will in a Heathen let it be Pride or Peevishness Vain-glory or any thing rather than a Reproach to Christians what say you to the followers of our Lord and Master Then said Peter Silver and Gold have I none Acts 3. None what hast thou then thou poor Disciple of a poor Master a true Faith a God-like Charity and unshaken Hope Blessed art thou amongst men nothing can make thee Greater nothing Richer nothing Happier but Heaven You see plainly then a Man may be vertuous thô not wealthy and that Fortune which prevents his being Rich cannot prevent his being Happy This Discourse will never down This is not calculated for this Age Philosophy must be a little more mannerly and Religion a little more gentile and complaisant than formerly ' ere it can be adapted and accommodated to the present state of things Go on then let 's try how far it will be Necessary to condescend You cannot be Happy why because you are not Rich go then to God and beg you may be Rich I have not the face to put up such Arrogant and Intemperate Requests to God 't is plain then 't is not necessary to be Rich in Order to be Happy for whatever is necessary to this thou mayest with good Assurance beg of God But thy Desires are more humble and modest thou aim'st at nothing but what is very Necessary a fairer House another Servant a dish or two of Meat more for thy Friends a Coach for thy Convenience and Ease and a few Hundred Pounds a piece more for thy Children O Heavenly Ingredients of a Rational Pleasure O Divine Instruments of humane Happiness O the humble and mortify'd requests of modest Souls well if these things be so necessary and these desires be so decent and vertuous if thou can'st not be Happy and consequently must be miserable without them put up a Bill represent thy Condition in it Such a one wants a more Commodious House more Servants more Dishes c. and desires the Prayers of the Congregation for Support under this Affliction you are Prophane far be it from me I would only let thee see the wantonness of thy Desires if thou think'st this would expose thee to public Laughter go to thy Minister unfold thy Case to him let him Pray for thee he is a good Man and his Prayers will go far you rally and ridicule me Enter then into thy Closet shut thy Door thou may'st trust God he Pities and Considers even Humane Infirmities I could even almost in my Mind desire it of him but I am asham'd to do it in a Set and Solemn Prayer I could almost make the Petition in the Gross but I blush to think of Descending to Particulars Well then I see plainly that Wealth in any Degree of it is so far from being necessary to our Happiness that it has so little of Usefulness or Conveniency in it that in thy Conscience between God and thee thou can'st not think it fit to complain of the want of it Every Man the Architect of his own Fortune But this Answer will never satisfie him who complains of Want or of being engag'd in continual Troubles and toss't by the daily Changes and Revolutions of the World I confess it it will not But I must tell such a one if Solomon's Observation be true Prov. 10. The hand of the diligent makes Rich and that other Prov. 22. Seest thou a man diligent in his business he shall stand before Kings he shall not stand before mean men then his Poverty is his Crime as well as his Calamity he must redeem himself from this his Punishment by Industry and Prayer As to Calamities this must be acknowledg'd that the Mind of a good and great Man which stands firm upon its own Basis a good God a Good Saviour and a Good Conscience may remain unmov'd when the Earth trembles and the Sea roars round about him Changes indeed befall things Temporal but he leans not upon them I may say farther that he who upon mature Deliberation and upon necessary Obligations of Duty engages himself in a just Cause may be unfortunate but he cannot be miserable his Sufferings carry a secret Pleasure in 'em and his Misfortunes are full of Hope and Glory if he consider if he reflect if he do not feed on vain and airy Projects and suffer himself to be unwarily transported by very irrational thô seemingly just Passions I must lastly add that 't is not the Necessity of their Affairs nor the Iniquity of Times which doth commonly involve and intangle Men in public or private Calamities but some secret Vanity some blind impetuous Passion some ill-laid Project or some treacherous or dishonorable fear The State of Rome never felt more or greater Changes than in the life of Atticus as is obvious to any one who shall reflect upon the History of his time and yet in all the turns and mighty Changes of Fortune Atticus enjoy'd a constant Tranquillity and well-settled Peace being scarce ever reduc't as much as to the Necessity of a Retirement but once as I remember nor was it the meanness of his Quality or the narrowness of his Fortune that secur'd him he was a Man great in both nor was it the secrecy of a private life or the sluggishness of a stupid Mind which rendred him unworthy of any Man's fear and unable to provoke a Danger No he was a Man as well for the Eminence of his Parts and Vigour of his Mind as for the Largeness of his Fortune well known to the greatest and most Active men of all Paâ—ties and yet steering his life by the Rules of Vertue and true Wisdom he lived untouch't by unconcern'd in the strange Alterations of so long a life as his which were such and so many that the Historian has observ'd that they who were one day in the height of Power and Honour were the next in the Gulph of Danger and Despair so that his Remark is generally very true Corn. Nep. in Vitâ Attici Sui cuique mores fingunt Fortunam Every man may fashion and shape his fortune as he will his manners Nor was the success of his Behaviour less in private than public For Cornelius Nepos has observ'd in his Life That those Friendships he entred into he was very Happy and Constant in nay such was the Gentleness such the Discretion of his Behaviour that it preserv'd him in the favour of an Unkle I think of his who was so sowr and peevish that none could please him such a Nabal a man could not speak to him nay he not only kept in with him but possessed him so entirely that he was left his Heir Nor was all this in Atticus the Effect of Temper or Nature but of Vertue Ibid. Neque id fecit naturâ Solum quanquam omnes ei parêmus sed etiam Doctrina nam Principum Philosophorum ita percepta habuit praecepta ut iis ad vitam agendam non
innocent nay if we will extend Principles to their just Consequence as commendable and worthy of Praise as the Industrious and Temperate the Meek and Gentle the Just and Charitable for this must inevitably follow if neither Men's Vertues nor Vices be in any degree to be ascribed to themselves wretched and desperate is that shift that equals the just and unjust the industrious and the sluggard the great Mind that stands upright under and outbraves Misfortune and the degenerous one which effeminately shrinks and breaks under it wretched the Shift that equals the Tyrant and most gracious Prince the loyallest Subject and the Traitor the faithful Friend and the perfidious Flatterer and all this we must be driven to or else as we cannot deny that some are Happier than others so we must not deny that the Happiness of the one or Misery of the other is owing in some measure at least to their Vertues and Vices and these to themselves And if this be true 't is evident we may be Happy if we will and thô we may not equal the most Happy for I will not exclude Temper Education Fortune from all share in Men's Misery or Happiness yet since every degree of Happiness is truly valuable let us with all our might endeavour to be as Happy as we can Horat. Nec quia desperes invicti membri Glyconis Nodosa Corpus noli prohibere Chyragra Est quiddam prodire tenus The mighty Glyco's strength you can't attain Don't therefore scorn to free your Limbs from Pain Of Knotty Gout Ease thô not Strength to gain Is no small Happiness But to pursue our proof 2. Because there is Good and Evil in the World It is a great absurdity to confound or equal Vertue and Vice but 't is not the greatest they commit who deny the possibility of attaining Happiness for he that banishes Happiness out of the World do's at the same time banish Good and Evil out of it too for Good being nothing else but the subserviency of some things to our true Interest and Pleasure and Evil the tendency of others to our trouble and injury it must needs follow if there be Good and Evil in the World that he who has a greater share of Good than Evil is a Happy man and he that denieth Good and Evil may with as plausible a Confidence deny all Humane Passions and assert that there is neither Love nor Hatred neither Joy nor Grief nor Hope nor Fear nor Pity nor Envy for Good or Evil are the Objects or Causes of all these I may then I think take it for granted that no man will take the Confidence to say that there is no such thing as Good or Evil in the World and consequently all men must be oblig'd to acknowledge such a state as Happiness in the World too unless they will affirm one of these three things either First That Evil grows up every where in thick Crops Good thin scatter'd and rarely to be found epecially grown up to its maturity That consequently there are none whose share of Evil doth not infinitely outweigh that of Good Or Secondly That Evil hath so much of Venom and Malignity in it that a little Evil contributes more to our Misery than a great Deal of Good can to our Happiness so ripe and full grown is Evil so lank under-grown and every way imperfect is Good in this World Or Thirdly That we our selves can contribute nothing to that Good or Evil which is our Portion 't is the Product not of Reason or Industry but of Time and Chance or of some other Principle which is not in our Power All these deserve to be weigh'd not only because the Examination of 'em will tend to chear and encourage the Minds of Men and to render the great Creator and Governour of the World more dear and venerable to us but also because it will be of some use and service to the whole Inquiry First 1. Evils not more than Goods in the World Therefore let us examine what Truth there is in that fancy which supposes the weight and number of Evils in the World infinitely to exceed that of Good things I know there are a sort of sour and murmuring of proud and ambitious Wretches who deal with their God as with their Prince or Patrons and estimate Favours and Benefits not according to their Merit but Expectation greedy and haughty Expectation which even Prodigal Bounty cannot satisfie 't is the strange temper of some men that they wither and grow lean with Discontent and Envy even whil'st their studied Meals distract the wanton Appetite and their very Attendance are sleek and full and fat with the Remains of their Feasts and the meanest of their Relations thrive into Pride and Insolence by the mere sprinklings of their Plenty I know 't is Natural to some to Blaspheme God and the King to quarrel with and reproach Providence and the Government while loaded with good things they stretch themselves on Silken Couches under Roofs of Cedar or loll at Ease in their gilt Coaches and yet at the same time the honest Countrey-man who with Security thô much Drudgery Ploughs and Sows and Reaps a few Acres Eats his plain Meals with Cheerfulness Sleeps without Disturbance Blesses God and magnifies the goodness of his Prince The Contentment of the One is an evident proof of the Divine Bounty and Goodness whose Provision doth far exceed the Necessities of his Creatures The Discontent of th' other can be no disparagement to the Goodness of our Creator who has dealt extremely liberally with 'em thô they enjoy not what they possess we are not therefore to judge of the World by the Clamours and Invectives of such as are always mutinous and dissatisfy'd but by the suffrages of those humble modest and grateful Souls who know how to value the Favours of Heaven and themselves as they ought to do who do not marr and corrupt every Blessing by Peevishness or Envy or Pride or Wantonness but can weigh their Enjoyments their Hopes and their Merits in just and equal Ballances and discerning how much the one do's exceed the other chearfully adore and praise the World's Author and Governour If this Controversie were to be determin'd by such we should find these even under uneasie and Tyrannical Governments and in the more barren and niggardly Countries confuting this Objection by their Chearfulness and Contentment what would they have done if Providence had planted 'em there where a fertile Soil and thriving Trade had unladed the Wealth and Plenty of the World into their Arms and a mild and gentle Government had secur'd and guarded their Enjoyments But let us decide the Controversie not by Votes but Reasons let us consider the State and Nature of the World is there one in a Thousand who is left utterly unfurnish't of all means of wise and wholesome Instruction which is the Good of the Soul of Man or is there one in a Thousand maim'd and
give me leave to make a stand and like a Traveller when he has gain'd an Ascent look back upon the way I have gone and see how much of my Journey I have dispatch't My Undertaking was to demonstrate the Love of God to Mankind thus far I have advanc'd towards this with undeniable Evidence I have proved That Peevishness Malignity and Cruelty cannot belong to God because this were inconsistent with the Perfection of his Nature or the Happiness of his State nor can it rationally be suppos'd that the same Properties should belong to those Evil Spirits which for a long time deluded the World and that God who has done so much to destroy that Kingdom of Darkness and rescuing Man to restore him to a Capacity of Happiness and Glory how could it be that God should have done so much as it is apparent he has in the Contexture of our Nature and the Contrivance of our state to make us in Love with Goodness and irreconcileably Enemies to Tyranny Cruelty Arbitrary Revenge c. if he himself were passionate furious and Arbitrary in his Cruelties Nay I have advanc'd further and have prov'd Secondly That boundless Love and Goodness are the unquestionable Attributes of God for the very same Arguments which exclude all manner of Imperfections and Evils from the Deity do necessarily assert to it all manner of Perfection and Good Nor doth the unconceivable Majesty and Eminence of the Divine Nature only but also the Indigence and Weakness of Humane Nature require this since without it he could not be the Object of our Love or Dependence nor consequently our Worship Having proceeded thus far and prov'd that Tyranny or Cruelty are utterly repugnant to the Divine Nature and boundless Love and Goodness the Essential and Inseparable Properties of it I do not think it Necessary to prove that the Emanations o◠this his Goodness do extend even to Man for thô the Epicureans acknowledging God Perfect did at the same time allow him no other Imployment than the Enjoyment of his own Perfections and thô Aristotle confin'd the Providence of God and consequently the Irradiation of his Goodness within Heaven and thô lastly before the Creation of the World we are uncapable of conceiving any Subjects about which Divine Love could exercise it self and consequently can conceive of it no otherwise than confin'd within himself All which seems to conclude thus much that the Deity may be infinitely good and yet this Goodness not extend it self to Man All this concerns not our present question for thô Man should not be the Object of Divine Goodness yet if God be infinitely good this will be enough to free Man from unreasonable and superstitious fear of him and to acquit God from the least suspicion of being the Cause of Humane Misery which is the utmost I was oblig'd to make good in pursuance of the design of this Chapter Besides they who accuse God of their Misery do not suppose him unconcern'd about all things but himself as Epicurus nor bound and limit his Providence within the Enclosures of Heaven but do plainly suppose all the affairs of Mankind to depend upon the first Contrivance of God in the Creation or upon the Over-ruling Influences of his Providence in his present Government of the World However I am not willing to quit one Inch of the ground I have got and therefore I cannot but acknowledge that the World being now created and Mankind form'd after God's Image 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are his Offspring saith St. Paul out of the Poet unactive and unconcern'd Love seems to me a Contradiction and infinite boundless Goodness confined within Heaven cannot but seem as gross a one let it therefore remain an unshaken truth The God is Good and that this Goodness doth exert and express it self toward Mankind and we shall from hence gain these two Points 1. That God is not the Cause o◠Man's Misery and what is more yet 2. That he is most ready and willing to further and assist him in all his Endeavours after Happiness The first of these is apparent for if God be infinitely Good then every thing that came out of his hands must in the state of its Creation have been exceeding Good the End of the Creation must have been something extreamly kind and gracious and the Law he prescrib'd his Creatures for the Attainment of that End must be as Good as Wise this must have been the glorious state of things when God contrived this wonderful frame of Nature when he erected this vast Work the World and in all the continued progress of Divine Providence we are to expect no other acts of Government than what may become the most gracious Prince the most tender Father for the same Immense Goodness that once created doth ever continue to Rule the World Let us not therefore accuse God but our selves if we be not Happy Blessings indeed and Mercies like warm Sun and fruitful Seasons descend upon us without our Importunity or Merit but Evils and Mischiefs come not till our Sins and Provocations have pull'd 'em down upon us Solon indeed in Herodotus tells Croesus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Deity was envious and froward and delighted to magnifie it self in the Disturbance of the settled Happiness and Calm of Poor Men But alas 't is our Fondness or our Pride our Peevishness or our Wantonness which raises in us these unworthy thoughts of God he may indeed like a kind Parent train up a Son through a strict Discipline to Vertue and Glory he may throw difficulties into our way on purpose to reward our Conquest he may like a wise Physician restore us to our Health by bitter Potions and will like an Excellent Governour vindicate if need be our wanton Contempt of Love and Mercy by Severity and Chastisements but he will never like a Salvage Tyrant delight in the Sufferings or Ruine of Innocent or humble Subjects he will never prescribe Impossible Laws that he may enjoy the Pleasure of bloody Executions he will never make the groans of wretched People his Musick nor think Misery and Death the best marks of his absolute Power or fairest Ornaments of his Throne No we shall never need any other proof to clear the Divine Majesty from any such Imputation than to Examine our selves and reflect upon our own behaviour we shall soon find that we alone are guilty of our Ruine and that God is utterly free from it our excessive Enjoyments create the Diseases of the Body and our excessive Passion the pains and torments of the Mind and most of the Changes in our Fortune derive themselves from both a languishing Body and a languishing Reputation a broken Estate and a dejected Mind are the Common Effects of a Disorderly and Debauch't life and such a life is the natural Effect of a Mind enslav'd to the Body and estranged from God not only by a Neglect but by a Contempt and Defiance of all those means by
good or ill-behaviour of Man to any thing rather than to God what Impiety But I have done I have sufficiently consider'd which way the stream of Authority runs and it evidently appears to be against all such Notions of Fate as put it out of a Man's Power to be Virtuous and Happy and determine his Sin and Misery wholly Necessary and unavoidable I will now proceed to consider Reason and Revelation against Fate Secondly What plain Reason and as plain Revelation do dictate in this point Thou dost believe Fate and therefore dost despair of Happiness Thy sense must be plainly this All is in the Power of Fate nothing in thine own there is nothing in thee to do that can contribute to make thee Vertuous or Happy Whence can this Necessity this Fate proceed there are but two Principles that were ever fancied to be the first Causes of all things God and Matter Dost thou believe this Necessity proceeds from Matter from the Motion of Atoms or the Influence of Stars This belief as St. Austin argues doth subvert the Foundation of all Religion for he who believes that he depends upon Fate not God can have no sufficient Reason for the Worship of that God on whom he hath no Dependence but this is that peradventure thou wouldst have well when thou art able to prove Reason and Understanding to derive themselves from senseless Atoms when thou can'st find out any kind of Natural Motion of Matter or Atoms which can be the Cause of Liberty or Freedom in the Will any Motion that can at once be Necessary for so all Motion of Atoms must be it of what kind it will and yet free too for such all my Deliberations and all my Choices I make prove the Motion of the Mind to be then I will acknowledge a Fate not only independent from but if thou wilt Superiour to God then I will forbear all farther attempts of Charity as vain and leave thee to thy Fate and Misery But these are Notions so absurd in themselves that no Similitudes no Arguments can make 'em appear one jot more ridiculous or irrational than they do to all Men of sense at the first hearing There are some Errors as well as Truths that are self-evident there needs no Demonstration to convince us that the one are Errors and the other Truths and of this kind are the Errors we are speaking of if a Man should assert that Death is the Original of Life that senseless Matter gives Being to an Understanding Mind that Necessity is the Parent of Liberty and such like it were an unpardonable weakness in any Man to think that such assertion did stand in need of a laborious Confutation But there are who suppose God the Author of all things and yet suppose Events fatal too the former Opinion was ridiculous this is impious for suppose Mankind fatally guided by the Influence of the Stars and these Stars to have received this Power and Energy from God is it not natural for every Man to break out into the words of St. Austin Aug. de C. D. l. 5. c. 1. Illi verò qui positionem Stol larum quodammodo decernentium qualis quisque sit quid ei proveniat boni quidve mali accidat ex Dei voluntate suspendunt si easdem stellas putant habere hanc potestatem traditam sibi à summâ illius potestate ut volentes ista decernant magnam Coelo faciunt Injuriam in Cujus velut Clarissimo senatu ac Splendidissima Curiâ scelera facienda decerni qualia si aliqua terrena Civitas decrevisset genere humano decernente fuerat evertenda How outragiously do these Men reproach Heaven whilst they believe those Crimes and Villanies decreed by that August Senate and glorious Court in Heaven which had any City upon Earth decreed it had deserv'd to have been damn'd by the Common Vote and raz'd to the ground by the united Arms of Mankind When I consider that the Stars are the Work of God that their Order and Motion was prescrib'd by him that whatever Vigour and Efficacy they have they have received it from him and then Remember that God is a most infinitely kind and good Being I shou'd easily suffer my self to be perswaded that they could shed no influence upon this lower World but what were extreamly beneficial to it that they could have no Aspects but what were favourable and benign I could easily believe that all the Inclinations they form in the Body if they form any could be no other than Innocent and Vertuous I can never believe that Lust or Falshood Malice or Cruelty can come down from above or that our Minds should be impregnated with Sin and Folly by the Influences of Heaven No certainly if there be any Vertue in the Stars that extends it self to Man it must rather be the seed of Life and Health and Vertue than of Diseases Death or Vice Antiq. Lect. l. x. c. 20. I can easily fall in with the opinion of those Learned Men in Coelius Rhodiginus who thought that that Vertue of Coelestial Bodies which tended of it self to excellent Ends was marred and perverted by a vitious Education And so the Gravity of Saturn did degenerate into Sullenness Niggardliness and Melancholy The Magnanimity of Mars into Rashness and Fool-hardiness The Sharpness and Sagacity of Mercury into mischievous Craft and deceitful Subtilty The Sweetness and Gentleness of Venus into filthy Lust and so on And this Thought does well become every one that pretends to any Religion whether Revealed or Natural for this is Consonant to the excellency of the Divine Nature But this sort of Fate springing from the Influence of any Natural Bodies is not only repugnant to Reason but to our Sense and Experience for nothing is more plain than this that any such Influence cannot affect the Mind but through the Body and we do frequently find our Reason asserting its Power and Dominion against all the force and strength of the Body Nor doth Reason only but in every Nation Law and Custom triumph over the strongest Inclinations of Nature As the Innocence of the Seres the Chastity of those in Arabia and Osroene the Abstinence of the Brachmans and numerous Instances which he that pleases may see in Bardesanes the Syrian and others does abundantly manifest that their manners are the Effects not of the Influence of those Planets that Rule their Birth but of those Laws and Customs that Rule their Countrey Since therefore that Necessity which our Natural Tempers and Inclinations do impose upon the Mind is the utmost Fate that we can imagine to proceed from the Influence of any Natural Bodies 't is Nonsense to suppose that Fate insuperable or incontroulable which we see baffled and defeated every day and in every Nation The sum of those Reasons I have offer'd against Fate is this If we make God the Author of it we impiously Charge him with what is repugnant to his Nature for a Good
God cannot be the Cause of Man's Sin and Misery if Matter we ridiculously suppose that what is it self senseless and inanimate should produce and govern a Being endow'd with Life Vnderstanding and Liberty If the Stars we run again into the same absurdities for if they have their fatal Influence from God then properly speaking God is the Author they but the Instrument of our Fate If from themselves then our Dependence on and Worship of God is vain and besides we absurdly subject the Reason and the Liberty of the Mind of Man to the senseless Tyranny of Atoms If from the Consideration of the Causes of Fate we descend to examine what our Experience teaches us what common sense informs us each of 'em bears witness to the Soveraignty and Liberty of the Mind of Man If we shou'd come in the last place to Examine what wou'd be the Consequences of a Fatal Necessity over-ruling Man and Humane Affairs they are such as are not only grosly Contradictions in themselves but Fatal and Destructive both to the public and private Good of Mankind 'T is true were the Liberty of doing Evil taken from Man we shou'd have no Reason to complain for then there wou'd be nothing wanting to make the state of Man Happy as that of Angels but Immortality But to bereave Man of all Power to do good to necessitate and compel him to be wicked how dreadful are the Effects which must follow this he that stains his hands in the Blood of his Soveraign or his Parent will accuse his Stars not himself he that pollutes himself in the incestuous Embraces of a Mother or a Daughter may defend his action as his Fate not Choice and how readily shall we do all that Rage or Lust invites us to when there is an Excuse prepar'd for all we do for he is no more blameable who commits the Evil which he could not help than he is worthy of Praise who did the Good which he could not forbear Were it true that whatever mischief Man did he were necessitated to do we might with more Justice arraign the Stars and Atoms than Malefactors and all the Instruments of Mischief would be every jot as Guilty and Criminal as the Man that us'd them Were this true we might as properly betake our selves to Magic and Inchantments as to Advices and Exhortations when we wou'd reclaim the vicious nor yet could the one be more Effectual than the other for what could alter what is unalterable and for the same Reason we might forbear our Sacrifices and Prayers since what will be must be and cannot be otherwise Desine Fata Deûm flecti sperare precando You strive in vain with Prayers to move The inexorable Fates above Repentance and Tears may be what Seneca calls Expiation on this Supposition Aegrae mentis solatia The deluding Dreams of a superstitious Mind but could never procure us any real Advantage so that on this Supposition what is now thought the only Wisdom would be then the only Folly of a Sinner Repentance I think I may conclude here for if it be not by this time Evident whether Reason be for or against Fate we may justly despair of discovering what Reason dictates in this or any other Question I will now proceed to Examine What plain Text of Scripture speaks in this Point And here in the first place we are to expect no other Fate than what depends upon God for the Scripture makes all things derive their Original from him and all things depend upon him there is but one Creator and one Lord and therefore the Creature can be subject to no Laws but such as he Enacts so that whatever Fate we now lye under must be imputed to the voluntary Decree of God Is then the Eternal Ruine of Man Fatal and unavoidable If we enquire into the Original of this Unhappy Necessity it must be ultimately resolv'd into the Divine Will when God then decreed the inevitable Ruine of Man under what Notion did he consider his Ruine under that of Misery or that of Punishment If under the Notion of Punishment this Implies plainly that we are to thank our selves for our Ruine for Punishment is nothing else but the Infliction of that Misery which our Sin and Folly have deserv'd But if under the Notion of Misery how can this consist with the Infinite Goodness or Wisdom of God Alas how Contradictory is this to Scripture there God swears that he delights not in the Death of a Sinner This Decree would suppose him to delight in the Death of the Innocent there he is represented full of Compassion and slow to wrath even upon repeated Provocations this Decree represents him so addicted to Wrath and Cruelty that he made a World on purpose to have whereon to exercise it and doth exercise it merely for the delight he takes in it The Scripture finally represents him full of Divine love for Mankind and not only not desirous that they should perish but extreamly desirous that they should be partakers of Everlasting life this Decree supposes him so utter an Enemy to and hater of Mankind that he made the far greater part to no other End but only to make 'em miserable Let any unprejudiced Man judge now whether this be not as Contradictory to Scripture as it is to Sense Nor is it possible that any unprejudic'd Man should look into Holy Writ and not discern evidently that Man's Ruine is the Effect of Sin not only wilfully and presumptuously Committed but also obstinately and impenitently persisted in and that God is so far from being fond of our Sufferings and Calamities that he is ever and anon bewailing the Disappointment of his Love the defeat of his Grace and Mercy by our Obstinacy and Impenitence it is the voice of his Son 't is the voice of God O Jerusalem Matth. 23. Jerusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee how often would I have gather'd thy Children together even as a Hen gathers her Chickens under her wings and ye would not If therefore we desire to know what the Will of God is with respect to Man this is a full and plain Declaration of it there can be no other much less any Contradictory to this if I may not confidently rely upon this Declaration of the Divine Will there is no reveal'd Truth that I can depend upon Nor can Revelation stand us in any stead for nothing can be asserted with greater perspicuity or stronger Asseveration But I have no Scruples in me about this Matter I have no Fears nor Jealousies of any secret Decree or Latent Will repugnant to his declar'd one I am as sure that God is Good and True as that he is Eternal or Almighty and were he not we could reap but very little Comfort from all his other Attributes how great or glorious soever in themselves But blessed be God if we proceed from examining those Declarations of his Will which God has made