an actual exercise of right Reason they have in all successions of times and places taken up those Laws of Nature which we call the Moral Law or the most parts of them 2. Touching the-Obligation of these Laws it was twofold 1. From the Injunction and Command of God who had an Universal Infinite and Unlimited Power over his Creature and might most justly require his Obedience And into this Power of God together with his actual Command or Prohibition is all the Obligation of all Laws whether Natural or Positive and of all inferiour Laws Compacts or Agreements to be resolved And without the due consideration of this Mankind is loose Though the natural Congruity of the Moral Law to the Nature of Man might be the means of its Publication it is the Command of God that is and ever was the cause of its Obligation 2. From the Compact and Stipulation of Man. God put into Man's hands a stock both of Blessedness and Liberty and though he might have commanded his Creature and it had bound eternally yet to add the greater engagement upon him he enters into Contract with him concerning his Obedience Hence it is called the Covenant of Works And in all ensuing times when it pleased God to reinforce the Law of Nature or Obedience he doth it by way of Compact or Covenant as well as Command to add another Obligation as well of Contract as Duty And from this grew the Universality of the Guilt that was contracted by Disobedience Adam covenanted for him and his Posterity Rom. 5.19 As the Obedience of Christ is effectual for his Seed by way of Contract and Stipulation with God the Father so was the Disobedience of Adam binding upon his Seed partly by reason of his Contract and Stipulation and so they are made there parallel Sed de hoc infra 3. The Sanction of the Law given to Adam The Violation of any Law given by him that hath Power contracts Guilt that is Obligation to Punishment the measure of this Punishment is that Sanction which God did put upon the Violation of this Law Gen. 2.17 In the day thou eatest thou shalt surely die Herein are four Particulars 1. The Offence eating the forbidden Fruit 2. The Punishment Death 3. The Time of the inflicting of it in the day 4. The Extent of it thou shalt die c. Touching the first The thing specially prohibited was eating the forbidden Fruit but that which was in the Mind of God to enjoyn was Obedience to his Command and although this particular was by God made the Experiment of Man's Obedience yet questionless the same Injunction and under the same Penalty was given to Men touching those other Moral Dictates which were received Exod. 20. which lost not their Obligation by the Fall of Man no more than if he had continued in his Integrity Gen. 4.7 If thou dost not well Sin lieth at the door and Verse 14. Cain acknowledgeth Death to be the consequent of that Guilt which he contracted by his Murder Every one that findeth me shall slay me The like of Lamech Verse 23. For the Formality of any Sin as hath been before observed consisteth in the disobedience of the Will to the Command of God By one Mans disobedience sin entred into the World. And as the object of Mans obedience was whatsoever God had injoyned so the disobedience to any one Command had contracted the like Guilt and were under the like Penalty as this though this being purely a positive Command wherein only the Obedience or Disobedience of Man could be seen was that which is here mentioned because that wherein he offended 2. Thou shalt die God made not Death saith the wise Man Wisd 1.14 but Death entred into the world by sin Rom. 5.12 It imports three things 1. A loss or loosning of that strictness of Union which was between the Body and Soul or temporal immortality This is the Argument that the Apostle makes that from the time of Adam's transgression till Moses sin was in the World because Death reigned all that while and in the place before mentioned till sin the Kingdom of Death was not upon the Earth This immortality was not essential to the Nature of man but was freely super-added to it by the Divine Will upon those terms of Obedience and he that gave it might with all imaginable Justice give it upon what terms he pleaseth and he doth it upon terms of Obedience Obedience to himself which but even now gave Man his Being and might justly exact the utmost of his Being Obedience to a Law most possible easie and quadrate to the Powers and Aids given to man Obedience ingaged by a world of Blessedness attending it and an inevitable loss ensuing the breach of it This was his Vegetable loss 2. A loss of that Happiness which accompanied this immortal Being in respect of his Senses viz. an uninterrupted stream of Pleasure and Contentment and instead thereof Shame Gen. 3.7 Pain and Slavery Verse 26. Sorrow Verse 17. anxious and painful Labour Verse 19. a Curse upon the Earth Verse 17. A loss of Eden Verse 23. 3. The withdrawing and stopping of that stream of Light and Love that passed between God and the Soul of man which filled his reasonable faculties brimful of Happiness and Contentment and instead thereof in the understanding darkness distractedness a continued motion to know and yet for want of Light not knowing what to pursue and therefore pursuing trifles and follies In the Will loss of the Good that it before injoyed yet a craving Appetite after somewhat but it knows not what and to satisfie this unsatiable desire takeâ— in whatsoever the Suggestions of the World Flesh and the Devil offers fills it self with Vanity and then with Vexation In the Affections especially our Love it hath lost what did take up the whole Vigour and Comprehension of it and what it loved it injoyed but now raves and boils like the Sea after Follies and changeable and unsatisfying pursuits The Conscience that Chamber of the Soul wherein the beams of the Light and Favour of the Creator and of the Love and Duty of the Creature met as it were in the point or angle of reflection and carried those comfortable Messages of Sincerity and Obedience of the Soul to God and delight and acceptance from God to the Soul is now become the Chamber of Death and like the Spleen to the Body the receptacle of the Melancholy and sad Convictions of a guilty and ungrateful Soul and of an injured and revenging God and pre-apprehensions of farther Misery But if in the midst of Millions of Miseries he could see his Creator inviting him to dependance and recumbance upon him the Miseries were nothing they are born by his strength upon whom he leans But when the Lord of Heaven shall give him a trembling Heart and failing of Eyes and Sorrow of mind as in that most lively Expression he threatens the Jews Deut. 28.65 66 c. and when he
436 1. Natural Page 436 437 2. The Word of God absolutely in it self Page 438 1. The Law 1. Moral Page 438 2. Ceremonial Page 441 3. Judicial ibid. 2. The Prophets Page 442 3. The Gospel which contains a most excellent Rule of Righteousness in 1. The Example of Christ Page 443 2. The Precepts and Counsels Page 444 Page 1. General 1. Love of our Neighbour Page 448 2. Doing as we would be done unto Page 456 2. Particular things Page 1. To be done Page 2. To be suffered 3. Parts 3. God. A Brief Abstract of the Christian Religion Page 461 Seasonable Considerations for the Cleansing of the Heart and Life Page 473 A DISCOURSE OF THE Knowledge of God and of our Selves PART I. By the Light of Nature CHAP. I. Of the Existence and Attributes of God. I. ALL things but the Soul it self are extrinsecal to the Soul and therefore of necessity the Knowledge of all other things is extrinsecal to the Soul for Knowledge is nothing else but the true impression and shape of the thing known in the Understanding or a conception conform to the thing conceived And although the Soul in its own nature be apta nata to receive such impressions and doth therefore naturally desire and affect it yet it is as impossible for the Soul to know till the Object be some way applied to it as for a Looking-glass to reflect without first uniting of a Species of some Body to it that may be reflected The Means whereby the Scibile or thing to be known is united to the Soul and consequently Knowledge is wrought is threefold viz. 1. Supernatural Thus Almighty God in the first Creation of Man did fasten certain Principles of Truth in Man by his immediate discovery especially the Knowledge of Himself and his Will which was properly the Image or Impression of God in his Understanding This was not essential to the Soul but a Habit or Quality which God put into his Understanding and therefore though his Knowledge decayed by his Fall yet his Soul continued the same 2. Artificial Thus Knowledge is derived from Man to Man by signs of those impressions of Truth c. that are wrought in his Understanding that communicates it Thus Knowledge is acquired by Writing Speech and other Signs that are agreed upon to communicate Intelligence from the understanding of one Man to the understanding of another though mediante sensu Thus the Reliques of the knowledge of God in Adam were derived to his Posterity though still it grew for the most part of Men weaker and corrupter 3. Natural And this may be divided into these three branches viz. 1. Simple Apprehension Thus when any object singly by the Ear or Eye or other Sense is let into the Phantasy and so shewn to the Understanding without either affirming or denying any thing concerning it 2. Complex Apprehensions whereby either duo scibilia are joyned together in an Affirmation or Negation and this is a Proposition which again is of two kinds viz. either that which is most universal and therefore the first proposition that is framed in the understanding viz. that it is or est or est ens For that notion doth necessarily and upon the first view of any object joyn it self with it in the understanding Other propositions are more complex or remote as that God is good c. For the first question in the Understanding is Whether it be to which that general proposition answers and in the next place What it is to which the second sort of complex notions answer Now of this second kind of complex notions there are two kinds viz. either such as without the help of any Discourse or Ratiocination present themselves from the object to the understanding as this The Man is red the Man and the red being both objects of Sense and meeting in the same subject or else such as either the thing affirmed or the thing whereof the affirmation is or both are things that do not immediately fall within our Senses as the Man is a substance or the Spirit is a substance These though originally derived from sense yet they are refined by the help of Discourse 3. Conclusions drawn either from these simple or complex apprehensions which flow into our understanding immediately by our Senses and this is Rational Discourse a Faculty or Power put into Man whereby he is beyond all other visible Creatures and whereby all his actions whether Civil or Religious are and ought to be guided This is that Power whereby we may improve even sensible Objects Apprehensions and Observations to attain more sublime and high discoveries and rise from Effects to their Causes till at last we attain to the First Cause of all things So we may conclude that the Knowledge of our Creator though it fall not within the reach of our Sense and so falls not immediately within the reach of our Understanding yet by the ascents and steps of Rational Discourse so much may be gathered as may leave an Atheist without excuse God having given to Man even in his lapsed condition besides other Providential helps a stock of Visibles and a Rational Faculty to improve that stock to some measure of the Knowledge of himself For the invisible things of him from the Creation of the World are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his Eternal Power and Godhead so that they are without excuse Rom 1.20 Therefore as on the one side we are to avoid curiosity in measuring the infinite Mysteries of Truth by our own finite Understandings so on the other side we must beware of Supineness and Neglect of imploying that treasure of God's Works and his Light or Reason in us to that end for which it was principally intrusted with us even the knowledge of our Creator yet still humbly concluding with Elihu Job 34.32 That which I see not teach thou me II. The first and most Magisterial Truth in the World upon which all other truths do depend is this That there is a First Being and Cause of all other Beings This is evident by clear Reason 1. Either we must admit a First Cause or else an actual infiniteness of Succession of Causes The latter is impossible in Nature because it is impossible there can be that which is infinite and yet successive for then it would follow That that which is actually infinite in number should be yet more infinite because there are new Successions on Causes and Causations Again it is impossible that there should be an eternal dependance of Causes one upon another without a First because then the whole Collection of those Causes taken all together must needs likewise be actually depending and if so then upon themselves and that is impossible for the immediate Cause of the Effect doth not depend upon its Effect but immediately upon its Cause Therefore this bundle of dependent causes must depend upon some one among them which is independent And impossible
causes that have no natural connexion one with another When the Prophet that prophesied against Bethel returned back met the Lion and the Lion slew him here was a Voluntary Act in the Prophet viz. to go a Contingent Act in the meeting with the Lion a Natural Act in the Lion to kill him now because this death of the Prophet had no necessary connexion with all the causes that concurred to it neither had the journey of the Prophet any necessary connexion with the walk of the Lion that they must needs meet the death of the Prophet though it had a kind of natural connexion with the next cause that preceded it was in the estimation of Men Contingent yet in respect of that predetermination that was of all this business which was not therefore predetermined because spoken by the old Prophet who had only a revelation of That counsel the whole frame of this business was necessary yet note that this predetermination did not alter the nature of the intermediate causes the journey of the Prophet was nevertheless voluntary the meeting with the Lyon Contingent the death of the Prophet by the Lyon in effect necessary So the Divine Predetermination of Effects predetermines them in their several Causes and takes not away the truth of the denomination of Necessary Contingent and Voluntary it predetermines the being of each but the being of the first but to be necessarily because it predetermines it to depend upon a necessary cause as the Eclipse of the Sun it predetermines the being of the second but to be contingently because it predetermines it to be upon contingent and unconnexed causes it predetermines the third to be but to be voluntarily because it hath predetermined it to be upon a voluntary cause All things to him have the same necessity of being though distinguished in their manner of being which are represented to our understanding under the notions of Necessary Contingent and Voluntary 3. We have considered the influence of the First Cause upon the creature in actu primo which is giving it a being or creation and as to things Natural and Contingent in actu secundo which is Providence or Government Now concerning the relation that Man the only visible Intellectual and Voluntary being in the World hath We must premise to this consideration what hath been partly observed viz. 1. That the first disposal of every thing to its several End doth of right belong to the First Cause 2. That this End is twofold 1. In respect of the First Cause the mere fulfilling of his own Will 2. In respect of the Creatures 1. relatively one to another a Subordination of one thing to and for another as the more imperfect to the more perfect 2. absolutely the End that is planted in every thing is its own Preservation and Perfection 3. That as the implanted End of every thing is his own being and perfection so the being of things being different both in nature and degrees of Excellence so are their Perfections different the Perfection of Animate above the Inanimate the Perfection of the Sensitive above the Animate and of the Rational above the Sensitive 4. That as the several Creatures are moved to their several Preservations and Perfections as to their several Ends so they have suitable Inclinations Dispositions and Motions placed in them conducible to those Ends as the Motions of Bodies to their several stations the generation of Vegetables and their attraction of supplies of nourishment answerable to their tempers the fading of Sensitives and assimilation of the nourishment to their own nature supplying the decays thereof Natural Instincts of every species to avoid those things places and foods that are destructive providing for varieties of Seasons multiplication of their Species and infinite the like which is nothing else but that Rule Law or Means that the First Cause hath put in them for the attaining that End which he hath put in them viz. their Preservation and Perfection And this is the great Wisdom as I may call it of the Creature that it pursues that End by that Law which the First Cause hath given it Mankind hath some things in him common with other inferiour Beings and in respect thereof hath the same Natural End viz. the Preservation of his Subsistence by the same Law of Nature which he doth and may and ought to preserve as other Creatures do But if he have a higher degree of Being than other Creatures then consequently he hath these two things different from other Creatures 1. A higher End than other Creatures planted in him by the First Cause whereinto he is or should be carried 2. A higher and different Law given by the First Cause in order to that End which whiles he follows he is most wise because most conformable to the Will of his Maker and moves to a suitable End to himself by a suitable Means and which when he declines he is more bruitish than the Beast because he either moves to no End or by such a Rule by which it is impossible he should attain it The Conclusion then is That Man was by the First Cause made for an End answerable to his own Perfection by such a Rule or Law as was by the First Cause ordained to be conducible to this End That therefore all other Ends and Perfections that are below the uttermost hight and Perfection of Man may consist with this End for we are not to conceive so improvidently of the First Cause that he should put a thing in such a degree of being that the Ends and Rules incident to any consideration of him should be inconsistent with his Supream End all stood together but if by any casualty it should fall out that there were an inconsistency all the Subordinate Ends must give way to this Supream End That the pursuit of this great End whatsoever it is by this Rule is exactly conformable to the Will of the First Cause by this Man doth two works at once God's work and his own That this is the Great Business of Man the highest act of Wisdom deserves all his labour study and endeavour and all the rest of his Business in the World is either lost labour or worse if not subservient to this great End. We are therefore to enquire into these three things 1. Wherein consists the Eminence of the being of Man above other Creatures for without this we cannot know that Perfection which must be the object of his desire 2. What is this Perfection that is thus to be desired and attained 3. By what Means and how it is attainable CHAP. III. Of Man his Excellence above other Creatures THE Goodness of the Wise Creator was communicated to his Effects 1. in giving them a Being 2. in assigning to every thing a portion of Perfection in themselves answerable to the degree of their Being 3. a Motion or Desire to the attaining and conserving that Perfection and consequently of their Being which is the Vessel wherein that
Principles concerning other matters yet in matters of Religion the differences have ever been wonderful The reason is not only from the defect of our Understanding but likewise from the nature of the Object which falls not easily within the reach of those Mediums whereby the understanding arrives to the attainment of other Truths and therefore stands in need of some extrinsecal help to set him right in this It is true that the great points of Religion viz. the knowledge that there is a God and some things concerning his Essence that he is the Cause of all things that he made all things for his own End and those other things before mentioned may be acquired by the Light of Nature and Reason yet such is the heighth and remoteness of the Subject that it requires much Industry and Consideration to carry us step by step unto this heighth But when we have arrived to this which few attain unto yet there is so much confusion in these Notions and they are so far fetcht that they make not that clear impression upon the Understanding as is fit But admit they did yet we are still to seek what is that Rule whereby to lead us to attain to our great End and this we rove at In the ways of the Children of Men concerning Religion we may observe these Several steps of Ignorance 1. An Ignorance whether there be any God or no This is the grossest Ignorance because it is against the first and most universal Principle for the affirmation of the being of any thing is the first foundation whereupon every Inquiry is built this is Atheism and meer Brutishness 2. When a Man hath once stated that question affirmatively That there is some Superior Power the next question and the next step of Man's Ignorance is concerning the Nature of this God What he is Whether one or more Whether visible and if so What visible c. This though it may by natural Reason be stated very far as appears before and so this Ignorance receive a cure in a great measure yet so far are our Intellectuals darkened in this matter that Men are hardly set right in this And hence grew those strange varieties of Gods in the World this is the cause of Idolatry and Polytheism 3. When a Man is rightly Principle'd concerning God and consequently concludes that he is the Cause of all things the next special question is Whether God hath given to every thing his several End and Rule or Law conducing to that End and consequently Whether he hath appointed to Man any End and Rule conducing to that End different from other Creatures or Whether he be left to do as he pleaseth and not confined by the Will of God to some End and Rule conducing to it the Ignorance of this is the Cause of Supineness Epicurism Impiety and professed Injustice 4. When a Man finding that God is a free and intellectual Agent and sees as he may by natural Reason every thing ordered to a suitable End to his Being and by a suitable Means or Rule conducing to that End and finds a higher degree of being in himself than in other Creatures and consequently an higher End and consequently an higher Rule conducing to that End he doth most naturally resolve this Rule into that Law which by the Will of God is given to Man conducing to that End the Subject of which Rule must be all his Internal and External Actions both in reference to God to himself and to others but here then is the next question and the next degree of Ignorance in Men viz. What that Law or Will of God is concerning Man and from hence grow those Varieties and Errors in Worship of God. And though haply most Men knowing the true God may by the same Light of Nature concur in the general and fundamentals of Worship viz. That God is to be feared with all Reverence loved with all intention obey'd with all sincerity chearfulness and exactness all which are but natural conclusions from the Nature of God the Nature of Man and the Relation that he beareth to God as his Creator Lord and Preserver yet because we know not what that Will of God particularly is we frame several ways and Rules of Worship according as our several Fancies perswade us to be agreeable to that Will which are either unnecessary and superstructive or erroneous and offensive and which is the most dangerous Ingredient conclude both his own way necessary and the other dangerously Erroneous These Defects in the Understanding must needs be the cause of much Error and Obliquity in the whole Man and his Actions And these defects are most clearly visible in the whole World nay in the most knowing Climates Times and Persons thereof In the last part concerning the Worship of God we see several sorts of Men highly opinionated concerning their own particular Way or Worship and most Magisterially condemning the way of others as bad as Paganism when it may fall out and so for the most part it doth that what is superadded beyond the plain and sincere Fear of God Subjection to his Will Thankfulness for his Mercy Belief of the great Means he hath provided for our Salvation and those other grand Principles whereof before and anon are but meer Superstructions of Humane Invention Ignorance Imbecility or Policy and yet made the greatest part of the business and inquiries and differences among Men in matters of this Nature 2. In the Will we find several Defects 1. Those that are consequential to the Ignorance or darkness or impotence of the Understanding whose Decisions doth or should preceed the act of the Will Were the Understanding truly principle'd with the knowledge of God of his Perfection Power and Will with the knowledge of our selves our Nature and the Dependence we have upon him in our being and continuance those practical Conclusions that would most clearly and necessarily arise from these viz. of Love to his Majesty Fear of Offending Care to conform to his Will Dependance upon him Thankfulness to him Contentedness and Chearfulness in him Valuation of the World according to its true Estimate c. would most effectually follow in the Will and those Affections that are subservient to it and consequently in the Life and Actions of Men one Divine Principle soundly and clearly seated in the Understanding would improve it self into infinite practical deductions for the regulation of the Will But where these are wanting the motions of the Will must needs be excentrick But where they are but weakly and doubtfully received in the Understanding the operation of the Understanding upon them is but weak the inclinations in the Will weaker and easily overmatcht with the least difficulty and seldom arrive to action or constancy in the life for according to the measure and intention and clearness of the Conviction of the Understanding concerning any Object the more fruitful rational and powerful are those practical Conclusions deduced from it and
therefore must needs take up the highest and choicest Desires to attain and keep him God is pleased to communicate himself to these Desires his acceptation of them and intimate Expressions of Love to his Creature This as it is the highest Happiness and the Rest of the Creature so it cannot chuse but ingage the Soul to return Love and Obedience to the Will of his God especially when all those Engagements to Obedience are likewise presented to the Soul that it owes its Being to him that his will is most righteous and fit to be obeyed And this Obedience arising from these Principles of Love to God as it was without all Hypocrisie so it was without all pain and tediousness for it did arise from an inward and active Principle and was acted by most obedient and active Faculties Man took no less delight in his Obedience which was the fruit of his Love and Duty to his Maker than he did in the knowledge of the Beauty and Goodness of his Maker which was the cause of that Love and Duty And as the actings of the natural Appetite upon a proper and seasonable Object when they exceed not their proportion are delightful so the actings of the rational Appetite consisting in Love and Obedience to God wherein they could not exceed their just proportion were the delight of the Soul his Holiness consisting in the returns to his Maker of Love and Obedience and the Goodness of his God in communicating himself and his favour exciting and accepting those returns did both conduce to the fulfilling of his Blessedness All this as it was derived from the Blessing of God 1 Gen. 28. so it ended in the Perfection of the Creature And God saw all that he had made and behold it was very Good. Ib. Ver. 31. 2. The Means whereby he attained or rather preserved this state of Happiness which was in effect congenite with though not essential to his Being This was only Obedience to the Will of his Maker In all inferiour Creatures we see a kind of inclination or instinct to follow the Rule of their Nature This conducts them to that degree of Felicity and Beauty which is commensurate to their Nature herein though they follow the Will of their Creator in the Law of their Creation it is not properly Obedience nor that instinct properly a Law the latter is only given and the former only performed by such a Creature as hath Liberty and Choice and consequently Knowledge and Understanding without which it is impossible to have the other Man alone of all visible Creatures is endued with both and so fitted to receive a Law and to obey it Being thus fitted he hath a double ingagement of Obedience viz. of Duty and of Profit 1. Of Duty he received his Being from his Maker and that Being furnished with Happiness This is an infinite and boundless engagement of Duty even to the utmost of his Being 2. Of Profit or Advantage this stock of Happiness that was but now freely conferred upon him is put into his hands under this Condition if he break his Condition he forfeits and that most justly his Happiness But yet if this Law were beyond the capacity of his Nature then there might be some excuse of his Disobedience But as this Happiness was fully commensurate to his Nature so was this Law which was the subject of his Obedience We shall therefore consider these three things 1. What was the Law of Man's Creation 2. Whence the Obligation of it 3. What the Sanction or Penalty 1. What the Law was Obedience was the Duty of Man to the Will of his Creator the Law was the Specification of that Will in this or that particular Command or Prohibition The Laws that God gave to Man therefore were of two kinds 1. Such as did bear a kind of proportion or convenience to the Nature of Man such are all those moral Dictates which we call Laws of Nature as keeping of Faith worshipping God and most if not all those Precepts in the Decalogue are but Expressions of these Laws These though they have no Obligation but by the Command of God yet they have a kind of Congruity with the very Nature of Man. 2. Such as though they have their original Justice of Obligation upon the same ground as the former hath viz. The subordination of the rational Creature to the Will of God yet in hoc individuo there doth not appear that Congruity of Nature of Man with this Command such was the Command of forbearing the forbidden Fruit and answerable to this in all times God hath been pleased to give Commands of these two several kinds Gen. 9.14 At the same time God forbids Murder which holds Congruity with Humane Nature and eating of Blood which doth not appear to hold such Congruity Gen. 17.2 to Abraham Walk before me and be perfect which is a Rule of natural Justice and a Command of Circumcision the reason whereof doth not so naturally appear so to the Jews not only the Moral Law but divers Ceremonial Rites which have no such necessary conformity to Reason The reason of this and why the first Man's Obedience was tried upon this Precept was because that in the Obedience to such a Command is given the clearest and most free Obedience to God for we hereby acknowledge his Freedom to command what he pleaseth and our just Obligation to obey what he commands meerly because he commands Now because it is impossible that any Law can bind unless it hath some Promulgation or discovery from him that gives it or somewhat equivolent unto it we are to consider How these Laws came to be published As for the latter it is most certain and clear that it was by express injunction from God. And the Lord God commanded Man saying c. Whether this was by an audible Voice or by an immediate infusion of the knowledge of it into the Mind it will not be material to enquire But certain it is that in as much as the Obligation of this Precept doth not arise from any intrinsecal conformity of the thing to Humane Nature there was an express injunction and command of God in it But as touching the former though they were discovered to Man to be the Will of God yet they did hold a kind of intrinsecal proportion and conformity to the very Nature of Men. And hence it is that though by the Fall a general deficiency was in Man yet the tracks and foot-steps of those Laws remain in his very constitution Though this cannot be the cause of their Obligation yet questionless this was part of the means of their Publication to Man Rom. 2.14 The Gentiles not having the Law do by nature the things contained in the Law. And although much were due to Education and Tradition and the course of God's Providence in propagating the Knowledge of the Moral Law yet such a convenience it hath with the nature and use of Men that when they once come to
way to his Happiness as one Man teacheth another though we must not exclude that powerful Co-operation of his mighty Spirit that strikes upon our Spirits even when his Word strikes upon our 〈◊〉 And herein the Pharisees spoke truth even against their own Wills Matth. 22.26 Thou teachest the way of God in Truth For God in these last times hath spoken to us by his Son Heb. 1.2 and revealed unto us the whole Counsel and Will of his Father concerning us For he spoke not of himself but the Father which sent him gave him Commandment what he should say John 12.49 And that this Doctrin of his might receive a Testimonial from Heaven it was 〈◊〉 with Miracles and with suffrages from Heaven John 12.30 This Voice came not because of me but 〈◊〉 your sakes Now among divers Particulars of the 〈◊〉 of Christ we may observe these great Master-pieces 1. Instâ—ucting us that there is a higher end for the Sons of Men to arrive unto than temporal Felicity in this Life viz. Blessedness express'd in those several Expressions of his Matth. 5.3 4. c. The Kingdom of Heaven Comfort Fulness sight of God c. And in order to this great Doctrin are those several Doctrines of the Resurrection the last Judgment the Immortality of the Soul truths that the whole World either never knew or had forgotten or doubted 2. Instructing in the true Way to attain this Blessedness teaching us that Righteousness accepted of God consists not in meer outward observations but in the integrity and sincerity of the Heart and hereby rubs off all those false glosses that the formallest of Men had put upon the Law of God teaches that the Love of God is the fulfilling of God's Commandments and the reason is because this Love of God if it be sincere will ingage the whole Man to the exact Observance of what he requires those abstruse practical Truths of Depending upon God's Providence Self-denyal Loving our Enemies Rejoycing in Affliction all flowing from the high Point of the Love of God this is the Law of Christ Gal. 6.2 3. In revealing that which is the only Means to attain the two former even that great Mystery of the Gospel that was hid with God in Christ A Man might rove at the two former though the World had almost lost them both but this latter was a mystery that the Angels themselves knew not 1 Cor. 2.16 Who hath known the Mind of the Lord that he way instruct him But we have the mind of Christ which contains the whole Counsel of God touching Man this is that which Paul calls all the Counsel of God. Acts 20.27 and Truth it self hath given us the Breviary of it John 6.40 This is the will of him that sent me that every one that seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day These great Truths of so great Concernment to the Children of Men yet so far remov'd from their Understanding were the third Business of the Life of Christ 7. That Christ bearing the sins of his People did suffer the wrath of God for the Remission of their sins The sufferings of Christ did only befal his Humane Nature for his Divine Nature was impassible yet in respect of that strict union of both Natures in one Person they received a value from that divine and impassible Nature for the union of both Natures in one Person though it did not communicate the Conditions of either Nature to the other did communicate the conditions of either Nature to the same Person as is before shewn This Suffering of Christ had these several Attributions 1 It was a Voluntary Suffering and yet not without a Necessity The Suffering was Voluntary even in respect of his Humane Nature yet Obediential to the Counsel and Purpose of God Matth. 17.21 he must go and suffer Luke 24 26. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things Acts 2.23 Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God Yet was this most Voluntary in Christ Voluntary in the original undertaking of this Work in that Eternal Susception by the Eternal Word Voluntary in the discharge of that Undertaking in the Humane Nature the Humane Nature of Christ pursuing and following the will of Eternity Luke 12.50 I have a baptism to be baptized withal and how am I straitned till it be accomplished And even when the Humane Nature did according to the Law of Nature shrink from its own dissolution yet he presently corrects that natural Passion John 12.27 Father save me from this hour But for this cause came I to this hour Father glorifie thy Name Matth. 26.39 O my Father if it be pâ—ssible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt whiles his Humanity trembles and startles at the Business he goes about yet his Love to his Church his Obedience to his Father his Faithfulness to his Undertaking breaks through that natural reluctance Now the Voluntariness yet obedience of Christ's suffering both consistent appears Joh. 10.15 1 Joh. 3.16 I lay down my life for my sheep No man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self yet Isa 53.6 10. All we like sheep have gone astray and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all it pleased the Lord to bruise him when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin Psal 2.7 8. As he made himself of no reputation and humbled himself so he became obedient to death Titus 2.14 He gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity yet John 3.16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son c. Again 1 John 4.9 Herein perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us Yet Rom. 8.32 He spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all 1 John 4.9 God sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins Psal 40.7 Then said I lo I come yet he came not without a Mission I delight to do thy will O my God. The sum of all then is the Love of God to Mankind was the absolute and original foundation of our Redemption the same act of this Love proposed and undertook the Redemption of Mankind voluntarily and freely in this way contrived by the Eternal Wisdom and Counsel of God The Humane Nature of Christ in exact and voluntary submission unto this Counsel performed it If it had been Voluntary and not in Conformity to the Will of God whose Will could be the only measure of his Satisfaction it could never have been satisfactory And if it had been meerly Passive it could not have been an Obedience which requires a free Submission and Conformity to the Will of him that injoyns without which it could never be meritorious 2. It was a Meritorious and Expiatory Suffering for by that Eternal Covenant between the Father and the Son he was to bear the sins of
so much of the Creatures inferiour to my self as observe the Law of their Creation enjoy a measure of Perfection answerable to their Being and if interrupted in that law of their Nature they lose their Beauty if not their Being The degree of my Being was higher than theirs and so was consequently the End of my Being my Happiness of a higher Constitution than theirs And as my Debt was greater to my Creator for allowing me so high an End so was my ability proportionable to the pursuit and attaining of that End which was thus given to me But what have I been doing all this while I have measured my Heart by that great Law Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart and I have found my Heart full of the love of the World of Pleasures of Vanities but scarce a thought bestowed on him that gave me Power to think and which is worse my Heart hath held confederacy with all that he hath forbidden insomuch that I may justly conclude that surely nothing but a Heart hating God could so constantly and universally oppose his Will I have measured my Life by the Law of God and I can scarcely find one regular action in it my Heart hath not been so out of frame but it hath still found a full subservience of my whole Man unto it and that with greediness and yet I find all this unsatisfactory and I have cause to fear that is not all Sense doth tell me that in the pursuit of the ways of my Heart I spend my self for that which is not Bread and my labour for that which profiteth not I find no fulness in them but much vexation And Reason as well as Conscience tells me it will be bitterness in the end and the end is death I cannot but know that the great Lord of all Being hath measured out to all his Creatures their Beings and their Happiness suitable to their Beings and their Ways and Rules and Laws to attain their Happiness and if all this while I have been out of that Way I am travelling to another End If in the way of God I should have found Life and everlasting Life for my End out of that Way my End must be Death If I were now to begin my Life I should order it better Though I cannot expiate what is past yet my Soul looks upon it with Sorrow with Indignation with Amazement This is the first degree 2. That they are Vnbecoming Vngrateful and Vndutiful Returns It is implanted even in the sensitive Nature to return good for good We have received all the Good from the hands of that God against whom the practice of our Hearts and Lives hath been a continual Rebellion and upon this Consideration natural Ingenuity works a Shame in the Soul and a secret Condemnation and some kind of loathing so Ungrateful and Undutiful a Constitution 3. But hitherto the Soul looks only backward and these Considerations though they are enough to breed Shame and Despair in the Soul yet they are not strong enough to work Repentance because in those Considerations the Soul looks upon it self in an unexpiable and irrecoverable Condition The amendment will prove fruitless where the former guilt is irreversible and yet enough to sink the Soul Therefore the third Conviction is of the love of God that hath provided a means of pardon and acceptation when a Man throughly convinced of the unprofitableness and desperateness of his actions and condition his extream Ingratitude unto God shall for all this hear a voice after all those things Return back thou back-sliding Israel and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you for I am merciful and will not keep mine anger for ever only acknowledge thine iniquity Jer. 3.12 13. This conquers the Soul not only into a dislike of sin past as dangerous and unprofitable but unto a hatred of it and of our selves for it as the enemy to such an invincible Love. The Consideration of our ways past and comparing them with the Law will enforce the Conscience to condemn them but it must be the sense of the Love and Goodness of God in Christ that can only incline us to change them as by the former he concludes his ways dangerous and unprofitable so without the latter he will conclude his Repentance unuseful And hereupon the Soul is cast into such Expressions as these O Lord I have been considering the present temper of my Heart and reviewed the course of my Life and have compared them with the Duty I owe unto thee and the Law which thou gavest me to be the Rule of that Duty and I find my heart and ways infinitely disproportionable to that Rule and thereby I conclude my self a most ungrateful and a miserable Creature But though I have sinned away that stock of Grace and Blessedness with which I was once intrusted by thee I find I have not out-sinned that Fountain of Goodness and Mercy that is in thee even whiles the sight and sense of my own Condition bids me despair either of repenting or acceptation of it yet I hear the voice of that Majesty which I have injured bids me Return and live Ezek. 18.32 Were there no acceptance of my turning from those ways of death and destruction yet it were my duty and though thy Justice might justly reject it yet it might justly require it But yet when thy merciful and free Promise shall crown my Repentance with Acceptation and Life This Love constrains beyond the sense of my own misery And when I hear the voice of my Lord calling to me to return and I will heal your backslidings that Love warms my Heart into that answer Behold I will come unto thee for thou art the Lord my God Jer 3.22 But who can come unto thee unless thou draw him send therefore thy Power along with thy Command for it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth Turn me and I shall be turned I will engage the uttermost of my strength to forsake my ways but I will still wait upon the same Mercy that did invite me to enable me to forsake them By that which preceeds we see a double Repentance 1. That which is Preparatory unto the receiving of Christ which is nothing else but a sense of the unhappiness and evil of our ways as destructive unto our Happiness and dissonant from that Rule of Righteousness which we cannot but naturally subscribe to be Just and Good and this doth naturally breed a Sorrow for what hath been so done and a Purpose and Inclination of Heart to forsake those ways And this was the work of the Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord his Doctrine was a Doctrine of Repentance and his Baptism a Baptism of Repentance a Seal of the Entertainment of that Doctrine to as many as received it Matth. 3.2 Luk. 3.16 Acts 19.4 2. That which is Subsequent to that entertainment of Christ in the Heart by Faith which is the sense of
likewise in Experience Take but the instance of one Creature Man It is plain that the World doth every day grow fuller and fuller that which is now almost a Nation we can with a little help derive into one Man five hundred years since so that it is not imaginable but that at length we must necessarily come to a First Man If so how had that Man his being It is true that there be some living creatures that we may trace their beginning to the corruption of some preexisting matter which by its own temper and the concurrence of other second causes may produce a living creature as Worms Mice c. But if there should be such a production of Man at first why is it not so at some time since viz. that a Man should be produced out of the ground by some concurrence of the disposition of the matter with second causes If it be said that that is now needless and Nature doth nothing in vain the answer is unsatisfactory For 1. where such productions are as of Mice c. it is as needless because they propagate their kind as well as Man. And 2. if Nature doth nothing in vain it is plain that whatever is so called Nature is in truth the first cause though miscalled Nature for not to do any thing in vain is an act of a Voluntary and Rational Agent a mere natural Agent cannot but work uniformly whether in vain or not in vain when the matter is uniformly disposed Therefore we must needs have recourse to a First Voluntary and Intellectual Agent that did at first make Man and by his free Power did advance the piece of red Earth above its own disposition and beyond the causality of second Causes to produce Man and that hath not since done the like but as to those other imperfect creatures hath planted in second Causes such a strength and causality as out of a prepared matter to produce other living creatures without any concurrence of his immediate or extraordinary Power 2. In every Successive Motion it is necessary to arrive to some beginning of it and it is impossible it should be eternal as in case of the motion of the Sun which is successive it cannot in reason be but there must be a time or instant wherein it either was not or did not move for otherwise the revolutions would be actually infinite in number and yet that infinite number of revolutions be still augmented by dayly new revolutions which would be in it self a contradiction that that which was before actually infinite should yet receive an increase as necessarily it must if the motion of the Sun had never a beginning Therefore of necessity it had a beginning If it had a beginning of its motion it could not have it from it self for why did it not then move sooner But of necessity it must have the beginning from another for though animate creatures move themselves yet they receive still the original cause of their motion from something without them as well as of their being Who or what was it that gave it that motion or principle of its motion And if any could assign any other than the First Cause which is not almost imaginable yet still my enquiry must rise higher what was that that gave being or causality to that cause So that in summ the motion of the Sun or Heavens cannot be Eternal because Successive It must have a Cause of its motion from without it self that Cause if the First Cause then a First Cause must be granted if not the First yet by the same reason that in all Successive motions we must admit a beginning we may conclude in all Successions of Causes there must be a beginning because the being and causation or motion of second causes is likewise Successive and therefore can be no more infinite than the successive motions of the same subject can be infinite It is impossible that any thing should be Eternal that is not Indivisible ut videbitur infra So that the Succession of Causes and Motion is that which doth necessarily inforce a first cause To these we may add those Considerations which arise from the Observation of the created World the subservience of one thing to the perservation of another the inclinations of Creatures without choice to means conducible to their preservation the ordering and fitting of things whereby confusion and uselesness of creatures is avoided all which do bespeak the admission of a Voluntary Intellectual Supreme and Universal Cause of all things Now a First Cause being admitted we are to consider what may rationally be deduced from thence concerning this First Cause And those are of two kinds First such as absolutely concern his own Being Secondly such as concern him in relation to those Effects which proceed from him For the former of these we say That a First Cause of all things being granted I. It necessarily follows that he hath no bounds of his existence or being The bounds of Existence are either in Duration or Extension the exclusion of the bounds of Existence in Duration is Eternity that in Extension is Immensity Now first for Eternity Whatsoever is Eternal must be without Beginning without Succession without End. 1. Without Beginning For if it be a First Cause it cannot have a Beginning for then he must have a Cause of his Being which would be a contradiction Neither could he have a beginning from himself for that were to suppose a pre-existence in himself to himself which were also repugnant 2. Without Succession There is nothing past nothing to come for all is one indivisible Succession and those notions of Time past present and to come are only the consequences of a Successive Motion for Time is nothing else but that conception whereby we measure successive motion were there no successive motion in the World it would be impossible that there should be any of those affections of Time and consequently Time is not any thing real but a relation to Motion Now before that the First Cause did set a continued motion in the World there could be no Succession but all was wrapped up in one permanent instant for the Being of the First Cause and his Motion what ever it was or is is indivisible as shall be shewn Then when he produced second Causes and consequently those moved in their several causalities and courses and consequently their motions beings and causalities being successive there was a prius and posterius and succession yet this did not alter the indivisible nature of that duration which that indivisible being had before and at and with that motion which he after produced The First Being hath a co-existence with the Successive Motions of the creatures but his duration is not measured by it or co-extended with it but is of the same indivisibility as if there had been no successive motion produced and consequently no successive time 3. Without End For first what should or can
inconsistent with his Simplicity so that his Essence is his Goodness and his Goodness the same with his Essence which is also to be observed in all his Attributes though our Understanding cannot apprehend this Indivisible Being all at once but step by step And from hence it follows that whatsoever may be affirmed concerning his Essence may be likewise affirmed concerning his goodness viz. 1. That it is Infinite for so is his essence The Essential goodness of an Infinite Being must needs be Infinite and hence it is not capable of any increase or diminution and therefore the production of the Effects and the Communication of his goodness to them did neither add unto nor take from his goodness 2. That it is Perfect for that which is Infinite must needs be Perfect because it excludes any mixture of any thing that is not good 3. That it is Eternal that is evident for it is the same with his Eternal being Now from this consideration of the goodness of the first Being arise these Conclusions 1. That he is Perfectly and self-sufficiently Happy because in the enjoyment of himself he enjoys an Infinite goodness which is the same with his being and impossible to be severed from it Good is of its own nature the object of desire the desire and the object being severed breedeth pain and unhappiness the conjunction of good to the desire is fruition and if the good be proportionable to the desire of it then in the Union of that good to the desire there is a full rest and complacency Now the first cause is moved with an Infinite love as I may with fear say to that Infinite good which is most Essentially and Indivisibly the same with himself and consequently he hath an Infinite rest and complacency in himself and that without the contribution of any thing without him for he had the same boundless happiness in himself before the existence of any effect as he had after because he had the same measure of goodness and the same perfect fruition of it before any such production as after the productions of new effects are the emanations only of his Essence and produced no alteration in him neither did it dilate his Essential goodness or add a new degree of fruition of good to what he before had for he loved the productions of his Will in himself and for himself 2. That the First Being as it is the First Cause of all things so it is the Supream End of all things because he is the Supream Good and the only adequate object of himself So that in the production of any effect the effect that was produced or any thing without the First Being could not be the ultimate End for which it should be produced for his Will was and is filled with an Infinite Good viz. himself So that it was impossible he should take any thing into that Will which was not in order to himself He made all things for his own self And upon this ground it follows that nothing without him is an End to it self because he that is the First Cause of all things must needs be he that must be the Master and appointer of the End of all things so caused 3. From hence it follows that all the Goodness that is in the Creature is nothing else but the print or impression of that Goodness which is in the First Being though according to the different degrees of things the impressions are more or less genuine for it is impossible that any thing can be denominated Good but by a conformity in some measure to that which is the First Goodness That conformity is nothing else but that impression of Divine Goodness upon the Creature This impression of the Goodness of the First Cause upon the Creature is not by any transmission of any part of the Essential Goodness of the First Being into the Effect for that is incommunicable nor by any physical action of that Goodness upon another thing but the mere will of the First Mover Now we find a fourfold Goodness in the Creature 1. An Essential Goodness which is communicated with the very being of it thus every thing that is is Good in it self though relatively it may be evil because in that it is it is conformable to the First Cause who wills it to be This Goodness in any being is that by reason whereof every thing desires it self and is moved to its own preservation and is intrinsecal to the being of the thing 2. An Intrinsecal but not an Essential Goodness when a thing hath all those qualities or requisites in it self which are suitable and conducible to those acts and operations that belong to the degree of its being and the variety of the degrees in these qualities denominate it more or less Good thus were all Creatures in their Original perfectly Good though every kind had a several degree of Perfection yet every thing had a perfection in its kind This Goodness is likewise communicated from the First Being And the suitableness of those qualities in the creatures to the exigencies of their own conditions do most evidently manifest the impression of that Goodness that is in the First Being 3. Relative or Communicative Goodness viz whereby one thing is conducible or useful for the preservation or perfection of another thing and is therefore desirable or good for it for though the Essential Goodness of any thing being as indivisible is the Essence it self and therefore in that abstract notion is not capable of degrees yet there are degrees of perfection which a finite being is capable of and different degrees of perfection in several beings in their concrete notion as a Man is a more perfect being than a Beast a Spirit than a Man though one be as equal a being as the other This then imports four things 1. A Vacuity or absence of some Good whereof that being is receptible and consequently a receptibility of that which may supply it 2. A Motion or Desire of that being that hath this vacuity and receptibility unto that which may supply it and a desire of Union to it this it hath from the cause of its being for the cause of its being must needs be the cause of this appetite or motion to its farther perfection and this is sometimes so strong and active that it carries the creature by way of consequence to the destruction of that being which at present it hath to attain a higher being 3. A proportion between the Vacuity or necessity of the subject desiring to the thing desired as a Man to supply his Hunger desires not Cloaths but Meat and when cold desires not Meat but Cloaths because these hold proportion to that exigence that the creature desires to fill And hence it is that Temporal Good satisfies not a Spiritual substance nor a Spiritual Good satisfies a Carnal substance because they are not proportionable 4. An Activity in the Good desired to apply it self to the supply of that
exigence which desires it and to unite it self to it All these do infallibly evidence the Goodness of the First Being communicated to the second Being for who put into the Creature a Motion or desire to unite it self to that which might supply its want who framed a proportionable Good to that Vacuity and desire who placed that Activity in any thing to let out and unite that Goodness that is in it to that desire and Vacuity the very warmth of our Cloaths the nutriment of our bodies do bespeak an Infinite Rational Communicative Goodness that defined these correspondencies and hath taught the creatures those mutual motions for their own and each others Good while they themselves know not what or why they do it 7. From the former considerations it follows most evidently that he is most Just and that it is impossible he can be otherwise and this as it necessarily results from the admission of his Goodness for Justice is nothing else but Goodness in a rational Being indued with Will so it flows from this consideration that he is the First Cause of all things Nothing can be said Vnjust which is not contrary to the prohibition of some Law given by something that can exact obedience to it Nothing can give the First Being a Law or Rule but his own will and consequently he can do nothing but what is most Just because it is impossible that any thing else can be a Rule of Justice but himself not any thing without him for then he were not the First Being not his creature for over that he hath a most supream and absolute dominion How can that which receives his being his subsistence his rules of Justice from the First Being prescribe a rule to him by whom it is or exact the performance of it So that nothing can be the rule of Justice to him but his own will and therefore what he wills cannot be but Just because he wills it and as it is impossible for him to act but what he wills so it is impossible for him to will but what is Just because his will is the only rule of his Justice and though ex natura rei he might have willed what he doth not will yet that which he had so willed had been just yet de facto the act of his will being Eternal and immutable it is impossible any unjust thing should be done by him because impossible he should do contrary to his own will which is the only measure and rule of Justice And from this we may clearly evidence 1. That there is a most absolute unlimited Dominion and Power in the First Cause over its Effects and he is bound unto it by no other obligation but his own Will which though it doth manifest it self in all Mercy and Tenderness and Goodness and Wisdom towards it yet it is only because it is his Good will so to do 2. That therefore whatsoever Rule or Law the First Cause doth prescribe to his creature that is capable of a Law it ought unquestionably to be submitted unto for what soever he wills must needs be just inasmuch as there is no measure of Justice or Injustice but his will although we are not to look upon any thing required by the First Cause but flowing from a most Wise as well as a most absolute Will and so holding a proportion with the ability of that creature from whom it is required 3. From hence we find where is the Original of all Justice in the World it must all be resolved into that will of the First Cause and that in a double respect 1. In respect of Conformity for were there no precise Law given to rational creatures it is true there could be no Obligation yet a Conformity in the actions of rational creatures to the similar actions of the First Cause towards his Creature would be Comely and Just in a rational Creature and questionless as the irrational Creatures have certain Instincts planted in them by their first creation which though they are not properly Laws but Inclinations to Man as he came out of the hands of his Maker with the impression of his Image upon him had some conformity to the supream Justice without any reference to any Command which is not clean lost but even in Men without education doth strangely manifest it self in divers particulars 2 In respect of Obligation for there can be nothing imaginably Unjust without these two considerations viz. 1. A Law commanding or forbidding a thing under a pain whatsoever falls not within the command or Prohibition is permitted and cannot be unjust 2. A Power to exact an Obedience to that Law and to inflict the punishment that follows upon the breach of this Law. Otherwise the Law were ridiculous and vain Now as to the first without all question the First Cause in the first creation of reasonable creatures did by what way we know not give him a Law whereby he should live and which he traduced to his posterity as the Commands of the First Cause though in succession of time those grew weaker and corrupter every day than other These are those Jura Naturalia which have an influence into all the Laws of Men as to worship God to keep our Promises c. and when we come so far as to be perswaded that they are the Laws of God then it binds in a fear to offend because thereby we become liable to punishment which we are sure he hath Power and Right to inflict his Power being universal and unavoidable and his Right and Dominion over his creature absolute and uncontrolable Thus we find a plain Obligation in those Laws that are given by the First Cause and consequently admitting such a Law we have a clear Rule whereby to measure what 's Just and what 's Unjust and when I can resolve any thing into the Command or Prohibition of this Law I find my self bound in Conscience viz. under pain of Guilt to obey If I enter into a society and agree to be bound by the Laws that the greater number of that Society makes they make a Law here be now but two things that can bind me to observe this Law and consequently to denominate my disobedience thereunto Unjustice viz. The Power of the Society but that is but a thing extrinsecal I may avoid their power and then I am absolved and if external power were enough to denominate my disobedience Unjustice then if I could procure a power to overmatch theirs their obedience to their own Law were injustice The Promise and agreement to submit to that Law so made but what is that that binds me to keep my promise if nothing binds me to it then is not my disobedience any Unjustice for the obligation of the Law is resolved into my agreement and if nothing above me bind me to keep my agreement I have no obligation at all upon me therefore the Dominion Power and Justice of the First Cause is the only Bond
whereby we are bound and whereunto all Humane Justice is to be resolved both in point of Conformity as to its Pattern and Obligation as to its Law. But how these Laws were at first given to Man whether by a formal Command or whether by an immediate Impression in the understanding and will or whether by an implanted Propension or inclination in the will or partly by one partly by another it is not easy to determine Sed vide infra But what ever way it was it is impossible to have any notion or imagination of just or unjust among Men without resolving it in its original into the Rule or Law that was given to Men by the First Cause of our being 9. From the consideration of the First Cause and of the premisses it must needs follow that he is Immutable for Mutability is inconsistent 1. With his Perfection It is impossible that a Pure Act can have any Change for all Change doth necessarily infer Passibility and Receptibility of what it had not before and to suppose that were to conclude he were not Actus Simplicissimus Perfectissimus for all Receptibility imports Potentiam or Passibilitatem 2. It is inconsistent with his Eternity for all Changes too of necessity suppose a Succession of Duration in the thing changed it is not to every intent the same simply that it was before it had that change which doth of necessity import Succession which is inconsistent with Eternity for whatsoever is Eternal hath no Succession and consequently whatsoever is affirmed of it at one instant must necessarily be affirmed of it Eternally this cannot stand with any change for before that change that could not be affirmed of him which might be affirmed after if it should be admitted 3. It is inconsistent with his Simplicity Some things have accidental changes which yet in Essence continue the same as from ignorance to knowledge from one colour to another but such accidental changes cannot be in that which is Ens Simplicissimum because there can be nothing in him which is not his Essence 4. It is inconsistent with his Infinitude for to whatsoever any thing can be added that it had not before that cannot be Infinite because still capable of a farther accession And as this Immutability is affirmed of the First Cause in point of his Essence and Nature so in some respects it is concerning his Acts. These are of two kinds viz. the Immanent Acts such are the Acts of his understanding and Will and these are Immutable as well as his Essence for indeed they are but notionally divided from it In us our Will is one thing and our willing another but that is inconsistent with the Simplicity of the First Cause hence it is that as his Essence so his Will is immutable he wills nothing now but what he ever willed and understood from Eternity what he now knows for Eternity hath neither now nor then in it 2. The Emanant Acts those are nothing else but the Execution of that Immutable Will these are subject to mutation but without the least mutation either in the Essence or will of the First Cause 1. Not in his Essence It is true here is a new relation that was not before for when the First Being produced an Effect it is true the Relation of a Cause and an Effect is now produced which was not before and so when more Effects are produced the Relations are multiplied but Relations breed no Change at all in the subject concerning whom they are affirmed the being was the same before it put forth it self in a causation as it was before it doth of necessity import a change in the thing effected viz. a motion à non esse simpliciter or à non esse tale but not in the Cause which had an absolute being before though not actually as a Cause before 2. Not in his Will. It is true when any Effect is produced that was not before here is an execution of what was not before but the will of that to be then was from all Eternity Again when a being is either changed or annihilated that is not by a Change of the will in the First Cause but only in the term or execution of that Will for by the same indivisible and eternal act of his Will he willed this or that to be made and after to be annihilated in time the Change is in the terminus or execution of his Will not in the Will or the Immanent Act of it But how can we then conceive that there should be one Immutable Act of his Will when a thing is past How can he be said to will that which is already executed and past For which we must return to what hath been said viz. that past and to come are but the measure of Successive Motions and therefore though they are applicable to them yet they are not applicable to an Indivisible Being or Act the measures of successive motion do not fit Eternity which though it be a Duration that consists with the Successive Motion and Duration of the Creature yet it holds no proportion with it The Motion of the Heavens though 10000 times swifter than the motion of a Tortois have yet a proportion one to another because both successive and so Time measures both But the Duration of the First Cause is the Duration of an Indivisible Being and consequently holds not proportion with Succession And hence it is that it is but our gross conception that do imagine any part of Eternity past or any part to come or that Time doth divide the fore part of Eternity from the future part of Eternity It is an indivisible permanent Duration nothing past nothing future but the same fixed instant consequently the Act of the Divine will always one always present This Knowledge is too wonderful for me CHAP. II. Of the Works of God of Creation and Providence THUS far have we proceeded in those inquiries which rectified Reason suggests to us concerning the Nature of the First Cause Now we consider the Emanant Acts of his Will and Power upon things without him for from this consideration that he is the First Being it likewise follows that All things besides him must needs have their being and subsistence from him This falls into these two Conclusions 1. That all thing besides himself have their being from him 2. That all things are directed and governed unto their several Ends by him Touching the former viz. That all things besides him have their original being from him that is a necessary consequent of the admission of a First being for whatsoever is not first there was a time when it was not for otherwise it must be eternal the contrary whereof is before evidenced That then which once was not and now is and consequently had a beginning of its being could not have it from it self for nothing hath a power or activity of it self to produce any thing therefore that second being must needs
and rational deductions And from hence among mere natural Men the Contemplative is the most happy because he fits his Soul with Food in some measure answerable to it And according to the levity or weight vanity or reality of the Object this Enjoyment is diversified 2. Not Mortal or perishing As the want of a proportion between the Immaterial nature of the Soul and Material Objects renders them unpleasing and unsatisfactory to the Soul so if there were a suitableness between their Natures yet if there were a suitableness in their Duration it wants that which is necessarily required to Happiness or an End answerable to the Soul and that upon a double Reason 1. In the Fruition The very Enjoyment of a suitable Good which I am sure must leave me miâ—gles fear and preapprehension of the loss of my present Enjoyment and consequently cannot possibly be Happiness And from hence likewise grows that Vexation which is dipt in the highest Enjoyments every Man in the very Enjoyments hath the present apprehension of an inevitable future loss of them especially in Death which doth take away that possibility of farther uniting of external Objects to Man. 2. In the Loss of it That cannot be a suitable End to an Immortal Being that must be severed from it The Conclusion therefore of this Consideration is that the Wise Maker of Man as he hath made him a living corporeal Creature did put into his hand such a Good as was common with other Creatures which he may justly enjoy so as he furnished him with an Immaterial Immortal Soul he did order that Soul to an End answerable to it self and above other Creatures viz. an Immaterial Immortal Good. And less than this cannot be an End answerable to the Wisdom of the Worker nor value of the Work. 2. Thus concerning the Nature of the Soul now concerning the Faculties whereby it is enabled to move to that End. And these have a threefold use 1. First they serve as fit Receptacles to entertain and be united unto that Good which is the proper End of the Soul and hold some proportion with that Object wherein the Happiness of the Soul consists 2. They serve as Receptacles to receive that Rule or Law which must conduce to that End and therefore they are likewise fitted for that 3. They serve as Helps and Instruments actively to move to that End. these three are seen likewise in inferiour Creatures 1. They have a Receptibility of that Good which is answerable to their Nature 2. A Receptibility of that Instinct which is their Law whereby they are directed to that Good 3. An Activity in them to carry them on to that Good according to that Rule or Propension The two great Affections that every Being is endued with is the Truth of its being and the Goodness of it answerable to those are the two great Faculties or Powers of the Soul the Understanding which is conversant about the former and the Will which is conversant about the latter Yet in the very same Faculties both these are conjoyned under their distinct Notions the Understanding taking into consideration the Truth of that which is propounded as Good and the Will being carried with a desire to the Knowledge of Truth as Good. Now concerning the Vnderstanding it hath a threefold Power 1. A Receptive or Passive Power whereby it takes in those Objects that are conveyed to it by an impression from without whether it be by the ordinary and natural way of the Sense or by a supernatural impression or by artificial means as Speech or Reading or other Signs And thus it receives not only simple Apprehensions but likewise Complex or Propositions Now without this receptive power it were impossible for any knowledge to be in the Soul because our Knowledge is not by Intuition as the Divine Knowledge is but by reception of the thing known into the Soul. And hence it is plain that all Knowledge is extrinsecal to the Soul for though it be apta nata to receive the species or object into it yet without such reception it cannot actually know it 2. A Retentive Power of the Object or Proposition received Without this it were impossible for the Discursive Power of the Understanding to hammer any thing out of it 3. An Active and Discursive Power whereby the Understanding is able to work upon those Objects thus received and retained and deduce Conclusions and Consequences from them So that though the foundation of this intellectual Motion be from those things that are impressed from without upon the Soul yet when they are once there this active and discursive part of the Understanding can draw millions of Conclusions create millions of Mixtures and entia rationis which present not themselves at first to the passive Understanding The Rule whereby this Active Power of the Understanding works is that we call Reason which is but a beam of the Divine Light a part of the Image of God in Man and of singular use in all his Actions if rightly used De hoc infra Now as all Receptive or Passive Powers are perfected by the receipt of the Object which may fill that vacuity which is in the Power and as all Powers are likewise perfected by Acts and Habits so are these Intellectual Powers they have their several Acts and Habits whereby they are perfected and moved 1. Knowledge and this I may call of two kinds 1. Passive Knowledge which answers to the Passive part of the Understanding Such is the Knowledge of Simple Apprehensions which come through the Senses and the Knowledge of Principles and these are of two kinds 1. Such as are per se nota and without any Argumentation are subscribed unto as many Principles in the Mathematicks 2. Such as are inscribed in the Heart of Man by the Maker of Man. Thus without all question at first God did indite his Law in the Heart of Man but this being not essential to the Soul though he retained his Intellectual Soul his Principles of this kind were obliterated and therefore it was the Mercy of God from time to time to inculcate them into Man's Posterity Sed de hoc infra 2. Active or Discursive Knowledge This bottoms it self upon those simple apprehensions that are in the Passive Understanding and upon those Principles that are in the Soul and by purifying things from their materiality abstracting rising from the Effect to the Cause and so downward by the aid of that Light and Rule of Reason which the God of Wisdom hath put into the Soul arrives to those Truths that lie in the Creature as Gold in the Stone beyond the reach of Sense to acquire Now in this respect the Understanding of Man is of vast and boundless Capacity and is capable to receive all the things in the World and nothing that is finite can satisfie it And hence it is that it moves from one thing to another to meet with somewhat that may satisfie the vast Comprehension of it It
be an Infinite and Vniversal Good. The former qualifications though each exclude something yet none excludes all Creatures from being the Supream End of the Soul Angels and Spirits are Immaterial Immortal Intellectual Good yet they want this one qualification without which it is impossible that there can be the Object wherein consists true Happiness The reason is this because nothing below an Infinite Good can satisfie the infinite motion of the Soul. The motion and comprehension of the Understanding though actually it doth not understand all things finite it may comprehend all finite things in the World which is clearly evidenced by Experience the most knowing Man in the World hath as much room for more Knowledge as he had before he knew any thing if a Man therefore knew all the finite things in the World yet were not the Understanding so filled but were there more to be known he would have room for it and consequently a desire to it Nothing then can fill and satiate the Understanding but Infiniteness yet we are not therefore to conclude that the Understanding is commensurate to the infinite nature of the First Being no that hath an actual Plenitude beyond the comprehension of the Understanding but the meaning is God hath placed in the Soul of Man an Understanding potentially infinite that cannot be filled with what is actually finite as all Creatures are And as the Motion of the Understanding is infinite and restless till it be filled with him that fills all in all so is the Motion of the Will nothing below an infinite Good can satisfie it And now as we have argued upward from the Capacity and Vastness of the Soul and its Faculties that nothing below an infinite Good can be its End so we must argue downward too The Great and Wise Creator who hath the disposition of all things to their Ends and who in his Infinite Wisdom hath put motions and capacities in all things conducing and fit for those Ends for which he hath ordained them hath appointed himself to be the End of his Immortal Creature and therefore hath put in the Soul a Capacity too large for any thing below himself and Motions restless in any thing but himself The Conclusion therefore is the Immortal Invisible Creator of all things that is infinite in Goodness and Truth hath been pleased to appoint himself to be the End of Man wherein consists his Supream Good. But it may be here considerable How God can be the adequate Object of Man's Felicity seeing Man consists of a Soul and Body united which was ordained to an End of Happiness as well as the Soul To omit the consideration of the Resurrection de qua infra I do conceive that God is the adequate Object of Man's Happiness in respect of his Compositum as well as singly of his Soul though in a different way of Communication The Communication of himself to the Soul is more immediate and sublime the Communication to the Body and Compositum mediate by Second Causes enabling and blessing their operations And I cannot question but in the first Creation when the Soul enjoyed God as the Object of her Happiness the whole Compositum did partake of that influence in communications of Happiness answerable to every exigence and degree of its being Sed de hoc infra Now in as much as the First Cause is the last End of Man and the only Object of his Happiness it remains to be inquired what this Happiness is or the Formal Reason of it for it is possible that there may be a Subject capable of Happiness and a Being that may be proportionable to that Capacity yet the Subject not truly happy The Beatitude therefore of the Soul consists in the Vnion of the Soul unto this Object of his Happiness and this Union presupposeth a double act 1. An act or Propension in the Soul moving it unto God as to its End and Perfection and as the Great Creator did appoint himself to be the End of this his rational Creature so he implanted in him a Propension and Motion in him to that End and that Propension and Motion is not a meer natural Inclination but ariseth from the fitness of those high Faculties of Understanding and Will for so excellent an Object In these he hath placed a Capacity or Receptibility in some measure of himself and as every Power is ordained in reference to something else that may actuate and perfect it and consequently moves after that Object whereunto it is ordained so this Receptibility which God hath placed in the Soul doth or at least naturally should move to that Object which alone can fill its vacuities and receptiveness 2. In as much as God is a Free Agent though he gave the Soul these Faculties yet so much is his Being and Perfection beyond the reach and attainment of any finite Being that this Motion of the Soul can never overtake his Happiness unless there be likewise an act of Condescension and Communion of himself to the Soul therefore there is necessarily required to the Happiness of the Soul a Communication by God unto the Soul And by this reciprocal act 1. of the Soul to God as the only perfection of it 2. of God to the Soul filling the desires thereof with himself this Union and Happiness is wrought This Communication by God is not of his Essence or Being for that is incommunicable and cannot be mingled with any Creature but as objective and for a fuller explication of this God is pleased to communicate himself to the Soul according to the nature of these great Faculties which he hath planted in it viz. the Understanding and the Will. And as without relation to both these it is impossible that Man should be truly happy so if both these be fully satisfied there cannot want any thing to compleat his Happiness because there is no other Faculty in the Soul which can receive any further portion of Happiness 1. The Communication of God to the Vnderstanding is that whereby he fills the same with the Knowledge and sight of himself Here the Understanding hath an object that satisfies and fills all the restless motions of it wherein he reads the satisfaction of all his doubts and inquities wherein though upon the first view it finds more than enough to fill its vastest comprehension yet every atome of its duration makes new discoveries of what iâ— thought it wanted not the Object being infinitely too large for all the successive actings of created Understanding to attain unto much less in one act an Object wherein the Understanding finds not only amplitude but unimaginable delight whiles it gazeth on an infinite Perfection an Object which by the same act fills and inlargeth the Faculty and Capacity of the Understanding wherein the Understanding though it enjoy his Object is not satiated but it rests in it is not tired with it Every Power in the enjoyment of its full and adequate Object hath complacency and acquiescence
the Compositum yet it is clear that the Tumultuousness or Quietness of the Mind doth much conduce to the Happiness or unhappiness of the Compositum That Man that lives contentedly with 20. l. a year is happier than he that lives as well with the same or a greater Portion but with an anxious troubled craving unsatisfied Mind Now when the Soul truly knows and is truly set upon his Supream End it knows its duty and therefore is not idle it knows the Power of his Maker therefore is not anxious and knows the use and value of the Creature and therefore values it no farther than it is useful to its proper End it knows the Love and Wisdom of his Maker and therefore refers all to him as he that wants neither Power to provide for it nor Wisdom to proportion nor Love to communicate according to the exigence of my condition and admit he doth his Will must be done and not mine I am provided well enough for if here I am contented and hereafter saved this sweetens any Losses 4. Though the Great God be absolute Lord of his Creature and is not bound farther to him than it pleaseth him though his Creature were most conformable to his Will yet I do not think but if our Hearts were and did continue right set upon our great and Supream End and could hold to it that we should want a convenient Portion of these outward Blessings which would make our Lives comfortable and happy but here is the Misery of Man that any confluence of Externals presently take off his Soul from a perfect pursuit of our great End and fasten upon those Externals therefore the Wise God oftentimes cuts out to the best of Men a small and an unpleasant viaticum that they may not linger in the way to their great End. And as it is thus with the whole Compositum in this Life so in the Resurrection when the Soul shall be reunited to the Body both shall have a perfect Fruition of Happiness in the enjoyment of the Presence Favour and Communion of God. How far forth the Soul separated is capable of its own nature of any new knowledge which it had not before in an angelical way or how far it is able to retain or improve those Conceptions and Species that it had here and whether it hath a compleat operation or what degree of Fruition it hath of the sight of God it is above our reach to determine only this we may conjecture that the Soul is not placed in that perfect degree of being and subsistence as are the Angels in as much as it is made in order to a Body by which in it it exerciseth its motions faculties and operations and therefore without all question when it shall hereafter be reunited to a most perfect spiritualized Body indissolubly it shall not thereby receive any diminution or abatement of its Perfection and Felicity but will thereby become more capable of a more perfect and full Fruition of that Supream Good which will then be communicated perfectly to the whole Compositum But this by the way latius infra CHAP. V. Of the Means of attaining the Supream End of Man. HItherto we have proceeded in the examination of these 2. Parts 1. What the Nature of the Subject is of this Happiness and 2. What the Object of it Now the third thing rests to be sought viz. 3. What is the Means of attaining this Supream End of Man his Union to God and herein we shall examine these three things 1. What naturally might be conjectured to be the Means of acquisition of this Happiness 2. Whether as things stand with Man the same Means be to be found or no 3. If not then whether there be any Means left for Man to attain this Supream End of his or no and what it is and how to be known Touching the first Though God by his power might carry every thing to his proper mediate or ultimate End without the intervention of any Means yet as it is his own peculiar Prerogative by his Will to appoint every thing to its proper End wherein is seen the Glory of his Goodness so the same Will of his hath ordered hath appointed every thing to move to this End by a certain Rule and certain Means and herein is seen the Glory of his Wisdom such are the Instincts and Inclinations of the Creatures by which they move to their special Ends and Perfections And as these Inclinations are planted by God in the inferiour Creature the like was done though in a different manner in Men at first in all probability of Reason the difference being only thus in the Creature all that is conducing to their End is made a piece or quality of their Nature in Man not altogether as shall be seen We have found Man indued with two great Faculties Understanding and Will and in these principally consists the receptiveness of his Happiness and the motion to it 1. Touching the Vnderstanding it is a Faculty receptive of an Object that may be known but that Object is not of the nature or essence of the Understanding but distinct from it So that Man might be created an intellectual Creature yet till such time as naturally through the Senses or supernaturally by the immediate infusion or demonstration of God he was but rasa tabula The first thing therefore that was put into the Understanding in order to his supream End was a stock of Knowledge of God and of that Will of God which concerned Man. And this Will of God concerning Man was that Means which if known and pursued would guide a Man to true Happiness for as is before observed every thing is so far forth Beautiful and Happy as it holds Conformity with the Will of God and such is his Wisdom and Goodness that when the Creature moves according to the Law and Will of its Maker it doth without fail attain that Happiness whereof it is capable because it moves to that End for which it was appointed by the First Cause Now because God hath made Man a Rational and Intellectual Creature he appointed a rational and intellectual way to move him to this End viz. the Knowledge of himself and of that Rule or Law which should lead him to that End. 2. The Understanding being thus enlightned with the Knowledge of God and his Will the Will was endued with a Rectitude to move on according to that Rule in order to the right End and that which was in the Understanding sub ratione Scibilis was to the Will sub ratione Legis a thing not only shewn to the Understanding as the Means to bring him to Happiness but also injoyned to the Man as his Duty under pain of Guilt and Vengeance for herein consists the difference between the Instincts in the inferiour Creatures and this Law given to Man in those it is not properly a Law because they are not intellectual nor voluntary Agents therefore their receding from that
Reason hath a privative opposition to the knowledge of them viz. an absence of a necessity of assenting not a positive opposition or a 〈…〉 by necessity of Reason to disassent to them 〈…〉 4. That though these Truths are 〈…〉 â—ry of Reason and beyond the 〈…〉 sent yet they carry 〈…〉 gr◠〈…〉 alt◠〈…〉 up◠〈…〉 p◠〈…〉 wi◠〈…〉 infra 〈…〉 Thus the Fall of Man 〈…〉 Truths unimaginable by Natu◠〈…〉 â—itness one to another and the Ju◠〈◊〉 Mercy of God bears witness to both The mâ—â—y of the Soul and the last Judgment bear witness each to other And as there is that mutual attestation by way of Congruity of one of these sublime Truths to another of the same nature so the Congruity that these Truths have to those Truths which rationally challenge an Assent from us That all things had a beginning from the First Cause is a Truth evident in Nature but in what way or by what manner is not possible to be known without a discovery How excellently doth that discovery of the manner of the Creation serve as I may say that Principle So again that Man being endued with a rational and immortal Soul was ordered by the First Cause to an immortal End by a rational Means prescribed by God may be concluded by rational inferences and deductions but what that Means was or clearly what that End was is not discoverable by natural Reason for it depends upon the Will of God. How admirably doth the Scripture discover that Means viz. the Law of God and that End the Vision and Fruition of God especially in the point of the Resurrection Again That the Violation of that Rule must incur a Guilt irreparable a loss of that End is rationally evident yet although that Man by that Guilt is justly deprivable of that End is clear yet that God should be disappointed in this End seems somewhat hard How clearly doth the Point of our Redemption by Christ a point inconceptible by Nature serve to extricate and untwist this difficulty gives God the Glory of his Justice and of his Mercy of his Wisdom and of his Creature Thus the subservience of a Truth more difficult to the exigence of a Truth that is more clear to Nature renders the former not only possible but probable 3. The third Evidence That this is the Word of God are those strange Predictions of most contingent Events fulfilled in their several times the Prediction in one Age and declared by one Instrument of God the fulfilling in another Age declared by another or seen by our selves This gives testimony both to the Truth and Divinity of the author or inspirer of it To omit those Predictions of Joseph concerning the removal out of Egypt The Prediction of the Jewish Captivity and the Restitution by Cyrus by Name The four Empires The destruction of Jerusalem take notice but of these two viz. The Prophecies of the coming of Christ describing his Nature Gen. 3.15 his Linage of Abraham Gen. 22.18 of Judah Gen. 49.10 of David Isa 11.1 the place of his Birth Micah 5.2 his Office Isa 61.1 his Mother Isa 7.14 his Death and the Ends of it Isa 53. the time of his Death Dan. 9.2 and divers other Circumstances fulfilled precisely in our Saviour 2. The Rejection of the Jews and Calling of the Gentiles to the Faith of Christ Deut. 31.29 and 32.21 Isa 11.10 Isa 42.6 Isa 49.6 this Prophecy fulfilled even in our own view yet upon such disadvantage of natural Reason as had not the same power effected it that at first declared it it could never have been effected considering 1. The utter Enmity between the Jews and Gentiles 2. The extream contrariety in Religion to it 3. The small and inconsiderable means of effecting that Conversion 4. The great Scorn and Sufferings of those that professed it 5. The visible impossibilities of making any temporal Advantages by it c. 4. The Consent and Harmony among the several parts of it When several Men in several Ages not brought up under the same Education write It is not possible to find Unity in their Tenets or Positions because their Spirits Judgments and Fancies are different but where so many several Authors writing or speaking at several times agree not only in matters dogmatical of sublime and difficult Natures but also in Predictions of future and contingent Events whereof it is impossible for humane Understanding to make a discovery without a superiour discovery made to it I must needs conclude one and the same Divine Spirit declared the same Truths to these several Men. 5. This Book alone and none besides but by derivation from it containeth matters of the most noble and useful nature The generality of all humane Learning do either in their Object or Use or both expire with this Life and none ever arrived to the discovery of the great and adequate End of Man. This is not only evident in these Arts or Sciences of Natural Philosophy the Mathematicks Physicks Politicks Laws c. all which at their highest are but only subservient to this Life but in those two great and noble Sciences that Speculative of Metaphysicks that other Practical of Moral Philosophy The former though it arrive to as high Truths as Nature can discover yet it rests in the knowing of them and in a meer Speculation and doth not shew wherein consists Man's true Happiness much less what is the way to attain it for the latter the most sublime piece of it is framed only for the Meridian of this Life both in the Use and End. Without all question the Great and Wise God did write in Man's Nature Habits exactly conducible to his internal Contentment and Felicity in reference to his living in this World as those which were of a higher Constitution and End as his communion with his Maker The wisest of Moral Philosophers though they have imperfectly copied out divers Positions of the former as Justice Temperance Contentedness Undervaluation of the World Patience yet they never arrived at the latter no Book in the World but this shews a Man the adequate End of his Being his Supream Good his Happiness nor directs the Means of acquiring it This doth not only inforce the nobleness and value of the Book but also the original of it for when I shall see a world of the most exact humane Wits turning every stone as it were within the reach of humane discovery and yet none of them all lighting upon this great Subject the way to eternal Happiness I must needs conclude That this discovery is of a higher extract than a meer humane invention and although when we have discovered that subject we begin to wonder that Mankind hath thus long roved and wasted its labour in those other impertinent inquiries and were so far from discovery of this Vnum Necessarium that they scarce so much as imagined there was any such Business yet we may justly forbear that wonder for this is a Path which the
his Glory by the death of Christ who was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the World Man is created in a glorious happy free Estate he hath a Covenant made with him which he may keep or break at his own liberty he is left in his own hands and not necessitated to break that Covenant which he but even now made with his Maker if he had done so the sending of Christ had been needless Man falls now is Christ promised Gen. 3.15 and after confined to the Line of Abraham Gen. 18.18 and after to the Line of David See what a World of Interventions of Accidents and Success interposed between the Promise and the Event the Birth of Christ any one whereof if it had miscarried had disappointed the whole Success When he was born what strange Events happen for the fulfilling of all the Prophecies concerning him So in the fulfilling of the Prophecy made to Abraham that after four hundred years bondage his Posterity should enjoy the Land of Canaan Gen. 15. ver 13 18. What a world of strange Interpositions were there conducing to the fulfilling of it between that and Exod. 12.40 and Joshua 18.1 The Births of Isaac Jacob and the Patriarchs the Dream of Joseph that caus'd envy against him and that very Envy conducing to the fulfilling of his Dream he is sold to the Ishmaelites by them to the Egyptians he is injured and imprisoned Pharaoh's Butler is imprisoned in the same Prison and then dreams this interpreted by Joseph the Butler delivered Pharaoh dreams Joseph is mentioned and interprets it is advanced furnisheth Egypt to be the Magazine of Africa the Famine pincheth Jacob's Family this lead his Sons to Egypt Joseph is discovered Jacob sent for he and his Family sixty six Persons go down into Egypt What a Circle is here of the Divine Counsel managing these seeming Casualties to fulfill that part of the Prophecy to Abraham That his Seed should be Strangers in a Land that was not theirs Well for their Deliverance from thence they must be oppressed that 's not enough the Males must be killed had not this been Moses had not been exposed Pharaoh's Daughter must come just to prevent his drowning and to give the opportunity of a learned Education this was the Instrument of their Deliverance The like we might pursue in the following Passages wherein we may see the Wise God by his Wise Counsel marshalling the Means fitting them most admirably with Circumstances and strange Conjunctures for the fulfilling of his purposed Ends. And herein is the Excellency of the Scripture that shews us a Hand ordering and disposing by a most Wise Counsel these seeming tumultuary and disorderly Passages in the World to most admirable and fixed Ends. This is the first thing wherein the Wisdom of this Counsel of God is seen in chaining all things one to another by the very same purpose whereby he determined the End. 2. That in the disposing of Means and Ends every thing notwithstanding moves according to that Law that he hath given to its particular Being We usually distinguish the actions or successes of things within our observation into three Ranks or Ranges viz. Necessary Voluntary Contingent 1. Necessary Effects are such as their Causes being admitted have a necessary conjunction therewith or consequence thereupon according to the usual course of Nature Such are the Consequences that rise upon the motions of the Heavens as the positions of the Planets the Consequents that arise upon the contiguity or conjunction of the Elements and divers such things that hold a constant course in Nature These although the great God may and sometimes doth interrupt by the extraordinary acts of his Power and to shew his Freedom yet most admirably he doth not hinder but useth them to the production of his own most sure Counsels And this evidenceth the Infinite Wisdom of the great God that hath so admirably framed his Works and his Counsels that while the former move uniformly according to that prescript Rule and Law which the God of Nature hath put into them yet the latter shall not be interrupted but effected by them though they know it not nor mean it not As when we see in a curious Watch the uniform motion of the Spring serving to produce several artificial motions as of the hour of the Day the day of the Month the age of the Moon and the like we commend the Wisdom of the Artist that hath so tempered the Spring that by one uniform motion it may be useful for all these and hath likewise so directed and managed this natural motion of the Spring to serve exactly those different intellectual motions and do conclude that the contrivance of this piece of Work was all at one time otherwise it were impossible that every part should hold that order So when we see the natural motiâ—ns of the Creatures conducing to the production of those rational Ends which God hath appointed we may justly admire the Wisdom of God that while he intends a Purpose above the conception or drift of a natural Agent he bringeth it about without the violation of the Rules or Laws which he hath appointed to be constant in Nature and may most justly conclude That the Law of Necessity in the natural Agents is but the Effect of that â—â—ry Counsel that hath predetermined his own Purpâ—â—â—s by them and that they are all of a piece all laid at the same time And from thence grows the subservience of the natural Agent in the most rigid Law and Rule of his Operation unto the free Counsels of the great God that doth most sweetly and infallibly â—ffect the latter without the violation of that Rule which he hath given to the former And hence it is that those Effects which are produced naturally by natural Causes we do and may call Natural and Necessary and yet it excludes not the Counsel of the Divine Will in the production of it for it is the same Counsel that hath made this necessary connexion between the Cause and the Effect that did predetermine the Effect to be produced Here then is conspicuous the Wisdom of God that while his Creatures in whom he hath placed an uniform Course of Working fulfil his Will yet they keep their Law of Unformity and Necessity 2. Voluntary And this is admirable that whiles Voluntary Agents do most necessarily fulfil the Counsel of God yet they do it without the least diminution of their Freedom The Jews did most freely crucifie Christ yet it was by the predeterminate Counsel of God Pharaoh did most freely refuse to let Israel go yet Almighty God tells him for this purpose had he raised him up to shew his Power upon him Exod. 9.16 And from hence we may observe the reason why Almighty God in all times hath used rational ways for the reducing of Men to the Obedience of his Will not but that he could if he pleased force the Wills of all Mankind to what Dispositions or Actions
Man in the Counsel of his Prescience but did not fore-appoint it in the Counsel of his Predetermination The rule of Nature is That whatsoever is while it is is necessarily The offence of Man though it proceeded from his Liberty yet when it was it was necessarily And because all things before they are are present with God as if they were and in the same degree as if they were therefore it was in the same degree of Fore-knowledge as if it had been necessary and consequently the superstruction of all that Counsel of God concerning Man after his Fall was not taken up pro re nata but was as ancient and as firm as Eternity it self We find the Fall of Man attributed to these Causes arising from these three 1. The Devil 2. Man. 3. God. 1. In the Devil a lapsed Angel and in respect of the Excellency of his Knowledge and spiritual Being had an advantage and could out-act the Reason of Man whose Soul acts organically and therefore though Man were created in the highest Perfection incident to his Nature yet he might be over-match'd with the power and subtilty of that Evil Angel. He fitted his Temptation to that which was most desirable viz. Knowledge and this Temptation took the greater impression because in the Command as hath been observed there was nothing but a pure Experiment of Man's Obedience and no rational incongruity of the eating of this Fruit more than another the strangeness of the Command and the severity of the Penalty made the suggested advantage that might come by this the more credible had he gone about to tempt Man to Blasphemy to murder his Wife or any other Sin the breach whereof had been equally penal to this the incongruity of such Acts to that natural Law which was connatural to him had made the Temptation fruitless but that envious Spirit did well know that the Obligation of every Law was under the same Penalty that this Law concerning the forbidden Fruit was most obnoxious to his Temptation that the the desire of Knowledge was the most prevalent Inclination in Man and so fits his Temptation exactly viz. That this command could have no other End or Reason than to fence Man from such an Advantage as might make him yet more like his Maker Ye shall be as gods knowing Good and Evil. And the very same way he took with the Second Adam his first Temptation was in such a thing that a Man would wonder where the Fault should be he was hungry and in a Wilderness without Bread Nature could not subsist and Bread could not be had there unless it were made yet our Saviour being better acquainted with the drift of his Temptation than was Eve rejected this as a Temptation to a distrust of the Providence of his Father 2. In Man. 1. The finitude of his Understanding Though he was created perfect yet he was created finite It could not match the Sophistry of an Angel. Hence this sin of Adam is called Beguiling and Deceiving The Serpent beguiled me 2. The Liberty of his Will which though he was created Innocent had nevertheless a Power to offend 3. The prevalence of his Sensual Appetite But this came not in till the field was almost lost the Temptation won upon the Understanding and Will before the subsidiary aid of the Sensual Appetite did or could come in the Beauty of the Fruit and its Goodness for Food was evident to Man before but it durst not assail the Command of God till the Understanding was deluded with an expectation of Wisdom 3. In God There was nothing positive but only putting of him wholly in his own Power Doubtless he was not ignorant of the design of the Serpent and could have as effectually supplanted his endeavour by his special Assistance or by an Angel as effectually have guarded Man from that Tree as he did that other Tree of Life afterwards from Man but he had made Man perfect he hath given him a Command under a severe Penalty and hath given him Power to obey it if he will believe his Creator and trust in him he is safe if he will not he may chuse but is lost See the Congruity and difference in the Temptation of the first and second Adam both tempted by the Devil that in a Paradise this in a Desart that in his Abundance tempted with Superfluity this in Want tempted with Necessity both had absolute Freedom of Will and both left to the strength of their own Power for the Angels came not to minister to Christ till the Devil had left him but the latter Adam in his Temptation will not stir a grain from the Command the scriptum est of God and the Devil leaves him the former lets go his strength the Command of his Creator the Lock of his strength and is taken and overcome And thus have we seen Man in his Glory and in his Ruine The former he did owe to the free Bounty and Goodness of God for how could that which had not a Being till it was given him deserve such a Being the latter he owes only to himself and how can he now expect a Reparation He hath contracted a Guilt which as his future Doing or Suffering cannot expiate for this Suffering is the necessary Consequence not the satisfaction of his Guilt and this Suffering must therefore be as everlasting as his Being because his Guilt is as everlasting as his Being his Doings were they perfect were but his Duty and therefore cannot expiate that Guilt which was contracted by the breach of that Duty but could it be available to expiate his Guilt yet as his Disobedience made him guilty so it made him unable to perform his Duty his Intellectuals are deprived of that Light which he hath abused and therefore lost his Will corrupted and embased in a subjection to his Sensual Appetite and this Disobedience accompanied with many Aggravations the least whereof might incense the very Goodness and Patience of his Creator beyond all hopes of Mercy and Atonement this Disobedience against God to whom he owed the most exact Obedience he added Ingratitude to his Disobedience he disobeyed that God from whom but even now he received his Being and such a Being he added Perverseness to his Ingratitude it was against such a Command which he might have kept and needed not to have broken he added Wantonness to his Perverseness he disobeyed when he had a stock of Blessedness as ample as his being was capable of he added Treason to his Wantonness believing the Voice of a Creature a Creature that but now had revolted from his God in a villainous imputation of God with Falsity and Envy And how after all this and infinitely more than this can he expect any thing from his injured God but what the severity of his Justice can inflict if he meets with frowardness in the Earth distemper in the Air surprizals and inundations in the Water rebellion in the Creatures a snare in his Table treachery
work of Natural Reason working Opinion or at most knowledge differs as much as knowledge and Opinion Those things of God that are discoverable by natural Reason receive another kind of impression upon the Soul by the work of God as is evident by the Effects and Operations each have upon the Soul Rom. 1.21 When they knew God yet they glorified him not as God. 3. Of Love therefore so called because the Principal part of the Message that the Soul is acquainted with is a Message of Love and Goodness and so the Will inclined and ingaged to love that Goodness And this is the fruit of the work of God's Spirit 1. Mediately and naturally presupposing the former work of Illumination for some Objects are of so light a nature that when they are known all the work of the Soul is done so they are only known that they may be known But these objects of our Faith they do include a Goodness and Conveniency for the Soul and therefore being known they are desired so that in natural Consequence the Spirit of God if it demonstrates these Truths to the Soul it doth by consequence engage the Love of the Soul to them It is true that Education Instruction and Discipline may make us know these Truths speculatively and yet our Soul not affected with them but the Conviction which is wrought by the Power of God's Spirit is not so thin or jejune a union of these Truths to the understanding but deeper and more radicated and consequently doth more effectually work upon the Will and therefore it is the Logick of the Apostle 1 John 2.4 He that saith he knoweth God and keepeth not his Commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him 2 Pet. 1.9 He that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see The Argument is from the Negation of the necessary Effect or Consequent to the Negation of the Cause or Antecedent as if he should have said Wheresoever there is no true Obedience to the Will and Command of God there is certainly no Love of God. It is the conclusion of Truth and Reason Joh. 14.23 If a man love me he will keep my words And wheresoever there is a true knowledge of God there must of necessity be a true Love unto God because it doth represent God as the chiefest only and most suitable Good to the Soul. It is true that notional and speculative knowledge of God that is wrought by natural discourse cannot or at least seldom doth arrive to that full apprehension of the Goodness of God and consequently doth not raise up the Heart to that height of Love and Obedience for our Reason is weak and the disproportion between Him and our Understanding is infinite and therefore he hath chosen to reveal it unto us in his Word and Son and by his own Power working Knowledge in us And by this we see why the renovation and conversion unto God is sometimes expressed under the name of Knowledge John 17.3 This is life eternal that they might know thee the only true God c. Colos 3.10 Having put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge 2 Cor. 4.6 For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ c. Sometimes under the name of Trusting and depending upon God Galat. 3.6 Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for Righteousness sometimes under the name of Love Jud. 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God 1 Tim. 1.14 with faith and love which is in Christ 2 Tim. 1.13 2 Thes 2.10 Receiving the Love of the Truth sometimes under the name of Obedience James 1.27 Pure religion and undefiled c. James 2. per tot 1 John 2.29 Every one that doth righteousness is born of him so sometimes under the name of Repentance Fear of God c. For all this is but one work of this Spirit of Grace and but the several Emanations of the same work of the Spirit of God upon the Soul diversified only in the faculties or objects the first act in Nature is Light and when it convinceth the heart of the sinfulness of sin that works Repentance when of the Promises of God that breeds Dependence and Confidence when of the Goodness and Love of God in Christ that breeds Love unto him Watchfulness over our selves Obedience to his Will when of the Majesty and Justice of God it breeds Fear and Reverence when of our own vileness it breeds Humility so that all these are but the bringing home and joyning of those Convictions wrought in our Understanding unto the Will and Affections and thereupon these Effects do as naturally follow upon this work of Illumination and Conviction wrought by the Spirit of God as the like Effects do arise upon natural convictions of Objects of inferiour kinds and goodness 2. But this is not all there is a work of strength and power upon the Will Phil. 2.13 It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure As the death and disability was in both Faculties so the Life is conveyed into both universally And this Power of God's Spirit is not only in the first acts of our Conversion to him but it goes along with us All those actions which are pleasing to God are wrought by the same Spirit of Christ by which they were at first animated It is a Spirit of Supplication in our Prayers Rom. 8.26 The Spirit maketh intercession c. A Spirit of Access for our Prayers Eph. 2.18 A Spirit of Assurance and Sonship Gal. 3.6 Eph. 1.16 A Spirit of Wisdom to direct us in our difficulties Ephes 1.17 A Spirit of Comfort and Joy in our Distresses Rom. 14.17 A Spirit of Fruitfulness in our Conversation Galat. 5.22 25. A Spirit of Perseverance 1 Pet. 1.5 Ye are preserved by the power of God through faith unto salvation CHAP. X. How our Vnion with Christ is wrought on Man's part viz. By Faith Hope and Love. HITHERTO we have seen the motion of the Love of God to his Creature by which it may appear the whole Business of Man's Salvation is the work of God and Man appears in a manner passive in all the parts of it In the sending Light into his Understanding he is passive In the enabling the Understanding to receive this Light he is still passive In the subduing the Will to the entertainment of it he is still passive Yet there is some kind of motion in us which though it be the Work of our Creator in the first giving of it and againâ— his Work in reviving quickening and enabling it yet he is pleased to require it from us and to expect it of us Mori movemus And that are principally these three Faith Hope and Love we find them oftentimes joyned together 1 Tim. 1.14 The Grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is
Covenant on the Peoples part was an Obedience to the whole Law given by Moses the Covenant on God's part was to be their God and bless them And this as it was never a Covenant between God and other Nations till incorporated into that Society so also as a Covenant it was abrogated by Christ who came to make a New Covenant between God and Man New not in the purpose of God for it was his purpose from all Eternity nor yet in the Substance and Efficacy of it for the whole Frame of the Law and of all those Ceremonies were in order to Christ and the Obedience to them received their acception in him but New in the manner of the exhibition the Substance it self was unvailed viz. Christ the manner of partaking of his Benefit more clearly discovered viz. Faith so then the substantial Covenant with the Jews under the Law and since the coming of Christ is one and the same Christ Jesus the manner of the exhibition or external manifestation thereof under the Law was as a Covenant of Works which is since rather expired than abolished for the prefixed time which God in his Wisdom and Providence had pre-determined expired by the promulgation of that substantial Sacrifice Christ Jesus 2. The Moral Law as it was promulged and given to that People doth not bind farther than any other part of the Judicial or Ceremonial Law and therefore extends not farther than the Jewish Commonwealth But as that Law so promulged did include that Natural Rectitude which was once given unto all Mankind so it binds us and is a Rule of Righteousness to us and though that enacting of it among the Jews is not the formal cause of its Obligation upon us Gentiles yet it doth serve as a promulgation or manifestation of it and leaves even that part of the Gentiles unto whom it came more unexcusable in its disobedience because by a Revelation from Heaven and by the Dispensation of his Providence it is most clearly manifested unto them So then questionless the Moral Law though given to the Jews is a Rule of Righteousness to all because it contains those Precepts that are naturally and intrinsecally Good and Right and Just for all Men to observe And though Christ came to take it away as a Covenant of Works and consequently the condemning power of it which was the Enmity Ephes 2.17 yet he came not to take it away as a Rule of Righteousness Thus Heaven and Earth shall first pass away before one jot or tittle of the Law shall pass away Matth. 5.18 And we see plainly that the Saviour of the World his Prescriptions of Holiness doth not only reinforce the Law but superadds a more spiritual pure and high Observation than the Letter it self injoyns Matth. 5. He came to abolish the Ceremonies of the Law not as things unholy in their Institution but as useless because the Substance was come He came to take away the Curse of the Law from such as believe by satisfying for it and the Condemning Power of the Law in case of default of an exact Obedience by fulfilling it for us But he took it not away as a Rule to guide us for thus the Apostle witnesseth to it Rom. 7.12 that it is Holy Just and Good and disobedience to it is a mortal sin in it self though by the Satisfaction of Christ it is become not deadly to them Every Sin we commit against this Righteous Rule even after our Conversion requires the Blood of the Son of God to wash it away otherwise it were deadly We have a double Obligation to the Moral Law as a Rule of our Obedience 1. As it is a Rule of natural Justice 2. As it is inforced and as it were re-enacted by the Command of our Saviour Now as touching the Ceremonial Law though in particular and the matter of it it be so far from a Rule of Righteousness to us that it were an act of highest injury to our Saviour to practise it yet there wants not an use of it especially amongst others in these particulars 1. That an exact precise Obedience is required where God commands though we see not it may be the particular Reason the very Snuffers and Coverings and Times and all other Circumstances must be exactly observed When God commands there is no disputing of or varying from his Injunctions 2. That in all our approaches to the most holy God we must endeavour to bring our Consciences and Hearts and Lives as clean as may be he is a holy God and will be sanctified by all them that draw near to him And this was meant by their washings and purifyings and cleansings in cases of even natural defilements 3. That he is a God that is pleased with Order Decency and Comeliness in his Service so as it be agreeable to his own Word and Will without Idolatrous Superstitions or Will-worship And as to the Judicial Law though in the Letter of it it was the Law for that People yet it doth doth contain an exemplary Wisdom and Justice so that these Laws that were not particularly fitted for that Nation and the Circumstances of their Condition may be Examples and Patterns for the Laws of other States and do include a great deal of natural Justice and Righteousness yet the express Text of the Judicial Law did not serve in all cases emergent in that Common-Wealth especially concerning translations of Properties and Interest And in these the Civil Magistrate did determine according to the Rules of natural Justice and Convenience of the Common-Wealth and by the extraordinary direction and assistance of God vide Exod. 18.26 And as thus the Laws of the Jews contained Rules and Directions in Natural Justice between Man and Man so the sacred History the Directions of the Prophets supply us with farther manifestation of the Will of God in the matters of Justice between Man and Man and do enforce them home upon the Conscience When we see that great observation the Almighty God takes of the just or unjust Conversation of Men by his imminent Judgments and Rewards which we find in the sacred History attending either practice whereby he owns even Civil Justice to be as it were his Creature and doth Patronize and maintain it such were his Animadversions upon breach of Covenant with the Gibeonites 2 Sam. 21. upon Murder and Oppression in Ahab and in his House 1 Kings 21.19 upon Cruelty and Ambition in the Posterity of Jehu Hos 1.4 of Adultery and Murder in David 2 Sam. 11. with divers other instances of the like kind do practically convince that Righteousness between Man and Man is a thing required asserted maintained and the breach thereof avenged by the hand of God himself when the Potency of the Offenders seem to exempt them from his instrumental Vindication exercised by Men in an ordinary course of Justice The Gospel contains a most excellent Rule of Righteousness 1. In the Example of Christ one of whose Ends in assuming of