Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	law_n	sin_n	transgression_n	1,540	5	10.6759	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B08803	Several discourses concerning the actual Providence of God. Divided into three parts. The first, treating concerning the notion of it, establshing the doctrine of it, opening the principal acts of it, preservation and government of created beings. With the particular acts, by which it so preserveth and governeth them. The second, concerning the specialities of it, the unseachable things of it, and several observable things in its motions. The third, concerning the dysnoēta, or hard chapters of it, in which an attempt is made to solve several appearances of difficulty in the motions of Providence, and to vindicate the justice, wisdom, and holiness of God, with the reasonableness of his dealing in such motions. / By John Collinges ...	Collinges, John, 1623-1690.	1678 (1678)	Wing C5335; ESTC R233164	689,844	860

alive thou shalt live and that eternally if thou fittest still if thou goest on in thy sinful courses thou shalt certainly dye 4. Hast thou not as much encouragement to repent and to believe as ever any had Have not thousands and ten thousands of the Saints of God upon no other encouragement than thou hast broken off sinful courses and sought the Lord while he might be found and have they not succeeded and found rest for their souls Did God yet ever from the beginning of the world encourage any soul in its first motions by faith and repentance toward him by assuring them that their names were written in the Book of Life Or that Christ did dye for them in particular Is it not encouragement enough to thee to tell the thou hast as good a ground of hope and encouragement as the three thousand that were converted at St. Peters Sermon as any of those servants of God had of whose conversion thou readest in the Acts of the Apostles what art thou that thou shouldst look for more 5. Consider That there is no other way for thee to know that thou art elected and that Christ hath paid a price for thee but by thy turning unto God and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ The election of God is in it self sure and certain but it must be made sure and certain unto us by our repentance and faith Did ever any one hear of any soul reaking in its lusts and going on in its course of sin ascertained that God had chosen it unto life that Christ was the head and surety of a better Covenant for it or dyed for it first our calling then our election must be made sure and we must not think to pervert Gods order 6. What hast thou to do with Gods effectual Grace until thou hast improved his common Grace There is a common Grace which God denieth to no man by vertue of which men may read hear pray live a civil life and conversation leave gross and flagitious courses of sin why complainest thou of God for not giving thee his special distinguishing grace inabling thee to exert true spiritual acts while thou dost not use his common Grace and do what in thee lies to reform and amend thy ways and to turn unto God 7. Lastly Though no exercise of common grace can be meritorious of the special Grace of God yet I dare assure thee that God neither ever yet was nor ever will be wanting in his further grace unto those souls that have made a due improvement of his common grace and done what in them lay towards their own salvation Let us therefore leave our enquiring into the Counsels of God and disputing questions which are insignificant to our greatest concerns Let us leave quarrelling with his truths and our little foolish and vain indeavours to argue an inconsistency of his Counsels with his Actual Providence when we have done and said all we can it will be found that God is consistent to himself and that his ways are equal and the iniquity and crookedness is only in our own hearts and ways We cannot with our spoon comprehend it may be the Ocean the great Ocean of his Wisdom and Counsel Let us apply our selves to our own duty and do what he commandeth us for which as you have heard we have encouragement enough SERMON XXXVII Rom. V. 20. Where Sin abounded there Grace did much more abound I Am indeavouring to open to you the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hard Chapters in the book of Divine Providence solving those Phaenomena's or appearing difficulties which Atheistical Wits have raised to make the holy God appear otherwise than he is his Counsels Truths and Works other than indeed they are I have already spoken to one relating to the making and establishing a Covenant of Works with Adam after the settlement of mans salvation upon the Covenant of Grace The other relating to the dispensation of Providence in the exhibition and publication of the Covenant of Grace I come now to some relating to the Actual Providence of God in the permission of sin and sinners so much sin and so many sinners in the world And for this discourse as an head to it I have chosen this text which in it containeth two great points The abounding of sin and the aboundings of grace The Apostle brings in these words in a magnifying of Christ whom he had compared with the first Adam The first Adam brought mankind under sin and guilt The second brought him under a state of Redemption and Salvation bringing life and immortality to light First the Apostle sheweth whence sin came then whence grace came Paraeus telleth us that the Apostle in this part of the Chapter openeth to us the use of the Law lest any one upon what he had before said should ask Wherefore the law was given he telleth us That the law entred that sin might abound for though the law of it self doth not cause sin yet by accident it doth for where there is no law there is no transgression and the corruption of mans nature enclineth him the more to what is forbidden him Nitimur in vetitum sed hic de actione peccati sermo est quae fit per manifestationem saith a learned Author upon my Text The law maketh sin to abound by way of manifestation as the glass maketh the spots in a man or womans face to abound that is discovereth them that are P. Martyr reckons five ways by which the Law contributeth to the aboundings of sin 1. By forbidding it 2. By increasing the guilt of it 3. By assigning the punishment of it 4. Multiplying it by the variety of the precepts in it 5. By accusing him and condemning him for it Well But why should the law enter that sin might abound hath God then any pleasure or delight in the aboundings of sin The text telleth you that Gods design was to advance grace that where sin abounded grace might much more abound But my design is not largely and strictly to handle my text but only to make use of it in pursuit of my further design to open to you the difficult things of Actual Providence which is by all confessed to have an influence upon mens sins that is to permit them and to govern them the first of these is what I have here to do with What the Providence of God doth or doth not in the permission of sin I have before shewed you and may by and by again speak shortly unto it The Question is Quest How it can consist with the holiness of a pure and mighty God having it in his power to restrain and hinder sin yet to permit it and so much of it in the world The difficulty of our apprehensions in this matter ariseth from these things 1. That God in his own nature is a most pure and holy being Who as he hath nothing in him that defileth so neither can he abide any iniquity This seemeth to have stumbled

in me is thy help I Am now come to the second general Proposition which I promised you to discourse upon a little In my last exercise I discoursed to you of the Fountain of Life and Grace which we found to be the free-will of God There is no other account to be given of Gods shewing mercy but because he will shew mercy which is most certainly true as of Gods eternal acts of Grace so of his Acts of Providence as to the dispensation of his first Grace The next Proposition I mentioned was this 2. Prop. That God in his providential Dispensations of punishment never acteth by meer Prerogative but according to the demerit of his Creatures In his Dispensations of Grace and the means of it he acteth meerly from his own Will he will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy and there is no other account to be given of those Dispensations he sendeth the Gospel to this place rather than another because he will send it he changeth this Man or Womans heart and turneth it to himself because he will shew mercy But the case is otherwise in his penal Dispensations there God acteth not upon Prerogative God there hath a Prerogative for may not the Potter do what he will with his Clay But it is one thing to have Jus absolutum an absolute right and power which we must claim for God so long as we know him to have an absolute right and Soveraignty over the works of his hands 't is another thing for God agere secundum jus absolutum to act according to his Soveraignty and absolute power this we say God doth not I pray observe I restrain my Discourse to Gods Dispensations of actual Providence I shall not meddle with the eternal Councils of God in this case that is quite beyond my Subject propounded It is unquestionable that the punishments of Sinners both in this Life and that which is to come as well as the other great issues of his Providence concerning the rewards of righteous men were set in order by an Eternal deliberation but whether by a meer negative or positive Decree whether upon consideration of sin or no are points I am not at all concerned to interest my self in having all along restrained my discourse to the motions of Actual Providence and certain it is that God in those Dispensations doth punish none either here or hereafter meerly because he will but upon consideration of Sinners demerits Shewing mercy is an Act of Grace punishments are Acts of Justice The gift of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Eternal Life that is a guift and what is freer than gift But the Wages of Sin is Death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Man must earn Death before he hath it from the hand of a merciful God but Eternal Life must be given him if ever it be his Portion so saith my Text. O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self I will open this in two or three conclusions 1. I understand it of all kind of destructions possibly the Text may chiefly relate to temporal destructions 't is Ephraim to whom the Prophet is speaking and it is about a bodily destruction but the Conclusion is general and the Text is well enough applyed by Divines to Eternal destruction all destructions whether of Body or Soul are of our selves yea I take the Aphonimy of the Text to be more eminently true of the destruction of the Soul than of the destruction of the Body A Child may dye for the sins of the Parents Subjects may dye for the sin of their Prince as in the case of Saul's Children that were hanged in David's time and in the case of those many thousands which in David's time were cut off for his sin in numbring of the People The Children of God may be involved in a common destruction and suffer as they are a part of a sinful Nation God may take them off to deliver them from an evil to come as in the case of Abijam the Son of Jeroboam God may punish his people with afflictions of this Life for the trial and exercise of their graces but in Eternal destructions God can have no other end than the punishment of the person and all such destruction is for a mans sin his personal sin 3. When we say that Mens destruction is of themselves you must understand of themselves as the meritorious cause not of themselves as the principal efficient cause God is rightly enough entituled to all the Evil of punishment in the City It is no dishonour to his Majesty to be the Author of his own Judgments which is all that Mr. Calvin or any of the same mind with him have said which hath made some so clamour against them as having asserted God to be the Author of Sin For God to be the Author of punishments is no stain to his Glory but a Declaration of his Justice and of his Righteousness Christ himself shall come as the Apostle telleth us in flaming fire to take Vengeance upon them who know not God and obey not his glorious Gospel God shall say to those on his left hand depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels But our destruction is from our selves as the proximate and meritorious cause though from God as the efficient cause It is not from the Soveraign will of God meerly but from the stubborn and rebellious will of Man that any Soul perisheth Divines do say that though God cannot will the doing of any Sin yet he may will that it should be done The Holy Ghost telleth us that Herod and Pilate and the Jews employed in accusing condemning crucifying of Christ did no more than what the Council of God had determined should be done But I say notwithstanding this the proximate cause of mans Damnation is not because God hath willed their Damnation it is the guilt of their own Sins the demerit of their own Transgressions which bringeth them to the Pit of Destruction The Gracious God sheweth mercy and saveth all who are saved by Prerogative by Grace you are saved saith the Apostle he hath the same Prerogative in matters of Death that he hath in matters of Life but he useth it not but there acteth according to his Statute-Law The Soul that sinneth shall dye He who saveth men without themselves damneth none without themselves Men are saved by Grace but they are damned by Sin The wages of Sin is Death Omne peccatum est voluntarium all Sin is of ourselves it must have something of our own will and consent to and in it 3. Thirdly Although this be certain that all destruction all punishment is for Sin yet the particular proximate cause of some punishments is unknown to us I will instance in one particular a punishment undoubtedly a most severe punishment The withholding the Gospel and so the ordinary means of Grace and Salvation from the far greatest part of the world They hear nothing of the Lord Jesus

the old Philosophers of Gods Providence extending not to all but to some particular Beings observed to have a great influence upon sublunary Beings And our Judicial Astrologers seem to inherit though not their wisdom in all other natural things yet their error in this Astra regunt homines sed regit astra Deus is their Song But alas this is but to set up an Idol in our hearts And indeed if we could conceive any earthly Prince to be present in every place we could hardly imagine him so neglective of his Government What Prince will not rule all motions and actions which he seeth and heareth to what he apprehendeth the wisest and best ends for his own honour So that if we could suppose an earthly Prince in all places where he hath Children Servants or Subjects and to have his senses open to see and hear them he would certainly contribute his best help to preserve and govern them Especially if he be a person of ordinary humanity and goodness and hath a sufficiency of Power and Wisdom Do not we see how naturally the parent to his finite capacity careth for preserveth and governeth the Child How the Master of a Family cannot neglect a care for and government of his Family till he hath debauched himself to a beast Nay do not the birds of the air and beasts of the field naturally care for their young seed and govern them Whence had they their natural propensions and inclinations to this goodness towards those to whom they have stood in any order of causation Was it not from the great Creator who thus disposed them If it be a piece of goodness in the creature so to care for preserve and govern its fellow-creature certainly we must allow it to be so in God What goodness of this nature there is in the creature floweth from him as the stream from the fountain And is certainly much more in him he having lost nothing by the Communication of the Creatures shares to them So that whosoever will acknowledg a Being that is infinitely good must also acknowledg that Being infinitely provident for the Creatures that derive from him and every creature thus deriving God who wanteth neither Power nor Activity must as naturally care for them all as a Father or Mother careth for every Child and a bird for every young one And it is nothing but some mens Atheistical conceptions and others more imperfect notions of God not considering the Divine Being in the extent of his Immensity Activity Power and Goodness which maketh any so much as in the least to hesitate as to the Doctrine of Divine Providence 3. Let us once more turn our eyes to the strange effects and events which we see in the world of which we see great variety and many of them which appear to us of great moment and consequence Now supposing that there were not a Divine Providence directing and governing them and being the first cause to them they must either be the products of so many Machines or Engines moving necessarily or of the imperate acts of some creatures endued with wisdom and counsel We shall find the effects in the world such as are impossible to be products of any such nature 1. Were they the products of the first Man might have a previous knowledg of and not at any time be surprised by them 2. Were they meerly the products of the second God himself could hardly be conceived to have a previous certain knowledg of them so as by his Prophets to give the world a warning 1. I say first Were the effects we see in the world necessary depending upon a certain fate and moving in a certain order What then hindereth but man might have a certain previous knowledg of them things which work necessarily work certainly and evenly Thus indeed the Sun Moon and Stars and all natural agents move Every Almanackmaker therefore will tell you how many hours the Sun will shine in a day six twelve months hence when the Eclipses shall be of either Luminary and to what degrees they shall be obscured But can they also tell us when the next great Plague the next Innundation or Fire we shall hear of shall be or when and where shall be the next great mutation in an Empire or a Kingdom We see men sometimes infinitely surprised in the product of second causes so contrary to their expectation and to what appeared to us would have been their probable effect If things had moved by a Law of Fate the world is now so old that the course of its motions would have been matter of science and demonstration to us but alas there is nothing less Who can tell what to morrow will bring forth not only as to his own particular concerns but the far greater and more general concerns and interests of mankind and the Church of God in particular 2. How then are they produced Is it from the will of man I ask whether from the wills of men working necessarily as the first and only principle of them or working freely and at perfect liberty the first surely none will assert that considers what he saith If from the wills of men working freely then they might also work and move otherwise than they do Then I say it is hard to conceive how God himself should have a certain knowledg of things previous to the event or effect for there was no certainty of such an event or effect But that God hath such a certain previous fore-knowledg is evident from all the Prophecies where by his Prophets he foretold things that were to come to pass many hundreds of years after and that with all their circumstances The great effects of created Beings must have some cause I mean some first cause If this were Nature or Fate i. e. a necessary law imposed upon them their motions would be even uniform subjected to our art and fore-knowledg which they are not If the first cause of them be the wills of men working upon choice there could then have been no certainty of them before they had existed for they might as well not have been as have been If any say but though the wills of men move freely yet he who calleth the things that are not as if they were he knew which way things should be and how the wills of men would move This we most freely grant but we also say That he knew them because he willed either to effect or to permit them and that supposing this Decree of Providence there must also be a working of it upholding created Beings conducting their effects and many times over-ruling them and this is that which we call Providence 4. In a further evidence of this I might call in a plentiful Testimony from the most learned and wise amongst the Heathens But I shall not much trouble my self or you with that discourse but refer those that desire to be satisfied herein to the excellent discourse of Du-Plessis Lord of Morney in

a credit to his word if his faith be weak and languid the exemplifying of the thing revealed in the Word of God by the issues of Providence tendeth much to the confirmation of the souls faith and assent and therefore it is laid to the charge of the Israelites as a great aggravation of their sins That they believed not for all his wondrous works And this was the great aggravation of the sin of the Pharisees and the Jews that lived in the time when our Saviour was upon the Earth that although the Providence of God had declared Christ to be the Son of God by his doing such works as no man ever did and by such evident signs and tokens as never before were declared as to any man yet they believed him not to be the Son of God 2. As Faith is one great principle of all our spiritual actions so Fear is another Now the observing of Divine Providences much conduceth to this It is particularly remark't by the Holy Ghost upon the sudden death of Ananias and Saphira That a great fear came upon all the Church and upon as many as heard of those things And in the Law of Moses you shall find God commanding exemplary Justice to be done upon some remarkable offenders for this very end That all Israel might hear and fear It is particularly said Jonah 1.16 When Jonah had told them the cause of the storm and they had thrown him over-board Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered sacrifices and made vows Severe Providences without the word make men startle and put them into a passion of fear but when they follow a word of threatning and they do but see God doing what in his word he hath said he will do this must needs have a great power and influence upon the heart especially upon the hearts of such as before had an habit of Divine Fear wrought in them though it were smothered with the ashes of too much carnal security 3. Love to God is a third principle of spiritual action an habit wrought in the soul of every Child of God but not at all times so lively and quick and working as it ought to be Now the observation of Gods good and gracious Providences serves hugely to excite it and to blow up the Coals of it in the soul Psal 37.23 O love you the Lord all his Saints for the Lord preserveth the faithful and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer But this will be further enlarged upon in my discourse upon the second branch of the Proposition which I now come to discourse upon Mem. 2. Whoso observeth the Providences of God he shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I take the word understand here to signifie three things 1. Knowledg 2. A more clear and distinct knowledg 3. A more demonstrative and experimental knowledg 1. He shall know the loving-kindness of the Lord understand it with reference to the Church and People of God for Gods Providence is like the Cloud which conducted the Israelites out of Egypt and through the Red-sea it hath a light-side which hath an aspect upon Gods Israel and it hath a black and dark-side towards his enemies Now he who observeth Divine Providence will know this That all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth to those that fear God Psal 25.10 A slight and transient view of Divine Providence will not bring a man to the knowledg of this but a wist view and observation of Divine Providence in the course and series of it will do it The word of God speaketh much of the Love and Favour of God to his People Providence to the strict and constant observer of it will confirm all these words God himself speaking after the manner of men to Abraham speaks as if he had not known his love and obedience to him till he had made an experiment of it and saw that he would not have withheld from him his Son even his only Son We know nothing of the loving-kindness of God before we see it experimented and brought into demonstration in comparison with what we know upon such an evidence and this we gain by our considerate observation of the motions of Divine Providence 2. He who observeth the motions of Providence shall have a more distinct knowledg of the loving-kindness of God He shall not only know that God is good to Israel and to all that are of a clean heart but he shall also see something of the Methods of God in the exercise of his loving-kindness When we speak of the Love and Favour of God to his People we are prone to understand by it nothing but pleasing Providences grateful to our senses now the loving-kindness of God is not only seen in pleasing dispensations but in adverse Providences also Whom he loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth All things are yours saith the Apostle This knowledg must be gained by observation Sense looks upon cross dispensations of Providence and it may be Reason judging of them from present appearances and effects cryeth out All these things are against me Here is nothing of promised loving-kindness in all this Is his mercy clean gone doth his promise fail for evermore But whoso observeth Divine Providence will in these things also understand the loving-kindness of the Lord and know that it is the method of Divine Providence to deal out the loving-kindness of God to the Souls of his People through crosses and tryals and afflictions in a way which at present they do not understand and know but shall know hereafter No affliction saith the Apostle is joyous at present but grievous but it bringeth forth afterward the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby Heb. 12.11 3. Vnderstanding thirdly may signifie experience and indeed there is no such understanding as experience gives Every Child of God that observeth Divine Providence shall find it let the wind of it blow which way it will giving him an experiment and demonstration of the Love of God to his Soul But thus much shall serve to have spoken to the Explication of this Proposition in both branches I come to the proof of it to shew you how it appeareth That he who observeth the motions of Divine Providence and he alone shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. It will appear to you if you but consider 1. That however things go in the course of Providence yet it is most certain that they are mercy and truth to them who fear God For this we have a certain word Psalm 25.10 All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his Covenant and his Testimonies And again Psalm 73.1 Truly God is good to Israel In my former Discourse I shewed you three Objects of special Providence 1. Rational creatures are a more special object of Providence than either inanimate or brute creatures 2. Amongst rational Creatures those men and women in the World which make

Vse 1. In the first place let then all men that live upon the Earth praise the Lord but especially such as are superiors and rulers over others and more especially such as are his Church The Psalmist Psal 135.1 calls to all saying Praise the Lord praise ye the name of the Lord and ver 19 20 21. He calleth in particular Bless the Lord O house of Israel Bless the Lord O house of Aaron Bless the Lord O house of Levi you that fear the Lord bless the Lord Blessed be the Lord out of Zion which dwelleth at Hierusalem 1. This observation calleth to all the sons and daughters of men to bless the Lord. We are all sociable creatures and much of the comfort of our lives lyeth in our societies and fellowships one with another either in our family-societies or in our civil-societies or in our Church-societies We should think it a life worse than death to be condemned to live like a wild Ass alone in the wilderness Now there are some lusts of men that would spoil us of all this comfort God peculiarly sets himself against them and makes these the marks for his arrows of vengeance The Jews said of the Centurion He hath loved our nation and hath built us a synagogue We may say of our good God he hath loved mankind for he hath taken care to preserve order in humane societies and severely to chasten the invaders upon the rights of others What an ingagement doth this lay upon all men to praise the Lord Certainly sirs there is a great deal of praise and glory and homage due to God from all men as they are concerned in their several societies There is a great deal of glory due to God from families for his testimony against those lusts of men such as are murtherers and adulterers which in a short time would spoil all the comfort of those societies Certainly every family is bound to worship God and to walk with God But particularly 1. Let Rulers praise the Lord. Let all the Princes of the Earth give homage to him that ought to be served they are more especial marks for furious and ambitious mens lusts Gods Providence as you have heard is eminently seen in preventing their dangers in revenging their harms 2 Sam. 23.3 4 5. Surely then as David saith those that rule over men should be just ruling them in the fear of the Lord their light should be like the light of the morning without clouds God hath not only set them up as lights upon an hill but he hath made his special Providence to be a lanthorn about them that 't is rarely that the wind of sedition and treason prevails to blow them out and then 't is ordinarily for some eminent Provocation of God But I am not speaking to persons in that capacity You that are parents praise the Lord Gods special Providence you see reacheth you and in a great measure secureth you from that great heart-ach of rebellious and disobedient children I know you will say How then cometh this to be the great affliction of many good parents To which I answer 1. There is many a good parent may have been but like good old Ely too indulgent and cockering to their children ordinarily God keepeth up the authority of parents over their children until themselves have prostituted it and in the rebellion and disobedience of their children they may read their own sin and see as much cause to be humbled for that as any thing else as David in the case of Adonijah 1 King 1.5 6. And herein the goodness of God towards parents will be seen that if he doth not upon their endeavours secure to them the duty of their children yet he will not fail to revenge their quarrels against them 2. Let the poor and weak of the earth praise the Lord he hath declared himself the father of the fatherless and the judg of the widows a refuge for the oppressed Psal 68.5 Exod. 22.5 Psal 10.11 How are all the widows and fatherless children all the poor and oppressed people of the world bound to praise and to serve this God who hath taken upon himself the special patronage and protection of them This indeed would be the best use we could possibly make of this Observation relating to the special Providence of God if it might lay a special obligation upon all those who are thus especially concerned to magnifie God as their great patron and defender And how can they praise God more effectually than in doing those particular duties which concern them all in their respective relations or with reference to those peculiar circumstances of Providence under which they are acted I shall add but one branch of Application more and indeed it is not a new Use for it is a part of our praise and homage which we owe unto God upon this Reflexion viz. Vse 2. To all to take heed of those sins which God in his word declares himself more eminently to abhor and in the execution of Providence doth most severely punish All sin is in it self a filthy and abominable thing and the just object of every good mans hatred for should not we hate what God hateth and what hath of all things the greatest opposition to God yes we ought to hate it with a perfect hatred But such is the naughtiness of our heart that we are not so led to an hatred and abhorrence of sin from the intrinsecal evil and obliquity of it as from the dangerous and pernicious consequence of it Death eternal death is the wages of every sin but this being only matter of faith to bold sinners none having ever come from the dead to give them an account of those flames the punishments of sin in this life are those things which most deter carnal sensual men But if men will look no further nor believe any more yet let this lay some law upon us and make us afraid of those sins which I have instanced in being such whose judgment the Providence of God seldom letteth sleep so long as to another life Let this mind us not to meddle with them that are given to change that curse Kings and Rulers in their bed-chambers and are of turbulent and unquiet spirits always plotting and contriving seditions and treasons and disturbances to civil governours it is very rarely that God suffereth their designs to come to issue or their persons to come to the grave in peace 2. What a law should it lay upon the rich and great men of the earth to take heed of violent perverting justice and judgment of turning away the causes of the widows and the fatherless in judgment To consider that he who is the highest doth consider the matter and there is one higher than the highest of them who abuse their power to trample the poor under foot If men be not turned Atheists and have banished all the fear of God from their eyes and hearts it must a little give them law and lay

and afflictions to cry out O God help me c. I remember the saying of our Divine English Poet. My heart did heave and there came forth My God By which I knew that thou wert in the rod. The word of God directeth it Is any man afflicted let him pray saith the Apostle Call upon me saith God in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee and thou shalt praise me This was the practice of the Saints in all times It was Asa's fault in his Affliction that he sought unto Physitians more than unto God it is the condition upon which help and deliverance is promised be the species of the trial and affliction what it will Vse 3. In the last place let us learn from hence instead of quarrelling at Divine Providence and Justice in afflicting so to behave our selves under our troubles as we may see cause to bless God for them and to admire Divine goodness in them Nazianzene telleth us a story of one Philagrius who in his affliction brake out into this expression Gratias ago tibi Pater tuorumque hominum conditor qui nos invitos reluctantes beneficiis afficis per externum hominem purgas internum that is I thank thee O Father and maker of man thy servant for that thou dost us good against our wills and while we reluct to it and by the outward purgest the inward man And I have read a remarkable passage of Plinius Secundus an Heathen too in an Epistle of his to Maximus The sickness of a friend saith he hath lately informed me that we are best when we are weak for who is there who while he is sick is covetous or proud or wanton who then serveth his amours who is ambitious Then saith he a man remembreth that there is a God and that he is but a man then he admireth none envieth none despiseth none then he neither heareth nor carrieth false tales O saith he that we could be as well when we are well as when we are sick This is that I could wish too But the worst is we are very religious and innocent when we are in affliction but when we are got out of the net we are as foolish and wanton as before God by trouble and affliction for the time doth us good Subtilissima ejus beneficia saith an ingenious Author Sponte dantur sed non sponte recipiuntur But for the most part that goodness proveth like a morning-dew But in order to the improving trouble and affliction let me only commend to you four things with which I shall shut up my discourse on this argument 1. The first is Meditation Affliction is a seasonable time for much Meditation It is a fit time for thee to meditate wherefore it is that God contendeth with thee Job 10.2 I will say unto God do not condemn me shew me wherefore thou contendest with me The time of affliction is a fit time when man sits alone and keepeth silence and the noises and hurries of the World do not disturb him to be thinking what he hath done communing with his own heart upon his bed and certainly this will have a good influence upon thee if thy sickness will make thee avoid eating a dish of meat for the time to come which appeareth to thee the proximate cause of thy disease surely it will lay some Law upon thee as to the favouring of such lusts which appear to have been the more remote cause provoking God in that dispensation against thee It is also a fit time for thee to meditate of the vanity of all the contentments of the world Non domus fundus non aeris acervus auri Aegroto domini deduxit corpore febrim Experience then teacheth a man That Riches profit not in the day of wrath all a mans house and Land and Gold and Silver will not relieve him in a Fever what a pitiful thing is beauty or strength which one fit of sickness depriveth us of what a lamentable excrement is well set hair which a cough turns into baldness what vain things are fine clothes which in sickness are exchanged for rags It is a seasonable time also for thee to meditate of Divine goodness what a mercy it is that the Rattle snake hath a rattle The Tyger another beast to give warning of 't is being near that thou hast diseases to put thee in remembrance of thy latter end It is a fit time also for thee to meditate of the power of Divine wrath 2. Vow unto God in the day of thy trouble Jacob did so Gen. 28.20 So did David Psal 132.2 Lord saith the Psamist remember David and all his afflictions how he sware unto the Lord and vowed unto the mighty God of Jacob. Jonah did so Jonah 2.9 3. But then remember to pay thy vows Vow and pay unto the Lord your God Psal 76.11 Better you should not vow than that you should forget to pay what you have vowed This were to snare thy self in the words of thy own lips 4. To this end lastly Pray that you may keep your sick bed impressions upon your hearts In your troubles you had thoughts of your eternal state upon your hearts then you were thinking what you should do if you should be called to Gods judgment-seat Then you were saying If I live I will be another man I will keep Sabbaths better be more in Prayer more in reading and hearing the word more watchful over my heart more careful of my ways more conscientious in my dealings more strict in my Family If ever I recover I will by the grace of God never be so worldly so carnal as I have been well thou art recovered now pray that thou mayest fulfil thy vows and that these impressions may not be off thy heart for ever SERMON XXXIX Job 5.6 7. Although Affliction cometh not forth of the dust neither doth trouble spring out of the ground IS there any evil in the City and I have not done it saith God by his prophet Amos. The interrogation is an undoubted Negation Vain man would be wise though saith Job ch 11.12 he be born like a wild Asses colt Hence it employeth it self in traducing the equal ways of God as if they were unequal Hence he saith how can that God who is infinite in goodness be the Author of evil Is it good for him to oppress to despise the work of his hands Job 10.2 In my last discourse I shewed you that it was consistent enough with the goodness of God to be the Author of the evil of punishment We look upon a staff in the water and it appeareth to us crooked when the fault is not in our staff but only in the weakness and imperfection of our sight and the unquietness of the water pull the staff out of the water and look upon it by a due medium and that is straight We look upon things with blood shotten Eyes and they appear of strange colours but when our Eyes are rectified

by the way of efficiency Therefore God must be the Author or these Divines make him the Author Or because God is the Author of his own judgments and paenal dispensations and God sometimes punisheth sin with sin therefore God must be the Author of sin taken properly as it is an oblique action contrary to his Law This is forsooth their proof of that crimination when-as there are no Divines in the world but think it not only blasphemy but non-sense to talk of God as the Author of sin which must be an action contrary to the will liking and approbation of God as the very nature of sin doth import 2. Their second Crimination is That God hath damn'd his creatures out of his meer Prerogative and Soveraignty We do indeed think and must so think till our Adversaries can possess us with other Idea's and notions of God than either Scripture or reason will help us with That there is nothing which either hath or shall come to pass in the world but God did know from all eternity neither can we conceive how God should know any thing but because he willed it either in a way of efficiency or to permit it We do say that God had a jus absolutum from eternity an absolute right over his creatures to determine how he pleased concerning them But we also say That in his paenal dispensations he acteth not according to his Soveraignty and absolute right and that every mans destruction is of himself and the proximate and meritorious cause of the punishment and eternal ruin of any Soul is his own sin God doth not condemn any Soul but for sin recompensing their own iniquities upon their heads and whatsoever is absolute and Soveraign right his Law from which he never varieth in the motions of his Providence is The soul that sinneth shall die Where is the difference then What maketh this great clamour and odious representation of eminent Divines as to the method of Gods proceedings in his actual Providence Papists Arminians Calvinists all are agreed That the wages of sin is death The soul that sinneth shall die God will condemn none but for sin Only it seems they are not agreed as to the Nature and Attributes and Prerogatives of God Those Divines whom they call Calvinists must assert God to have the same Power over his creatures which a Potter hath over the clay This the other will not understand though God expressly told it the Prophet Jeremy and the Apostle from him hath expressly told it us and this is all the difference that I can understand 3. Vse Thirdly you may from hence learn How the Righteousness of God shall be cleared in the last day in the condemnation of sinners although it hath not pleased him to give to all a power to that which is truly and Spiritually good This is a point which very many in this Generation also will not understand but the fault is in themselves If God say they hath not given to all men a power to repent and to believe how shall he be righteous in the condemning of Sinners There is no consequence at all in this but upon this Hypothesis That except men have a power to do that which is Spiritually good they are in no capacity to do that which is morally evil Whether they have a power to repent or to believe without the effectual Grace of God yea or no Certainly they have a power in a thousand things to break the Law of God yea and to do also many things which are contained in the Law of God and although the doing of these things would not save them yet certainly the omiting of them or doing contrary to them may give God a righteous cause to condemn them Suppose one of you who are Fathers to have two Sons both of them wild and fond of their play and eager at it you call them both to come to you and tell them that if they will come you will give them both mony to go and buy such things but if by such a time they have not those things and appear to you in and with them you will certainly whip them One of these Children hearkens to you leaves his play comes running to you and begs the money you promised him then procures the things and appeareth to you in the habit you desired and you are well pleased with him The other Child is mad of his play which if he would he might leave he could not have the things without mony out of his Fathers Purse but he will not leave his play nor stir a foot towards his Father nor so much as ask his Father for mony his Father indeed sends him no mony but shuts him out of his sight and ordereth him to be severely whipt because that he would not leave his idle game and come to him and ask the mony of him which he promised and because he had not bought the things and appeared before him in that habit and dress which he had commanded will not one say this foolish Child is right served shall his Father be judged unrighteous or severe because he gave the Child no mony as he did the other and the Child could come by the things without mony and if it had them not could not appear in or with them before his Father The case is much the same betwixt God and us God seeth two Men or Women both his Creatures alike in Adam both born in Trespasses and Sins wildly playing over the hole of the Asp and the den of the Cockatrice sporting themselves in Sin and in an hourly danger of Hell-fire God calleth them by his Ministers to leave their Sins and to turn unto him he saith let him that hath been drunk be drunk no more let him that hath been unclean be unclean no more let him that hath told a lye that hath broke my Sabbaths lye and break my Sabbaths no more let him read my Word and hear my Word and let him come and pray unto me and beg of me an heart to believe and to repent and I will give it him and he that believeth shall be saved but in the great day it shall be found That he who hath not repented and hath not believed shall be damned One of these sinners leaveth off his leud courses falls to an external Discipline readeth the Word heareth the Word of God applyeth himself to God by Prayer beggeth of God an heart to repent and to believe his Gospel God hears him gives him a power gives him repentance unto Life and a saving Faith in Christ and he obtaineth everlasting Salvation The other is mad of his Lusts and after them he will go let what will be the issue of it he will not read the Word not hear that his Soul may live nor so much as ask special Grace of God not to plead with God for Faith or Repentance God giveth them not to him he dieth in his impenitency and unbelief God throweth him into Hell