it Accordingly while we see God but in this Glass we must conceive that his Principle of Vnderstanding and Power stand in the foresaid order as to his WILL and his Omnipotence and Omniscience to that eminently-moral Goodness which is the perfection of his will The natural goodness of his Essence filling all Therefore here note that this Attribute of God his GOODNESS doth make Him our Chief Good in a two-fold respect both EFFICIENTLY and FINALLY In some sort it is so with the other Attributes His Power is Efficiently the spring of our being and actions and finally and objectively it terminateth our submission and our trust His Wisdom is the principle of his Laws and also the object and end of our enquiries and understandings But his Goodness is the EFFICIENT of all our good in its perfection of causality and that END of our Souls which is commonly called ULTIMATE ULTIMUS So that to submit to his Power and to be ruled by his Wisdom is as I may say initially our end But to be pleasing to his good-will and to be pleased in his good-will that is to Love Him and to be beloved by Him is the absolute perfection and end of man Therefore under this his Attribute of Goodness God is to be spoken of both as our BENEFACTOR and our END which is to be indeed our summum bonum § 1. Man hath his Being and all the good which he possesseth from God as the sole first Efficient by Creation § 2. Therefore God alone is the Vniversal Grand BENEFACTOR of the world besides whom they have no other but meerly subordinate to him No creature can give us any thing which is originally its own having nothing but what it hath received from God Therefore it is no more to us but either a gift of God or a Messenger to bring us his gift they have nothing themselves but what they have received nor have we any sort of Good either Natural Moral of Mind or Body or Fortune or Friends but what is totally from the Bounty of our Creator and as totally from him as if no creature had ever been his instrument § 3. As God's Goodness is that by which he communicateth Being and all Good to all his Creatures and is his most completive Attribute in point of Efficiency so is it that Attribute which is in genere causae finalis the finis ultimate ultimus of all his works God can himself have no ultimate end but Himself and his rational creatures can have no other lawful ultimate End And in Himself it is his Goodness which is completely and ultimately that End Here I am to shew I. That God himself can have no ultimate end but Himself II. That Man should have no other III. That God as in his Goodness is ultimate ultimus the End of Man I. 1. That which is most Beloved of God is his ultimate End but God Himself is most beloved of Himself Therefore he is his own ultimate End The reason of the major Proposition is Because to be the ultimate end and to be maxime amatum is all one Finis quaerentis hath respect to the Means of attainment and is that cujus amore media eliguntur applicantur This God is not capable of speaking in propriety because he never wanteth his End Finis fruitionis is that which amando fruimur which we love complacentially in full attainment And so God doth still enjoy his end and to have it in Love is to enjoy it The Minor is past controversie Obj. But if God have not finem quaerentis then in every instant he enjoyeth his end and if so then he useth no means at all for what need any means be used for that end which is not sought but still enjoyed And consequently where there is no means there is no end Answ As finis signifieth nothing but effectum viz. perfectionem operis which is but finis terminativus so it is not always at present attained and God may be said to use means that is subordinate efficients or instruments to accomplish it But as it signifieth causam finalem scil cujus amore res fit so far as it may without all imperfection be ascribed to him he must be said continually to enjoy it And yet to use means for it but not as wanting it but in the same instant using and enjoying that is He constantly communicateth himself to his creatures and constantly loveth himself so communicated He is the first efficient and ultimate end without any interposing instant of Time were Eternity divisible but in order of Nature he is the Efficient before he is the End enjoyed but not before the End intended He still sendeth forth the beams of his own Glory and still taketh pleasure in them so sent forth His works may be increased and attain perfection called finem operis by some but his Complacency is not increased or perfected in his works but is always perfect As if the Sun took constant pleasure in its own emitted light and heat though the effects of both on things below were most various God is still pleased in that which still is in all his own works though his works may grow up to more perfection Or if any think fit to say that God doth quaerere finem and that he may enjoy more of it at one time than another yet must he confess that nothing below the complacency of his own will in his own emitted beams of Glory shining in his works is this his ultimate end 2. That which is the Begining must be the End But God is the Beginning of all his works therefore he is the End of all He himself hath no Beginning or Efficient and consequently no final cause of himself but his works have himself for the Efficient and for their End that is He that made them intended in the making of them that they should be illustrious with his communicated beams of Glory and thereby amiable to his will and should all serve to his complacency If the End were lower than the Beginning there would be no proportion and the Agent would sink down below himself 3. If any thing besides God were his ultimate End it must thereby be in part Deifi'd or his actions debased by the lowness of the End but these are impossibilities The Actions are no nobler than their End and the End is more noble than the Means as such 4. The ultimate End is the most amiable and delectable The Creature is not to God the most amiable and delectable Therefore the Creature is not his ultimate end The first Argument was from the Act this from the Object 5. The ultimate end is that in which the Agent doth finally acquiesce God doth not finally acquiesce in any creature Therefore no creature is his ultimate end 6. That which is God's ultimate End is loved simply for it self and not as a means to any higher end The Creature is not loved by him simply for it self
but as a means to a higher end viz. his complacency in his glory shining in it Ergo it is not his ultimate end The ultimate end hath no end but the creatures have an end viz. the complacency of God in his glory shining in the creature Obj. But you confound the final Object and the final Act God's complacency of love is his final Act but our enquiry is of the final Object Answ The finis cui or personal end is most properly the ultimate he for whose sake or for whom the thing is done But this is God only and therein he is both the act and object He that did velle creaturas did velle eas ad complacentiam propriae voluntatis The question is not of the actus complacentiae but of the actus creandi vel volendi creaturarum existentiam which he doth propter voluntatis impletionem inde complacentiam which is the final act and the final object of the creating act But for the actus complacentiae it is not actus intentionis but fruitionis and therefore hath no end above it self And the final object of that Complacency is not the Creature it self but the Impletion of the Divine will in the Creature yea the Image of his Omnipotency Wisdom and Goodness shining in the Creation is not loved propter se ultimately but for the sake of that Divine Essence and Perfection of which it is the Image as we love the Image of our friend for his sake so that when all is done God himself is his own end in all his works so farr as very improperly he may be said to intend an end Or if you could prove the Creature to be the Objectum finale that proveth him not to be properly the finis ultimus For that is a difference between Mans agency and Gods Man is an Agent made and acting for his final Object and more ignoble than his Object as the eye of a Flie that beholdeth the Sun But God is an Agent more noble than the Object who gave the Object it self its being and made it of nothing for himself and so the Object is for his final Act. Obj. But God being Perfect needeth nothing nor can receive any addition of perfection or blessedness and therefore it is not any addition of Good to himself which he intendeth in the Creation and consequently it is his ultimate end to do the Creature good Answ All the antecedent part is granted and is anon to be further asserted But the last consequence is denyed because there is no other end beside the addition of Good to himself which God may intend so farr as he may be said to intend an end He doth all the Good to the Creature which it receiveth but not ultimately for the Creatures sake II. That man should have no ultimate End but God that is ultimate ultimus as its called is proved in what is said and the fuller opening of it belongeth to the next Chapter III. It is God in all his Perfections Omnipotency Wisdom and Goodness that is mans ultimate end but it is the last which supposeth both the other and to which mans will which must perform the most perfect final act is most fully suited And therefore is in a special sort our ultimate end The Omnipotency of God is truly the efficient dirigent and final Cause of all things but it is most eminent in Efficiency The Wisdom of God is truly the efficient dirigent and final cause of all things but it is most eminent in Direction and Government The Goodness of God is truly the efficient dirigent and final cause But it is most eminent in being the perfective efficient and final Cause § 4. Gods ultimate end in Creation and Providence is not any supply or addition of Perfection or Blessedness in himself as being absolutely perfect in himself and capable of no addition But those who think that God doth produce all things ex necessitate naturae from Eternity say that as the Tree is not perfect without its fruits so neither is God without his works They say with Balbus in Cicero and other Stoicks that the World is the most excellent Being and that God is but the soul of the World and though the Soul be a compleat soul if it had no body yet it is not a compleat Man and as the Tree is compleat in genere causae without the fruit yet not as a Totum containing those effects ab essentia which are its Part and End So say they God may be perfect without the World as he is only the Soul and part of the World but he is not a compleat world nor in toto Answ 1. That God is not the soul or constitutive cause of the World but somewhat much greater is proved before And also that it was not from Eternity and consequently that he created it not by naturall necessity The foundation therefore being overthrown the building falleth Those that hold the foresaid opinion must hold that God is in point of duration an eternall efficient matter form and end and that in order of Nature he is first an Efficient principle causing matter and secondly he is an efficient with matter and in the third instant he is the form of the effected matter and in the fourth instant he is the end of his operations herein And if you call the efficient Principle only by the name of God then you grant what I prove and you seemed to deny But if he be not God as the meer efficient and end but also as the matter then you make every stone and Serpent and every thief and murderer and devil to be part of God and make him the subject of all the sin and evil all the weakness folly and mutations which be in the World with the other absurdities before mentioned And if you say that he is God as efficient form and end and not as matter then you contradict your self because the form and matter are parts of the same being And whether you call him God as the form only and so make him but part of Being and consequently imperfect and consequently not God or as matter and form also and so make him a compounded being still you make him imperfect in denying his simplicity or unity and as guilty of all the imperfections of matter and of composition And you make one part of God more imperfect than the rest as being but an effect of it All which are inconsistent with the nature of God and with the nature of Man and every Creature who is hereby made a part of God 2. If this had been true of the World as consisting of its constitutive causes that it is God in perfection and eternal c. yet it could not be true of the daily-generated and perishing beings There are millions of men and other animals that lately were not what they are Therefore as such they were no eternall parts of God because as such they were not eternall Therefore
if God brought them forth for his own Perfection it would follow that he was before imperfect and consequently not God and that his Perfections are mutable and perishing Therefore at least some other cause of these must be found out And as for the similitudes in the objection I answer 1. That the fructifying of a Tree is an act of Generation and the ends of it are partly the use for food to superiour sensitive Creatures especially man and partly the propagation of its species because it is mortall Fructification is indeed its perfection but that is because it is not made for it self but for another Sic vos non vobis may be written upon all But God is neither mortall needing a propagation of the species nor is he subservient to any other and finally for its use And as for the Soul it made not the matter of its own body but found it made though in the formation of it it might be so efficient as domicilium sibi fabricare But God made all matter of nothing and gave the World whatsoever it is or hath And therefore was Perfect himself before For an imperfect being could never have been the cause of such a frame Therefore he needed no domicilium for himself nor as an imperfect Part a form to concurr to the constitution of a whole But he is the efficient dirigent and final cause of the World and all things but not the constituent or essential for then the Creature and Creator were all one and God debased and the Creature deified But he is to them a supra-essential cause even more than a form and soul while he is a total efficient of all 3. If all that is in the Objection had been proved it would not at all shake the main design of my present discourse which is to prove that God is our Grand Benefactor and Chief Good and that he is mans ultimate end For if the World were his Body and he both its Efficient and its Soul he would be the cause of all its Good and the Cause would be more excellent than the Effect And if our Souls that never made the matter of our Bodies are yet the noblest part of us and far more excellent than the Body much more would God that made or caused all the Matter and Order in the World be more excellent than that World which he effected And as the Soul is not for the Body as its ultimate end though it be the Life of the Body and its great Benefactor but the Body is finally more for the Soul though the Soul need not the Body so much as the Body needeth the Soul and as the Horse is finally for the Rider and not the Rider for the Horse though the Horse needeth his Master more than the Master doth the Horse for the Horses life is preserved by the Master when the Master is but accommodated in his Journey by his Horse Even so though the World need God and he needeth not the World and God giveth being and life to the World which can give nothing at all to him yet the World is finally for God and not God for the World The noblest and first Being is still the End And the generated part of the World which is not formally eternal but doth oriri interire is it that our dispute doth most concern which the Objection doth no whit invalidate § 5. The same Will of God which was the free efficient is the End of all his Works ad extra Gods Essence hath no Efficient or final Cause but is the efficient and final cause of all things else They proceeded from his Power his Wisdom and his good-will and they bear the Image of his Power Wisdom and Good-will and he loveth his own Image in them and loveth them as they bear his Image and loveth his Image for Himself So that the act of his Love to Himself is necessary though voluntary and so is the act of his Love to his Image and to all the Goodness of the Creature while it is such But he freely and not necessarily made and continueth the Creature in his Image and needeth not the Glass or Image being self-sufficient so that his Creature is the mediate Object his Image on the Creature is the ultimate created Object his own perfections to which that Image relateth is the objectum simpliciter ultimatum his complacency or love is the Actus ultimus and that very act is the object of his precedent act of Creation or volition of the Creatures But all this is spoken according to the narrow imperfect capacity of man who conceiveth of God as having a prius posterius in his acts which is but respectively and denominatively from the order of the objects In short Gods free-will is the Beginning of his works ad extra and the complacency of that will in his works as Good in relation to his own perfections is the END And therefore he is said to Rest when he saw that all his works were Good § 6. Whatsoever is the fullest expression and Glorifying demonstration of God in the Creature must needs be the chief created excellency Because he loveth Himself first and the Creature for Himself And seeing the Creature hath all from him which is good and amiable in it it must needs follow that those parts are most amiable and best which have most of the impression of the Creators excellencies on them Not that he hath greater Perfections to imprint on one Creature than another but the impression of those Perfections is much greater on one than on another § 7. The Happier therefore God will make any Creature the more will be communicate to it of the Image and demonstration of his own goodness and so will both love it the more for his own Image and cause it to love him the more which is the chief part of his Image § 8. The Goodness of God is conceived of by our narrow mindes in three notions as it were in three degrees of altitude The Highest is The infinite perfections of his Essence as such The second is The infinite perfection of his Will as such which is called His Holiness and the Fountain of Morality The third is that one part of his Wills perfection which is his Benignity to his Creatures which we call his Goodness in a lower notion as relative to our selves because he is inclined by it to Do us good This is his Goodness in condescention § 9. Though all this is but one in God yet because our mindes are fain to receive it as in several parts or notions we may therefore not only distinguish them but compare them as the Objects of our Love § 10. Man usually beginneth at the lowest and loveth God first for his Benignity and Love to us before he riseth to the higher acts And this is not an irregular motion of a lapsed Soul in its return to God so be it we make haste in our
themselves as being wholly his own 3. It absolutely subjecteth the Soul to God and sitteth up his Authority as absolute over our thoughts and words and all our actions And maketh the Christians life a course of careful obedience to his Laws so far as they understand them 4. It taketh up a Christians mind with the thankful sense of his Redemption so that the pardon of his sins and his deliverance from hell and his hopes of everlasting glory do form his soul to a holy gratitude and make the expressions of it to be his work 5. It giveth man a sense of the love of God as his gracious Redeemer and so of the goodness and mercifulness of his Nature It causeth them to think of God as their greatest Benefactor and as one that loveth them and as LOVE it self and so it reconcileth their estranged alienated minds to him and maketh the love of God to be the very constitution and life of the Soul 6. It causeth men to believe that there is an everlasting Glory to be enjoyed by holy Souls where we shall see the glory of God and be filled with his love and exercised in perfect love and praise and be with Christ his Angels and Saints for evermore It causeth them to take this felicity for their portion and to set their hearts upon it and to make it the chief care and business of all their lives to seek it 1. It causeth them to live in the joyful hopes and foresight of this blessedness and to do all that they do as means thereunto and thus it sweetneth all their lives and maketh Religion their chief delight 8. It accordingly employeth their thoughts and tongues so that the praises of God and the mention of their everlasting blessedness and of the way thereto is their most delightful conference as it beseemeth travellers to the City of God and so their political converse is in heaven 9. And thus it abateth the fears of death as being but their passage to everlasting life And those that are confirmed Christians indeed do joyfully entertain it and long to see their glorified Lord and the blessed Majesty of their great Creator 10. It causeth men to love all sanctified persons with a special love of complacency and all mankind with a love of benevolence even to love our neighbours as our selves and to abhor that selfishness which would engage us against our neighbours good 11. It causeth men to love their enemies and to forgive and forbear and to avoid all unjust and unmerciful revenge It maketh men meek long-suffering and patient though not impassionate insensible or void of that anger which is the necessary opposer of sin and folly 12. It employeth men in doing all the good they can it maketh them long for the holiness and happiness of one another's souls and desirous to do good to those that are in need according to our power 13. This true Regeneration by the Spirit of Christ doth make those Superiours that hath it even Princes Magistrates Parents and Masters to Rule those under them in holiness love and justice with self-denial seeking more the pleasing of God and the happiness of their Subjects for soul and body than any carnal selfish interest of their own and therefore it must needs be the blessing of that happy Kingdom Society or Family which hath such a holy Governour O that they were not so few 14. It maketh subjects and children and servants submissive and conscionable in all the duties of their Relations and to honour their Superiours as the Officers of God and to obey them in all just subordination to him 15. It causeth men to love Justice and to do as they would be done by and to desire the welfare of the souls bodies estates and honour of their neighbours as their own 16. It causeth men to subdue their adpetites and lusts and fleshly desires and to set up the government of God and sanctified Reason over them and to take their flesh for that greatest enemy in our corrupted state which we must chiefly watch against and master as being a Rebel against God and Reason It alloweth a man so much sensitive pleasure as God forbiddeth not and as tendeth to the holiness of the soul and furthereth us in God's service and all the rest it rebuketh and resisteth 17. It causeth men to estimate all the wealth and honour and dignities of the world as they have respect to God and a better world and as they either help or hinder us in the pleasing of God and seeking immortality and as they are against God and our spiritual work and happiness it causeth us to account them but as meer vanity loss and dung 18. It keepeth men in a life of watchfulness against all those temptations which would draw them from this holy course and in a continual warfare against Satan and his Kingdom under conduct of Jesus Christ 19. It causeth men to prepare for sufferings in this world and to look for no great matters here to expect persecutions crosses losses wants defamations injuries and painful sicknesses and death and to spend their time in preparing all that furniture of mind which is necessary to their support and comfort in such a day of trial that they may be patient and joyful in tribulation and bodily distress as having a comfortable relation to God and Heaven which will incomparably weigh down all 20. It causeth men to acknowledge that all this grace and mercy is from the love of God alone and to depend on him for it by faith in Christ and to devote and refer all to himself again and make it our ultimate end to please him and thus to subserve him as the first Efficient the chief Dirigent and the ultimate final Cause of all of whom and through whom and to whom are all things to whom be Glory for ever Amen This is the true description of that Regenerate Sanctified state which the Spirit of Christ doth work on all whom he will save and that are Christians indeed and not in Name only And certainly this is the Image of God's Holiness and the just constitution and use of a reasonable Soul And therefore he that bringeth men to this is a Real Saviour of whom more anon II. And it is very considerable by what means and in what manner all this is done It is done by the preaching of the Gospel of Christ and that in plainness and simplicity The curiosity of artificial oratory doth usually but hinder the success as painting doth the light of windows It was a few plain men that came with spiritual power and not with the entising words of humane wisdom or curiosities of vain Philosophy who did more in this work than any of their successors have done since As in Naturals every thing is apt to communicate its own nature and not anothers heat causeth heat and cold causeth cold so wit by communication causeth wit and common learning causeth common
be more evident to reason than that something must be Eternal without beginning nothing being more evident than that Nothing hath no power no action no effects and so can make nothing And therefore if ever there had been a time when Nothing was Nothing could ever have been imagine that there were Nothing now and it is certain there never would be any thing Obj. Something may oriri de novo without any Cause as well as God be eternally without any Cause Answ It s impossible For he that is eternally hath all perfection eternally in himself and needeth no Cause being still in being and being the Cause of Causes But Nothing hath no perfection or being and therefore needeth an Omnipotent Cause to give it a being Obj. If the world may be created of nothing materially it may be what it is without any thing efficiently Answ Impossible Pre-existent matter is not necessary to the first created matter for Matter may be caused of Nothing by an Omnipotent Efficient as well as the wonderful frame of all things be made out of Matter But without an Efficient no Being can arise de novo So that it is most evident seeing any thing now is there hath been something eternally And if something it must needs be the first Cause which is chief in excellency and first in order of production and therefore of existence § 10. The first Cause must needs be independent in being perfections and operations and so be absolutely self-sufficient For it were not the first if there were any before it and being caused by nothing else it was eternally sufficient in and for it self otherwise that which it were beholden to would have the place of a Cause to it And if it caused not all or needed the help of any other it is not absolutely the first Cause to all others nor perfect in it self That which could be eternally without a cause and it self cause all things is self-sufficient and independent § 11. The first Cause must needs be free from all imperfection of Corporeity or Materiality Composition Passibility corruptibility Mutability and Mortality and all other imperfections of defendent beings There is such a thing as a Living Principle and a pure spiritual Nature in the created world and the Maker of it must be life and Spirit in a higher purer sense than it and therefore must be free from all its imperfections and having no cause hath no defect and having no beginning can have no end All this Reason doth certainly apprehend § 12. This perfect first Cause must be Immense or Infinite in Being Not by corporeal extension as if God as a Body were in a place and being more extensive than all place were called Immense But in the perfect Essence of an eternall Life and Spirit and Mind he is every where without Locality and all things live and move and be in him The thought of space is but a Metaphorical help to our conception of his Immensity § 13. Therefore he must needs be Omnipresent Not by extension quantitative but in a sort transcendent and more excellent according to the transcendent way of his Existence For if we must have conceived of him as no better than a Body and of Magnitude as an Excellency we might well have concluded that he hath made nothing greater than himself Nemo dat quod non habet and therefore he must be more extensive than all the world and consequently absent from no part of it Much more when his Being which surpasseth corporeity directeth us to acknowledge a more noble kind of Omnipresence than Extensive § 14. Therefore is he Incomprehensible as to humane understanding or any other created intellect Of our own incomprehension experience sufficiently convinceth us here and Reason evinceth the same of all created Intellects for the less cannot comprehend the greater and between finite and infinite there is no proportion We know nothing purely-intelligible so easily and certainly as that God is But there is nothing that we are so far from comprehending As we see nothing more easily and certainly than the Sun which yet we see not with a comprehensive but a partial and defective sight § 15. This Infinite Being can be but One. For if there were many they could not be Infinite and so indeed there would be none nor would there be any one first Cause of all things For if one caused one part of the World and another another part no one were the first Cause of all And if they joyned in causing all together they would all conjunctly make but one first cause and each one several be but part of the Cause If there be no one that is sufficient to make and govern all the World there is no perfect Being nor no God but the effect sheweth the sufficiency and the unity of the World the Orbs being one frame the unity of the first cause Perfection consisteth more in the unity of one all sufficient Being than in a voluntary concurrence of many Beings The most learned Heathens who thought there were many to be named Gods did mean but subordinate particular Gods that were under the one universal God whom the Stoicks and Academicks took to be the universal Soul and the subordinate Gods the Souls of the particular Orbs and Planets § 16. The Power of this God must needs be Omnipotency He that hath given so great Power to the creatures as is exercised by them especially the Sun and fixed Stars in their several Vortices or Orbs and he that could make such a World of nothing and uphold the being and maintain the order and cause and continue the rapid motions of all the Vortices or Orbs which are to us innumerable and each of incomprehensible excellency and magnitude is certainly to be accounted no less than Omnipotent By his Omnipotency I mean that by which in it self considered in primo instanti he can do all things possible that is which belong not to Impotency but to Power And by which in secundo instanti he can do all things which his Infinite Wisdom judgeth congruous and meet to be done And in tertio instanti can do all that he will do and are pleasing to him § 17. The understanding of the first Cause must needs be Omniscient and infinite Wisdom 1. He that hath given so much wisdom to such a Worm as Man must have more than all the men in the World Whatever knowledge is in the whole Creation being given by Him doth prove that formally or eminently he hath more Were it all contracted into one Intelligence it must be less than His that caused it He hath not given more wisdom than he had to give nor so much as he had or is himself For if he should make any thing equal to Himself there would be two Infinites and there would be a perfect self-sufficient being which yet had lately no sufficiency or being and there would be a being independent in facto
It is not one part of the Sun that moveth and another which illuminateth and another which heateth But the whole Sun if it be wholly Fire or aethereal matter doth move the whole illuminateth and the whole doth heat And Motion Light and Heat are not Qualities inherent in it But Motion Illumination and Calefaction are Acts flowing immediately from its Essence as containing the faculties or powers of such acts He that could write a perfect method of Physicks and Morality would shew us Trinity in Unity through all its parts from first to last But as the Veins Arteries and Nerves the Vessels of the Natural Vital and Animal humours and spirits are easily discernable in their trunks and greater branches but not so when they are minute and multiplied into thousands so is it in this Method But I must desire the Reader to observe that though I here explain this Trinity of Active Principles in the Divine Essence which is so evident to Natural Reason it self as to be past all controversie Yet whether indeed the Trinity of Hypostases or Persons which is part of the Christian Faith be not somewhat distinct from this is a question which here I am not to meddle with till I come to the second part of the Treatise Nor is it my purpose to deny it but only to prepare for the better understanding of it Of which more shall there afterward be said § 32. And thus all Creatures and especially our selves declare that there is a first Being and Cause of them all who is a Substance Life a Spirit or Minde an Active Power Vnderstanding and Will perfect eternall independent and self-sufficient not compounded not passible not mutable corruptible or mortall Immense Omnipresent Incomprehensible only One Omnipotent Omniscient and most Good most Happy in Being Himself in Knowing himself and enjoying him most Holy transcending all the Creatures of a Perfect Will the Fountain of all Morall Good Love or Benigne having a Trinity of essential Transcendent Principles in unity of Essence which have made their adumbration or appearance on the World whereof though he be not the constitutive form or Soul He is to it much more the first Efficient Dirigent and ultimate final Cause of all That is THERE IS A GOD. CHAP. VI. Of GOD as RELATED to his Creatures especially to Man And I. as his OWNER PAssing by all that is doubtfull and controverted among men truly Rational and taking before me only that which is certain undenyable and clear and wherein my own Soul is past all doubt I shall proceed in the same method secundum ordinem cognoscendi non essendi The word GOD doth not only signifie all that I have been proving viz. The perfect nature of the first Cause but also his Relations to us his Creatures And therefore till I have opened and proved those Relations I have done but part of my work to prove that THERE IS A GOD. § 1. GOD having produced Man and all the World by his Power Vnderstanding and Will is by immediate resultancy Related to him as his CREATOR Though he made his Body of pre-existent Matter yet was that Matter made of nothing and therefore God is properly Mans CREATOR and not his Fabricator only And a CREATURE is a Relation which inferreth the Correlate a CREATOR as a Son doth a Father This therefore is Gods first grand Relation unto Man which hath no cause to produce it but his actual Creation which is its fundamentum § 2. This Grand prime Relation inferreth a Trinity of Grand Relations viz. That God is our OWNER our RVLER and our BENEFACTOR of which we are now to speak in order That these Three are justly distinguished from each other is past doubt to all that understand what is meant by the terms An Owner as such is not a Ruler or Benefactor a Ruler as such is not an Owner or a Benefactor A Benefactor as such is neither an Owner nor a Ruler And the enumeration is sufficient All humane affairs or actions of converse and society belong to Man in one of these three Relations or such as are subordinate to them and meer dependents on them or compounded of them They are in some respect the Genera and in some as it were the Elements of all other Relations And from the manner of men they are applyed to God with as much propriety of speech as any terms that man can use concerning him And he that could draw a true scheme or method of the Body of Morality or Theology for all is one with me would reduce all the dealings of God with Man which are subsequent to the fundamental Act of Creation to these three Relations and accordingly distinguish of them all Yet in the Mixt acts as most are such distinguishing only of the compounding Elements I mean the interest of these three Relations as making up the several acts § 3. A full Owner or Proprietor is called Dominus in the strictest sense and is one that hath a Jus possidendi disponendi utendi a right of having or possessing disposing and using without any copartner or superior Proprietor to restrain him The meaning is better known by the bare terms of denomination through common use than by definition We know what it meaneth when a man saith of any thing It is mine own There are defective half-proprieties of Co-partners and subordinate Proprietors which belong not to our present case The word Dominus Dominuim is sometime taken laxely as comprehending both Propriety and Rule and sometime improperly for Government or Command it self But among Lawyers it is most commonly taken properly and strictly for an OWNER as such But lest any be contentious about the use of the word I here put instead of it the word Owner and Proprietor as being more free from ambiguity § 4. GOD is jure Creationis Conservationis the most absolute Owner or Proprietor of Man and the whole Creation It is not possible that there should be a more full and certain title to propriety than Creation and total conservation is He that giveth the World all its Being and that of nothing and continueth that being and was beholden to no pre-existent matter nor to any co-ordinate concause nor dependent on any superiour cause in his causation but is himself the first independent efficient total cause of being and well-being and all the means thereto must needs be the absolute Owner of all without the least limitation or exception It is not the supereminency of Gods nature excelling all created beings that is the foundation of this his Propriety in the creature For Excellency is no title to Propriety And yet he that is unicus in capacitate possidendi that is so transcendently excellent as to have no Copartner in a claim might by Occupation be sole Proprietor in that kinde of Propriety secundum quid which Man is capable of Because there is no other whom he can be said to wrong But GOD hath a
so one halfe of mankind made calamitous and unfitted to educate their own children and ruine and depravation of nature could not be avoided They that think their choicest Plants and Flowers fit for the inclosure of a Garden and carefullest culture weeding and defence should not think their children should be educated or planted in the Wilderness It is not unobservable that all flying Fowls do know their Mates and live by couples and use copulation with no other and that the Beasts and more terrestrial Fowl do copulate but only so oft as is necessary to generation And shall Man be worse than Beasts § 31. Nature bindeth us not to violate the propriety of our neighbour in any thing that is his by fraud theft or robbery or any other means but to preserve and promote his just commodity as our own § 32. Government and Justice being so necessary to the order and welfare of the world Nature teacheth us that bribery fraud false-witness and all means that pervert Justice must be avoided and equity promoted among all § 33. The Tongue of Man being made to be the Index of his mind and humane converse being maintained by humane credibility and confidence Nature telleth us that Lying is a crime which is contrary to the nature and societies of Mankind § 34. And Nature telleth us that it is unjust and criminal to slander or injuriously defame our neighbour by railing reviling or malicious reports and that we ought to be regardful of his honour as of our own § 35. Nature telleth us that both in obedience to God the just disposer of all and for our own quietness and our neighbours peace we should all be contented with our proper place and due condition and estate and not to envy the prosperity of our neighbour nor covetously draw from him to enrich ourselves Because God's will and interest is above our own and the publick welfare to be preferred before any private persons and therefore all are to live quietly and contentedly in their proper places contributing to the common good § 36. Nature teacheth us that it is our duty to love humane Nature in our enemies and pity others in their infirmities and miseries and to forgive all pardonable failings and not to seek revenge and right our selves by our brothers ruine but to be charitable to the poor and miserable and do our best to succour them and help them out of their distress All these are our undeniable duties to GOD and our Neighbours § 37. Nature also telleth us that every man as a rational lover of himself should have a special care of his own felicity and know wherein it doth consist and use all prudent diligence to attain it and make it sure § 38. Nature telleth us that it is the duty of all men to keep Reason clear and their Wills conformable to its right apprehensions and to keep up a constant Government over their Thoughts Affections Passions Senses Appetite Words and Actions conforming them to our Makers Laws § 39. Nature telleth us that all our Time should be spent to the Ends of our Creation and all our Mercies improved to those Ends and all things in the world be estimated by them and used as Means conducing to them § 40. Nature commandeth us to keep our Bodies in sobriety temperance and chastity and not be inordinate or irregular in eating drinking lust sleep idleness apparel recreation or any lower things § 41. It commandeth us also watchfully and resolutely to avoid or resist all temptations which would draw us to any of these sins § 42. And it teacheth us patiently to bear our crosses and improve our trials to our benefit and see that they breed not any sinful distempers in our Minds or Lives § 43. And Nature telleth us that this obedient pleasing of our Maker and holy righteous charitable and sober living should be our greatest pleasure and delight and that we should thus spend our lives even to the last waiting patiently in peaceful joyful hopes for the blessed end which our righteous Governour hath allotted for our reward All this is evidently legible in nature to any man that hath not lost his reason or refuseth not considerately to use it And he that will read but Antonine Epictetus and Plutarch who are full of such precepts that I refer you to the whole Books instead of particular citations may see that he who will deny a life of Piety Justice and Temperance to be the duty and rectitude of Man must renounce his reason and natural light as well as supernatural revelation § 44. Reason also teacheth us that when the corruptions sluggishness or appetite of the flesh resisteth or draweth back from any of this duty or tempteth us to any sin Reason must rebuke it and hold the reins and keep its government and not suffer the flesh to bear it down and to prevail CHAP. XI III. Of GOD's Relation to Man as his BENEFACTOR and his END Or as his CHIEF GOOD THE Three Essential Principles in God do eminently give out themselves to Man in his Three Divine Relations to us His Power Intellect and Will His Omnipotency Omniscience and Goodness in his being our Owner our Ruler and our Chief Good The two first I have considered already our Omnipotent Lord or Owner and our most wise Governour and our Counter-relations with the duties thereof I now come to the third For the right understanding whereof let us a little consider of the Image of God in Man in which we must here see him It is Man's WILL which is his ultimate perfective imperant faculty it is the proper subject of Moral habits and principal agent of Moral acts And therefore in all Laws and Converse the WILL is taken for the Man and nothing is further morally Good or Evil Virtuous or culpably Vicious than it is Voluntary The INTELLECT is but the Director of the WILL Its actions are not the perfect actions of the Man If it apprehend bare Truth without respect to Goodness its Object is not the highest or felicitating or attractive Object and therefore the act can be no higher if it apprehend any Being or Truth as good it apprehendeth it but as a servant or guide to the WILL to bring it thither to be received by LOVE The perfect excellency of the object of humane acts is Goodness and not meer Entity or Verity Therefore the excellentest faculty is the Will It is Good that is the final-final-Cause in the object of all humane acts Therefore it is the fruition of Good which is the perfective final Act and that fruition of Good as Good is though introductorily by Vision yet finally and proximately by Complacencies which is nothing else but Love in its most essential act delighting in its attained object And for the executive Power though in the order of its natural being it be before the Will yet in its operation ad extra it is after it and commanded by
they were before notwithstanding their long converse with Christ in person it being his pleasure to illuminate them by supernatural infusion that it might appear to be no contrived design to deceive the world And they were enabled to preach the word with power and by this Spirit were infallibly guided in the performance of the work of their Commissions to settle Christ's Church in a holy order and to leave on record the doctrine which he had commanded them to teach Also they themselves did heal the sick and cast out devils and prophesie and by the laying on of their hands the same holy Spirit was ordinarily given to others that believed so that Christians had all one gift or other of that Spirit by which they convinced and converted a great part of the world in a short time and all that were sincere had the gift of sanctification and were regenerate by the Spirit as well as by Baptismal water and had the love of God shed abroad in their hearts by the holy Ghost which was given them A holy and heavenly mind and life with mortification contempt of the world self-denial patience and love to one another and to all men was the constant badge of all Christ's followers The first Sermon that Peter preached did convert three thousand of those sinful Jews that had crucified Christ And after that many thousands of them more were converted One of their bloody persecutors Saul a Pharisee that had been one of the murderers of the first Martyr Stephen and had haled many of them to prisons as he was going on this business was struck down by the high-way a light from Heaven shining round about him and a voice saying to him Saul Saul why persecutest thou me And he said Who art thou Lord And the Lord said I am Jesus whom thou persecutest it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks And he trembling and astonished said Lord what wilt thou have me to do And the Lord said Arise and go into the City and it shall be told thee what thou must do And the men that journeyed with him stood speechless hearing a voice but seeing no man And so Saul was led blind to Damascus where one Ananias had a vision commanding him to Baptize him and his eyes were opened This Convert called Paul did hence-forward preach the Gospel of Christ from Country to Country in Syria in Asia at Rome and a great part of the world in marvellous unwearied labours and sufferings abuses and imprisonments converting multitudes and planting Churches in many great Cities and Countries and working abundance of miracles where he went His History is laid down in part of the New Testament There are also many of his Epistles to Rome to Corinth Galatia Ephesus Philippi Coloss Thessalonica to Timothy to Titus and to Philemon and the Hebrews as is supposed There are also the Epistles of Peter James John and Jude with the Revelation of John containing many mysterious Prophesies An Eunuch who was of great power under the Queen of Ethiopia was converted by Philip and carried the Gospel into his Country The rest of the Apostles and other Disciples carried it abroad a great part of the world especially in the Roman Empire and though every where they met with opposition and persecution yet by the power of the holy Ghost appearing in their Holiness Languages and Miracles they prevailed and planted abundance of Churches of which the most populous were at Jerusalem Antioch Rome and Alexandria And though they were all dispersed abroad the world and out of the reach of mutual converse yet did they never disagree in their Doctrine in the smallest point but proceeded through sufferings in Unity and Holiness in the work of saving Souls till most of them were put to death for the sake of Christ having left the Churches under the Government of their several Pastors according to the will of Christ This is the abstract of the History of the holy Scriptures § 14. The summ of the Doctrine of Christianity is contained in these Articles following consisting of three general Heads I. Things to be known and believed II. Things to be willed and desired and hoped III. Things to be done I. 1. There is one only GOD in Essence in Three Essential Principles POWER UNDERSTANDING and WILL or OMNIPOTENCY OMNISCIENCE and GOODNESS in Three Subsistences or Persons the FATHER the SON and the HOLY SPIRIT who is a Mind or Spirit and therefore is most Simple Incorruptible Immortal Impassionate Invisible Intactible c. and is Indivisible Eternal Immense Necessary Independent Self-sufficient Immutable Absolute and Infinite in all Perfections The Principal Efficient Dirigent and Final Cause of all the world The CREATOR of all and therefore our Absolute OWNER or Supreme RULER and our Total BENEFACTOR and CHIEF GOOD and END 2. GOD made Man for himself not to supply any want of his own but for the pleasing of his own Will and Love in the Glory of his Perfections shining forth in his works In his own Image that is with Vital Power Understanding and Free-will Able Wise and Good with Dominion over the Inferiour Creatures as being in subordination to God their OWNER their GOVERNOUR and their BENEFACTOR and END And he bound him by the Law of his Nature to adhere to GOD his MAKER by Resignation Devotion and Submission to him as his OWNER by Believing Honouring and Obeying him as his RULER and by Loving him Trusting and Seeking him Delighting in him Thanksgiving to him and Praising him as his Grand BENEFACTOR chief Good and ultimate end to exercise Charity and Justice to each other and to Govern all his inferiour faculties by Reason according to his Makers will that he so might please him and be Happy in his Love And to try him he particularly forbad him to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil upon pain of death 3. Man being tempted by Satan to break this Law of God did believe the Tempter who promised him impunity and advancement in Knowledge and who accused God as false in his threatning and as envying Man this great advancement And so by wilfull sinning against him he fell from God and his uprightness and happiness under the displeasure of God the penalty of his Law and the power of Satan And hence we are all conceived in sin averse to good and prone to evil and condemnation is passed upon all and no meer Creature is able to deliver us 4. God so loved the World that he gave his only SON to be their REDEEMER who being the Eternal WISDOM and WORD of God and so truly GOD and one in Essence with the FATHER did assume our Nature and became Man being conceived by the HOLY SPIRIT in the Virgin Mary and born of her and called JESVS CHRIST who being Holy and without all sin did conquer the Tempter and the World fulfilling all righteousness He enacted and preached the Law or