all other natural Motions being swiftest when 't is nearest it's Center For so Plato hath observ'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When Men are near Death or suppose themselves near it there arises in them great Fear and Thoughtfulness of a future State which before they never thought of And that this springs not from Superstition but from Nature is evident by this that Atheists themselves who are most remote from Superstition when they come to die are rarely able to suppress this ominous Dread and Fear of another World but in despight of themselves are forced into those dismal Expectations which before they laughed at A clear Demonstration that these ill Abodings spring from something within them that they cannot conquer and that what their Minds now speak is not so much the Sense of their Opinion as their Nature And this Language of Nature is a clear Expression of God's Love of Righteousness for the Voice of Nature is only the Voice of the God of Nature ecchoed and rebounded and to be sure whatever he imprints upon our Natures is the Sense and Meaning of his own Heart since his Veracity will not permit him to print any Falshood there And since by these our natural Abodings the God of Nature proposes to us a future Reward if we are righteous and a future Punishment if we are wicked he hath hereby as certainly declared to us how much he loves Righteousness and hates the Contrary as he can possibly do by the most express Promise which he hath made to reward the one or Threatning to punish the other And thus you see what natural Indications and Discoveries God hath made of his unfeigned Love of Righteousness which are such as without any additional Revelation are sufficient to convince considering Men that God is a most sincere and affectionate Lover of Righteousness and righteous Men and that if we will but unfeignedly submit our selves to the eternal Laws of Goodness we shall thereby make our selves the best Friend who is a never-failing Fountain of Goodness and who will do us more good than all the Beings in the World should they conspire to be our Benefactors and that on the Contrary if we persist in Sin and Unrighteousness we shall most certainly provoke him to be our mortal Enemy and render our selves eternally odious and hateful in his Eyes that his incensed Wrath will sooner or later break forth upon us and prosecute us with eternal Vengeance and that we can expect nothing but black and dismal Issues while we are hated by him who is the Fountain of all Love and Goodness All this we may be sufficiently convinced of by seriously attending to those natural Discoveries which God hath made of his Love of Righteousness But yet because he saw Mankind so unattentive to the Voice of their Natures so unobservant of it's Language and Meaning as to run headlong on notwithstanding all it's Countermands into the greatest Impiety and Wickedness he hath been graciously pleased to add to these natural Discoveries of his Love of Righteousness sundry great and eminent supernatural ones such as one would think were sufficient to rouze and awake the most stupid and insensible Creatures into a serious Attention to them all which are reducible to these following Heads 1. His conferring such great and miraculous Favours upon righteous Persons and inflicting such severe Judgments on the Wicked 2. His making so many Revelations to the World for the promoting of Righteousness and discountenancing of Sin 3. His sending his own Son into the World to transact such mighty Things for the Incouragement of Righteousness and discouragement of Sin 4. His promising such vast Rewards to us upon Condition of our being righteous and denouncing such fearful Punishments against us in Case we do neglect it 5. His grantaing his blessed Spirit to us to excite us to and assist us in our Endeavours after Righteousness 1. One supernatural Expression of God's Love of Righteousness is his conferring great and miraculous Favours upon righteous Persons and inflicting severe Judgments upon the Wicked And of this we have infinite Instances in the several Ages of the World there being scarce any History either sacred or prophane which abounds not with them several of which both Blessings and Judgments do as plainly evince themselves to be intended for Rewards and Punishments as if they had been attended with a Voice from Heaven declaring the Reasons for which they were bestowed and inflicted For how many famous Instances have we of the 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 happened to them not only without but contrary to all secondary Causes Of some that have been so eminently rewarded in Kind as that the Good which they received was a most visible token of the Good which they did of others that have received the Blessings they ask'd whilst they were praying for them and obtained the Grant of them with such distinguishing Circumstances as did plainly signify them to be the Answers and Returns of their devout Desires 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 all secondary Causes or else have been caused by them contrary to their natural Tendency 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 punished with those very Judgments which they have imprecated on themselves in Justification of a Falshood Now though in the ordinary Course of Things that of the Wise Man is most true that we know neither love nor hatred by any thing that is before us because ordinarily all things come alike to all and there is one Event to the Righteous and the Wicked Eccles. ix 1 2. yet when the Providence of God so visibly steps out of it's ordinary Course to bless the Righteous and punish the Wicked it is a plain Indication of his Love to the one and his Hatred to the other For these irregular Providences have plain and visible Tokens of God's Love and Anger imprinted on their Foreheads and it would be Stupidity to attribute them either to a blind Chance or the necessary Revolutions of secondary Causes when they are stamp'd with such legible Characters of their being designed and intended for Rewards and Punishments For if these were either casual or necessary why should they not happen alike to all as well as ordinary Providences Why should not there be as many Examples of the miraculous Blessings and Deliverances of the Vnrighteous as there are of the Righteous Why should not as many Men have suffered as remarkably the Evils which they have imprinted on themselves in attesting the
place having obtained eternal Redemption for us And in Virtue of this Blood which he poured out as a Sacrifice of our Sins upon the Cross he now pleads our Cause at the right Hand of his Father and ever lives to make Intercession for us So that you see the Death of Christ had in it all the necessary Ingredients of a propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the World and having so what a prodigious Instance is it of the Love of God to us that rather than destroy us he would give up his own Son to be a Sacrifice for us I do not deny but if he had pleased he might have pardoned and saved us without any Sacrifice at all but he knew very well that if he should do so it would be much worse for us He knew that if he should pardon our Sins without giving us some great Instance of his implacable Hatred of them we should be too prone to presume upon his Lenity and thereupon to return again to our old Vomit and Uncleanness and therefore though it would have been more for the Ease and Interest of his blessed Son to have pardoned us without any Sacrifice at all yet such was his Love to us that because he foresaw that this Way of pardoning would prove fatal and dangerous to us he was resolved that he would not do it without being moved thereunto by the greatest Sacrifice the World could afford him and that no less a Propitiation should appease his Wrath against Offenders than the Blood of his own Son that so by beholding his Severity against our Sins in this unvaluable Sacrifice of the Blood of his Son we might be sufficiently terrified from returning again to them by the very same Reason that moved him to pardon them that we might not think light of that which God would not forgive without such a vast Consideration but might tremble to think of repeating those Sins the Price of whose Pardon was the dearest Blood of the Son of God Hence is that of the Apostle Rom. iii. 25 26. whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his Blood to declare his Righteousness that is his righteous Severity against Sin for the remission of Sins that are past through the forbearance of God to declare I say at this time his Righteousness that he might be just that is sufficiently severe against the Sins of Men so as to warn them from returning and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus So that now he hath reduced Things to an excellent Temper having so provided that neither himself nor we might be damnified that we might not suffer by our doing again what we have done and that he might not suffer by our doing still the same that he might be what he is a pure and a holy Saviour and that we might be what we ought dutiful and obedient Subjects Now what an amazing Instance of God's Love is this that he should so far consult the good of his Creatures as to Sacrifice his own Son to their Benefit and Safety How inexpressibly must he needs love us that for our sakes could behold his most dearly beloved Son hanging on the Cross covered with Wounds and Blood forsaken by his Friends despised and spit on by his Barbarous Enemies that could hear him complain in the Bitterness of his Soul My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And yet suffer him to continue under that unsufferable Agony till he had given up his white and innocent Soul an unspotted Sacrifice for the Sins of the World Yea that notwithstanding the infinite Love that he bore him and the piteous Moans that his Torments forced from him was so far from relieving him that for our sakes he inflicted upon him the utmost Misery that human Nature could bear that so having an experimental Sense of the most grievous Suffering that Mankind is liable to and being touched with the utmost Feeling of our Infirmities and in all Points tempted like unto us he might carry a more tender Commiseration for us to Heaven and know the better how to pity us in all our Griefs and Extremities For in all things it behoved him saith the Apostle to be made like unto his Brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest Heb. ii 17 Hear O Heavens and give Ear O Earth and let all the Creation attend with Astonishment to this stupendous Story of Love which so far exceeds all the heroick Kindnesses that ever any Romance of Friendship thought of that no less Evidence than that of Miracles could have ever rendred it credible Well then might the Apostle say herein is love not that we loved God for after such vast Obligations this is no great Wonder but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our Sins 1 Joh. iv 10 And thus you see what an unspeakable Instance of the Love of God his giving his only begotten Son is I shall now conclude this Argument with a few practical Inferences from the whole 1. From hence I infer what monstrous Ingratitude it would be in us to deny any Thing to God that he demands at our Hands who hath been so liberal to us as to give up his only begotten Son for our sakes O blessed God! If it were possible for us to do or suffer for thee a thousand Times more than at present we are able what a poor Return were this for the Gift of thy Son that unspeakable Expression of thy Goodness And can we deny thee any Thing after such an Instance of Love especially when thy Demands are so gentle and reasonable When he requires nothing of us but what is for our good and the Requital he demands for all his Love to us is only that we should love our selves and express this Love in doing those Duties which he therefore enjoyns because they tend to our Happiness and avoiding those Sins which he therefore forbids because he knows they will be our Bane and Poyson Can any of my Lusts be as dear to me as the only begotten Son was to the Father of all things And yet he parted with him out of Love to me and shall not I part with these for the Love of him How can we pretend to any Thing that is modest or ingenuous tender or apprehensive in humane Nature when nothing will oblige us no not this astonishing Love of God in sending his Son from Heaven to live and die Miserably for our sakes Lord What do thy holy Angels think of us How do thy blessed Saints resent our Unkindness towards thee Yea how justly do the Devils themselves reproach and upbraid our Baseness who bad as they are were never so much Devils yet as to make an ungrateful Return of such a vast Obligation 2 ly From hence I infer how desperate our Condition will be if we defeat the End of this Gift of the Son of God and render it ineffectual to us For God hath no
Porphery tells us that the first Rise of the Sacrifice of Animals was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 certain Occasions requiring that a Soul should be offered up for a Soul that is the Life of a Beast for the Life of a Man for it was the constant Opinion that the more worthy the Sacrifice which they offered the more effectual it was to appease their offended Divinities And hence in many Places the ordinary Sacrifice of Attonement which they offered was the Lives of Men and though this indeed was most used in the most barbarous Countries yet in Cases of great Danger and Extremity the Greeks and Romans themselves did frequently Sacrifice humane Lives to their Gods for so it is recorded of the Romans that when their City was in great Danger of being taken by Hanibal they sacrificed a Man to their Tutelar God And Servius tells us of the Massilians that in Time of Pestilence one of the poorer sort was wont to offer himself to be sacrificed for the whole City who being for a whole Year nourished with the purest Meat was then led about the City adorned with sacred Vestments and Cathartick Herbs the People following him making solemn Execrations that the Plague might be removed from the City and fall upon his Head which done they offered him up in a Sacrifice And in other Places they offered up pure Virgins of the noblest Families to propitiate their angry Gods and elsewhere as Servius tells us they were wont to cast a Man into the Sea with this Imprecation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is be thou our Purgament or Redemption So also it is said of the Athenians that they maintained some of the most unprofitable and ignoble of their People that so when any great Calamity befell the City they might offer them up in Sacrifice to appease their Gods And that Passage of Caesar concerning the Gallic Nation is very observable that in Cases of great Danger and Calamity they either devoted themselves to the Altar or else offered up some Man in their Stead quod pro vita hominis nisi hominis vita reddatur non posse Deorum immortalium Numen placari arbitrantur that is thinking that the immortal God's would never be appeased unless they offered up to them the Life of a Man for the Life of a Man All which is an Evidence that they not only thought Sacrifices necessary to appease God but that they also believed the better the Sacrifice was the more effectually it did appease him Nor did they think it less necessary that there should be some Intercessor between them and the Supream Divinity to Solicite their Cause and render Sin propitious to their Desires And hence it was the general Doctrin of their Divines that 't was great Prophaneness for any thing that was earthly and sinful immediately to approach that Pure and Divine Being but that the Demons were to be the Mediators and Agents between him and mortal Men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plato in his Sympos expresses it that is God is not approached by Men but all the Commerse and Intercourse between him and us is performed by the Mediation of Demons So that howsoever they came by this Principle it is apparent that they generally believed both Sacrifices and a Mediator to be necessary Means to reconcile them to God and that without these they could not satisfy themselves that God would be propitious to them no not upon their Repentance and Reformation Some good Hopes they might have and it is apparent they had from the Goodness and Benignity of the Divine Nature that if they forsook their Sins God would not be inexorable to them at least they could not tell but they might find Mercy but yet they durst not absolutely trust to this without devoting some other to suffer in their Stead and engaging some other to intercede in their Behalf And therefore we see that when the King of Nineveh upon Jonah's Preaching obliged his People to Fasting and Repentance the utmost Encouragement he could give them was only this Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not Jonah iii. 9 Wherefore to give us the highest Assurance of Pardon if we repent God hath been so infinitely good to us as to choose that very Method of reconciling us to himself which we had chalked out to him and to meet with us in our own Way thereby to give us a fuller Assurance of his most gracious and merciful Intentions to us for how could he have better satisfied the Anxiousness and Jealousy of our guilty Minds than in granting us our Pardon in that very Way wherein we did so universally hope for and expect it Good God! How indulgent hast thou been to thy poor Creatures that wast not only so ready to pardon them upon their Repentance but so careful to give them the most effectual Assurance of it that so thou might'st remove all discouragements out of the Way to our Amendment and Happiness For doubtless the Reason why he took this Way of Pardoning us more than another was not only because it was best in it self and most for the Interest of his own Government but also because of all others it was the most effectual to satisfy our guilty Fears and assure us of his merciful Intentions to receive us into Favour again upon our Repentance and Amendment For when Mankind were so unanimously agreed in this Belief that without a Sacrifice and a Mediator he would not be appeased how could he more effectually have convinced our Mistrust of his Mercy than by sending his own Son to be our Sacrifice and Mediator to die for our Sins upon Earth and intercede for our Pardon in Heaven So that if now we will heartily repent of our Sins and forsake them we have all the security of Mercy that we can desire our God being attoned by the noblest Sacrifice that ever was and interceded with on our Behalf by the most powerful and prevailing Mediator Having therefore such an High Priest over the House of God we may safely draw near with a true Heart in full assurance of Faith as the Apostle expresses it Heb. x. 21 22. Thus you see how good and gracious God hath been to us in the Way and Method which he hath prescribed of pardoning our Sins and releasing us from the obligation of Punishment for ever which is so wise and good and every way God-like that I think had I no other Reason to believe the Christian Religion but only this wondrous Contrivance of pardoning Sinners revealed in the Gospel this would have been enough to persuade me that none but a God could be the Author and Contriver of it And now I shall conclude this Argument with a few Inferences 1. From hence I infer what a very great Evil Sin is seeing it is such an Evil as binds us over to perish for ever and such as nothing can make Expiation for but only
see those fare well whom we have seen deserve well and when any unjust Violence is offered them our Nature shrinks at and abhors it We pity and compassionate the Miserable when we know not why and are ready to offer at their Relief when we can give no Reason for it which is a plain Evidence that these Things proceed not merely either from our Education or deliberate Choices but from some natural Instinct antecedent to both and that in the very Frame of our Nature there is implanted by the Author of it a Sympathy with Virtue and an Antipathy to Vice And hence it is that in the Beginnings of Sin our Nature is so shy of an evil Action and doth so startle and boggle at it that it approaches it with such a modest Coyness and goes blushing to it like a Virgin to an Adulterers Bed that it passes into Sin with such Regret and Reluctancy and looks back upon it with such Shame and Confusion which in our tender Years when we are not as yet arrived to the Exercise of our Understandings cannot be supposed to proceed from Reason or Conscience but from some secret Instinct of Nature which by these and such like Indications declares it self violated and offended And this plainly shews the mighty Respect that God hath to Righteousness that he hath woven into our Beings such a grateful Sense of it and such a Horror of its Contraries For this natural Sense was doubtless intended by God to be the first Guide of humane Nature that so when as yet 't is not capable of following Reason and Conscience it might be led on to Righteousness by its own necessary Instincts that these might dispose us to our Duty and keep us out of all wicked Prejudices till we come under the Conduct of our Reason that so this may then lead us forward with more Ease and Facility in the Paths of Righteousness What a plain Indication therefore is this of God's Love of Righteousness that he hath taken so much Care to incline our Natures to it that he hath not only given us reasonable Faculties that do naturally direct us to Righteousness but hath also taken so much Care to lead us to it by Instinct till we are grown up to the Exercise of those Faculties and are capable of being guided by them 3 ly Another Indication of God's Love of Righteousness is his coupling good Effects to righteous Actions and bad ones to their Contraries For if we consult the Consequents of humane Actions we shall generally find that all moral Good resolves into natural in the Health and the Pleasure the Credit and Tranquility of those that practise it For so the first Great Mover in that Course and Series of Things which he hath established in the World hath ordered and disposed it that every Action which is morally Good should ordinarily tend to and determine in some natural Benefit and Advantage that the good Government of every Passion should tend to the Tranquility of our Minds and the due Regulation of every Appetite center in the Health and Pleasure of our Bodies that Abstinence and Humility Honesty and Charity should have happy Effects chained to them that they should contribute to our Good both private and publick and that their contrary Vices should be always pregnant with some mischievous Inconvenience that they should either untune the Organs of our Reason or impair the Vigour and Activity of our Tempers or imbroil the Peace and Tranquility of our Minds or invade the Common-weal of Societies which includes the Interest of each particular Member Such contrary Effects as these are as necessary to vertuous and vicious Actions in that Course of Things which God hath established as Light is to the Sun or Heat to the Fire by which he hath plainly demonstrated how contrarily he is affected to those contrary Causes For by those natural Goods and Evils which are appendent to humane Actions he hath plainly distinguished them into moral Goods and Evils and those good and bad Effects which he hath annexed to them are most sensible Marks of his Love of the one and his Hatred of the other For to be sure he would never have made Righteousness the Cause of so much good to us if he had not loved it nor Wickedness the Spring of so many Mischiefs and Inconveniences if he had not hated and abhorred it The Effects of Righteousness are ordinarily a Reward and the Consequents of Sin a Punishment to it self and this by God's own Order and Disposal and pray by what Significations can a Law-giver more effectually declare his Love and Hatred of Actions than by rewarding and punishing them 4 thly And lastly Another Indication of God's Love of Righteousness is the natural Presages and Abodings which he hath implanted in our Natures of the future Reward of righteous Actions and the future Punishment of their Contraries That there are such Abodings as these in humane Nature is apparent by this that antecedently to all divine Revelation Men of all Ages Nations and Religions have felt and experienced them yea and that it hath been experienced not only among the politer and more learned Nations who may be supposed to be persuaded of a future State by the probable Arguments of Philosophy but also among the most barbarous and uncultivated who cannot be supposed to have believed it upon Principles of Reason For though some of them have been so rude as to disband Society and live like Beasts without Laws and Government yet have they not been able to extinguish these their natural Hopes and Fears of future Rewards and Puishments which is an unanswerable Evidence how deeply the Sense of another World is imprinted upon humane Nature And as we have such a natural Sense of a future State as we cannot easily stifle so our Minds do naturally abode that we shall fare well or ill in it according as we behave our selves righteously or unrighteously in this Life When we do well and reflect upon it it leaves a delicious Farwel on our Minds our Conscience smiles and promises glorious Things that we shall reap from it most happy and blessed Fruits in the other World And as the Sense of doing well doth naturally suggest to us the most ravishing Hopes and blisful Expectations so the sense of doing ill fills our Minds with sad and dire Presages our Conscience abodes us a black and woful Eternity wherein we shall dearly pay for our sinful Delights and Gratifications And though for the present we can divert and stifle this troublesome sense of our Natures yet Naturam expellas is true in this also though we thrust off Nature with a Fork yet 't will return again upon us and a Fit of Sickness a sudden Calamity or a serious Thought will soon awake and revive in it these black Prognosticks of our future Torment And hence we generally find that bad Men are most afraid of Eternity when they are nearest to it their Fear like