of Horror in the Conscience Anguish in the mind Discord in the Affections Diseases in the Body and Confusions and Disturbances in Humane Society Since therefore the Divine Wisdom and Contrivance hath thus inseparably coupled good Effects to good Actions and evil ones to evil it hath hereby very plainly and sensibly declared to us what it would have us do and what not For seeing it hath so constituted things as that in the Course of Nature such Proportions of Happiness do necessarily result to us from such Actions and such Proportions of Misery from their Contraries what can be more evident than that its Design was hereby to encourage us to the one and affright us from the other So that by these natural Rewards and Punishments which in the Course of things God hath chained to our Actions he hath as expresly prescribed us what to do and what not as he could have done if he had spoken to us in an audible voice from the Battlements of Heaven For since the whole Train of Natural Effects is to be resolved into the Providence of God and since his Providence hath so ordered and contrived things as that in the ordinary Course of them good Effects do spring out of good Actions and evil out of evil ones what else could he intend by it but to allure us to the one and terrifie us from the other For it is by Rewards and Punishments that all Lawgivers declare their Will and Pleasure concerning those Actions which they command and sorbid and therefore since God in his Providential Government of the World hath thought good to link natural Rewards to such Actions and natural Punishments to such these are to be lookt upon as the great Sanctions of the Law of Nature whereby he commands what pleases and prohibits what displeases him For when God had no otherwise revealed himself to the World than only by the establsht Course and Nature of things that was the great Bible by which alone Mankind was instructed in their Duty and there being no revealed Threats or Promises annexed to good and bad Actions Gods Will and Pleasure concerning them was visible only in the good and bad Consequents which they drew after them which are so plain and obvious to the Observation of Mankind that 't would be the most inexcusable Inadvertency not to take Notice of them So that the moral Good and Evil of all Actions finally resolves into the natural Good and Evil that is appendant to them and therefore are our Actions morally good because they are naturally beneficial to us and therefore morally evil because they are naturally prejudicial and hurtful and those which in their own nature are neither good nor evil are indifferent in themselves and left altogether undetermined by the Law of Nature which commands and forbids nothing but under the Sanction of those natural Rewards and Punishments which in the Course of things are made necessary to Humane Actions V. TO these natural Rewards and Punishments which God hath entailed upon good and bad Actions he hath thought good many times to superadd supernatural Blessings and Judgments For tho he had before sufficiently expressed his Will concerning Humane Actions in the great Bible of Nature and by their natural Effects had plainly enough distinguished the good from the bad yet considering what heedless and inobservant Creatures we are and how apt to overlook the ordinary Consequents of our Actions he hath not altogether abandoned us to the easie Instructions of Nature but out of his superabundant Care to shew us what is Good and lead us to our Duty and Happiness he hath from time to time seconded the natural Rewards and Punishments of our Actions with supernatural Favours and Judgments that so by these he might awake our drowsie Attention and revive in us the languishing sense of our Duty Of which we have infinite Instances in the several Ages of the World there being scarce any History either Sacred or Prosane that abounds not with them Several of which both Blessings and Judgments do as plainly evince themselves to be intended by God for Rewards and Punishments as if they had been attended with a Voice from Heaven proclaiming the Reasons for which they were sent For how many famous Instances have of we miraculous Deliverances of Righteous Persons who by an Invisible Hand have been rescued from the greatest Dangers when in all outward appearance their Condition was hopeless and desperate and of wonderful Blessings that have hapned to them not only without but contrary to all secondary Causes of some that have been so eminently rewarded in kind as that the Goods which they received were most visible Significations of the Goods which they did of others who have received the Blessings which they have asked whilst they were praying for them and obtained them with such distinguishing Circumstances as plainly signified them to be the Answers and Returns of their devout Addresses to Heaven And so on the contrary how many notable Examples are there of such miraculous Judgments inflicted upon unrighteous Persons as have either exceeded the Power of secondary Causes or been caused by them contrary to their natural tendencies of men that have been punished in the very Act of their Sin and sometimes in the very Part by which they have offended that have had the evil of their Sin retaliated upon them in a correspondent Evil of Suffering and been struck with those very Judgments which they have imprecated on themselves in the Justification of a known Falshood All which supernatural Judgments and Blessings of God are only his Comments on the Text of Nature by which he farther explains to us the Meaning of those natural Rewards and Punishments which Vertue and Vice draw after them and shews us what clear Indications they are of his Almighty Pleasure and Displeasure For when he rewards men supernaturally it is for those Actions that carry a natural Reward with them and when he punishes them supernaturally it is for such Actions as do carry a natural Punishment with them so that his supernatural Rewards and Punishments do speak the same Sense and Language with his natural only they speak plainer and louder to rouse and awake those stupid Souls that are deaf to and regardless of the soft and still voice of natural Rewards and Punishments Thus when the old World by not attending to the natural Consequents of their own Actions had almost extinguished their Sense of Good and Evil God by a supernatural Deluge in which he drowned the wicked and preserved the righteous consigned to all future Generations a standing Monument of his Hatred of Sin and Love of Righteousness that so by the Remembrance of it he might keep Mens heedless Minds more attentive to the natural Rewards and Punishments of their Actions And when the Remembrance of this was almost worn out and with it mens natural Sense of good and evil God by raining down Fire and Brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorra and rescuing
that which we most converse with and with whose Consent and Agreement in any matters we are best acquainted is that of Men and therefore if among Men we can discover such an Universal Agreement concerning the Goodness of these Rules as will warrant us to conclude all other Rational Beings to be consenting with them this will be a sufficient Demonstration of the Truth of the Proposition These two things therefore I shall endeavour to make out 1. That the Reason of Men is Vniversally consenting in this matter viz. That there is an immutable Goodness in these Rules of Morality 2. That this Universal Consent of Mens Reason in this matter is a sufficient Demonstration that all other reasonable Beings are consenting with them First THEREFORE there is nothing more evident than that Men are Universally agreed in this matter that to Worship God to Honour their Parents and Superiours to be temperate in their Passions and Appetites and just and charitable towards one another are things in their own nature immutably good that this is not an Opinion peculiar to such an Age or to such a Nation or to such a Sect of Religion but the Vniversal Judgment of all Mankind of whatsoever Age Nation or Religion For 't is upon this judgment that all that Conscience is founded which approves of or condemns mens actions which Conscience is nothing else but a Sense or Feeling of Moral Good and Evil and is every whit as natural to Mens minds as the Sense of pleasant or painful touches to their Bodies Since therefore general Effects must spring from general Causes it necessarily follows that the Pain and Pleasure which Mens minds generally feel upon the Commission of bad and good Actions must be resolved into some general Cause and what else can that be but the general Consent of their Reason concerning the immutable Evil of the one and Good of the other I know 't is pretended by some of our Modern Navigators that there are a sort of People in the World who have not the least sense of Good and Evil and do own neither God nor Religion nor Morality But considering the short Converse and imperfect Intercourse which these our new Discoverers have had with those Barbarous Countries it is fairly supposeable that the Inhabitants may have Notions both Religious and Moral of which Strangers who understand not their Language and Customs and Manners can make little or no Discovery But suppose that what they report were true yet by their own confession these wretched Barbarians are in all other things so extreamly Brutish that they discover no other token of their Humanity but their Shape For they live altogether regardless of themselves of the Conveniences of their Lives and of the Dignity of their Natures without making any Reflections on their own minds or any Observations from their own experience Since therefore all Knowledge is acquired by Attention it is not at all impossible for Creatures so utterly supine and negligent to be ignorant of the most common Notions But for any man to question the truth of this general Rule because there are a few Exceptions from it is every whit as absurd as if he should question whether Men are generally two-legg'd Animals because there have been some Monsters with three And what if among men there are some Monsters in respect of their Minds as well as others in respect of their Bodies This is no more a prejudice to the standing Laws of Humane Nature than Prodigies are to the Regularity of the constant course of Vniversal Nature Specimen naturae cujuslibet saith Tully à natura optima sumendum est i. e. The true sample of every Nature is to be taken from the best Natures of the kind Since therefore the men of all Nations and Ages and Religions who have in any measure attended to the Nature of things and made but any tolerable use of their Reasons are and always have been universally agreed that there is an immutable Good in Vertue and Evil in Vice it is no Argument at all that this is not the general Sense of Mankind supposing it true which is very questionable that there are some few such inhumane Barbarians in the World as make no distinction at all between ' em But then Secondly THIS Universal Consent of Mens Reason in this matter is a sufficient Demonstration that all other Reasonable Beings are consenting with them For it shews that God himself is of this mind and if He be we may be sure that all other Reasonable Beings are For if we believe that God made us we must believe that he made us for some End and if he made us for any End he must esteem those Actions good which promote it and those evil which obstruct and hinder it And what other End can an infinitely happy and blessed Being have in making other Beings but only to do 'em good and according to their several Capacities to make them partakers of his own Happiness And if this be the end for which God made us to be sure those Actions must be good in his esteem that are beneficial and those evil that are hurtful and mischievous to our Nature And therefore since he hath implanted in us not only a natural Desire of Happiness but also a rational Faculty to discern what Actions make for our Happiness and what not we may be sure that whatsoever this Faculty doth Vniversally determine to be good or evil for us is good or evil in the Judgment of God 'T is true when the Reason that is in one man judges contrary to the Reason that is in another there must be a Disagreement on one side or the other from the Reason and Judgment of God but when all mens Reason is agreed that this is good and that evil it is plain that this is is the Judgment of the Rational Faculty which naturally makes such a Distinction of things For there is no man that uses his Reason can possibly think that Truth and Falshood Justice and Injustice Mercy and Cruelty are equally good in themselves his Rational Faculty being so framed as that at the first glance and reflection it naturally distinguishes 'em into Good and Evil. When therefore God hath created us with such a Faculty as naturally makes such a Judgment of Good and Evil that Judgment must be Gods as well as the Faculty which made it That therefore which is the unanimous Judgment of all Men must be the Natural Language of the Rational Faculty and that which is the natural Language of the Rational Faculty must be the Language of the God of Nature For he who created me with such a Faculty as naturally judges this Good and that Evil must either have the same Judgment himself or create in me a Contradiction to his own Judgment and that Judgment which he hath created in me he must be supposed to create in all other Beings that are capable of Judging otherwise he would be the author
proposed by God to perswade us to cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit and to perfect holiness in the fear of God 2. Cor. 7.1 So also the Doctrine of our future Punishment is levell'd against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men Rom. 1.18 And as for those Doctrines which concern the Transactions of our Saviour they are all proposed to us as Arguments to perswade us to Piety and Vertue For 't was for this cause that Christ was manifested to destroy the works of the Devil 1 John 3.8 't was for this purpose that he bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live to Righteousness 1 Pet. 2.24 't was for this end that he rose from the dead that thereby he might prevail with us to walk in newness of life Rom. 6.4 and 't is for this end that he intercedes for us at the right hand of God that thereby he might encourage us to come to God by him Heb. 7.2 and in a word for this cause he hath told us he will come to Judgment to reward every man according to his works that thereby he might stir us up to Sobriety and Vigilance and to all holy conversation and Godliness Mat. 24.42 compared with 2 Pet. 3. verse 11. Thus you see all the Doctrines of Religion are only so many Topics of divine Perswasion whereby God addresses himself to our Hope and Fear and every other Affection in us that is capable of Perswasion to excite us to comply with the eternal Obligations of Morality and there is no one Article in all our Religion that is matter of mere Speculation or that entertains our Minds with dry and empty Notions that have no Influence on our Wills and Affections For since the Design of Religion in General is to bind and fasten our Souls to God we may be sure that there is no Part of it but what doth in some measure contribute hereunto Since therefore 't is moral Goodness that God chiefly recommends to us by the Perswasions of Religion we may be sure that what his Arguments do chiefly perswade us to that his Commands do chiefly oblige us to II. FROM Scripture it is also evident that the main Drift and Scope of all the positive Duties of Religion is to improve and perfect men in moral Goodness We find the Jewish Religion exceedingly abounded with positive Precepts for such were all those sacred Rites and Solemnities of which the Bark and Outside of that Religion consisted of all which 't is true what the Psalmist saith of Sacrifices in particular thou desirest not Sacrifices thou delightest not in burnt Offerings Psal. 51.16 that is thou takest no delight in them upon the score of any internal Goodness that is in them but desirest them merely as they are instituted means and Instruments of Moral Goodness For so many of the Rites of the Mosaic Law were instituted in opposition to the Magical Vnclean and Idolatrous Rites of the Eastern Heathen As particularly that Prohibition of sowing their Fields with mingled Seed Lev. 19.19 in Opposition to that Magical Rite which the Heathens used as a Charm for Fructification So also that Command of sprinkling the Blood of their Sacrifices upon the Ground like Water and covering it with Dust in Opposition to that Idolatrous Rite of gathering the Blood into a Trench or Vessel and then sitting round it in a Circle whilst they imagined their gods to be licking it up And to name no more of this kind the Prohibition of seething a Kid in his Mothers Milk Exod. 23.19 was in Opposition to a Custom of the Ancient Heathen who at the Ingathering of their Fruits were wont to take a Kid and seeth it in the milk of its Dam and then in a Magical Procession to sprinkle all their Trees and Fields and Gardens with it thereby to render them more fruitful the following Year Besides all which you may find a World of other Instances in Maimonides More-Nevoch lib. 3. who tells us that the Knowledg of the Opinions and Customs of these Eastern Heathens was porta magna ad reddendas praeceptorum causas the great Rationale of the Mosaic Precepts and that multarum legum rationes causae mihi innotuerint ex cognitione fidei rituum Cultus Zabiorum i. e. that by being acquainted with the opinions and customs of those Eastern Heathens he understood the grounds and reasons of many of the Laws of Moses More-Nevoch lib. 3. cap. 29. So that tho these Precepts were not Moral yet were they set up as so many Fences by God to keep his People from stragling into those Heathen Immoralities AGAIN there are other Rites of their Religion which were instituted to shadow out the Holy Mysteries of the Gospel the great Design of which Mysteries was to invite and perswade men to comply with the eternal Laws of Morality Thus their Laws of Sacrifice were instituted to represent to them the great Transactions of their future Messias his Incarnation and immaculate Life his Death and Resurrection Ascension and Intercession at the right hand of God So also their Festival Laws and particularly their Laws of Jubilee were made to shadow out the Doctrines of our Redemption and eternal Life and their powring out Water in their Sacrifices and their Ritual Purgations from uncleanness were intended for obscure Intimations of the Effusion of the holy Spirit and the Doctrine of Remission of Sins all which Doctrines carry with them the most pregnant Invitations to Piety and Vertue Lastly THERE are other Rites of that Law which were appointed to instruct them in Moral Duties For God finding them not only a perverse but a dull and sottish People as those generally are that have been born and bred in Slavery apprehended that the most effectual way to instruct them would be by Signs and material Representations even as Parents do their Children by Pictures And accordingly in Isaiah 28.10 he tells us that he gave them line upon line and precept upon precept here a little and there a little with a stammering tongue i. e. he look'd upon them as Children and so condescended to their Weakness and spake to them in their own Dialect And this way of instructing them by outward and visible Signs being much in use in the Eastern Countries and more especially in Egypt whose manners they were infinitely fond of was of all others the most probable and taking And accordingly a great part of the Jewish Rites consisted of Hieroglyphics or visible Signs by which their minds were instructed in the Precepts of Morality Thus by Circumcision God signified to them the necessity of mortifying their unchast Desires by their Legal Washings he intimated to them their Obligation to cleanse themselves from all Impurities of Flesh and Spirit yea this as St. Barnabas in his Epistle tells us was the Intent of all that Difference of Meats in the Jewish Law which pronounced Swines flesh unclean to instruct them
so valuable as the Benefits which acrue to us from being formed and united into regular Corporations If not how apparently do we engage against our own Interest when we espouse the Cause of Irreligion III. THE Atheist concludes against that which is the main Support and Comfort of Humane Life For while we are in this World our best and securest Condition is exposed to a world of sad and uncomfortable Accidents which we have neither the Wisdom to foresee nor the Power to prevent So far are we from being self-sufficient as to our worldly Happiness that there are a thousand Causes upon which we depend for it that are not in our Power to dispose of and in such a State of uncertainty wherein we are continally bandyed to and fro and made the Game of inconstant Fortune what Quiet or Security can we enjoy within our selves without believing that there is a God at the Helm that steddily over-rules all events that concern us and steers and directs them by the invariable Compass of his own infinite Wisdom and Goodness For considering how poor and indigent our Nature is how we are fain to seek abroad and to go a begging from Door to Door for our Happiness how we depend upon Chance and are secure of nothing we possess or desire or hope for how prone we are to be alarmed with the Prospect of a sad Futurity and to magnifie distant Evils in our own Aprehensions how apt we are to aggravate our Miseries by our Impatience and Despair and to pall our Enjoyments by expecting more from them than their Natures will afford considering these things I say which way can we turn our selves without a God or where can we repose our restless Thoughts but in his Providence Verily could I be tempted to believe that there is no God I should look upon Humane Nature in its present Circumstances as the most forlorn and abandoned part of the Creation and wish that I had had the Luck to be of any other Species than that of a Rational Animal For in the State I am I find my self liable to a thousand Dangers against which I have no Sanctuary and under which I have no Support if there be no God to govern the World and having such a dismal Prospect of things before me and a busie Mind within me that will be continually working on and aggravating the Evils of it what can I do with my self or how can I enjoy my self without a God to relie on Upon the supposal that he is and that he governs the World I can easily relieve my self under the most dismal Apprehensions I can fairly conclude and safely depend on it that if I take care by my submission to Gods Will to make him my Friend he will either prevent the Evils I apprehend or support me under them or convert them to my good either of which is sufficient to set my Heart at ease and instate me in a quiet Enjoyment of my self But now by giving up the Belief of a God I throw away all these Considerations and leave my self utterly destitute and supportless For what solid ground of Support can I have when I have no manner of Security either that the Evils I dread shall be prevented or that I shall have a Proportionable Strength to bear them or that I shall ever reap any good or advantage from them without which Considerations every Evil that threatens or befals me is pure unmingled Misery against which there is no Fence or Cordial in Reason or Philosophy For suppose I should argue with the ancient Moralists that every ill Accident that befalls me is fatal as being the Effect of some necessary Cause that is without my Power or Disposal and therefore 't is unreasonable for me to grieve at it this will be so far from any way mollifying the Anguish of my Mind that 't will rather inrage and inflame it For that my Calamity is fatal so that it is not in my Power to avoid or remove it is rather an Aggravation than a Diminution of it Or suppose I should reason as the same Moralists otherwhiles do Why should I grieve at the Evils that befal me when alas my Grief will be so far from lessening them that 't will rather encrease and multiply them contribute new Venome to their Stings and render them more pungent and dolorous What a faint Cordial would it be to my oppressed Mind to consider that my Grief will but augment my Load It is some Ease to a dejected Soul to vent its Griefs in Moans and Lamentations which while she seeks to smother in a sullen silence like imprisoned Wind will breed a Collick in her Bowels and is it not a sad thing that I must deny my self the only Solace of a miserable Man for fear of augmenting my Misery Again suppose I should reason thus with the same Authors that Afflictions are indifferent things and in themselves neither good nor evil but indifferently improvable into Mischiefs or Benefits this I confess were a good Argument supposing that the Affliction came from a good God who can extract Good out of all our Evils and render the rankest Poyson Medicinal but otherwise you will find 't is but a cold Comfort to call your Misery by another Name For if there be no God to temper our Evils and to ordain and direct them to wise and good Ends we shall find in the issue they will prove themselves Evils to us by what soft Name soever we may call them Again and to name no more Suppose I should reason thus as these Masters of Morality do that to bear Afflictions with an unconcerned Mind is brave and manly and generous that it is an Argument of a great and Heroick Mind that hath raised it self above the reach of Misfortunes I readily confess so it is supposing a Man hath good reason thus to bear his Afflictions which is the Question in debate for then it is the Triumph of Reason over Passion and an illustrious Instance of a well fortified Mind but if we have no reason for it all these glorious Words Generous Brave c. are nothing but empty Flash and mere Rodomontado For for a Man to be unconcerned with Evils without reason is so far from being generous and brave that 't is an Argument of his brutal Stupidity and Fool-hardiness But yet supposing that there is no God these are the main Arguments we have to support our selves under any Calamity But alas such real Griefs of ours are not to be redress'd with pretty Sayings and grave Sentences which tho they may look takingly at a Distance will when we come to apply and experience them force us to pronounce as Job did of his Friends miserable Comforters are ye all and Physicians of no value So that were we left destitute of God and a Providence and of all those blessed Supports we derive from thence we were of all Creatures the most miserable For in this state of things we
When therefore we conceive of the perfections of God we must so conceive of them as that there may be no manner of inconsistency or disagreement between them otherwise we must admit into our conceptions of them something or other that is defective or imperfect As for instance in God there is infinite Wisdom and infinite Justice infinite Goodness and infinite Mercy wherefore if we would conceive aright of these his glorious perfections we must take care not to admit any Notion of any one of them that renders it repugnant to any other but so to conceive of them altogether as that they may mutually accord and agree with each other For while we apprehend his Goodness to be such as that it will not accord with his Wisdom we must either suppose his Wisdom to be Craft or his Goodness to be Folly and whilst we apprehend his Mercy to be such as that it will not agree with his Justice we must either suppose his Justice to be Cruelty or his Mercy to be blind Pity and Fondness and it is certain that that goodness cannot be a perfection which exceeds the measures of Wisdom nor that Mercy neither which transgresses the bounds of Justice and so on the contrary For if either Gods goodness excludes his wisdom or his wisdom his goodness if either his Mercy swallow up his Justice or his Justice his Mercy there is an apparent repugnance and contrariety between them and where there is a contrariety there must be imperfection in one or t'other or both WHEREFORE if we would apprehend them altogether as they truly are in God that is under the notion of perfections we must so conceive of them as that in all respects they may be perfectly consistent and harmonious as that his Wisdom may not clash with his Goodness nor his Goodness with his Wisdom as that his Mercy may not justle with his Justice nor his Justice with his Mercy that is we must conceive him to be as wise as he can be with infinite goodness as good as he can be with infinite wisdom as just as he can be with infinite mercy and as merciful as he can be with infinite justice which is to be wise and good and just and merciful so far as it is a perfection to be so For to be wise beyond what is good is Craft to be good beyond what is wise is Dotage to be just beyond what is merciful is Rigour to be merciful beyond what is just is Easiness that is they are all imperfection so far as they are beyond what is perfect Wherefore we ought to be very careful not to represent these his Moral perfections as running a tilt at one another but to conceive of them all together as one intire perfection which though like the Center of a Circle it hath many Lines drawn from it round about and so is looked upon sometimes as the term of this Line and sometimes of that yet is but one common and undivided term to them all or to speak more plainly though it exerts it self in different ways and actions and operates diversly according to the diversities of its Objects and accordingly admits of divers Names such as Wisdom Goodness Justice and Mercy yet is in it self but one simple and indivisible principle of action all whose operations how diverse soever are such as perfectly accord with each other whose acts of Wisdom are all infinitely good whose acts of goodness are all infinitely wise whose acts of justice are infinitely merciful and whose acts of mercy are infinitely just so that in this as well as in their extension and degrees they are all most perfect viz. that they always operate with mutual consent and in perfect harmony And while we thus conceive of the divine perfections our minds will be mightily secured against all those false apprehensions of God which lead to superstition and presumption for we shall so apprehend his wisdom and justice as not to be superstitiously afraid and so apprehend his goodness and mercy as not to be presumptuously secure and as on the one hand his Justice will protect his Mercy from being abused by our wanton security so on the other hand his goodness will protect his wisdom from being misrepresented by our anxious suspition For while we consider his mercy thus tempered with his justice and his wisdom with his goodness we can neither expect impunity from the one if we continue wicked nor yet suspect any ill design against us in the other if we return from our evil ways and persevere in well doing SECT III. Of the causes of our mis-apprehensions of God I Now proceed to the last thing I proposed which was to assign and remove the causes of mens misapprehensions of God many of which are so secret and obscure so peculiar to the frame and temper of mens brains so interwoven with the infinite varieties of humane Constitutions that it is very difficult if not impossible to trace them so as to make an exact enumeration of them all and therefore I shall only assign the most common and visible causes by which the generality of men are mislead in their Apprehensions of the divine Nature whinh are reducible to these six Heads First Ignorance of what is the true perfection of our own Nature Secondly Framing our Notions of God according to the model of our own humour and temper Thirdly Obstinate partiality to our own sinful lusts and affections Fourthly Measuring Gods Nature by particular Providences Fifthly Taking up our Notions of God from obscure and particular passages and not from the plain and general current of Scripture Sixthly Indevotion I. ONE great cause of our misapprehensions of God is Ignorance of what is the true perfection of our own Natures For as I shewed before in conceiving of the perfections of God we must take our rise from those perfections we behold in his Creatures and particularly in our own Natures wherein there is a composition of all created perfections so that while we are ignorant of what is the true perfection of our own Natures our thoughts can have no rule or aim whereby to judg of God's That he hath all those perfections in himself which he hath derived to us is the Fundamental Maxim upon which we are to erect our Notions of him and therefore unless we know what those perfections are which he hath derived to us and wherein they consist our mind hath no footing or foundation whereon to raise any certain Idea of him For since we have no other way to conceive of his perfections but by our own how is it possible that while we are ignorant of our own we should ever conceive aright of his This therefore is one great reason why men do so grosly misconceive of God because they have no true Notion of their own perfection by which they are to form their conceptions of his FOR whereas the true perfection of humane nature consists In Moral goodness or an universal compliance of
its Will Affections and Actions with those everlasting Laws of righteousness which right reason prescribes how many are there that look upon this as a very mean and carnal accomplishment and place all their perfection in things of a quite different nature viz. in the Ebbs and Flows of their sensitive passion and the extraordinary Fermentations of their bloud and spirits that is to say in unaccountable dejections and exaltations of mind in vehement impressions of fancy and Mechanical movements of affection in Raptures and Ecstacies and Hypocondriacal incomes and manifestations that have nothing of substantial Vertue or Piety in them nor commonly any other effect but to cause men to renounce that Righteousness which they never had and rely upon that which they have no Title to and to sooth and tickle their fancies and blow them up into glorious opinions of themselves and Triumphant assurances of their being the Darlings and Favourites of God whilst poor Moral men that make conscience of regulating their affections and actions by the eternal Laws of Righteousness are look'd upon by them with a scornful compassion and placed in the lowermost form of sinners at the greatest distance from the Kingdom of God Now when men take such false measures of their own perfection how is it possible they should conceive aright of the perfections of God which they have no other way to conceive of but only by arguing from their own Wherefore in order to the forming our Ideas of Gods perfections it is necessary we should first fix the true Notion of our own which is no hard matter for us to do For our Nature being reasonable to be sure its perfection must consist in willing affecting and acting reasonably or which is the same thing in Governing it self in all its relations and circumstances by those immutable Laws of goodness which right reason prescribes and which are exemplified to us in the holy Scripture and when we have fixt in our minds this Notion of our own perfection it will naturally conduct our thoughts to God's and let us see that his perfection consists not in a lawless and boundless Will that decrees without foresight resolves without reason and Wills because it will and then executes its own blind and unaccountable purposes by dint of irresistible power without any regard to right or wrong For if we rightly understand our own perfection we cannot but discern that such a Will as this is one of the most monstrous deformities in nature because it is the most Diametrically opposite to the true Idea of our own Perfection which while we attentively fix our eyes on we cannot but infer from it that the true perfection of God consists in the unvariable determination of his Will by the all-comprehending reason of his Mind or in chusing and refusing decreeing and executing upon such reasons as best becomes a God to will and act on i. e. upon such as are infinitely wise and good and just and merciful For if to Will and Act upon such reasons as these be the perfection of our nature we cannot but conclude that it is the perfection of Gods too but if we are ignorant of our own perfection we must necessarily think of God at Rovers without any certain aim or rule to square and direct our apprehensions II. ANOTHER cause of our misapprehension of God is our framing our Notions of him according to the Model of our own particular humour and temper For self-love being the most vehement affection of Humane Nature and that upon which all it s other affections are founded there is no one Vice to which we are more universally obnoxious than that of excessive fondness and partiality to our selves which makes us too often dote upon the deformities and even Idolize the Vices of our own temper So that whether our nature be stern sour and imperious or fond easie and indulgent we are apt to admire it as a great perfection merely because it is Ours without measuring it by those eternal reasons which are the Rules of Good and Evil Perfection and Imperfection and then whatever we look upon as a perfection in our selves we naturally attribute to God who is the cause and fountain of all perfection And hence it comes to pass that mens minds have been always tinctured with such false and repugnant opinions of God because they frame their judgments of him not so much by their reason as by their temper and humour and so their different humours being not only unreasonable in themselves but repugnant and contrary to one another produce in them not only false and unreasonable but contrary and repugnant opinions of God Thus for instance the Epicureans who were a soft and voluptuous Sect intirely addicted to ease and pleasure fancied God to be such a one as themselves a Being that was wholly sequestred from action and confined to an Extra-mundane Paradise where he lived in perfect ease and was entertained with infinite Luxuries without ever concerning his thoughts with any thing abroad for this they thought was the top of all perfection and therefore thus they would have chosen to live had they been Gods themselves Thus the Stoicks who were a sort of very morose and inflexible people copied their Notions of God from their own complexion supposing him to be an inflexible Being that was utterly incapable of being moved and affected by the reasons of things but was wholly governed by a stern and inexorable Fate And accordingly the Scythians and Thracians the Gaules and Carthaginians who were a people of a bloudy and Barbarous nature Pictured their Gods from their own temper imagining them to be of a bloud-thirsty nature that delighted to feed their hungry Nostrils with the Nidorous reeks and steams of humane gore Whereas on the contrary the Platonists who were generally of a very soft and amorous nature took their measure of God thereby and so framed an Idea of him that was as soft and amorous as their own complexion composed altogether of loves and smiles and indearments without the least intermixture of vengeance and severity how just soever in it self or necessary to the well-government of the World Thus as the Ethiopians pictured their Gods black because they were black themselves so generally men have been always prone to represent God in the colour of their own complexions which is the cause that they many times represent him so utterly unlike to himself because out of an unreasonable partiality to themselves they first mistake the deformities of their own natures for perfections and then Deifie them them into Divine Attributes Thou thoughtest saith God that I was altogether such a one as thy self Psal. 50.21 that is thou didst frame thy conceptions of me according to the Pattern of thy own ill-nature and so thoughtest basely and unworthily of me And hence I doubt not spring most of those misapprehensions of God which have been received among Christians For how is it possible for any man that is not of