such a Property that it was capable of receiving it This Capacity is from the nature of the Metal by God's Creation of it but the carving the Figure of this or that Man is not the Act of God but the Act of Man As Images in Scripture are called the Work of mens hands in regard of the imagery though the Matter Wood or Stone upon which the Image was carv'd was a Work of God's Creative Power When an Artificer frames an excellent Instrument and a Musician exactly tunes it and it comes out of their hands without a blemish but capable to be untun'd by some rude hand or receive a crack by a suddain fall if it meet with a Disaster is either the Workman or Musician to be blam'd The ruin of a House caused by the wastfulness or carelesness of the Tenant is not to be imputed to the Workman that built it strong and left it in a good Posture 2. Proposition God's Holiness is not blemisht by enjoyning Man a Law which he knew he would not observe 1. The Law as not above his strength Had the Law been impossible to be observed no Crime could have been imputed to the Subject the fault had layn wholly upon the Governour the Non-observance of it had been from a want of strength and not from a want of will Had God commanded Adam to fly up to the Sun when he had not given him Wings Adam might have a will to obey it but his Power would be too short to perform it But the Law set him for a Rule had nothing of impossibility in it it was easie to be observed the Command was rather below than above his strength and the sanction of it was more apt to restrain and fear him from the breach of it than encourage any daring Attempts against it He had as much power or rather more to conform to it than to warp from it and greater arguments and interest to be observant of it than to violate it his All was secured by the one and his Ruin ascertained by the other * 1 Joh. 5.3 The Commands of God are not grievous from the first to the last Command there is nothing impossible nothing hard to the original and created Nature of Man which were all summ'd up in a love to God which was the pleasure and delight of Man as well as his Duty if he had not by inconsiderateness neglected the dictates and resolves of his own Understanding The Law was suted to the strength of Man and fitted for the Improvement and Perfection of his Nature In which respect the Apostle calls it good as it refers to Man as well as holy as it refers to God †Rom. 7.12 Now since God Created man a Creature capable to be governed by a Law and as a Rational Creature endued with Understanding and Will not to be govern'd according to his Nature without a Law was it congruous to the Wisdom of God to respect only the future state of Man which from the Depth of his Infinite Knowledge he did infallibly foresee would be miserable by the wilful defection of Man from the Rule Had it been agreeable to the Wisdom of God to respect only this future state and not the present state of the Creature and therefore leave him lawless because he knew he would violate the Law Should God forbear to act like a wise Governour because he foresaw that Man would cease to act like an obedient Subject Shall a righteous Magistrate forbear to make just and good Laws because he foresees either from the dispositions of his Subjects their ill humour or some Circumstances which will intervene that Multitudes of them will incline to break those Laws and fall under the Penalty of them No blame can be upon that Magistrate who minds the Rule of Righteousness and the necessary Duty of his Government since he is not the Cause of those turbulent Affections in Men which he wisely foresees will rise up against his just Edicts 2. Though the Law now be above the strength of man yet is not the holiness of God blemisht by keeping it up 'T is true God hath been graciously pleased to mitigate the severity and rigour of the Law by the entrance of the Gospel yet where men refuse the terms of the Gospel they continue themselves under the Condemnation of the Law and are justly guilty of the breach of it though they have no strength to observe it The Law as I said before was not above mans strength when he was possessed of Original Righteousness though it be above mans strength since he was stript of Original Righteousness The Command was dated before man had contracted his Impotency when he had a power to keep it as well as to break it Had it been enjoyned to man only after the fall and not before he might have had a better pretence to excuse himself because of the impossibility of it yet he would not have had sufficient excuse since the impossibility did not result from the Nature of the Law but from the corrupted Nature of the Creature It was weak through the Flesh Rom. 8.3 but it was promulg'd when man had a strength proportion'd to the Commands of it And now since man hath unhappily made himself uncapable of obeying it must God's Holiness in his Law be blemisht for enjoyning it Must he abrogate those Commands and prohibit what before he enjoyned for the satisfaction of the corrupted Creature would not this be his ceasing to be holy that his Creature might be unblameably unrighteous Must God strip himself of his Holiness because man will not discharge his Iniquity He cannot be the cause of sin by keeping up the Law who would be the cause of all the unrighteousness of men by removing the Authority of it Some things in the Law that are intrinsecally good in their own Nature are indispensable and it is repugnant to the Nature of God not to Command them If he were not the Guardian of his indispensable Law he would be the Cause and Countenancer of the Creatures Iniquity So little reason have men to charge God with being the Cause of their sin by not repealing his Law to gratifie their Impotence that he would be unholy if he did God must not lose his Purity because man hath lost his and cast away the Right of his Soveraignty because man hath cast away his Power of Obedience 3. God's foreknowledge that his Law would not be observ'd lays no blame upon him Though the foreknowledge of God be infallible yet it doth not necessitate the Creature in acting It was certain from Eternity that Adam would fall that men would do such and such Actions that Judas would betray our Saviour God foreknew all those things from Eternity but it is as certain that this foreknowledge did not necessitate the will of Adam or any other Branch of his Posterity in the doing those Actions that were so foreseen by God they voluntarily run into such Courses
or nills nothing to be in Time but what he willed and nilled from Eternity if he willed in Time that to be that he willed not from Eternity then he would know that in Time which he knew not from Eternity For God knows nothing future but as his Will orders it to be future and in time to be brought into being 3. There can be no Reason for any change in the Will of God When men change in their minds it must be for want of foresight because they could not foresee all the Rubbs and Barrs which might suddenly offer themselves which if they had foreseen they would not have taken such measures hence men often will that which they afterwards wish they had not willed when they come to understand it clearer and see that to be injurious to them which they thought to be good for them or else the change proceeds from a natural instability without any just cause and an easiness to be drawn into that which is unrighteous or else it proceeds from a want of power when men take new Counsels because they are invincibly hindred from executing the old But none of those can be in God 1. It cannot be for want of foresight What can be wanting to an infinite Understanding How can any unknown event defeat his Purpose since nothing happens in the world but what he wills to effect or wills to permit and therefore all future events are present with him Besides it doth not consist with Gods Wisdom to resolve any thing but upon the highest reason and what is the highest and infinite reason cannot but be unalterable in it self for there can be no Reason and Wisdom higher than the highest All Gods purposes are not bare acts of Will but acts of Counsel Eph. 1.11 He works all things according to the Counsel of his own Will and he doth not say so much that his Will as that his Counsel shall stand Isa 46.10 It stands because it is Counsel And the Immutability of a Promise is called the Immutability of his Counsel Heb 6.17 as being introduced and setled by the most perfect Wisdom and therefore to be carried on to a full and compleat execution His Purpose then cannot be changed for want of foresight for this would be a charge of weakness 2. Nor can it proceed from a natural Instability of his Will or an easiness to be drawn to that which is unrighteous If his Will should not adhere to his Counsel 't is because it is not fit to be followed or because it will not follow it If not fit to be followed 't is a reflection upon his Wisdom if it be establisht and he will not follow it there is a contrariety in God as there is in a fallen Creature Will against Wisdom That cannot be in God which he hates in a Creature viz. the disorder of faculties and being out of their due place The Righteousness of God is like a great Mountain Psal 36.6 The rectitude of his Nature is as immoveable in it self as all the great Mountains in the World are by the strength of Man He is not as a Man that he should repent or lye Numb 23.19 who often changes out of a perversity of Will as well as want of wisdom to foresee or want of ability to perform His eternal Purpose must either be righteous or unrighteous if righteous and holy he would become unholy by the change if not righteous nor holy then he was unrighteous before the change which way soever it falls it would reflect upon the Righteousness of God which is a blasphemous imagination * Maxim Tyrius dissert 3.30 If God did change his Purpose it must be either for the better then the Counsel of God was bad before or for the worse then he was not wise and good before 3. Nor can it be for want of strength Who hath power to controul him Not all the combin'd devices and endeavours of men can make the Counsel of God to totter Prov. 19.21 There are many devices in a mans heart nevertheless the Counsel of the Lord that shall stand that and that only shall stand Man hath a power to devise and imagin but no power to effect and execute of himself God wants no more Power to effect what he will than he wants Understanding to know what is fit Well then since God wanted not Wisdom to frame his Decrees nor Holiness to regulate them nor Power to effect them what should make him change them Since there can be no reason superior to His no event unforeseen by him no Holiness comparable to His no Unrighteousness found in Him no Power equal to His to put a rub in his way 4. Though the Will of God be immutable yet it is not to be understood so as that the things themselves so willed are immutable Nor will the immutability of the things willed by him follow upon the unchangeableness of his Will in willing them though God be firm in willing them yet he doth not will that they should alway be God did not perpetually will the doing those things which he once decreed to be done He decreed that Christ should suffer but he did not decree that Christ should alway suffer so he willed the Mosaical Rites for a time but he did not will that they should alway continue He willed that they should endure only for a time and when the time came for their ceasing God had been mutable if he had not put an end to them because his Will had fixed such a Period So that the changing of those things which he had once appointed to be practised is so far from charging God with changeablness that God would be mutable if he did not take them away since he decreed as well their abolition at such a time as their continuance till such a time so that the removal of them was pursuant to his unchangeable Will and Decree If God had decreed that such Laws should alway continue and afterwards changed that Decree and resolved the abrogation of them then indeed God had been mutable He had rescinded one Decree by another He had then seen an error in his first resolve and there must be some weakness in the reason and wisdom whereon it was grounded * Turretin de satisfac p. 266. But it was not so here for the change of those Laws is so far from slurring God with any mutability that the very change of them is no other than the Issue of his eternal Decree for from Eternity he purposed in himself to change this or that dispensation though he did decree to bring such a dispensation into the world The Decree it self was eternal and immutable but the thing decreed was temporary and mutable As a Decree from Eternity doth not make the thing decreed to be eternal so neither doth the immutability of the Decree render the thing so decreed to be immutable As for Example God decreed from all Eternity to create the World the
is a God in being and the Apostle doth not say that they know God but they profess to know him True knowledge and profession of knowledge are distinct It intimates also to us the unreasonableness of Atheism in the Consequence when men shut their eyes against the beams of so clear a sun God revengeth himself upon them for their impiety by leaving them to their own wills lets them fall into the deepest sink and dregs of iniquity and since they doubt of him in their hearts suffers them above others to deny him in their works this the Apostle discourseth at large * Rom. 1.24 The Text then is a description of mans Corruption 1. Of his mind The fool hath said in his heart No better title than that of a fool is afforded to the Atheist 2. Of the other faculties 1. In sins of Commission exprest by the loathsomeness corrupt abominable 2. In sins of Ommission there is none that doth good he lays down the Corruption of the mind as the cause the corruption of the other faculties as the effect I. Doct. 1 'T is a great Folly to deny or doubt of the Existence or Being of God Or An Atheist is a great Fool. II. Practical Atheism is natural to man in his corrupt State 'T is against Nature as constituted by God but Natural as Nature is depraved by Man The absolute disowning of the Being of a God is not natural to men but the contrary is natural but an inconsideration of God or mis-representation of his Nature is natural to Man as corrupt III. A secret Atheism or a partial Atheism is the Spring of all the wicked Practices in the world The disorders of the Life spring from the ill dispositions of the Heart For the first every Atheist is a Grand Fool. If he were not a Fool he would not imagine a thing so contrary to the stream of the Universal Reason of the world contrary to the rational Dictates of his own Soul and contrary to the Testimony of every Creature and Link in the Chain of Creation If he were not a Fool he would not strip himself of Humanity and degrade himself lower than the most despicable Brute 'T is a Folly for tho God be so Inaccessible that we cannot know him perfectly yet he is so much in the light that we cannot be totally ignorant of him As he cannot be comprehended in his Essence he cannot be unknown in his Existence 't is as easie by Reason to understand that he is as it is difficult to know what he is The Demonstrations Reason furnisheth us with for the Existence of God will be Evidences of the Atheist's Folly One would think there were little need of spending time in evidencing this Truth since in the Principle of it it seems to be so universally own'd and at the first proposal and demand gains the assent of most men But 1. Doth not the growth of Atheism among us render this Necessary may it not justly be suspected that the swarms of Atheists are more numerous in our times than History Records to have been in any age when men will not only say it in their hearts but publish it with their lips and boast that they have shaken of those Shackles which bind other mens Consciences Doth not the bare-fac'd Debauchery of men evidence such a setled Sentiment or at least a careless Beleif of the truth which lies at the root and sprouts up in such venemous branches in the World Can mens hearts be free from that Principle wherewith their Practices are so openly depraved 'T is true the light of Nature shines too vigorously for the Power of Man totally to put it out yet loathsom Actions impair and weaken the actual thoughts and considerations of a Deity and are like Mists that darken the light of the Sun though they cannot extinguish it their Consciences as a Candlestick must hold it though their unrighteousness obscure it Rom. 1.18 Who hold the Truth in Vnrighteousness The engraved Characters of the Law of Nature remain though they dawb them with their muddy Lusts to make them illegible So that since the inconsideration of a Deity is the cause of all the wickedness and extravigancies of men and as Austin saith the Proposition is always true the Fool hath said in his heart c. and more evidently true in this age than any it will not be unnecsseary to discourse of the Demonstrations of this first Principle The Apostles spent little time in urgng this Truth it was taken for granted all over the world and they were generally devout in the Worship of those Idols they thought to be Gods That age run from one God to many and our age is running from one God to none at all 2. The Existence of God is the Foundation of all Religion The whole Building totters if the Foundation be out of Course If we have not deliberate and right Notions of it we shall perform no Worship no Service yeild no affection to him If there be not a God 't is impossible there can be one for Eternity is Essential to the notion of a God so all Religion would be vain and unreasonable to pay Homage to that which is not in being nor can ever be We must first beleive that he is and that he is what he declares himself to be before we can seek him adore him and devote our Affections to him * Heb. 11.6 We cannot pay God a due and regular Homage unless we understand him in his Perfections what he is and we can pay him no Homage at all unless we beleive that he is 3. 'T is sit we should know why we beleive that our Beleif of a God may appear to be upon undeniable Evidence and that we may give a better reason for his Existence than that we have heard our Parents and Teachers tell us so and our acquaintance think so 'T is as much as to say there is no God when we know not why we believe there is and would not consider the Arguments for his Existence 4. It is necessary to depress that secret Atheism which is in the heart of every man by nature Though every visible object which offers it self to our sense presents a Deity to our minds and exhorts us to subscribe to the truth of it yet there is a Root of Atheism springing up sometimes in wavering thoughts and foolish imaginations inordinate actions and secret wishes Certain it is that every man that doth not love God denyes God now can he that disaffects him and hath a slavish fear of him wish his Existence and say to his own heart with any chearfulness there is a God and make it his cheif care to perswade himself of it he would perswade himself there is no God and stifle the seeds of it in his Reason and Conscience that he might have the greatest liberty to intertain the allurements of the Flesh 'T is necessary to Excite men to daily and actual considerations of
God said and he there owns him ver 5. Ye shall become as Gods He owns God in the question he asks the Woman and perswades our first Parents to be Gods themselves And in all stories both Ancient and Modern the Devil was never able to Tincture mends minds with a professed denial of the Deity which would have opened a door to a world of more wickedness than hath been acted and took away the bar to the breaking out of that evil which is naturally in the hearts of men to the greater prejudice of human societies He wanted not malice to rase out all the Notions of God but power He knew it was impossible to effect it and therefore in vain to attempt it He set up himself in several places of the ignorant world as a God but never was able to overthrow the opinion of the being of a God The impressions of a Deity were so strong as not to be struck out by the malice and power of Hell What a folly is it then in any to contradict or doubt of this Truth which all the periods of time have not been able to wear out which all the Wars and Quarrels of men with their own Consciences have not been able to destroy which Ignorance and Debauchery it s two greatest Enemies cannot weaken which all the falsehoods and errors which have reigned in one or other part of the world have not been able to banish which lives in the consents of men in spight of all their wishes to the contrary and hath grown stronger and Shone clearer by the improvements of natural reason 3. Natural and innate which pleads strongly for the perpetuity of it T is natural tho some think it not a Principle writ in the heart of man * Pink. Eph. 6. pag. 10. 11. t is so natural that every man is born with a restless instinct to be of some kind of Religion or other which implies some object of Religion The impression of a Deity is as common as reason and of the same age with reason * King en Jonah pag. 16. T is a Relique of knowledg after the fall of Adam like fire under ashes which sparkles as soon as ever the heap of ashes is opened A notion sealed up in the Soul of every man * Amyrant des Religious pag. 6. 5. 8. 9. else how could those people who were unknown to one another separate by Seas and Mounts differing in various customes and manner of living had no mutual intelligence one with another light upon this as a common Sentiment if they had not been guided by one uniforme reason in all their minds by one nature common to them all though their Clymates be different their tempers and constitutions various their imaginations in somethings as distant from one another as Heaven is from Earth the Ceremonies of their Religion not all of the same kind Yet wherever you find human nature you find this setled perswasion So that the Notion of a God seems to be twisted with the nature of man and is the first natural branch of Common reason or upon either the first inspection of a man into himself and his own state and constitution or upon the first sight of any external visible object Nature within man and nature without man agree upon the first meeting together to form this Sentiment that there is a God T is as natural as any thing we call a Common Principle One thing which is called a Common Principle and natural is that the whole is greater than the parts If this be not born with us yet the exercise of reason essential to man settles it as a certain Maxim upon the dividing any thing into several parts he finds every part less than when they were altogether By the same exercise of reason we cannot cast our eyes upon any thing in the world or exercise our understandings upon our selves but we must presently imagine there was some cause of those things some cause of my self and my own being so that this Truth is as natural to man as any thing he can call most natural or a Common Principle It must be confest by all that there is a Law of nature writ upon the hearts of men which will direct them to commendable actions if they will attend to the writing in their own Consciences This Law cannot be considered without the notice of a Law-giver For t is but a natural and obvious conclusion that some superior hand engrafted those principles in man since he finds something in him twitching him upon the pursuit of uncomely actions though his heart be mightily enclined to them man knows he never planted this principle of Reluctancy in his own Soul he can never be the cause of that which he cannot be friends with If he were the cause of it why doth he not rid himself of it No man would endure a thing that doth frequently molest and disquiet him if he could casheir it T is therefore sown in man by some hand more powerful than man which riseth so high and is rooted so strong that all the force that man can use cannot pull it up If therefore this principle be natural in man and the Law of Nature be natural the Notion of a Law-giver must be as natural as the Notion of a Printer or that there is a Printer is obvious upon the sight of a stamp imprest After this the multitude of effects in the World step in to strengthen this beam of natural light and the direct Conclusion from thence is that that power which made those outward objects implanted this inward principle This is sown in us born with us and sprouts up with our growth or as one saith * Chaâ—leâ—â—â— t is like Letters carved upon the bark of a young plant which grows up together with us and the longer it grows the Letters are more legible This is the ground of this universal consent and why it may well be termed natural This will more evidently appear to be natural because 1. This consent could not be by meer Tradition 2. Nor by any mutual intelligence of Governors to keep people in aw which are two things the Atheist pleads the first hath no strong foundation and that other is as absurd and foolish as it is wicked and abominable 3. Nor was it fear first introduced it 1. It could not be my meer Tradition Many things indeed are entertained by posterity which their Ancestors delivered to them and that out of a common reverence to their Fore-Fathers and an opinion that they had a better prospect of things than the increase of the corruption of suceeding ages would permit them to have But if this be a Tradition handed from our Ancestors they also must receive it from theirs we must then ascend to the first man we cannot else escape a confounding ourselves with running into infinite was it then the only Tradition he left to them is it not probable he acquainted them with
of the Heaven c. How could this great heap be brought into being unless a God had framed it Every plant every Atome as well as every Star at the first meeting whispers this in our Ears I have a Creator I am witness to a Deity who ever saw Statues or Pictures but presently thinks of a Statuary and Limner Who beholds Garments Ships or Houses but understands there was a Weaver a Carpenter an Architect * Philo. ex Petav. Theolo Dog Tom 1. li. 1. cap. 1 pa. 4. somewhat changed Who can cast his eyes about the world but must think of that power that formed it and that the goodness which appears in the formation of it hath a perfect Residence in some Being those things that are good must flow from somthing perfectly good that which is chief in any kind is the cause of all of that kind Fire which is most hot is the cause of all things which are hot There is some being therefore which is the cause of all that Perfection which is in the Creature and this is God Aquin. 1 qu. 2. Artic. 3. All things that are demonstrate something from whence they are All things have a contracted perfection and what they have is Communicated to them Perfections are parcelled out among several Creatures Any thing that is imperfect cannot exist of it self We are led therefore by them to consider a fountain which bubbles up in all perfection a hand which distributes those several degrees of Being and Perfection to what we see we see that which is imperfect our minds conclude somthing perfect to exist before it our eye sees the streams but our understanding riseth to the head as the eye sees the shadow but the understanding informs us whither it he the shadow of a man or of a beast God hath given us Sense to behold the objects in the World and Understanding to reason his Existence from them the understanding cannot conceive a thing to have made it self that is against all reason * Rom. 1.20 As they are made they speak out a Maker and cannot be a trick of chance since they are made with such an immense Wisdom that is too big for the grasp of all humane understanding Those that doubt whither the Existence of God be an implanted Principle yet agree that the effects in the world lead to a supream and universal cause And that if we have not the knowledge of it rooted in our Natures yet we have it by discourse since by all Masters of reason a Processus in Infinitum must be accounted impossible in subordinate causes This will appear in several things First I. The World and every Creature had a beginning The Scripture Ascertains this to us * Gen. 1. By Faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God c. David who was not the first man gives the praise to God of his being curiously wrought c. Psal 139.14.15 God gave being to Men and Plants and Beasts before they gave being to one another He gives being to them now as the Fountain of all being though the several Modes of being are from the several natures of second causes * Heb. 11.3 T is true indeed we are ascertained that they were made by the true God that they were made by his word that they were made of nothing and not only this lower world wherein we live but according to the Jewish division the world of Men the the world of Stars and the world of Spirits and Souls We do not waver in it or doubt of it as the Heathen did in their disputes we know they are the workmanship of the true God of that God we adore not of false Gods By his Word without any instrument or engin as in earthly Sâ—ructures of things which do not appear without any preexistent matter as all Artificial works of men are framed Yet the proof of the beginning of the world is affirmed with good reason and if it had a beginning it had also some higher cause than it self Every effect hath a cause * Daille 20. Serm. Psa 102.26 pa. 13. 14. The World was not Eternal or from Eternity The matter of the world cannot be Eternal Matter cannot subsist without form nor put on any form without the action of some cause this cause must be in being before it acted that which is not cannot act The cause of the world must necessarily exist before any matter was endued with any form that therefore cannot be Eternal before which another did subsist if it were from Eternity it would not be subject to mutation If the whole was from Eternity why not also the parts what makes the changes so visible then if Eternity would exempt it from mutability 1. Time cannot be infinite and therefore the World not Eternal * Daille ut Supra All motion hath its beginning if it were otherwise we must say the number of Heavenly revolutions of days and nights which are past to this instant is actually infinite which cannot be in nature If it were so it must needs be granted that a part is equal to the whole because infinite being equal to infinite the number of days past in all Ages to the beginning of one year being Infinite as they would be supposing the World had no beginning would by consequence be equal to the number of days which shall pass to the end of the next whereas that number of days past is indeed but a part and so a part would be equal to the whole 2. Generations of Men Animals and Plants could not be from Eternity * Petar Theo. Dogmat. tom 1. lib. 1. cap. 2. pag. 15. If any Man say the world was from Eternity then there must be propagations of living Creatures in the same manner as are at this day For without this the World could not consist what we see now done must have been perpetually done if it be done by a necessity of nature But we see nothing now that doth arise but by a mutual propagation from another If the world were Eternal therefore it must be so in all Eternity take any particular species suppose a man if men were from Eternity then there were perpetual generations some were born into the World and some died Now the natural condition of generation is that a man doth not generate a man nor a Sheep a Lamb as soon as ever it self is brought into the World but get strength and vigour by degrees and must arrive to a certain stated age before they can produce the like for whilst any thing is little and below the due age it cannot increase its kind Men therefore and other Creatures did propagate their kind by the same Law not as soon as ever they were born but in the interval of some time and Children grew up by degrees in the Mothers Womb till they were fit to be brought forth If this be so then there could not be an Eternal
dived into the depths of Nature have been more studious of the qualities of the Creatures than of the excellency of the nature or the discovery of the mind of God in them who regard only the rising and motions of the Star but follow not with the wise men its conduct to the King of the Jews How often do we see men filled with an eager thirst for all other kind of knowledge that cannot acquiesce in a twilight discovery but are inquisitive into the causes and reasons of effects yet are contented with a weak and languishing knowledge of God and his Law and are easily tired with the Proposals of them He now that nauseates the means whereby he may come to know and obey God has no intention to make the Law of God his Rule There is no man that intends seriously an end but he intends means in order to that end As when a man intends the preservation or recovery of his health he will intend means in order to those ends otherwise he cannot be said to intend his health So he that is not diligent in using means to know the mind of God has no sound intention to make the Will and Law of God his Rule Is not the inquiry after the Will of God made a work by the by and fain to lacquy after other concerns of an inferior nature if it hath any place at all in the Soul which is a despising the Being of God The Notion of the Soveraignty of God bears the same date with the Notion of his Godhead and by the same way that he reveals Himself he reveals his Authority over us whether it be by Creatures without or Conscience within All Authority over Rational Creatures consists in commanding and directing the duty of Rational Creatures in compliance with that Authority consists in obeying Where there is therefore a careless neglect of those means which convey the knowledge of Gods Will and our Duty there is an utter disowning of God as our Soveraign and our Rule 2. When any part of the Mind and Will of God breaks in upon Men they endeavour to shake it off As a Man would a Sergeant that comes to arrest him they like not to retain God in their Knowledge Rom. 1.28 A natural Man receives not the things of the Spirit of God that is into his Affection he pusheth them back as men do troublesome and importunate Beggers They have no kindness to bestow upon it They thrust with both shoulders against the Truth of God when it presseth in upon them and dash as much contempt upon it as the Pharisees did upon the Doctrine our Saviour directed against their Covetousness As men naturally delight to be without God in the world so they delight to be without any offspring of God in their thoughts Since the Spiritual Palate of Man is depraved Divine Truth is unsavoury and ungrateful to us till our taste and relish is restored by Grace Hence men damp and quench the motions of the Spirit to Obedience and Compliance with the Dictates of God strip them of their Life and Vigor and kill them in the Womb. How unable are our Memories to retain the substance of spiritual Truth but like Sand in a Glass put in at one part and runs out at the other Have not many a secret wish that the Scripture had never mentioned some truths or that they were blotted out of the Bible because they face their Consciences and discourage those boiling Lusts they would with eagerness and delight pursue Me thinks that interruption John gives our Saviour when he was upon the Reproof of their Pride looks little better * Mark 9.33.38 than a design to divert him from a discourse so much against the grain by telling him a story of their prohibiting one to cast out Devils because he followed not them How glad are men when they can raise a Battery against a Command of God and raise some smart Objection whereby they may shelter themselves from the strictness of it 3. When men cannot shake off the Notices of the Will and Mind of God they have no pleasure in the consideration of them Which could not possibly be if there were a real and fixed design to own the Mind and Law of God as our Rule Subjects or Servants that love to obey their Prince and Master will delight to read and execute their Orders The Devils understand the Law of God in their minds but they loath the impressions of it upon their Wills Those miserable Spirits are bound in Chains of Darkness evil Habits in their Wills that they have not a thought of obeying that Law they know It was an unclean Beast under the Law that did not chew the Cud 'T is a corrupt Heart that doth not chew Truth by Meditation A natural man is said not to know God or the things of God he may know them notionally but he knows them not affectionately A sensual Soul can have no delight in a spiritual Law To be sensual and not to have the Spirit are inseparable Jude 19. Natural Men may indeed meditate upon the Law and Truth of God but without delight in it if they take any pleasure in it 't is only as 't is knowledge not as it is a Rule for we delight in nothing that we desire but upon the same account that we desire it Natural Men desire to know God and some part of his Will and Law not out of a sense of their practical excellency but a natural thirst after knowledge and if they have a delight 't is in the act of knowing not in the Object known not in the Duties that stream from that Kowledge they design the furnishing their Understandings not the quickning their Affections like idle Boys that strike Fire not to warm themselves by the heat but sport themselves with the Sparks Whereas a gracious Soul accounts not only his Meditation or the Operations of his Soul about God and his Will to be sweet but he hath a joy in the object of that Meditation * Psal 104.34 Many have the knowledge of God who have no delight in Him or his Will Owls have Eyes to perceive that there is a Sun but by reason of the weakness of their sight have no pleasure to look upon a Beam of it So neither can a man by Nature love or delight in the Will of God because of his natural corruption That Law that riseth up in men for Conviction and Instruction they keep down under the power of Corruption making their Souls not the Sanctuary but Prison of Truth Rom. 1.18 They will keep it down in their hearts if they cannot keep it out of their heads and will not endeavour to know and taste the Spirit of it 4. There is farther a rising and swelling of the Heart against the Will of God 1. Internal Gods Law cast against a hard Heart is like a Ball thrown against a stone Wall by reason of the resistance rebounding the further
from it The meeting of a Divine Truth and the Heart of Man is like the meeting of two Tides the weaker swells and foams We have a natural Antipathy against a Divine Rule and therefore when it is clapt close to our Consciences there is a snuffing at it high reasonings against it corruption breaks out more strongly As Water poured on Lime sets it on Fire by an Antiperistasis and the more Water is cast upon it the more furiously it burns Or as the Sun Beams shining upon a Dung-hill makes the steams the thicker and the stench the noysomer neither being the positive cause of the smoke in the Lime or the stench in the Dung-hill but by accident the causes of the eruption Rom. 7.8 But Sin taking occasion by the Commandment wrought in me all manner of Concupiscence for without the Law Sin was dead Sin was in a languishing posture as if it were dead like a lazy Garrison in a City till upon an Alarm from the Adversary it takes Arms and revives its courage all the sin in the heart gathers together its force to maintain its standing like the vapours of the Night which unite themselves more closely to resist the Beams of the rising Sun Deep Conviction often provokes fierce Opposition sometimes Disputes against a Divine Rule end in Blasphemies Acts 13.45 Contradicting and Blaspheming are coupled together Men naturally desire things that are forbidden and reject things commanded from the corruption of Nature which affects an unbounded Liberty and is impatient of returning under that Yoke it hath shaken off and therefore rageth against the bars of the Law as the Waves roar against the restraint of a bank When the Understanding is dark and the Mind Ignorant Sin lies as dead * Thes Salmur De Spiritu Servitutis Thes 19. a man scarce knows he hath such Motions of Concupiscence in him he finds not the least breath of Wind but a full calm in his Soul but when he is awakened by the Law then the vitiousness of nature being sensible of an Invasion of its Empire arms it self against the Divine Law and the more the Command is urged the more vigorously it bends its strength and more insolently lifts up it self against it he perceives more and more Atheistical Lusts than before all manner of Concupiscence more leprous and contagious than before When there are any motions to turn to God a reluctancy is presently perceived Atheistical thoughts bluster in the mind like the wind they know not whence they come nor whether they go So unapt is the heart to any acknowledgement of God as his Ruler and any re-union with him Hence men are said to resist the Holy Ghost Acts 7.51 to fall against it as the word signifies as a stone or any ponderous body falls against that which lies in its way They would dash to pieces or grind to powder that very motion which is made for their instruction and the Spirit too which makes it and that not from a fit of passion but an habitual repugnance Ye always resist c. 2. External 't is a fruit of Atheism in the fourth verse of this Psalm Who eat up my people as they eat bread How do the revelations of the Mind of God meet with opposition And the Carnal World like dogs bark against the shining of the Moon So much men hate the Light that they spurn at the Lanthorns that bear it And because they cannot endure the Treasure often fling the earthen vessels against the ground wherein it is held If the entrance of Truth render the Market worse for Diana's Shrines the whole City will be in an uproar * Act. 19.24.28.29 When Socrates upon natural Principles confuted the Heathen Idolatry and asserted the unity of God the whole cry of Athens a learned University is against him and because he opposed the publick received Religion though with an undoubted Truth he must end his Life by Violence How hath every Corner of the World steam'd with the blood of those that would maintain the Authority of God in the World The Devils Children will follow the steps of their Father and endeavour to bruise the Heel of Divine Truth that would endeavour to break the Head of corrupt Lust 5. Men often seem desirous to be acquainted with the Will of God not out of any respect to his Will and to make it their Rule but upon some other Consideration Truth is scarce received as truth There is more of Hypocrisie than Sincerity in the pale of the Church and attendance on the Mind of God The outward dowry of a religious Profession makes it often more desirable than the Beauty Judas was a follower of Christ for the Bag not out of any affection to the Divine Revelation Men sometime pretend a desire to be acquainted with the Will of God to satisfie their own passions rather than to conform to Gods Will The Religion of such is not the judgment of the Man but the passion of the Brute Many entertain a Doctrine's for the persons sake rather than a person for the Doctrine sake and believe a thing because it comes from a Man they esteem as if his lips were more Canonical than Scripture The Apostle implies in the Commendation he gives the Thessalonians * 1 Thes 2.13 that some receive the Word for human interest not as it is in truth the Word and Will of God to command and govern their Consciences by its Soveraign Authority Or else they have the Truth of God as St. James speaks of the Faith of Christ with respect of persons * Jam. 2.2 and receive it not for the sake of the Fountain but of the Channel So that many times the same Truth delivered by another is disregarded which when dropping from the fancy and mouth of a Man 's own Idol is cryed up as an Oracle This is to make not God but Man the Rule For though we entertain that which materially is the Truth of God yet not formally as his Truth but as conveyed by one we affect And that we receive a Truth and not an Error we ow the obligation to the honesty of the Instrument and not to the strength and clearness of our own Judgment Wrong considerations may give admittance to an unclean as well as a clean beast into the Ark of the Soul That which is contrary to the Mind of God may be entertained as well as that which is agreeable 'T is all one to such that have no respect to God what they have As it is all one to a Spunge to suck up the foulest water or the sweetest wine when either is applyed to it 6. Many that entertain the Notions of the Will and Mind of God admit them with unsettled and wavering Affections There is a great Levity in the heart of Man The Jews that one day applaud our Saviour with Hosannahs as their King vote his Crucifixion the next and use him as a Murderer We begin in the Spirit and
holiness and righteousness commanded God appointed it to magnifie his Justice and check the Idolatry that had been supported by that family Jehu acted it to satisfie his revenge and ambition he did it to fulfil his lust not the will of God who enjoyn'd him Jehu applauds it as zeal and God abhors it as murder and therefore would avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu Hos 1.4 Such kind of services are not paid to God for his own sake but to our selves for our lusts sake 4. This is evident in neglecting to take Gods direction upon emergent occasions This follows the Text none did seek God When we consult not with him but trust more to our own Will and Counsel we make our selves our own Governours and Lords independent upon him As though we could be our own Counsellors and manage our Concerns without his leave and assistance as though our works were in our own hands and not in the hands of God * Eccles 9.1 that we can by our own strength and sagacity direct them to a successful end without him If we must acquaint our selves with God before we decree a thing * Job 22.28 then to decree a thing without acquainting God with it is to prefer our purblind wisdom before the infinite Wisdom of God to resolve without consulting God is to depose God and deifie self our own wit and strength We would rather like Lot follow our own humor and stay in Sodom than observe the Angels order to go out of it 5. As we account the actions of others to be good or evil as they suit with or spurn against our fancies and humours Vertue is a crime and vice a vertue as it is contrary or concurrent with our humors Little Reason have many men to blame the actions of others but because they are not agreeable to what they affect and desire We would have all men take directions from us and move according to our beck Hence that common Speech in the world such an one is an honest friend why because he is of their humour and lackies according to their wills Thus we make self the measure and square of good and evil in the rest of mankind and judge of it by our own fancies and not by the will of God the proper rule of Judgment Well then let us Consider Is not this very common are we not naturally more willing to displease God than displease our selves when it comes to a point that we must do one or other Is not our own Counsel of more value with us than Conformity to the will of the Creator Do not our Judgments often run Counter to the Judgment of God Have his Laws a greater respect from us than our own humours Do we scruple the staining his honour when it comes in competition with our own Are not the Lives of most men a pleasing themselves without a repentance that ever they displeased God Is not this to undeifie God to deifie our selves and disown the propriety he hath in us by the right of Creation and Beneficence We order our own ways by our own humours as though we were the Authors of our own being and had given our selves life and understanding This is to destroy the order that God hath placed between our wills and his own and a lifting up of the foot above the head 't is the deformity of the Creature The honor of every rational Creature consists in the service of the first cause of his being as the welfare of every Creature consists in the orders and proportionable motion of its members according to the Law of it's Creation He that moves and acts according to a law of his own offers a manifest wrong to God the highest wisdom and chiefest good disturbs the order of the world nulls the design of the righteousness and holiness of God The Law of God is the rule of that order he would have observed in the world He that makes another law his rule thrusts out the order of the Creator and establishes the disorder of the Creature But this will yet be more evident in the fourth thing 4. Man would make himself the rule of God and give Laws to his Creator VVe are willing God should be our benefactor but not our ruler we are content to admire his excellency and pay him a worship provided he will walk by our rule * Decay of Christian piety p. 169. somewhat changed This commits a riot upon his nature To think him to be what we our selves would have him and wish him to be Psal 50.21 VVe would amplifie his Mercy and contract his Justice We would have his power enlarg'd to supply our wants and straightned when it goes about to revenge our crimes VVe would have him wise to defeat our enemies but not to disappoint our unworthy projects We would have him all eye to regard our indigence and blind not to discern our guilt We would have him true to his promises regardless of his precepts and false to his threatnings VVe would new mint the nature of God according to our models and shape a God according to our fancies as he made us at first according to his own Image Instead of obeying him we would have him obey us Instead of owning and admiring his perfections we would have him strip himself of his infinite excellency and cloth himself with a nature agreeable to our own This is not only to set up self as the Law of God but to make our own Imaginations the model of the nature of God Corrupted man takes a pleasure to accuse or suspect the actions of God We would not have him act conveniently to his nature but act what doth gratifie us and abstain from what distasts us Man is never well but when he is impeaching one or other perfection of Gods Nature and undermining his Glory as if all his Attributes must stand Indicted at the bar of our purblind Reason This Weed shoots up in the exercise of Grace Peter intended the refusal of our Saviours washing his feet as an act of humility but Christ understands it to be a prescribing a law to himself a correcting his love John 13.8 9. This is evidenc'd 1. In the strivings against his Law How many men imply by their Lives that they would have God depos'd from his Government and some unrighteous being step in to his Throne as if God had or should change his Laws of Holiness into Laws of Licentiousness as if he should abrogate his old Eternal Precepts and enact contrary ones in their stead What is the Language of such practices but that they would be Gods Law-givers and not his Subjects that he should deal with them according to their own wills and not according to his righteousness that they could make a more holy wise and righteous Law than the Law of God that their imaginations and not Gods righteousness should be the rule of his doing good to them Jer. 9.31 They have
Job 18.4 Joseph had reason to be displeased with his Brothers if they had muttered because he gave Benjamin a double portion and the rest a single It was unfit that they who had deserved no gift at all should prescribe him rules how to dispense his own doles much more unworthy it is to deal so with God yet this is too rife 5. It is evidenced in corrupt matter or ends of Prayer and praise When we are importunate for those things that we know not whither the righteousness holiness and wisdom of God can grant because he hath not discovered his Will in any promise to bestow them we would then impose such conditions on God which he never oblidged himself to grant when we pray for things not so much to glorifie God which ought to be the end of Prayer as to gratifie our selves We acknowledg indeed by the act of petitioning that there is a God but we would have him un-God himself to be at our beck and debase himself to serve our turns When we desire those things which are repugnant to those attributes whereby he doth manage the Government of the world When by some superficial services we think we have gained indulgence to sins Which seems to be the thought of the Strumpet in her paying her vows to wallowmore freely in the mire of her sensual pleasures * Pro. 7.14 I have peace offerings with me this day I have paid my vows I have made my peace with God and have entertainment for thee Or when men desire God to bless them in the Commission of some sin As when Balack and Balaam offered Sacrifices that they might prosper in the Cursing of the Israelites Numb 25.1 c. So for a Man to pray to God to save him while he neglects the means of Salvation appointed by God Or to renew him when he slights the Word the only Instrument to that purpose This is to impose Laws upon God contrary to the declared Will and wisdom of God and to desire him to slight his own institutions When we come into the presence of God with lusts reeking in our hearts and leap from sin to duty we would impose the Law of our corruption on the holiness of God While we pray the Will of God may be done self-love wishes its own will may be performed as tho God should serve our humors when we will not obey his precepts And when we make vows under any affliction what is it often but a secret conontrivance to bend and flatter him to our conditions We will serve him if he will restore us we think thereby to compound the business with him and bring him down to our terms 6. T is evidenced In positive and bold interpretations of the Judgments of God in the world To interpret the Judgments of God to the disadvantage of the sufferer unless it be an unusual Judgment and have a remarkable hand of God in it and the sin be rendred plainly legible in the affliction is a presumption of this nature When men will Judge the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with the Sacrifices greater sinners than others and themselves righteous because no drops of it were dasht upon them Or when Shimei being of the House of Saul shall Judge according to his own interest and desires Davids flight upon Absoloms rebellion to be a punishment for invading the rights of Sauls Family and depriving him of the succession in the Kingdom 2 Sam. 16.5 as if he had been of Gods Privy Counsel when he decreed such acts of Justice in the world Thus we would fasten our own Wills as a Law or motive upon God and interpret his acts according to the Motions of self Is it not too ordinary when God sends an affliction upon those that bear ill will to us to Judge it to be a righting of our cause to be a fruit of Gods concern for us in revenging our wrongs as if we had heard the secrets of God or as Eliphaz saith had turned over the records of heaven Job 15.8 This is a judgment according to self-love not a divine rule and imposeth Laws upon Heaven implying a secret wish that God would take care only of them make our concerns his own not in ways of kindness and justice but according to our fancies And this is common in the prophane World in those curses they so readily spit out upon any affront as if God were bound to draw his Arrowes and shoot them into the heart of all their offenders at their beck and pleasure 7. It is evidenc'd In mixing rules for the worship of God with those which have been ordered by him Since men are most prone to live by sense 't is no wonder that a sensible worship which affects their outward sence with some kind of amazement is dear to them and spiritual worship most loathsome Pompous rites have been the great Engine wherewith the Devil hath deceived the souls of men and wrought them to a nauseating the simplicity of divine worship as unworthy the Majesty and excellency of God * 2 Cor. 11.3 Thus the Jews would not understand the glory of the second Temple in the presence of the Messiah because it had not the pompous grandeur of that of Solomons erecting Hence in all Ages men have been forward to disfigure Gods models and dress up a brat of their own as though God had been defective in providing for his own honour in his institutions without the assistance of his Creature This hath alwayes been in the world the old World had their imaginations and the new World hath continued them The Israelites in the midst of miracles and under the memory of a famous deliverance would erect a Calf The Pharises that sate in Moses Chair would coyn new Traditions and enjoyn them to be as currant as the Law of God * Mat. 13.6 Papists will be blending the Christian appointments with Pagan Ceremonies to please the carnal fancies of the common people Altars have been multiplied under the knowledge of the Law of God * Hos 8.12 Interest is made the ballance of the conveniency of Gods injunctions Jeroboam fitted a worship to politick ends and posted up Calves to prevent his subjects revolting from his Scepter which might be occasioned by their resort to Hierusalem and converse with the body of the people from whom they were separated * 1 Kings 12.27 Men will be putting in their own dictates with Gods Laws and are unwilling he should be the sole Governour of the World without their Counsel They will not suffer him to be Lord of that which is purely and solely his concern How often hath the practice of the Primitive Church the Custom wherein we are bred the Sentiments of our Ancestors been owned as a more authentick rule in matters of Worship than the mind of God delivered in his word 'T is natural by Creation to worship God and it is as natural by corruption for man to worship him in
Holy-Ghost for the Apostle would never have called the Spirit of God his own Spirit but with my Spirit that is a sincere frame of heart A Carnal-worship whether under the Law or Gospel is when we are busied about external rites without an inward compliance of Soul God demands the heart * Pro. 23.26 my Son give me thy heart not give me thy tongue or thy lips or thy hands these may be given without the heart but the heart can never be bestowed without these as its attendants A heap of services can be no more welcome to God without our Spirits than all Jacobs Sons could be to Joseph without the Benjamin he desired to see God is not taken with the Cabinet but the Jewel He first respected Abels Faith and Sincerity and then his Sacrifice he disrespected Cains Infidelity and Hypocrisie and then his Offering * Moulin Sermons Decad. 4. Ser. 4. P. 80. For this cause he rejected the Offerings of the Jews the Prayers of the Pharisees and the Alms of Ananias and Sapphira because their hearts and their duties were at a distance from one another In all spiritual Sacrifices our Spirits are Gods portion Under the Law the Reins were to be consumed by the Fire on the Altar because the secret intentions of the heart were signified by them Psal 7.9 The Lord trieth the Heart and the Reins It was an ill Omen among the Heathen if a Victim wanted a heart The Widows Mites with her heart in them were more esteemed than the richer Offerings without it Not the quantity of service but the will in it is of account with this infinite Spirit All that was to be brought for the framing of the Tabernacle was to be offered willingly with the heart * Exod. 25.7 The more of Will the more of Spirituality and Acceptableness to God Psal 119.108 Accept the Free-will-offering of my lips Sincerity is the Salt which seasons every Sacrifice The heart is most like to the object of worship The heart in the body is the spring of all vital actions and a spiritual Soul is the spring of all spiritual actions How can we imagin God can delight in the meer service of the Body any more than we can delight in converse with a Carcass Without the heart 't is no worship 'T is a Stage-play an acting a part without being that person really which is acted by us A Hypocrite in the notion of the word is a Stage-player We may as well say a man may believe with his body as worship God only with his body Faith is a great ingredient in Worship and it is with the heart Man believes unto Righteousness * Rom. 10.10 We may be truly said to worship God though we want perfection but we cannot be said to worship him if we want sincerity A Statue upon a Tomb with eyes and hands lifted up offers as good and true a service it wants only a voice the gestures and postures are the same nay the service is better 't is not a mockery it represents all that it can be framed to But to worship without our Spirits is a presenting God with a Picture an Eccho Voice and nothing else a Complement a meer Lye a compassing him about with Lyes * Hos 11.12 Without the heart the tongue is a Lyar and the greatest Zeal dissembling with him To present the Spirit is to present with that which can never naturally dye to present him only the Body is to present him that which is every day crumbling to dust and will at last lye rotting in the Grave To offer him a few Raggs easily torn a Skin for a Sacrifice a thing unworthy the Majesty of God a fixed eye and elevated hands with a sleepy Heart and earthly Soul are pitiful things for an ever blessed and glorious Spirit Nay it is so far from being spiritual that it is Blasphemy To pretend to be a Jew outwardly without being so inwardly is in the Judgment of Christ to blaspheme * Revel 2.9 And is not the same title to be given with as much reason to those that pretend a worship and perform none Such a one is not a spiritual Worshipper but a blaspheming Devil in Samuel's Mantle 4. Spiritual Worship is performed with an unitedness of heart The heart is not only now and then with God but united to fear or worship his name * Psal 86.11 A spiritual duty must have the engagement of the Spirit and the thoughts tyed up to the spiritual Object The union of all the parts of the heart together with the body is the life of the body and the moral union of our hearts is the life of any duty A heart quickly flitting from God makes not God his treasure he slights the worship and therein affronts the Object of Worship All our thoughts ought to be ravished with God bound up in him as in a bundle of life But when we start from him to gaze after every feather and run after every bubble we disown a full and affecting excellency and a satisfying sweetness in him When our thoughts run from God 't is a testimony we have no spiritual affection to God Affection would stake down the thoughts to the Object affected 'T is but a Mouth-love as the Prophet phraseth it * Ezek. 33.31 But their hearts go after their Covetousness Covetous Objects pipe and the heart danceth after them and thoughts of God are shifted off to receive a multitude of other imaginations The heart and the service stayed a while together and then took leave of one another The Psalmist * Psal 39.18 still found his heart with God when he awak'd still with God in spiritual affections and fixed meditations A carnal heart is seldom with God either in or out of worship If God should knock at the heart in any duty it would be found not at home but straying abroad Our worship is spiritual when the door of the heart is shut against all Intruders as our Saviour commands in Closet-duties * Mat. 6.6 It was not his meaning to command the shutting the Closet-door and leave the Heart-door open for every thought that would be apt to haunt us Worldly affections are to be laid aside if we would have our worship spiritual This was meant by the Jewish custom of wiping or washing off the dust of their feet before their entrance into the Temple and of not bringing mony in their girdles To be spiritual in worship is to have our Souls gathered and bound up wholly in themselves and offered to God Our Loyns must be girt as the fashion was in the Eastern Countries where they wore long Garments that they might not waver with the Wind and be blown between their leggs to obstruct them in their travel Our faculties must not hang loose about us He is a carnal Worshipper that gives God but a piece of his heart as well as he that denies him the whole of it that hath
what it is or was 'T is indeed a Being but a different Being from what it was before But if God were changed it could not be said of him that he is but it might also be said of him that he is not or if he were changeable or could be changed it might be said of him he is but he will not be what he is or he may not be what he is but there will be or may be some difference in his Being and so God would not be I am that I am for though he would not cease utterly to be yet he would cease to be what he was before 2. Again If his Essence were mutable he could not be perfectly blessed and fully rejoyce in himself If he changed for the better he could not have an infinite pleasure in what he was before the change because he was not infinitely blessed and the pleasure of that state could not be of a higher kind than the state it self or at least the apprehension of a happiness in it If he changed for the worse he could not have a pleasure in it after the change for according to the diminution of his state would be the decrease of his pleasure His pleasure could not be infinite before the change if he changed for the better it could not be infinite after the change if he changed for the worse If he changed for the better he would not have had an infinite Goodness of being before and not having an infinite Goodness of Being he would have a finite Goodness of Being for there is no medium between finite and infinite Then though the change were for the better yet being finite before something would be still wanting to make him infinitely blessed because being finite he could not change to that which is infinite for finite and infinite are extreams so distant that they can never pass into one another that is that that which is finite should become infinite or that which is infinite should become finite So that supposing him mutable his Essence in no state of change could furnish him with an infinite peace and blessedness 3. Again If Gods Essence be changed he either encreaseth or diminisheth * Hugo Victorin in Petavio Whatsoever is changed doth either gain by receiving some thing larger and greater than it had in it self before or gains nothing by being changed If the former then it receives more than it self more than it had in it self before The Divine Nature cannot be encreased for whatsoever receives any thing than what it had in it self before must necessarily receive it from another because nothing can give to it self that which it hath not But God cannot receive from another what he hath not already because whatsoever other things possess is derived from him and therefore contained in him as the Fountain contains the Vertue in it self which it conveys to the Streams so that God cannot gain any thing If a thing that is changed gain nothing by that change it loseth something of what it had before in it self and this loss must be by it self or some other God cannot receive any loss from any thing in himself he cannot will his own diminution that is repugnant to every Nature He may as well will his own destruction as his own decrease Every decrease is a partial destruction But it is impossible for God to dye any kind of Death to have any resemblance of death for he is immortal and only hath Immortality * 1 Tim. 6.16 therefore impossible to be diminisht in any particle of his Essence nor can he be diminisht by any thing in his own Nature because his infinite simplicity admits of nothing distinct from himself or contrary to himself All decreases come from something contrary to the nature of that thing which doth decrease Whatsoever is made less than it self was not truly unum one and simple because that which divides it self in separation was not the same in conjunction Nor can he be diminisht by any other without himself because nothing is superior to God nothing stronger than God which can oppress him But whatsoever is changed is weaker than that which changeth it * Victorinus in Petavio and sinks under a Power it cannot succesfully resist Weakness belongs not to the Deity Nor lastly can God change from a State wherein he is to another State equal to the former as men in some cases may do for in passing from one state to another equal to it something must be parted with which he had before that some other thing may accrue to him as a recompense for that loss to make him equal to what he was This recompense then he had not before though he had something equal to it And in this case it could not be said by God I am that I am but I am equal to what I was for in this case there would be a diminution and increase which as was shewed can not be in God 4. Again God is of himself from no other * Austin Fulgen in Petavio Natures which are made by God may increase because they began to be they may decrease because they were made of nothing and so tend to nothing the condition of their original leads them to defect and the Power of their Creator brings them to increase But God hath no original he hath no defect because he was not made of nothing He hath no increase because he had no beginning He was before all things and therefore depends upon no other thing which by its own change can bring any change upon him * Petav. Tom. 1. p. 173. That which is from it self cannot be changed because it hath nothing before it nothing more excellent than it self But that which is from another as its first cause and chief good may be changed by that which was its efficient cause and last end 2. God is immutable in regard of Knowledge God hath known from all Eternity all that which he can know so that nothing is hid from him He knows not at present any more than he hath known from Eternity and that which he knows now he always knows All things are open and naked before him Heb. 4.13 A man is said to be changed in regard of knowledge when he knows that now which he did not know before or knows that to be false now which he thought true before or hath something for the Object of his Understanding now which he had not before But 1. This would be repugnant to the Wisdom and Omniscience which belongs to the Notion of a Deity That cannot be God that is not infinitely wise that cannot be infinitely wise that is either ignorant of or mistaken in his apprehension of any one thing If God be changed in knowledge it must be for want of wisdom all change of this nature in Creatures implies this defect preceding or accompanying it Such a thought of God would have been unworthy of him that is only
inferior things And it is likely the Psalmist considers not only the beginning of Redemption but the compleating of it at the second coming of Christ for he complains of those evils which shall be removed by his second coming viz. The shortness of life persecutions and reproaches wherewith the Church is afflicted in this world and comforts not himself with those attributes which are directly opposed to sin as the mercy of God the Covenant of God but with those that are opposed to mortality and calamities as the unchangeableness and Eternity of God and from thence infers a perpetual establishment of believers * Ver. 28. The Children of thy Servants shall continue and their seed shall be established before thee So that the Psalm it self seems to aim in the whole discourse at Christ and asserts his Divinity which the Apostle as an interpreter doth fully evidence applying it to him and manifesting his Deity by his immutability as well as Eternity * Daile Melang des Sermons Part 2. Sect. 1. p. 8. 9. 10 c. While all other things lose their forms and pass through multitudes of variations he constantly remains the same and shall be the same when all the Empires of the world shall slide away and a Period be put to the present motions of the Creation And as there was no change made in his being by the Creation of things so neither shall there be by the final alteration of things he shall see them finish as he saw them rise up into being and be the same after their reign as he was before their original he is the first and the last * Revel 1.17 2. Here is ground and encouragement for Worship An Atheist will make another use of this If God be immutable why should we worship him why should we pray to him Good will come if he wills it evil cannot be averted by all our supplications if he hath ordered it to fall upon us But certainly since unchangeableness in knowing and willing goodness is a perfection An adoration and admiration is due to God upon the account of this excellence If he be God he is to be reverenced and the more highly reverenc'd because he cannot but be God Again what comfort could it be to pray to a God that like the Chamaeleon changed colours every day every moment What encouragement could there be to lift up our eyes to one that were of one mind this day and of another mind to morrow Who would put up a Petition to an Earthly Prince that were so mutable as to grant a Petition one day and deny it another and change his own act But if a Prince promise this or that thing upon such or such a condition and you know his promise to be as unchangeable as the Laws of the Medes and Persians would any Man reason thus because it is unchangeable we will not seek to him we will not perform the condition upon which the fruit of the Proclamation is to be enjoyed Who would not count such an inference ridiculous What blessings hath not God promised upon the condition of seeking him Were he of an unrighteous nature or changeable in his mind this would be a bar to our seeking him and frustrate our hopes But since it is otherwise is not this excellency of his nature the highest encouragement to ask of him the blessings he hath promised and a beam from Heaven to fire our zeal in asking If you desire things against his Will which he hath declared he will not grant Prayer then would be an act of disobedience and injury to him as well as an act of folly in it self his unchangeableness then might stifle such desires But if we ask according to his Will and according to our reasonable wants what ground have we to make such a ridiculous argument He hath Willed every thing that may be for our good if we perform the condition he hath required and hath put it upon record that we may know it and regulate our desires and supplications according to it If we will not seek him his immutability cannot be a bar but our own folly is the cause and by our neglect we despoil him of this perfection as to us and either imply that he is not sincere and means not as he speaks or that he is as changeable as the Wind sometimes this thing sometimes that and not at all to be confided in If we ask according to his revealed Will the unchangeableness of his Nature will assure us of the Grant and what a presumption would it be in a Creature dependent upon his Soveraign to ask that which he knows he has declared his Will against since there is no good we can want but he hath promised to give upon our sincere and ardent desire for it God hath decreed to give this or that to Man but conditionally and by the means of enquiring after him and asking for it * Ezek. 36.37 Mat. 7.7 Ask and you shall receive as much as to say you shall not receive unless you ask When the highest promises are made God expects they should be put in sute Our Saviour joyns the Promise and the Petition together the Promise to encourage the Petition and the Petition to enjoy the Promise He doth not say perhaps it shall be given but it shall that is it certainly shall your heavenly Father is unchangeably willing to give you those things We must depend upon his Immutability for the thing and submit to his Wisdom for the time Prayer is an acknowledgment of our dependence upon God which dependence could have no firm foundation without unchangeableness Prayer doth not desire any change in God but is offered to God that he would conferr those things which he hath immutably willed to communicate but he willed them not without Prayer as the means of bestowing them The light of the Sun is ordered for our comfort for the discovery of visible things for the ripening the fruits of the Earth but withal t is required that we use our faculty of seeing that we employ our industry in sowing and planting and expose our fruits to the view of the Sun that they may receive the influence of it If a man shuts his eyes and complains that the Sun is changed into darkness it would be ridiculous the Sun is not changed but we alter our selves Nor is God changed in not giving us the blessings he hath promised because he hath promised in the way of a due address to him and opening our Souls to receive his influence and to this his Immutability is the greatest encouragement 3. This shews how contrary Man is to God in regard of his inconstancy What an infinite distance is there between the immutable God and mutable Man and how should we bewail this flittingness in our Nature There is a Mutability in us as Creatures and a Creature cannot but be mutable by Nature otherwise it were not a Creature but God The establishment of
could not be blessed Nothing can have any complacency in it self without the Knowledg of it self Nothing can in a rational manner enjoy it self without understanding it self The Blessedness of God consists not in the knowledg of any thing without him but in the knowledg of himself and his own excellency as the principle of all things If therefore he did not perfectly know himself and his own happiness he could not enjoy a happiness for to be and not to know to be is as if a thing were not He is God blessed for ever Rom. 9.5 and therefore for ever had a Knowledg of himself 3. Without the Knowledg of himself he could Create nothing For he would be ignorant of his own Power and his own Ability and he that doth not know how far his Power extends could not act If he did not know himself he could know nothing and he that knows nothing can do nothing he could not know an Effect to be possible to him unless he knew his own Power as a Cause 4. Without the Knowledg of himself he could govern nothing He could not without the knowledg of his own Holiness and Righteousness prescribe Laws to men nor without a knowledg of his own nature order himself a manner of Worship sutable to it All Worship must be congruous to the dignity and nature of the object worshipped he must therefore know his own Authority whereby Worship was to be enacted his own Excellency to which Worship was to be suited his own Glory to which Worship was to be directed If he did not know himself he did not know what to punish because he would not know what was contrary to himself not knowing himself he would not know what was a contempt of him and what an adoration of him what was worthy of God and what was unworthy of him In fine he could not know other things unless he knew himself unless he knew his own Power he could not know how he created things unless he knew his own Wisdom he could not know the beauty of his Works unless he knew his own Glory he could not know the end of his Works unless he knew his own Holiness he could not know what was evil and unless he knew his own Justice he could not know how to punish the Crimes of his offending creatures And therefore 1. God knows himself because his Knowledg with his Will is the cause of all other things that can fall under his cognizance he knows himself first before he can knovv any other thing that is first according to our conceptions for indeed God knovvs himself and all other things at once He is the first Truth and therefore is the first object of his ovvn understanding There is nothing more excellent than himself and therefore nothing more known to him than himself As he is all Knovvledg so he hath in himself the most excellent object of Knovvledg To understand is properly to knovv ones self No object is so intelligible to God as God is to himself nor so intimately and immediately joined vvith his Understanding as himself for his Understanding is his Essence himself 2. He knows himself by his own Essence He knovvs not himself and his ovvn Povver by the effect because he knovvs himself from Eternity before there vvas a World or any effect of his Povver extant 'T is not a knovvledg by the Cause for God hath no cause nor a knovvledg of himself by any species or any thing from vvithout If it vvere any thing from vvithout himself that must be created or uncreated if uncreated it vvould be God and so vve must either ovvn many Gods or ovvn it to be his Essence and so not distinct from himself If created then his knovvledg of himself vvould depend upon a creature he could not then knovv himself from eternity but in time because nothing can be created from eternity but in time God knovvs not himself by any faculty for there is no composition in God he is not made up of parts but is a simple being some therefore have called God not intellectus understanding because that savours of a faculty but intellectio intellection God is all act in the knovvledg of himself and his knovvledg of other things 3. God therefore knows himself perfectly comprehensively Nothing in his ovvn nature is concealed from him he reflects upon every thing that he is Magalaneus There is a positive comprehension so God doth not comprehend himself for vvhat is comprehended hath bounds and vvhat is comprehended by it self is finite to it self and there is a negative comprehension God so comprehends himself nothing in his ovvn nature is obscure to him unknovvn by him For there is as great a perfection in the understanding of God to knovv as there is in the Divine nature to be knovvn The Understanding of God and the Nature of God are both infinite and so equal to one another his Understanding is equal to himself he knovvs himself so vvell that nothing can be knovvn by him more perfectly than himself is knovvn to himself He knovvs himself in the highest manner because nothing is so proportion'd to the Understanding of God as himself He knovvs his ovvn Essence Goodness Povver all his Perfections Decrees Intentions Acts the infinite capacity of his ovvn Understanding so that nothing of himself is in the dark to himself And in this respect some use this expression That the Infiniteness of God is in a manner finite to himself because it is comprehended by himself Thus God transcends all Creatures thus his Understanding is truly Infinite because nothing but himself is an infinite Object for it What Angels may understand of themselves perfectly I know not but no Creature in the World understands himself Man understands not fully the excellency and parts of his own nature upon Gods knowledg of himself depends the Comfort of his People and the Terror of the Wicked this is also a clear Argument for his Knowledg of all other things without himself he that knows himself must needs know all other things less than himself and which were made by himself When the knowledg of his own Immensity and Infiniteness is not an object too difficult for him the knowledg of a finite and limited Creature in all his actions thoughts circumstances cannot be too hard for him Since he knows himself who is Infinite he cannot but know whatsoever is Finite this is the Foundation of all his other Knowledg the knowledg of every thing present past and to come is far less than the knowledg of himself He is more incomprehensible in his own nature than all things Created or that can be Created put together can be If he then have a perfect comprehensive knowledg of his own nature any knowledg of all other things is less than the knowledg of himself this ought to be well considered by us as the Fountain whence all his other knowledg flows 2. Therefore God knows all other things whether
him he therefore knows innumerable Worlds innumerable Angels with higher Perfections than any of them which he hath Created have So that if the World should last many Millions of Years God knows that he can every day Create another World more capacious than this and having Created an unconceivable number he knows he could still Create more So that he beholds infinite Worlds infinite numbers of Men and other Creatures in himself infinite kinds of things infinite species and individuals under those kinds even as many as he can Create if his Will did order and determine it Ficin de immort lib. 2. cap. 10. for not being ignorant of his own Power he cannot be ignorant of the effects wherein it may display and discover it self A comprehensive knowledg of his own Power doth necessarily include the objects of that power so he knows whatsoever he could effect and whatsoever he could permit if he pleased to do it If God could not understand more than he hath created he could not create more than he hath created for it cannot be conceived how he can create any thing that he is ignorant of what he doth not know he cannot do he must know also the extent of his own goodness and how far any thing is capable to partake of it so much therefore as any detract from the Knowledg of God they detract from his Power 3. 'T is further evident that God knows all possible things because he knew those things which he has created before they were created when they were yet in a possibility If God knew things before they were created he knew them when they were in a possibility and not in actual reality 'T is absurd to imagine that his Understanding did lacquy after the creatures and draw knowledg from them after they were created 'T is absurd to think that God did create before he knew what he could or would create If he knew those things he did create when they were possible he must know all things which he can create and therefore all things that are possible To conclude this We must consider that this Knowledg is of another kind than his knowledg of things that are or shall be He sees possible things as possible not as things that ever are or shall be If he saw them as existing or future and they shall never be this knowledg would be false there would be a deceit in it which cannot be He knows those things not in themselves because they are not nor in their causes because they shall never be he knows them in his own Power not in his Will He understands them as able to produce them not as willing to effect them Things possible he knows only in his Power things future he knows both in his Power and his Will as he is both able and determin'd in his own good pleasure to give being to them Those that shall never come to pass he knows only in himself as a sufficient cause those things that shall come into being he knows in himself as the efficient cause and also in their immediate second causes This should teach us to spend our thoughts in the admirations of the excellency of God and the divine Knowledg his Understanding is infinite 2. God knows all things past This is an argument used by God himself to elevate his Excellency above all the commonly adored Idols Isa 41.22 Let them shew the former things what they be that we may consider them and know the latter end of them He knows them as if they were now present and not past for indeed in his Eternity there is nothing past or future to his knowledg This is called remembrance in Scripture as when God remembred Rachels prayer for a child Gen. 30.22 and he is said to put tears into his bottle and write them in his Book of Accompts which signifies the exact and unerring knowledg in God of the minute circumstances past in the World and this knowledg is called a book of remembrance Mal. 3.16 signifying the perpetual presence of things past before him There are two elegant expressions signifying the certainty and perpetuity of Gods knowledg of sins past Job 14.17 My transgression is sealed up in a bag and thou sowest up my iniquity A Metaphor taken from men that put up in a bag the money they would charily keep tye the bag sow up the holes and bind it hard that nothing may fall out or a vessel wherein they reserve liquors and daub it with pitch and glutinous stuff that nothing may leak out but be safely kept till the time of use Or else as some think from the bags Attorneys carry with them full of Writings when they are to manage a Cause against a person Thus we find God often in Scripture calling to mens minds their past actions upbraiding them with their ingratitude wherein he testifies his remembrance of his own past benefits and their Crimes His knowledg in this regard hath something of infinity in it since tho' the sins of all men that have been in the World are finite in regard of number yet when the sins of one man in thoughts words and deeds are numberless in his own account and perhaps in the count of any creature the sins of all the vast numbers of men that have been or shall be are much more numberless it cannot be less than infinite knowledg that can make a collection of them and take a survey of them all at once If past things had not been known by God how could Moses have been acquainted with the Original of things How could he have declared the former transactions wherein all Histories are silent but the Scripture How could he know the cause of mans present misery so many ages after wherewith all Philosophy was unacquainted How could he have writ the order of the Creation the particulars of the sin of Adam the circumstances of Cains murder the private speech of Lamech to his Wives if God had not revealed them And how could a Revelation be made if things past were forgotten by him Do we not remember many things done among men as well as by our selves and reserve the forms of divers things in our minds which rise as occasions are presented to draw them forth And shall not God much more who hath no cloud of darkness upon his understanding A man that makes a curious Picture hath the form of it in his mind before he made it and if the fire burn it the form of it in his mind is not destroyed by the fire but retained in it Gods memory is no less perfect than his understanding If he did not know things past he could not be a righteous Governour or exercise any judicial act in a righteous manner he could not dispense Rewards and Punishments according to his promises and threatnings if things that were past could be forgotten by him he could not require that which is past Eccles 3 15. if he did not remember that
which is past And tho' God be said to forget in Scripture and not to know his People and his People pray to him to remember them as if he had forgotten them Psal 119 49. This is improperly ascrib'd to God * Bradward As God is said to repent when he changes things according to his Counsel beyond the expectation of men so he is said to forget when he defers the making good his Promise to the Godly or his Threatnings to the Wicked this is not a defect of Memory belonging to his mind but an act of his Will When he is said to remember his Covenant 't is to Will Grace according to his Covenant when he is said to forget his Covenant 't is to intercept the influences of it whereby to punish the Sin of his People and when he is said not to know his People 't is not an absolute forgetfulness of them but withdrawing from them the Testimonies of his Kindness and clouding the Signs of his favour so God in Pardon is said to forget Sin not that he ceaseth to know it but ceaseth to punish it 'T is not to be meant of a simple forgetfulness or a lapse of his Memory but of a Judicial Forgetfulness so when his People in Scripture Pray Lord Remember thy Word unto thy Servant no more is to be understood but Lord fulfil thy Word and Promise to thy Servant 3. He knows things Present Heb. 4.13 All things are naked and opened unto the Eyes of him with whom we have to do This is grounded upon the Knowledg of himself 't is not so difficult to know all Creatures exactly as to know himself because they are finite but himself is infinite he knows his own Power and therefore every thing through which his Omnipotence is diffus'd all the acts and objects of it not the least thing that is the Birth of his Power can be conceal'd from him he knows his own Goodness and therefore every object upon which the warm beams of his Goodness strike he therefore knows distinctly the properties of every Creature because every Property in them is a Ray of his Goodness he is not only the efficient but the exemplary cause therefore as he knows all that his Power hath wrought as he is the efficient so he knows them in himself as the pattern As a Carpenter can give an account of every part and passage in a House he hath built by consulting the Model in his own mind whereby he built it He looked upon all things after he had made them and pronounc'd them good Gen. 1.3 full of a natural goodness he had endowed them with he did not ignorantly pronounce them so and call them good whether he knew them or not and therefore he knows them in particular as he knew them all in their first Presence Is there any reason he should be ignorant of every thing now present in the World or that any thing that derives an existence from him as a free cause should be concealed from him If he did not know things present in their particularities many things would be known by man yea by Beasts which the infinite God were ignorant of and if he did not know all things present but only some 't is possible for the most Blessed God to be deceived and be miserable Ignorance is a Calamity to the Understanding He could not prescribe Laws to his Creatures unless he knew their Natures to which those Laws were to be suited no not natural Ordinances to the Sun Moon and Heavenly Bodies and inanimate Creatures unless he knew the vigour and vertue in them to execute those Ordinances for to prescribe Laws above the nature of things is inconsistent with the Wisdom of Government he must know how far they were able to obey whether the Laws were suted to their ability And for his rational Creatures Whether the Punishments annext to the Law were proper and suited to the Transgression of the Creature 1. First He knows all Creatures from the highest to the lowest the least as well as the greatest He knows the Ravens and their young ones Job â—â— 41. the Drops of Rain and Dew which he hath begotten Job 38. â—â— every Bird in the Air as well as any man doth what he hath in a Cage at home Psal 50.11 I know all the Fowls in the Mountains and the wild Beasts in the Field which some read creeping things The Clouds are numbred in his Wisdom Job 38.37 every Worm in the Earth every drop of Rain that falls upon the ground the flakes of Snow and the knots of Hail the Sands upon the Sea-shore the Hairs upon the Head 't is no more absurd to imagine that God knows them than that God made them they are all the effects of his Power as well as the Stars which he calls by their Names as well as the most glorious Angel and blessed Spirit he knows them as well as if there were none but them in particular for him to know the least things were framed by his Art as well as the greatest the least things partake of his goodness as well as the greatest he knows his own Arts and his own Goodness and therefore all the Stamps and Impressions of them upon all his Creatures he knows the immediate causes of the least and therefore the effects of those causes Since his knowledg is infinite it must extend to those things which are at the greatest distance from him to those which approach nearest to not Being since he did not want Power to Create he cannot want Understanding to know every thing he hath Created the dispositions qualities and vertues of the minutest Creature Nor is the Vnderstanding of God embas'd and suffers a diminution by the Knowledg of the vilest and most inconsiderable things Is it not an imperfection to be ignorant of the nature of any thing and can God have such a defect in his most perfect Understanding Is the Understanding of man of an impurer Alloy by knowing the nature of the rankest Poysons by understanding a Fly or a small Insect or by considering the deformity of a Toad Is it not generally counted a note of a Dignified mind to be able to Discourse of the Nature of them Was Solomon who knew all from the Cedar to the Hysop debas'd by so Rich a Present of Wisdom from his Creator Is any Glass defil'd by presenting a Deformed Image Is there any thing more vile than the imaginations which are only evil and continually doth not the mind of man descend to the mud of the Earth play the Adulterer or Idolater with mean objects suck in the most unclean things yet God knows these in all their circumstances in every appearance inside and outside Is there any thing viler than some thoughts of men than some actions of men their unclean Beds and Gluttonous Vomiting and Luciferian Pride yet do not these fall under the Eye of God in all their Nakedness The Second Person 's taking
him through the universal Corruption of Nature Now he hath manifested himself a God of Truth mindful of his Promise in Blessing all Nations in the Seed of Abraham The Fury of Devils and the Violence of Men could not hinder the propagation of this Gospel Its Light hath been dispersed as far as that of the Sun and that Grace that sounded in the Gentiles Ears hath bent many of their Hearts to the Obedience of it 5. Observe That Libertinism and Licentiousness find no encouragement in the Gospel It was made known to all Nations for the Obedience of Faith The Goodness of God is publish'd that our Enmity to him may be parted with Christs Righteousness is not offered to us to be put on that we may roul more warmly in our Lusts The Doctrine of Grace commands us to give up our selves to Christ to be accepted through him and to be ruled by him Obedience is due to God as a Soveraign Lord in his Law and 't is due out of gratitude as he is a God of Grace in the Gospel The discovery of a further perfection in God weakens not the right of another nor the obligation of the Duty the former Attribute claims at our hands The Gospel frees us from the Curse but not from the Duty and Service We are delivered from the hands of our Enemies that we might serve God in Holiness and Righteousness Luke 1.74 This is the will of God in the Gospel even our Sanctification When a Prince strikes off a Malefactors Chains though he deliver him from the punishment of his Crime he frees him not from the Duty of a Subject His Pardon adds a greater obligation than his Protection did before while he was Loyal Christs Righteousness gives us a Title to Heaven but there must be a Holiness to give us a fitness for Heaven 6. Observe That Evangelical Obedience or the Obedience of Faith is only acceptable to God Obedience of Faith Genitivus speciei noting the kind of Obedience God requires an Obedience springing from Faith animated and influenced by Faith Not Obedience of Faith as though Faith were the Rule and the Law were abrogated but to the Law as a Rule and from Faith as a Principle There is no true Obedience before Faith Heb. 11.6 Without Faith it is impossible to please God and therefore without Faith impossible to obey him A good Work cannot proceed from a defil'd Mind and Conscience and without Faith every mans Mind is darkned and his Conscience polluted * Tit. 1.15 Faith is the Band of Union to Christ and Obedience is the Fruit of Union we cannot bring forth fruit without being Branches †John 15.4 5. and we cannot be Branches without Believing Legitimate Fruit follows upon Marriage to Christ not before it Rom. 7.4 That you should be married to another even to him that is raised from the dead that you should bring forth fruit unto God All Fruit before Marriage is Bastard and Bastards were excluded from the Sanctuary Our Persons must be first accepted in Christ before our Services can be acceptable those Works are not acceptable where the Person is not pardoned Good Works flow from a pure Heart but the Heart cannot be pure before Faith All the Good Works reckoned up in the 11th Chapter of the Hebrews were from this Spring those Heroes first believed and then obeyed By Faith Abel was righteous before God without it his Sacrifice had been no better than Cains By Faith Enoch pleased God and had a Divine Testimony to his Obedience before his Translation By Faith Abraham offered up Isaac without which he had been no better than a Murderer All Obedience hath its Root in Faith and is not done in our own strength but in the strength and virtue of another of Christ whom God hath set forth as our Head and Root 7. Observe Faith and Obedience are distinct though inseparable The Obedience of Faith Faith indeed is Obedience to a Gospel Command which enjoyns us to believe but it is not all our Obedience Justification and Sanctification are distinct Acts of God Justification respects the Person Sanctification the Nature Justification is first in order of Nature and Sanctification follows They are distinct but inseparable every Justified Person hath a Sanctified Nature and every Sanctified Nature supposeth a Justified Person So Faith and Obedience are distinct Faith as the Principle Obedience as the Product Faith as the Cause Obedience as the Effect the Cause and the Effect are not the same By Faith we own Christ as our Lord by Obedience we regulate our selves according to his Command The acceptance of the Relation to him as a Subject precedes the performance of our Duty By Faith we receive his Law and by Obedience we fulfil it Faith makes us Gods Children Gal. 3.26 Obedience manifests us to be Christs Disciples John 15.8 Faith is the Touchstone of Obedience the Touchstone and that which is tried by it are not the same But though they are distinct yet they are inseparable Faith and Obedience are joyned together Obedience follows Faith at the heels Faith purifies the heart and a pure Heart cannot be without pure Actions Faith unites us to Christ whereby we partake of his Liâ—e and a living Branch cannot be without fruit in its season and much fruit John 15.5 and that naturally from a newness of Spirit Rom. 7.9 not constrained by the rigors of the Law but drawn forth from a sweetness of Love for Faith works by Love The Love of God is the strong Motive and Love to God is the quickning Principle as there can be no Obedience without Faith so no Faith without Obedience After all this the Apostle ends with the celebration of the Wisdom of God To God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ for ever The rich Discovery of the Gospel cannot be thought of by a gracious Soul without a return of Praise to God and Admiration of his singular Wisdom Wise God His Power before and his Wisdom here are mentioned in conjunction in which his Goodness is included as interested in his establishing Power as the ground of all the Glory and Praise God hath from his Creatures Only Wise As Christ saith Mat. 19.17 None is good but God so the Apostle saith None Wise but God As all Creatures are unclean in regard of his Purity so they are all Fools in regard of his Wisdom yea the glorious Angels themselves * Job 4.18 Wisdom is the Royalty of God the proper Dialect of all his Ways and Works No Creature can lay claim to it He is so Wise that he is Wisdom it self Be glory through Jesus Christ As God is only known in and by Christ so he must be only worshipped and celebrated in and through Christ In him we must Pray to him and in him we must Praise him As all Mercies flow from God through Christ to us so all our Duties are to be presented to God through Christ In the Greek verbatim
cannot be well governed but by one endowed with infinite Discretion Providential government can be no more without infinite wisdom than infinite wisdom can be without Providence Reas 3. The Creatures working for an end without their own knowledge demonstrates the wisdom of God that guides them All things in the World work for some end the ends are unknown to them though many of their ends are visible to us As there was some prime Cause which by his power inspir'd them with their several instincts so there must be some supream wisdom which moves and guides them to their end As their Being manifests his power that endowed them so the acting according to the rules of their Nature which they themselves understand not manifests his wisdom in directing them Every thing that acts for an end must know that end or be directed by another to attain that end The Arrow doth not know who shoots it or to what end it is shot or what Mark is aimed at but the Archer that puts it in and darts it out of the Bow knows A Watch hath a regular motion but neither the Spring nor the Wheels that move know the end of their motion no man will judge a wisdom to be in the Watch but in the Artificer that dispos'd the Wheels and Spring by a joint combination to produce such a motion for such an end Doth either the Sun that enlivens the Earth or the Earth that travels with the Plant know what Plant it produceth in such a Soil what temper it should be of what fruit it should bear and of what colour What Plant knows its own medicinal qualities it s own beautiful flowers and for what use they are ordain'd When it strikes up its head from the Earth doth it know what proportion of them there will be Yet it produceth all these things in a state of ignorance The Sun warms the Earth concocts the humours excites the vertue of it and cherishes the Seeds which are cast into her lap yet all unknown to the Sun or the Earth Since therefore that Nature that is the immediate cause of those things doth not understand its own quality nor operation nor the end of its action that which thus directs them must be conceived to have an infinite wisdom When things act by a Rule they know not and move for an end they understand not and yet work harmoniously together for one end that all of them we are sure are ignorant of it mounts up our minds to acknowledge the wisdom of that supream Cause that hath rang'd all these inferiour Causes in their order and imprinted upon them the Laws of their motions according to the Ideas in his own Mind who orders the Rule by which they act and the end for which they act and directs every motion according to their several Natures and therefore is possessed with infinite wisdom in his own Nature Reas 4. God is the fountain of all wisdom in the creatures and therefore is infinitely wise himself As he hath a fulness of being in himself because the streams of being are derived to other things from him So he hath a fulness of wisdom because he is the spring of wisdom to Angels and men That Being must be infinitely wise from whence all other wisdom derives its original For nothing can be in the effect which is not eminently in the cause the cause is alway more perfect than the effect If therefore the creatures are wise the Creator must be much more wise If the Creator were destitute of wisdom the creature would be much more perfect than the Creator If you consider the wisdom of the Spider in her web which is both her house and net the artifice of the Bee in her Comb which is both her chamber and granary the provision of the Pismire in her repositories for corn the wisdom of the Creator is illustrated by them whatsoever excellency you see in any creature is an Image of some excellency in God The skill of the artificer is visible in the fruits of his Art a workman transcribes his spirit in the work of his hands But the wisdom of rational creatures as men doth more illustrate it All Arts among men are the rayes of divine Wisdom shining upon them and by a common gift of the Spirit enlightning their minds to curious inventions as Prov. 8.12 I wisdom find out the knowledge of witty inventions that is I give a faculty to men to find them out without my wisdom all things would be buried in darkness and ignorance Whatsoever wisdom there is in the World it is but a shadow of the wisdom of God a small Rivulet derived from him a spark leaping out from Uncreated Wisdom Isa 54.16 He created the Smith that bloweth the coals in the fire and makes the Instruments The skill to use those weapons in War-like Enterprises is from him I have created the waster to destroy 'T is not meant of creating their Persons but communicating to them their Art He speaks it there to expell fear from the Church of all war-like preparations against them He had given Men the skill to form and use Weapons and could as well strip them of it and defeat their purposes The Art of husbandry is a fruit of divine teaching Isa 28.24 25. If those lower kinds of Knowledge that are common to all Nations and easily learn'd by all are discoveries of Divine Wisdom much more the nobler Sciences intellectual and Political Wisdom Dan. 2.21 He gives Wisdom to the wise and knowledge to them that know understanding speaking of the more abstruse parts of knowledge The inspiration of the Almighty gives Vnderstanding Job 32.8 Hence the Wisdom which Solomon exprest in the Harlots case 1 Kings 3.28 was in the Judgment of all Israel the Wisdom of God that is a fruit of Divine Wisdom a beam communicated to him from God Every mans Soul is endowed more or less with those noble qualities The Soul of every man exceeds that of a Brute If the streams be so excellent the Fountain must be fuller and clearer The first Spirit must infinitely more possess what other Spirits derive from him by Creation Were the Wisdom of all the Angels in Heaven and men on Earth collected in one Spirit it must be infinitely less than what is in the Spring for no Creature can be equal to the Creator As the highest Creature already made or that we can conceive may be made by Infinite Power would be infinitely below God in the Notion of a Creature so it would be infinitely below God in the Notion of Wise IV. The fourth Thing is Wherein the Wisdom of God appears It appears 1. In Creation 2. In Government 3. In Redemption 1. In Creation As in a Musical Instrument there is first the skill of the Workman in the frame then the skill of the Musician in stringing it proper for such Musical Notes as he will express upon it and after that the tempering of the Strings by
proper subsistence by it self which now it borrows from its union with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word but that doth not belong to the Constitution of its Nature Now let us Consider what a wonder of Power is all this The knitting a Noble Soul to a Body of Clay was not so great an exploit of Almightiness as the espousing Infinite and Finite together Man is further distant from God than Man from Nothing What a wonder is it that two Natures infinitely distant should be more intimately united than any thing in the World and yet without any confusion That the same Person should have both a Glory and a Grief an infinite Joy in the Deity and an unexpressible Sorrow in the Humanity That a God upon a Throne should be an Infant in a Cradle the Thundering Creator be a weeping Babe and a suffering Man are such expressions of mighty Power as well as condescending Love that they astonish Men upon Earth and Angels in Heaven 3. Power was evident in the progress of his life In the Miracles he wrought How often did he expel malicious and powerful Devils from their habitations hurl them from their Thrones and make them fall from Heaven like Lightning How many Wonders were wrought by his bare Word or a single Touch Sight restored to the Blind and Hearing to the Deaf Palsie Members restored to the exercise of their functions a dismiss given to many deplorable Maladies impure Leprosies chas'd from the Persons they had infected and Bodies beginning to putrifie rais'd from the Grave But the mightiest Argument of Power was his Patience That he who was in his Divine Nature elevated above the World should so long continue upon a Dung-hill endure the contradiction of Sinners against himself be patiently subject to the Reproaches and Indignities of Men without displaying that Justice which was essential to the Deity and in especial manner daily merited by their provoking Crimes The Patience of Man under great Affronts is a greater Argument of power than the Brawnyness of his Arm A Strength employ'd in the revenge of every Injury signifies a greater infirmity in the Soul than there can be ability in the Body 4. Divine Power was apparent in his Resurrection The unlocking the belly of the Whale for the deliverance of Jonas the rescue of Daniel from the Den of Lions and the restraining the Fire from burning the Three Children were signal declarations of his Power and types of the Resurrection of our Saviour But what are those to that which was represented by them That was a power over Natural causes a curbing of Beasts and restraining of Elements But in the Resurrection of Christ God exercis'd a power over himself and quencht the flames of his own Wrath hotter than Millions of Nebuchadnezzars Furnaces unlockt the Prison doors wherein the Curses of the Law had lodg'd our Saviour stronger than the Belly and Ribbs of a Leviathan In the rescue of Daniel and Jonas God overpowered Beasts and in this tore up the strength of the Old Serpent and pluckt the Scepter from the hand of the Enemy of Mankind The Work of Resurrection indeed considered in it self requires the efficacy of an Almighty Power Neither Man nor Angel can create new dispositions in a Dead Body to render it capable of lodging a Spiritual Soul nor can they restore a dislodged Soul by their own power to such a Body The restoring a Dead Body to life requires an Infinite Power as well as the Creation of the World But there was in the Resurrection of Christ something more difficult than this while he lay in the Grave he was under the Curse of the Law under the execution of that dreadful Sentence Thou shalt die the death His Resurrection was not only the re-tying â—he Marriage knot between his Soul and Body or the rouling the Stone from the Grave but a taking off an infinite weight the Sin of Mankind which lay upon him So vast a weight could not be removed without the strength of an Almighty Arm. 'T is therefore ascrib'd not to an ordinary operation but an operation with Power †Rom. 1.4 and such a Power wherein the Glory of the Father did appear Rom. 6.4 Rais'd up from the dead by the glory of the Father that is the glorious Power of God As the Eternal Generation is stupendous so is his Resurrection which is called a new begetting of him Acts 13.33 'T is a wonder of Power that the Divine and Humane Nature should be joyn'd and no less wonder that his Person should surmount and rise up from the Curse of God under which he lay The Apostle therefore adds one expression to another and heaps up a variety signifying thereby that one was not enough to represent it Eph. 1.19 Exceeding greatness of power and working of mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead It was an hyperbole of Power the excellency of the Mightiness of his Strength the loftiness of the expressions seems to come short of the apprehension he had of it in his Soul Secondly This Power appears in the Publication and Propagation of the Doctrine of Redemption The Divine Power will appear if you consider 1. The Nature of the Doctrine 2. The Instruments employed in it 3. The Means they us'd to propagate it 4. The Success they had I. The Nature of the Doctrine 1. It was contrary to the common received reason of the World The Philosophers the Masters of Knowledge among the Gentiles had Maxims of a different stamp from it Though they agreed in the Being of a God yet their Notions of his Nature were confus'd and embroil'd with many Errors the Unity of God was not commonly assented unto They had multiplied Deities acâ—ording to the Fancies they had received from some of a more elevated Wit and refin'd Brain than others Though they had some notion of Mediators yet they placed in those Seats their publick Benefactors Men that had been useful to the World or their particular Countries in imparting to them some profitable Invention To discard those was to charge themselves with Ingratitude to them from whom they had received signal benefits and to whose Mediation Conduct or Protection they ascrib'd all the Success they had been blessed with in their several Provinces and to charge themselves with Folly for rendring an Honour and Worship to them so long Could the Doctrine of a Crucified Mediator whom they had never seen that had conquer'd no Country for them never enlarg'd their Territories brought to light no new profitable Invention for the increase of their Earthly welfare as the rest had done be thought sufficient to balance so many of their reputed Heroes How ignorant were they in the foundations of the True Religion The belief of a Providence was staggering nor had they a true prospect of the nature of Vertue and Vice Yet they had a fond Opinion of the strength of their own Reason and the Maxims that had
Jews Crucifying our Saviour God did not imprint upon their Minds by his Spirit a consideration of the greatness of the Crime and the horrour of his Justice due to it And being without those Impediments they run furiously of their own accord to the Commission of that Evil. As when a Man lets a Wolf or Dog out upon his Prey he takes off the Chain which held them and they presently act according to their Natures †Lawson pag. 64. In the Fall of Angels and Men Gods Act was a leaving them to their own strength In Sins after the Fall 't is Gods giving them up to their own Corruption The first is a pure suspension of Grace the other hath the nature of a Punishment Psal 81.12 So I gave them up to their own hearts lusts The first Object of this Permissive Will of God was to leave Angâ—ls and Men to their own liberty and the use of their Free-will which was Natural to them ‖ Suarez Vol. 4. p. 414. not adding that Supernatural Grace which was necessary not that they should not at all sin but that they should infallibly not sin They had a strength sufficient to avoid Sin but not sufficient infallibly to avoid Sin a Grace sufficient to preserve them but not sufficient to confirm them 3. Now this Permission is not the cause of Sin nor doth blemish the Holiness of God It doth not intrench upon the Freedom of Men but supposeth it establisheth it and leaves Man to it God acted nothing but only ceased to Act and therefore could not be the Efficient cause of Mans Sin As God is not the Author of good but by willing and effecting it so he is not the Author of Evil but by willing â—nd effecting it But he doth not positively will Evil nor effect it by any Efficacy of his own Permission is no Action nor the cause of that Action which is permitted but the will of that Person who is permitted to do such an Action is the cause * Suarez de Legib. p. 43. God can no more be said to be the cause of Sin by suffering a Creature to act as it will than he can be said to be the cause of the not Being of any Creature by denying it Being and letting it remain Nothing 'T is not from God that it is Nothing 't is Nothing in it self Though God be said to be the Cauâ—e of Creation yet he is never by any said to be the Cause of that Nothing which was before Creation This Permission of God is not the Cause of Sin but the cause of not hindering Sin Man and Angels had a Physical Power of sinning from God as they were created with Free-will and supported in their Natural strength but the Moral power to sin was not from God He counsell'd them not to it laid no obligation upon them to use their Natural power for such an end He only left them to their freedom and not hinder'd them in their acting what he was resolved to permit 2. The Holiness of God is not tainted by this because he was under no obligation to hinder their Commission of sin Ceasing to act whereby to prevent a Crime or mischief brings not a Person permitting it under guilt unless where he is under an obligation to prevent it But God in regard of his Absolute Dominion cannot be charged with any such Obligation One Man that doth not hinder the Murder of another when it is in his power is guilty of the Murder in part but it is to be considered that he is under a Tye by Nature as being of the same kind and being the others Brother by a communion of Blood also under an obligation of the Law of Charity enacted by the Common Soveraign of the World But what tye was there upon God since the Infinite Transcendency of his Nature and his Soveraign Dominion frees him from any such obligation Job 9.12 If he takes away who shall say What dost thou God might have prevented the Fall of Men and Angels he might have confirm'd them all in a state of perpetual Innocency but where is the Obligation He had made the Creature a Debtor to himself but he ow'd nothing to the Creature Before God can be charged with any guilt in this case it must be proved not only that he could but that he was bound to hinder it No Person can be justly charged with anothers Fault meerly for not preventing it unless he be bound to prevent it else not only the First sin of Angels and Man would be imputed to God as the Author but all the sins of Men. He could not be obliged by any Law because he had no Supeiour to impose any Law upon him and it will be hard to prove that he was obliged from his own Nature to prevent the entrance of Sin which he would use as an occasion to declare his own Holiness so transcendent a Perfection of his Nature more than ever it could have been manifested by a total exclusion of it viz. in the Death of Christ He is no more bound in his own Nature to preserve by Supernatural Grace his Creature from Falling after he had framed him with a sufficient strength to stand than he was obliged in his own Nature to bring his Creature into Being when it was Nothing He is not bound to create a Rational Creature much less bound to create him with Supernatural gifts though since God would make a Rational Creature he could not but make him with a Natural Uprightness and rectitude God did as much for Angels and Men as became a Wise Governour He had publish'd his Law back'd it with severe Penalties and the Creature wanted not a Natural strength to observe and obey it Had not Man a power to obey all the Precepts of the Law as well as one How was God bound to give him more Grace since what he had already was enough to shield him and keep up his Resistance against all the Power of Hell It had been enough to have pointed his Will against the Temptation and he had kept off the force of it Was there any Promise past to Adam of any further Grace which he could plead as a tye upon God No such voluntary Limit upon Gods Supream Dominion appears upon Record Was any thing due to Man which he had not Any thing promis'd him which was not perform'd What Action of Debt then can the Creature bring against God Indeed when Man began to neglect the light of his own Reason and became Inconsiderate of the Precept God might have enlightned his Understanding by a special flash a Supernatural beam and imprinted upoâ— him a particular consideration of the Necessity of his Obedience the Misery he was approaching to by his Sin the folly of any such Apprehension of an equality in Knowledge he might have convinc'd him of the falsity of the Serpents Arguments and uncas'd to him the Venom that lay under those Baits But how doth it
of the Act As the good Judge that Condemned the Prisoner out of Conscience concurred with the evil Judge who condemned the Prisoner out of private Revenge not in the Principle and Motive of Condemnation but in the Material part of Condemnation So God assists in that Action of a Man wherein Sin is placed but not in that which is the Formal reason of Sin which is a privation of some Perfection the Action ought Morally to have 3. It will appear further in this that hence it follows that the Action and the viciousness of the Action may have two distinct Causes That may be a cause of the one that is not the cause of the other and hath no hand in the producing of it God concurs to the Act of the Mind as it Counsels and to the external Action upon that Counsel as he preserves the Faculty and gives strength to the Mind to consult and the other parts to execute yet he is not in the least tainted with the Viciousness of the Action Though the Action be from God as a concurrent Cause yet the ill quality of the Action is solely from the Creature with whom God concurs The Sun and the Earth concur to the production of all the Plants that are formed in the womb of the one and Midwiv'd by the other The Sun distributes Heat and the Earth communicates Sap 't is the same Heat dispersed by the one and the same Juyce bestowed by the other It hath not a sweet Juyce for one and a sowr Juyce for another This general Influx of the Sun and Earth is not the immediate cause that one Plant is poysonous and another wholsom but the Sap of the Earth is turned by the Nature and quality of each Plant If there were not such an Influx of the Sun and Earth no Plant could exert that poyson which is in its Nature but yet the Sun and Earth are not the cause of that poyson which is in the Nature of the Plant. If God did not concur to the motions of Men there could be no sinful Action because there could be no Action at all yet this Concurrence is not the cause of that Venom that is in the Action which ariseth from the Corrupt Nature of the Creature no more than the Sun and Earth are the cause of the Poyson of the Plant which is purely the effect of its own Nature upon that general Influx of the Sun and Earth The Influence of God pierceth through all Subjects but the Action of Man done by that Influence is vitiated according to the Nature of its own Corruption As the Sun equally shines through all the Quarrels in the Window if the Glass be bright and clear there is a pure splendor if it be Red or Green the splendor is from the Sun but the discolouring of that Light upon the Wall is from the quality of the Glass †Zanch. Tom. 2. lib. 3. cap. 4. qu. 4. p. 226. But to be yet plainer The Soul is the Image of God and by the Acts of the Soul we may come to the knowledge of the Acts of God the Soul gives motion to the Body and every Member of it and no Member could move without a concurrent virtue of the Soul if a Member be Paralitick or Gouty whatsoever motion that Gouty Member hath is derived to it from the Soul but the Goutyness of the Member was not the Act of the Soul but the fruit of Ill humors in the Body the lameness of the Member and the motion of the Member have two distinct causes the motion is from one cause and the Ill motion from another As the Member could not move irregularly without some Ill humor or cause of that distemper so it could not move at all without the activity of the Soul So though God concur to the act of Understanding Willing and Execution why can he not be as free from the Irregularity in all those as the Soul is free from the Irregularity of the mâ—â—ion of the Body while it is the cause of the motion it self There are two Illustrations generally used in this case that are not unfit the motion of the Pen in writing is from the hand that holds it but the Blurs by the Pen are from some fault in the Pen it self And the Musick of the Instrument is from the hand that touches it but the Jarring from the faultiness of the Strings both are the causes of the motion of the Pen and Strings but not the blurs or jarrings 4. 'T is very congruous to the Wisdom of God to move his Creatures according to their particular Natures but this Motion makes him not the cause of Sin Had our Innocent Nature continued God had moved us according to that Innocent Nature but when the state was changed for a Corrupt one God must either forbear all concourse and so annihilate the World or move us according to that Nature he finds in us If he had overthrown the World upon the entrance of Sin and created another upon the same terms Sin might have as soon defac'd his second Work as it did the first and then it would follow that God would have been alway building and demolishing It was not fit for God to cease from acting as a Wise Governour of his Creature because Man did cease from his Loyalty as a Subject Is it not more agreeable to Gods Wisdom as a Governour to concur with his Creature according to his Nature than to deny his concurrence upon every Evil determination of the Creature God concurr'd with Adams mutable Nature in his first act of Sin he concurr'd to the act and left him to his Mutability If Adam had put out his hand to eat of any other unforbidden Fruit God would have supported his Natural faculty then and concurr'd with him in his motion When Adam would put out his hand to take the Forbidden Fruit God concurr'd to that Natural action but left him to the choice of the Object and to the use of his mutable Nature And when Man became Apostate God concurs with him according to that condition wherein he found him and cannot move him otherwise unless he should alter that Nature Man had contracted God moving the Creature as he found him is no cause of the Ill motion of the Creature As when a Wheel is broken the space of a foot it cannot but move ill in that part till it be mended He that moves it uses the same motion as it is his Act which he would have done had the Wheel been sound the motion is good in the Mover but bad in the Subject 'T is not the fault of him that moves it but the fault of that Wheel that is moved whose breaches came by some other cause A Man doth not use to lay aside his Watch for some Irregularity as long as it is capable of motion but winds it up Why should God cease from concurring with his Creature in its vital Operations and other actions of his
his own goodness he needed none to make him good but all things needed him to be good by him Creatures are good by being made so by him and cleaving to him He is good without cleaving to any goodness without him Goodness is not a Quality in him but a Nature * Ficini epist lib. 11. epist 30. not a Habit added to his Essence but his Essence it self He is not first God and then afterwards Good but he is Good as he is God his Essence being one and the same is formally and equally God and Good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good of himself was one of the Names the Platonists gave him He is Essentially Good in his own Nature and not by any outward action which follows his Essence He is an Independent Being and hath nothing of goodness or happiness from any thing without him or any thing he doth act about If he were not good by his Essence he could not be Eternally good he could not be the first good he would have something before him from whence he derived that Goodness wherewith he is possessed Nor could he be perfectly good for he could not be equally good to that from whom he derived his Goodness No Star no splendid Body that derives light from the Sun doth equal that Sun by which it 's enlightned Hence his goodness must be infinite and circumscrib'd by no limits The Exercise of his goodness may be limited by himself but his Goodness the Principle cannot For since his Essence is Infinite and his Goodness is not distinguished from his Essence 't is Infinite also If it were limited it were Finite he cannot be bounded by any thing without him if so then he were not God because he would have something Superior to him to put bars in his way If there were any thing to fix him it must be a good or evil Being Good it cannot be for it is the property of goodness to encourage goodness not to bound it Evil it cannot be for then it would extinguish goodness as well as limit it it would not be content with the circumscribing it without destroying it for it is the nature of every Contrary to endeavour the destruction of its Opposite He is Essentially good by his own Essence therefore good of himself therefore Eternally good and therefore abundantly good 2. God is the prime and chief Goodness Being good per se and by his own Essence he must needs be the chief Goodness in whom there can be nothing but good from whom there can proceed nothing but good to whom all good whatsoever must be referr'd as the final cause of all good As he is the chief Being so he is the chief Good And as we rise by steps from the Existence of Created things to acknowledge one Supream Being which is God so we mount by Steps from the Consideration of the Goodness of Created things to acknowledge one Infinite Ocean of Soveraign Goodness whence the Streams of Created Goodness are deriv'd When we behold things that partake of Goodness from another we must acquiesce in one that hath Goodness by participation from no other but Originally from himself and therefore Supreamly in himself above all other things So that as nothing greater and more Majestick can be imagin'd so also nothing Better and more Excellent can be conceiv'd than God Nothing can add to him or make him better than he is nothing can detract from him to make him worse nothing can be added to him nothing can be sever'd from him No Created Good can render him more Excellent No Evil from any Creature can render him less Excellent †Psal 16.2 Our goodness extends not to him Wickedness may hurt a Man as we are and our Righteousness may profit the Son of Man but if we be Righteous what give we to him or what receives he at our hands * Job 35.7 8. As he hath no Superior in place above him so being chief of all he cannot be made better by any Inferior to him How can he be made better by any that hath from himself all that he hath The Goodness of a Creature may be chang'd but the Goodness of the Creator is immutable He is always like himself so Good that he cannot be Evil as he is so Blessed that he cannot be Miserable Nothing is good but God because nothing is of it self but God As all things being from nothing are nothing in comparison of God so all things being from nothing are scanty and evil in comparison of God If any thing had been ex Deo God being the Matter of it it had been as good as God is but since the Principle whence all things were drawn was nothing though the Efficient Cause by which they were extracted from nothing was God they are as nothing in goodness and not esteemable in comparison of God †Psal 73.25 Whom have I in Heaven but thee c. God is all good every Creature hath a distinct variety of goodness God distinctly pronounced every days work in the Creation good Food communicates the goodness of its Nourishing Virtue to our Bodies Flowers the goodness of their Odors to our Smell every Creature a goodness of Comeliness to our Sight Plants the goodness of Healing Qualities for our Cure And all derive from themselves a goodness of Knowledge objectively to our Understandings The Sun by one sort of goodness warms us Metals enrich us living Creatures sustain us and delight us by another All those have distinct kinds of Goodness which are eminently summed up in God and are all but parts of his Immense Goodness 'T is he that enlightens us by his Sun nourisheth us by Bread * Matth. 4.4 'T is not by Bread alone that we live but by the Word of God 'T is all but his own Supream Goodness conveyed to us through those varieties of Conduit-pipes God is all Good other things are good in their kind as a Good Man a Good Angel a Good Tree a Good Plant but God hath a Good of all kinds eminently in his Nature He is no less All-good than he is Almighty and All-knowing As the Sun contains in it all the Light and more Light than is in all the clearest Bodies in the World so doth God contain in himself all the Good and more Good than is in the Richest Creatures Nothing is Good but as it Resembles him as nothing is Hot but as it Resembles Fire the Prime Subject of Heat God is Omnipotent therefore no Good can be wanting to him If he were destitute of any which he could not have he were not Almighty He is so Good that there is no mixture of any thing which can be call'd not Good in him every thing besides him wants some Good which others have Nothing can be so Evil as God is Good There can be no Evil but there is some mixture of Good with it No Nature so Evil but there is some spark of Goodness in it But
the high places were not removed nevertheless Asa 's heart was perfect with the Lord all his days He takes notice of a sincere though chequer'd Obedience to reward it which could claim nothing but a slight from him if he were extream to mark what is done amiss When there is not an opportunity to work but only to will he accepts the will as if it had past into work and act He sees no iniquity in Jacob * Numb 23.21 i. e. He sees it not so as to cast off a respect to their Persons and the acceptance of their Services His Omniscience knows their Sins but his Goodness doth not reject their Persons He is of so good a disposition that he delights in a weak Obedience of his Servants not in the Imperfection but in the Obedience * Psal 37.23 He delights in the way of a good Man though he sometimes slips in it He accepts a poor Mans Pigeon as well as a rich Mans Ox He hath a Bottle for the Tears and a Book for the services of the Vpright as well as for the most perfect Obedience of Angels * Psal 56.8 He preserves their Tears as if they were a rich and generous Wine as the Vine-dresser doth the Expressions of the Grape 8. The Goodness of God is seen in Afflictions and Persecutions If it be good for us to be afflicted for which we have the Psalmist's Vote * Psal 119.71 then Goodness in God is the principal cause and orderer of the Afflictions 'T is his Goodness to snatch away that whence we fetch supports for our security and encouragements for our insolence against him He takes away the thing which we have some value for but such as his Infinite Wisdom sees inconsistent with our true happiness 'T is no ill will in the Physician to take away the hurtful Matter the Patient loves and prescribe bitter Potions to advance that health which the other impair'd Nor any mark of unkindness in a Friend to wrest a Sword out of a mad Mans hand wherewith he was about to stab himself though it were beset with the most Orient Pearls To prevent what is evil is to do us the greatest good 'T is a kindness to prevent a Man from falling down a Precipice though it be with a violent blow that lays him flat upon the ground at some distance from the edge of it By Afflictions he often snaps asunder those Chains which fetter'd us and quells those Passions which ravag'd us He sharpens our Faith and quickens our Prayers he brings us into the secret Chamber of our own heart which we had little mind before to visit by a self-examination 'T is such a Goodness that he will vouchsafe to correct Man in order to his Eternal Happiness that Job makes it one part of his astonishment * Job 7.17 What is Man that thou shouldest magnifie him That thou shouldest set thy heart upon him And that thou shouldest visit him every morning And trie him every moment His strokes are often the magnifyings and exaltings of Man He sets his heart upon Man while he inflicts the smart of his Rod He shews thereby what a high account he makes of him and what a special affection he bears to him When he might treat us with more severity after the breach of his Covenant and make his jealousie flame out against us in furious Methods he will not destroy his Relation to us and leave us to our own inclinations but deal with us as a Father with his Children and when he takes this course with us 't is when it cannot be avoided without our ruine His Goodness would not suffer him to do it if our badness did not force him to it * Jerem. 9.7 I will melt them and trie them for how shall I do for the daughter of my People What other Course can I take but this according to the nature of Man The Goldsmith hath no other way to separate the Dross from the Metal but by melting it down And when the impurities of his People necessitate him to this proceeding he sits as a Refiner * Mal. 3.3 He watches for the purifying the Silver not for his own profit as the Goldsmith but out of a Care of them and good will to them As himself speaks * Isai 48.10 I have Refin'd thee but not with Silver Or as some read it not for Silver As when he scatters his People abroad for their Sin he will not leave them without his Presence for their Sanctuary * Ezek. 11.16 He would by his Presence with them supply the place of Ordinances or be an Ark to them in the midst of the Deluge His hand that struck them is never without a Goodness to comfort them and pity them When Jacob was to go into Egypt which was to prove a furnace of Affliction to his Offspring God promises to go down with him and to bring him up again * Gen. 46.4 A Promise not only made to Jacob in his Person but to Jacob in his Posterity He return'd not out of Egypt in his Person but as the Father of a numerous Posterity He that would go down with their Root and afterwards bring up the Branches was certainly with them in all their Oppressions I will go down with thee Down saith one * Haâ—wood's Sermon at Oxford p. 5. What a word is that for a Deity into Egypt Idolatrous Egypt What a place is that for his Holiness Yet Oh the Goodness of God! He never thinks himself low enough to do his People good nor any place too bad for his Society with them So when he had sent away into Captivity the People of Israel by the hand of the Assyrian his bowels yearn after them in their affliction * Isai 52.4 5. The Assyrian Opprest them without Cause i. e. without a just Cause in the Conqueror to inflict so great an evil upon them but not without Cause from God whom they had provoked Now therefore what have I here saith the Lord What do I here I will not stay behind them What do I longer here For I will redeem again those Jewels the Enemy hath carried away That Chapter is a Prophesie of Redemption God shews himself so good to his People in their Persecutions that he gives them occasion to glorifie him in the very Fires as the Divine Order is * Isai 24.15 Wherefore glorifie the Lord in the Fires 9. The Goodness of God is seen in Temptations In those he takes occasion to shew his care and watchfulness as a Father uses the distress of a Child as an opportunity for manifesting the tenderness of his affection God is at the beginning and end of every Temptation He measures out both the quality and quantity He exposeth them not to Temptation beyond the ability he hath already granted them or will at the time or afterwards multiply in them * 1 Cor. 10.13 He hath promised his People that
Estimation When the Excellency of his Nature and the Expressions of his Bounty are in conjunction the Excellency of his own Nature renders him estimable in a way of Justice and the greatness of his Benefits renders him valuable in a way of Gratitude The first ravisheth and the other allures and melts He hath enough in his Nature to attract and sufficient in his Bounty to engage our Affections The Excellency of his Nature is strong enough of it self to blow up our Affections to him were there not a Malignity in our hearts that represents him under the Notion of an Enemy therefore in regard of our Corrupt State the consideration of Divine Largesses comes in for a share in the Elevation of our Affections For indeed 't is a very hard thing for a Man to love another though never so well qualified and of an eminent Vertue while he believes him to be his Enemy and one that will severely handle him though he hath before received many good turns from him The Vertue Valour and Courtesie of a Prince will hardly make him affected by those against whom he is in Arms and that are daily pilfer'd by his Souldiers unless they have hopes of a Reparation from him and future security from injuries Christ in the Repetition of the Command to love God with all our mind with all our heart and with all our Soul i. e. with such an ardency above all things which glitter in our Eye or can be Created by him considers him as our God * Mat. 22.37 And the Psalmist considers him as one that had kindly employ'd his power for him in the eruption of his love Psal 18.1 I will love thee Oh Lord my strength And so in Psal 116.1 I love the Lord because he hath heard the voice of my supplications An esteem of the Benefactor is inseparable from gratitude for the received Benefits And should not then the unparallell'd kindness of God advance him in our thoughts much more than slighter Courtesies do a Created Benefactor in ours 'T is an obligation on every Mans Nature to answer Bounty with gratitude and Goodness with love Hence you never knew any Man nor can the Records of Eternity produce any Man or Devil that ever hated any Person or any thing as good in it self 'T is a thing absolutely repugnant to the Nature of any Rational Creature The Devils hate not God because he is good but because he is not so good to them as they would have him because he will not unlock their Chains turn them into liberty and restore them to Happiness i. e. because he will not desert the Rights of abus'd Goodness But how should we send up flames of love to that God since we are under his direct Beams and enjoy such plentiful influences If the Sun is comely in it self yet 't is more amiâ—ble to us by the light we see and the warmth we feel 1. The greatness of his Benefits have reason to affect us with a love to him The Impress he made upon our Souls when he extracted us from the darkness of nothing The Comeliness he hath put upon us by his own Breath The Care he took of our Recovery when we had lost our selves The Expence he was at for our Regaining our defac'd Beauty The gift he made of his Son The Affectionate Calls we have heard to over-master our Corrupt Appetites move us to Repentance and make us disaffect our beloved Misery The loud sound of his Word in our Ears and the more inward knocking 's of his Spirit in our Heart The offering us the Gift of himself and the Everlasting Happiness he Courts us to besides those common favours we enjoy in the World which are all the Streams of his rich Bounty The voice of all is loud enough to sollicite our love and the Merit of all ought to be strong enough to engage our love There is none like the God of Jesurun who rides upon the Heaven in thy help and in his Excellency on the Sky * Deut. 33.26 2. The unmeritedness of them doth inhance this 'T is but reason to love him who hath loved us first * 1 John 4.19 Hath he placed his delight upon were nothing and after they were Sinful and shall he set his delight upon such vile Persons and shall not we set our love upon so Excellent an Object as himself How base are we if his goodness doth not constrain us to affect him who hath been so free in his favour to us who have merited the quite contrary at his hands If his tender Mercies are over all his Works * Psal 145.9 He ought for it to be esteem'd by all his Works that are capable of a Rational Estimation 3. Goodness in Creatures makes them estimable much more should the Goodness of God render him lovely to us If we love a little spark of goodness in this or that Creature if a drop be so delicious to us shall not the immense Sun of Goodness the ever-flowing Fountain of all be much more delightful The Original Excellency always out-strips what is deriv'd from it If so mean and contracted an Object as a little Creature deserves Estimation for a little Mite communicated to it so great and extended a goodness as is in the Creator much more merits it at our hands He is good after the infinite methods of a Deity A weak Resemblance is lovely much more amiable then must be the incomprehensible Original of that Beauty We love Creatures for what we think to be good in them though it may be hurtful And shall we not love God who is a real and unblemisht Goodness And from whose hand are pour'd out all those Blessings that are conveyed to us by second Causes The Object that delights us the Capacity we have to delight in it are both from him Our love therefore to him should transcend the Affection we bear to any Instruments he moves for our welfare Among the Gods there is none like thee O Lord neither are there any Works like unto thy Works * Psal 86.8 Among the pleasantest Creatures there is none like the Creator nor any Goodness like unto his Goodness Shall we love the Food that Nourisheth us and the Medicine that Cures us and the Silver whereby we furnish our selves with useful Commodities Shall we love a Horse or Dog for the benefits we have by them And shall not the Spring of all those draw our Souls after it and make us aspire to the honour of loving and embracing him who hath stor'd every Creature with that which may pleasure us But instead of endeavouring to parallel our Affection with his Kindness we endeavour to make our Disingenuity as extensive and towring as his Divine Goodness 4. This is the true end of the manifestation of his Goodness that he might appear amiable and have a Return of Affection Did God display his Goodness only to be thought of or to be loved 'T is the want of
best that saith the Psalmist speaks only according to the opinion of the vulgar and his design was not to write a Natural History Growth always accompanies Grace as well as it doth Nature in the Body not that it is without its qualms languishing fits as Children are not but still their distempers make them grow Grace is not an idle but an active principle 'T is not like the Psalmist means it of the strength of the Body or the prosperity and stability of his Government but the vigor of his Grace and Comfort since they are spiritual blessings here that are the matter of his song The healing the Disease conduceth to the sprouting up and flourishing of the Body 'T is the Nature of Grace to go from strength to strength 7. When sin is pardoned 't is perfectly pardon'd Verse 11 12. As far as the East is from the West so far hath he removed our transgressions from us The East and West are the greatest distance in the World the terms can never meet together When sin is pardoned it is never charged again the guilt of it can no more return than East can become West or West become East 8. Obedience is necessary to an interest in the mercy of God Verse 17. The mercy of the Lord is to them that fear him to them that remember his Commandments to do them Commands are to be remembered in order to practice a vain speculation is not the intent of the publication of them After the Psalmist had enumerated the benefits of God he reflects upon the greatness of God and considers him on his Throne encompast with the Angels the Ministers of his Providence Verse 19. The Lord hath prepared his Throne in the Heavens and his Kingdom Rules over all He brings in this of his Dominion just after he had largely treated of his mercy Either 1. To signifie That God is not only to be praised for his mercy but for his Majesty both for the heighth and extent of his Authority 2. To extoll the greatness of his mercy and 〈◊〉 What I have said now Oh my Soul of the mercy of God and his paternal pity is commended by his Majesty his Grandeur hinders not his Clemency Though his Throne be High his Bowels are Tender He looks down upon his meanest Servants from the height of his Glory Since his Majesty is Infinite his Mercy must be as great as his Majesty It must be a greater pity lodging in his Breast than what is in any Creature since it is not dampt by the greatness of his Soveraignty 3. To render his Mercy more Comfortable The Mercy I have spoken of Oh my Soul is not the Mercy of a Subject but of a Soveraign An Executioner may torture a criminal and strip him of his Life and a vulgar pity cannot releive him but the Clemency of the Prince can perfectly pardon him 'T is that God who hath none above him to controul him none below him to resist him that hath performed all the acts of Grace to thee If God by his supream Authority pardons us who can reverse it If all the Subjects of God in the World should pardon us and God withhold his grant what will it profit us Take comfort Oh my Soul since God from his Throne in the highest and that God who rules over every particular of the Creation hath granted and sealed thy pardon to thee What would his Grace signifie if he were not a Monarch extending his Royal Empire over every thing and swaying all by his Scepter 4ly To render the Psalmists confidence more firm in any pressures Verse 15 16. He had considered the misery of man in the shortness of his Life his place should know him no more he should never return to his Authority Employments Opportunities that death would take from him but howsoever the Mercy and Majesty of God were the ground of his confidence He draws himself from poring upon any Calamities which may assault him to heaven the place where God orders all things that are done on the Earth He is able to protect us from our dangers and to deliver us from our distresses whatsoever miseries thou mayst lie under Oh my Soul cast thy Eye up to Heaven and see a pitying God in a Majestick Authority A God who can perform what he hath promised to them that fear him since he hath a Throne above the Heavens and bears sway over all that envy thy happiness and would stain thy felicity A God whose Authority cannot be curtailed and dismembered by any When the Prophet sollicites the sounding of the Divine Bowels he urgeth him by his dwelling in Heaven the habitation of his Holiness Isaiah 63.15 His Kingdom ruleth over all There is none therefore hath any Authority to make him break his Covenant or violate his promise 5. As an incentive to Obedience The Lord is merciful saith he to them that Remember his Commandments to do them verse 17 18. And then brings in the Text as an encouragement to observe his ' Precepts he hath a Majesty that deserves it from us and an Authority to protect us in it if a King in a small spot of Earth is to be Obeyed by his Subjects how much more is God who is more Majestick than all the Angels in Heaven and Monarchs on Earth who hath a majesty to exact our Obedience and a Mercy to allure it We should not set upon the performance of any Duty without an Eye lifted up to God as a great King It would make us willing to serve him the more Noble the Person the more Honourable and Powerful the Prince the more glorious is his Service A view of God upon his Throne will makes us think his Service our Priviledge his Precepts our Ornaments and Obedience to him the greatest Honour and Nobility It will make us weighty and serious in our performances It would stake us down to any duty The reason we are so loose and unmannerly in the carriage of our Souls before God is because we consider him not as a great King Malachy 1.14 Our Father which art in Heaven in regard of his Majesty is the Preface to Prayer Let us now consider the words in themselves The Lord hath prepared his Throne in the Heavens and his Kingdom rules over all The Lord hath prepared The word signifies Establisht as well as prepared and might so be rendered Due preparation is a natural way to the Establishment of a thing Hasty resolveâ—â—eak and moulder This notes 1. The infiniteness of his Authority He prepares it none else for him 'T is a Dominion that originally resides in his Nature not deriv'd from any by birth or commission he alone prepar'd it He is the sole cause of his own Kingdom his Authority therefore is unbounded as infinite as his Nature None can set Laws to him because none but himself prepared his Throne for him As he will not impair his own Happiness so he will not abridge himself of his own Authority
the Divine Nature is the natural foundation for his Dominion He hath Wisdom to know what is fit for him to do and an immutable Righteousness whereby he cannot do any thing base and unworthy He hath a fore-knowledge whereby he is able to order all things to answer his own glorious designs and the end of his Government that nothing can go awry nothing put him to a stand and constrain him to meditate new Counsels * Caâ—â—â—â— p. â—â—1 Aâ—â—â—â—â— Dissert p. 72 73. So that if it could be supposed that the World had not been created by him that the parts of it had met together by chance and been compacted into such a Body none but God the supream and most excellent being in the World could have merited and deservedly challenged the Government of it Because nothing had an excellency of Nature to capacitate it for it as he hath or to enter into a contest with him for a sufficiency to Govern 2. 'T is founded in his act of Creation He is the Soveraign Lord as he is the Almighty Creator The relation of an intire Creator induceth the relation of an absolute Lord he that gives Being Life Motion that is the sole cause of the being of a thing which was before nothing that hath nothing to concur with him nothing to assist him but by his sole power Commands it to stand up into being is the unquestionable Lord and Proprietor of that thing that hath no dependance but upon him And by this act of Creation which extended to all things he became universal Soveraign over all things And those that wave the excellency of his Nature as the foundation of his Goverment easily acknowledge the sufficiency of it upon his actual Creation His Dominion of Jurisdiction results from Creation When God himself makes an oration in defence of his Soveraignty Job 38. His chief arguments are drawn from Creation and Psal 95.3 5. The Lord is a great King above all Gods the Sea is his and he made it And so the Apostle in his Sermon to the Athenians As he made the World and all things therein he is stiled Lord of Heaven and Earth Acts 17.24 His Dominion also of Property stands upon this Basis Psal 89.7 The Heavens are thine the Earth also is thine as for the World and the fulness thereof thou hast founded them Upon this Title of forming Israel as a Creature or rather as a Church he demands their service to him as their Soveraign Oh Jacob and Israel thou art my Servant I have formed thee thou art my servant Oh Israel Isaiah 44. 21. The Soveraignty of God naturally ariseth from the relation of all things to himself as their intire Creator and their natural and inseparable dependance upon him in regard of their being and well beings It depends not upon the election of Men God hath a natural Dominion over us as Creatures before he hath a Dominion by consent over us as converts As soon as ever any thing began to be a Creature it was a vassal to God as a Lord. Every man is acknowledged to have a right of possessing what he hath made and a power of Dominion over what he hath fram'd He may either cherish his own work or dash it in peices he may either adde a greater comeliness to it or deface what he hath already imparted He hath a right of property in it no other man can without injury pilfer his own work from him The work hath no propriety in its self the right must lie in the immediate framer or in the person that employed him The first Cause of every thing hath an unquestionable Dominion of propriety in it upon the score of Justice By the Law of Nations the first finder of a Countrey is esteemed the rightful possessor and Lord of that Country and the first inventor of an Art hath a right of exercising it If a man hath a just claim of Dominion over that thing whose materials were not of his framing but from only the addition of a new figure from his skill as a Limner over his picture the Cloth whereof he never made nor the colours wherewith he draws it were ever endued by him with their distinct qualities but only he applies them by his art to compose such a figure much more hath God a rightful claim of Dominion over his Creatures whose intire being both in matter and form and every particle of their excellency was breathed out by the word of his mouth He did not only give the matter a form but bestowed upon the matter its self a being It was formed by none to his hand as the matter is on which an Artist works He had the being of all things in his own power and it was at his choice whither he would impart it or no there can be no juster and stronger ground of a claim than this A man hath a right to a piece of brass or Gold by his purchase but when by his engraving he hath form'd it into an excellent Statue there results an increase of his right upon the account of his artifice Gods Creation of the the matter of man gave him a right over man but his Creation of him in so eminent an excellency with reason to guide him a clear eye of understanding to discern Light from Darkness and Truth from falshood a freedom of Will to act accordingly and an original Righteousness as the varnish and beauty of all Here is the strongest foundation for a claim of Authority over man and the strongest obligation on man for subjection to God If all those things had been past over to God by another hand he could not be the supream Lord nor could have an absolute right to dispose of them at his pleasure That would have been the invasion of anothers right Besides Creation is the only first discovery of his Dominion * Stoughton Righteous Mans Plea Serm. 6. p. 28. Before the World was framed there was nothing but God himself and properly nothing is said to have Dominion over its self this is a relative Attribute reflecting on the works of God He had a right of Dominion in his Nature from eternity but before Creation he was actually Lord only of a nullity Where there is nothing it can have no relation nothing is not the subject of possession nor of Dominion There could be no exercise of this Dominion without Creation What exercise can a Soveraign have without Subjects Soveraignty speaks a relation to Subjects and none is properly a Soveraign without Subjects To conclude from hence doth result Gods universal Dominion For being maker of all he is the Ruler of all And his perpetual Dominion For as long as God continues in the relation of Creator the right of his Soveraignty as Creator cannot be abolisht 3. As God is the final Cause or End of all he is Lord of all * Vid. Lessium de perfect Divin p. 77. 78. The End hath a greater Soveraignty in
as his own peculiar for his own glory and service By this Redemption there results to God a right over our bodies over our Spirits over our services as well as by Creation and to shew the strength of this right the Apostle repeats it you are bought a purchase cannot be without a price paid but he adds price also bought with a price To strengthen the Title purchase gave him a new right and the greatness of the price established that right The more a man pays for a thing the more usually we say he deserves to have it he hath paid enough for it It was indeed price enough and too much for such vile Creatures as we are III. The third thing is The Nature of this Dominion 1. This Dominion is Independent His Throne is in the Heavens the Heavens depend not upon the Earth nor God upon his Creatures Since he is Independent in regard of his Essence he is so in his dominion which flows from the excellency and fulness of his Essence As he receives his Essence from none so he derives his dominion from none All other dominion except paternal Authority is rooted originally in the wills of men * Raynaud Theolog. Natural p. 760 761 762. The first Title was the consent of the People or the conquest of others by the help of those People that first consented And in the exercise of it Earthly dominion depends upon assistance of the Subjects and the Members being joyn'd with the head carry on the work of Government and prevent Civil dissentions in the support of it it depends upon the Subjects Contributions and Taxes The Subjects in their strength are the Arms and in their Purses the Sinews of Government But God depends upon none in the foundation of his Government he is not a Lord by the Votes of his Vassals Nor is it successively handed to him by any Predecessor nor constituted by the power of a Superior Nor forced he his way by War and conquest nor precariously attained it by suit or flattery or bribing promises He holds not the right of his Empire from any other he hath no Superior to hand him to his Throne and settle him by Commission He is therefore called King of Kings and Lord of Lords having none above him A great King above all Gods Psal 95.3 Needing no Licence from any when to act nor direction how to act or assistance in his action He owes not any of those to any person he was not ordered by any other to Create and therefore receives not orders from any other to rule over what he hath created He received not his power and wisdom from another and therefore is not Subject to any for the rule of his Government He only made his own Subjects and from himself hath the sole Authority his own will was the cause of their beings and his own will is the director of their actions He is not determined by his Creatures in any of his motions but determins the Creatures in all His actions are not regulated by any Law without him but by a Law within him the Law of his own Nature 'T is impossible he can have any rule without himself because there is nothing Superior to himself Nor doth he depend upon any in the exercise of his Government he needs no Servants in it when he uses Creatures it is not out of want of their help but for the manifestation of his wisdom and power What he doth by his Subjects he can do by himself The Government is upon his Shoulder Isaiah 9.6 To shew that he needs not any supporters All other governments flow from him all other Authorities depend upon him Dei Gratiâ or Dei Providentiâ is in the style of Princes As their being is deriv'd from his power so their Authority is but a branch of his dominion They are governors by Divine Providence God is Governour by his sole nature All motions depend upon the first Heaven which moves all but that depends upon nothing The Government of Christ depends upon God's increated dominion and is by Commission from him Christ assum'd not this honour to himself But he that said unto him thou art my Son bestow'd it upon him He put all things under his feet but not himself 1 Cor. 15.27 When he saith all things are put under him he is excepted which did put all things under him He sits still as an independent Governour upon his Throne 2. This dominion is Absolute If his Throne be in the Heavens there is nothing to controul him If he be independent he must needs be â—bsolute since he hath no cause in conjunction with him as Creator that can share with him in his right or restrain him in the disposal of his Creature His Authority is unlimited in this regard the Title of Lord becomes not any but God properly Tiberius thoâ—ght none of the best though one of the subtilest Princes accounted the Title of Lord a reproach to him Since he was not absolute * Sueton. de Tiberio cap. 27. 1. Absolute in regard of Freedom and Liberty 1. Thus Creation is a work of his meer Soveraignty he Created because it was his pleasure to Create Rev. 4.11 He is not necessitated to do this or that He might have chosen whether he would have fram'd an Earth and Heavens and laid the foundations of his Chambers in the Waters He was under no obligation to reduce things from nullity to existence 2. Preservation is the fruit of his Soveraignty When he had called the World to stand out he might have ordered it to return into its dark den of nothingness ript up every part of its foundation or have given being to many more Creatures than he did If you consider his absolute soveraignty why might he not have devested Adam presently of those rational perfections wherewith he had endow'd him And might he not have metamorphos'd him into some Beast and elevated some Beast into a rational nature Why might he not have degraded an Angel to a Worm and advanc'd a Worm to the nature and condition of an Angel Why might he not have revokt that grant of dominion which he had passed to man over all Creatures It was free to him to permit sin to enter into the Earth or to have excluded it out of the Earth as he doth out of Heaven 3. Redemption is a fruit of his Soveraignty By his absolute Soveraignty he might have confirmed all the Angels in their standing by Grace and prevented the revolt of any of their members from him and when there was a revolt both in Heaven and Earth it was free to him to have call'd out his Son to assume the Angelical as well as the humane nature or have exercised his dominion in the destruction of Men and Devils rather than in the Redemption of any he was under no obligation to restore either the one or the other 4. May he not impose what terms he pleases May he not impose what Laws
breach of it He summons Adam to the Bar indicts him for his Crime finds him guilty by his own Confession and passeth sentence on him according to the rule he had before acquainted him with 4. The means whereby he punisheth shews his dominion Sometimes he musters up Hail and Mildew sometimes he sends regiments of wild Beasts so he threatens Israel Levit. 26.22 Sometimes he sends out a party of Angels to beat up the quarters of men and make a carnage among them 2 King 19.35 Sometimes he mounts his Thundring battery and shoots forth his Ammunition from the Clouds as against the Philistines 1 Sam. 7.10 Sometimes he sends the slightest Creatures to shame the Pride and punish the sin of man as Lice Froggs Locusts as upon the Egyptians the 8 9 10. chap. of Exodus 2. This Dominion is manifested by God as a proprietor and Lord of his Creatures and his own Goods And this is evident 1. In the choice of some persons from Eternity He hath set a part some from Eternity wherein he will display the invincible efficacy of his Grace and thereby infallibly bring them to the fruition of Glory Eph. 1.4 5. According as he hath chosen us in him before the Foundation of the World that we should be Holy and without blame before him in Love having Predestinated us to the Adoption of Children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will Why doth he write some names in the Book of Life and leave out others why doth he enroll some whom he intends to make Denizons of Heaven and refuse to put others in his register The Apostle tells us 't is the pleasure of his Will You may render a reason for many of God's actions till you come to this the top and Foundadation of all and under what head of reason can man reduce this act but to that of his Royal Prerogative Why doth God save some and condemn others at last Because of the Faith of the one and unbelief of the other Why do some men beleive Because God hath not only given them the means of Grace but accompanied those means with the efficacy of his Spirit Why did God accompany those means with the efficacy of his Spirit in some and not in others Bccause he had decreed by Grace to prepare them for Glory But why did he decree or choose some and not others Into what will you resolve this but into his soveraign pleasure Salvation and Condemnation at the last upshot are acts of God as the Judge conformable to his own Law of giving life to Believers and inflicting death upon unbeleivers for those a reason may be rendered but the choice of some and preterition of others is an act of God as he is a soveraign Monarch before any Law was actually transgrest because not actually given When a Prince redeems a Rebel he acts as a Judge according to Law but when he calls some out to pardon he acts as a soveraign by a Prerogative above Law into this the Apostle resolves it Rom. 9.13.15 When he speaks of Gods loving Jacob and hating Esau and that before they had done either good or evil It is Because God will have Mercy on whom he will have Mercy and Compassion on whom he will have Compassion Though the first scope of the Apostle in the beginning of the Chapter was to declare the reason of God's rejecting the Jews and calling in the Gentiles had he only intended to demolish the pride of the Jews and flat their opinion of merit and aim'd no higher than that Providential act of God he might convincingly enough to the reason of men have argued from the Justice of God provoked by the obstinacy of the Jews and not have had recourse to his absolute Will but since he asserts this latter * Amyrald dissert p. 101 102. the strength of his argument seems to lie thus if God by his absolute soveraignty may resolve and fix his love upon Jacob and estrange it from Esau or any other of his Creatures before they have done good or evil and man have no ground to call his infinite Majesty to account may he not deal thus with the Jews when their demerit would be a barr to any complaints of the Creature against him If God were considered here in the quality of a Judge it had been fit to have considered the matter of Fact in the Criminal but he is considered as a Soveraign rendring no other reason of his action but his own Will whom he will he hardens ver 18. And then the Apostle concludes Ver. 20. Who art thou O Man that replyest against God If the reason drawn from Gods Soveraignty doth not satisfie in this enquiry no other reason can be found wherein to acquiesce For the last condemnation there will be sufficient reason to clear the Justice of his proceedings But in this case of Election no other reason but what is alledg'd viz. The Will of God can be thought of but what is liable to such knotty exceptions that cannot well be untyed 1. It could not be any merit in the Creature that might determine God to choose him If the decree of Election falls not under the merit of Christ's passion as the procuring cause it cannot fall under the merit of any part of the corrupted mass The decree of sending Christ did not precede but follow'd in order of nature the determination of choosing some When men were chosen as the subjects for Glory Christ was chosen as the means for the bringing them to Glory Eph. 1.4 Chosen us in him and predestinated us to the Adoption of Children by Jesus Christ The choice was not meerly in Christ as the moving cause that the Apostle asserts to be the good pleasure of his will but in Christ as the means of conveying to the chosen Ones the fruits of their Election What could there be in any man that could invite Gpd to this act or be a cause of distinction of one branch of Adam from another Were they not all hew'd out of the same Rock and tainted with the same corruption in blood Had it been possible to invest them with a power of merit at the first had not that venom contracted in their nature degraded all of power for the future What merit was there in any but of wrathfull punishment since they were all considered as Criminals and the cursed brood of an ungrateful Rebel what dignity can there be in the nature of the purest part of clay to be made a Vessel of Honour more than in another part of Clay as pure as that which was form'd into a Vessel for mean and sordid use What had any one to move his mercy more than another since they were all Children of wrath and equally dawb'd with Original guilt and filth Had not all an equal proportion of it to provoke his Justice What merit is there in one dry bone more than another to be inspir'd with the breath
of a spiritual life Did not all lie wallowing in their own filthy blood and what could the steam and noysomness of that deserve at the hands of a pure Majesty but to be cast into a sink furthest from his sight Were they not all considered in this deplorable posture with an equal proportion of poyson in their nature when God first took his pen and singled out some Names to write in the Book of life It could not be merit in any one peice of this abominable Mass that should stir up that resolution in God to set apart this person for a Vessel of Glory while he permitted another to putrifie in his own gore He loved Jacob and hated Esau though they were both parts of the common Mass the Seed of the same Loyns and lodg'd in the same Womb. 2. Nor could it â—e any foresight of works to be done in time by them or of Faith that might determine God to choose them What good could he foresee resulting from extream corruption and a nature alienated from him What could he foresee of good to be done by them but what he resolved in his own will to bestow an ability upon them to bring forth His choice of them was to a Holiness not for a Holiness preceding his determination Eph. 1.4 He hath chosen us that we might be Holy before him he ordained us to good works not for them Eph. 2.10 What is a Fruit cannot be a moving cause of that whereof it is a fruit Grace is a stream from the spring of electing love the branch is not the cause of the Root but the Root of the Branch nor the stream the cause of the spring but the spring the cause of the stream Good works suppose Grace and a good and right habit in the person as rational acts suppose reason Can any man say that the rational acts man performs after his Creation were a cause why God Created him This would make Creation and every thing else not so much an act of his will as an act of his Understanding God foresaw no rational act in man before the act of his will to give him reason nor foresees faith in any before the act of his will determining to give him Faith Eph. 2.8 Faith is the gift of God In the Salvation which grows up from this first purpose of God he regards not the works we have done as a principal motive to settle the top-stone of our happiness but his own purpose and the Grace given in Christ 2 Timothy 1.9 Who hath saved us and call'd us with a holy Calling not according to our own works but according to his own purpose and Grace which was given to us in Christ before the World began The honour of our Salvation cannot be challeng'd by our works much less the honour of the Foundation of it It was a pure gift of Grace without any respect to any spiritual much less natural perfection Why should the Apostle mention that circumstance when he speaks of God's loving Jacob and hating Esau when neither of them had done good or evil Rom. 9.11 if there were any foresight of mens works as the moving cause of his love or hatred God regarded not the works of either as the first cause of his choice but acted by his own Liberty without respect to any of their actions which were to be done by them in time If Faith be the fruit of Election the prescience of Faith doth not influence the Electing act of God Tit. 1.1 'T is called the Faith of Gods Elect. Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ according to the Faith of Gods Elect. i. e. Setled in this Office to bring the Elect of God to Faith If men be chosen by God upon the foresight of Faith or not chosen till they have Faith they are not so much God's Elect as God their Elect they choose God by Faith before God chooseth them by love It had not been the Faith of Gods Elect i. e. Of those already chosen but the Faith of those that were to be chosen by God afterwards * Dalle in loc Election is the cause of Faith and not Faith the cause of Election Fire is the cause of heat and not the heat of Fire the Sun is the cause of the day and not the day the cause of the rising of the Sun Men are not chosen because they beleive but they beleive because they are chosen The Apostle did ill else to appropriate that to the Elect which they had no more interest in by vertue of their Election than the veriest Reprobate in the World If the foresight of what works might be done by his Creatures was the motive of his choosing them why did he not choose the Devils to Redemption who could have done him better service by the strength of their Nature than the whole Mass of Adam's posterity Well then there is no possible way to lay the original Foundation of this act of Election and preterition in any thing but the absolute Soveraignty of God Justice or Injustice comes not into consideration in this case There is no debt which Justice or Injustice always respects in its acting If he had pleased he might have chosen all if he had pleased he might have chosen none It was in his supream power to have resolved to have left all Adam's posterity under the rack of his Justice if he determined to snatch out any it was a part of his dominion but without any injury to the Creatures he leaves under their own guilt Did he not pass by the Angels and take man And by the same right of Dominion may he pick out some men from the common Mass and lay aside others to bear the punishment of their Crimes Are they not all his Subjects All are his Criminals and may be dealt with at the pleasure of their undoubted Lord and Soveraign This is a work of arbitrary power Since he might have chosen none or chosen all as he saw good himself 'T is at the liberty of the Artificer to determine his Wood or Stone to such a figure that of a Prince or that of a Toad and his materials have no right to complain of him since it lies wholly upon his own liberty They must have little sence of their own vileness and God's infinite excellency above them by right of Creation that will contend that God hath a lesser right over his Creatures than an Artificer over his Wood or Stone If it were at his liberty whither to redeem Man or send Christ upon such an undertaking 't is as much at his liberty and the prerogative is to be allow'd him what persons he will resolve to make capable of enjoying the fruits of that Redemption One Man was as fit a subject for Mercy as another as they all lay in their orginal guilt Why would not Divine Mercy cast its eye upon this Man as well as upon his Neighbour There was no cause in the Creature but all in God it
an earth-worm a mean animal as man be afraid to speak irreverently of so great a King among his pots and Strumpets Not to fear him not to reverence him is to pull his Throne from under him and make him of a lower Authority than our selves or any creature that we reverence more 5. Prayer to God and trust in him is inferr'd from his Soveraignty If he be the supream Soveraign holding Heaven and Earth in his hand disposing all things here below not committing every thing to the influence of the stars or the humours of men we ought then to apply our selves to him in every case implore the exercise of his Authority we hereby own his peculiar right over all things and persons He only is the supream head in all causes and over all persons Thine is the Kingdom concludes the Lord's Prayer both as a motive to pray Mat. 6.13 and a ground to expect what we want He that believes not God's Government will think it needless to call upon him will expect no refuge under him in a strait but make some creature-reed his support If we do not seek to him but rely upon the dominion we have over our own possessions or upon the Authority of any thing else we disown his Supremacy and Dominion over all things we have as good an opinion of our selves or of some creature as we ought to have of God We think our selves or some natural cause we seek to or depend upon as much Soveraigns as he and that all things which concern us are as much at the dispose of an inferior as of the great Lord. 'T is indeed to make a God of our selves or of the Creature When we seek to him upon all occasions we own this divine eminency we acknowledge that it is by him mens hearts are order'd the World govern'd all things dispos'd And God that is jealous of his glory is best pleas'd with any duty in the creature that doth acknowledge and desire the glorification of it which Prayer and dependance on him doth in a special manner Desiring the exercise of his Authority and the preservation of it in ordering the affairs of the World 6. Obedience naturally results from this Doctrine As his justice requires fear his goodness thankfulness his faithfulness trust his truth belief so his Soveraignty in the nature of it demands Obedience As it is most fit he should rule in regard of his excellency so it is most fit we should obey him in regard of his Authority He is our Lord and we his Subjects he is our Master and we his servants 't is righteous we should observe him and conform to his will He is every thing that speaks an Authority to command us and that can challenge an humility in us to obey As that is the truest Doctrine that subjects us most to God so he is the truest Christian that doth in his practice most acknowledge this subjection And as soveraignty is the first notion a Creature can have of God so obedience is the first and chief thing Conscience reflects upon the Creature Man holds all of God and therefore owes all the operations capable to be produced by those faculties to that soveraign power that endowed him with them Man had no being but from him he hath no motion without him he should therefore have no being but for him and no motion but according to him To call him Lord and not to act in subjection to him is to mock and put a scorn upon him Luk. 6.46 Why call you me Lord Lord and do not the things that I say 'T is like the Crucifying Christ under the Title of a King 'T is not by professions but by observance of the Laws of a Prince that we manifest a due respect to him By that we reverence that Authority that enacted them and the prudence that fram'd them This doctrine affords us motives to obey and directs us to the manner of Obedience 1. Motives to obey 1. 'T is Comely and Orderly Is it not a more becoming thing to be ruled by the will of our soveraign than by that of our lusts To observe a wise and gracious Authority than to set up inordinate appetites in the room of his Law Would not all men account it a disorder to be abominated to see a slave or vassal controul the just orders of his Lord and endeavour to subject his Masters will to his own Much more to expect God should serve our humour rather than we be regulated by his Will 'T is more orderly that subjects should obey their Governours than Governours their Subjects that Passion should obey Reason than Reason obey Passion When good Governours are to conform to Subjects and reason vail to passion 't is monstrous the one disturbs the order of a community and the other defaceth the beauty of the Soul Is it a comely thing for God to stoop to our meanness or for us to stoop to his greatness 2. In regard of the Divine Soveraignty 't is both honourable and advantagious to obey God 'T is indeed the glory of a Superior to be obey'd by his Inferior but where the soveraign is of transcendent excellency and dignity 't is an honour to a mean person to be under his immediate commands and enrolled in his service 'T is more honour to be Gods Subject than to be the greatest worldly Monarch his very service is an Empire and disobedience to him is a slavery * Servire deo regnare est 'T is a part of his soveraignty to reward any service done him Other Lords may be willing to recompence the service of their Subjects but are often rendred unable but nothing can stand in the way of God to hinder your reward if nothing stand in your way to hinder your obedience Levit. 18.5 If you keep my Statutes you shall live in them I am the Lord. Is there any thing in the World can recompence you for Rebellion against God and obedience to a Lust Saul cools the hearts of his Servants from running after David by Davids inability to give them Fields and Vineyards 1 Sam. 22.7 Will the Son of Jesse give every one of you Fields and Vineyards and make you Captains of thousands and Captains of hundreds that you have conspired against me But God hath a Dominion to requite as well as an Authority to command your obedience He is a great soveraign to bear you out in your observance of his precepts against all reproaches and violences of men and at last to crown you with eternal honour If he should neglect vindicating one time or other your loyalty to him he will neglect the maintaining and vindicating his own soveraignty and greatness 3. God in all his dispensations to man was careful to preserve the rights of his soveraignty in exacting obedience of his Creature The second thing he manifested his soveraignty in was that of a Law-giver to Adam after that of a Proprietor in giving him the possession of the
that their corruption should be so deep and strong that so much patience could not overcome it It would certainly make a man asham'd of his nature as well as his actions 3. The consideration of his patience would make us resent more the injuries done by others to God A Patient sufferer though a deserving sufferer attracts the pity of men that have a value for any vertue though clouded with a heap of vice How much more should we have a concern for God who suffers so many abuses from others And be grieved that so admirable a patience should be slighted by men who solely live by and under the daily influence of it The impression of this would make us take Gods part as it is usual with men to take the part of good dispositions that lie under oppression 4. It would make us patient under Gods hand His slowness to Anger and his forbearance is visible in the very strokes we feel in this Life We have no reason to murmur against him who gives us so little cause and in the greatest afflictions gives us more occasion of thankfulness than of repining Did not slowness to the extreamest Anger moderate every affliction it had been a Scorpion instead of a rod. We have reason to bless him who from his long-suffering sends temporal sufferings where eternal are justly due Ezra 9.13 Thou hast punished us less than our iniquities do deserve His indulgences towards us have been more than our corrections and the length of his patience hath exceeded the sharpness of his rod Upon the account of his long-suffering our mutinies against God have as little to excuse them as our sins against him have to deserve his forbearance The consideration of this would shew us more reason to repine at our own repinings than at any of his smarter dealings And the consideration of this would make us submissive under the Judgments we expect His undeserved patience hath been more than our merited judgments can possibly be thought to be If we fear the removal of the Gospel for a season as we have reason to do we should rather bless him that by his waiting patience he hath continued it so long then murmur that he threatens to take it away so late He hath born with us many a year since the light of it was re-kindled when our Ancestors had but six years of patience between the rise of Edward the VI and the ascent of Queen Mary to the Crown 2. Exhortation is to admire and stand astonisht at his patience and bless him for it If you should have defil'd your Neighbors bed or sullyed his reputation or rifled his Goods would he have withheld his vengeance unless he had been too weak to execute it We have done worse to God then we can do to man and yet he draws not that Sword of Wrath out of the scabbard of his patience to sheath it in our hearts 'T is not so much a wonder that any Judgments are sent as that there are no more and sharper That the World shall be fired at last is not a thing so strange as that fire doth not come down every day upon some part of it Had the disciples that saw such excellent patterns of mildness from their Master and were so often urg'd to learn of him that was lowly and meek the Government of the World it had been long since turn'd into ashes since they were too forward to desire him to open his magazine of judgments and kindle a fire to consume a Samaritan Village for a slight affront in comparison of what he received from others and afterwards from themselves in their forsaking of him Luke 9.52 53 54. We should admire and praise that here which shall be prais'd in Heaven though patience shall cease as to its exercise after the consummation of the World it shall not cease from receiving the acknowledgments of what it did when it traversed the stage of this Earth If the Name of God be glorified and acknowledged in Heaven no question but this will also since long-suffering is one of his Divine Titles a letter in his name as well as Merciful and Gracious Abundant in Goodness and Truth And there is good reason to think that the patience exercised towards some before converting grace was ordered to seize upon them will bear a great part in the Anthems of Heaven The greater his long-suffering hath been to men that lay covered with their own dung a long time before they were freed by grace from their filth the more admiringly and loudly they will cry up his Mercy to them after they have past the gulf and see a deserv'd Hell at a distance from them and many in that place of torments who never had the tasts of so much forbearance If mercy will be prais'd there that which began the Alphabet of it cannot be forgot If Paul speak so highly of it in a damping World and under the pull-backs of a body of death as he doth 1 Tim. 1.16 17. For this cause I obtained mercy that Christ might shew forth all long-suffering Now unto the King Eternal Immortal Invisible the Only Wise God be Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen No doubt but he will have a higher note for it when he is surrounded with a heavenly flame and freed from all remains of dullness shall it be praised above and have we no notes for it here below Admire Christ too who sued out your repreive upon the account of his merit As mercy acts not upon any but in Christ so neither had patience born with any but in Christ The pronouncing the arrest of Judgment Gen. 8.21 was when God smell'd a sweet savour from Noahs sacrifice not from the Beasts offer'd but the Antitypical sacrifice represented That we may be raised to bless God for it let us consider 1. The multitude of our provocations Though some have blacker guilt than others and deeper stains yet let none wipe his mouth but rather imagine himself to have but little reason to bless it Are not all our offences as many as their have been minutes in our lives All the moments of our continuance in the World have been moments of his Patience and our ingratitude Adam was punished for one sin Moses excluded Canaan for a passionate unbelieving word Ananias and Saphira lost their lives for one sin against the Holy Ghost One sin sullyed the beauty of the World defaced the works of God had crackt Heaven and Earth in pieces had not infinite satisfaction been proposed to the provoked Justice by the Redeemer And not one sin committed but is of the same venemous nature How many of those contradictions against himself hath he born with Had we been only unprofitable to him his forbearance of us had been miraculous But how much doth it exceed a miracle and lift it self above the meanness of a conjunction with such an Epithet since we have been provoking Had there been no more than our impudent or careless
we can Pag. 123 124 They must not be of him in a corporeal shape Pag. 124 125 There will be in them a similitude of some corporeal thing in our Fancy Pag. 125 126 We ought to refine and spiritualize them Pag. 126 Right Conceptions of him a great help to Spiritual Worship Pag. 176 177 God Concurs to all the Action of his Creatures Pag. 529 His concurring to sinful actions no blemish to his Holiness Pag. 530 ad 533 Various Conditions of men a fruit of Divine Wisdom Pag. 356 Conditions of the Covenant v. Covenant Faith and Repentance Confession of sin men may have bad ends in it 93. Partial ones a practical denial of God's Omniscience Pag. 326 Conscience proves a Deity Pag. 33 ad 36 Fears and stings of it in all men upon the commission of sin Pag. 34 35 Though never so secret ibid. Cannot be totally shaken off Pag. 35 36 Comforts a man in well-doing Pag. 36 Necessary for the good of the world ibid. Terrified ones wish there were no God Pag. 52 53 Men naturally displeas'd with it when it contradicts the desires of self Pag. 71 72 Obey carnal self against the light of it Pag. 84 Accusations of it evidence God's Knowledge of all things Pag. 313 God and he only can speak peace to it when troubled Pag. 471 720 721 His Laws only reach it Pag. 724 725 756 757 Constancy in that which is good we should labour after and why Pag. 238 Nothing but an Infinite good can content the Soul Pag. 36 37 Vide Satisfaction and Soul Contingents all foreknown by God Vide Knowledge of God Contradictions cannot be made true by God Pag. 432 433 434 435 Yet this doth not overthrow God's Omnipotence ibid. 'T is an abuse of God's Power to endeavour to justifie them by it Pag. 483 Contrary qualities linkt together in the Creatures Pag. 22 351 Conversion carnal Self-love a great hindrance to it Pag. 82 There may be a conversion from sin which is not good Pag. 90 91 Men are Enemies to it Pag. 98 99 The necessity of it Pag. 100 The difficulty of it Pag. 101 God only can be the Author of it Pag. 102 655 The Wisdom of God appears in it in the Subjects Seasons and Manner of it Pag. 367 368 369 And his Power Pag. 467 ad 470 And his Holiness Pag. 516 And his Goodness Pag. 654 655 And his Soveraignty Pag. 730 ad 734 He could convert all Pag. 730 731 Not bound to convert any Pag. 732 733 The various means and occasions of it Pag. 747 748 Genuine Convictions would be promoted by right and strong Apprehensions of God's Holiness Pag. 552 553 Corruptions the Knowledge of God a a comfort under fears of them lurking in the heart Pag. 333 †The Power of God a comfort when they are strong and stirring Pag. 486 In God's People shall be subdued Pag. 770 The Remainders of them God orders for their good Pag. 362 ad 366 The Covenant of God with his People eternal 194. and unchangeable Pag. 234 235 God in Covenant an eternal good to his people Pag. 194 195 The Conditions of the Covenant of Grace evidence the Wisdom of God Pag. 388 Suited to mans lapsed state and Gods glory ibid. Opposite to that which was the cause of the Fall ibid. Suited to the common Sentiments and Customs of the World and Consciences of men Pag. 388 389 Only likely to attain the end ibid. Evidence Gods Holiness Pag. 515 516 The Wisdom of God made over to Believers in it Pag. 4â—5 And Power Pag. 485 And Holiness Pag. 552 †A Promise of Life implyed in the Covenant of Works Pag. 612 Why not exprest Pag. 614 615 The Goodness of God manifest in making a Covenant of Grace after Man had broken the first Pag. 629. In the naâ—â—◠〈…〉 â—oâ— of it Pag. 629 630 631 In the â—â—â—â—ice gift of himself made over â—n it Pag. 631 632 In its confirmation Pag. 632 Its Conditions easy reasonable necessary Pag. 533 534 535 536 It promises a more excellent Reward than the life in Paradise Pag. 642 643 Covetousness vide Riches and World Creation the Wisdom of God appears in it 347 ad 351. should be meditated upon 351. motives to it Pag. 417 ad 4â—0 His Power Pag. 439 ad 445 His Holiness Pag. 507 508 His Goodness Pag. 604 ad 615 Goodness the end and motive of it Pag. 592 593 Ascribed to Christ Pag. 472 ad 475 The Foundation of God's Dominion Pag. 707 708 Creatures evidence the Being of God 5 Pag. 14 ad 29 In their production Pag. 15 ad 21 In their harmony Pag. 21 ad 27 In pursuing their several ends Pag. 27 28 29 In their preservation Pag. 29 Were not and cannot be from Eternity Pag. 16 17 190 191 None of them can make themselves Pag. 17 18 19 Or the World Pag. 20 Subservient to one another Pag. 22 251 252 Regular uniform and constant in it Pag. 24 25 Are various Pag. 25 26 347 348 Have several Natures Pag. 27 All fight against the Atheist Pag. 42 God ought to be studied in them Pag. 45 All manifest something of God's perfections ibid. Setting them up as our end v. End Must not be worship'd v. Idolatry Used by man to a contrary end than God appointed Pag. 89 All are changeable Pag. 220 221 Therefore an immutable God to be preferred before them Pag. 237 Are nothing to God Pag. 264 Are all known by God Pag. 284 285 Shall be restored to their primitive end Pag. 205 206 207 644 645 Their beautiful order and situation Pag. 348 349 Are fitted for their several ends Pag. 349 350 None of them can be Omnipresent Pag. 251 252 Or Omnipotent Pag. 426 427 Or infinitely perfect Pag. 431 God could have made more than he hath Pag. 427 ad 430 Made them all more perfect than they are Pag. 430 Yet all are made in the best manner Pag. 431 The Power that is in them demonstrates a greater to be in God Pag. 436 Ordered by God as he pleases Pag. 455 The meanest of them can destroy us by God's order Pag. 491 768 Making different ranks of them doth not impeach God's Goodness Pag. 595 596 597 Cursed for the sin of man Pag. 609 643 What benefit they have by the Redemption of man Pag. 643 644 Cannot comfort us if God be angry Pag. 768 All subject to God Pag. 717 ad 721 All obey God Pag. 781 Curiosity in enquiries about God's Counsels Actions a great folly Pag. 192 193 'T is an injuring God's knowledge Pag. 323 'T is a contempt of Divine wisdom Pag. 404 Should not be employ'd about what God hath not reveal'd Pag. 414 The consideration of God's Soveraignty would check it Pag. 775 D. DAy how necessary Pag. 350 Death of Christ its value is from his Divine Nature Pag. 382 Vindicated the honour of the Law both as to precept penalty Pag. 383 Overturn'd the Devils Empire Pag. 385 He suffered to rescue us
Eternity a property of God and Christ Pag. 181 191 192 What it is Pag. 182 In what respects God is eternal Pag. 183 ad 186 That he is so proved 186 ad 190 God's incommunicable property Pag. 16 17 190 191 Dreadful to sinners Pag. 193 194 Comfortable to the Righteous Pag. 194 ad 197 The thoughts of it should abate our Pride Pag. 197 198 199 Take off our love and confidence from the World Pag. 199 200 We should provide for an happy Interest in it Pag. 200 201 Often meditate on it Pag. 201 Renders him worthy of our choicest Affections Pag. 201 202 And our best Service Pag. 202 Exaltation of Christ the Holiness of God appears in it Pag. 514 515 His Goodness to us as well as to Christ Pag. 624 And his Soveraignty Pag. 751 Examination of our selves before and after worship and wherein our duty Pag. 162 163 164 178 Experience of God's Goodness a Preservative against Atheism Pag. 45 46 Extremity then God usually delivers his Church Pag. 487 488 F. FAith the same thing may be the object of it and of Reason too Pag. 4 Must be exercised in Spiritual worship Pag. 146 147 The Wisdom Holiness Goodness of God in prescribing it as a Condition of the Covenant of Grace v. Covenant Must look back as far as the foundation promise Pag. 341 †Only the obedience flowing from it acceptable to God Pag. 336 Distinct but inseparable from Obedience Pag. 336 337 Foresight of it not the ground of Election Pag. 729 730 Fall of man God no way the Author of it Pag. 505 506 519 How great it is Pag. 546 547 Doth not impeach God's Goodness Pag. 594 595 'T is evident Pag. 670 671 Brought a Curse on the Creatures v. Creatures Falls of God's Children turned to their good Pag. 361 ad 369 Fear not the cause of the Belief of a God Pag. 14 Men that are under a slavish fear of him wish there were no God Pag. 53 54 Of Man a contempt of God's Power Pag. 481 482 Should be of God and not of the pride or force of man Pag. 491 492 God's Soveraignty should cause it Pag. 779 Features different in every man and how necessary it should be so Pag. 31 32 348 Fervency v. Activity Flesh the Legal Services so called Pag. 135 Fools wicked men are so Pag. 1 400 Folly sin is so v. Sin Forgetfulness of God men naturally are prone to it Pag. 97 Of his Mercies a great sin v. Mercies How attributed to God Pag. 283 Foreknowledge in God of sin no blemish to his Holiness Pag. 520 521 Vide Knowledge of God Future things men desirous to know them Pag. 323 Known by God v. Knowledge of God G. GAbriel on what Messages he was sent Pag. 468 Generation could not be from Eternity Pag. 16 17. Gifts God can bestow them on men Pag. 719 His Soveraignty seen in giving greater measures to one than another Pag. 738 Glory of all they do or have men are apt to ascribe to themselves Pag. 82 83 Of God little minded in many seemingly good actions Pag. 72 73 Men are more concern'd for their own reputation than God's glory Pag. 83 Should be aim'd at in Spiritual worship Pag. 153 God's permission of sin is in order to it Pag. 528 529 Sould be advanced by us Pag. 778 God his Existence known by the light of Nature Pag. 4 5 By the Creatures Pag. 5 14 ad 29 Miracles not wrought to prove it Pag. 5 Owned by the universal consent of all Nations Pag. 6 Never disputed of old Pag. 7 Denied by very few if any Pag. 8 Constantly owned in all changes of the world Pag. 9 Under anxieties of Conscience ib. The Devil not able to root out the belief of it Pag. 9 10 Natural and innate Pag. 10 Not introduced meerly by Tradition Pag. 11 Nor Policy Pag. 12 13 Nor Fear Pag. 14 Witnessed to by the very Nature of Man Pag. 29 ad 37 And by extraordinary Occurrencies Pag. 37 38 Impossible to demonstrate there is none Pag. 41. 42 Motives to endeavour to be setled in the belief of it Pag. 44 45 Directions Pag. 45 Men wish there were none and who they are Pag. 52 53 54 Two ways of describing him Negation and Affirmation Pag. 113 Is active and communicative Pag. 126 127 Propriety in him a great Blessedness Vide Covenant Infinitely happy Pag. 476 477 Good That which is materially so may be done and not formally Pag. 69 72 73 Good Actions cannot be perform'd before Conversion Pag. 100 The thoughts of Gods Presence a Spur to them Pag. 270 God only is so Pag. 578 579 Goodness pure and perfect the Royal Prerogative of God only Pag. 581 Own'd by all Nations Pag. 582 Inseparable from the Notion of God Pag. 582 583 What is meant by it Pag. 583 How distinguish'd from Mercy Pag. 584 Comprehends all his Attributes Pag. 585 Is so by his Essence Pag. 586 The Chief Pag. 587 'T is communicative Pag. 588 Necessary to him Pag. 589 Voluntary Pag. 590 Communicative with the greatest pleasure Pag. 591 The displaying of it the Motive and End of all his Works Pag. 592 Arguments to prove it a Property of God Pag. 593 594 Vindicated from the Objections made against it Pag. 594 ad 604 Appears in Creation Pag. 604 ad 615 In Redemption Pag. 615 ad 645 In his Government Pag. 645 ad 660 Frequently contemn'd and abus'd Pag. 660 661 The Abuse and Contempt of it base and disingenuous Pag. 661 662 Highly resented by God Pag. 662 How 't is contemn'd and abus'd Pag. 660 ad 670 Men justly punish'd for it Pag. 671 Fits him for the Government of the World and engages him actually to govern it Pag. 671 6 2 The ground of all Religion Pag. 673 674 Renders God amiable to himself Pag. 674 675 Should do so to us and why Pag. 675 ad 678 Renders him a fit object of Trust with Motives to it drawn hence Pag. 678 679 680 And worthy to be obey'd and honour'd Pag. 680 681 682 Comfortable to the Righteous and wherein Pag. 682 ad 685 Should engage us to endeavour after the enjoyment of him with Motives Pag. 685 686 Should be often meditated on and the Advantages of so doing Pag. 681 682 683 We should be thankful for it Pag. 690 And imitate it and wherein Pag. 691 692 Gospel Men greater Enemies to than to the Law Pag. 101 Its Excellency Pag. 103 334 Called Spirit Pag. 135 The only Means of establishment Pag. 333 Of an Eternal Resolution tho of a Temporary Revelation Pag. 334 Mysterious ibi◠The first Preachers of it Vide Apostles It s Antiquity Pag. 335 The Goodness of God in spreading it among the Gentiles ibid. Gives no encouragement to Licentiousness Pag. 336 The Wisdom of God in its Propagation Pag. 390 ad 395 And Power Pag. 461 ad 467 Vide Christian Religion Government of the World God could not manage it without Immutability Pag. 220 And Knowledge Pag. 314