it self why did it not produce it self before Why was it one moment out of being * Petav. Theol. Dogmat. Tom. 1. l. 1. c. 10.11 If there be any existence of things 't is necessary that that which was the first Cause should exist from Eternity Whatsoever was the immediate Cause of the world yet the first and chief Cause wherein we must rest must have nothing before it if it had any thing before it it were not the first He therefore that is the first Cause must be without beginning nothing must be before him If he had a beginning from some other he could not be the first Principle and Author of all things If he be the first Cause of all things he must give himself a beginning or be from Eternity He could not give himself a beginning whatsoever begins in time was nothing before and when it was nothing it could do nothing it could not give it self any thing for then it gave what it had not and did what it could not If he made himself in time why did he not make himself before What hindred him It was either because he could not or because he would not if he could not he always wanted power and always would unless it were bestowed upon him and then he could not be said to be from himself If he would not make himself before then he might have made himself when he would How had he the power of willing and nilling without a Being Nothing cannot will or nill Nothing hath no faculties So that it is necessary to grant some eternal Being or run into inextricable Labyrinths and Mazes If we deny some eternal being we must deny all being our own being the being of every thing about us unconceivable absurdities will arise So then if God were the Cause of all things He did exist before all things and that from Eternity The third thing is Eternity is only proper to God and not communicable * Bapt. 'T is as great a madness to ascribe Eternity to the Creature as to deprive the Lord of the Creature of Eternity 'T is so proper to God that when the Apostle would prove the Deity of Christ he proves it by his immutability and eternity as well as his creating power * Heb. 1.10 11 12. Thou art the same and thy years shall not fail The Argument had not strength if Eternity belonged essentially to any but God and therefore he is said only to have Immortality * 1 Tim. 6.16 All other things receive their being from him and can be deprived of their being by him All things depend on him he of none All other things are like Clothes which would consume if God preserved them not Immortality is appropriated to God i. e. an independent Immortality Angels and Souls have an Immortality but by donation from God not by their own Essence dependent upon their Creator not necessary in their own nature God might have annihilated them after he had created them so that their duration cannot properly be called an Eternity it being extrinsical to them and depending upon the will of their Creator by whom they may be extinguisht It is not an absolute and necessary but a precarious Immortality Whatsoever is not God is temporary Whatsoever is eternal is God 'T is a contradiction to say a Creature can be eternal as nothing eternal is created so nothing created is eternal What is distinct from the nature of God cannot be eternal Eternity being the Essence of God Every Creature in the notion of a Creature speaks a dependence on some Cause and therefore cannot be eternal * Lessius de Perfect l. 4. c. 2. As it is repugnant to the nature of God not to be eternal so it is repugnant to the nature of a Creature to be eternal for then a Creature would be equal to the Creator and the Creator or the Cause would not be before the Creature or Effect It would be all one to admit many Gods as many Eternals and all one to say God can be created as to say a Creature can be uncreated which is to be eternal 1. Creation is a producing something from nothing What was once nothing cannot therefore be eternal not being was eternal therefore it s being could not be eternal for it should be then before it was and would be something when it was nothing 'T is the nature of a Creature to be nothing before it was created what was nothing before it was cannot be equal with God in an Eternity of Duration 2. There is no Creature but is mutable therefore not eternal As it had a change from nothing to something so it may be changed from being to not being If the Creature were not mutable it would be most perfect and so would not be a Creature but God for God only is most perfect 'T is as much the Essence of a Creature to be mutable as it is the Essence of God to be immutable Mutability and Eternity are utterly inconsistent 3. No Creature is infinite therefore not eternal To be infinite in Duration is all one as to be infinite in Essence * Lessius de Perfect l. 4. c. 2. 'T is as reasonable to conceive a Creature immense filling all places at once as eternal extended to all ages because neither can be without infiniteness which is the Property of the Deity A Creature may as well be without bounds of place as limitations of time 4. No effect of an intellectual free Agent can be equal in duration to its Cause The Productions of natural Agents are as antient often as themselves the Sun produceth a Beam as old in time as its self But who ever heard of a piece of wise Workmanship as old as the wise Artificer God produced a Creature not necessarily and naturally as the Sun doth a Beam but freely as an intelligent Agent The Sun was not necessary it might be or not be according to the pleasure of God * Crellius de Deo cap. 18. p. 43. A free act of the Will is necessary to precede in order of time as the Cause of such effects as are purely voluntary Those Causes that act as soon as they exist act naturally necessarily not freely and cannot cease from acting But suppose a Creature might have existed by the Will of God from Eternity yet as some think it could not be said absolutely and in its own nature to be eternal because Eternity was not of the Essence of it The Creature could not be its own Duration for though it were from Eternity it might not have been from Eternity because its Existence depended upon the free Will of God who might have chose whether he would have created it or no. God only is eternal the first and the last the beginning and the end who as he subsisted before any Creature had a being so he will eternally subsist if all Creatures were reduced to nothing IV. Vse 1. Information 1. If God
if God understands his own Power and Excellency nothing can be hid from him that was brought forth by that Power as well as nothing can be unknown to him that that Power is able to produce * Bradwardin p. 6. If God knows nothing besides himself he may then believe there is nothing beside himself we shall then fancy a God miserably mistaken If he knows nothing besides himself then things were not Created by him or not understandingly and voluntarily Created but drop'd from him before he was aware To think that the first cause of all should be ignorant of those things he is the cause of is to make him not a voluntary but natural Agent and therefore necessary and then that the Creature came from him as Light from the Sun and moisture from the Water this would bean absurd opinion of the Worlds Creation if God be a voluntary Agent as he is he must be an intelligent Agent The faculty of Will is not in any Creature without that of Understanding also If God be an intelligent Agent his knowledg must extend as far as his operation and every object of his operation unless we imagine God hath lost his Memory in that long Tract of time since the first Creation of them An Artificer cannot be ignorant of his own Work If God knows himself he knows himself to be a Cause how can he know himself to be a Cause unless he know the Effects he is the Cause of One relation implies another a man cannot know himself to be a Father unless he hath a Child because it is a name of relation and in the notion of it refers to another The name of cause is a name of relation and implies an effect If God therefore know himself in all his Perfections as the Cause of things he must know all his acts what his Wisdom contrived what his Counsel determin'd and what his Power effected The knowledg of God is to be suppos'd in a free determination of himself and that knowledg must be perfect both of the object act and all the circumstances of it How can his Will freely produce any thing that was not first known in his Understanding From this the Prophet argues the understanding of God and the unsearchableness of it because he is the Creator of the ends of the earth Isa 40.28 and the same reason David gives of Gods Knowledg of him and of every thing he did and that afar off because he was formed by him Psal 139.2 15 16. As the perfect making of things only belongs to God so doth the perfect knowledg of things 't is absurd to think that God should be ignorant of what he hath given Being to that he should not know all the Creatures and their qualities the Plants and their vertues as that a man should not know the Letters that are formed by him in Writing Every thing bears in it self the mark of Gods Perfections and shall not God know the representation of his own vertue 5. Without this Knowledg God could no more be the Governour than he could be the Creator of the World Knowledg is the Basis of Providence to Know things is before the Government of things a practical knowledg cannot be without a theoretical knowledg Nothing could be directed to its proper end without the knowledg of the nature of it and its suitableness to answer that end for which it is intended As every thing even the minutest falls under the conduct of God so every thing falls under the knowledg of God A Blind Coach-man is not able to hold the Reins of his Horses and direct them in right Paths Since the Providence of God is about particulars his Knowledg must be about particulars he could not else govern them in particular nor could all things be said to depend upon him in their Being and Operations Providence depends upon the knowledg of God and the exercise of it upon the Goodness of God it cannot be without Understanding and Will Understanding to know what is convenient and Will to perform it When our Saviour therefore speaks of Providence he intimates these two in a special manner Your Heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things Mat. 6.32 and goodness in Luke 11.13 The reason of Providence is so joyned with Omniscience that they cannot be separated What a kind of God would he be that were ignorant of those things that were governed by him The ascribing this Perfection to him asserts his Providence for it is as easy for one that knows all things to look over the whole World if writ with Monosyllables in every little particular of it as it is with a man to take a view of one Letter in an Alphabet Sabund Tit. 84. much changed Again if God were not Omniscient how could he reward the Good and punish the Evil the works of men are either rewardable or punishable not only according to their outward circumstances but inward Principles and Ends and the degrees of Venom lurking in the heart The exact discerning of these without a possibility to be deceived is necessary to pass a right and infallible Judgment upon them and proportion the censure and punishment to the Crime Without such a Knowledg and discerning men would not have their due nay a Judgment just for the matter would be unjust in the manner because unjustly past without an understanding of the merit of the Cause 'T is necessary therefore that the Supream Judg of the World should not be thought to be blindfold when he distributes his Rewards and Punishments and muffle his face when he passes his Sentence 'T is necessary to ascribe to him the knowledg of mens thoughts and intentions the secret wills and aims the hidden works of darkness in every mans Conscience because every mans work is to be measured by the Will and inward frame 'T is necessary that he should perpetually retain all those things in the indelible and plain records of his Memory that there may not be any work without a just proportion of what is due to it This is the glory of God to discover the secrets of all hearts at last as 1 Cor. 4.5 the Lord shall bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the Counsels of all hearts and then shall every man have praise of God This knowledg fits him to be a Judg the reason why the ungodly shall not stand in Judgment is because God knows their ways which is implyed in his knowing the way of the righteous * Psal 1.5 6. I now proceed to the Vse VSE the first is of information or instruction If God hath all knowledg then 1. Jesus Christ is not a meer Creature The two Titles of wonderful Counsellor and mighty God are given him in conjunction Isa 9.6 not only the Angel of the Covenant as he is called Malach. 3.1 or the Executor of his Counsels but a Counsellor in conjunction with him in Counsel as well as
him * Petavius changed Did he create he knew not what and knew not before what he should Create Was he ignorant before he acted and in his acting what his operation would tend to or did he not know the nature of things and the ends of them till he had produced them and saw them in Being Creatures then did not arise from his Knowledg but his Knowledg from them he did not then Will that his Creatures should be for he had then willed what he knew not and knew not what he willed they therefore must be known before they were made and not known because they were made he knew them to make them and he did not make them to know them By the same reason that he knew what Creatures should be before they were he knows still what Creatures shall be before they are Bradward lib. 3. cap. 14. for all things that are were in God not really in their own nature but in him as a cause so the Earth and Heavens were in him as a Model is in the mind of a Work man which is in his Mind and Soul before it be brought forth into outward act 2. The Predictions of future things evidence this There is not a Prophecy of any thing to come but is a spark of his fore-knowledg and bears Witness to the Truth of this assertion in the punctual accomplishment of it this is a thing challenged by God as his own peculiar wherein he surmounts all the Idols that mans inventions have Godded in the World Isa 41.21 22. Let them bring forth speaking of the Idols and shew us what shall happen or declare us things to come shew the things that are to come hereafter that we may know that you are Gods Such a fore-knowledg of things to come is here ascribed to God by God himself as a distinction of him from all false Gods such a Knowledg that if any could prove that they were possessors of he would acknowledg them Gods as well as himself that we may know that you are Gods He puts his Deity to stand or fall upon this account and this should be the point which should decide the controversy whether he or the Heathen Idols were the true God the dispute is managed by this medium He that knows things to come is God I know things to come ergo I am God the Idols know not things to come therefore they are not Gods God submits the Being of his Deity to this Tryal If God know things to come no more than the Heathen Idols which were either Devils or men he would be in his own account no more a God than Devils or men no more a God than the Pagan Idols he doth scoff at for this defect If the Heathen Idols were to be stript of their Deity for want of this foreknowledg of things to come would not the true God also fall from the same excellency if he were defective in Knowledg he would in his own judgment no more deserve the Title and Character of a God than they How could he reproach them for that if it were wanting in himself It cannot be understood of future things in their causes when the effects necessarily arise from such causes as Light from the Sun and Heat from the Fire many of these men know more of them Angels and Devils know if God therefore had not a higher and farther Knowledg than this he would not by this be proved to be God any more than Angels and Devils who know necessary effects in their causes The Devils indeed did predict some things in the Heathen Oracles but God is differenced from them here by the infiniteness of his Knowledg in being able to predict things to come that they knew not or things in their particularities things that depended on the liberty of mans Will which the Devils could lay no claim to a certain knowledg of Were it only a conjectural knowledg that is here meant the Devils might answer they can conjecture and so their Deity were as good as Gods for tho' God might know more things and conjecture nearer to what would be yet still it would be but conjectural and therefore not a higher kind of Knowledg than what the Devils might challenge How much then is God beholden to the Socinians for denying the knowledg of all future things to him upon which here he puts the trial of his Deity God asserts his knowledg of things to come as a manifest evidence of his Godhead those that deny therefore the Argument that proves it deny the conclusion too for this will necessarily follow that if he be God because he knows future things then he that doth not know future things is not God and if God knows not future things but only by conjecture then there is no God because a certain knowledg so as infallibly to predict things to come is an inseparable Perfection of the Deity It was therefore well said of Austin that it was as high a madness to deny God to be as to deny him the foreknowledg of things to come The whole Prophetick part of Scripture declares this Perfection of God every Prophets Candle was lighted at this Torch they could not have this foreknowledg of themselves Why might not many other men have the same insight if it were by nature it must be from some superior Agent Pacuvius said Siqui quae eventura sunt provident aeqâ—â— parent Gell. lib. 14. c. 1. and all Nations owned Prophecy as a Beam from God a fruit of Divine Illumination Prophecy must be totally expunged if this be denyed for the subjects of Prophecy are things future and no man is properly a Prophet but in Prediction now Prediction is nothing but foretelling and things foretold are not yet come and the foretelling of them supposeth them not to be yet but that they shall be in time several such Predictions we have in Scripture the event whereof hath been certain The years of Famine in Egypt foretold that he would order second causes for bringing that Judgment upon them the Captivity of his People in Babylon the calling of the Gentiles the rejection of the Jews Daniels Revelation of Nebuchadnezzars Dream that Prince refers to God as the revealer of Secrets Dan. 2.47 By the same reason that he knows one thing future by himself and by the infiniteness of his Knowledg before any causes of them appear he doth know all things future 3. Some future things are known by men and we must allow God a greater Knowledg than any Creature Future things in their Causes may be known by Angels and men as I said before whosoever knows necessary causes and the efficacy of them may foretell the effects and when he sees the meeting and concurrence of several causes together he may presage what the consequent effect will be of such a concurrence So Physicians foretel the Progress of a Disease the increase or diminution of it by natural Signs and Astronomers foretel Eclipses
by their observation of the motion of Heavenly Bodies many years before they happen Cusanus can they be hid from God with whom are the reasons of all things Fuller's Pifgab l. 2. p. 2â—1 an expert Gardener by knowing the Root in the depth of Winter can tell what Flowers and what Fruit it will bear and the Month when they will peep out their heads and shall not God much more that knows the Principles of all his Creatures and is exactly privy to all their natures and qualities know what they will be and what operations shall be from those Principles Now if God did know things only in their causes his Knowledg would not be more excellent than the knowledg of Angels and men tho' he might know more than they of the things that will come to pass from every cause singly and from the concurrence of many Now as God is more excellent in Being than his Creature so he is more excellent in the objects of his Knowledg and the manner of his Knowledg well then shall a certain knowledg of something future and a conjectural knowledg of many things be found among men and shall a determinate and infallible knowledg of things to come be found no where in no Being If the conjecture of future things savours of ignorance and God knows them only by conjecture there is then no such thing in Being as a perfect intelligent Being and so no God 4. God knows his own Decree and Will and therefore must needs know all future things If any thing be future or to come to pass it must be from it self or from God not from it self then it would be independent and absolute if it hath its futurity from God then God must know what he hath decreed to come to pass those things that are future in necessary causes God must know because he willed them to be causes of such effects he therefore knows them because he knows what he willed The knowledg of God cannot arise from the things themselves for then the knowledg of God would have a cause without him and Knowledg which is an eminent Perfection would be conferred upon him by his Creatures But as God sees things possible in the glass of his own power so he sees things future in the Glass of his own Will in his effecting Will if he hath Decreed to produce them in his permitting Will as he hath Decreed to suffer them and dispose of them Nothing can pass out of the rank of things meerly possible into the order of things future before some Act of Gods Will hath passed for its futurition Chequell 'T is not from the infiniteness of his own Nature simply considered that God knows things to be future Coccei sum Theol. p. 50. for as things are not future because God is infinite for then all possible things should be future so neither is any thing known to be future only because God is infinite but because God hath Decreed it his declaration of things to come is founded upon his appointment of things to come Coccei sum Theol. p. 50. In Isa 44.7 it is said and who as I shall call and declare it since I appointed the ancient people and the things that are coming Gamaul in Aquin Part 1. q. 14. cap. 3. p. 124. Nothing is Created or ordered in the World but what God Decreed to be Created and ordered God knows his own Decree and therefore all things which he hath Decreed to exist in time not the minutest part of the World could have existed without his Will not an action can be done without his Will as Life the Principle so Motion the fruit of that Life is by and from God as he decreed Life to this or that thing so he decreed motion as the effect of Life and Decreed to exert his Power in concurring with them for producing effects natural from such causes for without such a concourse they could not have acted any thing or produced any thing and therefore as for natural things which we call necessary causes God foreseeing them all particularly in his own Decree foresaw also all effects which must necessarily flow from them because such causes cannot but act when they are furnisht with all things necessary for action He knows his own Decrees and therefore necessarily knows what he hath Decreed or else we must say things come to pass whether God will or no or that he Wills he knows not what but this cannot be for known unto God are all his Works from the beginning of the World Acts 15.18 Now this necessarily flows from that Principle first laid down That God knows himself since nothing is future without Gods Will if God did not know future things he would not know his own Will for as things possible could not be known by him unless he knew the fulness of his own Power so things future could not be known by his Understanding unless he knew the resolves of his own Will Maimonid More Nevoch Part 3. Cap. 21. P. 393. 394. Thus the Knowledg of God differs from the Knowledg of men Gods knowledg of his Works precedes his Works mans knowledg of Gods works follows his works just as an Artificers knowledg of a Watch Instrument or Engine which he would make is before his making of it he knows the motions of it and the reason of those motions before it is made because he knows what he hath determin'd to Work he knows not those motions from the consideration of them after they were made as the Spectator doth who by viewing the Instrument after it is made gains a knowledg from the sight and consideration of it till he understands the reason of the whole so we know things from the consideration of them after we see them in being and therefore we know not future things But Gods Knowledg doth not arise from things because they are but because he Wills them to be and therefore he knows every thing that shall be because it cannot be without his Will as the Creator and maintainer of all things knowing his own substance he knows all his Works 5. If God did not know all future things he would be mutable in his Knowledg If he did not know all things that ever were or are to be there would be upon the appearance of every new object an addition of Light to his Understanding and therefore such a Change in him as every new knowledg causes in the mind of a man or as the Sun works in the World upon its rising every morning scattering the darkness that was upon the face of the Earth if he did not know them before they came he would gain a knowledg by them when they came to pass which he had not before they were effected his Knowledg would be new according to the newness of the objects and multiplyed according to the multitude of the objects If God did not know things to come as perfectly as he knew things
present and past but knew those certainly and the others doubtfully and conjecturally he would suffer some Change and acquire some Perfection in his Knowledg when those future things should cease to be future and become present for he would know it more perfectly when it were present than he did when it was future and so there would be a Change from Imperfection to a Perfection But God is every way immutable Besides that Perfection would not arise from the Nature of God but from the Existence and Presence of the thing but who will affirm that God acquires any Perfection of Knowledg from his Creatures any more than he doth of Being he would not then have had that Knowledg and consequently that Perfection from Eternity as he had when he Created the World and will not have a full Perfection of the Knowledg of his Creature till the end of the World nor of Immortal Souls which will certainly act as well as live to Eternity and so God never was nor ever will be perfect in Knowledg for vvhen you have conceived millions of years vvherein Angels and Souls live and act there is still more coming than you can conceive vvherein they vvill act And if God be alvvays changing to Eternity from Ignorance to Knovvledg as those acts come to be exerted by his Creatures he vvill not be perfect in Knovvledg no not to Eternity but vvill alvvays be changing from one degree of Knovvledg to another a very unvvorthy Conceit to entertain of the most Blessed Perfect and Infinite God! Hence then it follovvs that 1. God foreknows all his Creatures All kinds vvhich he determin'd to make all particulars that should spring out of every species the time vvhen they should come forth of the Womb the manner hovv In thy Book all my Members were written Psal 139.16 Members is not in the Heb. vvhence some refer all to all living Creatures vvhatsoever and all the parts of them vvhich God did foresee he knevv the numbers of Creatures vvith all their parts they vvere vvritten in the Book of his fore-knovvledg the duration of them hovv long they shall remain in Being and act upon the Stage he knows their strength the links of one cause with another and what will follow in all their Circumstances and the series and combination of effects with their causes The duration of every thing is foreknown because determin'd Job 14.5 seeing his days are determin'd the number of his months are with thee thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass bounds are fixed beyond which none shall reach he speaks of days and months not of years to give us notice of Gods particular foreknovvledg of every thing of every day month year hour of a mans life 2. All the acts of his Creatures are foreknown by him All natural acts because he knows their causes voluntary acts I shall speak of afterwards 3. This foreknowledg was certain For it is an unworthy notion of God to ascribe to him a conjectural Knowledg if there were only a conjectural knowledg he could but conjecturally foretel any thing and then it is possible the events of things might be contrary to his Predictions It would appear then that God were deceived and mistaken and then there could be no rule of trying things whether they were from God or no for the Rule God sets down to discern his Words from the Words of false Prophets is the event and certain accomplishment of what is Predicted Deut. 18.21 to that question How shall we know whether God hath spoken or no he answers That if the thing doth not come to pass the Lord hath not spoken If his Knowledg of future things were not certain there were no stability in this Rule it would fall to the ground We never yet find God deceiv'd in any Prediction but the event did answer his fore-Revelation his foreknowledg therefore is certain and infallible We cannot make God uncertain in his Knowledg but we must conceive him fluctuating and wavering in his Will but if his Will be not Yea and Nay but Yea his Knowledg is certain because he doth certainly Will and Resolve 4. This foreknowledg was from Eternity Seeing he knows things possible in his Power and things future in his Will if his Power and Resolves were from Eternity his Knowledg must be so too or else we must make him ignorant of his own Power and ignorant of his own Will from Eternity and consequently not from Eternity Blessed and Perfect His knowledg of possible things must run Parallel with his Power and his Knowledg of future things run Parallel with his Will If he Willed from Eternity he knew from Eternity what he Willed but that he did Will from Eternity we must grant unless we would render him changeable and conceive him to be made in time of not Willing Willing The Knowledg God hath in time was alway one and the same because his Understanding is his proper Essence as perfect as his Essence and of an immutable nature Gamach in Aquin Part 1. q. 14. c. 3. p. 124. And indeed the actual existence of a thing is not simply necessary to its being perfectly known we may see a thing that is past out of Being when it doth not actually exist and a Carpenter may know the House he is to Build before it be built by the model of it in his own mind much more we may conceive the same of God whose Decrees were before the Foundâ—tion of the World Eph. 1.5 and in other places and to be before time was and to be from Eternity hath no difference As God in his Being exceeds all beginning of time so doth his Knowledg all motions of time 5. God foreknows all things as present with him from Eternity Gerhard Exeges ch 8. de Deo sect 13. p. 303. As he knows mutable things with an immutable and firm Knowledg so he knows future things with a present Knowledg not that the things which are produced in time were actually and really present with him in their own Beings from Eternity for then they could not be produced in time had they a real existence then they would not be Creatures but God and had they actual Being then they could not be future for future speaks a thing to come that is not yet If things had been actually present with him and yet future they had been made before they were made and had a Being before they had a Being but they were all present to his Knowledg as if they were in actual Being because the reason of all things that were to be made was present with him Bradward l. 3. c. 14. The reason of the Will of God that they shall be was equally Eternal with him wherein he saw what and when and how he would Create things how he would govern them to what ends he would direct them Thus all things are present to Gods Knowledg tho' in their own nature they may be past or
of the Heaven c. How could this great heap be brought into being unless a God had framed it Every plant every Atome as well as every Star at the first meeting whispers this in our Ears I have a Creator I am witness to a Deity who ever saw Statues or Pictures but presently thinks of a Statuary and Limner Who beholds Garments Ships or Houses but understands there was a Weaver a Carpenter an Architect * Philo. ex Petav. Theolo Dog Tom 1. li. 1. cap. 1 pa. 4. somewhat changed Who can cast his eyes about the world but must think of that power that formed it and that the goodness which appears in the formation of it hath a perfect Residence in some Being those things that are good must flow from somthing perfectly good that which is chief in any kind is the cause of all of that kind Fire which is most hot is the cause of all things which are hot There is some being therefore which is the cause of all that Perfection which is in the Creature and this is God Aquin. 1 qu. 2. Artic. 3. All things that are demonstrate something from whence they are All things have a contracted perfection and what they have is Communicated to them Perfections are parcelled out among several Creatures Any thing that is imperfect cannot exist of it self We are led therefore by them to consider a fountain which bubbles up in all perfection a hand which distributes those several degrees of Being and Perfection to what we see we see that which is imperfect our minds conclude somthing perfect to exist before it our eye sees the streams but our understanding riseth to the head as the eye sees the shadow but the understanding informs us whither it he the shadow of a man or of a beast God hath given us Sense to behold the objects in the World and Understanding to reason his Existence from them the understanding cannot conceive a thing to have made it self that is against all reason * Rom. 1.20 As they are made they speak out a Maker and cannot be a trick of chance since they are made with such an immense Wisdom that is too big for the grasp of all humane understanding Those that doubt whither the Existence of God be an implanted Principle yet agree that the effects in the world lead to a supream and universal cause And that if we have not the knowledge of it rooted in our Natures yet we have it by discourse since by all Masters of reason a Processus in Infinitum must be accounted impossible in subordinate causes This will appear in several things First I. The World and every Creature had a beginning The Scripture Ascertains this to us * Gen. 1. By Faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God c. David who was not the first man gives the praise to God of his being curiously wrought c. Psal 139.14.15 God gave being to Men and Plants and Beasts before they gave being to one another He gives being to them now as the Fountain of all being though the several Modes of being are from the several natures of second causes * Heb. 11.3 T is true indeed we are ascertained that they were made by the true God that they were made by his word that they were made of nothing and not only this lower world wherein we live but according to the Jewish division the world of Men the the world of Stars and the world of Spirits and Souls We do not waver in it or doubt of it as the Heathen did in their disputes we know they are the workmanship of the true God of that God we adore not of false Gods By his Word without any instrument or engin as in earthly Sâ—ructures of things which do not appear without any preexistent matter as all Artificial works of men are framed Yet the proof of the beginning of the world is affirmed with good reason and if it had a beginning it had also some higher cause than it self Every effect hath a cause * Daille 20. Serm. Psa 102.26 pa. 13. 14. The World was not Eternal or from Eternity The matter of the world cannot be Eternal Matter cannot subsist without form nor put on any form without the action of some cause this cause must be in being before it acted that which is not cannot act The cause of the world must necessarily exist before any matter was endued with any form that therefore cannot be Eternal before which another did subsist if it were from Eternity it would not be subject to mutation If the whole was from Eternity why not also the parts what makes the changes so visible then if Eternity would exempt it from mutability 1. Time cannot be infinite and therefore the World not Eternal * Daille ut Supra All motion hath its beginning if it were otherwise we must say the number of Heavenly revolutions of days and nights which are past to this instant is actually infinite which cannot be in nature If it were so it must needs be granted that a part is equal to the whole because infinite being equal to infinite the number of days past in all Ages to the beginning of one year being Infinite as they would be supposing the World had no beginning would by consequence be equal to the number of days which shall pass to the end of the next whereas that number of days past is indeed but a part and so a part would be equal to the whole 2. Generations of Men Animals and Plants could not be from Eternity * Petar Theo. Dogmat. tom 1. lib. 1. cap. 2. pag. 15. If any Man say the world was from Eternity then there must be propagations of living Creatures in the same manner as are at this day For without this the World could not consist what we see now done must have been perpetually done if it be done by a necessity of nature But we see nothing now that doth arise but by a mutual propagation from another If the world were Eternal therefore it must be so in all Eternity take any particular species suppose a man if men were from Eternity then there were perpetual generations some were born into the World and some died Now the natural condition of generation is that a man doth not generate a man nor a Sheep a Lamb as soon as ever it self is brought into the World but get strength and vigour by degrees and must arrive to a certain stated age before they can produce the like for whilst any thing is little and below the due age it cannot increase its kind Men therefore and other Creatures did propagate their kind by the same Law not as soon as ever they were born but in the interval of some time and Children grew up by degrees in the Mothers Womb till they were fit to be brought forth If this be so then there could not be an Eternal
succession of propagating For there is no Eternal continuation of time Time is always to be conceived as having one part before another But that perpetuity of Nativities is always after some time wherein it could not be for the weakness of age If no man then can conceive a propagation from Eternity there must be then a beginning of Generation in time and consequently the Creatures were made in time * To express 〈◊〉 in the words of one of our own Wolscley of Atheism pa. 4◠If the World were Eternal it must have been in the same posture as it is now in a state of Generation and Corruption And so Corruption must have been as Eternal as Generation and then things that do generate and corrupt must have Eternally been and Eternally not have been There must be some first way to set Generation on work We must lose our selves in our conceptions we cannot conceive a Father before a Child as well as we cannot conceive a Child before a Father And reason is quite bewildred and cannot return into a right way of Conception till it Conceive one first of every kind One first man one first animal one first Plant from whence others do proceed The argument is unanswerable and the wisest Atheist if any Atheist can be called wise cannot unlose the knot We must come to something that is first in every kind and this first must have a cause not of the same kind but Infinite and Independent otherwise men run into unconceivable Labyrinths and contradictions Man the Noblest Creature upon Earth hath a beginning No Man in the World but was some years ago no man If every man we see had a beginning then the first Man had also a beginning then the World had a beginning For the Earth which was made for the use of man had wanted that end for which it was made We must pitch upon some one man that was unborn that first man must either be Eternal * Petav. ut supr p. 10. that cannot be for he that hath no beginning hath no end or must spring out of the Earth as Plants and Trees do That cannot be Why should not the Earth produce men to this day as it doth Plants and Trees He was therefore made and whatsoever is made hath some cause that made it which is God * Damason If the World were uncreated it were then immutable but every Creature upon the Earth is in a continual flux always changing If things be mutable they were Created if Created they were made by some Author whatsoever hath a beginning must have a maker if the World hath a beginning there was then a time when it was not it must have some cause to produce it That which makes is before that which is made and this is God Secondly II. Which will appear further in this proposition No Creature can make it self The world could not make it self If every man had a beginning every man then was once nothing he could not then make himself because nothing cannot be the cause of something Psa 100.3 The Lord he is God he hath made us and not we our selves whatsoever begun in time was not and when it was nothing it had nothing and could do nothing And therefore could never give to it self nor to any other to be or to be able to do For then it gave what it had not and did what it could not * Petav. Theo. Dog tom 1. lib. 1. cap. 2. pag. 14. Since reason must acknowledge a first of every kind a first Man c. it must acknowledge him Created and made not by himself why have not other men since rise up by themselves not by Chance why hath not Chance produced the like in that long time the World hath stood If we never knew any thing give being to it self how can we Imagine any thing ever could If the chiefest part of this lower World cannot nor any part of it hath been known to give being to it self then the whole cannot be supposed to give any being to it self Man did not forme himself His body is not from himself it would then have the power of moving it self but that is not able to live or act without the presence of the Soul Whilst the Soul is present the body moves when that is absent the body lies as a senseless log not having the least action or motion His Soul could not form it self can that which cannot form the least mote the least grain of dust form it self a nobler substance than any upon the Earth This will be evident to every Mans reason if we consider 1. Nothing can act before it be The first Man was not and therefore could not make himself to be For any thing to produce it self is to act if it acted before it was it was then something and nothing at the same time it then had a being before it had a being it acted when it brought it self into being How could it act without a being without it was So that if it were the cause of it self it must be before it self as well as after it self it was before it was it was as a cause before it was as an effect Action always supposeth a priciple from whence it flows as nothing hath no Existence so it hath no operation there must be therefore something of real Existence to give a Being to those things that are and every cause must be an effect of some other before it be a cause To be and not be at the same time is a manifest contradiction which would be if any thing made it self That which makes is always before that which is made Who will say the House is before the Carpenter or the Picture before the Limbner The world as a Creature must be before it self as a Creature 2. That which doth not understand it self and order it self could not make it self If the first Man fully understood his own nature the excellency of his own Soul the manner of its operations why was not that understanding conveyed to his posterity Are not many of them found who understand their own nature almost as little as a Beast understands it self or a Rose understands its own sweetness or a Tulip it s own Colours The Scripture indeed gives us an account how this came about viz. by the deplorable Rebellion of Man whereby Death was brought upon them a Spiritual Death which includes ignorance as well as an inability to Spritual action * Gen. 2.17 Psal 49.8 Thus he fell from his Honour and became like the Beasts that perish and not retaining God in his knowledge retained not himself in his own knowledge But what reply can an Atheist make to it who acknowledges no higher cause than nature If the Soul made it self how comes it to be so muddy so wanting in its knowledge of it self and of other things If the Soul made its own understanding whence did the defect arise If some
he needed not have sought without himself for his own preservation and comfort What depends upon another is not of it self and what depends upon things inferiour to it self is less of it self Since nothing can subsist of it self since we see those things upon which Man depends for his nourishment and subsistence growing and decaying starting into the world and retiring from it as well as man himself some preserving cause must be concluded upon which all depends 5. If the first Man did produce himself why did he not produce himself before It hath been already proved that he had a beginning and could not be from Eternity Why then did he not make himself before Not because he would not For having no being he could have no will he could neither be willing nor not willing If he could not then how could he afterwards if it were in his own power he could have done it he would have done it if it were not in his own power then it was in the power of some other cause and that is God How came he by that power to produce himself If the power of producing himself were communicated by another then Man could not be the cause of himself That is the cause of it which communicated that power to it But if the power of being was in and from himself and in no other nor communicated to him man would always have been in act and always have Existed no hinderance can be conceived For that which had the power of being in it self was invincible by any thing that should stand in the way of its own being We may conclude from hence the excellency of the Scripture that it is a Word not to be refused credit It gives us the most rational account of things in the 1. and 2. of Genesis which nothing in the world else is able to do Thirdly III. Proposition no Creature could make the world No Creature can create another If it creates of nothing t is then Omnipotent and so not a Creature If it makes something of matter unfit for that which is produced out of it then the inquiry will be who was the cause of the matter and so we must arrive to some uncreated being the cause of all Whatsoever gives being to any other must be the highest being and must possess all the perfections of that which it gives being to what visible Creature is there which possesses the perfections of the whole world If therefore an invisible Creature made the world the same enquiries will return whence that Creature had its being for he could not make himself If any Creature did Create the World he must do it by the strength and vertue of another which first gave him being and this is God For whatsoever hath its Existence and vertue of acting from another is not God If it hath its vertue from another t is then a second cause and so supposeth a first cause It must have some cause of it self or be Eternally Existent If Eternally Existent t is not a second cause but God if not Eternally Existent we must come to somthing at length which was the cause of it or else be bewildred without being able to give an account of any thing We must come at last to an Infinite Eternal Independent Being that was the first cause of this Structure and Fabrick wherein we and all Creatures dwell The Scripture proclaims this aloud * Isa 45.6.7 Deut. 4.35 I am the Lord and there is none else I Form the light and I Create darkness Man the Noblest Creature cannot of himself make a man the chiefest part of the World If our Parents only without a Superior power made our Bodies or Souls they would know the frame of them as he that makes a Lock knows the Wards of it he that makes any curious peice of Arras knows how he setts the various colours together and how many threads went to each division in the Web he that makes a Watch having the Idea of the whole work in his mind knows the motions of it and the reason of those motions But both Parents and Children are equally ignorant of the nature of their Souls and Bodies and of the reason of their motions God only that had the Supream hand in forming us in whose Book all our members are written Psal 139.16 which in continuance were fashioned knows what we all are ignorant of If man hath in an ordinary course of generation his being chiefly from an higher cause than his Parents the World then certainly had its being from some infinitely wise intelligent Being which is God If it were as some fancy made by an Assembly of Atomes there must be some infinite intelligent cause that made them some cause that separated them some cause that mingled them together for the piling up so comely a structure as the world T is the most absurd thing to think they should meet togeither by hazard and rank themselves in that order we see without a higher and a wise agent So that no Creature could make the world For supposing any Creature was formed before this visible world and might have a hand in disposing things yet he must have a cause of himself and must act by the virtue and strength of another and this is God Fourthly IV. Proposition From hence it follows that there is a first cause of things which we call God There must be somthing supreme in the order of nature somthing which is greater than all which hath nothing beyond it or above it otherwise we must run in infinitum We see not a River but we conclude a Fountain a Watch but we conclude an Artificer As all number begins from unity so all the multitude of things in the world begins from some unity Oneness as the principle of it T is natural to arise from a view of those things to the conception of a nature more perfect than any As from heat mixed with cold and light mixed with darkness men conceive and arise in their understandings to an intense heat and a pure light And from a Corporeal or bodily substance joyned with an incorporeal as man is an earthly body and a Spiritual Soul we ascend to a conception of a substance purely incorporeal and Spiritual So from a multitude of things in the world Reason leads us to one choice being above all And since in all natures in the World we still find a superior nature the nature of one beast above the nature of another the nature of man above the nature of beasts and some invisible nature the worker of strange effects in the Air and Earth which cannot be ascribed to any visible cause we must suppose some nature above all those of unconceivable perfection * Coccei sum Theol. cap. 8. § 33. c. Every Sceptick one that doubts whither there be any thing real or no in the World that counts every thing an appearance must necessarily own a first cause They cannot
reasonably doubt but that there is some first cause which makes the things appear so to them They cannot be the cause of their own appearance For as nothing can have a being from it self so nothing can appear by it self and its own force Nothing can be and not be at the same time But that which is not and yet seems to be if it be the cause why it seems to be what it is not it may be said to be and not to be But certainly such persons must think themselves to exist If they do not they cannot think and if they do exist they must have some cause of that Existence So that which way soever we turn our selves we must in reason own a first cause of the World Well then might the Psalmist term an Atheist a fool that disowns a God against his own reason Without owning a God as the first cause of the world no man can give any tolerable or satisfactory account of the world to his own reason And this first cause 1. Must necessarily exist * Petav. Theol. Dog Tom. 1. lib. 1. cap. 2. pa. 10. 11. T is necessary that he by whom all things are should be before all things and nothing before him And if nothing be before him he comes not from any other and then he always was and without beginning He is from himself not that he once was not but because he hath not his Existence from another and therefore of necessity he did exist from all Eternity Nothing can make it self or bring it self into being therefore there must be some being which hath no cause that depends upon no other never was produced by any other but was what he is from Eternity and cannot be otherwise and is not what he is by will but nature necessarily existing and always existing without any capacity or possibility ever not to be 2. Must be infinitely perfect Since man knows he is an imperfect being he must suppose the perfections he wants are seated in some other being which hath limited him and upon which he depends Whatsoever we conceive of excellency or perfection must be in God For we can conceive no perfection but what God hath given us a power to conceive And he that gave us a power to conceive a transcendent perfection above whatever we saw or heard of hath much more in himself else he could not give us such a conception Secondly II. As the production of the world so the harmony of all the parts of it declare the being and wisdom of a God Without the acknowledging God the Atheist can give no account of those things The multitude elegancy variety and beauty of all things are steps whereby to ascend to one fountain and orignal of them Is it not a folly to deny the being of a wise Agent who sparkles in the beauty and motions of the Heavens rides upon the wings of the wind and is writ upon the flowers and fruits of Plants As the cause is known by the effects so the wisdom of the cause is known by the elegancy of the work the proportion of the parts to one another Who can imagine the world could be rashly made and without consultation which in every part of it is so Artificially framed * Philo. Judae Petav. Theolog. Dogmat. Tom. 1. lib. 1. cap. 1. pag. 9. No work of Art springs up of its own accord The world is framed by an excellent Art and therefore made by some skilful Artist As we hear not a melodious instrument but we conclude there is a Musitian that touches it as well as some skilful hand that framed and disposed it for those Lessons And no man that hears the pleasant sound of a Lute but will fix his thoughts not upon the Instrument it self but upon the skill of the Artist that made it and the art of the Musitian that strikes it though he should not see the first when he saw the Lute nor see the other when he hears the harmony So a rational Creature confines not his thoughts to his sense when he sees the Sun in its Glory and the Moon walking in its brightness but riseth up in a contemplation and admiration of that infinite Spirit that composed and filled them with such sweetness This appears 1. In the linking contrary qualities together All things are compounded of the Elements Those are endued with contrary qualities driness and moisture heat and cold These would always be contending with and infesting one anothers rights till the contest ended in the destruction of one or both Where fire is predominant it would suck up the water where water is prevalent it would quench the fire The heat would wholly expel the cold or the cold over-power the heat Yet we see them chained and linkt one within another in every body upon the Earth and rendring mutual offices for the benefit of that body wherein they are seated and all conspiring together in their particular quarrels for the publick interest of the body How could those contraries that of themselves observe no order that are always preying upon one another joyntly accord together of themselves for one common end if they were not linkt in a common band and reduced to that order by some incomprehensible wisdom and power which keeps a hand upon them orders their motions and directs their events and makes them friendly pass into one anothers Natures Confusion had been the result of the discord and diversity of their Natures No composition could have been of those conflicting qualities for the frame of any body nor any harmony arose from so many jarring strings if they had not been reduced into concord by one that is supream Lord over them and knows how to dispose their varieties and enmities for the publick good * Athanasius Petav. Theol. Dog Tom. 1. lib. 1. cap. 1. pag. 4. 5. If a man should see a large City or Country consisting of great multitudes of men of different tempers full of Frauds and Factions and Animosities in their natures against one another yet living together in good order and peace without oppressing and invading one another and joyning together for the publick good he would presently conclude there were some excellent Governor who tempered them by his Wisdom and preserved the publick Peace though he had never yet beheld him with his eye T is as necessary to conclude a God who moderates the contrarieties in the world as to conclude a wise Prince who overrules the contrary dispositions in a state making every one to keep his own bounds and confines Things that are contrary to one another subsist in an admirable order 2. In the subserviency of one thing to another * Gassend Physic sect 1. lib. 4. cap. 2. pag. 315. All the Members of living Creatures are curiously fitted for the service of one another destin'd to a particular end and endued with a vertue to attain that end and so distinctly placed that one is no hinderance to the
sense and those that have life and sense are made for those that are endued with reason When the Psalmist admiringly considers the Heavens Moon and Starrs he intimates man to be the end for which they were Created Psal 8.3 4. What is man that thou art mindful of him He expresseth more particularly the Dominion that Man hath over the beasts of the field the fowl of the Air and whatsoever passes through the paths of the Sea vers 6.7.8 and concludes from thence the excellency of Gods Name in all the Earth All things in the World one way or other Center in an usefulness for man some to feed him some to clothe him some to delight him others to instruct him some to exercise his wit and others his strength Since man did not make them he did not also order them for his own use If they conspire to serve him who never made them they direct man to acknowledge an other who is the joynt Creator both of the Lord and the Servants under his Dominion And therefore as the inferior natures are ordered by an invisible hand for the good of man so the nature of man is by the same hand ordered to acknowledge the Existence and the glory of the Creator of him This visible order man knows he did not constitute he did not settle those Creatures in subserviency to himself they were placed in that order before he had any acquaintance with them or Existence of himself which is a question God puts to Job to consider of Job 38.4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundation of the Earth declare if thou hast understanding All is ordered for Mans use the Heavens answer to the Earth as a roof to a floor both composing a delightful habitation for man vapors ascend from the Earth and the Heaven concocts them and returns them back in welcome showers for the supplying of the Earth * Jer. 10.13 The light of the Sun descends to beautifie the Earth and imploys its heat to midwife its fruits and this for the good of the community whereof Man is the head and though all Creatures have distinct natures and must act for particular ends according to the Law of their Creation yet there is a joynt combination for the good of the whole as the common end just as all the Rivers in the world from what part soever they come whether North or South fall into the Sea for the supply of that mass of waters which loudly proclaims some infinitely wise nature who made those things in so exact an harmony * Morn de verit cap. 1. pag. 7. As in a Clock the hammer which strikes the bell leads us to the next Wheel that to another the little wheel to a greater whence it derives its motion this at last to the spring which acquaints us that there was some Artist that framed them in this subordination to one another for this orderly motion 4. This order or Subserviency is regular and uniforme Every thing is determined to its peculiar nature * Amiraut The Sun and Moon make day and night months and years determine the seasons never are defective in coming back to their station and place they wander not from their Roads shock not against one another nor hinder one another in the functions assigned them From a small grain or seed a Tree springs with body root bark leaves fruit of the same shape figure smell tast that there should be as many parts in one as in all of the same kind and no more and that in the Womb of a sensitive Creature should be formed one of the same kind with all the due members and no more and the Creature that produceth it knows not how it is formed or how t is perfected If we say this is nature this nature is an intelligent being if not how can it direct all causes to such uniforme ends If it be intelligent this nature must be the same we call God Who ordered every herb to yeild seed and every fruit-Tree to yeild fruit after its kind and also every Beast and every creeping thing after its kind Gen. 11 12 24. And every thing is determined to its particular season The sap riseth from the Root at its appointed time enlivening and cloathing the branches with a new Garment at such a time of the Suns returning not wholly hindered by any accidental coldness of the weather it being often colder at its return than it was at the Suns departure All things have their Seasons of flourishing budding blossoming bringing forth fruit they ripen in their seasons cast their leaves at the same time throw off their old cloaths and in the spring appear with new Garments but still in the same fashion * Coccei sum Theol. cap. 8. § 77. The Winds and the Rain have their seasons and seem to be administred by laws for the profit of man No satisfactory cause of those things can be ascribed to the Earth the Sea to the Air or Stars Can any understand the spreading of his clouds or the noise of his Tabernacle Job 38.29 The natural reason of those things cannot be demonstrated without recourse to an infinite and intelligent being Nothing can be rendred capable of the direction of those things but a God This regularity in Plants and Animals is in all Nations The Heavens have the same motion in all parts of the world all men have the same Law of nature in their mind all Creatures are stampt with the same law of Creation In all parts the same Creatures serve for the same use and though there be different Creatures in India and Europe yet they have the same subordination the same subserviency to one another and ultimately to man which shows that there is a God and but one God who tunes all those different strings to the same notes in all places Is it nature meerly conducts these natural causes in due measures to their proper effects without interfering with one another Can meer nature be the cause of those musical proportions of time You may as well conceive a Lute to sound its own strings without the hand of an Artist a City well Governed without a Governor an Army keep its Stations without a General as imagine so exact an order without an Orderer Would any Man when he hears a Clock strike by sit intervals the hour of the day imagine this regularity in it without the direction of one that had understanding to manage it He would not only regard the motion of the Clock but commend the diligence of the Clock-Keeper 5. This order and Subserviency is constant Children change the customes and manners of their Fathers Magistrats change the Laws they have received from their Ancestors and enact new ones in their room But in the world all things consist as they were created at the beginning The Law of nature in the Creatures hath met with no change * Petav. ex Athanas Tâ—eol Dog tom 1. lib. 1.
cap. 1. § 4. Who can behold the Sun rising in the morning the Moon shining in the night increasing and decreasing in its due spaces the Stars in their regular motions night after night for all ages and yet deny a President over them And this motion of the Heavenly bodies being contrary to the nature of other Creatures who move in order to rest must be from some higher cause But those ever since the setling in their places have been perpetually rounding the world * Whether it be the Sun or the Earth that moves it is all one Whence have either of them this constant and uniform motion What nature but one powerful and intelligent could give that perpetual motion to the Sun which being bigger than the Earth a hundred sixty six times runs many thousand miles with a mighty swiftness in the space of an hour with an unwearied diligence performing its dayly task and as a strong man rejoycing to run its race for above five thousand years together without intermission but in the time of Joshuah * Josh 10.13 T is not natures Sun but Gods Sun which he makes to rise upon the just and unjust * Mat. 5.45 So a Plant receives its nourishment from the Earth sends forth its juyce to every branch forms a bud which spreads it into a blossom and flower the leaves of this drop off and leave a fruit of the same colour and tast every year which being ripened by the Sun leaves seeds behind it for the propagation of its like which contains in the nature of it the same kind of buds blossoms fruit which were before and being nourished in the Womb of the Earth and quickened by the power of the Sun discovers it self at length in all the progresses and motions which its predecessor did Thus in all ages in all places every year it performs the same task spinns out fruit of the same colour tast vertue to refresh the several Creatures for which they are provided This setled state of things comes from that God who laid the foundations of the Earth that it should not be removed for ever * Psal 104.5 and set ordinances for them to act by a stated law * Job 38.33 according to which they move as if they understood themselves to have made a Covenant with their Creator * Jer. 33.20 3. Add to this union of contrary qualities and the subserviency of one thing to another the admirable variety and diversity of things in the World What variety of Metals living Creatures Plants what variety and distinction in the shape of their leaves flowers smell resulting from them Who can number up the several sorts of Beasts on the Earth Birds in the Air Fish in the Sea How various are their motions Some Creep some Go some Fly some Swim And in all this variety each Creature hath Organs or members fitted for their peculiar motion If you consider the multitude of Stars which shine like Jewels in the Heavens their different magnitudes Or the variety of colours in the Flowers and Tapestry of the Earth you could no more conclude they made themselves or were made by chance than you can imagine a peice of Arras with a diversity of figures and colours either wove it self or were knit together by hazzard How delicious is the sap of the Vine when turned into Wine above that of a Crab Both have the same Womb of Earth to conceive them both agree in the nature of Wood and Twigs as Channels to convay it into fruit What is that which makes the one so sweet the other so sower or makes that sweet which was a few weeks before unpleasantly sharp Is it the Earth No They both have the same soil the Branches may touch each other the strings of their Roots may under ground entwine about one another Is it the Sun both have the same beams Why is not the tast and colour of the one as gratifying as the other Is it the root The tast of that is far different from that of the fruit it bears Why do they not when they have the same Soil the same Sun and stand near one another borrow something from one anothers natures No reason can be rendred but that there is a God of infinite Wisdom hath determin'd this variety and bound up the nature of each Creature within it self * Amirald de Trinitate pa. 21. Everything follows the Law of its Creation and it is worthy observation that the Creator of them hath not given that power to Animals which arise from different species to propagate the like to themselves As Mules that arise from different species No reason can be rendred of this but the fixt determination of the Creator that those species which were Created by him should not be lost in those mixtures which are contrary to the Law of the Creation This cannot possibly be ascribed to that which is commonly called nature but unto the God of nature who will not have his Creatures exceed their bounds or come short of them Now since among those varieties there are somethings better than other yet all are good in their kind and partake of Goodness * Gen. 1.31 there must be something better and more execellent than all those from whom they derive that goodness which inheres in their nature and is communicated by them to others And this excellent Being must inherit in an eminent way in his own nature the goodness of all those varieties since they made not themselves but were made by another All that goodness which is scattered in those varieties must be infinitely concentred in that nature which distributed those various perfections to them Psal 94.9 He that Planted the Ear shall not he hear he that formed the Eye shall not he see he that teacheth Man knowledge shall not he know The Creator is greater than the Creature and whatsoever is in his effects is but an Impression of some excellency in himself There is therefore some cheif fountain of goodness whence all those various goodnesses in the world do flow From all this it follows if there be an Order and Harmony there must be an Orderer one that made the Earth by his Power established the world by his Wisdom and stretched out the Heavens by his Discretion Jer. 10.12 Order being the effect cannot be the cause of it self Order is the disposition of things to an end and is not intelligent but implies an intelligent Orderer And therefore it is as certain that there is a God as it is certain there is order in the world Order is an effect of Reason and Counsel this reason and Counsel must have its residence in some being before this order was fixed The things ordered are always distinct from that Reason and Counsel whereby they are ordered and also after it as the effect is after the cause No Man begins a peice of work but he hath the Model of it in his own mind No Man
builds an House or makes a Watch but he hath the Idea or Copy of it in his own head This beautiful world bespeaks an Idea of it or a model Since there is such a magnificent wisdom in the make of each Creature and the proportion of one Creature to another this model must be before the World as the patern is always before the thing that is wrought by it This therefore must be in some intelligent and wise agent and this is God Since the reason of those things exceed the reason and all the art of Man who can ascribe them to any inferior cause Chance it could not be the motions of Chance are not constant and at set seasons as the motions of Creatures are That which is by Chance is contingent this is necessary Uniformity can never be the birth of Chance Who can imagine that all the parts of a Watch can meet together and put themselves in order and motion by Chance * Lactant. Nor can it be nature only which indeed is a disposition of second causes If nature hath not an understanding it cannot work such effects If nature therefore uses Counsel to begin a thing reason to dispose it art to effect it vertue to compleat it and power to Govern it why should it be called nature rather than God Nothing so sure as that that which hath an end to which it tends hath a cause by which it is ordered to that end Since therefore all things are ordered in subserviency to the good of man they are so ordered by him that made both man and them And man must acknowledge the wisdom and goodness of his Creator and act in subserviency to His glory as other Creatures act in subserviency to His good Sensible objects were not made only to gratifie the sense of man but to hand somthing to his mind as he is a rational Creature to discover God to him as an object of love and desire to be enjoyed * Coccei sum Theol. cap. 8. § 63.64 If this be not the effect of it the order of the Creature as to such an one is in vain and falls short of its true end To conclude this As when a Man comes into a Palace built according to the exactest rule of art and with an unexceptionable conveniency for the Inhabitants he would acknowledge both the being and skill of the Builder So whosoever shall observe the disposition of all the parts of the World their connexion comelines the variety of seasons the swarms of different Creatures and the mutual offices they render to one another cannot conclude less than that it was contrived by an Infinite Skill effected by Infinite Power and governed by Infinite Wisdom None can imagine a Ship to be orderly conducted without a Pilot Nor the parts of the World to perform their several functions without a wise guide considering the Members of the Body cannot perform theirs without the active presence of the Soul The Atheist then is a fool to deny that which every Creature in his constitution asserts and thereby renders himself unable to give a satisfactory account of that constant uniformity in the motions of the Creatures Thirdly III. As the production and harmony so particular Creatures pursuing and attaining their ends manifest that there is a God All particular Creatures have natural instincts which move them for some end The intending of an end is a property of a rational Creature since the lower Creatures cannot challenge that title they must act by the understanding and direction of another And since man cannot challenge the honor of inspiring the Creatures with such instincts it must be ascribed to some nature infinitely above any Creature in understanding No Creature doth determine it self Why do the fruits and grain of the Earth nourish us when the Earth which instrumentally gives them that fitness cannot nourish us but because their several ends are determined by one higher than the world 1. Several Creatures have several Natures How soon will all Creatures as soon as they see the light move to that whereby they must live and make use of the natural arms God hath given their kind for their defence before they are grown to any maturity to afford them that defence The Scripture makes the appetite of Infants to their milk a foundation of the divine Glory Psal 8.3 Out of the Mouths of Babes and Sucklings hast thou ordained strength that is matter of praise and acknowledgment of God in the natural appetite they have to their milk and their rellish of it All Creatures have a natural affection to their young ones all young ones by a natural instinct move to and receive the nourishment that is proper for them Some are their own Physitians as well as their own Caterers and naturally discern what preserves them in life and what restores them when sick The Swallow flies to its Celendine and the Toad hastens to its Plantain Can we behold the Spiders Nets or Silkworms Web the Bees Closets or the Ants Granaries without acknowledging a higher Being than a Creature who hath planted that Genius in them The consideration of the nature of several Creatures God commended to Job Chap. 39. where he discourseth to Job of the natural instincts of the Goat the Ostrich Horse and Eagle c. to perswade him to the acknowledgment and admiration of God and humiliation of himself The Spider as if it understood the art of weaving fits its web both for its own Habitation and a Net to catch its prey The Bee builds a Cell which serves for Chambers to reside in and a repository for its provision Birds are observed to build their Nests with a clammy matter without for the firmer duration of it and with a soft moss and down within for the conveniency and warmth of their young The Stork knows his appointed time Jer. 8.7 And the Swallows observe the time of their coming they go and return according to the seasons of the year This they gain not by consideration it descends to them with their nature They neither gain nor increase it by rational deductions T is not in vain to speak of these How little do we improve by Meditation those objects which daily offer themselves to our view full of instructions for us And our Saviour sends his disciples to spell God in the Lillies * Mat. 6.28 T is observed also that the Creatures offensive to man go single If they went by troops they would bring destruction upon man and beast This is the nature of them for the preservation of others 2. They know not their end They have a Law in their natures but have no rational understanding either of the end to which they are appointed or the means fit to attain it They naturally do what they do and move by no Counsel of their own but by a Law imprest by some higher hand upon their natures What Plant knows why it strikes its root into the earth Doth it
of its capacity The understanding can conceive the whole world and paint in it self the invisible Pictures of all things T is capable of apprehending and discoursing of things superior to its own nature * Culverwel T is suted to all objects as the Eye to all Colours or the Ear to all sounds How great is the Memory to retain such varieties such diversities The Will also can accomodate other things to it self It invents Arts for the use of Man prescribes rules for the Government of States ransacks the bowels of nature makes endless conclusions and steps in reasoning from one thing to another for the knowledge of Truth It can contemplate and form notions of things higher than the world 2. The quickness of its motion * Theodoret. Nothing is more quick in the whole course o◠nature the Sun runs through the World in a day this can do it in a moment It can with one flight of fancy ascend to the battlements of Heaven The mists of the Air that hinder the sight of the Eye cannot hinder the flights of the Soul it can pass in a moment from one end of the World to the other and think of things a thousand miles distant It can think of some mean thing in the world and presently by one cast in the twinkling of an Eye mount up as high as Heaven As its desires are not bounded by sensual objects so neither are the motions of it restrained by them It will break forth with the greatest vigour and conceive things infinitely above it Though it be in the body it acts as if it were ashamed to be Cloystered in it This could not be the result of any material cause Whoever knew meer matter understand think will And what it hath not it cannot give That which is destitute of Reason and Will could never confer Reason and Will * Coccei sum The dog cap. 8. § 51.52 T is not the effect of the Body for the Body is fitted with members to be subject to it T is in part ruled by the activity of the Soul and in part by the Counsel of the Soul T is used by the Soul and knows not how it is used Nor could it be from the Parents since the Souls of the Children often transcend those of the Parents in vivacity acuteness and comprehensiveness One man is stupid and begets a Son with a capacious understanding one is debauched and beastly in morals and begets a Son who from his Infancy testifies some vertuous inclinations which sprout forth in delightful fruit with the ripeness of his age I do not dispute whether the Soul were generated or no Suppose the substance of it was generated by the Parents yet those more excellent qualities were not the result of them Whence should this difference arise a fool begat the wise man and a debauched the vertuous man The wisdom of the one could not descend from the foolish Soul of the other nor the vertues of the Son from the deformed and polluted Soul of the Parent it lies not in the Organs of the Body For if the folly of the Parent proceeded not from their Souls but the ill disposition of the Organs of their bodies how comes it to pass that the bodies of the Children are better Organiz'd beyond the goodness of their immediate cause We must recur to some invisible hand that makes the difference who bestows upon one at his pleasure richer qualities than upon another You can see nothing in the World endowed with some excellent quality but you must imagine some bountiful hand did inrich it with that dowry None can be so foolish as to think that a vessel ever inricht it self with that spritely Liquor wherewith it is filled or that any thing worse than the Soul should indow it with that knowledge and activity which sparkles in it Nature could not produce it That nature is intelligent or not if it be not then it produceth an effect more excellent than it self in as much as an understanding being surmounts a being that hath no understanding If the supream cause of the Soul be intelligent why do we not call it God as well as nature We must arise from hence to the notion of a God a Spiritual nature cannot proceed but from a Spirit higher than it self and of a transcendent perfection above it self If we beleive we have Souls and understand the state of our own faculties we must be assured that there was some invisible hand which bestowed those faculties and the riches of them upon us A man must be ignorant of himself before he can be ignorant of the Existence of God By considering the nature of our Souls we may as well be assured that there is a God as that there is a Sun by the shining of the beams in at our Windows And indeed the Soul is a Statue and representation of God as the Land-Skip of a Country or Map represents all the parts of it but in a far less proportion than the Country it self is The Soul fills the body and God the world the Soul sustains the body and God the World the Soul sees but is not seen God sees all things but is himself invisible How base are they then that prostitute their Souls an image of God to base things unexpressibly below their own nature 3. I might add the union of Soul and Body Man is a kind of compound of Angel and Beast of Soul and body if he were only a Soul he were a kind of Angel if only a body he were another kind of brute Now that a body as vile and dull as earth and a Soul that can mount up to Heaven and rove about the world with so quick a motion should be linkt in so strait an acquaintance that so noble a being as the Soul should be an inhabitant in such a Tabernacle of Clay must be owned to some infinite power that hath so chained it 3. Man witnesseth to a God in the operations and reflections of Conscience Rom. 2.15 Their thoughts are accusing or excusing An inward comfort attends good actions and an inward torment follows bad ones for there is in every mans Conscience fear of punishment and hope of reward There is therefore a sense of some superior Judge which hath the power both of rewarding and punishing If man were his supream rule what need he fear punishment since no man would inflict any evil or torment on himself nor can any man be said to reward himself for all rewards refer to another to whom the action is pleasing and is a conferring some good a man had not before If an action be done by a Subject or Servant with hopes of reward it can not be imagined that he expects a reward from himself but from the Prince or person whom he eyes in that action and for whose sake he doth it 1. There is a Law in the minds of men which is a rule of good and evil There is a Notion
every side destruction shall be ready at his side the first born of Death shall devour his strength his confidence shall be rooted out and it shall bring him to the King of Terrors Brimstone shall be scattered upon his Habitation he shall be driven from light into darkness and chased out of the World they that come after him shall be astonished at his day as they that went before were affrighted and this is the place of him that knows not God * Ver. 21 If there be a future reckoning as his own Conscience cannot but sometimes inform him of his condition is desperate and his misery dreadful and unavoidable T is not righteous a Hell should entertain any else if it refuse him Vse 2 2. How lamentable is it that in our times this folly of Atheism should be so rise That there should be found such Monsters in human nature in the midst of the improvements of Reason and shinings of the Gospel who not only make the Scripture the matter of their Jeers but Scoff at the Judgments and Providences of God in the World and envy their Creator a being without whose goodness they had had none themselves who contradict in their carriage what they assert to be their sentiment when they dreadfully imprecate damnation to themselves Whence should that damnation they so rashly wish be poured forth upon them if there were not a revenging God Formerly Atheism was as rare as prodigious scarce two or three known in an age * And those that are reported to be so in former ages are rather thought to be counted so for mocking at the senceless Deities the common people ador'd and laying open their impurities A meer natural strength would easily discover that those they adored for Gods could not deserve that title since their original was known their uncleanness manifest and acknowledged by their worshippers And probably it was so * As Justin infâ—rm us since the Christians were termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because they acknowledged not their vain Idols I question whether there ever was or can be in the world an uninterrupted and internal denyal of the being of God or that men unless we can suppose Conscience utterly dead can arrive to such a degree of impiety For before they can stifle such sentiments in them whatsoever they may assert they must be utter strangers to the common conceptions of reason and despoile themselves of their own humanity He that dares to deny a God with his lips yet sets up something or other as a God in his heart Is it not lamentable that this sacred truth consented to by all Nations which is the band of civil societies the source of all order in the world should be denyed with a bare face and disputed against in Companies And the Glory of a wise Creator ascribed to an unintelligent nature to blind chance are not such worse then Heathens They worshipped many Gods these none They preserved a notion of God in the world under a disguise of Images These would banish him both from Earth and Heaven and demolish the Statues of him in their own Consciences They degraded him these would destroy him They coupled Creatures with him Rom 1.25 Who worshipped the Creature with the Creator as it may most properly be rendred And these would make him worse than the Creature a meer nothing Earth is hereby become worse than Hell Atheism is a perswasion which finds no footing any where else Hell that receives such persons in this point reforms them They can never deny or doubt of his being while they feel his stroaks The Devil that rejoyces at their wickedness knows them to be in an error for he believes and trembles at the belief * Jam. 2.19 This is a forerunner of Judgment Boldness in sin is a presage of vengeance especially when the honour of God is more particularly concern'd therein It tends to the overturning human society taking off the Bridle from the wicked inclinations of men And God appears not in such visible Judgments against sin immediately committed against himself as in the case of those sins that are destructive to human society Besides God as Governor of the world will uphold that without which all his ordinances in the world would be useless Atheism is point blank against all the Glory of God in Creation and against all the glory of God in Redemption and pronounceth at one breath both the Creator and all Acts of Religion and Divine Institutions useless and insignificant Since most have had one time or other some risings of doubt whether there be a God tho few do in expressions deny his being it may not be unnecessary to propose somethings for the further impressing this truth and guarding themselves against such temptations 1. T is utterly impossible to demonstrate there is no God He can choose no Medium but will fall in as a proof for his Existence and a manifestation of his excellency rather than against it The pretences of the Atheist are so ridiculous that they are not worth the mentioning They never saw God and therefore know not how to believe such a Being they cannot comprehend him He would not be God if he could fall within the narrow Model of an humane Understanding He would not be infinite if he were comprehensible or to be terminated by our sight How small a thing must that be which is seen by a bodily Eye or graspt by a weak Mind If God were visible or comprehensible he would be limited Shall it be a sufficient Demonstration from a blind man that there is no fire in the Room because he sees it not though he feel the warmth of it The knowledge of the effect is sufficient to conclude the existence of the cause Who ever saw his own Life Is it sufficient to deny a man lives because he beholds not his Life and only knows it by his motion He never saw his own Soul but knows he hath one by his thinking power The Air renders it self sensible to Men in its Operations yet was never seen by the eye If God should render Himself visible they might question as well as now whether that which was so visible were God or some delusion If he should appear glorious we can as little behold him in his Majestick Glory as an Owl can behold the Sun in its brightness we should still but see him in his Effects as we do the Sun by his Beams If he should shew a new Miracle we should still see him but by his Works so we see him in his Creatures every one of which would be as great a Miracle as any can be wrought to one that had the first prospect of them To require to see God is to require that which is impossible 1 Tim. 6.16 He dwels in the Light which no man can approach unto whom no man hath seen nor can see 'T is visibe that he is for he covers himself with Light as with a Garment Psal 104.2
Essence as in his Veracity and Faithfulness They are perfections belonging to his Nature But if he were not a pure Spirit he could not be immutable by Nature 7. If God were not a pure Spirit He could not be omnipresent He is in Heaven above and the Earth below * Deut. 4.39 He fills Heaven and Earth * Jer. 23.24 The Divine Essence is at once in Heaven and Earth but it is impossible a Body can be in two places at one and the same time Since God is every where he must be spiritual Had he a Body he could not penetrate all things he would be circumscribed in place He could not be every where but in parts not in the whole one member in one place and another in another for to be confined to a particlar place is the property of a Body But since he is diffused through the whole World higher than Heaven deeper than Hell longer than the Earth broader than the Sea * Job 11.8 he hath not any corporeal matter If he had a Body wherewith to fill Heaven and Earth there could be no Body besides his own 'T is the Nature of Bodies to bound one another and hinder the extending of one another Two Bodies cannot be in the same place in the same point of Earth one excludes the other And it will follow hence that we are nothing no substances meer illusions there could be no place for any Body else * Gamacheus Theol. Tom. 1. Quos 3. C. 1. If his Body were as bigg as the World as it must be if with that he filled Heaven and Earth there would not be room for him to move a hand or a foot or extend a finger for there would be no place remaining for the motion 8. If God were not a Spirit he could not be the most perfect Being The more perfect any thing is in the rank of Creatures the more spiritual and simple it is as Gold is the more pure and perfect that hath least mixture of other Metals If God were not a Spirit there would be Creatures of a more excellent Nature than God as Angels and Souls which the Scripture calls Spirits in opposition to Bodies There is more of perfection in the first notion of a Spirit than in the notion of a Body God cannot be less perfect than his Creatures and contribute an excellency of being to them which he wants himself If Angels and Souls possess such an excellency and God want that excellency he would be less than his Creatures and the excellency of the Effect would exceed the excellency of the Cause But every Creature even the highest Creature is infinitely short of the perfection of God for whatsoever excellency they have is finite and limited 't is but a spark from the Sun a drop from the Ocean but God is unboundedly perfect in the highest manner without any limitation and therefore above Spirits Angels the highest Creatures that were made by him An infinite sublimity a pure act to which nothing can be added from which nothing can be taken In him there is light and no darkness * 1 John 1.5 spirituality without any matter perfection without any shadow or taint of imperfection Light pierceth into all things preserves its own purity and admits of no mixture of any thing else with it Question It may be said If God be a Spirit and it is impossible he can be otherwise than a Spirit how comes God so often to have such Members as we have in our Bodies ascribed to him not only a Soul but particular bodily parts as heart arms hands eyes ears face and back-parts And how is it that he is never called a Spirit in plain words but in this Text by our Saviour Answ 'T is true many parts of the Body and natural affections of the human nature are reported of God in Scripture Head * Dan. 7.9 Eyes and Eye-lids * Psal 11.4 Apple of the Eye Mouth c. our Affections also Grief Joy Anger c. But it is to be considered 1. That this is in condescension to our weakness God being desirous to make himself known to Man * Loquitur lex secund ling. filiorum hominum was the H. saying whom he created for his Glory humbles as it were his own Nature to such representations as may sute and assists the capacity of the Creature Since by the condition of our nature nothing erects a notion of it self in our understanding but as it is conducted in by our sence God hath served himself of those things which are most exposed to our sence most obvious to our understandings to give us some acquaintance with his own Nature and those things which otherwise we were not capable of having any notion of As our Souls are linkt with our Bodies so our knowledge is linkt with our sence that we can scarce imagin any thing at first but under a corporeal form and figure till we come by great attention to the Object to make by the help of reason a separation of the spiritual substance from the corporeal fancy and consider it in its own nature We are not able to conceive a Spirit without some kind of resemblance to something below it nor understand the actions of a Spirit without considering the operations of a human Body in its several Members As the Glories of another Life are signified to us by the pleasures of this so the Nature of God by a gracious condescension to our capacities is signified to us by a likeness to our own The more familiar the things are to us which God uses to this purpose the more proper they are to teach us what he intends by them Answ 2. All such representations are to signifie the acts of God as they hear some likeness to those which we perform by those members he ascribes to himself So that those members ascribed to him rather note his visible operations to us than his invisible Nature and signifie that God doth some works like to those which men do by the assistance of those Organs of their Bodies * Amyral de Trin. p. 218. 219. So the wisdom of God is called his Eye because he knows that with his mind which we see with our eyes The efficiency of God is called his Hand and Arm because as we act with our hands so doth God with his Power The divine Efficacies are signified By his eyes and ears we understand his Omniscience by his face the manifestation of his Favour by his mouth the revelation of his Will by his nostrils the acceptation of our Prayers by his bowels the tenderness of his Compassion by his heart the sincerity of his Affections by his hand the strength of his Power by his feet the ubiquity of his Presence And in this he intends instruction and comfort By his eyes he signifies his watchfulness over us By his ears his readiness to hear the crys of the oppressed * Psal 34.15 By his Arm his
of thankfulness in arrear He renders himself doubly unworthy of the mercies he wants that doth not gratefully acknowledge the mercies he hath received God scarce promised any deliverance to the Israelites and they in their distress scarce prayed for any deliverance but that from Egypt was mentioned on both sides by God to encourage them and by them to acknowledge their confidence in him The greater our dangers the more we should call to mind Gods former kindness We are not only thankfully to acknowledge the mercies bestowed upon our persons or in our age but those of former times Thou hast been our dwelling place in all Generations Moses was not living in the former Generations yet he appropriates the former mercies to the present age Mercies as well Generations proceed out of the loyns of those that have gon before All Man-kind are but one Adam the whole Church but one Body In the second verse he backs his former consideration 1. By the greatness of his Power in forming the world 2. By the boundlesness of his duration From everlasting to everlasting As thou hast been our dwelling place and expended upon us the strength of thy power and riches of thy love so we have no reason to doubt the continuance on thy part if we be not wanting on our parts For the vast Mountains and fruitful Earth are the works of thy hands and there is less power requisite for our relief than there was for their Creation and though so much strength hath been upon various occasions manifested yet thy Arm is not weakned for from everlasting to everlasting thou art God * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 strong * Amyrald in loc Thou hast always been God and no time can be assigned as the beginning of thy Being The mountains are not of so long a standing as thy self they are the effects of thy power and therefore cannot be equal to thy duration since they are effects they suppose a precedency of their cause If we would look back we can reach no further than the beginning of the Creation and account the years from the first foundation of the world but after that we must lose our selves in the Abyss of Eternity we have no Cue to guide our thoughts we can see no bounds in thy Eternity But as for Man he traverseth the world a few days and by thy order pronounced concerning all men returns to the Dust and moulders into the Grave By Mountains some understand Angels as being Creatures of a more elevated Nature By Earth they understand humane Nature the Earth being the habitation of Men. There is no need to divert in this place from the Letter to such a sense The description seems to be Poetical and amounts to this He neither began with the beginning of Time nor will expire with the End of it * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theodoret in loc He did not begin when he made himself known to our Fathers but his Being did precede the Creation of the World before any created Being was formed and any time setled Before the Mountains were brought forth Or before they were begotten or born The word being used in those senses in Scripture before they stood up higher than the rest of the earthly Mass God had created It seems that Mountains were not casually cast up by the force of the Deluge softning the Ground and driving several parcels of it together to grow up into a massy body as the Sea doth the Sand in several places but they were at first formed by God The Eternity of God is here described 1. In his Priority Before the world 2. In the extension of his duration From everlasting to everlasting thou art God He was before the world yet he neither began nor ends He is not a Temporary but an Eternal God It takes in both parts of Eternity what was before the Creation of the world and what is after Though the Eternity of God be one permanent state without succession yet the Spirit of God suiting himself to the weakness of our conception divides it into two parts one past before the foundation of the world another to come after the destruction of the world as he did exist before all ages and as he will exist after all ages Many Truths lye coucht in the verse 1. The World hath a beginning of being It was not from Eternity it was once nothing had it been of a very long duration some Records would have remained of some memorable actions done of a longer date than any extant 2. The world owes its Being to the creating Power of God Thou hadst formed it out of nothing into being Thou that is God it could not spring into being of it self it was nothing it must have a Former 3. God was in being before the world The Cause must be before the Effect that Word which gives Being must be before that which receives Being 4. This Being was from Eternity From Everlasting 5. This Being shall endure to Eternity To Everlasting 6. There is but one God one Eternal From everlasting to everlasting thou art God None else but one hath the Property of Eternity the Gods of the Heathen cannot lay claim to it Doct. God is of an eternal duration The Eternity of God is the foundation of the stability of the Covenant the great comfort of a Christian The design of God in Scripture is to set forth his dealing with men in the way of a Covenant * Gen. 1.1 The Priority of God before all things begins the Bible In the beginning God created His Covenant can have no foundation but in his duration before and after the world * Calv. in loc And Moses here mentions his Eternity not only with respect to the Essence of God but to his faederal Providence As he is the dwelling place of his People in all Generations The duration of God for ever is more spoken of in Scripture than his Eternity à parte ante though that is the foundation of all the comfort we can take from his Immortality If he had a beginning he might have an end and so all our happiness hope and being would expire with him but the Scripture sometimes takes notice of his being without beginning as well as without end * Psal 93.2 Thou art from everlasting * Psal 41.13 Blessed be God from everlasting to everlasting * Prov. 8.23 I was set up from everlasting If his Wisdom were from everlasting himself was from everlasting Whether we understand it of Christ the Son of God or of the essential wisdom of God 't is all one to the present purpose The Wisdom of God supposeth the Essence of God as habits in Creatures suppose the being of some power or faculty as their Subject The Wisdom of God supposeth Mind and Understanding Essence and Substance The notion of Eternity is difficult as Austin said * Confes lib. 11. Confes 14. of Time If no man will ask me the
so new but the Eternal God was before the world was made In that sense it is to be understood * Rom. 16.26 The Mystery which was kept secret since the world began but now is made manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the Command of the everlasting God made known to all Nations for the Obedience of Faith The Gospel is not preached by the Command of a new and temporary God but of that God that was before all Ages though the manifestation of it be in time yet the purpose and resolve of it was from Eternity If there were Decrees before the foundation of the World there was a Decreer before the foundation of the World Before the foundation of the world he lov'd Christ as a Mediator * John 1◠24 A fore-ordination of him was before the foundation of the world a Choice of men and therefore a Chooser before the foundation of the world a Grace given in Christ before the world began * Eph. 1.4 and therefore a Donor of that Grace * 2 Tim. 1.9 From those places saith Crellius it appears that God was before the foundation of the world but they do not assert an absolute Eternity * Coccei Sum. p. 48. Theol. Gerhard Exeges cap. 86.4 p. 266. But to be before all Creatures is equivalent to his Being from Eternity Time began with the foundation of the world but God being before time could have no beginning in time Before the beginning of the Creation and the beginning of Time there could be nothing but Eternity nothing but what was uncreated that is nothing but what was without beginning To be in time is to have a beginning to be before all time is never to have a beginning but always to be For as between the Creator and Creatures there is no Medium so between Time and Eternity there is no Medium 'T is as easily deduced that he that was before all Creatures is Eternal as he that made all Creatures is God If he had a beginning he must have it from another or from himself if from another that from whom he received his Being would be better than he so more a God than he He cannot be God that is not Supream he cannot be Supream that owes his Being to the Power of another He would not be said only to have Immortality as he is * 1 Tim. 6.16 if he had it dependent upon another nor could he have a beginning from himself if he had given beginning to himself then he was once nothing there was a time when he was not if he was not how could he be the Cause of himself 'T is impossible for any to give a Beginning and Being to it self If it acts it must exist and so exist before it existed A thing would exist as a Cause before it existed as an Effect He that is not cannot be the Cause that he is If therefore God doth exist and hath not his Being from another he must exist from Eternity Therefore when we say God is of and from himself we mean not that God gave Being to himself but it is negatively to to be understood that he hath no cause of Existence without himself Whatsoever Number of Millions of Millions of Years we can imagin before the Creation of the World yet God was infinitely before those he is therefore called the Ancient of Days * Dan. 7.9 as being before all days and time and eminently containing in himself all times and ages Though indeed God cannot properly be called ancient that will testify that he is decaying and shortly will not be no more than he can be called young which would signify that he was not long before All created things are new and fresh but no Creature can find out any beginning of God 'T is impossible there should be any beginning of him 2. God is without end He always was always is and always will be what he is He remains always the same in Being so far from any change that no shadow of it can touch him * James 1.17 He will continue in being as long as he hath already enjoy'd it and if we could add never so many Millions of years together we are still as far from an end as from a beginning for the Lord shall endure for ever * Psal 9.7 As it is impossible he should not be being from all Eternity so it is impossible that he should not be to all Eternity The Scripture is most plentiful in testimonies of this Eternity of God à parte post or after the Creation of the world He is said to live for ever * Rev. 4.9 10. The Earth shall perish but God shall endure for ever and his years shall have no end Plants and Animals grow up from small beginnings * Psal 102.27 arrive to their full growth and decline again and have always remarkable alterations in their nature But there is no declination in God by all the revolutions of time Hence some think the incorruptibility of the Deity was signified by the Shittim or Cedar wood whereof the Ark was made it being of an incorruptible nature * Exod. 25.10 That which had no beginning of duration can never have an end or any interruptions in it Since God never depended upon any what should make him cease to be what eternally he hath been or put a stop to the continuance of his perfections He cannot will his own destruction that is against universal nature in all things to cease from being if they can preserve themselves He cannot desert his own Being because he cannot but love himself as the best and chiefest good The reason that any thing decays is either its own native weakness or a superior Power of something contrary to it * Crellius de Deo cap. 18. p. 41. There is no weakness in the nature of God that can introduce any Corruption because he is infinitely simple without any mixture Nor can he be overpowred by any thing else a weaker cannot hurt him and a stronger than he there cannot be Nor can he be outwitted or circumvented because of his infinite Wisdom As he received his Being from none so he cannot be deprived of it by any As he doth necessarily exist so he doth necessarily always exist This indeed is the Property of God nothing so proper to him as always to be Whatsoever perfections any Being hath if it be not eternal it is not divine God only is immortal * 1 Tim. 6.16 Daille in loc he only is so by a necessity of nature Angels Souls and Bodies too after the Resurrection shall be immortal not by nature but grant they are subject to return to nothing if that word that raised them from nothing should speak them into nothing again 'T is as easie with God to strip them of it as to invest them with it nay it is impossible but that they should perish if God
is unsearchable Sept. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is no end no limitation what hath no end is infinite his Power is infinite †Job 5.9 which doth great things and unsearchable no end of those things he is able to do His Wisdom infinite * Psal 147.5 He understands all things past present and to come what is already made what is possible to be made his duration infinite * The number of his Years cannot be searched out †Job 36.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To make a finite thing of nothing is an Argument of an infinite Vertue Infinite power can only extract something out of the Barren Womb of nothing but all things were drawn forth by the Word of God the Heavens and all the Host of them the Sun Moon Stars the rich embellishments of the World appear'd in Being at the Breath of his Mouth * Psal 33.6 the Author therefore must be infinite And since nothing is the cause of God or of any Perfection in him since he derives not his Being or the least spark of his glorious nature from any thing without him he cannot be limited in any part of his nature by any thing without him and indeed the infiniteness of his Power and his other Perfections is asserted by the Prophet when he tells us that the Nations are as a Drop of a Bucket or the Dust of the Ballance and less than nothing and Vanity †Isa 40.15.17 they are all so in regard of his Power Wisdom c. Conceive what a little thing a grain of Dust or Sand is to all the Dust that may be made by the rubbish of a House what a little thing the heap of the rubbish of a House is to the vast heap of the rubbish of a whole City such a one as London how little that also would be to the Dust of a whole Empire how inconsiderable that also to the Dust of one quarter of the World Europe or Asia how much less that still to the Dust of the whole World the whole World is compos'd of an unconceivable number of Atoms and the Sea of an unconceivable number of Drops Now what a little grain of Dust is in comparison of the Dust of the whole World a Drop of Water from the Sea to all the Drops remaining in the Sea That is the whole World to God Conceive it still less a meer nothing yet is it all less than this in comparison of God there can be nothing more magnificently expressive of the infiniteness of God to a humane conception than this expression of God himself in the Prophet In the Perfection of a Creature something still may be thought greater to be added to it But God containing all Perfections in himself formally if they be meer Perfections and eminently if they be but Perfections in the Creature mixed with imperfection nothing can be thought greater and therefore every one of them is infinite 2. If his Perfections be Infinite his Essence must be so How God can have infinite Perfections and a finite Essence is unconceivable by a Humane or Angelical understanding an infinite Power an infinite Wisdom an infinite Duration must needs speak an infinite Essence since the infiniteness of his Attributes is grounded upon the infiniteness of his Essence To own infinite Perfections in a finite Subject is contradictory The manner of Acting by his Power and Knowing by his Wisdom cannot exceed the manner of Being by his Essence His Perfections flow from his Essence and the Principle must be of the same rank with what flows from it and if we conceive his Essence to be the cause of his Perfections 't is utterly impossible that an infinite effect should arise from a finite Cause but indeed his Perfections are his Essence for tho' we conceive the Essence of God as the subject and the Attributes of God as faculties and qualities in that Subject according to our weak model who cannot conceive of an infinite God without some manner of likeness to our selves who find Understanding and Will and Power in us distinct from our Substance yet truly and really there is no distinction between his Essence and Attributes one is inseparable from the other his Power and Wisdom are his Essence and therefore to maintain God Infinite in the one and Finite in the other is to make a Monstrous God and have an unreasonable notion of the Deity for there would be the greatest disproportion in his nature since there is no greater disproportion can possibly be between one thing and another than there is between finite and infinite God must not only then be compounded but have parts of the greatest distance from one another in nature but God being the most Simple Being without the least composition both must be equally infinite If then his Essence be not infinite his Power and Wisdom cannot be infinite which is both against Scripture and Reason Again how should his Essence be finite and his Perfections be infinite since nothing out of himself gave them either the one or the other †Amyrald de Trinitat p. 89. Again either the Essence can be infinite or it cannot if it cannot there must be some cause of that impossibility that can be nothing without him because nothing without him can be as powerful as himself much less too powerful for him nothing within him can be an Enemy to his highest Perfection since he is necessarily what he is he must be necessarily the most perfect Being and therefore necessarily infinite since to be something infinitely is a greater Perfection than to be something finitely †Deus est actus parvus nullam habet potentiam passivam if he can be infinite he is infinite otherwise he could be greater than he is and so more Blessed and more Perfect than he is which is impossible for being the most perfect Being to whom nothing can be added he must needs be infinite 3. If therefore God have an Infinite Essence he hath an infinite Presence An infinite Essence cannot be contained in a finite place as those things which are finite have a bounded space wherein they are so that which is infinite hath an unbounded space for as finiteness speaks limitedness so infiniteness speaks unboundedness and if we grant to God an infinite duration there is no difficulty in acknowledging an infinite Presence Indeed the infiniteness of God is a property belonging to him in regard of time and place he is bounded by no place and limited to no time Again Infinite Essence may as well be every where as infinite power reach every thing it may as well be present with every Being as infinite power in its working may be present with nothing to bring it into Being Where God works by his Power he is present in his Essence because his Power and his Essence cannot be separated and therefore his Power Wisdom Goodness cannot be any where where his Essence is not His Essence
could not be blessed Nothing can have any complacency in it self without the Knowledg of it self Nothing can in a rational manner enjoy it self without understanding it self The Blessedness of God consists not in the knowledg of any thing without him but in the knowledg of himself and his own excellency as the principle of all things If therefore he did not perfectly know himself and his own happiness he could not enjoy a happiness for to be and not to know to be is as if a thing were not He is God blessed for ever Rom. 9.5 and therefore for ever had a Knowledg of himself 3. Without the Knowledg of himself he could Create nothing For he would be ignorant of his own Power and his own Ability and he that doth not know how far his Power extends could not act If he did not know himself he could know nothing and he that knows nothing can do nothing he could not know an Effect to be possible to him unless he knew his own Power as a Cause 4. Without the Knowledg of himself he could govern nothing He could not without the knowledg of his own Holiness and Righteousness prescribe Laws to men nor without a knowledg of his own nature order himself a manner of Worship sutable to it All Worship must be congruous to the dignity and nature of the object worshipped he must therefore know his own Authority whereby Worship was to be enacted his own Excellency to which Worship was to be suited his own Glory to which Worship was to be directed If he did not know himself he did not know what to punish because he would not know what was contrary to himself not knowing himself he would not know what was a contempt of him and what an adoration of him what was worthy of God and what was unworthy of him In fine he could not know other things unless he knew himself unless he knew his own Power he could not know how he created things unless he knew his own Wisdom he could not know the beauty of his Works unless he knew his own Glory he could not know the end of his Works unless he knew his own Holiness he could not know what was evil and unless he knew his own Justice he could not know how to punish the Crimes of his offending creatures And therefore 1. God knows himself because his Knowledg with his Will is the cause of all other things that can fall under his cognizance he knows himself first before he can knovv any other thing that is first according to our conceptions for indeed God knovvs himself and all other things at once He is the first Truth and therefore is the first object of his ovvn understanding There is nothing more excellent than himself and therefore nothing more known to him than himself As he is all Knovvledg so he hath in himself the most excellent object of Knovvledg To understand is properly to knovv ones self No object is so intelligible to God as God is to himself nor so intimately and immediately joined vvith his Understanding as himself for his Understanding is his Essence himself 2. He knows himself by his own Essence He knovvs not himself and his ovvn Povver by the effect because he knovvs himself from Eternity before there vvas a World or any effect of his Povver extant 'T is not a knovvledg by the Cause for God hath no cause nor a knovvledg of himself by any species or any thing from vvithout If it vvere any thing from vvithout himself that must be created or uncreated if uncreated it vvould be God and so vve must either ovvn many Gods or ovvn it to be his Essence and so not distinct from himself If created then his knovvledg of himself vvould depend upon a creature he could not then knovv himself from eternity but in time because nothing can be created from eternity but in time God knovvs not himself by any faculty for there is no composition in God he is not made up of parts but is a simple being some therefore have called God not intellectus understanding because that savours of a faculty but intellectio intellection God is all act in the knovvledg of himself and his knovvledg of other things 3. God therefore knows himself perfectly comprehensively Nothing in his ovvn nature is concealed from him he reflects upon every thing that he is Magalaneus There is a positive comprehension so God doth not comprehend himself for vvhat is comprehended hath bounds and vvhat is comprehended by it self is finite to it self and there is a negative comprehension God so comprehends himself nothing in his ovvn nature is obscure to him unknovvn by him For there is as great a perfection in the understanding of God to knovv as there is in the Divine nature to be knovvn The Understanding of God and the Nature of God are both infinite and so equal to one another his Understanding is equal to himself he knovvs himself so vvell that nothing can be knovvn by him more perfectly than himself is knovvn to himself He knovvs himself in the highest manner because nothing is so proportion'd to the Understanding of God as himself He knovvs his ovvn Essence Goodness Povver all his Perfections Decrees Intentions Acts the infinite capacity of his ovvn Understanding so that nothing of himself is in the dark to himself And in this respect some use this expression That the Infiniteness of God is in a manner finite to himself because it is comprehended by himself Thus God transcends all Creatures thus his Understanding is truly Infinite because nothing but himself is an infinite Object for it What Angels may understand of themselves perfectly I know not but no Creature in the World understands himself Man understands not fully the excellency and parts of his own nature upon Gods knowledg of himself depends the Comfort of his People and the Terror of the Wicked this is also a clear Argument for his Knowledg of all other things without himself he that knows himself must needs know all other things less than himself and which were made by himself When the knowledg of his own Immensity and Infiniteness is not an object too difficult for him the knowledg of a finite and limited Creature in all his actions thoughts circumstances cannot be too hard for him Since he knows himself who is Infinite he cannot but know whatsoever is Finite this is the Foundation of all his other Knowledg the knowledg of every thing present past and to come is far less than the knowledg of himself He is more incomprehensible in his own nature than all things Created or that can be Created put together can be If he then have a perfect comprehensive knowledg of his own nature any knowledg of all other things is less than the knowledg of himself this ought to be well considered by us as the Fountain whence all his other knowledg flows 2. Therefore God knows all other things whether
which is past And tho' God be said to forget in Scripture and not to know his People and his People pray to him to remember them as if he had forgotten them Psal 119 49. This is improperly ascrib'd to God * Bradward As God is said to repent when he changes things according to his Counsel beyond the expectation of men so he is said to forget when he defers the making good his Promise to the Godly or his Threatnings to the Wicked this is not a defect of Memory belonging to his mind but an act of his Will When he is said to remember his Covenant 't is to Will Grace according to his Covenant when he is said to forget his Covenant 't is to intercept the influences of it whereby to punish the Sin of his People and when he is said not to know his People 't is not an absolute forgetfulness of them but withdrawing from them the Testimonies of his Kindness and clouding the Signs of his favour so God in Pardon is said to forget Sin not that he ceaseth to know it but ceaseth to punish it 'T is not to be meant of a simple forgetfulness or a lapse of his Memory but of a Judicial Forgetfulness so when his People in Scripture Pray Lord Remember thy Word unto thy Servant no more is to be understood but Lord fulfil thy Word and Promise to thy Servant 3. He knows things Present Heb. 4.13 All things are naked and opened unto the Eyes of him with whom we have to do This is grounded upon the Knowledg of himself 't is not so difficult to know all Creatures exactly as to know himself because they are finite but himself is infinite he knows his own Power and therefore every thing through which his Omnipotence is diffus'd all the acts and objects of it not the least thing that is the Birth of his Power can be conceal'd from him he knows his own Goodness and therefore every object upon which the warm beams of his Goodness strike he therefore knows distinctly the properties of every Creature because every Property in them is a Ray of his Goodness he is not only the efficient but the exemplary cause therefore as he knows all that his Power hath wrought as he is the efficient so he knows them in himself as the pattern As a Carpenter can give an account of every part and passage in a House he hath built by consulting the Model in his own mind whereby he built it He looked upon all things after he had made them and pronounc'd them good Gen. 1.3 full of a natural goodness he had endowed them with he did not ignorantly pronounce them so and call them good whether he knew them or not and therefore he knows them in particular as he knew them all in their first Presence Is there any reason he should be ignorant of every thing now present in the World or that any thing that derives an existence from him as a free cause should be concealed from him If he did not know things present in their particularities many things would be known by man yea by Beasts which the infinite God were ignorant of and if he did not know all things present but only some 't is possible for the most Blessed God to be deceived and be miserable Ignorance is a Calamity to the Understanding He could not prescribe Laws to his Creatures unless he knew their Natures to which those Laws were to be suited no not natural Ordinances to the Sun Moon and Heavenly Bodies and inanimate Creatures unless he knew the vigour and vertue in them to execute those Ordinances for to prescribe Laws above the nature of things is inconsistent with the Wisdom of Government he must know how far they were able to obey whether the Laws were suted to their ability And for his rational Creatures Whether the Punishments annext to the Law were proper and suited to the Transgression of the Creature 1. First He knows all Creatures from the highest to the lowest the least as well as the greatest He knows the Ravens and their young ones Job â—â— 41. the Drops of Rain and Dew which he hath begotten Job 38. â—â— every Bird in the Air as well as any man doth what he hath in a Cage at home Psal 50.11 I know all the Fowls in the Mountains and the wild Beasts in the Field which some read creeping things The Clouds are numbred in his Wisdom Job 38.37 every Worm in the Earth every drop of Rain that falls upon the ground the flakes of Snow and the knots of Hail the Sands upon the Sea-shore the Hairs upon the Head 't is no more absurd to imagine that God knows them than that God made them they are all the effects of his Power as well as the Stars which he calls by their Names as well as the most glorious Angel and blessed Spirit he knows them as well as if there were none but them in particular for him to know the least things were framed by his Art as well as the greatest the least things partake of his goodness as well as the greatest he knows his own Arts and his own Goodness and therefore all the Stamps and Impressions of them upon all his Creatures he knows the immediate causes of the least and therefore the effects of those causes Since his knowledg is infinite it must extend to those things which are at the greatest distance from him to those which approach nearest to not Being since he did not want Power to Create he cannot want Understanding to know every thing he hath Created the dispositions qualities and vertues of the minutest Creature Nor is the Vnderstanding of God embas'd and suffers a diminution by the Knowledg of the vilest and most inconsiderable things Is it not an imperfection to be ignorant of the nature of any thing and can God have such a defect in his most perfect Understanding Is the Understanding of man of an impurer Alloy by knowing the nature of the rankest Poysons by understanding a Fly or a small Insect or by considering the deformity of a Toad Is it not generally counted a note of a Dignified mind to be able to Discourse of the Nature of them Was Solomon who knew all from the Cedar to the Hysop debas'd by so Rich a Present of Wisdom from his Creator Is any Glass defil'd by presenting a Deformed Image Is there any thing more vile than the imaginations which are only evil and continually doth not the mind of man descend to the mud of the Earth play the Adulterer or Idolater with mean objects suck in the most unclean things yet God knows these in all their circumstances in every appearance inside and outside Is there any thing viler than some thoughts of men than some actions of men their unclean Beds and Gluttonous Vomiting and Luciferian Pride yet do not these fall under the Eye of God in all their Nakedness The Second Person 's taking
him through the universal Corruption of Nature Now he hath manifested himself a God of Truth mindful of his Promise in Blessing all Nations in the Seed of Abraham The Fury of Devils and the Violence of Men could not hinder the propagation of this Gospel Its Light hath been dispersed as far as that of the Sun and that Grace that sounded in the Gentiles Ears hath bent many of their Hearts to the Obedience of it 5. Observe That Libertinism and Licentiousness find no encouragement in the Gospel It was made known to all Nations for the Obedience of Faith The Goodness of God is publish'd that our Enmity to him may be parted with Christs Righteousness is not offered to us to be put on that we may roul more warmly in our Lusts The Doctrine of Grace commands us to give up our selves to Christ to be accepted through him and to be ruled by him Obedience is due to God as a Soveraign Lord in his Law and 't is due out of gratitude as he is a God of Grace in the Gospel The discovery of a further perfection in God weakens not the right of another nor the obligation of the Duty the former Attribute claims at our hands The Gospel frees us from the Curse but not from the Duty and Service We are delivered from the hands of our Enemies that we might serve God in Holiness and Righteousness Luke 1.74 This is the will of God in the Gospel even our Sanctification When a Prince strikes off a Malefactors Chains though he deliver him from the punishment of his Crime he frees him not from the Duty of a Subject His Pardon adds a greater obligation than his Protection did before while he was Loyal Christs Righteousness gives us a Title to Heaven but there must be a Holiness to give us a fitness for Heaven 6. Observe That Evangelical Obedience or the Obedience of Faith is only acceptable to God Obedience of Faith Genitivus speciei noting the kind of Obedience God requires an Obedience springing from Faith animated and influenced by Faith Not Obedience of Faith as though Faith were the Rule and the Law were abrogated but to the Law as a Rule and from Faith as a Principle There is no true Obedience before Faith Heb. 11.6 Without Faith it is impossible to please God and therefore without Faith impossible to obey him A good Work cannot proceed from a defil'd Mind and Conscience and without Faith every mans Mind is darkned and his Conscience polluted * Tit. 1.15 Faith is the Band of Union to Christ and Obedience is the Fruit of Union we cannot bring forth fruit without being Branches †John 15.4 5. and we cannot be Branches without Believing Legitimate Fruit follows upon Marriage to Christ not before it Rom. 7.4 That you should be married to another even to him that is raised from the dead that you should bring forth fruit unto God All Fruit before Marriage is Bastard and Bastards were excluded from the Sanctuary Our Persons must be first accepted in Christ before our Services can be acceptable those Works are not acceptable where the Person is not pardoned Good Works flow from a pure Heart but the Heart cannot be pure before Faith All the Good Works reckoned up in the 11th Chapter of the Hebrews were from this Spring those Heroes first believed and then obeyed By Faith Abel was righteous before God without it his Sacrifice had been no better than Cains By Faith Enoch pleased God and had a Divine Testimony to his Obedience before his Translation By Faith Abraham offered up Isaac without which he had been no better than a Murderer All Obedience hath its Root in Faith and is not done in our own strength but in the strength and virtue of another of Christ whom God hath set forth as our Head and Root 7. Observe Faith and Obedience are distinct though inseparable The Obedience of Faith Faith indeed is Obedience to a Gospel Command which enjoyns us to believe but it is not all our Obedience Justification and Sanctification are distinct Acts of God Justification respects the Person Sanctification the Nature Justification is first in order of Nature and Sanctification follows They are distinct but inseparable every Justified Person hath a Sanctified Nature and every Sanctified Nature supposeth a Justified Person So Faith and Obedience are distinct Faith as the Principle Obedience as the Product Faith as the Cause Obedience as the Effect the Cause and the Effect are not the same By Faith we own Christ as our Lord by Obedience we regulate our selves according to his Command The acceptance of the Relation to him as a Subject precedes the performance of our Duty By Faith we receive his Law and by Obedience we fulfil it Faith makes us Gods Children Gal. 3.26 Obedience manifests us to be Christs Disciples John 15.8 Faith is the Touchstone of Obedience the Touchstone and that which is tried by it are not the same But though they are distinct yet they are inseparable Faith and Obedience are joyned together Obedience follows Faith at the heels Faith purifies the heart and a pure Heart cannot be without pure Actions Faith unites us to Christ whereby we partake of his Liâ—e and a living Branch cannot be without fruit in its season and much fruit John 15.5 and that naturally from a newness of Spirit Rom. 7.9 not constrained by the rigors of the Law but drawn forth from a sweetness of Love for Faith works by Love The Love of God is the strong Motive and Love to God is the quickning Principle as there can be no Obedience without Faith so no Faith without Obedience After all this the Apostle ends with the celebration of the Wisdom of God To God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ for ever The rich Discovery of the Gospel cannot be thought of by a gracious Soul without a return of Praise to God and Admiration of his singular Wisdom Wise God His Power before and his Wisdom here are mentioned in conjunction in which his Goodness is included as interested in his establishing Power as the ground of all the Glory and Praise God hath from his Creatures Only Wise As Christ saith Mat. 19.17 None is good but God so the Apostle saith None Wise but God As all Creatures are unclean in regard of his Purity so they are all Fools in regard of his Wisdom yea the glorious Angels themselves * Job 4.18 Wisdom is the Royalty of God the proper Dialect of all his Ways and Works No Creature can lay claim to it He is so Wise that he is Wisdom it self Be glory through Jesus Christ As God is only known in and by Christ so he must be only worshipped and celebrated in and through Christ In him we must Pray to him and in him we must Praise him As all Mercies flow from God through Christ to us so all our Duties are to be presented to God through Christ In the Greek verbatim
acts of the Divine will yet we must not think that they were acts of meer will without wisdom but they are represented so to us because we are not capable of understanding the infinite Reason of its acts His Soveraignty is more intelligible to us than his Wisdom We can better know the Commands of a Superiour and the Laws of a Prince than understand the reason that gave birth to those Laws We may know the Orders of the Divine will as they are publish'd but not the sublime Reason ot his will Though Election be an act of God's Soveraignty and he hath no cause from without to determine him yet his infinite wisdom stood not silent while meer Dominion acted Whatsoever God doth he doth wisely as well as soveraignly though that wisdom which lies in the secret places of the Divine Being be as incomprehensible to us as the effects of his Soveraignty and Power in the World are visible God can give a reason of his proceeding and that drawn from himself though we understand it not The causes of things visible lye hid from us Doth any man know how to distinguish the seminal vertue of a small Seed from the Body of it and in what nook and corner that lies and what that is that spreads it self in so fair a Plant and so many Flowers Can we comprehend the Justice of God's proceedings in the prosperity of the wicked and the afflictions of the Godly Yet as we must conclude them the fruits of an unerring righteousness so we must conclude all his actions the fruits of an unspotted wisdom though the concatenation of all his counsels is not intelligible to us for he is as essentially and necessarily wise as he is essentially and necessarily good and righteous God is not only so wise that nothing more wise can be conceiv'd but he is more wise than can be imagin'd something greater in all his Perfections than can be comprehended by any Creature 'T is a foolish thing therefore to question that which we cannot comprehend we should adore it instead of disputing against it and take it for granted that God would not order any thing were it not agreeable to the Soveraignty of his wisdom as well as that of his will Though the reason of man proceed from the wisdom of God yet there is more difference between the reason of man and the wisdom of God than between the light of the Sun and the feeble shining of the Glowworm yet we presume to censure the ways of God as if our purblind reason had a reach above him 7. God is only wise infallibly The wisest men meet with rubs in the way that make them fall short of what they aim at they often design and fail then begin again and yet all their counsels end in smoak and none of them arrive at perfection If the wisest Angels lay a plot they may be disappointed for though they are higher and wiser than man yet there is one higher and wiser than they that can check their Projects God always compasseth his end never fails of any thing he designs and aims at all his undertakings are counsel and will as nothing can resist the efficacy of his will so nothing can countermine the skil of his counsel There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord Prov. 21.30 He compasseth his ends by those actions of Men and Devils wherein they think to cross him they shoot at their own Mark and hit his Lucifer's plot by Divine wisdom fulfilled God's purpose against Lucifer's mind The counsel of Redemption by Christ the end of the Creation of the World rode into the World upon the back of the Serpents Temptation God never mistakes the means nor can there be any disappointments to make him vary his Counsels and pitch upon other means than what before he had ordain'd His word that goeth forth of his mouth shall not return to him void but it shall accomplish that which he pleases and it shall prosper in the thing whereto he sent it Isa 55.11 What is said of his word is true of his counsel it shall prosper in the thing for which it is appointed it cannot be defeated by all the Legions of Men and Devils for as he thinks so shall it come to pass and as he hath purposed so shall it stand The Lord hath purposed and who shall disanul it Isa 14.24 27. The wisdom of the Creature is a drop from the wisdom of God and is like a drop to the Ocean and a shadow to the Sun and therefore is not able to mate the wisdom of God which is infinite and boundless No wisdom is exempted from mistakes but the Divine He is wise in all his Resolves and never calls bâ—ck his words and purposes Isa 31.2 III. The third General is to prove that God is wise This is ascrib'd to God in Scripture Dan. 2.20 Wisdom and might are his Wisdom to contrive and Power to effect * Culverwell light of Nature p. 30. Where should Wisdom dwell but in the head of a Deity and where should Power triumph but in the arm of Omnipotency All that God doth he doth artificially skilfully whence he is called the Builder of the Heavens Heb. 11.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an artificial and curious Builder a Builder by Art And that word Prov. 8.30 meant of Christ Then I was by him as one brought up with him some render it Then was I the curious Artificer and the same word is translated a cunning workman Cant. 7.5 For this cause Counsel is ascrib'd to God †Isa 46.10 Jer. 22.19 Great in counsel Job 12.13 He hath counsel and understanding not properly for Counsel implies something of Ignorance or Irresolution antecedent to the consultation and a posture of will afterwards which was not before Counsel is properly a laborious deliberation and a reasoning of things An invention of means for the attainment of the end after a discussing and reasoning of all the doubts which arise pro re natâ about the matter in counsel But God hath no need to deliberate in himself what are the best means to accomplish his ends He is never ignorant or undetermin'd what course he should take as men are before they consult But it is an expression in condescension to our Capacity to signifie that God doth nothing but with reason and understanding with the highest prudence and for the most glorious ends as men do after consultation and the weighing of every foreseen circumstance Though he acts all things Soveraignly by his will yet he acts all things wisely by his understanding and there is not a decree of his will but he can render a satisfactory reason for in the face of Men and Angels As he is the Cause of all things so he hath the highest wisdom for the ordering of all things If wisdom among men be the knowledge of Divine and Human things God must be infinitely wise since knowledge is most radiant in
cannot be well governed but by one endowed with infinite Discretion Providential government can be no more without infinite wisdom than infinite wisdom can be without Providence Reas 3. The Creatures working for an end without their own knowledge demonstrates the wisdom of God that guides them All things in the World work for some end the ends are unknown to them though many of their ends are visible to us As there was some prime Cause which by his power inspir'd them with their several instincts so there must be some supream wisdom which moves and guides them to their end As their Being manifests his power that endowed them so the acting according to the rules of their Nature which they themselves understand not manifests his wisdom in directing them Every thing that acts for an end must know that end or be directed by another to attain that end The Arrow doth not know who shoots it or to what end it is shot or what Mark is aimed at but the Archer that puts it in and darts it out of the Bow knows A Watch hath a regular motion but neither the Spring nor the Wheels that move know the end of their motion no man will judge a wisdom to be in the Watch but in the Artificer that dispos'd the Wheels and Spring by a joint combination to produce such a motion for such an end Doth either the Sun that enlivens the Earth or the Earth that travels with the Plant know what Plant it produceth in such a Soil what temper it should be of what fruit it should bear and of what colour What Plant knows its own medicinal qualities it s own beautiful flowers and for what use they are ordain'd When it strikes up its head from the Earth doth it know what proportion of them there will be Yet it produceth all these things in a state of ignorance The Sun warms the Earth concocts the humours excites the vertue of it and cherishes the Seeds which are cast into her lap yet all unknown to the Sun or the Earth Since therefore that Nature that is the immediate cause of those things doth not understand its own quality nor operation nor the end of its action that which thus directs them must be conceived to have an infinite wisdom When things act by a Rule they know not and move for an end they understand not and yet work harmoniously together for one end that all of them we are sure are ignorant of it mounts up our minds to acknowledge the wisdom of that supream Cause that hath rang'd all these inferiour Causes in their order and imprinted upon them the Laws of their motions according to the Ideas in his own Mind who orders the Rule by which they act and the end for which they act and directs every motion according to their several Natures and therefore is possessed with infinite wisdom in his own Nature Reas 4. God is the fountain of all wisdom in the creatures and therefore is infinitely wise himself As he hath a fulness of being in himself because the streams of being are derived to other things from him So he hath a fulness of wisdom because he is the spring of wisdom to Angels and men That Being must be infinitely wise from whence all other wisdom derives its original For nothing can be in the effect which is not eminently in the cause the cause is alway more perfect than the effect If therefore the creatures are wise the Creator must be much more wise If the Creator were destitute of wisdom the creature would be much more perfect than the Creator If you consider the wisdom of the Spider in her web which is both her house and net the artifice of the Bee in her Comb which is both her chamber and granary the provision of the Pismire in her repositories for corn the wisdom of the Creator is illustrated by them whatsoever excellency you see in any creature is an Image of some excellency in God The skill of the artificer is visible in the fruits of his Art a workman transcribes his spirit in the work of his hands But the wisdom of rational creatures as men doth more illustrate it All Arts among men are the rayes of divine Wisdom shining upon them and by a common gift of the Spirit enlightning their minds to curious inventions as Prov. 8.12 I wisdom find out the knowledge of witty inventions that is I give a faculty to men to find them out without my wisdom all things would be buried in darkness and ignorance Whatsoever wisdom there is in the World it is but a shadow of the wisdom of God a small Rivulet derived from him a spark leaping out from Uncreated Wisdom Isa 54.16 He created the Smith that bloweth the coals in the fire and makes the Instruments The skill to use those weapons in War-like Enterprises is from him I have created the waster to destroy 'T is not meant of creating their Persons but communicating to them their Art He speaks it there to expell fear from the Church of all war-like preparations against them He had given Men the skill to form and use Weapons and could as well strip them of it and defeat their purposes The Art of husbandry is a fruit of divine teaching Isa 28.24 25. If those lower kinds of Knowledge that are common to all Nations and easily learn'd by all are discoveries of Divine Wisdom much more the nobler Sciences intellectual and Political Wisdom Dan. 2.21 He gives Wisdom to the wise and knowledge to them that know understanding speaking of the more abstruse parts of knowledge The inspiration of the Almighty gives Vnderstanding Job 32.8 Hence the Wisdom which Solomon exprest in the Harlots case 1 Kings 3.28 was in the Judgment of all Israel the Wisdom of God that is a fruit of Divine Wisdom a beam communicated to him from God Every mans Soul is endowed more or less with those noble qualities The Soul of every man exceeds that of a Brute If the streams be so excellent the Fountain must be fuller and clearer The first Spirit must infinitely more possess what other Spirits derive from him by Creation Were the Wisdom of all the Angels in Heaven and men on Earth collected in one Spirit it must be infinitely less than what is in the Spring for no Creature can be equal to the Creator As the highest Creature already made or that we can conceive may be made by Infinite Power would be infinitely below God in the Notion of a Creature so it would be infinitely below God in the Notion of Wise IV. The fourth Thing is Wherein the Wisdom of God appears It appears 1. In Creation 2. In Government 3. In Redemption 1. In Creation As in a Musical Instrument there is first the skill of the Workman in the frame then the skill of the Musician in stringing it proper for such Musical Notes as he will express upon it and after that the tempering of the Strings by
Instruments He needs no Matter to work upon because he can make something from nothing all Matter owes it self to his Creative Power He needs no time to work in for he can make Time when he pleases to begin to work He needs no Copy to work by Himself is his own Pattern and Copy in his Works All created Agents want Matter to work upon Instruments to work with Copies to work by Time to bring either the births of their Minds or the works of their hands to perfection But the Power of God needs none of these things but is of a vast and Incomprehensible nature beyond all these As nothing can be done without the compass of it so it self is without the compass of every Created Understanding 4. This Power is of a distinct conception from the Wisdom and Will of God They are not really distinct but according to our Conceptions We cannot discourse of Divine things without observing some proportion of them with humane ascribing unto God the Perfections sifted from the Imperfections of our Nature In Us there are three Orders of Understanding Will Power and accordingly three Acts Counsel Resolution Execution which though they are distinct in Us are not really distinct in God In our Conceptions the Apprehension of a thing belongs to the Understanding of God Determination to the Will of God Direction to the Wisdom of Gâ—d Execution to the Power of God The Knowledge of God regards a thing as possible and as it may be done the Wisdom of God regards a thing as fit and convenient to be done the Will of God resolves that it shall be done the Power of God is the application of his Will to effect what it hath resolved Wisdom is a fixing the Being of things the measures and perfections of their several Beings Power is a conferring those Perfections and Beings upon them His Power is his ability to act and his Wisdom is the Director of his action His Will orders his Wisdom guides and his Power effects His Will as the spring and his Power as the worker are exprest Psal 115.3 He hath done whatsoever he pleased He commanded and they were created Psal 140.5 and all three exprest Eph. 1.11 Who works all things according to the counsel of his own will So that the Power of God is a Perfection as it were subordinate to his Understanding and Will to execute the results of his Wisdom and the orders of his Will to his VVisdom as directing because he works skilfully to his Will as moving and applying because he works voluntarily and freely The exercise of his Power depends upon his Will His Will is the supream cause of every thing that stands up in Time and all things receive a Being as he wills them His Power is but Will perpetually working and diffusing it self in the season his Will hath fixed from Eternity 't is his Eternal Will in perpetual and successive springs and streams in the Creatures 't is nothing else but the constant efficacy of his Omnipotent Will This must be understood of his Ordinate Power But his Absolute Power is larger than his Resolving Will for though the Scripture tells us He hath done whatsoever he will yet it tells us not that he hath done whatsoever he could He can do things that he will never do Again His Power is distinguisht from his Will in regard of the Exercise of it which is after the act of his Will His Will was conversant about Objects when his Power was not exercis'd about them Creatures were the objects of his VVill from Eternity but they were not from Eternity the effects of his Power His Purpose to Create was from Eternity but the execution of his Purpose was in Time Now this execution of his VVill we call his Ordinate Power His VVisdom and his VVill are supposed antecedent to his Power as the Counsel and Resolve as the Cause precedes the performance of the Purpose as the effect * Gamacheus Some distinguish his Power from his Understanding and VVill in regard that his Understanding and VVill are larger than his Absolute Power for God understands Sins and wills to permit them but he cannot himself do any Evil or Unjust action nor have a power of doing it But this is not to distinguish that Divine Power but Impotence for to be unable to do Evil is the perfection of Power and to be able to do things Unjust and Evil is a weakness imperfection and inability Man indeed wills many things that he is not able to perform and understands many things that he is not able to effect he understands much of the Creatures something of Sun Moon and Stars he can conceive many Suns many Moons yet is not able to create the least Atom But there is nothing that belongs to Power but God understands and is able to effect To sum this up The VVill of God is the Root of all the VVisdom of God is the Copy of all and the Power of God is the Framer of all 5. The Power of God gives activity to all the other perfections of his Nature and is of a larger extent and efficacy in regard of its Objects than some perfections of his Nature I put them both together 1. It contributes Life and Activity to all the other perfections of his Nature How vain would be his Eternal Counsels if Power did not step in to execute them His Mercy would be a feeble pity if he were destitute of Power to relieve and his Justice a slighted Scarecrow without Power to punish his Promises an empty sound without Power to accomplish them As Holiness is the Beauty so Power is the Life of all his Attributes in their exercise and as Holiness so Power is an Adjunct belonging to All a Term that may be given to All. God hath a powerful Wisdom to attain his Ends without interruption He hath a powerful Mercy to remove our Misery a powerful Justice to lay all Misery upon Offenders He hath a powerful Truth to perform his Promises an Infinite Power to bestow Rewards and inflict Penalties 'T is to this purpose Power is first put in the two things which the Psalmist had heard Psal 62.11 12. Twice have I heard or two things have I heard first Power then Mercy and Justice included in that expression Thou rendrest to every man according to his work In every perfection of God he heard of Power This is the Arm the Hand of the Deity which all his other Attributes lay hold on when they would appear in their Glory this hands them to the World by this they act in this they triumph Power framed every stage for their appearance in Creation Providence Redemption 2. 'T is of a larger extent in regard of its Objects than some other Attributes Power doth not alway suppose an Object but constitutes an Object It supposeth an Obiect in the act of Preservation but it makes an Object in the act of Creation but Mercy supposeth an object Miserable
follow That this Omnipotence is incommunicable to any Creature no Creature can inherit it because it is a contradiction for any Creature to have the Essence of God This Omnipotence is a peculiar Right of God wherein no Creature can share with him To be Omnipotent is to be Essentially God And for a Creature to be Omnipotent is for a Creature to be its own Creator It being therefore the same with the Essence of the Godhead it cannot be communicated to the Humanity of Christ as the Lutherans say it is wâ—thout the communication of the Essence of the Godhead * for then the Humanity of Christ would not be Humanity but Deity If Omnipotence were communicated to the Humanity of Christ the Essence of God were also communicated to his Humanity and then Eternity would be communicated His Humanity then was not given him in Time his Humanity would be uncompounded that is his Body would be no Body his Soul no Soul Omnipotence is Essentially in God 't is not distinct from the Essence of God 't is his Essence Omnipotent able to do all things 7. Hence it follows That this Power is infinite Eph. 1.19 What is the exceeding greatness of his power c. According to the working of his mighty power God were not Omnipotent unless his Power were Infinite for a Finite Power is a limited Power and a limited Power cannot effect every thing that is possible Nothing can be too difficult for the Divine Power to effect He hath a Fulness of Power an Exceeding Strength above all Humane Capacities 't is a Mighty power †Eph. 1.19 able to do above all that we can ask or think ‖ Eph. 3.20 That which he acts is above the power of any Creature to act Infinite Power consists in the bringing things forth from nothing No Creature can imitate God in this Prerogative of Power Man indeed can carve various Forms and erect various pieces of Art but from preexistent Matter Every Artificer hath the Matter brought to his hand he only brings it forth in a new Figure Chimists separate one thing from another but create nothing but sever those things which were before compacted and crudled together But when God speaks a powerful Word Nothing begins to be Something Things stand forth from the Womb of Nothing and obey his mighty Command and take what Forms he is pleased to give them The Creating one thing though never so small and minute as the least Fly cannot be but by an Infinite Power much less can the producing of such Variety we see in the World His Power is Infinite in regard it cannot be resisted by any thing that he hath made nor can it be confin'd by any thing he can will to make His Greatness is unsearchable * 'T is a Greatness not of quantity but quality Psal 145.3 The Greatness of his Power hath no end 'T is a vanity to imagine any limits can be affixed to it or that any Creature can say Hitherto it can go and no further 'T is above all Conception all Inquisition of any Created Understanding No Creature ever had nor ever can have that strength of Wit and Understanding to conceive the extent of his Power and how Magnificently he can work 1. His Essence is Infinite As in a Finite Subject there is a Finite Vertue so in an Infinite Subject there must be an Infinite Vertue Where the Essence is limited the Power is so †Operationes sequuntur essentiam Where the Essence is unlimited the Power knows no bounds ‖ Aqâ—in par 1. Qu. 25. Artic. 2. Among Creatures the more excellency of Being and Form any thing hath the more activity vigour and power it hath to work according to its Nature The Sun hath a mighty power to warm enlighten and fructifie above what the Stars have because it hath a vaster Body more intense degrees of light heat and vigour Now if you conceive the Sun made much greater than it is it would proportionably have greater degrees of power to heat and enlighten than it hath now And were it possible to have an Infinite Heat and Light it would infinitely heat and enlighten other things for every thing is able to act according to the Measures of its Being Therefore since the Essence of God is unquestionably Infinite his power of Acting must be so also His Power as was said before is one and the same with his Essence And though the Knowledge of God extends to more Objects than his Power because he knows all Evils of Sin which because of his Holiness he cannot commit yet it is as Infinite as his Knowledge because it is as much one with his Essence as his Knowledge and Wisdom is For as the Wisdom or Knowledge of God is nothing but the Essence of God Knowing so the Power of God is nothing but the Essence of God Able 2. The Objects of Divine Power are innumerable The Objects of Divine Power are not Essentially Infinite and therefore we must not measure the Infiniteness of Divine Power by an Ability to make an Infinite Being because there is an Incapacity in any created thing to be Infinite for to be a Creature and to be Infinite to be Infinite and yet Made is a contradiction To be Infinite and to be God is one and the same thing Nothing can be Infinite but God nothing but God is Infinite But the Power of God is Infinite because it can produce Infinite effects or Innumerable things such as surpass the Arithmetick of a Creature nor yet doth the Infiniteness consist simply in producing innumerable Effects for that a Finite Cause can produce Fire can by its finite and limit d Heat burn numberless combustible things and parcels and the Understanding of Man hath an infinite number of thoughts and acts of Intellection and Thoughts different from one another Who can number the Imaginations of his Fancy and Thoughts of his Mind the space of one Month or Year much less of Forty or an Hundred years yet all these Thoughts are about things that are in Being or have a foundation in things that are in Being But the Infiniteness of Gods Power consists in an ability to produce Infinite Effects formally distinct and diverse from one another such as never had Being such as the Mind of Man cannot conceive Eph. 3.20 Able to do above what we can think Eph. 3.20 And whatsoever God hath made or is able to make he is able to make in an Infinite manner by calling them to stand forth from nothing To produce innumerable Effects of distinct Natures and from so distant a term as Nothing is an argument of Infinite Power Now that the Objects of Divine Power are Innumerable appears because God can do Infinitely more thâ—n he hath done or will do Nothing that God hath done can enfeeble or dull his Power there still resides in him an Ability beyond all the setled Contrivances of his Understanding and Resolves of his
Will which no Effects which he hath wrought can drain and put to a stand As he can raise Stones to be Children to Abraham * Mat. 3.9 so with the same mighty Word whereby he made one World he can make Infinite numbers of Worlds to be the Monuments of his Glory After the Prophet Jeremy 32.17 had spoke of Gods Power in Creation he adds And nothing is too hard for thee For one World that he hath made he can create Millions For one Star which he hath beautified the Heavens with he could have garnisht it with a Thousand and multiplied if he had pleased Rom. 4.17 every one of those into Millions for he can call things that are not not some things but all things possible The barren Womb of Nothing can no more resist his Power now to educe a World from it than it could at first No doubt but for one Angel which he hath made he could make many Worlds of Angels He that made one with so much ease as by a Word cannot want Power to make many more till he wants a Word The Word that was not too weak to make One cannot be too weak to make Multitudes If from One Man he hath in a way of Nature multiplied so many in all Ages of the World and covered with them the whole Face of the Earth he could in a Supernatural way by One Word multiply as many more 'T is the breath of the Almighty that gives life Job 33.4 He can create infinite Species and kinds of Creatures more than he hath created more variety of Forms For since there is no searching of his Greatness there is no conceiving the numberless possible effects of his Power The Understanding of Man can conceive Numberless things possible to be more than have been or shall be And shall we imagine that a Finite Understanding of a Creature hath a greater Omnipotency to conceive things possible than God hath to produce things possible When the Understanding of Man is tyr'd in its Conceptions it must still be concluded That the Power of God extends not only to what can be conceiv'd but infinitely beyond the measures of a Finite faculty Touching the Almighty we cannot find him out he is excellent in power and in judgment Job 36.23 For the Understanding of Man in its Conceptions of more kind of Creatures is limited to those Creatures which are It cannot in its own Imagination conceive any thing but what hath some foundation in and from something already in Being It may frame a new kind of Creature made up of a Lion a Horse an Ox but all those parts whereof its Conception is made have distinct Beings in the World though not in that composition as his Mind mixes and joyns them But no question but God can create Creatures that have no resemblance with any kind of Creatures yet in Being 'T is certain that if God only knows those things which he hath done and will do and not all things possible to be done by him his knowledge were finite so if he could do no more than what he hath done his Power would be finite 1. Creatures have a power to act about more objects than they do The Understanding of man can frame from one Principle of Truth many Conclusions and Inferences more than it doth Why cannot then the Power of God frame from one first Matter an infinite number of Creatures more than have been created The Almightiness of God in producing real Effects is not inferiour to the Understanding of man in drawing out real Truths An Artificer that makes a Watch supposing his liâ—e and health can make many more of a different form and motion And a Limner can draw many Draughts and frame many Pictures with a new variety of Colours according to the richness of his Fancy If these can do so that require a preexistent Matter fram'd to their hands God can much more who can raise beautiful Structures from nothing As long as men have matter they can diversifie the matter and make new Figures from it So long as there is nothing God can produce out of that nothing whatsoever he pleases We see the same in Inanimate Creatures A spark of Fire hath a vast Power in it it will kindle other things increase and enlarge it self Nothing can be exempt from the active force of it It will alter by consuming or refining whatsoever you offer to it It will reach all and refuse none and by the efficacious power of it all those new Figures which we see in Metals are brought forth When you have exposed to it a multitude of things still add more it will exert the same strength yea the vigour is increased rather than diminisht The more it catcheth the more fiercely and irresistibly it will act you cannot suppose an end oâ— its operation or a decrease of its strength as long as you can conceive its duration and continuance This must be but a weak shadow of that infinite Power which is in God Take another Instance in the Sun It hath power every year to produce Flowers and Plants from the Earth and as is able to produce them now as it was at the first lighting it and rearing it in the Sphear wherein it moves And if there were no kind of Flowers and Plants now created the Sun hath a power residing in it ever since its first Creation to afford the same warmth to them for the nourishâ—ng and bringing them forth Whatsoever you can conceive the Sun to be able to do in regard of Plants that can God do in regard of Worlds produce more Worlds than the Sun doth Plants every year without weariness without languishment The Sun is able to influence more things than it doth and produce numberless effects but it doth not do so much as it is able to do because it wants matter to work upon God therefore who wants no matter can do much more than he doth He can either act by second Causes if there were more or make more second Causes if he pleas'd 2. God is the most free Agent Every free Agent can do more than he will do Man being a free Creature can do more than ordinarily he doth will to do God is most free as being the Spring of Liberty in other Creatures He acts not by a necessity of Nature as the waves of the Sea or the motions of the Wind and therefore is not determin'd to those things which he hath already called forth into the World If God be infinâ—tely wise in contrivance he could contrive more than he hath and therefore can effect more than he hath effected He doth not act to the extent of his Power upon all occasions 'T is according to his will that he works Eph. 1. 'T is not according to his work that he wills his work is an evidence of his will but not the rule of his will His Power is not the rule of his Will but hâ—s Will is the disposer of
acknowledgment of the Immensity of Divine Power Miracles are such effects as have been wrought without the assistance and cooperation of Natural Causes yea contrary and besides the ordinary course of Nature above the reach of any Created Power Miracles have been and saith Bradwardine * Lib. 1. cap. 1. p. 38. To deny that ever such things were is uncivil 'T is inhuman to deny all the Histories of Jews and Christians whosoever denies Miracles must deny all possibility of Miracles and so must imagine himself fully skill'd in the extent of Divine Power How was the Sun suspended from its Motion for some hours Josh 10.13 The Dead raised from the Grave Those reduc'd from the brink of it that had been brought near to it by prevailing Diseases and this by a word speaking How were the famisht Lions bridled from exercising their rage upon Daniel Dan. 6.22 expos'd to them for a Prey The activity of the Fire curb'd for the preservation of the Three Children Dan. 3.15 Which proves a Deity more powerful than all Creatures No power upon Earth can hinder the operation of the Fire upon combustible Matter when they are united unless by quenching the Fire or removing the Matter But no created Power can restrain the Fire so long as it remains so from acting according to its Nature Exod. 3.2 This was done by God in the case of the Three Children and that of the Burning Bush It was as much miraculous that the Bush should not consume as it was natural that it should burn by the efficacy of the Fire upon it No Element is so obstinate and deaf but it hears and obeys his Voice and performs his Orders though contrary to its own Nature All the violence of the Creature is suspended as soon as it receives his Command †Damianus in Petar He that gave the original to Nature can take away the necessity of Nature He presides over Creatures but is not confin'd to those Laws he hath prescrib'd to Creatures He framed Nature and can turn the Channels of Nature according to his own pleasure Men dig into the bowels of Nature search into all the Treasures of it to find Medicines to cure a Disease and after all their Attempts it may prove Labour in vain But God by one Act of his Will one Word of his Mouth overturns the Victory of Death and rescues from the most desperate Diseases * Fauch in Acts Vol. 2. §. 56. All the Miracles which were wrought by the Apostles either speaking some Words or Touching with the Hand were not effected by any virtue inherent in their Words or in their Touches For such Virtue inherent in any created finite Subject would be created and finite it self and consequently were incapable to produce effects which required an infinite Virtue as Miracles do which are above the power of Nature So when our Saviour wrought Miracles it was not by any quality resident in his humane Nature but by the sole Power of his Divinity The Flesh could only do what was proper to the Flesh but the Deity did what was proper to the Deity God alone doth wonders Psal 136.4 Excluding every other cause from producing such things He only doth those things which are above the power of Nature and cannot be wrought by any Natural causes whatsoever He doth not hereby put his Omnipotence to any stress 'T is as easie with him to turn Nature out of its setled course as it was to place it in that station it holds and appoint it that course it runs All the Works of Nature are indeed Miracles and Testimonies of the Power of God producing them and sustaining them But Works above the Power of Nature being Novelties and unusual strike Men with a greater admiration upon their appearance because they are not the products of Nature but the convulsions of it I might also add as an Argument The Power of the Mind of Man to conceive more than hath been wrought by God in the World And God can work whatsoever Perfection the Mind of man can conceive Otherwise the reaches of a created Imagination and Fancy would be more extensive than the Power of God His Power therefore is far greater than the conception of any Intellectual Creature else the Creature would be of a greater capacity to conceive than God is to effect The Creature would have a power of Conception above Gods Power of Activity and consequently a Creature in some respect greater than himself Now whatsoever a Creature can conceive possible to be done is but finite in its own nature and if God could not produce what Being a created Understanding can conceive possible to be done he would be less than Infinite in Power nay he could not go to the extent of what is Finite But I have touched this before That God can create more than he hath created and in a more perfect way of Being as considered simply in themselves III. The Third general thing is to declare How the Power of God appears in Creation in Government in Redemption 1. In Creation With what Majestick Lines doth God set forth his Power in the giving Being and Endowments to all the Creatures in the World Job 38. All that is in Heaven and Earth is his and shews the greatness of his Power Glory Victory 1 Chro. 29.11 and Majesty The Heaven being so Magnificent a piece of work is called emphatically The Firmament of his Power * Psal 150.1 his Power being more conspicuous and unvail'd in that glorious Arch of the World Indeed God exalts by his Power †Job 36.22 that is exalts himself by his Power in all the Works of his hands in the smallest Shrub as well as the most glorious Sun All his Works of Nature are truly Miracles though we consider them not being blinded with too frequent and customary a sight of them yet in the neglect of all the rest the view of the Heavens doth more affect us with astonishment at the Might of Gods Arm These declare his Glory and the Firmament shews his handy work Psal 19.1 Psal 8.3 And the Psalmist peculiarly calls them His Heavens and the work of his Fingers These were immediately created by God whereas many other things in the World were brought into Being by the Power of God yet by the means of the influence of the Heavens 1. His Power is the first thing evident in the story of the Creation In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth Gen. 1.1 There 's no appearance of any thing in this declaratory Preface but of Power The Characters of Wisdom march after in the distinct formation of things and animating them with suitable qualities for an Universal good By Heaven and Earth is meant the whole mass of the Creatures By Heaven all the Aery Region with all the Host of it by the Earth is meant all that which makes the intire inferior Globe The Jews observe that in the
and Evil set in the midst of the Garden of Eden had no violent influence on man to force him to eat of it his liberty to eat of it or not was reserved intire to himself no such Charge can be brought against any Object whatsoever If a man meet accidentally at a Table with Meat that is grateful to his Palate but hurtful to the present temper of his Body doth the presenting this sort of Food to him strip him of his liberty to decline it as well as to feed of it Can the Food have any internal influence upon his will and lay the freedom of it asleep whether he will or no Is there any Charm in that more than in other sorts of Diet No but it is the habit of love which he hath to that particular Dish the curiosity of his Fancy and the strength of his own Appetite whereby he is brought into a kind of slavery to that particular Meat and not any thing in the food it self When the word is proposed to two persons 't is embrac'd by the one rejected by the other is it from the word it self which is the Object that these two persons perform different acts The Object is the same to both but the manner of acting about the Object is not the same Is there any invasion of their liberty by it Is the one forced by the word to receive it and the other forced by the word to reject it Two such contrary effects cannot proceed from one and the same Cause Outward things have only an objective influence not an inward †Amyral de libero arbit p. 224. If the meer proposal of things did suspend or strike down the liberty of Man no Angels in Heaven no Man upon Earth no not our Saviour himself could do any thing freely but by force Objects that are ill used are of God's Creation and though they have allurements in them yet they have no compulsive power over the will The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was pleasing to the sight it had a quality to allure there had not else needed a Prohibition to bar the eating of it but it could not have so much power to allure as the Divine threatning to deter 2. The Objects are good in themselves but the ill use of them is from mans corruption Bathsheba was by God's Providence presented to David's sight but it was Davids disposition moved him to so evil an act What if God knew that he would use that Object ill yet he knew he had given him a power to refrain from any ill use of it The Objects are innocent but our Corruption poisons them The same Object hath been used by one to holy purposes and holy improvements that hath been used by another to sinful ends when a charitable Object is presented to a good man and a cruel man one relieves him the other reviles him The Object was rather an occasion to draw out the Charity of one as well as the other but the refusing to reach out a helping hand was not from the person in Calamity but the disposition of the Refuser to whom he was presented 'T is not from the nature of the Object that men do good or evil but from the disposition of the person what is good in it self is made bad by our Corruption As the same Meat which nourishes and strengthens a sound Constitution cherisheth the Disease of another that eats at the same Table not from any unwholsom quality in the Food but the vitious quality of the humours lodging in the Stomach which turn the Diet into fuel for themselves which in its own nature was apt to engender a wholsom juyce Some are perfected by the same things whereby others are ruin'd Riches are used by some not only for their own but the advantage of others in the World by others only for themselves and scarcely so much as their necessities require Is this the fault of the wealth or the dispositions of the Persons who are covetous instead of being Generous 'T is a Calumny therefore upon God to charge him with the sin of man upon this account The rain that drops from the Clouds upon the Plants is sweet in it self but when it moystens the root of any venomous Plant 't is turn'd into the juyce of the Plant and becomes venomous with it The Miracles that our Saviour wrought were applauded by some and envied by the Pharisees the sin arose not from the nature of the Miracles but the Malice of their spirits The Miracles were sitter in their own nature to have induced them to an adoration of our Saviour than to excite so vile a Passion against one that had so many marks from Heaven to dignifie him and proclaim him worthy of their respect The Person of Christ was an Object proposed to the Jews some worship him others condemn and crucifie him and according to their several Vices and base ends they use this object Judas to content his Covetousness the Pharisees to glut their Revenge Pilate for his Ambition to preserve himself in his Government and avoid the Articles the People might charge him with of Countenancing an Enemy to Caesar * Amyrald Ironic p. 337. God at that time put into their minds a rational and true Proposition which they apply to ill purposes Caiphas said that it was expedient for one man to dye for the people which he spake not of himself Joh. 11.50 51. God put it into his mind but he might have applied it better than he did and considered though the Maxim was commendable whether it might justly be applied to Christ or whether there was such a necessity that he must dye or the Nation be destroy'd by the Romans The Maxim was sound and holy decreed by God but what an ill use did the High Priest make of it to put Christ to death as a seditious Person to save the Nation from the Roman Fury 3. Since the natural Corruption of men will use such Objects ill may not God without tainting himself present such Objects to them in subserviency to his gracious Decrees Whatsoever God should present to men in that state they would make an ill use of hath not God then the Soveraign Prerogative to present what he pleases and suppress others To offer that to them which may serve his holy purpose and hide other things from them which are not so conducing to his gracious ends which would be as much the occasions of exciting their sin as the others which he doth bring forth to their view The Jews at the time of Christ were of a turbulent and seditious humour they expected a Messiah a Temporal King and would readily have embraced any occasion to have been up in arms to have delivered themselves from the Roman yoke to this purpose the People attempted once to make him King And probably the expectation they had that he had such a Design to Head them might be one reason of their
Understanding greatness of Power all the Sons of Men they were more capable to praise him more capable to serve him and because of the Acuteness of their Comprehension more able to have a due Estimate of such a Redemption had it been afforded them yet that Goodness which had Created them so Comely would not lay it self out in restoring the Beauty they had defaced The Promise was of bruising the Serpents head for us not of listing up the Serpents head with us Their Nature was not assum'd nor any command given them to believe or repent Not one Devil spar'd not one Apostate Spirit recover'd not one of those eminent Creatures restor'd Every one of them hath only a prospect of Misery without any glimps of Recovery They were ruin'd under one Sin and we repair'd under many All his Redeeming Goodness was laid out upon Man Psal 144.3 What is Man that thou takest knowledge of him and the Son of Man that thou makest account of him Making account of him above Angels As they fell without any tempting them so God would leave them to rise without any assisting them I know the Schools trouble themselves to find out the reasons of this peculiarity of Grace to Man and not to them because the whole Humane Nature fell but only a part of the Angelical The one Sinned by a Seduction and the other by a sullenness without any Tempter Every Angel Sinned by his own proper will whereas Adams Posterity Sinned by the will of the first Man the common Root of all God would deprive the Devil of any glory in the satisfaction of his envious desire to hinder Man from attainment and possession of that Happiness which himself had lost The weakness of Man below the Angelical Nature might excite the Divine Mercy And since all the things of the lower World were Created for Man God would not lose the honour of his Works by losing the immediate End for which he framed them And finally because in the Restoration of Angels there would have been only a Restoration of one Nature that was not comprehensive of the Nature of Inferior things But after all such Conjectures Man must sit down and acknowledge Divine Goodness to be the only Spring without any other Motive Since Infinite Wisdom could have contrived a way for Redemption for Fallen Angels as well as for Fallen Man and restor'd both the one and the other Why might not Christ have assumed their Nature as well as ours into the unity of the Divine Person and suffer'd the Wrath of God in their Nature for them as well as in his Humane Soul for us 'T is as conceivable that two Natures might have been assum'd by the Son of God as well as three Souls be in Man distinct as some think there are 3. To Enhance this Goodness yet higher It was a greater Goodness to us than was for a time manifested to Christ himself To demonstrate his Goodness to Man in preventing his Eternal Ruine he would for a while with-hold his Goodness from his Son by exposing his Life as the price of our Ransom not only subjecting him to the Derisions of Enemies Desertions of Friends and Malice of Devils but to the unexpressible bitterness of his own Wrath in his Soul as made an offering for Sin The Particle so John 3.16 seems to intimate this Supremacy of Goodness He so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son He so loved the World that he seem'd for a time not to love his Son in comparison of it or equal with it The Person to whom a Gift is given is in that regard accounted more valuable than the Gift or Present made to him Thus God valued our Redemption above the worldly Happiness of the Redeemer and sentenceth him to an Humiliation on Earth in order to our Exaltation in Heaven He was desirous to hear him groaning and see him bleeding that we might not groan under his Frowns and bleed under his Wrath He spared not him that he might spare us refused not to strike him that he might be well pleased with us drencht his Sword in the Blood of his Son that it might not for ever be wet with ours but that his Goodness might for ever triumph in our Salvation He was willing to have his Son made Man and die rather than Man should perish who had delighted to ruine himself He seem'd to degrade him for a time from what he was * Lingend de Eucharist p. 84 85. But since he could not be united to any but to an intellectual Creature he could not be united to any viler and more sordid Creature than the Earthly Nature of Man And when this Son in our Nature prayed that the Cup might pass from him Goodness would not suffer it to shew how it valued the manifestation of it self in the Salvation of Man above the preservation of the Life of so dear a Person In particular wherein this Goodness appears 1. The first Resolution to Redeem and the means appointed for Redemption could have no other inducement but Divine Goodness We cannot too highly value the Merit of Christ but we must not so much extend the Merit of Christ as to draw a value to Eclipse the Goodness of God Though we owe our Redemption and the Fruits of it to the Death of Christ yet we owe not the first Resolutions of Redemption and assumption of our Nature the means of Redemption to the Merit of Christ Divine Goodness only without the association of any Merit not only of Man but of the Redeemer himself begat the first purpose of our Recovery He was singled out and predestinated to be our Redeemer before he took our Nature to Merit our Redemption God sent his Son is a frequent Expression in the Gospel of St. John †John 3.34 Joh. 9.24 Joh. 17.3 To what end did God send Christ but to Redeem * Lessius The purpose of Redemption therefore preceded the pitching upon Christ as the means and procuring Cause of it i. e. of our actual Redemption but not of the Redeeming purpose the end is always in intention before the means God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son The love of God to the World was first in Intention and the Order of Nature before the will of giving his Son to the World His Intention of saving was before the Mission of a Saviour So that this Affection rose not from the Merit of Christ but the Merit of Christ was directed by this Affection It was the Effect of it not the Cause Nor was the union of our Nature with his Merited by him All his Meritorious acts were performed in our Nature The Nature therefore wherein he performed it was not Merited that Grace which was not could not Merit what it was He could not Merit that Humanity which must be assumed before he could Merit any thing for us because all Merit for us must be offer'd in the Nature which had offended
was stain'd when they were debas'd to serve the Lusts of a Traytor instead of supporting the Duty of a Subject and employed in the defence of the Vices of Men against the Precepts and Authority of their common Soveraign This was a vilifying the Creature as it would be a vilifying the Sword of a Prince which is for the maintenance of Justice to be used for the Murder of an Innocent and a dishonouring a Royal Mansion to make it a Store-house for a Dunghil Had those things the benefit of sense they would groan under this disgrace and rise up in indignation against them that offered them this affront and turned them from their proper end When sin entred the Heavens that were made to shine upon Man and the Earth that was made to bear and nourish an innocent Creature were now subjected to serve a rebellious Creature And as Man turn'd against God so he made those instruments against God to serve his Enmity Luxury Sensuality Hence the Creatures are said to groan * Rom. 8.21 The whole Creation groans and travels in pain together until now They would really groan had they understanding to be sensible of the Outrage done them The whole Creation 'T is the pang of universal Nature the agony of the whole Creation to be alienated from the original use for which they were intended and be disjointed from their end to serve the disloyalty of a Rebel The Drunkards Cup and the Gluttons Table the Adulterers Bed and the proud Mans Purple would groan against the abuser of them But when all the fruits of Redemption shall be compleated the Goodness of God shall pour it self upon the Creatures deliver them from the Bondage of Corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God * Rom. 8.21 they shall be reduced to their true end and retun'd in their original harmony As the Creation doth passionately groan under its vanity so it doth earnestly expect and wait for its deliverance at the time of the manifestation of the Sons of God * V. 19. The manifestation of the Sons of God is the attainment of the liberty of the Creature They shall be freed from the vanity under which they are enslav'd As it entred by sin it shall vanish upon the total removal of sin What use they were design'd for in Paradise they will have afterwards except that of the nourishment of Men who shall be as Angels neither eating nor drinking The Glory of God shall be seen and contemplated in them It can hardly be thought that God made the World to be little a moment after he had reard it sullied by the Sin of Man and turn'd from its original end without thoughts of a restoration of it to its true end as well as Man to his lost happiness The World was made for Man Man hath not yet enjoyed the Creature in the first intention of them Sin made an interruption in that Fruition As Redemption restores Man to his true end so it restores the Creatures to their true use The restoration of the World to its beauty and order was the design of the Divine Goodness in the coming of Christ as it is intimated in Isaiah 11.6 7 8 9. As he came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it so he came not to destroy the Creatures but to repair them To restore to God the honour and pleasure of the Creation and restore to the Creatures their felicity in restoring their Order The Fall corrupted it and the full Redemption of Men restores it The last time is called not a time of destruction but a time of restitution and that of all things * Acts 3.21 of universal nature the main part of the Creation at least All those things which were the effects of sin will be abolisht the removal of the Cause beats down the effect The disorder and unruliness of the Creature arising from the venom of Mans transgression all the fierceness of one Creature against another shall vanish The World shall be nothing but an universal smile Nature shall put on triumphant Vestments There shall be no affrighting Thunders choaking Mists venomous Vapours or poysonous Plants It would not else be a restitution of all things They are now subject to be wasted by Judgments for the sin of their Possessor but the perfection of Mans Redemptions shall free them from every misery They have an advancement at the present for they are under a more glorious head as being the possession of Christ the heavenly Adam much superiour to the first As it 's the glory of a person to be a Servant to a Prince rather than a Peasant And afterwards they shall be elevated to a better state sharing in Man's happiness as well as they did in his misery As Servants are interested in the good Fortune of their Master and better'd by his advance in his Princes favour As Man in his first Creation was mutable and liable to sin so the Creatures were liable to vanity But as Man by Grace shall be freed from the Mutability so shall the Creatures be freed from the fears of an Invasion by the vanity that sully'd them before The condition of the Servants shall be suited to that of their Lord for whom they were design'd Hence all Creatures are call'd upon to rejoice upon the Perfection of Salvation and the appearance of Christs Royal Authority in the World * Psal 96.11.12 Psal 98.7 8. If they were to be destroyed there would be no ground to invite them to triumph Thus doth Divine Goodness spread its kind Arms over the whole Creation 3. The third thing is the Goodness of God in his Government That Goodness that despised not their Creation doth not despise their conduct The same Goodness that was the head that fram'd them is the helm that guides them his Goodness hovers over the whole frame either to prevent any wild disorders unsuitable to his Creating end or to conduct them to those ends which might illustrate his Wisdom and Goodness to his Creatures His Goodness doth no less incline him to provide for them than to frame them 'T is the natural inclination of man to love what is purely the birth of his own strength or skill He is fond of preserving his own Inventions as well as laborious in inventing them 'T is the glory of a Man to preserve them as well as to produce them God loves every thing which he hath made which love could not be without a continued diffusiveness to them suitable to the end for which he made them It would be a vain Goodness if it did not interest it self in managing the World as well as erecting it Without his Government every thing in the World would justle against one another The beauty of it would be more defaced it would be an unruly Mass a confus'd Chaos rather then a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a comely World If Divine Goodness respected it when it was nothing it would much more respect it
a man of them succeeded in the Throne but the Crown is transferr'd to Jehu by Gods disposal In Warrs whereby flourishing Kingdoms are overthrown God hath the cheif hand in reference to which it is observed that in the two Prophets Isaiah and Jeremy God is called the Lord of Hosts 130 times 'T is not the Sword of the Captain but the Sword of the Lord bears the first rank The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon Judg. 7.18 The Sword of a Conqueror is the Sword of the Lord and receives its Charge and Commission from the great Soveraign Jerem. 47.6 7. VVe are apt to confine our thoughts to second Causes lay the fault upon the miscarriages of persons the Ambition of the one and the Covetousness of another and regard them not as the effects of Gods soveraign Authority linking second Causes together to serve his own purpose The skill of one man may lay open the folly of a Counsellour an earthly force may break in peices the power of a mighty Prince But Job in his consideration of those things referrs the matter higher Job 12.18 He looseth the bond of Kings and girdeth their Loyns with a girdle He looseth the Bonds of Kings i. â— takes off the yokes they lay upon their Subjects and girds their Loyns with a girdle A Cord as the Vulgar he lays upon them those fetters they fram'd for others such a girdle or band as is the mark of Captivity as the words ver 19. confirm it He leads Princes away spoil'd and overthrows the mighty God lifts up some to a great height and casts down others to a disgraceful ruine All those changes in the face of the World the revolutions of Emâ—ires the desolating and ravaging wars which are often immediately the birth of the Vice Ambition and fury of Princes are the Royal Acts of God as Governour of the World All Government belongs to him he is the Fountain of all the Great and the Petty Dominions in the World And therefore may place in them what substitutes and Vicegerents he pleaseth As a Prince may remove his Officers at pleasure and take their Commissions from them The highest are setled by God durante bene placito and not quamdiu bene se gâ—ssâ—rint Those Princes that have been the Glory of their Country have sway'd the Scepter but a short time when the more Wolvish ones have remain'd longâ—r in Commission as God hath seen fit for the ends of his own Soveraign Government Now by the revolutions in the World and Changes in Governours and Government God keeps up the acknowledgment of his Soveraignty when he doth arrest grand and publick offenders that wear a Crown by his Providence and employ it by their pride against him that plac'd it there When he arraigns such by a signal hand from Heaven he makes them the publick examples of the rights of his Soveraignty declaring thereby that the Cedars of Lebanon are as much at his foot as the Shrubs of the Valley that he hath as Soveraign an Authority over the Throne in the Palace as over the Stool in the Cottage 2. The Dominion of God is manifested in raising up and ordering the Spirits of men according to his pleasure He doth as the Father of Spirits communicate an influence to the Spirits of men as well as an existence he puts what inclinations he pleaseth into the will stores it with what habits he please whither natural or supernatural whereby it may be render'd more ready to act according to the divine purpose The will of man is a finite principle and therefore subject to him who hath an infinite Soveraignty over all things and God having a Soveraignty over the will in the manner of its acting as causeth it to will what he wills as to the outward act and the outward manner of performing it There are many examples of this part of his Soveraignty God by his Soveraign conduct ordered Moses a Protectoress as soon as his Parents had form'd an Ark of Bulrushes wherein to set him floting on the River Exod. 2.3 4.5.6 They expose him to the waves and the waves expose him to the view of Pharoahs Daughter whom God by his secret ordering her motion had posted in that place and though she was the Daughter of a Prince that inveterately hated the whole Nation and had by various Arts endeavour'd to extirpate them yet God inspires the Royal Lady with sentiments of compassion to the forlorn Infant though she knew him to be one of the Hebrews Children ver 6. i. e. one of that race whom her Father had devoted to the hands of an Executioner yet God that doth by his Soveraignty rule over the Spirits of all men moves her to take that Infant into her protection and nourish him at her own charge give him a liberal Education Adopt him her Son who in time was to be the ruin of her race and the Saviour of his Nation Thus he appointed Cyrus to be his Shepherd and gave him a Pastoral Spirit for the Restauration of the City and Temple of Jerusalem Isaiah 44.28 And Isaiah 45.5 Tells them in the Prophesie that he had girded him though Cyrus had not known him i. e. God had given him a military Spirit and strength for so great an attempt though he did not know that he was acted by God for those divine purposes And when the time came for the House of the Lord to be re-built the Spirits of the people were rais'd up not by themselves but by God Ezra 1.5 Whose Spirit God had rais'd to go up And not only the Spirit of Zerubbabel the Magistrate and of Joshua the Priest but the Spirit of all the people from the highest to the meanest that attended him were acted by God to strengthen their hands and promote the work Hag. 1.14 The Spirits of men even in those works which are naturally desirable to them as the Restauration of the City and rebuilding of the Temple was to those Jews are acted by God as the soveraign over them much more when the wheels of mens spirits are lifted up above their ordinary temper and motion It was this Empire of God good Nehemiah regarded as that whence he was to hope for success he did not assure himself so much of it from the favour he had with the King nor the reasonableness of his intended Petition but the absolute power God had over the heart of that great Monarch And therefore he supplicates the heavenly before he petitioned the earthly Throne Nehem. 2.4 So I pray'd to the God of Heaven The Heathens had some glance of this 't is an expression that Cicero hath some where That the Roman Common-wealth was rather Govern'd by the Assistance of the supream Divinity over the Hearts of Men than by their own Counsels and Management How often hath the feeble courage of men been heightned to such a pitch as to stare death in the face which before were dampt with the least thought or glance of
own affections according to the holiness of his own Will As it is the effect of his power so it is an argument of his power the greatness of the effect demonstrates the fulness and sufficiency of the Cause The more feeble any man is in reason the less command he hath over his passions and he is the more heady to revenge Revenge is a sign of a Childish mind the stronger any man is in reason the more command he hath over himself Prov. 16.32 He that is slow to Anger is better than the mighty and he that rules his own Spirit than he that takes a City He that can restrain his Anger is stronger than the Coesars and Alexanders of the World that have fill'd the Earth with slain Carcasses and ruin'd Cities By the same reason God's slowness to Anger is a greater argument of his Power than the creating a World or the power of dissolving it by a Word In this he hath a Dominion over Creatures in the other over himself This is the reason he will not return to destroy because I am God and not Man Hosea 11.9 I am not so weak and impotent as man that cannot restrain his Anger This is a strength possessed only by a God wherein a Creature is no more able to parallel him than in any other So that he may be said to be the Lord of himself as it is in the verse before the Text that he is the Lord of Anger in the Hebrew instead of furious as we translate it so he is the Lord of Patience The end why God is Patient is to shew his Power Rom. 9.22 What if God willing to shew his Wrath and to make his Power known endured with much Long-suffering the Vessels of Wrath fitted to destruction To shew his Wrath upon Sinners and his Power over himself in bearing such indignities and forbearing punishment so long when men were vessels of wrath fitted for destruction of whom there was no hopes of amendment Had he immediately broken in peices those Vessels his power had not so eminently appear'd as it hath done in tolerating them so long that had provoked him to take them off so often There is indeed the power of his Anger and there is the power of his Patience and his power is more seen in his Patience than in his Wrath. 'T is no wonder that he that is above all is able to crush all But it is a wonder that he that is provok't by all doth not upon the first provocation rid his hands of all This is the reason why he did bear such a weight of provocations from vessels of wrath prepar'd for ruine that he might 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shew what he was able to do the Lordship and Royalty he had over himself The power of God is more manifest in his Patience to a multitude of Sinners than it could be in Creating Millions of Worlds out of nothing this was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a power over himself 5. This Patience being a branch of Mercy the exercise of it is founded in the Death of Christ Without the consideration of this we can give no account why Divine Patience should extend it self to us and not to the fallen Angels The threatning extends it self to us as well as to the fallen Angels The threatning must necessarily have sunk man as well as those glorious Creatures had not Christ stept into our relief * Testaâ—d de natur Grat. Thes 119. Had not Christ interposed to satisfie the Justice of God man upon his sin had been actually bound over to punishment as well as the fall'n Angels were upon theirs and been fettered in chains as strong as those Spirits feel The reason why man was not hurl'd into the same deplorable condition upon his sin as they were is Christs promise of taking our nature and not theirs Had God design'd Christ's taking their nature the same Patience had been exercised towards them and the same offers would have been made to them as are made to us In regard of these fruits of this Patience Christ is said to buy the wickedest Apostates from him 1 Pet. 2.1 Denying the Lord that bought them such were bought by him as bring upon themselves just destruction and whose damnation slumbers not ver 3. he purchased the continuance of their lives and the stay of their execution that offers of Grace might be made to them This Patience must be either upon the account of the Law or the Gospel for there are no other rules whereby God governs the World a fruit of the Law it was not that spake nothing but Curses after Disobedience not a letter of Mercy was writ upon that And therefore nothing of Patience Death and Wrath was denounced no slowness to Anger intimated It must be therefore upon the account of the Gospel and a fruit of the Covenant of Grace whereof Christ was Mediator Besides this perfection being God's waiting that he might be Gracious Isaiâ—h 30.18 that which made way for Gods Grace made way for his waiting to manifest it God discovered not his Grace but in Christ And therefore discovered not his Patience but in Christ 't is in him he met with the satisfaction of his Justice that he might have a ground for the manifestation of his Patience And the Sacrifices of the Law wherein the Life of a beast was accepted for the sin of a man discovered the ground of his forbearance of them to be the expectation of the great sacrifice whereby sin was to be compleatly expiated Gen. 8.21 The publication of his Patience to the end of the World is presently after the sweet savor he found in Noah's sacrifice The promised and design'd coming of Christ was the cause of that Patience God exercised before in the World And his gathering the Elect together is the reason of his Patience since his death 6. The naturalness of his Veracity and Holiness and the strictness of his Justice are no barrs to the exercise of his patience 1. His Veracity In those threatnings where the punishment is exprest but not the time of inflicting it prefixt and determined in the threatning his veracity suffers no dammage by the delaying Execution so it be once done though a long time after the credit of his Truth stands unshaken As when God promises a thing without fixing the time he is at liberty to pitch upon what time he pleases for the performance of it without staining his faithfulness to his Word by not giving the thing promised presently Why should the deferring of Justice upon an offender be any more against his Veracity than his delaying an answer to the petitions of a suppliant But the difference will lie in the threatning Gen. 2.17 In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death The time was there setled In that day thou shalt dye some referre day to eating not to dying and render the sentence thus I do not prohibit thee the eating this fruit for