indeed we by Faith know little of them but we know so much as God will please to reveal we had known much less if left only to what conclusions we could have raised from natural principles Reason would have taught us nothing in particular how and in what order or in what time the world was made Nay 2ly There is not an use of Faith only but a necessity of it The Creation of the world is an object of our Faith and to be received upon the credit of the Word of God we must so assent to it as by our assent to give an homage to Gods Authority in revealing it this we cannot do but by Faith Finally from this discourse appeareth the Excellency of Faith it maketh us to understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God it puts our mind beyond doubts and endless disputes and incertain fluctuations it leaveth us not to the endless inquiries of Philosophy how these things could be c. Lastly Vse 5 Learn hence how every inanimate and brute creature praiseth God and how infinitely all rational creatures are obliged to the service and obedience of God 1. How every inanimate and brute creature praiseth God The heavens saith the Psalmist declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handy-work Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night declareth knowledg there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard their line is gone out to the end of the earth and their words to the end of the world In them hath he set a tabernacle for the Sun c. Psal 19.1 2 3 4. There is no Creature but giveth a mute praise to God they shew the Lords Glory and praise him as the picture finely drawn doth praise the Limner or the building praiseth the Mason or Carpenter as any great effect praiseth its efficient cause And this is a thing we ought to attend and observe in our Contemplation and use of the Creatures we should view God in them see how God is glorified in their brave and useful structure and composition Oh how sweet a Contemplation would this be if we could view the Glory Power Wisdom infinite Goodness of the Creator in them all But secondly How particularly is man concerned to praise love and serve God the Creator of Heaven and Earth to man he hath alone given Reason to make conclusions to man hath he given the word of Faith for man he hath made all these things and given him a Dominion over the work of his hands Now who planteth a vineyard saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 9.7 and eateth not of the fruit thereof The world is a great Vineyard God hath planted it he hath let it out to the Sons of men as his husband-men Should he not eat of the fruit thereof The inanimate Creatures they declare the glory of God the Heavens declare his Glory the Earth sheweth his handy-work the Sun the Moon the Stars carry the high Praises and Glory of God to the utmost ends of the Earth Do not you that are Fathers think your Sons obliged to serve and to honour you Yet you were but partial causes of their being God did much more than you to their production Doth not the Master think his servant is obliged to serve and to honour him because he hath made him he hath raised him up to some capacity of living in the world to some dignity The Potter thinketh that he may command the Pots which he hath made and shall not man be the servant of the most high God who made him and who made the world for him 1. In Reason he ought to be so he oweth his being his well-being all that he hath all the accommodations of his life unto God 2. God expecteth it from him Nulla necessitate coactus saith Holy Augustine nulla sua cujusdam utilitatis indigentia permotus sed sola bonitate ac liberrima voluntate fecit Deus quicquid fecit God was not compelled to make the world he needed it not he made it meerly of his own goodness and for the use of man Can any one think that God doth not expect homage and service from man And from hence three things must follow 1. That the presumptuous sinner must necessarily be the most unnatural creature he serveth not the end of his Creation The grass was made for the food of the beast that serveth its end it grows is cut down c. The beasts serve their end they were made for the use of man for his food his covering they dye daily are clipped shorn flea'd and all for man only the sinner serveth not his end He was made for the Honour and Glory of God he doth nothing less yea his whole life is a dishonouring God an abusing of his holy name and things 2. That this sinner is the most ingrateful creature in the world he acts from his will and choice with the use of Reason Now doing so considering that not only he is born in the Lords house and is his Creation but all the Creatures upon which he lives by the use of which his life
the old Philosophers of Gods Providence extending not to all but to some particular Beings observed to have a great influence upon sublunary Beings And our Judicial Astrologers seem to inherit though not their wisdom in all other natural things yet their error in this Astra regunt homines sed regit astra Deus is their Song But alas this is but to set up an Idol in our hearts And indeed if we could conceive any earthly Prince to be present in every place we could hardly imagine him so neglective of his Government What Prince will not rule all motions and actions which he seeth and heareth to what he apprehendeth the wisest and best ends for his own honour So that if we could suppose an earthly Prince in all places where he hath Children Servants or Subjects and to have his senses open to see and hear them he would certainly contribute his best help to preserve and govern them Especially if he be a person of ordinary humanity and goodness and hath a sufficiency of Power and Wisdom Do not we see how naturally the parent to his finite capacity careth for preserveth and governeth the Child How the Master of a Family cannot neglect a care for and government of his Family till he hath debauched himself to a beast Nay do not the birds of the air and beasts of the field naturally care for their young seed and govern them Whence had they their natural propensions and inclinations to this goodness towards those to whom they have stood in any order of causation Was it not from the great Creator who thus disposed them If it be a piece of goodness in the creature so to care for preserve and govern its fellow-creature certainly we must allow it to be so in God What goodness of this nature there is in the creature floweth from him as the stream from the fountain And is certainly much more in him he having lost nothing by the Communication of the Creatures shares to them So that whosoever will acknowledg a Being that is infinitely good must also acknowledg that Being infinitely provident for the Creatures that derive from him and every creature thus deriving God who wanteth neither Power nor Activity must as naturally care for them all as a Father or Mother careth for every Child and a bird for every young one And it is nothing but some mens Atheistical conceptions and others more imperfect notions of God not considering the Divine Being in the extent of his Immensity Activity Power and Goodness which maketh any so much as in the least to hesitate as to the Doctrine of Divine Providence 3. Let us once more turn our eyes to the strange effects and events which we see in the world of which we see great variety and many of them which appear to us of great moment and consequence Now supposing that there were not a Divine Providence directing and governing them and being the first cause to them they must either be the products of so many Machines or Engines moving necessarily or of the imperate acts of some creatures endued with wisdom and counsel We shall find the effects in the world such as are impossible to be products of any such nature 1. Were they the products of the first Man might have a previous knowledg of and not at any time be surprised by them 2. Were they meerly the products of the second God himself could hardly be conceived to have a previous certain knowledg of them so as by his Prophets to give the world a warning 1. I say first Were the effects we see in the world necessary depending upon a certain fate and moving in a certain order What then hindereth but man might have a certain previous knowledg of them things which work necessarily work certainly and evenly Thus indeed the Sun Moon and Stars and all natural agents move Every Almanackmaker therefore will tell you how many hours the Sun will shine in a day six twelve months hence when the Eclipses shall be of either Luminary and to what degrees they shall be obscured But can they also tell us when the next great Plague the next Innundation or Fire we shall hear of shall be or when and where shall be the next great mutation in an Empire or a Kingdom We see men sometimes infinitely surprised in the product of second causes so contrary to their expectation and to what appeared to us would have been their probable effect If things had moved by a Law of Fate the world is now so old that the course of its motions would have been matter of science and demonstration to us but alas there is nothing less Who can tell what to morrow will bring forth not only as to his own particular concerns but the far greater and more general concerns and interests of mankind and the Church of God in particular 2. How then are they produced Is it from the will of man I ask whether from the wills of men working necessarily as the first and only principle of them or working freely and at perfect liberty the first surely none will assert that considers what he saith If from the wills of men working freely then they might also work and move otherwise than they do Then I say it is hard to conceive how God himself should have a certain knowledg of things previous to the event or effect for there was no certainty of such an event or effect But that God hath such a certain previous fore-knowledg is evident from all the Prophecies where by his Prophets he foretold things that were to come to pass many hundreds of years after and that with all their circumstances The great effects of created Beings must have some cause I mean some first cause If this were Nature or Fate i. e. a necessary law imposed upon them their motions would be even uniform subjected to our art and fore-knowledg which they are not If the first cause of them be the wills of men working upon choice there could then have been no certainty of them before they had existed for they might as well not have been as have been If any say but though the wills of men move freely yet he who calleth the things that are not as if they were he knew which way things should be and how the wills of men would move This we most freely grant but we also say That he knew them because he willed either to effect or to permit them and that supposing this Decree of Providence there must also be a working of it upholding created Beings conducting their effects and many times over-ruling them and this is that which we call Providence 4. In a further evidence of this I might call in a plentiful Testimony from the most learned and wise amongst the Heathens But I shall not much trouble my self or you with that discourse but refer those that desire to be satisfied herein to the excellent discourse of Du-Plessis Lord of Morney in
the face of the Earth God at first said Let the earth bring forth grass Gen. 1.11 He sendeth the grass of the field Deut. 11.15 He causeth it to grow for the cattel and herb for the service of man He multiplyeth the beasts of the field the birds and fowls of the air He leaveth us not without witness but giveth fruitful times and seasons filling the hearts of men with food and gladness 3. From whence is it but from the influence of God upon his Creatures that Creatures universally and ordinarily avoid the eating of such things as would be noxious to them and many creatures if they be distempered are directed to such things as will cure them But this is enough to have spoken to the second Conclusion 3 Concl. Thirdly God preserveth living Creatures by upholding those faculties in all living creatures upon the operations of which their lives are preserved their species are propagated and they are to propagate their species and to perform those actions which are proper to their several Beings and natures To uphold the Creation as to those things in it which have life there are divers faculties necessary which must be upheld here are four sorts mentioned in the Conclusion Let me speak a little to each of them It will be of excellent use to convince you of the necessity of a Divine influence or Providence upon you every moment 1. The first sort are those By which the Beings the lives and beings of Creatures are preserved and encreased to their due proportion These are those which belong to those principal faculties which the Philosophers calls Facultatem altricem auctricem I will put them together and instance in divers particulars We are craving changeable creatures subject to wasts and decays in our beings and we must have a Nutritive faculty or we could not live The action of this faculty is called Nutrition or Nourishing Now our nourishing depends upon our food the change of our food in our stomachs by the natural heat of our stomachs and this dependeth upon several powers which God hath created in all sensitive creatures in the upholding of which the daily Providence of God is wonderfully experienced although possibly not so wistly observed and considered by us as it ought to be Let me a little awaken you to a due consideration of it by instancing in several Particulars 1. In the first place We have a power a natural power to crave and desire food Without an appetite the creature desires no food can take none though it be set before him but instead of it the very sight of it maketh him sick he loatheth and abhorreth it and calleth to have it taken away out of his sight as we see in daily experience Now I would know by what this faculty is upheld but by the concourse and daily operation of Providence I do not intend to divert here into a Philosophical discourse concerning the causes of a decay of our appetite It is sufficient to tell you that the causes may be various and the variety of the causes which may produce such an effect is sufficient evidence that nothing but the upholding power of Divine Providence can hinder it It is God that must give us our daily food and it is God that must give us a stomach or appetite to it and the causes are so many which may abate and destroy our appetite that did not God daily watch over us and influence us as to this very thing it were an hard thing to conceive how it should keep preserved a few days much less as it is with many to very many years 2. But suppose us to have an appetite to say nothing of our power to take and chew and swallow our food We see by a daily experience if we have not a power to digest it if the natural heat of our stomachs be from any cause abated so as it will not change our food and this continueth upon us for any time and no remedy can be apportioned to it the creature dyeth whether it be man or beast If the nap of the stomach be but worn off our bodies soon appear thredbare we pine away and presently sink into our graves by which we learn that a natural faculty power or ability to digest our food is necessary to the preservation of our beings As I said before of the Appetite so I shall say again of this I intend no discourse of the variety of causes from which such a thing may proceed but the possibility of such a thing and that as an effect of various causes evinceth a necessity of a daily influence of God upon us to uphold this faculty in its vigour and efficacy which ministreth to our nutrition 3. But thirdly suppose our food taken into our bodies concocted and digested in our stomachs that it may nourish the whole body it must be by several vessels and channels distributed to the several parts of the body So as there must be supposed a freedom from obstructions in those passages and an attractive vertue and faculty in the several parts If these passages be any way stopped or the attractive vertue abated the parts are not nourished but decay and wither the creatures being destroyed Of such obstructions we have daily examples and indeed whoso considereth the various passages in our bodies through which that part of our food which proves for nourishment passeth and the variety of obstructions to which we are subject must needs again acknowledg that our Souls must be kept in life our bodies in health meerly by a Divine Power 4. Again What we take into our bodies for our proper food being in part found either not proper for us or in too great a proportion when the stomach hath done its office there is a separation made that not proper for us or in a superfluous proportion for that end must be voided and cast out and a natural faculty to do it must be supposed which if it ceaseth but for a while or the freedom of the passages by which it passeth be obstructed the life of the creature quickly determineth Now whoso considereth the variety of powers and faculties in a living body which must be all upheld and the variety of causes from which they may be incumbred yea and quite destroyed will be forced to acknowledg the incessant influence of Divine Providence in upholding and preserving both the being and well-being of every creature that hath a sensitive life 2. But yet here is not all For in order to our nourishing not only those faculties in the body nourished which I have mentioned must be upheld But also the faculties and vertues in the bodies nourishing by which they are made nourishing to us In all nourishing there must be a body giving the nourishment as well as a body receiving it each of these must have its faculties upheld or there will be no nutrition and consequently no preservation of life Philosophy telleth us that the nourishment
digest it c. and to uphold the just proportions of creatures in the World by preserving and upholding in them that faculty by which they dilate themselves grow and increase to the law of Magnitude which the great Creator hath set for them yet if they had not all a several power to propagate their species or kind the World or at least the living creatures in the World would quickly cease the days of mans life are three or fourscore years the days of most other creatures much less God hath therefore created all living things with a power to propagate their species some one way some another of all he hath he saith in the day they were created Let them increase and multiply and hath created several powers and vertues in them by which as all species so most individuals doth so To some individuals of most kind he denieth this or at least concurreth not by his Providence to the effects of it Some Men and Women are barren so are some beasts generally not so and this is another act of Divine Providence by which he preserveth both man and beast and eminently attributed to God The Rabbies tell us of three Keys which God keepeth the Key of the Clouds of the Womb of the Grave None can give Rain but God none can open the Graves but God none can open the Womb but God Psalm 113.9 He maketh the barren womb to keep house Psalm 127.3 Children are the heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward It is as true of other creatures as of man He turneth a fruitful land into barrenness Psalm 107.34 It was Gods Promise Exod. 23.26 There shall nothing cast her young nor be barren in thy land Deut. 7.14 There shall neither male nor female be barren amongst you nor amongst your cattel The flocks of the field and of the air the herds of Cattel the multitudes of Fish in the waters the numberless Families of the Earth they are all preserved by the daily concurrence of Divine Providence in the upholding of that natural power and vertue with which he hath created them by which they propagate their species by the propagation of which and the multiplication and the succession of individuals in it Man and beast the whole living World is preserved 4. There is yet a fourth sort of Powers and Faculties which I called those faculties abilities or powers which are necessary to every living being for the performance of its several operations according to the specifick nature of it God also preserveth man and beast by upholding and preserving these to their several operations The Herb hath only a vegetative soul by vertue of which it grows buds blossoms produceth its seed c. The beasts have a sensitive soul which works a little further Man hath a reasonable soul comprehensive of all the powers and vertues of the former and extending further he seeth heareth perceiveth things by his outward and inward senses By his Understanding he gains the notion of things judgeth of them he willeth and chuseth by his will c. Now his power to all these and other operations proper to his nature must be preserved and upheld or he can do none of these things These powers are not indeed all necessary to our being and the keeping of our souls in life but the upholding of them is necessary to our perfection and the actions that are proper to the stations wherein we are and the capacities in which we stand God hath not only created in the Soul a power to see hear tast c. and created the Eye to be the Organ to the visive Faculty and the Ear to be the Organ to the hearing faculty and the pallat to be the Organ for the faculty of discerning tasts but he concurreth with his Providence both to uphold the faculty in the soul and to keep the several Organs in tune and order that by and through them as means those faculties might be exercised and as the upholding both the faculties and Organs or instruments the bodily members by which they are exercised in their due state is the cause why we hear see tast c. so Gods withholding that concurrence as to some individual persons is the reason why some are deaf blind c. For though there be second causes of these infirmities decays and weaknesses in humane bodies yet all these are under the governance of the first cause either set on work by God or permitted in their motions by God and this is as true also of the Locomotive faculty the power in man or beasts to move from one place to another for their food and dispatch of business for though it be the Soul that moveth yet it is by vertue of a power which God created in it to command the motion of the feet for the moving of the whole body and man moveth no longer than this inward power or faculty is upheld by God and his feet which are the Organs or instruments of motion are kept in order free from dislocation or ruptures of joints or bones or the incumbrances of troublesome humours the keeping of which freedom dependeth upon the influence of the Divine Power and thus requiritur continuus tam verbi conservatricis quam creatricis influxus to preserve man and beast there is required as well a continual influence of the upholding-word as the influence of the creating-word to give both man and beast a first being So as Raymundus de Sabunde saith truly Ut radiorum esse a Sole umbra a corpore ita omnes creaturae a divinâ pendent conservatione All creatures depend upon the Divine Power for their preservation as the beams of the Sun for their being depend upon the Sun and the shadow upon the body I shall add no more to my Discourse concerning this third Act of Providence by which God preserveth both man and beast 4. A fourth Act by which God preserveth both man and beast is Gods discovering to his creatures the vertue of other creatures with which he hath created them for the amending repairing and recovering of the decays and disorders to which their frail natures are subjected and concurrence in the use and application of them upholding the vertues in them in order to that end and blessing the application of them For the delivery of his creatures from diseases and accidents to which they are subjected Mesua the great Arabian Doctor is said to have cried out Solus Sanat languores Deus That God alone doth heal sicknesses and diseases God made man healthy in the day wherein he was created and most think he should have continued so if by his fall he had not disordered the crasis or temperament of his bodily humours corrupted the air brought a curse upon the Earth which hath ever since brought forth as well bryers and thorns to prick and offend his flesh as herbs and fruits to increase and nourish it Man is subject to a
unto him Indeed such a subjection or subordination the Heathens fancied amongst their idols Jupiter was their supreme idol others were subject unto him but he is no God that can truckle under another and be in subjection unto any Being And this greatness of God calleth to all men to fear before him and do reverence unto him who shall not fear before that God whose throne is prepared in the heaven and whose Kingdom ruleth over all and for a free and voluntary subjection to him for he ruleth over all not as a Tyrant and Oppressor whose title lies in his Sword but as one who is a native Prince and hath a rightful title not to obey whom is the highest Rebellion which Samuel compareth to the sin of witchcraft But I must leave the distinct and full application of this Doctrine for a further discourse SERMON IX Psal CIII 19. The Lord hath prepared his Throne in the Heavens and his Kingdom ruleth over all I Am at this time to make Application of what you have heard concerning the Governing-Providence of God I shall do it under three Heads shewing you how it may be useful for Instruction for Consolation and for Exhortation In the first place you may conclude from hence Vse 1 In what sense alone any thing can be said to be casual or necessary what to determine concerning Chance and Fortune or Fate As to the first I shall only lay down this Conclusion Concl. That although many things as to our eyes and apprehensions of them may appear casual yet there is nothing so with reference unto God the first universal cause It is truly said by Augustine that chance and fortune are but terms of humane ignorance as we say of the old Philosophers occult qualities they are but the refuges of ignorance so the same may be said of chance and fortune He described chance well that called it inopinatum rei eventum an event of a thing which man thought not of it is not inordinatus eventus but inopinatus there is no event of any thing that is a slip of Providence not ordered and disposed by him whose Kingdom ruleth over all Beings and existences motions and actions yea errours and obliquities nothing cometh to pass in the world but was foreseen fore-ordained fore-ordered and that in infinite wisdom but many things come to pass which we did not think of could not foresee whose causes are hidden from us these things we say come by chance and fortune A word indeed not very fit for a Christians mouth I remember Augustine more than once repents that he had defiled his tongue with it The Heathens ignorant of the true God and of his influence on all things devised such a blind God as Fortune and assigned it a place amongst their other Idols Te facimus fortuna Deum But Christians must own no such blind cause of things they believe there is a God whose throne is prepared in the Heavens and whose Kingdom ruleth over all and therefore can leave no place for chance or fortune You read of a case Deut. 19.5 which one would think if any thing in the world were casual and fortuitous that were so A man goeth into the Wood with his neighbour to hew wood and his hand fetcheth a stroke with the ax to cut down a tree and the head slippeth from the helve and lighteth upon his neighbour that he dye What can be imagined more casual and fortuitous than this for the head of an Hatchet to fly off from the helve and to kill a man at work with him who had the Hatchet such were the cases also mentioned Numb 35.22 23. Casting a thing upon a man without laying of wait or with any stone wherewith a man may dye seeing him not nor seeking his harm yet in these cases Exod. 21.13 God is said to deliver the person slain into his hand who involuntarily and unwarily hath been the cause of his death There are many things which indeed to us are casual nothing is so to God he hath ordered all he ruleth and governeth all actions Ahimaaz and Cushi knew not of each others journey or at least he that ran first knew nothing of the others journey they both met at the Court of David to carry tydings of Absaloms death but Joab had ordered the running of both Ahimaaz casually met Cushi there but though it was casual to him it was not so to Joab who sent him I say nothing is in it self casual or with respect unto God casual with respect to us many things are so that is we do not know the causes of them but God ordereth and directeth all his Kingdom his Rule and Government extendeth to it his hand is in it either permitting or effecting it Secondly You may from hence conclude how things are necessary Arminians make a great deal of stir about this and charge those whom they call Calvinists as maintaining a fatal necessity of all things Let us examine the word Fate a little we shall find a three or fourfold use of it there is two or three sorts of Fate which we shall condemn as freely as any of them but in a fourth sense we shall find the word honest enough and to destroy it will ask better arguments than any they have yet favoured the world with 1. There is a Stoical fate The Stoicks were a sort of ancient Philosophers you read of their name in Scripture Act. 17.18 They fancied an eternal necessity of things Cui Deum licet nolentem subesse fingebant nexum in rebus ipsis to which they conceived God himself though against his will was subjected according to this they fancied all things came to pass by an equal necessity and that the wills of men were forced by it This is a fate to be abominated by all those that own God and him as the first cause of all things 2. There is a Mathematical fate This was a necessity of things depending upon the motions and influences of the stars these men indeed make God to be the ruler of the Stars but the Stars to be the Rulers of mens motions and actions according to that verse in credit amongst them Astra regunt homines sed regit astra Deus as if God did not exercise a daily Dominion and Power over the Creation but had made the celestial bodies which being created and set in their order move other things by a fatal necessity Of both these Augustine saith Si cor tuum non esset fatuum non crederes fatum if thou hadst not a foolish heart thou wouldst not credit such a thing as fate 3. There is thirdly a Physical or Natural fate by which we understand that necessity which God hath established in natural causes according to which they cannot but produce such and such effects supposing them not hindered by the supreme cause thus the fire burneth necessarily and we say all natural causes move necessarily and produce their effects unless suspended hindered or
they see nothing of God in these effects They say not this is the Lords doing and therefore it is not marvellous in their eyes They see Pestilences sweeping away Cities and Families fires laying populous Cities waste Enemies breaking in upon Countries and strangely over-running them the hand of God sweeping away whole Families but they see nothing of God in them they consider these as terrible things as misfortunes to which the state of Humane affairs is subjected their Eyes are upon the visible wheels that turn these things but they see not the wheel within the wheel the Psalmist calleth to us to come and behold the works of the Lord what desolations he hath wrought in the earth Men see desolations wrought in the Earth but they see them not as the work of the Lord as desolations wrought by him This is what the Psalmist complained of and for which he prayeth against them Psalm 28.4 5 Give them according to the works of their hands c. Because they regard not the work of the Lord nor regard the operations of his hands he shall destroy them and not build them up This is a sign of an Atheistical heart to see great changes and not to see God in them the Heathens had more of Religion than this came to I remember the Poet in his description of the ruine of Troy bringeth in Venus taking Aeneas of his mettal in the last defence of his Country and from taking Revenge on Helena the cause of it by shewing him the gods at every corner and post of the City helping the Grecians to fire it and to over-turn the walls of it It is very sad that amongst Christians there should be any that in the great changes which God worketh in Nations Cities Families cannot see the great and living God at work and using creatures but as instruments in his hand but this is but a seeing and beholding the works of Providence highly useful for the production of pious affections and such acts of duty as God requireth We have a further Duty than this incumbent upon us 2. It is not only our Duty to see and behold but wistly to consider and observe these things Psalm 107.43 Whoso is wise will observe these things and he shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord a Text which in this discourse I shall make a further use of Observation implieth the application of our minds unto the passages of Divine Providence which are before our eyes as we must not be careless and forgetful hearers of the word of God so we must not be careless and forgetful observers of the works of God It is said Gen. 37.11 that Jacob observed the saying Josephs saying in the repetition of his Dream relating to eminent providential workings So it is said Luke 2.19 That when upon the birth of our Saviour the Angels had spoke to the Shepherds and the Shepherds had published the glad tidings which they had brought to the City That all who heard it wondred at those things which were spoken by the Shepherds Mary kept all these sayings and pondered them in her heart To see a thing is one thing to make our minds to stand upon it to consider it and to ponder upon it is another thing This is also our Duty as to meditate on the Lords words so to meditate on the Lords works twice the Psalmist hath it I will meditate on all thy works Psalm 143.5 I muse on the works of thy hands So Psalm 77. v. 12 I will meditate also on all thy works and talk of thy doings It is our great fault that we suffer the impression of Gods works to go off our hearts too soon We hear of great changes we see great desolations God works in Kingdoms Cities and Families at first they make a little impression upon us we startle at them but by the next day they are as a tale that is told the sound is out of our ears the impression is off our minds this is now not to observe the works of the Lord not as we ought to consider the operation of his hands 3. It is thirdly our Duty modestly and humbly to search out the causes of Providences towards our selves especially We are commanded to hear the Rod and who hath appointed it Thus did Josephs brethren Gen. 42.21 when they were in prison they said one to another We are verily guilty concerning our Brother when we saw the anguish of his soul when he sought to us and we would not hear therefore is this distress come upon us Job prays Job 10.2 Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me this is but a searching and trying our ways an excellent help and necessary medium in order to a true repentance Indeed it is our great errour that we are very prone to search out the causes of severe Providences upon others The Barbarians seeing a Viper cleave to Pauls hand conclude him a Murtherer but we are very slow and backward to enquire into the meritorious causes of Gods severe Dispensations to our selves Yet as to others as it is our Duty to observe the Providences of God to them so we may modestly and humbly search out the causes of them Thus did Jeremiah venia praefata having first recognized God in the Justice and righteousness of his proceedings Jer. 12.1 Righteous art thou O Lord in thy Judgments when I plead with thee yet let me talk with thee of thy Judgments why doth the way of the wicked prosper c So the Prophet Habbakuk ch 1.13 Wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he But as to this searching into the causes of Divine Providences I put in those two words modestly and humbly Indeed God is so plain and open in his Judgments sometimes that the provocation is wrote and that in capital Letters in the front of the punishment Thus it was in the case of the Sodomites the Egyptians the Benjamites Sauls bloody house Haman the final destruction of the Jews c and thus it is still very often The Drunkard dies in his drunkenness but it is not always so The Judgments of the Lord are a great deep This enquiry therefore into causes must be modest and humble we must no more caecutire in revelatis as to the works of God than as to the word of God if we see a blood-thirsty and deceitful man not living out half his days a Dart striking through the liver of the Adulterer these are open things And when we see prophane vile wretches devouring those that are more righteous than they when we see God plaguing men according to his own heart chastening them every moment not giving them time to swallow their spittle These are secrets of Divine Providence of which we must be careful that we pass no ungrounded censure yea and we must search humbly too Our judgment in these cafes will amount to no more than a
unsearchable are the ways of God in them How strangely are we every day mistaken in what we judged the design and tendency of many motions of Providence proving in the issue quite contrary to what we expected 3. A third unsearchable thing in Divine Providence is the track of it Necessary causes and such Natural causes are have a certain track you may follow the prints of their feet Moral and voluntary causes have not such a certain track moving not like Machines but as influenced from the will of man but yet there is something of ordinary certainty in them Reason in all men and in men of several ages is much a kin whence that certainty doth arise as well as from the finiteness of mens wisdom and understanding But here God is unsearchable he doth not always do the same things the same ways sometimes by humane means sometimes without means sometimes by improbable means sometimes adding by a preternatural power to natural causes sometimes by suspending their acts sometimes by over-ruling their motions and workings all in infinite variety so as his ways are like the ways of a Ship in the sea an Eagle in the air a Serpent upon a Rock you can track them in none of their ways By Faith we know that God will deliver his people but how and by what means or when we know not Sometimes prosperity shall slay the fool sometimes he shall perish by adversity sometimes the Sinner shall be cut off in the middle of his days sometimes he shall live to an extream old age men keep a path and a track in their motions but God keepeth none Naaman did ill when he came to the God of Israel to be healed of his Leprosie to be prescribing to him so much as in his thoughts thinking that the Prophet must needs come down and stroke the sore c. Gods way or method of Providence in bringing about the effects of his counsels and purposes is unsearchable 4. A fourth thing which in the motions of Divine Providence is unsearchable is the indications of it Solomon telleth us that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of the Lord Eccles 9.1 2. Unto all men there is one event both to the righteous and to the wicked No man can know either love or hatred by all that is before him in this life Esau is rejected yet he hath the mountains of Edom given him for his portion and the seed of Jacob must not dispossess him Jacob is beloved yet must he fly to Padan Aram endure the extremities of weather to feed his Uncles flocks c. and when he cometh away he must once and again run the hazard of his life No man can expound the Providences of God unto any to make them indications of Gods love or hatred Israel is the people beloved of the Lord yet they must serve an hard servitude in Egypt then forty years together by travelling through a desolate and howling Wilderness Dives is rich cloathed with purple and fareth deliciously every day yet when he dyeth goeth to Hell Lazarus is a poor beggar at his gates cloathed with rags abounding with sores yet when he dies is by Angels carried to Abraham's bosom Abraham and Lot and David and Joseph of Arimathea all rich men yet very good and heirs of the Kingdom of God Others very poor yet every-whit as poor spiritually and miserable as to their spiritual estate as they are in respect to their outward condition Grateful Providences speak the appearing love of God to us and oblige us to thankfulness but they do not speak special distinguishing love Adverse Providences appear as the frowns of God upon us yet may be but the chastenings of an indulgent father who chasteneth whom he loveth and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth Hell begins with some in this life their life is but a life of misery and leadeth into that misery which shall never have an end sometimes men in the enjoyments of this life are lifted up to Heaven but it is ut lapsu graviore ruant that their fall may be the greater into the pit prepared for them The Indications of Divine Providence are altogether unsearchable No man can know love or hatred by any thing which is before him in this life 5. A fifth unsearchable thing in Divine Providence is the causes of them There is infinite wisdom and reason in all the dispensations of Providence In wisdom hath the Lord done and made whatsoever he hath done but this wisdom of God as to all his works of Providence is not always evident to us It is one of those things which Divines say we shall more perfectly understand at the day of Judgment and in another life than we yet do how wisely the infinite wise God hath managed the Government of the World We are oft-times startled and troubled and amazed to see the works of God in the World and at loss to compound them with the declarations of his love to his people and the great number of promises made to them What Christ said to Peter We may apply here what God is doing we do not know here but we shall know hereafter We cannot tell the reason of a thousand dispensations of God to his Church and people here but we shall know them hereafter Sometimes we know much of them in this life but what we do not know in this life we shall know in the day when all hidden things shall be made manifest and all the works as well as all the Saints of God shall praise him 6. Lastly The windings of Providence are unsearchable It is with the Providence of God as it is with a man of business that is riding to London that is his utmost journey but he doth not like a Post keep his road but rides out this way and that way to speak with this and that man as his business leadeth him The Providence of God drives at the securing of his Church the destruction of his Enemies the promoving of Gods glory c. But it carrieth on many designs together possibly the chastising of his people for their sins the suffering of the Amorites to make up their measure so it winds in its motions and the reason of the variety of its windings and turnings we do not understand But this is much co incident with what I told you before concerning the tracks of Divine Providence that they are past finding out I come therefore now to the Application I shall there only shew you the usefulness of this point 1. To check curiosity 2. To direct you in spiritual duty In the first place Vse 1 Let this check that curiosity which so much infecteth humane nature and to which the wiser part of men are mostly too subject It was the complaint long since of an acute Author Iste labor vexat homines ut plus Deum laborent intelligere quam diligere malumus vestigando laborare quam amando reperire malumus inquirere
designs which he carrieth on at the same time God designs to bring the Jews into Canaan but a-long with this to carry on the destruction of the Egyptians the Amorites whose sins in Abrahams time were not come to the full the destruction of the rebellious and disobedient amongst the Israelites Now in order to this the Egyptians must ripen themselves for their ruin by their oppression of Israel The Amalekites and Amorites and the other Nations by their falling upon them at their coming out of Egypt and in their journey Now upon these accounts the Providence of God often seemed to move quite contrary to the word of Promise The people of Israel at the Red-sea and in the Wilderness looked very unlike a people that should have a quiet possession of Canaan Therefore I say Providence is to be observed in its Motions which seem contrary to the Word but the Indications of it are only to be determined from the Word God hath appointed wicked men to slaughter notwithstanding this we see most vile and wicked men thriving prospering growing great in the World and trampling the righteous servants of God under their foot Observe this but take heed of determining the Indication of this but from the Word which saith There is no peace to them keep therefore thine Eye upon their Tabernacles and thou shalt see the Lords Sun go off it and the Threatning verified 2. Compare present Providences with those that are past As those who will understand the letter of Scripture must compare Text with Text so those who will be wise by understanding the motions of Providence must compare Providences of a present age with Providences of former ages Thou art offended possibly at the Providences of God towards wicked men they thrive and prosper they grow mighty and encrease and do what they list Or at the Providences of God towards those who if thou canst judg are such as walk closest with God and are most severe worshippers and servants of him they are hated maligned exposed to all manner of injuries which may make their lives bitter to them Thou cryest out here O the depth I cannot understand the ways of God I cannot see his loving-kindness towards his people Compare now Christian Gods dealing in thy age with his dealings both with wicked men and with his sincere servants in former ages and see if they be not much alike with what they were In Jobs time and Davids time and Jeremiah's time Yet it is not hard for thee to understand how the servants of God in those times found the loving-kindness of God and experienced that all the ways of the Lord were mercy and truth believe that the Hand of the Lord is not weakned nor his Arm shortened nor his Truth failed 3. Lastly If you would by observing the Providence of God understand his loving-kindness and gain a spiritual wisdom Let your eye affect your heart I hinted to you before that Mollerus telleth us such an observation of Providence is here intended unde ad pietatem exuscitemur ut inde meliores evadamus as will quicken us unto piety and help to make us better There are many careless observers of Providence that indeed see Events rather than Providences they see much that comes to pass in the World but consider nothing of God in them they see great fires laying populous Cities wast and possibly see a villain putting the first coal to them or a careless person accidentally occasioning them but they do not see God throwing such a wretch off his hand of restraint nor blowing the coals that turn the Cities into ashes by his winds which men could not cause Others are curious observers of Providences these are wonderfully busily employed in searching out the natural causes of such thunders lightnings inundations devouring pestilences c. They do by the book of Providence as Augustine complain'd of himself that in his unregenerate state he did by the book of Scripture he rather brought to it discutiendi acumen than discendi pietatem So men bring to the great Works of God rather an acute Eye and wit to find out the immediate causes and reasons natural or political than a trembling humble heart that they might learn by them more to acknowledg love fear adore and revere the great and mighty God whose works these are let not yours be such an observation but let your Eye beholding God in his providential Dispensations affect your hearts with that adoration and veneration that love and fear of the great and mighty God which such works of God do call to you for But for the further hopes and consolation of the people of God in their states of affliction I intend to commend to you some principal Observations upon the motions of Divine Providence which shall be the work if God pleaseth of some succeeding Exercises SERMON XV. Psalm CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Am discoursing concerning Divine Actual Providence as the Object of good mens observation I shewed you in my last Discourse That the observation of the motions of it is both an Indication of spiritual Wisdom and an excellent step towards it and that by it duly made men and women shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. Now to advantage you a little in this Observation I shall give you an account of some observable things in the motions of Providence which possibly you may parallel in the present or future dealings of God both with his Church and with particular Souls I shall lay down my first Observation thus 1. Observ The Actual Providence of God in bringing about that word to which it is a certain servant doth rarely move in a direct line but sometimes obliquely sometimes to our appearance quite contrary but at last it fulfilleth the word and is all the while faithfully executing the Eternal Counsel There are three things in this Observation each of which I will open in a few words and then endeavour to justifie the observation by particular instances after which I shall give you some reasonable account of it and then make some short Application First I say The Providence of God is a certain servant to the word the word either of Promise or of Threatning for Providence serveth to the execution of them both As we have heard so have we seen in the City of our God saith the Psalmist Psal 48.8 the Promise is but providentia occultata and Providence is but promissio explicata the Promise fully explained and opened and this is no more than you shall find recognized by the holy Servants of God both in all their thanksgivings for mercies they had received and in all their humiliations upon any judgments which the Lord had brought on them as also in all the Narrative parts of Scripture declaring any great motions of Providence how often do you meet with it in the Gospel such or such a thing was
designs and purposes that men see reason to cry out O the depth of the wisdom and of the Counsel of God! So that look as God did not bring man into the World till he had fitted the World for his use and Government nor doth bring any creature by his continued Creation into the World before its table is prepared the Flie the Silk-worm c. doth not prevent its meat so neither doth Gods work prevent the means by which he designeth the accomplishment of it Thus every thing is brought forth in its time and every work of God is thus made glorious Secondly God by this means putteth a wonderful beauty upon his works of Providence The beauty of any creature you know doth not only lie in the colour of it and the loveliness of that but in the Symmetry and proportion of all its parts Hence our Eye judgeth sometimes a person that is of a good complexion to have little or nothing of beauty but a good mixture of colour with a good symmetry and proportion of parts must concur to a perfect beauty Gods work is perfect and his ways are Judgment Deut. 32.4 and he is excellent in working Jer. 32.19 The glory of the Lord is much concerned not only in the goodness of his works but in the perfection and beauty of it Now it adds much to the beauty of a work when it is brought forth in a fit season and is as an apple of gold in a picture of silver The unlook'd-for concurrence of all circumstances to the production of any great work of God makes it appear very admirable in our Eyes Thirdly God doth by this means wonderfully glorifie both his Power and his Wisdom in the Eyes of the men of the World 1. His power when men see the whole Creation sequacious to his Will and Counsel that assoon as he begins and sets out in any work there is a fudden change in the creature and all of them follow him in his paths As the power of a great Prince is herein magnified all his Subjects possibly are secure and at quiet and peace and think nothing of the Prince's counsels But no sooner doth he set up his Standard or cause his Drums to be beat up but presently all his Subjects are in arms and ready to follow him upon what designs he pleaseth to lead them This speaketh now the great power and influence this Prince hath upon his Subjects So now to observe the World as it were all at quiet and minding no such thing and God then beginning some great work and as it were setting up his Standard and it is no sooner up but all men flock to it as if it had been a design laid amongst them To make it plain by an instance The whole World almost was in a dead sleep of Popish-ignorance and superstition and in all humane appearance none thought or dream't of any Reformation God no sooner proclaimeth his design of Reformation and useth Luther to set up his standard at Wittenberg 1516 it was but by a pitiful Monk but as if this had been a design of a long contrivance in the World and laid in the several parts of Germany Duke Frederick the Saxon-Elector falls in with him Franciscus Picus Mirandula at Rome perswades a Reformation Marquess Caracciolus and Bernhardenus Bonifacius Marquess of Oria turn Confessors at Naples Zuinglius stands up for Reformation in Switzerland Myconius at Thuring I think all in a year and then other parts in Germany till the Reformation had overspread the greatest part of Germany What a wonderful Specimen was this of the power of God upon men upon the hearts of men in the World yea and thus the Wisdom of God is wonderfully magnified for by this means all the World comes to be convinced that God could not have begun or done his work in a fitter time Indeed God could have done it with equal advantage at any time having at all times the hearts of Princes and of all men in his hand but those that do not so wistly consider the influence of God upon mens hearts in the cause and only view humane circumstances when they see God bringing forth his work at a time when the World is prepared and fitted for it must adore the wisdom of God in it Fourthly God doth by this means check the haste and precipitancy and rashness of our spirits and shew us our own folly We are very prone to prescribe to God and to limit the holy One Wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel say the Disciples Now when we see God disappointing our hopes and expectations and bringing forth his work in his own time when the worlds circumstances fit it and all things concur to it then we understand our own folly and rashness and that our spirits are too hasty then we see that if the work of God had been brought forth in our time it had not been half so easily effected nor half so beautiful Methinks here we are like some foolish ignorant children that view the Carpenter at work about some goodly frame of an house the Carpenter you know doth his work by degrees first he fitteth one piece and layeth it by him then another and so a third The child vieweth this and not understanding the contrivance he is every day crying to his father to set it up Father when do you set up the house shall it not go up this day to morrow c The child thinks that there is nothing to do but to set up this piece or that piece but his wiser Father knows that he must have every piece fitted and prepared the joints and the tenons ready to couple one piece to another or it would be to no purpose to begin to set up the building before it were framed and one part coupled to the other The child at last when he seeth his Father set it up all and the parts fitted one to another then it begins to see its self a fool and to understand that its Father was wiser than it against another time it learneth wit to let the Father alone to his own wisdom time and contrivance The Father might have lost his pains and spoiled some pieces of good timber and done nothing else in sooner hearkning to the childs importunity It may be the child in its haste hoists up a piece of timber but it falls down upon him and bruiseth him c. It is much the same case with us we look for a Reformation we believe God will sit as a Refiner upon Zion we cannot let God alone to his own time till he hath fitted the world's circumstances to his design but it may be we are hastening of God not only by modest prayers submitted to his will which is our duty but by murmurings and repinings at God It may be we like the hasty child are hoisting up some pieces of timber encouraging some or other to begin it irregularly and by that means get nothing but
maketh the wrath and rage of bloody men to praise him I might go on and shew you how God makes use of the wars and fightings the envy emulation and strife which often arise amongst the men of the world and James 3.1 Whence come all these but from the lusts that war in our members to gain his people liberty and protection But I have spoken enough to justifie this Observation but it may be some will say to me Why doth God do this Could not God do his work by other instruments And were it not more suitable to the Holiness of God to bring about his designs by better instruments To which the answer were good enough to say Who art thou that disputest with God It is enough for us that thus it pleaseth him and that this is consistent enough both with his Holiness and Wisdom It is not inconsistent with his holiness to mean and to turn that for good which men mean and intend for evil as in Joseph's case Gen. 50.20 for God doth not put this malice into their hearts he only suffereth them to walk in their own ways and then governeth their lusts to his own praise and glory But I shall shew you that this is a very reasonable motion and working of Divine Providence which will appear to you by the following Considerations 1. That God by this sheweth his infinite wisdom and power by how much there is the less aptitude and disposition in a cause to bring forth an effect by so much must the power and wisdom of the efficient cause be made more glorious Now there is nothing in nature less disposed to the Glory of God nor that hath so much antipathy to the Glory of God as sin and lust What cannot that God do that can make mens lusts to praise him Lust of its own nature opposeth God nothing is so contrary to his designs for God to make this now to serve his designs and to bring about his Counsels this must glorifie God as an Almighty God that can do whatsoever he pleaseth and by what means soever he pleaseth yea and by this means God maketh his Wisdom admirable When he taketh the wise in their own craftiness Come saith Pharaoh let us deal wisely with them God makes Pharaoh's wisdom to destroy his people a great means to deliver his people What an infinitely-wise God did he by this declare himself Turning Pharaoh's wisdom into folly and making it to operate directly contrary to his deliberations 2. A second Consideration is this That it is but reasonable that God should make some use of the worst of men The worst of men are the Lords creatures he hath made them he doth much for them they live upon his hand of Providence 't is reasonable they should do him some service now intentionally and designedly a wicked man will do God no service at all his heart is quite another way his life is a pursuit of one lust or other if God did not get glory on him besides his intention he could have no service at all from him There is no reason that leud and wicked men covetous ambitious men bloody and cruel men should live in the world for nothing and be maintained from Gods basket for nothing without doing him any service they will not serve God as reasonable creatures should do offering up their bodies as a living acceptable sacrifice to God which the Apostle Rom. 12.1 determines our reasonable service The Apostle therefore to the Thessalonians calls wicked men unreasonable They shall therefore serve God as brute creatures as the beasts of the field serve him not knowing what they do as a meer machine and engine serveth us by the force of our hand nay in a worse degree quite contrary to their own counsels intentions and designs God could have no service from wicked men if he did not get himself a glory from their lusts as he got himself glory upon Pharaoh 3. There is something in Gods Counsels to be produced in the world that is fit for no other hands than the hands of sinners and is hard to be effected any way but from their lusts These are the acts of his Punitive Justice upon his People God is compelled by his Justice sometimes to kindle a fire in Sion and to set up a furnace in Hierusalem to melt and to try his people in order to the purging out of their dross and taking away their tin Now as it is lust which kindleth all fires so ordinarily it is the lust of Gods Enemies of wicked men which bloweth up this fire Sometimes indeed Ephraim is against Mamasses and Manasses against Ephraim but ordinarily it is the Assyrian or Egyptian or Babylonian that must destroy Israel Men do not use to set sheep to hunt and tear sheep but to make use of dogs for that work 4. This is a reasonable motion of Providence to incourage the people of God never to despair but continually to hope in the Lords mercy That which usually discourageth our hope in God for any good as to his Church is the heighth of the rage of Enemies the sad and forlorn state of things the appearance of never an instrument like to do any service for God or for his People But none of all this is a sufficient ground for discouragement if God can make use of the worst of men and make the lusts of people serviceable to his own wise counsels and bringing about his purposes I might also have added that these motions of Providence are reasonable to shew wicked men their folly and how vainly they set themselves against the counsels and purposes of God who ordinarily taketh them by guile and overthroweth them in their own craftiness But I have enlarged enough upon the doctrinal part of this Observation I now come to the Application of it Vse 1. In the first place let us here admire the infinite power and the wisdom of God and learn at all times to trust in his word What cannot that God do What will not the wisdom of that God extend to who can make the highest and proudest Enemies which his glory hath to serve the designs and counsels of his glory The work of Creation is not so much a work of infinite power and wisdom as this work of Providence In Creation God only produceth being out of not being here God brings out his glory from that which hath an unmeasurable contrariety to his glory nothing is so desperately opposite to the glory of God as the sordid lusts of mans heart no creature is so opposite to the honour and glory of God as a resolved malitious sinner is Now for God to make such a wretch to serve him nay to make such a wretch in the hottest pursuit of his lusts to serve him and by the satisfaction of his lusts to serve the great design of his glory O what an Almighty Power what an infinite wisdom must this speak in God! And this I say should recommend God
than to will iniquity and of purer hands than to work iniquity But the difficulty lyeth here It is plain from this discourse that God useth peoples sins as a medium to his glory he having willed the end must needs have willed the means for though a thing may be fortuitous to man yet nothing is fortuitous or casual to God A man now in order to the accomplishment of some design of his may make use of some things which fall in and he never foresaw nor fore-thought nor design'd as a means in order to his accomplishment but it were blasphemy to suppose any such thing of God A great question there is amongst Divines what influence God hath upon the sinful actions of men It falleth not so fully in my way at present as to engage me in any full discourse upon it Certain it is that the holy God putteth malice into the heart of no man nor doth at all incite him to any sinful actions This were indeed to make God the Author of sin he commands it not that is impossible he approveth it not he inclineth not the will of man unto it But as certain it is 1. That he assisteth the faculties and members of a man to those natural actions which his own lust and malice maketh sinful He assisted the tongues of Ananias and Saphira to speak but it was their own lust and malice which inclined them rather to speak that which was false than the truth In him we live move and have our being 2. As certain it is That he permitteth and suffereth men to execute their lusts otherwise they could not execute them he could most certainly hinder them Forty years he suffered the Jews manners in the wilderness Acts 13.18 He suffered all nations to walk in their own ways Act. 14.16 Now for this sufferance I think it is well expressed by an eminent Divine of our own Gods permission of sin saith he lyes in the suspension of his own efficiency and the removal of the impediments Pelagians dream that God gave unto man a perfect freedom of will and so did as it were Dormitare in operibus suis sleep while his Enemies sowed the tares of sin but no such thing must be imagined of God Nor doth God only remove those impediments by which the sinner might be hindred in his acts of sin he is properly said to be hindred in an action who cannot do what he hath a mind to do now God doth something more in his permission of mens sins than not hinder their commission of it he suspendeth that efficiency by which they were restrain'd or which should incline them to do otherwise 3. He willeth that the sin should be though he doth not will to effect it Indeed for God to will the effecting or committing of sin is not consistent with the purity and holiness of God God's permission of sin and willing it in the effect doth ponere effectum non causam it doth assert the effect not the cause his willing it in this sense doth by no means imply his procuring it inciting to it or approbation of it It is not procurans volitio and here Divines say rightly Deus absque jactura sanctitatis offendiculo velle potest peccata vult rem effici non effectum dare He willeth the thing should be done but he doth not will the doing of it Who shall dare to say that God did not will that Judas should betray Christ and Pilate condemn him and that the Jews should crucifie him When the Apostle saith That they did but according to whatsoever Gods hand and counsel had determined before to be done Act. 4.28 And that he was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledg of God Act. 2.23 If God did not will that most vile action should be done how did his hand and counsel determine it How was he delivered by the counsel of God which the Scripture expresly affirms And this is all that I know that Mr. Calvin or any that tread in his steps have said which many now a-days have so clamoured against as if he made God the Author of sin and willed acts of sin Mr. Calvin and all sober Divines will grant them that it is inconsistent with the holy nature of God to infuse malice into the hearts of any or to incite any to any malicious and sinful action or to assist them in the sinfulness and obliquity of their action but those who have read Pareus's disputes with the Jesuites at Swalbach will easily understand what Divines these men read and with whose heifers they plow and out of whose quivers they draw their arrows of bitter words To whom the best answer is that of the Archangel to the Devil The Lord rebuke them 4. Then lastly God governeth the wicked actions of men when they are done to his own praise and glory and maketh an eminent use of them but yet a spotless use Take Pharaoh in his hardening of his heart against the Will of God revealed to him for the dismission of the Israelites God had purposed that Pharaoh's heart should harden he tells Moses so long before it came to issue God removed what might have hindred the hardening of his heart he would believe from time to time that God had done his worst and he should keep them let the mighty God do what he could he suspended his own efficiency he could have softned Pharaohs heart if he had pleased he assisted him to his natural actions he could never else have spoken the words he did nor made ready a Chariot When the action was done he governed it to his own praise and glory he said I will get me glory upon Pharaoh and he did get himself glory upon him and made Pharaoh's wrath to praise him But I will add no more to the Explication or proof of this Observation Vse 1. This now in the first place may convince us of the infinite power wisdom and goodness of God Omnipotency is usually thought to be most discovered in Creation the production of things out of a meer not-being into a being where there is no pre-existent matter for God to work upon but here seemeth yet to be a greater demonstration of Divine Power for God to make the wrath of man to praise him to bring forth the great designs of his glory out of mens sins It sheweth us also the infinite wisdom of God The natural sagacity of the bee is seen in sucking honey out of poysonous herbs and flowers a thing of the sweetest taste out of flowers and herbs of bitterest taste and in doing it it by its chymistry commendeth the wisdom of its Maker who hath given it this natural skill The acquired art and skill of the Apothecary and Chymist who make the desperatest poysons which have the greatest contrariety to humane nature to serve for medicines to heal mens diseases commendeth the wisdom of God for their God hath taught them this discretion But oh the wisdom of God! to make
Providence of God And thus I have opened the Observation to you I come now to the Application Vse 1. In the first place This observation affordeth us another sign of the times I observed to you before that we have generally a curiosity to know what shall come to pass in future times how it shall go to know both what God is doing with his Church in the age wherein we live and what he will do with it in the ages following He that maketh this observation will in this point be spiritually wise and will also understand the loving-kindness of the Lord yea and by this we may understand what the Counsels of God are in a great measure as to families and persons Observe but what those are whom God sets over them or suffers to stand in relation to them and you will understand much of this If God intendeth mercy and goodness to any Nation or any Church he giveth them Judges and Counsellors as at the beginning Eccl. 10.16 17. Wo to thee O Land when thy King is a Child and Princes eat in the morning Blessed art thou O Land when thy King is the son of Nobles and thy Princes eat in due season for strength and not for drunkenness Observe but in the state who are in the places of Magistrates whether they be men of wisdom and knowledge of justice and righteousness or men of little wisdom rash and inconsiderate men men of little knowledge men that will take bribes and oppress the poor and needy in judgment not suffering the causes of the poor to stand in judgment and you may easily judge what God is about with that Nation Look into the Church of God and observe what persons they are that are in the Ministry Whether they be men that are able and faithful to teach skilled in the words of righteousness able to open and apply the holy Scriptures to the hearts and Consciences of people to pray and to pour out their souls unto God in supplications Or men that were Aptiores ad stivam as Beza sometimes said I may add ad cauponam vel tabernam fitter for a Plow-tail for an Ale-house a Tavern or a Victualling-house and it needeth no interpreter to you what God is about to do with such a Church In like manner look into families look upon particular persons observe what manner of persons are in the relations of Husbands Wives Parents Children and you may easily know Gods present design or what he is after like to do in such families or as to such persons Where God intendeth mercy he fitteth persons for their respective relations in all humane societies Vse 2. Hence again in the second place each one may make a judgement of himself whether God hath called him to this or that work this or that Relation A man can have little comfort in any relation to which he cannot see himself called of God be it Magistracy or Ministry or any other Relation when we see God calling us to it we may look for Gods blessing upon us in it ay and we may in that case also expect Gods protection his standing by us and standing up for us against Opposition now neither of these can in other causes be expected I say 1. A person called of God to any work any relation may reasonably expect the blessing of God upon him in it If he be a Magistrate that God should make his government peaceable and prosperous subduing the people under him and subjecting their spirits to his Government If he be a Minister that God should direct his meditations assist his heart in enditing new matter and his tongue that it should be the tongue of a ready writer blessing his labours and giving in to his ministry the souls of the people committed to his charge He may expect Gods protection and defence of him against the opposition that he meets with It is a promise you ordinarily meet with annexed to precepts by which God hath commissioned men to be Ministers I will be with you it is what God said to Jeremiah to Ezechiel What Christ said to his Apostles I will saith he be with you to the end of the world now that promise reacheth to both these both assistance and protection and therefore it is of mighty concern to such as ingage in great work or are put into any great relation to see Gods call of them to that work or relation without a view of that I again tell you they can expect the presence of God no way neither blessing nor protecting them Now from this observation upon the motions of Actual Providence you may make up a judgement of that Actual Providence fits them for that work and Relation whom God calleth to it it doth not fit every one for it whom it suffereth to creep into it but it fits all for their work whom God directs into it and who are like to be a blessing to their Correlates and those who cannot find themselves fitted of God for the work and acts of that Relation wherein they are may conclude that though they be not in that station without God yet God hath nothing further to do with them in their station but to permit them to get into it for a plague and scourge to the people to whom they are in relation and for their own damnation and confusion at the last Is any one a Minister to instance only in that Relation he stands most highly concerned of all men living to see his call the charge of souls men will at last find a great and burthensom charge If he be faithful he is like to meet with the greatest opposition imaginable in that work he stands in need of the greatest assistance of God for the due performance of it he can look for neither unless he can find that God hath called him to his work The great acts of the ministerial office are praying and preaching praying for the people Preaching that is opening the Scriptures the will and counsel of God unto people and applying it to their Consciences Wouldst thou know now whether thou beest called of God as Aaron was Examine then whether God hath fitted thee for the work of the ministry Hath God given thee the Spirit of prayer and supplication hath God given thee a knowledge and understanding in the Scriptures that thou art as it was said of Apollos mighty in the Scriptures such a one a Minister should be If Gods providence hath given thee a willingness and a desire to it and an opportunity for the exercise of it and hath also thus qualified thee for the several parts of it then thou mayest conclude that God hath called thee to it It is not a Patrons presentation that will make up the call of God no nor yet the boldness and confidence of the person that will venture upon the greatest employment the world affords I say none of these things will do it a mans own needs and not knowing how to live
followeth in the fourth place the necessity of a law to be given unto man in his state of innocency For saith the Apostle where there is no law there is no transgression sin being the transgression of the law Now this Law with the promise annexed to it was the Covenant of Works on Gods part and the restipulation on mans part must be presumed or man had been a transgressor before the fall by a rebellion to the Divine Will and this formally maketh up the Covenant of Works God promising him life upon condition of his Obedience and man accepting the promise and agreeing to the terms or condition of life imposed on him Now God having given this Law and made this Covenant man by the violation of it became guilty a debtor to the Justice of God and so capable of a Redemption a Remission and Justification 5. I desire you to consider That the Covenant of Grace and promise by faith on Gods part could not possibly have been made good without the destruction of the first Covenant of Works and the promise of life made upon that this is that which the Apostle saith in my text That the promise by faith of Jesus might be given to them that believe I pray observe here are three things to be considered 1. The matter of the promise 2. The means by which the promise is to be obtained 3. The objects of it The promise intended is doubtless the promise of eternal life so often called in Scripture as being indeed the great and most valuable promise what is the means of obtaining it On Gods part it must be given out on mans part it must be received by faith for it is given to them that believe and it is therefore called the promise by faith in Jesus Christ Now the promise of life by works under the first Covenant was wholly inconsistent with this promise of being saved by faith in Christ Though the first Covenant comprehended a faith in God as being a piece of that internal homage which every soul oweth to God yet it could not comprehend a faith in Christ as our Mediator there being no need of a Saviour till we were in danger nor of a Mediator till we were become transgressors How therefore was it possible that the promise of faith in Christ to those who believe in him should be given out till first the Covenant of Works was both given out and also violated Though the law by the promise of saith in Christ was not destroyed so far forth as it was a directive and obligatory rule of life and conversation unto all yet so far as it was a Covenant of life it must be both given out and also destroyed that the promise of faith might be given out 6. In the last place I desire you to consider That as on Gods part the promise of life by faith in Christ was inconsistent with the promise of life upon the doing of the works of the law so on our part we should never have come to Christ that we might have life if we had not first been concluded under wrath And this will appear to every intelligent soul that will but consider That the going out of the soul unto Christ for life is a disclaimer of its own righteousness and a very great piece of self-denial to which the soul will never move naturally but must see it self constrained to it by necessity Isa 57.10 Thou hast found the life of thy hand therefore thou wert not grieved so long as a man seeth help in himself and thinks that he hath found life in his own hands so long he is not grieved not at all concerned as to his eternal state And this is the true reason why you see the greatest brokenness of heart and sense of sin yea and the greatest holiness of life too in those men that yet look to be saved by faith in Jesus Christ for our free-will men that maintain a power in man to believe and repent or to keep the Law of God perfectly they have said they have found life in their own hands and then I hope they have none but themselves to blame if they miss and come short of it if they do not repent and turn unto God to day they can do it to morrow It was necessary as on Gods part in order to his giving out of the promise of faith in Christ and exhibition of the Covenant of Grace to the world so also on our part in order to our acceptation and taking hold of any such Covenant and the application of our souls unto God upon the terms of that Covenant for the sure mercies of it that there should first be a Covenant of Works made with man and a law of works given unto him for had there been no such Covenant made no such Law given man could not have broken and violated it and if he had not violated and broken it he could not have been a transgressor he could not have been a lost sinner and consequentially had needed no Saviour nor would man have ever been perswaded to have gone out of himself and to have accepted of the righteousness of Christ for his righteousness had he not first been rendred in a forlorn desperate and hopeless condition without Application unto Christ Vse 1. For the practical Application of what you have heard now in this discourse This in the first place should mind us not to be hasty to deny nor too forward to stumble at some things in the dispensations of God which at first seem to us hard to be understood Who can find out God or search out the Almighty unto perfection I do not know any thing that looketh more inconsistently in appearance to us at our first view of it than this That God should from eternity six the salvation of man upon a Covenant of Grace and write it in his book That there should be salvation in no other than in Jesus Christ nor any other name given under heaven amongst men whereby they might be saved that he who believeth should be saved and he who believed not should be damned for all these things were decrees in the rolls of eternity or they could never have been Revelations of Gods Will in Scripture Heb. 10.5 6 7. and Psal 40.7 In the volume of Gods book it was written of Christ that he should come into the world and do the Will of God relating to the salvation of man I say that God should thus setle mans salvation in the order of its causes and upon the terms of free-grace the merit and satisfaction of Christ and Faith in him and yet when mankind was created God should treat him upon a Law of Works and make a Covenant with him for life and salvation upon condition of his perfect obedience both to the Law written at that time upon his heart and this positive precept of not eating of the tree of forbidden fruit yet there is nothing clearer in Scripture than that God
they have not the Oracles of God the ordinary means of Grace are hidden from them There is no doubt but their own wilful sinning is the cause of it But whether the Sin of their Progenitors who had the Gospel and sinned it away which to me seemeth a little hard for I can hardly be brought to agree that God for the sins of Relations punisheth their Correlates in Spiritual things Or that prodigious sinning which they are guilty of not living up to what may by them by their natural Light be seen of God for the Apostle Rom. 1. gives you a true Copy of the lives of all Heathens is not so easie to determine I should incline much to fix the cause here they have though not the Book of Scripture yet the Book of Gods Works and Nature though not Men Ministers of the Gospel to them yet the Heavens declaring the Glory of God and the Earth shewing his handy-work those standing Preachers of the Power Glory and Greatness of God whose sound is gone out and going dayly out over all the world they have the Sun and Moon they see much of God in and by them and may learn much of God from them but knowing God and not glorifying him as God but becoming vain in their imaginations they worship Devils and Stocks and Stones the work of their own hands and shutting their eyes against the Light of those common notions which are engraven in all reasonable Natures they give up themselves to commit all filthiness and unrighteousness So not using the Light of Nature and Reason which God hath given them God justly with-holdeth from them the Talent of the Gospel If God doth grant it to others which yet it may be are guilty of the same sottish abuse of their natural Light and Reason therein he is good and gracious but if he denieth it unto them therein he is not unjust or unrighteous But I say there may be some particular instances as to which it may be hard for us to assign what particular sins God so securely proceedeth against the Nations Families or Persons for but this is certain Sin is certainly the next cause of all severe dispensations of punishment Now this will appear to us 1. From the evidence of Scripture 2. From the evidence of Reason concluding from Scripture-Principles 1. First from the plain evidence of Scripture In the case of the Heathen amongst whom the Devil hath the greatest harvest of perishing Souls of these the Apostle speaketh Rom. 1.18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men Observe the words God doth not reveal his wrath against the Heathen meerly upon the account of his Soveraign Power because he will do it but against the ungodliness and unrighterusness of men he goeth on declaring their ungodliness and their unrighteousness Vers 21. Because when they knew God they glorified him not as God They had light enough from the Works of God in Nature to shew them other kind of Ideas of the Divine Being than it was possible for them to find amongst created beings but they turned the Incorruptible God into the image of a corruptible man yea of creeping things and four-footed beasts The Apostle telleth them also of their unrighteousness Vers 29. Fornication wickedness covetousness malitiousness they were full of envy murders debates deceits c. Now for these things the wrath of God was revealed against them The Apostle telleth us Rom. 2.14 That when the Gentiles which have not the Law do by nature the things which are contained in the Law they are a Law to themselves And Vers 26. If the uncircumcision keep the Law their uncircumcision shall be accounted to them for circumcision I am not of their mind who think that the Heathen have light enough to shew them the way to Heaven I know not Isa 9.2 Mat. 4.16 Luk. 1.7 9. if that were true why the Scripture should set them out under the notion of persons or people that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death until Christ as the day-spring from on high hath visited them But I am sure they have sin enough to justifie God in damning them and permitting them to walk in their own ways until they have filled up the measure of their iniquities and brought judgment upon themselves I also believe that if there be found a Job in the Land of Vz If there be one found amongst the Heathen who feareth God and escheweth evil who walketh up to his natural light God hath his secret way to reveal and apply Christ to them so as he shall not perish But yet I cannot believe that his natural light shall save him because the Scripture telleth us That there is no other name under heaven than the name of Jesus Christ by which any can be saved neither is there Salvation in any other There are several things in nature that we know are so but we do not know the way of them In the matters of grace there are several things also which we understand not the way of God in Three come into my mind at present The way of God with an infant we are not sure that all infants no not that all Baptized infants shall be saved but we doubt not but of many such is the Kingdom of God but for the way of God with the Soul of one that liveth not up to the exercises of reason and the intelligentness of the ordinary means of Faith and Regeneration this we do not understand 2. The way of God with a thief upon the Cross I mean with a sinner forgetting or neglecting to turn unto God until his last hour we do believe that God hath mercy upon some such Souls but how God worketh in them these habits of grace which are necessary according to the ordinary rule how they are born again of the Spirit and Baptized not with water only but with the Holy Ghost and with fire this we do not understand And so Thirdly The way of God with an Heathen that never cometh to the light of the Gospel nor hath any external Revelation of Christ I say how the Spirit of God moveth and which way it cometh into such a Soul this we do not understand but leave it amongst the unsearchable things of Divine Providence which we believe and revere If there be as I said before a Job in the Land of Vz he shall know that his Redeemer lives and that he shall stand at the last day upon the earth and he shall see him with his eyes But which way God revealeth this to him we understand not In the mean time these hidden things being left to God revealed things belong to us and to our children and this is revealed That the wrath of God as to the Heathen is revealed against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men 2. But this is much more evident concerning such as live under the means of grace and offers of salvation Oh
and blesseth God 2 Cor. 11.4 Who saith he comforteth us in all tribulation that we may be able to comfort those which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we our selves are comforted of God It is said of Luther that he was wont to say that Three things make a Divine Temptations Meditation and Prayers Luther was himself a man of great temptations and by them became able to succour those that were tempted No knowledg is like experimental knowledg none knoweth either how to sympathize with or how to succor those that are under temptations desertions or any Soul-troubles so well as those who themselves have been under them experience is a great Mistress when therefore God hath a design upon some Souls to make use of them for succor and relief of others under Soul-troubles and afflictions he often first brings themselves under them and supports and comforts them then they know how to speak a word in season how to comfort and relieve 2. Again God may be conceived reasonably to do it upon a gracious design in order to carrying on of his work in their own Souls we know not what manner of Spirit we are of God knoweth all our tempers seeth all our inclinations and dispositions 1. I have told you that some persons are more complexioned to some sins than others Every man hath his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his proper lust and corruption by which he more ordinarily offendeth than other ways God to prevent the breaking out of this corruption afterwards layeth the Soul under the load and burthen of it and maketh his former miscarriages of that Nature more exceedingly bitter unto him that so he may see how little fruit he may afterwards expect of those things of which he hath been to that degree ashamed and which he hath tasted to that degree bitter unto his Soul 2. He may possibly see some of more brisk and airy tempers more inclined to pride and being lifted up above measure and therefore thinks fit to keep them longer under the Spirit of bondage as he did with Paul after he had been rapt up into the third Heaven and heard unutterterable words lest as he saith he should be exalted above measure God gave him a thorn in the flesh Thus now I have given you some little account of the variety of Gods Providential dispensations toward Souls in the collation of the first grace but now I have done I can only say with Job Chap. 26.14 Lo these are parts of his wayes but how little a portion is heard of him The end of all this discourse is not to pretend to give you all the reason of God in these his dispensations for who can by searching find out God who can find out the Almighty unto perfection we must say such knowledg is too wonderful for us but only to shew you that this various way of Gods dealing with Souls whom he intendeth to bring to Heaven is not such but it will approve it self to the reason of every reasonable Creature and such as is very equitable and proper for the wise God in order to the compassing of his most wise and glorious ends Let me now shew you what use is proper for us to make of these meditations and observations Vse 1. In the first place this may mind us to take heed of a rash judgment either in our own case or in the cases of others we are very prone to give our selves needless trouble and to pass unrighteous Judgments concerning the work of God upon our own and others Souls One concludeth he hath as yet no work of God upon his heart he was never humbled never so broken upon the Wheel never under such legal terrors nor so long under the Spirit of bondage as some others he cannot give an account to himself of any certain time nor of any certain Sermon when or whereby God wrought upon and changed his heart and we are too too ready to sit in Judgment upon the work of God also on the Souls of others You have heard that the ways of God are past finding out God doth not always tread the same path and the variety which God useth towards Souls under different circumstances and for different ends is very reasonable we have all of us reason enough to be troubled if we do not find this great work wrought in our Souls but if we do find that our hearts are changed that the work is done for the way or means or time which God hath taken or used to do it in or by we have no such reason to be sollicitous those who are come to work in the Vineyard at the Ninth or Eleventh hour shall have their Penny as well as those who were called and came in at the Sixth hour God doth not always work in the same order and method he is not to be tracked in his ways The conversion of the Soul lyeth in the change of the heart I would not with any trust to Baptismal conversion or regeneration If the heart be changed if the Soul be renewed according to the Image of God if old things be passed away in it and all things become new whether it was done this or that way by this or that means in this or that manner is no just cause at all of trouble to us God hath several ways to do his work by we must pass a judgment upon our selves from what we find within our selves the frames and tempers of our Spirits for what man knoweth the things of a man but the Spirit of a man which is within him But we must judge of others from the change we see in their lives and conversations Man looketh upon the outward appearance but God looketh upon the heart 1 Sam. 16.7 If we look upon our Neighbour and there appear no spots upon him but what may be the spot of Gods people no markes of profaneness or impiety towards God nor of unrighteousness toward man but he appeareth to us one who herein exercised himself to keep a good conscience both toward God and towards men we ought to judge this person one whose heart God hath changed If we look into our own hearts and can find that we truly love God and hate evil that we are afraid to sin against God and are desirous in all things to please him though we cannot find that the ways of God with our Souls in our conversion have been like the ways of God with the Souls of other men yet we ought not in this case to judge or to condemn our selves Gods ways are not alike with every Soul Its work in the effect as to the main is alike for it is true as to every man that except he be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God but his way of working is not the same Vse 2. In the Second place what you have heard affordeth great encouragement to every Soul under any circumstance to turn unto God
that it may live and not dye God calleth into his Vineyard at several hours some he calleth at the Sixth some at the Nineth some at the Eleventh hour Happy thrice happy are they whom God findeth at the Sixth hour in their youth and persuadeth to go into his Vineyard they ordinarily find not so hard a labour of the new-birth they have the priviledg of a longer familiarity and acquaintance with God they have more opportunities of doing God service God often honoreth them to do him some more eminent service but if you have slipped that hour if it be the Ninth hour nay if it be in the wane of your life if it be towards Evening with you that you have nothing to do but to repent and dye singing the Song of old Simeon Now Lord let thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy Salvation yet thou hast no cause to discourage thy self God doth not work upon all Souls at one and the same period of time Great sinners have no reason to discourage themselves the gate to Heaven may appear something straiter to you than unto others you may have an harder work of it it is an hard thing for those that are accustomed to do evil to do well but yet if God will give you an heart to repent if the Lord shall change your hearts and incline you to turn unto him there is mercy with God even for you God can men make to bring forth fruit in their old age Vse 3. Lastly and with that I shall shut up this discourse This speaketh aloud unto all such as have the charge of others as Parents Masters Tutors and Governours to be daily labouring with them for the good of their Souls using all possible means to bring them unto God It is Solomons advice Ecc. 11.6 In the morning sow thy seed and in the evening let not thy hand be slack for thou knowest not which shall prosper this or that or whether both shall be alike good you that are Parents of Children Masters of Servants in any relation Governours of youth see what an ingagement lyeth upon you to bring up your Children to Reading the word Catechizing to bring them to hear faithful Preachers sow the seeds of Spiritual learning and instruction in them in the Morning of their lives hearken not to those who would perswade you that Catechizing in your families is useless and that a Notional knowledg signifieth nothing until God come to work in their hearts that is true but ill applyed when used as a discouragement to the use of the means of knowledg God doth his work by the use of means on our parts and Preaching is not the only means God sometimes in the conversion of sinners maketh his way to their hearts by their heads sanctifying notions of truth dropt into Souls of persons in their tender years and reflecting them many years after upon the conscience you know not which shall prosper this or that use them to read the Scriptures to be examined questioned and catechised out of the Scriptures to hear lively and powerful preaching you know not which shall prosper in order to the conversion of their Souls and turning them to God this or that whether reading or preaching or Family-instruction God that can work without means useth as you have heard a variety of means and doth not limit himself to this or that Or whether both may not prove alike good God may use one means to begin another to perfect one to plant another to water one for laying the foundation another for building thereon and laying the corner-stone and yet when the building is finished you shall see reason enough to cry Not unto us O Lord not unto us but to thy name be given the glory to cry Grace Grace unto it The Knowing person when converted hath usually if not guilty of notorious sins against his light the easiest new-birth and the most quiet and peaceable life Many more doubts and fears trouble those that are more imperfect in their knowledg of the things of God than trouble others O let it not be said of you as it was said of Herod upon occasion of the killing of his own Child amongst the rest of the Infants That it was better to be Herods Hog than his Child Let it not be said of any of you that it is better to be your Horse or Swine or other Beast than your Child or Servant or Scholar For your Beasts you provide all things sutable to their Natures and capacities O remember your Children have Spiritual beings and are born into the World with a capacity of Eternity nay under a certain ordination to a miserable or blessed Eternity SERMON LIII Isaiah 28.29 This also cometh from the Lord who is wonderful in Counsel and excellent in working THE Particle This in the front of my Text is relative to what went before where the Prophet had been speaking of some works of Divine Providence and those but of an inferiour Nature if compared with others the discretion by which men having divers sorts of Grain and Seeds are taught to get them out of their husks and ears by instruments not always the same but suted to the respective Grain or Seed they intend to get out Of this it is that the Text speaks This discretion and saith it cometh from the Lord who is wonderful in Counsel So that I desire you to observe that my following discourses which I shall bottom on this Text are not founded on the first words and the relative Particle This but upon the latter where Gods wonderfulness in Counsel and excellency in working are join'd together Gods excellency in the workings of Providence floweth from his wonderful Counsel and if such little instincts as the foregoing verses speak of be from the Lord the Lords workings and from a wonderful Counsel an easie argumentation will conclude that Gods dispensations of special grace by the hand of his Providence must needs be the effects of infinite wisdom and proceed from the Lord who is wonderful in Councel which is the point I have in hand and to vindicate Divine wisdom from our exceptions against it because of the variety which God useth in his dispensations of it and the inequal distributions of it to the Children of men I have spoken already to the varieties of Providence in the dispensations of the first grace by which a Soul is converted and turned from sin unto God in which work the Soul is meerly passive I come now to speak to those dispensations of Spiritual grace wherein the Soul is not meerly passive but active as to these also we shall observe a great variety in the motions of Divine Providence and a great inequality in the distributions of it of which I shall give you some account and then shut up the discourse To this inequality of distribution good Christians often find it an hard thing to reconcile their thoughts and although God must be allowed to have
restrained by some superiour cause this is called in Scripture Gods Covenant with day and night heat and cold summer and winter Such a necessity all must acknowledg in the operation of all natural agents the power and pleasures of God only being reserved to countermand their operations which when he doth we call it a miraculous work of God thus day and night cold and heat seed-time and harvest summer and winter are under a fate they necessarily follow one another but as God was the first cause of this necessity by the Covenant he established so their event is in the power of God to hinder or suspend or alter as he pleaseth 4. But then Lastly There is a Theological or Christian fate which is nothing but a necessity of event imposed upon things by the most holy wise eternal free purpose and counsel of God executed by his Providence It is true the name of fate soundeth ill because of the Stoical and Mathematical vanities about it but if we take it for Quod Deus in animo suo fatus est apud se statuit ac decrevit what God hath said within himself purposed and decreed it is innocent enough Now whoso denieth a fate if they will call it so in this sense doth not so well as he should do understand the Divine Nature or the Scriptures We neither deny saith Augustine an order of causes which the will of God hath set neither do we call it fate In the mean time they are very ignorant that cannot see the difference betwixt this necessity of events and the Stoical fate 1. The Stoicks subjected God himself to fate this necessity dependeth upon the will of God as the cause of it 2. They made their fate pre-existent to God 3. They asserted a fate that took away all the liberty of mans will Now this is no consequent saith Augustine that if God hath set a certain order of all causes Non est autem consequens ut si Deo certus est omnium causarum ordo nihil sit in nostrae voluntatis arbitrio Aug. l. 5. De Civ dei then nothing is in the power of our wills The upshot of all is this We say there are a thousand things happen in respect of us casually and fortuitously that is we know not the causes of them and manner of their operations yet there is nothing so in respect of God And though all things happen necessarily as to the event with respect to the decree of God which hath set all things in an order and in respect of the universal power and influence of his Governing Providence yet for such things as are done by us they are not necessarily brought forth but freely our will is not forced but acteth as a free agent But I shall add no more to the first Branch of Instruction 2. Branch What you have heard may help to confirm your Faith as to the glorious nature of God and that in four or five Particulars 1. As to his Omniscience or knowledg of all things He must needs know all things who governeth all things He governs all the beings and existences of his creatures all their motions and actions all their errours obliquities and Omissions as I have shewed you which he could not do if they were not all naked in his sight all things must needs be open and naked in his sight with whom we have to do The Doctrine of Gods Omniscience is evident from the work of Creation He that made the Eye shall he not see He that made the Ear shall he not hear and it is evident from the work of Providence if his Kingdom ruleth over all 2. Secondly It as much confirmeth us in the Doctrine of Gods Omnipotence If his Kingdom ruleth over all 1. He must have a power to Rule and govern all 2. He must be in a capacity to exercise this power and there must be no power able to resist him So that you may see the Reasonableness of those titles given to God in Scripture viz. The Lord God Omnipotent The Almighty God The King of Kings The Lord of Lords The Lord of all the Hosts of Heaven and Earth If there were any thing too hard for God if he could be resisted he could not rule over all 3. Thirdly It may confirm you in the Activity of the Divine Essence The Schoolmen say That God is Totus Actus wholly an Act always moving working operating so it must be if he hath such a Rule as I have been describing to you He must fill all places not as a meer inactive moles and bulk of a thing filleth a place but so as at the same time he is in all places at work seeing observing governing effecting and directing or restraining and over-ruling We have no Similitude to express it by but cometh much short That of the Soul in man comes nearest it which is in all parts of the body animating actuating and governing of it 4. It confirms us in our belief of the Infinite wisdom of God He is called The only wise God 1 Tim. 1.17 and Jude v. 25. This Doctrine concludes it We see it requires a great deal of wisdom to govern a Family and keep it if it consists of many members in order but much more to govern the greater bodies of people in Towns Cities Kingdoms Empires c. Such a variety there is of motions humours passions and tempers of people Who is able to conceive what Wisdom it requires to govern all beings in the World all motions and actions of all creatures in the World and to keep them in any order or decorum at all In fine Next to the work of Creation there is nothing like the work of Providence well-studied to give a man the true notion of God and let us know what manner of Essence the Divine Essence necessarily must be Thus much by way of Instruction Secondly Vse 2 This Doctrine serveth for the unspeakable consolation of the people of God Psalm 97.1 The Lord reigneth let the Earth rejoyce let the multitude of Isles be glad thereof It is matter of rejoycing to all the World that the Lord reigneth and there is none so vile and wicked but experienceth much though many consider it not of the good effects of this universal Dominion which God exerciseth The Devils cannot do what they please in it the wills and passions of men cannot have their swing There is an Almighty One that holds the reins upon the brutish affections and passions of men the ill effects of which the greatest Atheists and contemners of God which live in the World would quickly experience but to the people of God as being the lesser number the most hated and maligned part of the World and the far weaker as to natural strength and power besides the restraint their Souls are under from putting out what natural power and strength they have beyond the Divine Law doth most eminently demonstrate to them the good effects of the Lords