pure and those we have also of our own Souls whose due perfection and accomplishment is a participation of the divine Nature or likeness and therefore from the correlation between God and the Soul flows that pertinacious exaction of the Soul from it self that it be good and holy that it may have peace with God But because the Soul finds so much disorder and contrariety in it self to that awful Law so many transgressions against it that cannot be undone it can have no rest here but needs something that may countervail that guilt within it There can be none so convenient so great and potent as the pardoning mercy of God in Jesus Christ who by his obedience to death in our Nature carries up the supreme forgiveness of God Yet this not exhausting that Principle and perswasion of the Soul that it must be inwardly good it is most necessary the Doctrine of pardon by a Saviour should be filled with a spirit and influence of Holiness that this grace may not seem prostituted as an indulgence to sin Thus the foundations of our peace stand upon the free Grace of God and sincerity of Holiness as an evidence we are within the compass of that Grace To assure which the very same Spirit of Holiness alone able to diffuse the comforts of this peace comes in and anoints the Soul with the Joy of it till it enters into the full possessions of Salvation which is the final acquittal from evil Evil may in the mean time be used for chastisement and higher inticement to Holiness but loses its sting when that Justice that armed it is satisfied Thus a man acting upon the Principles of his own mind when he finds himself oppressed with evil is led into the Doctrine of Christianity for observing the hand-writing upon himself he reads God the Author of affliction hence flows the sense of sin since God afflicts not without cause sense of sin and the displeasure of God upon it makes it necessary to inquire after the Doctrine of pardon and repentance These are no where in their Oriency but in the Gospel of Jesus Christ The Doctrine of pardon and peace carry a man into expectations of good from God This being not found here the Soul is sent to the promises of Eternal life made known and brought to light by Christ These give joy in tribulations and hope of the Glory of God This crowns the Soul and sets it triumphant over all evil in the world Less then this can give us no true sense or construction of the great miseries of our condition nor with reason cluck us out of them into so much as the discourse of lasting rest and safety The Soul of man so busie as it is first to inquire the reasons of its unhappiness then to find the remedies of it hath great advantage of accepting that truth which tells it all that is within it concerning these things and explains them so far that it finds it self at the very utmost ends of these wonders and to have as much made known of them as is to be known Thus out of the eater comes forth meat and sweetness out of evil considered by the mind of man either acting its own reason and securing it self the best it can against what it cannot remove or turning it self upon those Principles ingraffed within it that lead it to the source and Antidotes of misery Both which convey it to the Discipline of Jesus Christ as the true relief of humane condition and its infelicity CHAP. XIII Of the more direct operations of Judgments towards Reformation wherein first of the efficacy they have in confining Sensuality and setting free Conscience and its proper Motions LEt us now approach the considerations of the more immediate powers of Judgment 1. They give a notable rebuke and abatement to sense and the sensual temper Judgments trouble all the air sensuality hath to breathe in and make it dark they pour out their vial upon its Sun and a night ensues so that it every where meets terrour and disappointment which bring it low and enfeeble it Now this is that sensuality that over-grows at once the proper motions of a Soul and Conscience and that spiritual world with which the converses of a spirit most properly lye When this is wind-bound and brought to an ebb either through the hand of God upon the body the primary seat of it or those external objects that feed and minister to it immediately the mind that lay in a swoon and oppressed emerges and rises up It hath its opportunity and uses its freedom through the great clefts and rents the strokes of God make in this vail and cloud the Soul espies the spiritual world the shadow of the material one removing off by reason of these commotions caused by Judgments The great accounts of mans sin and impenitency lye in the deep plunges and immersions of his Soul into sense and sensual things wherein he grows immoderate above the beasts through the vigours of an immaterial and immortal Spirit dissevered from its true objects and natural motions and carried down this stream From whence retaining all its own force but misguided it grows extreamly foul while it at once neglects heavenly and spiritual things for which it was made boldly transgresses all rules of goodness and cuts its way through every thing to its impure satisfactions The light that is true and pure is kept from all approach to it and its own native exercise is suppressed whence it comes to pass that God and Eternal things are covered from it and as it were wholly blotted out it lives in the unclean pleasures of the body which have all the influence and sway upon it But awakened by the Judgments of God the Soul inquires after its own world and meets it every where God having graciously disseminated it into every thing within it and without it even as the open eye in the day time greets the light where ever it goes That great deal of sensual noise and business being made to cease the false light being put out and the windows out of which lust looks dammed up the Soul hath nothing else to do it finds leisure then to do like it self and is even provoked to it by its own force carrying it always upon action and when it is taken off from that to which it is only inclaved it returns upon its proper motion when the noises of Chariots and their jumping wheels the sounds of musick the light of candles as in the overthrow of Cities are removed in that stilness Conscience is heard in that silence of foolish fires purer rays shine upon the Soul For the beams of truth and the distinct voice of it fall every where were there but an eye and ear to receive and take them in On the other side the capacities of the Soul are always fitted to them and were they not importuned and incumbred by other things they would be continually opening to and earnestly expecting
with it self in its ordinary agencies or the interpositions of one thing with another so that the efficiencies of it are remitted or intended to the detriment of some others and which are to a considerable degree of satisfaction known to those that industriously search Nature Yet in truth these evils we call natural are rather the errours and defects the cruelties and unkindnesses of it then the true intentions and just motions of it if it be that universal mother and soft bosom of all things And therefore it is worthy inquiry how it comes to be an adversary to it self for it would have minded in all things the perfection of it self in the whole and every particular if there had not been a feud raised by the Author of it in revenge of sin and enmity infused into one thing against another It will be hard to give any account of these destructive acts of Nature so easie to our thoughts as this of God displeased with sins and punishing transgressors by them That which may give some relief to the enemies of Providence herein viz. That the good of the Universe is secured by the disadvantage of particulars on which occasion we see in all things Nature yields ground from it self shall be considered in a distinct place Answ 3 To him that believes Scripture it is undoubted the Judgments of God have often set Nature into a higher Orbe of motion then its own at other times stupified it taken it off its wheels and laid it lower then it self He hath turned and even chased it hither and thither out of its own path and as it were amazed it with its unlikeness to it self and how often he doth so still though not in such an eminency we may without discredit to the knowingness of any Age call in question whether there be so much either natural or political knowledge as is necessary to make a certain state of the case Famines and Pestilences wholly out of the road of Nature a Deluge of water and storm of Fire that if it had been left to it self had been utterly unknown Invasions Captivations and Slaughters that had not God animated had lain still to this day These things are indeed preserved in Sacred Records as is most reasonable and the memory of them laid up in the Temple yet the power that patrated them is not without witness in common story Object 2 It is observed these calamities befalling Nations light so indifferently upon all times and places that they seem not at all to chuse them or to have any conduct particularly to them and therefore they are a meer chance that happeneth to all alike or Nature turning it self about in its own circle else the worst times and places would be singled out Answ 1 It hath been already noted that the greatest ruines and vastations have by the observation of those that have delivered over the memory of them to after-times been assigned to the wickedness and impieties then raging who have therefore concluded the Justice of God prepared those destructions for them as so corrupted and guilty But in Scripture it is so evident that we never read of any Judgment foretold or in the execution but the sins that demerited are signified with it In that progress or general visitation Amos foretold it is still inserted For three transgressions and four Answ 2 Besides the sins that are in the way of every observation in those times or Nations upon which Judgments come it is easily acknowledgable that many sins are of a more secret and retired nature as being concealed in those deep vaults that wickedness seeks for it self Achans wedge troubled that time as well with the unknownness of the cause of such an overthrow as with the thing it self These retirements of sin all-seeing Justice espies Many that are not own'd for evil through darkness and errour of conscience as the Heathen Idolatries Persecutions the Jews Crucifixion of Christ which he that understands his own Holiness Laws and sins committed against them so exactly cannot pass by Lastly sins that are out-dated to any but the Eternal Righteousness to which all things are present and therefore it requires that which is past to us and entails the punishment with the guilt of former times upon impenitent posterity The Famine in Davids time revenged the cruelties of Saul dead and did not remove till the sin spread upon the whole by connivence was gathered into his Family and punished there By which we may understand God sees the secret veins of guilt upon which his Righteousness falls which only he knows before whom Hell is naked and destruction hath no covering Answ 3 If any would in the general challenge God of injustice and male-administration or no administration because he doth not always remark the worst times but transfers his Judgments out of those in which the sins were committed into others which they think is to misplace them or lastly because secret and particular sins draw misery on the Publick which they conceive distant from that so even Righteousness of God who will not set the Childrens teeth on edge because the Fathers have eaten sowre Grapes nor strike an innocent person because a guilty one whose offence too he knows not stands by him let them consider There are no times places or persons so innocent as to make them an argument For there are several ways by which sins derive and propagate themselves and so justifie the translation of punishments which supposed as it must be the Dominion the great Ruler of the world hath before him vindicates him from imputations of wrong even while he laughs at the tryal of the seeming or comparative innocent or without any reason accountable to us singles out this or that Age of a world always guilty and liable to his Justice and makes it chronicular and exemplary for the punishments of sin upon it Is it fit to say to a King Thou art wicked or to Princes Ye are ungodly how much less to him that accepteth not their persons though never so great but striketh them openly in the sight of others Ignorant people afford a blindfold compassion to all they find in the hand of humane Justice and those that appear wiser are touched with the same weakness if their crimes are not as plain as they would have them not considering those reasons Justice and Government together inforce upon the powers that have so adjudged them and are therefore bold to reproach them with want of righteousness and mercy greater folly and presumption do they betray who impeach him whose goodness and mercy being equal with his strength and Soveraignty are all infinite yet not to be measured by Rules proper to finity even as his Eternity can be comprehended by no standards of time to whom a thousand years of so great account with us are but as one day and lastly that light he dwells in so inaccessible that searching all things it oppresses audacious inquiries into it self From whence
is beset with present inconveniences especially since our Fall which deters the simple and on the other side the entertainments of folly and sin have the sweetness of stollen waters the inticement of Fools but both these are counterballanced by the after and lasting rewards or punishments These things that are first proper to persons considered singly spread as men themselves do and combine upon Nations and Communities For that Justice we speak of is not only as distinct as every man is to himself but as large and general as the whole world that Bodies of men may be awed with the same reasons that seem to have greater place upon particulars and be either prosperous and spend their days in pleasure or calamitous and traveling always with pain according to their conformities with the Laws of righteousness or prevarication from them Let this then be reduced to the present purpose Justice always intent upon its high administration observes the sins of men passes sentence upon them and is ready to execute it The sentence upon sin is the intire sum of pain and misery rolled up in that one commination of dying the death the proportions instruments and seasons are chosen by that highest wisdom that guides the dispensation of Justice and the residue laid up in store for the last Judgment when the wicked shall be turned into Hell and the Nations that forget God From hence it is that Judgments the great vehicles of pain to the world move up and down in it by the appointment of Justice to enforce transgressors to receive that pain which is the demerit of their sin in which else they would disclaim their right and to compel the Kingdoms of the Earth to drink certainly the Wine-cup of fury however unwilling they are to it because it duly appertains to them These things are so close to mans Soul that punishment is the next expectation after an offence and if it be delayed men are ready to cry out Where is Justice as if it were in a slumber How reasonable is this account then of Judgments that there may be a due execution of Justice In this Reason lye the seeds of these sequent Reasons of Judgments 1. That there may be a sense of Justice preserved in the world as an admonition against sin For these inflictions are evident as matters of fact and countersway the present pleasure of sin for a season by after-pains 2. That there may be an expiation of the world for satisfaction for the present given to Justice for sin is a purgation pro tempore 3. That men may have assurances of Judgment to come seeing such a thing as rendring vengeance that is not perfect leads to that is absolute 4. That God may change times and seasons in his Government of the world for pain unpins and forces the state of things asunder 5. To reform men by shewing their folly in shaping their course to the Country of pain and dolors that they might find pleasure From this general consideration let us pass to the particular reasons of Judgments of which we proceed to speak in order CHAP. VII The first Reason The importance to the World that a Justice over it be understood Reas 1 THat there may be the sense of a Justice preserved in the thoughts of men For the daily evils that fall out though they are the effects of it yet being of a sâ—fter temper and to be compounded with are not so eogent Arguments but easily attributable to the common course of things These are so still in view and carried so temperately with the progress of natural causes that notwithstanding them Solomon observes Sentence is not speedily executed upon wicked works nor will men who do not curiously inquire know by them whether there be a Justice over the world or not and therefore still the hearts of the Sons of men are set in them to do evil For this cause God erects such pillars of salt in the world as Judgments and they stand not only for the admonition of the just present but they project their instructions upon succession even that which is most quiet and secure The Apostle Peter observes the great monuments of Judgments were raised to that stupendious height betimes that they might over-look all decurrent Ages and be seen by the last and lowest of the world that there might be none without such cautions of the Righteousness of God Their kind too was extraordinary from Heaven immediately that the Argument might be more undeniable and the impression stronger But how much the apprehension of such a waking Eye upon all the ways of men and the administrations of States and Kingdoms is both to the glory of God the good Government of the world the Interest of man may without difficulty be understood For as the Apostle expressing God in a jealousie of the honour of his Goodness says he left not himself without witness but ingaged the acts of mercy in giving fruitful times and seasons So in like manner do the distributions of his Justice give testimony to him that he judgeth in the Earth so that all the inferences of Righteousness that are most naturally to be derived from so high a consideration may fall with greatest force upon the minds of men For as Judgments being abroad are prevalent preachers of it so those that have been heretofore being past yet speak And the treasure of that Justice and Power in God that inflicts them is an unmoveable perswasion that no change falls upon and which indeed carries a constant force without which those that are past would have soon been exhausted and spent and those that are present included within themselves Take away the sense of a Justice and all rules of goodness are chilled into honest notions and moral speculations without any sting Laws grow feeble and have only a precarious authority And if the Justice be only humane the Sphere is so narrow and restrained that great wickednesses are committed out of its Jurisdiction and cognisance But Justice and that Divine commands and threatens with all highest confidence and nothing can find exemption from it laying strongest warnings upon men lâ—st they sin and giving greatest motives to repentance after the commissions spanning all reasons for prevention and removal of evil Now there are no arguments of a Justice so cogent as those it self gives which like things of sense find least dispute when they are resident by their own motion upon their proper subjects For as the objects of sense are to sense so are these strokes of the hand of God to the conscience all fineness of conceit and tricks of wit will not elude the strength of things themselves taking place upon sense though they should have inveigled the fancy at a distance from them yet the first approach melts the vapour yea though the Judgment should have been reasoned into a confidence and undertaken to give an Apathy as the Stoick to his wise man yet is it not of proof to