admirable is it for God to speak so kindly to us through the pacifying Blood of the Covenant that silenc'd the terrours of the old and setled the tenderness of the new 2. His Goodness is seen in the Nature and Tenor of the new Covenant There are in this richer Streams of Love and Pity The language of one was die if thou Sin that of the other live if thou believest †Turreti ser p. 33. The old Covenant was founded upon the obedience of Man the new is not founded upon the inconstancy of Mans Will but the firmness of Divine Love and the valuable Merit of Christ The head of the first Covenant was Humane and mutable the head of the second is Divine and immutable The Curse due to us by the breach of the first is taken off by the indulgence of the second * Rom 8.1 We are by it snatcht from the Jaws of the Law to be wrapt up in the bosom of Grace †Rom. 6.14 For you are not under the Law but under Grace from the Curse and condemnation of the Law to the sweetness and forgiveness of Grace Christ bore the one being made a Curse for us * Gal. 3.13 that we might enjoy the sweetness of the other By this we are brought from Mount Sinai the Mount of Terrour to Mount Sion the Mount of Sacrificing the Type of the great Sacrifice †Heb. 12.18 22. That Covenant brought in Death upon one offence this Covenant offers Life after many offences * Rom. 5.16 â—7 That involved us in a Curse and this enricheth us with a Blessing The breaches of that expell'd us out of Paradise and the embracing of this admits us into Heaven This Covenant demands and admits of that Repentance whereof there was no mention in the first That demanded Obedience not Repentance upon a failure and though the exercises of it had been never so deep in the fall'n Creature nothing of the Laws severity had been remitted by any vertue of it Again the first Covenant demanded exact Righteousness but conveyed no cleansing vertue upon the contracting any filth The first demands a continuance in the Righteousness conferr'd in Creation the second imprints a gracious heart in Regeneration I will pour clean Water upon you I will put a new Spirit within you was the voice of the second Covenant not of the first Again as to Pardon Adams Covenant was to punish him not to pardon him if he fell That threatned Death upon Transgression this remits it That was an Act of Divine Soveraignty declaring the will of God this is an Act of Divine Grace passing an Act of Oblivion on the Crimes of the Creature That as it demanded no Repentance upon a failure so it promised no Mercy upon guilt That convened our Sin and condemned us for it this clears our guilt and comforts us under it The first Covenant related us to God as a Judge every transgression against it forfeited his indulgence as a Father The second delivers us from God as a condemning Judge to bring us under his Wing as an affectionate Father In the one there was a dreadful frown to scare us in the other a healing Wing to cover and relieve us Again in regard of Righteousness That demanded our performance of a Righteousness in and by our selves and our own strength This demands our acceptance of a Righteousness higher than ever the standing Angels had The Righteousness of the first Covenant was the Righteousness of a Man the Righteousness of the second is the Righteousness of a God †2 Cor. 5.21 Again in regard of that Obedience it demands it exacts not of us as a necessary condition the Perfection of Obedience but the sincerity of Obedience an uprightness in our intention not an unspottedness in our action an integrity in our aims and an industry in our compliance with Divine Precepts * Gen. 17.1 Walk before me and be thou perfect i. e. sincere What is hearty in our actions is accepted and what is defective is over-looked and not charg'd upon us because of the Obedience and Righteousness of our surety The first Covenant rejected all our services after Sin the services of a Person under the sentence of Death are but dead services This accepts our imperfect services after Faith in it That administred no strength to obey but supposed it This supposeth our inability to obey and confers some strength for it †Ezek. 36.27 I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes Again in regard of the Promises * Heb. 8.6 The old Covenant had good but the new hath better Promises of justification after guilt and sanctification after filth and glorification at last of the whole Man In the first there was provision against guilt but none for the removal of it Provision against filth but none for the cleansing of it Promise of happiness implied but not so great a one as that Life and Immortality in Heaven brought to light by the Gospel †2 Tim. 1.10 Why said to be brought to light by the Gospel because it was not only buried upon the fall of Man under the Curses of the Law but it was not so obvious to the conceptions of Man in his Innocent State Life indeed was implied to be promised upon his standing but not so glorious an immortality disclosed to be reserved for him if he stood As it is a Covenant of better Promises so a Covenant of sweeter Comforts Comforts more choice and Comforts more durable An everlasting Consolation and a good hâ—pe are the fruits of Grace i. e. the Covenant of Grace * 2 Thes 2.16 In the whole there is such a love disclosed as cannot be exprest The Apostle leaves it to every Mans mind to conceive it if he could what manner of love the Fâ—ther hath bâ—stowed upon us that we should be call'd the Sons of God †1 Joh. 3.1 It inâ—â—ates us in such a manner of the love of God as he bears to his Son the Image of his Person * John 17 2â— That the World may know that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me 3. This Goodness appears in the choice gift of himsâ—lf which he hath made over in this Covenant You know how it runs in Scripture I will be their God and they shall be my People †Gen. 17.7 A propriety in the Deity is made over by it As he gave the Blood of his Son to Seal the Covenant so he gave himself as the Blessing of the Covenant He is not ashamed to be called their God * Jer. 32.38 Though he be environ'd with Millions of Angels and presides over them in an unexpressible glory he is not ashamed of his condescensions to Man and to pass over himself as the propriety of his People as well as to take them to be his 'T is a diminution of the sense of the place to understand it of
morally carnal in the practises as the Ceremonies were materially carnal in their substance It was not their disobedience to observe them but it was a disobedience and a contempt of the end of the institution to rest upon them to be warm in them and cold in morals They fed upon the Bone and neglected the Marrow pleased themselves with the Shell and sought not for the Kernel They joyned not with them the internal Worship of God Fear of him with Faith in the promised Seed which lay vail'd under those Coverings Hos 6.6 I desired Mercy and not Sacrifice and the Knowledge of God more than burnt Offerings And therefore he seems sometimes weary of his own institutions and calls them not his own but their Sacrifices their Feasts Isa 1.11 14. They were his by appointment theirs by abuse The Institution was from his goodness and condescension therefore his the corruption of them was from the vice of their Nature therefore theirs He often blamed them for their carnality in them shew'd his dislike of placing all their Religion in them gives the Sacrificers upon that account no better a title than that of the Princes of Sodom and Gomorrah * Isa 1.10 And compares the Sacrifices themselves to the cutting off a Dog's Neck Swines Blood and the Murder of a Man * Isa 66.3 And indeed God never valued them or exprest any delight in them He despised the Feasts of the Wicked Amos 5.21 and had no esteem for the material Offerings of the Godly Psal 50.13 Will I eat the flesh of Bulls or drink the blood of Goats which he speaks to his Saints and People before he comes to reprove the Wicked which he begins v. 16. But to the Wicked God said c. So slightly he esteemed them that he seems to disown them to be any part of his Command when he brought his People out of the Land of Egypt Jer. 7.21 I spake not to your Fathers nor commanded them concerning burnt Offerings and Sacrifices He did not value and regard them in comparison of that inward frame which he had required by the moral Law that being given before the Law of Ceremonies obliged them in the first place to an observance of those Precepts They seemed to be below the Nature of God and could not of themselves please him None could in reason perswade themselves that the death of a Beast was a proportionable Offering for the sin of a Man or ever was intended for the expiation of Transgression In the same rank are all our bodily services under the Gospel A loud voice without Spirit bended bulrushes without inward affections are no more delightful to God than the Sacrifices of Animals 'T is but a change of one Brute for another of a higher species a meer Brute for that part of man which hath an agreement with Brutes Such a service is a meer animal service and not spiritual 5. And therefore God never intended that sort of Worship to be durable and had often mentioned the change of it for one more spiritual It was not good or evil in it self whatsoever goodness it had was solely deriv'd to it by institution and therefore it was mutable It had no conformity with the spiritual nature of God who was to be worshipped nor with the rational nature of man who was to worship And therefore he often speaks of taking away the New-Moons and Feasts and Sacrifices and all the ceremonial Worship as things he took no pleasure in to have a Worship more suted to his excellent Nature But he never speaks of removing the Gospel Administration and the worship prescribed there as being more agreeable to the nature and perfections of God and displaying them more illustriously to the World The Apostle tells us it was to be disannul'd because of its weakness * Heb. 7.18 A determinate time was fixed for its duration till the accomplishment of the truth figured under that Pedagogy * Gal. 4.2 Some of the modes of that worship being only typical must naturally expire and be insignificant in their use upon the finishing of that by the Redeemer which they did prefigure And other parts of it though God suffered them so long because of the weakness of the Worshipper yet because it became not God to be alway worshipped in that manner he would reject them and introduce another more spiritual and elevated Incense and a pure Offering should be offered every where unto his Name * Mal. 1.11 * Pascal Pen. 142. He often told them he would make a new Covenant by the Messiah and the old should be rejected that the former things should not be remembred and the things of old no more considered when he should do a new thing in the Earth * Isa 43.18.19 Even the Ark of the Covenant the Symbol of his presence and the glory of the Lord in that Nation should not any more be remembered and visited * Jer. 3.16 That the Temple and Sacrifices should be rejected and others established That the Order of the Aaronical Priest-hood should be abolisht and that of Melchisedeck set up in the stead of it in the Person of the Messiah to endure for ever * Psal 110. That Jerusalem should be changed a new Heaven and Earth created a Worship more conformable to Heaven more advantagious to Earth God had proceeded in the removal of some parts of it before the time of taking down the whole furniture of this house The Pot of Manna was lost Vrim and Thumim ceased the glory of the Temple was diminish'd and the ignorant people wept at the sight of the one without raising their Faith and Hope in the consideration of the other which was promised to be filled with a spiritual glory And as soon as ever the Gospel was spread in the World God thundred out his judgments upon that place in which he had fixed all those legal Observances so that the Jews in the Letter and Flesh could never practise the main part of their worship since they were expelled from that place where it was only to be celebrated 'T is one thousand six hundred years since they have been deprived of their Altar which was the foundation of all the Levitical-worship and have wandred in the world without a Sacrifice a Prince or Priest an Ephod or Teraphim * Hos 3.4 And God fully put an end to it in the Command he gave to the Apostles and in them to us in the presence of Moses and Elias to hear his Son only Matth. 17.5 Behold a voice out of the Cloud which said this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear him And at the death of our Saviour testified it to that whole Nation and the World by the rending in twain the vail of the Temple The whole frame of that service which was carnal and by reason of the corruption of Man weakned is nulled and a spiritual worship is made known to the world
would be as bad as Hell Since the Heart of Man is a Hell of Corruption by that the Souls of all Men would be excited to the acting the worst Villanies since every thought of the heart of Man is only evil and that continually Gen. 6.5 if the Wisdom of God did not stop these Floud-gates of Evil in the Hearts of Men it would overflow the World and frustrate all the Gracious Designs he carries on among the Sons of Men. Were it not for this Wisdom every House would be filled with Violence as well as every Nature is with Sin What harm would not strong and furious Beasts do did nâ—t the Skill of Man tame and bridle them How often hath Divine Wisdom restrain'd the Viciousness of Human Nature and let it run not to that point they â—â—â—â—â—'d but to the end he purposed Labans Fury and Esaus Enmity against 〈…〉 â—ere pâ—â—t in within bounds for Jacobs safety and their Hearts over-ruled 〈…〉 intended destruction of the good Man to a perfect Amity * Gen. 31.29 Gen. 32. II. Gods Wisdom is seen in the bringing glory to himself out of Sin 1. Out of Sin it self God erects the Trophies of Honour upon that which is a Natural means to hinder and deface it His glorious Attributes are drawn out to our view upon the occasion of Sin which otherwise had lain hid in his own Being Sin is altogether black and abominable but by the Admirable Wisdom of God he hath drawn out of the dreadful darkness of Sin the saving Beams of his Mercy and displayed his Grace in the Incarnation and Passion of his Son for the Atonement of Sin Thus he permitted Adams Fall and wisely order'd it for a fuller discovery of his own Nature and a higher elevation of Mans good that as Sin reigned to death so might Grace reign through Righteousness to Eternal life by Jesus Christ Rom. 5.21 The unbounded Goodness of God could not have appeared without it His Goodness in rewarding Innocent Obedience would have been manifested but not his Mercy in pardoning Rebellious Crimes An Innocent Creature is the Object of the Rewards of Grace as the standing Angels are under the Beams of Grace but not under the Beams of Mercy because they were never Sinful and consequently never Miserable Without Sin the Creature had not been Miserable Had Man remained Innocent he had not been the Subject of Punishment and without the Creatures Misery Gods Mercy in sending his Son to save his Enemies could not have appeared The abundance of Sin is a Passive occasion for God to manifest the Abundance of his Grace The Power of God in the changing the Heart of a Rebellious Creature had not appeared had not Sin infected our Nature We had not clearly known the Vindictive Justice of God had no Crime been committed for that is the proper Object of Divine Wrath. The Goodness of God could never have permitted Justice to exercise it self upon an Innocent Creature that was not guilty either Personally or by Imputation Psal 11.7 The righteous Lord loveth Righteousness his countenance doth behold the upright Wisdom is illustrious hereby God suffered Man to fall into a Mortal Disease to shew the virtue of his own Restoratives to cure Sin which in it self is Incurable by the Art of any Creature And otherwise this Perfection whereby God draws Good out of Evil had been utterly useless and would have been destitute of an Object wherein to discover it self Again Wisdom in ordering a Rebellious head-strong World to its own ends is greater than the ordering an Innocent World exactly observant of his Precepts and complying with the End of the Creation Now without the entrance of Sin this Wisdom had wanted a Stage to act upon Thus God raised the Honour of his Wisdom while Man ruin'd the Integrity of his Nature and made use of the Creatures breach of his Divine Law to establish the Honour of it in a more signal and stable manner by the Active and Passive Obedience of the Son of his Bosom Nothing serves God so much as an occasion of glorifying himself as the entrance of Sin into the World by this occasion God communicates to us the knowledge of those Perfections of his Nature which had else been folded up from us in an Eternal Night his Justice had lain in the dark as having nothing to punish his Mercy had been obscure as having none to pardon a great part of his Wisdom had been silent as having no such Object to order 2. His Wisdom appears In making use of sinful Instruments He uses the Malice and Enmity of the Devil to bring about his own Purposes and makes the sworn Enemy of his Honour contribute to the Illustrating of it against his will This great Crafts-Master he took in his own Net and defeated the Devil by the Devils Malice by turning the Contrivances he had hatch'd and accomplish'd against Man against himself He used him as a Tempter to grapple with our Saviour in the Wilderness whereby to make him fit to succour us and as the God of this World to inspire the wicked Jews to Crucifie him whereby to render him actually the Redeemer of the World and so made him an Ignorant Instrument of that Divine Glory he design'd to ruine * Moulins Serm. Decad. 10. p. 221 232. 'T is more Skill to make a curious piece of Workmanship with Ill condition'd Tools than with Instruments naturally sitted for the work 'T is no such great wonder for a Limner to draw an exact piece with a fit Pencil and sutable Colours as to begin and perfect a beautiful work with a Straw and Water things improper for such a design This Wisdom of God is more admirable and astonishing than if a Man were able to rear a vast Palace by Fire whose nature is to consume Combustible matter not to erect a Building To make things serviceable contrary to their own Nature is a Wisdom peculiar to the Creator of Nature Gods making use of Devils for the glory of his Name and the good of his People is a more amazing piece of Wisdom than his Goodness in employing the Blessed Angels in his work To promise that the World which includes the God of the World and Death and Things present let them be as Evil as they will should be ours that is for our good and for his glory is an act of Goodness but to make them serviceable to the Honour of Christ and the good of his People is a Wisdom that may well raise our highest Admirations †1 Cor. 3.22 They are for Believers as they are for the glory of Christ and as Christ is for the glory of God To Chain up Satan wholly and frustrate his Wiles would be an Argument of Divine Goodness but to suffer him to run his risque and then improve all his Contrivances for his own glorious and gracâ—ous Ends and Purposes manifests besides his Power and Goodness his Wisdom also He uses the Sins of Evil
his loathing of sin and the sprinklings of his Judgments in the World and the horrible expectations of terrified Consciences confirm it But what are all these Testimonies to the highest evidence that can possibly be given in the sheathing the Sword of his wrath in the heart of his Son If a Father should order his Son to take a mean Garb below his Dignity order him to be dragg'd to Prison seem to throw off all Affection of a Father for the severity of a Judge condemn his Son to a horrible Death be a Spectator of his bleeding Condition withhold his hand from asswaging his Misery regard it rather with Joy than Sorrow give him a bitter Cup to drink and stand by to see him drink it off to the bottom dregs and all and sâ—ash frowns in his face all the while and this not for any fault of his own but the Rebellion of some Subjects he undertook for and that the Offenders might have a pardon seal'd by the Blood of the Son the sufferer all this would evidence his detestation of the Rebellion and his affection to the Rebels his hatred to their Crime and his love to their Welfare This did God do He delivered Christ up for our Offences Rom. 8.32 the Father gave him the Cup John 18 18. the Lord bruised him with pleasure Isa 53.10 and that for sin â—e transfer'd upon the shoulders of his Son the pain we had merited that the Criminal might be restored to the place he had forfeited He hates the sin so as to condemn it for ever and wrap it up in the Curse he had threatned and loves the sinner believing and repenting so as to mount him to an expectation of a happiness exceeding the first state both in glory and perpetuity Instead of an Earthly Paradise lays the Foundation of an Heavenly Mansion brings forth a weight of Glory from a weight of Misery separates the comfortable light of the Sun from the scorching heat we had deserved at his hands Thus hath Gods hatred of sin been manifested He is at an eternal Defiance with sin yet nearer in alliance with the sinner than he was before the Revolt As if man's miserable Fall had endeared him to the Judge This is the wisdom and prudence of Grace wherein God hath abounded Eph. 1.9 A wisdom in twisting the happy restoration of the broken Amity with an everlasting Curse upon that which made the breach both upon sin the Cause and upon Satan the Seducer to it Thus is hatred and love in their highest glory manifested together Hatred to sin in the death of Christ more than if the torments of Hell had been undergone by the sinner and love to the sinner more than if he had by an absolute and simple Bounty bestowed upon him the possession of Heaven because the gift of his Son for such an end is a greater token of his boundless Affections than a reinstating Man in Paradise Thus is the wisdom of God seen in Redemption consuming the sin and recovering the sinner 6. The wisdom of God is evident in overturning the Devil's Empire by the Nature he had vanquish'd and by ways quite contrary to what that malicious Spirit could imagine The Devil indeed read his own doom in the first Promise and found his ruin resolved upon by the means of the Seed of the Woman but by what Seed was not so easily known to him * And indeed the 〈◊〉 â—â—racles managed by the Devils declared that they were not long to hold their Scepter in the World but the Hebrew Child should vanquish them And the methods whereby it was to be brought about was a Mystery kept secret from the malicious Devils since it was not discovered to the obedient Angels He might know from Isa 53. that the Redeemer was assured to divide the Spoil with the strong and rescue a part of the lost Creation out of his hands and that this was to be effected by making his Soul an offering for sin But could he imagine which way his Soul was to be made such an Offering He shrewdly suspected Christ just after his Inauguration into his Office by Bapism to be the Son of God But did he ever dream that the Messiah by dying as a reputed Malefactor should be a Sacrifice for the expiation of the sin the Devil had introduced by his subtilty Did he ever imagine a Cross should dispossess him of his Crown and that dying groans should wrest the Victory out of his hands He was conquer'd by that Nature he had cast headlong into ruin A Woman by his subtilty was the occasion of our death and a Woman by the conduct of the only wise God brings forth the Author of our Life and the Conquerour of our Enemies The Flesh of the old Adam had infected us and the Flesh of the new Adam cures us 1 Cor. 15.21 By man came death by man also came the resurrection from the dead We are killed by the old Adam and raised by the new As among the Israelites a fiery Serpent gave the wound and a brazen Serpent administers the Cure The Nature that was deceived bruiseth the Deceiver and razeth up the Foundations of his Kingdom Satan is defeated by the Counsels he took to secure his Possession and loses the Victory by the same means whereby he thought to preserve it His tempting the Jews to the sin of Crucifying the Son of God had a contrary success to his tempting Adam to eat of the Tree The first death he brought upon Adam ruined us and the death he brought by his Instrumâ—nts upon the second Adam restored us By a Tree if one may so say he had Triumphed over the World and by the fruit of a Tree one hanging upon a Tree he is dischâ—â—ged of his power over us Heb. 2.14 Through death he destroyed him that had the power of death And thus the Devil ruins his own Kingdom while he thinks to confirm inlarge it And is defeated by his own policy whereby he thought to continue the World under his chains and deprive the Creator of the World of his purposed honour What deeper Counsell could he resolve upon for his own security than to be instrumental in the death of him who was God the terror of the Devil himself and to bring the Redeemer of the World to expire with disgrace in the sight of a multitude of men Thus did the Wisdom of God shine forthin restoring us by methods seemingly repugnant to the end he aimed at above the suspition of a subtle Devil whom he intended to baffle Could he Imagine that we should be healed by stripes quickned by death purified by blood crowned by a cross advanced to the highest honour by the lowest humility comforted by sorrows glorified by disgrace absolved by condemnation and made rich by poverty That the sweetest hony should at once spring out of the belly of a dead Lion the Lion of the tribe of Judah and out of the bosom of the living God
Justice abus'd his Goodness done injury to all those Attributes which are necessary to his relief It was not so in Creation nothing was uncapable of disobliging God from bringing it into Being The Dust which was the Matter of Adams Body needâ—d only the extrinsick Power of God to form it into a Man and inspire it with a living Soul It had not render'd it self obnoxious to Divine Justice nor was capable to excite any disputes between his Perfections But after the entrance of Sin and the merit of Death thereby there was a resistance in Justice to the free Remission of Man God was to exercise a Power over himself to answer his Justice and pardon the Sinner as well as a power over the Creature to reduce the Run-away and Rebel Unless we have recourse to the Infiniteness of Gods Power the infiniteness of our Guilt will weigh us down We must consider not only that we have a mighty Guilt to press us but a mighty God to relieve us In the same act of his being our Righteousness he is our Strength In the Lord have I righteousness and strength Isai 45.24 2. In the sense of Pardon When the Soul hath been wounded with the sense of sin and its Iniquities have star'd it in the face the raising the Soul from a despairing condition and lifting it above those Waters which terrified it to cast the light of Comfort as well as the light of Grace into a heart covered with more than an Egyptian Darkness is an act of his Infinite and Creating Power Isai 57.19 I create the fruit of the lips peace Men may wear out their Lips with numbring up the Promises of Grace and Arguments of Peace but all will signifie no more without a Creative Power than if all Men and Angels should call to that White upon the Wall to shine as splendidly as the Sun God only can create Jerusalem and every Child of Jerusalem a rejoycing * Isai 65.18 A Man is no more able to apply to himself any word of Comfort under the sense of Sin than he is able to Convert himself and turn the proposals of the Word into gracious Affections in his heart To restore the joy of Salvation is in Davids Judgment an act of Soveraign Power equal to that of creating a clean heart Psal 51.10 12. Alas 't is a state like to that of Death as Infinite Power can only raise from Natural death so from a Spiritual death also from a Comfortless death In his favour there is life in the want of his Favour there is death The Power of God hath so placed Light in the Sun that all Creatures in the World all the Torches upon Earth kindled together cannot make it Day if that doth not rise so all the Angels in Heaven and Men upon Earth are not competent Chirurgions for a wounded Spirit The cure of our Spiritual Ulcers and the pouring in Balm is an Act of Soveraign Creative Power 'T is more visible in silencing a Tempestuous Conscience than the Power of our Saviour was in the stilling the stormy Winds and the roaring Waves As none but Infinite Power can remove the Guilt of Sin so none but Infinite Power can remove the Despairing sense of it III. This Power is evident in the preserving Grace As the Providence of God is a manifestation of his Power in a continued Creation so the preservation of Grace is a manifestation of his Power in a continued Regeneration To keep a Nation under the Yoke is an act of the same Power that subdu'd it 'T is this that strengthens Men in suffering against the Fury of Hell †Colos 1.13 't is this that keeps them from falling against the force of Hell the Fathers hand John 10.29 His strength abates and moderates the violence of Temptations his Staff sustains his People under them his Might defeats the Power of Satan and bruiseth him under a Believers feet The Counterworkings of Indwelling Corruption the reluctances of the Flesh against the breathings of the Spirit the fallacy of the Senses and the rovings of the Mind have ability quickly to stifle and extinguish Grace if it were not maintain'd by that Powerful blast that first inbreathed it No less Power is seen in perfecting it than was in planting it ‖ 2 Pet. 1.3 no less in fulfilling the work of Faith than in ingrafting the Word of Faith 2 Thess 1.11 The Apostle well understood the Necessity and Efficacy of it in the preservation of Faith as well as in the firâ—t infusion when he expresses himself in those terms of a Greatness or Hyperbole of Power his Mighty Power or the Power of his Might Ephes 1.19 The Salvation he bestows and the Strength whereby he effects it are joyned together in the Prophets Song Isai 12.2 The Lord is my strength and my salvation And indeed God doth more magnifie his Power in continuing a Believer in the World a weak and half-rigg'd Vessel in the midst of so many Sands whereon it might split so many Rocks whereon it might dash so many Corruptions within and so many Temptations without than if he did immediately transport him into Heaven and cloth him with a perfectly Sanctified Nature To Conclude What is there then in the World which is destitute of Notices of Divine Power Every Creature affords us the Lesson all acts of Divine Government are the marks of it Look into the Word and the manner of its propagation instructs us in it your Changed Natures your Pardoned Guilt your Shining Comfort your quell'd Corruptions the standing of your staggering Graces are sufficient to preserve a sense and prevent a forgetfulness of this great Attribute so necessary for your support and conducing so much to your comfort Vses I. Of Information and Instruction 1. If Incomprehensible and Infinite Power belongs to the Nature of God then Jesus Christ hath a Divine Nature because the Acts of Power proper to God are ascribed to him This Perfection of Omnipotence doth unquestionably pertain to the Deity and is an incommunicable Property and the same with the Essence of God He therefore to whom this Attribute is ascribed is essentially God This is challenged by Christ in conjunction with Eternity Revel 1.8 I am Alpha and Omega the beginning and the ending saith the Lord which is and which was and which is to come the Almighty This the Lord Christ speaks of himself He who was equal with God proclaims himself by the Essential title of the Godhead part of which he repeats again verse 11. and this is the Person which walks in the midst of the seven Golden Candlesticks the Person that was dead and now lives vers 17 18. which cannot possibly be meant of the Father the first Person who can never come under that denomination of having been dead Being therefore adorn'd with the same Title he hath the same Deity and though his Omnipotence be only positively asserted v. 8. yet his Eternity being asserted v. 11 17. it inferreth
he might be a Rewarder and Threatens that he might not be a Punisher the one is to elevate our hope and the other to excite our fear the two Passions whereby the Nature of Man is manag'd in the World He imprints upon Man Sentiments of a Misery by Sin in his thundring Commination that he might engage him the more to embrace and be guided by the Motives of Sweetness in his gracious Promises The design of them was to preserve Man in his due bounds that God might not have occasion to blow upon him the Flames of his Justice to suppress those irregular Passions which the Nature of Man though Created without any disorder was capable of entertaining upon the appearance of suitable Objects and to keep the Waves from swelling upon any turning Wind that so Man being modest in the use of the Goodness God had allowed him might still be capable of fresh streams of Divine Bounty without ever falling under his Righteous Wrath for any Transgression What a prospect of Goodness is in this proceeding to disclose Mans Happiness to be as durable as his Innocence and set before a Rational Creature the extreamest Misery due to his Crime to affright him from neglecting his Creator and making unworthy Returns to his Goodness What could be done more by Goodness to suit that passion of fear which was implanted in the Nature of Man than to assure him he should not degenerate from the Righteousness of his Nature and violate the Authority of his Creator without falling from his own Happiness and sinking into the most deplorable Calamity 3. The Reward he promised manifests yet further his Goodness to Man It was his Goodness to intend a Reward to Man No necessity could oblige God to Reward Man had he continued obedient in his Created State For in all Rewards which are truly Merited besides some kind of equality to be consider'd between the Person doing Service and the Person Rewarding and also between the Act performed and the Reward bestow'd there must also be consider'd the condition of the Person doing the Service that he is not oblig'd to do it as a Duty but is at his own choice whether to offer it or no But Man being wholly dependent on God in his Being and Preservation having nothing of his own but what he had receiv'd from the hands of Divine Bounty †1 Cor. 4.7 his Service was due by the strongest Obligation to God But there was no natural Engagement on God to return a Reward to him for Man could return nothing of his own but that only which he had received from his Creator It must be pure Goodness that gives a gracious Reward for a due Debt to receive his own from Man and return more than he had received A Divine Reward doth far surmount the value of a Rational Service It was therefore a mighty Goodness to stipulate with Man that upon his Obedience he should enjoy an Immortality in that Nature * Amyral Dissertat p. 637 638. The Article on Mans part was Obedience which was necessarily just and founded in the Nature of Man He had been unjust ungrateful and violated all Laws of Righteousness had he committed any act unworthy of one that had been so great a Subject of Divine Liberality But the Article on Gods part of giving a perpetual Blessedness to Innocent Man was not founded upon Rules of strict Justice and Righteousness for that would have argu'd God to be a Debtor to Man but that God cannot be to the Work of his hands that had receiv'd the Materials of his Being and Acting from him as the Vessel doth from the Potter But this was founded only on the Goodness of the Divine Nature whereby he cannot but be kind to an innocent and holy Creature The Nature of God enclin'd him to it by the Rules of Goodness but the Service of Man could not claim it by the Rules of Justice without a Stipulation So that the Covenant whereby God oblig'd himself to continue the Happiness of Man upon the continuance of his Obedience in the Original of it springs from pure Goodness though the performance of it upon the fulfilling Condition requir'd in the Creature was founded upon the Rules of Righteousness and Truth after Divine Goodness had brought it forth God did Create Man for a Reward and Happiness Now Gods implanting in the Nature of Man a desire after Happiness and some higher Happiness than he had in Creation invested him in doth evidence that God did not Create Man only for his own Service but for his attaining a greater Happiness All Rational Creatures are possessed with a Principle of seeking after Good the highest Good and God did not plant in Man this Principle in vain It had not been Goodness to put this Principle in Man if he had design'd never to bestow a Happiness on Man for his Obedience This had been Repugnant to the Goodness and Wisdom of God And the Scripture doth very Emphatically express the Felicity of Man to be the design of God in the first forming him and moulding him a Creature as well as working him a new Creature †2 Cor. 5.1 2. He that hath wrought us for the self same thing is God He framed this Earthly Tabernacle for a Residence in an Eternal Habitation and a better Habitation than an Earthly Paradise What we expect in the Resurrection that very same thing God did in Creation intend us for but since the Corruption of our Natures we must undergo a dissolution of our Bodies and may have just reason of a despondency since Sin hath seem'd to change the course of Gods Bounty and brought us under a Curse He hath given us the Earnest of his Spirit as an assurance that he will perform that very self same thing the conferring that Happiness upon renewed Creatures for which he first form'd Man in Creation when he compacted his Earthly Tabernacle of the dust of the Ground and rear'd it up before him 4. It was a mighty Goodness that God should give Man an Eternal Reward That an Eternity of Reward was promised is implied in the Death that was threatned upon Transgression Whatsoever you conceive the threatned Death to be either for Nature or duration upon Transgression of the same Nature and duration you must suppose the life to be which is implied upon his constancy in his Integrity As Sin would render him an Eternal Object of Gods hatred so his Obedience would render him an Eternally amiable Object to his Creator as the standing Angels are preserved and confirmed in an intire Felicity and Glory Though the threatning be only exprest by God * Gen. 2.17 yet the other is implied and might easily be concluded from it by Adam And one reason why God only exprest the Threatning and not the Promise was because man might collect some hopes and expectations of a perpetual Happiness from that Image of God which he beheld in himself and from the large
or Wisdom to have let Man perpetually wallow in that Sink wherein he had plung'd himself since he was Criminal by his own will and therefore Miserable by his own fault Nothing could necessitate this Reparation If Divine Goodness could not be obliged by the Angelical Dignity to repair that Nature he is further from any Obligation by the meaness of Man to repair Humane Nature There was less necessity to restore Man than to restore the fallen Angels What could Man do to oblige God to a Reparation of him since he could not render him a Recompence for his Goodness manifested in his Creation He must be much more impotent to render him a Debtor for the Redemption of him from Misery Could it be a salary for any thing we had done Alass we are so far from Meriting it that by our daily Demerits we seem ambitious to put a stop to any further Effusions of it We could not have complain'd of him if he had left us in the Misery we had courted since he was bound by no Law to bestow upon us the Recovery we wanted When the Apostle speaks of the Gospel of Redemption he giveth it the Title of the Gospel of the Blessed God †2 Tim. 1.11 It was the Gospel of a God abounding in his own Blessedness which receiv'd no addition by Mans Redemption If he had been blessed by it it had been a goodness to himself as well as to the Creature It was not an Indigent Goodness needing the receiving any thing from us but it was a pure Goodness streaming out of it self without bringing any thing into it self for the Perfection of it There was no Goodness in us to be the Motive of his Love but his Goodness was the Fountain of our Benefit 3. It was a distinct Goodness of the whole Trinity In the Creation of Man we find a general Consultation * Gen. 1.26 without those distinct Labours and Offices of each Person and without those rais'd Expressions and Marks of Joy and Triumph as at Mans Restoration In this there are distinct Functions The Grace of the Father the Merit of the Son and the Efficacy of the Spirit The Father makes the Promise of Redemption the Son Seals it with his Blood and the Spirit applies it The Father Adopts us to be his Children the Son Redeems us to be his Members and the Spirit Renews us to be his Temples In this the Father testifies himself well pleased in a Voice The Son proclaims his own delight to do the will of God and the Spirit hastens with the Wing of a Dove to fit him for his work And afterwards in his apparition in the likeness of Fiery Tongues manifests his zeal for the propagation of the Redeeming Gospel 4. The Effects of it proclaim his great Goodness 'T is by this we are deliver'd from the Corruption of our Nature the Ruine of our Happiness the deformity of our Sins and the punishment of our Transgressions He frees us from the Ignorance wherewith we were darkned and from the Slavery wherein we were fetter'd When he came to make Adams Process after his Crime instead of pronouncing the Sentence of Death he had merited he utters a Promise that Man could not have expected His Kindness swells above his provoked Justice and while he chaseth him out of Paradise he gives him hopes of regaining the same or a better Habitation and is in the whole more ready to prevent him with the Blessings of his Goodness than charge him with the horrour of his Crimes †Gen. 3.17 'T is a Goodness that pardons us more Transgressions than there are Moments in our Lives and overlooks as many Follies as there are Thoughts in our Heart He doth not only relieve our wants but restores us to our Dignity 'T is a greater Testimony of Goodness to instate a Person in the highest Honour than barely to supply his present Necessity 'T is an admirable Pity whereby he was inclin'd to Redeem us and an incomparable Affection whereby he was resolv'd to exalt us What can be desir'd more of him than his Goodness hath granted He hath sought us out when we were lost and Ransom'd us when we were Captives He hath Pardon'd us when we were Condemn'd and rais'd us when we were Dead In Creation he rear'd us from nothing in Redemption he delivers our Understanding from ignorance and vanity and our Wills from impotence and obstinacy and our whole Man from a Death worse than that nothing he drew us from by Creation 5. Hence we may consider the height of this Goodness in Redemption to exceed that in Creation He gave Man a Being in Creation but did not draw him from unexpressible Misery by that act His Liberality in the Gospel doth infinitely surpass what we admire in the Works of Nature His Goodness in the latter is more astonishing to our belief than his Goodness in Creation is visible to our Eye There is more of his Bounty exprest in that one Verse * Joh. 3.16 So God loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son than there is in the whole Volume of the World 'T is an incomprehensible so a so that all the Angels in Heaven cannot Analyze and few Comment upon or understand the dimensions of this so In Creation he form'd an Innocent Creature of the Dust of the Ground in Redemption he restores a Rebellious Creature by the Blood of his Son It is greater than that Goodness manifested in Creation 1. In regard of the difficulty of effecting it In Creation meer nothing was vanquisht to bring us into Being In Redemption sullen Enmity was conquer'd for the enjoyment of our Restoration In Creation he subdued a Nullity to make us Creatures In Redemption his Goodness overcomes his Omnipotent Justice to restore us to Felicity A word from the Mouth of Goodness inspir'd the Dust of Mens Bodies with a living Soul but the Blood of his Son must be shed and the Laws of Natural Affection seem to be overturn'd to lay the Foundation of our renew'd Happiness In the first Heaven did but speak and the Earth was form'd In the second Heaven it self must sink to Earth and be clothed with dusty Earth to reduce Mans Dust to its Original State 2. This Goodness is greater than that manifested in Creation in regard of its Cost This was a more expensive Goodness than what was laid out in Creation The redemption of one Soul is pretious †Psal 49.8 much more costly than the whole Fabrick of the World or as many Worlds as the understandings of Angels in their utmost extent can conceive to be Created For the effecting of this God parts with his dearest Treasure and his Son Eclipses his choicest Glory For this God must be made Man Eternity must suffer Death the Lord of Angels must weep in a Cradle and the Creator of the World must hang like a Slave he must be in a Manger in Bethlehem and die upon a Cross on
violated Law When God is the object of such a wish t is a vertual undeifying of him Not to be able to punish is to be impotent not to be willing to punish is to be unjust Imperfections inconsistent with the Deity God cannot be supposed without an infinite Power to act and an infinite Righteousness as the Rule of acting Fear of God is natural to all men not a Fear of offending him but a Fear of being punished by him The wishing the Extinction of God has its degree in men according to the degree of their Fears of his just Vengeance And though such a Wish be not in its Meridian but in the Damned in Hell yet it hath its starts and motions in affrighted and awakened Consciences on the Earth Under this Rank of Wishers that there were no God or that God were destroyed do fall 1. Terrified Consciences that are Magor missabib see nothing but matter of fear round about As they have lived without the bounds of the Law they are affraid to fall under the stroak of his Justice Fear wishes the destruction of that which it apprehends hurtful It considers him as a God to whom Vengeance belongs as the Judge of all the Earth * Psal 94.12 The less hopes such a one hath of his Pardon the more joy he would have to hear that his Judge should be stript of his Life He would entertain with delight any reasons that might support him in the conceit that there were no God In his present State such a Doctrine would be his Security from an Account He would as much rejoyce if there were no God to enflame an Hell for him as any guilty Malefactor would if there were no Judge to order a Gibbet for him Shame may bridle mens words but the Heart will be casting about for some Arguments this way to secure it self Such as are at any time in Spira's Case would be willing to cease to be Creatures that God might cease to be Judge The Fool hath said in his heart there is no Elohim no Judge fancying God without any exercise of his judicial Authority And there is not any wicked man under anguish of Spirit but were it within the reach of his power would take away the Life of God and rid himself of his fears by destroying his Avenger 2. Debaucht Persons are not without such wishes sometimes An obstinate Servant wishes his Masters death from whom he expects Correction for his Debaucheries As Man stands in his corrupt Nature 't is impossible but one time or other most debaucht persons at least have so me kind of velleities or imperfect wishes 'T is as natural to men to abhor those things which are unsuteable and troublesome as it is to please themselves in things agreeable to their minds and humours And since Man is so deeply in love with Sin as to count it the most estimable good he cannot but wish the abolition of that Law which checks it and consequently the change of the Law-Giver which Enacted it and in wishing a change in the holy Nature of God he wishes a destruction of God who could not be God if he ceased to be immutably holy They do as certainly wish that God had not a holy Will to command them as desparing Souls wish that God had not a righteous Will to punish them and to wish Conscience extinct for the molestations they receive from it is to wish the power Conscience represents out of the world also Since the State of Sinners is a State of distance from God and the Language of Sinners to God is departed from us * Joh. 21.14 They desire as litle the continuance of his Being as they desire the knowledge of his Ways The same reason which moves them to desire Gods distance from them would move them to desire Gods not Being Since the greatest distance would be most agreeable to them the Destruction of God must be so too Because there is no greater distance from us than in not Being Men would rather have God not to be than themselves under controle that sensuality might range at pleasure He is like a Heifer sliding from the Yoke Hos 4.16 The Cursing of God in the Heart feared by Job of his Chidren intimates a wishing God despoild of his Authority that their pleasure might not be dampt by his Law Besides is there any natural man that sins against actuated knowledge but either thinks or wishes that God might not see him that God might not know his actions And is not this to wish the Destruction of God who could not be God unless he were immense and omniscient 3. Under this rank fall those who perform external Duties only out of a Principle of slavish Fear Many Men perform those Duties that the Law enjoyns with the same Sentiments that Slaves perform their Drudgery and are constrained in their Duties by no other considerations but those of the Whip and the Cudgel Since therefore they do it with reluctancy and secretly murmur while they seem to obey they would be willing that both the Command were recall'd and the Master that commands them were in another world The Spirit of Adoption makes men act towards God as a Father a Spirit of Bondage only eyes him as a Judge Those that look upon their Superiors as tyrannical will not be much concerned in their welfare and would be more glad to have their Nails pared than be under perpetual fear of them Many men regard not the infinite goodness in their service of him but consider him as cruel tyrannical injurious to their Liberty Adam's Posterity are not free from the Sentiments of their common Father till they are regenerate You know what Conceit was the Hammer whereby the Hellish Jael struck the Nail into our first Parents which conveyed Death together with the same Imagination to all their Posterity Gen. 3.5 God knows that in the day you eat thereof your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as Gods knowing Good and Evil Alas poor Souls God knew what he did when he forbad you that Fruit He was jealous you should be too happy It was a cruelty in him to deprive you of a Food so pleasant and delicious The apprehension of the severity of Gods Commands riseth up no less in desires that there were no God over us than Adam's apprehension of Envy in God for the restraint of one Tree mov'd him to attempt to be equal with God Fear is as powerful to produce the one in his Posterity as Pride was to produce the other in the Common-Root When we apprehend a thing hurtful to us we desire so much evil to it as may render it uncapable of doing us the hurt we fear As we wish the preservation of what we love or hope for so we are naturally apt to wish the not being of that whence we fear some hurt or trouble We must not understand this as if any man did formally wish the destruction of God as God God in
good evil is present with me * Rom. 7.21 Never more present than when we have a mind to do good and never more present than when we have a mind to do the best and greatest good How hard is it to make our thoughts and affections keep their stand place them upon a good Object and they will be frisking from it as a Bird from one bough one fruit to another We vary postures according to the various objects we meet with The course of the World is a very airy thing suted to the uncertain motions of that Prince of the power of the Air which works in it * Eph. 2.2 This ought to be bewail'd by us Tho we may stand fast in the truth tho we may spin our resolutions into a firm web tho the Spirit may triumph over the flesh in our practice yet we ought to bewail it because inconstancy is our nature and what fixedness we have in good is from grace What we find practised by most men is natural to all * Lawrence of Faith p. 262. As face answers to face in a glass so doth heart to heart * Pro. 27.19 a face in the glass is not more like a natural face whose image it is than one mans heart is naturally like another 1. 'T is natural to those out of the Church Nebuchadnezzar is so affected with Daniels prophetick Spirit that he would have none accounted the true God but the God of Daniel * Dan. 2.47 How soon doth this notion slip from him and an image must be set up for all to worship upon pain of almost cruel painful death Daniels God is quite forgotten The miraculous deliverance of the three Children for not worshipping his Image makes him settle a Decree to secure the Honour of God from the reproach of his Subjects * Dan. 3.29 yet a little while after you have him strutting in his Palace as if there were no God but himself 2. 'T is natural to those in the Church The Israelites were the only Church God had in the World and a notable Example of inconstancy After the Miracles of Aegypt they murmured against God when they saw Pharaoh marching with an Army at their Heels They desired food and soon nauseated the Manna they were before fond of when they came into Canaan They sometimes worshipped God and sometimes Idols not only the Idols of one Nation but of all their Neighbours In which regard God calls this his Heritage a Speckled Bird * Jer. 12.9 a Peacock saith Hierom inconstant made up of varieties of Idolatrous colours and Ceremonies This levity of Spirit is the root of all mischeif it scatters our thoughts in the Service of God it is the cause of all revolts and Apostacies from him it makes us unfit to receive the communications of God whatsoever we hear is like words writ in sand ruffled out by the next gale whatsoever is put into us is like precious liquor in a palsie hand soon spilt It breeds distrust of God when we have an uncertain judgment of him we are not like to confide in him an uncertain judgment will be followed with a distrustful heart In fine where it is prevalent it is a certain sign of ungodliness to be driven with the wind like chaffe and to be ungodly is all one in the judgment of the Holy Ghost Psal 1.4 the ungodly are like the chaff which the wind drives away which signifies not their destruction but their disposition for their destruction is inferred from it ver 5. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in judgment How contrary is this to the unchangeable God who is alwayes the same and would have us the same in our religious Promises and Resolutions for good 4. If God be immutable 't is sad news to those that are resolved in wickedness or careless of returning to that duty he requires Sinners must not expect that God will alter his will make a breach upon his nature and violate his own Word to gratifie their lusts No 't is not reasonable God should dishonour himself to secure them and cease to be God that they may continue to be wicked by changing his own nature that they may be unchanged in their vanity God is the same goodness is as amiable in his sight and Sin as abominable in his eyes now as it was at the beginning of the world Being the same God he is the same Enemy to the Wicked as the same Friend to the Righteous He is the same in Knowledge and cannot forget sinful acts He is the same in Will and cannot approve of unrighteous Practices Goodness cannot but be alway the Object of his Love and Wickedness cannot but be alway the Object of his Hatred And as his aversion to Sin is alway the same so as he hath been in his Judgments upon Sinners the same he will be still for the same perfection of Immutability belongs to his Justice for the punishment of Sin as to his Holiness for his disaffection to Sin Though the Covenant of Works was changeable by the crime of man violating it yet it was unchangeable in regard of Gods justice vindicating it which is inflexible in the punishment of the breaches of his Law The Law had a preceptive part and a minatory part When man changed the observation of the Precept the righteous nature of God could not null the execution of the threatning He could not upon the account of this perfection neglect his just word and countenance the unrighteous transgression Tho there were no more rational Creatures in being but Adam and Eve yet God subjected them to that death he had assured them of and from this immutability of his Will ariseth the necessity of the suffering of the Son of God for the relief of the apostate Creature His Will in the second Covenant is as uncâ—aâ—â—eable as that in the first only repentance is settled as the condition of the second which was not indulged in the first and without repentance the sinner must iâ—â—voâ—â—bly pâ—rish or God must change his nature There must be a change in man there can be nâ—â—â—e in God his bow is bent his arrows are ready if the wicked do not turn * Psal 7.11 There is not an Atheist an hypocrite a prophane person that ever was upon the Earth but Gods Soul abhorred him as such and the like he will abhor for ever While any therefore continue so they may sooner expect the Heavens should roul as they please the Sun stand still at their order the Stars change their course at their beck than that God should change his nature which is opposite to prophaness and vanity Who hath hardned himself against him and hath prospered * Job 9.4 Use 2. Of comfort The immutability of a good God is a strong ground of consolation Subjects wish a good Prince to live for ever as being loath to change him but care not how soon they are rid of an Oppressor
Pet. 1.12 It was publish'd in Paradise but in such words as Adam did not fully understand It was both discover'd and clouded in the Smoke of Sacrifices It was wrapped up in a Vail under the Law but not open'd till the Death of the Redeemer It was then plainly said to the Cities of Judah Behold your God comes The whole Transaction of it between the Father and the Son which is the Spirit of the Gospel was from Eternity the Creation of the World was in order to the manifestation of it Let us not then regard the Gospel as a Novelty the consideration of it as one of Gods Cabinet Rarities should enhance our Estimation of it No Traditions of Men no Inventions of vain Wits that pretend to be wiser than God should have the same Credit with that which bears date from Eternity 8. Observe That Divine Truth is Mysterious According to the revelation of the mystery Christ manifested in the flesh The whole Scheme of Godliness is a Mystery No Man or Angel could imagine how two Natures so distant as the Divine and Human should be united how the same Person should be Criminal and Righteous how a Just God should have a Satisfaction and Sinful Man a Justification how the Sin should be punish'd and the Sinner saved None could imagine such a way of Justification as the Apostle in this Epistle declares It was a Mystery when hid under the Shadows of the Law and a Mystery to the Prophets when it sounded from their Mouths they searched it without being able to comprehend it †1 Pet. 1.10 11. If it be a Mystery 't is humbly to be submitted to Mysteries surmount Human Reason The study of the Gospel must not be with a yawning and careless frame Trades you call Mysteries are not learned sleeping and nodding Diligence is required we must be Disciples at Gods Feet As it had God for the Author so we must have God for the Teacher of it the Contrivance was his and the Illumination of our Minds must be from him As God only manifested the Gospel so he only can open our Eyes to see the Mysteries of Christ in it In Verse 26. we may observe 1. The Scriptures of the Old Testament verifie the substance of the New and the New doth evidence the Authority of the Old By the Scriptures of the Prophets made known The Old Testament credits the New and the New illustrates the Old The New Testament is a Comment upon the Prophetick part of the Old The Old shews the Promises and Predictions of God and the New shews the Performance What was foretold in the Old is fulfilled in the New the Predictions are cleared by the Events The Predictions of the Old are Divine because they are above the Reason of Man to foreknow None but an Infinite Knowledge could foretell them because none but an Infinite Wisdom could order all things for the accomplishment of them The Christian Religion hath then the surest Foundation since the Scriptures of the Prophets wherein it is foretold are of undoubted Antiquity and owned by the Jews and many Heathens which are and were the great Enemies of Christ The Old Testament is therefore to be read for the strengthning of our Faith Our Blessed Saviour himself draws the Streams of his Doctrine from the Old Testament He clears up the Promise of Eternal Life and the Doctrine of the Resurrection from the words of the Covenant I am the God of Abraham c. Mat. 22.32 And our Apostle clears up the Doctrine of Justification by Faith from Gods Covenant with Abraham Rom. 4. It must be read and it must be read as it is writ It was writ to a Gospel End it must be studied with a Gospel Spirit The Old Testament was writ to give Credit to the New when it should be manifested in the World It must be read by us to give strength to our Faith and establish us in the Doctrine of Christianity How many view it as a bare story an Almanack out of date and regard it as a dry Bone without sucking from it the Evangelical Marrow Christ is in Genesis Abrahams Seed in Davids Psalms and the Prophets the Messiah and Redeemer of the World 2. Observe the Antiquity of the Gospel Is made manifest by the Scriptures of the Prophets It was of as Ancient a date as any Prophesy The first Prophesy was nothing else but a Gospel Charter it was not made at the Incarnation of Christ but made manifest It then rose up to its Meridian lustre and sprung out of the Clouds wherewith it was before obscur'd The Gospel was preached to the Ancients by the Prophets as well as to the Gentiles by the Apostles Heb. 4.2 Vnto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them To them first to us after to them indeed more cloudy to us more clear but they as well as we were Evangeliz'd as the word signifies The Covenant of Grace was the same in the Writings of the Prophets and the Declarations of the Evangelists and Apostles Though by our Saviours Incarnation the Gospel Light was clearer and by his Ascension the Effusions of the Spirit fuller and stronger yet the Believers under the Old Testament saw Christ in the Swadling Bands of Legal Ceremonies and the Lattice of Prophetical Writings they could not else offer one Sacrifice or read one Prophesy with a Faith of the right stamp Abrahams Justifying Faith had Christ for its Object though it was not so Explicit as ours because the Manifestation was not so clear as ours 3. All Truth is to be drawn from Scripture The Apostle refers them here to the Gospel and the Prophets The Scripture is the Source of Divine Knowledge not the Traditions of Men nor Reason separate from Scripture Whosoever brings another Doctrine coyns another Christ nothing is to be added to what is written nothing detracted from it He doth not send us for Truth to the Puddles of Human Inventions to the Enthusiasms of our Brain not to the See of Rome no nor to the Instructions of Angels but the Writings of the Prophets as they clear up the Declarations of the Apostles The Church of Rome is not made here the Standard of Truth but the Scriptures of the Prophets are to be the Touch-stone to the Romans for the Trial of the Truth of the Gospel 4. How great is the Goodness of God The Borders of Grace are enlarged to the Gentiles and not hid under the Skirts of the Jews He that was so long the God of the Jews is now also manifest to be the God of the Gentiles The Gospel is now made known to all Nations according to the Commandment of the Everlasting God Not only in a way of Common Providence but Special Grace in Calling them to the Knowledge of himself and a Justification of them by Faith He hath brought Strangers to him to the Adoption of Children and lodged them under the Wings of the Covenant that were before alienated from
the Earth So Colours are made for the pleasure of the Eye Sounds for the delight of the Ear Light is formed whereby the Eye may see the one and Air to convey the Species of Colours to the Eye and Sound to the Ear all things are like the Wheels of a Watch compacted And though many of the Creatures be endowed with contrary qualities yet they are joyned in a Marriage-knot for the Publick Security and Subserviency to the Preservation and Order of the Universe As the variety of Strings upon an Instrument sending forth various and distinct sounds are temper'd together for the framing excellent and delightful Airs In this universal conspiring of the Creatures together to one end is the wisdom of the Creator apparent in tuning so many Contraries as the Elements are and preserving them in their Order which if once broken the whole Frame of Nature would crack and fall in pieces all are so interwoven and inlaid together by the Divine Workmanship as to make up one intire Beauty in the whole Fabrick As every part in the Body of Man hath a distinct Comliness yet there is besides the Beauty of the whole that results from the union of divers parts exactly fashion'd to one another and linkt together By the way Use How much may we see of the Perfection of God in every thing that presents it self to our eyes And how should we be convinc'd of our unworthy neglect of ascending to him with reverent and admiring thoughts upon the prospect of the Creatures What dull Scholars are we when every Creature is our Teacher every part of the Creature a lively Instruction Those things that we tread under our feet if used by us according to the full design of their Creation would afford rich matter not only for our heads but our hearts As Grace doth not destroy Nature but elevate it so neither should the fresher and fuller discoveries of Divine Wisdom in Redemption deface all our thoughts of his Wisdom in Creation Though the greater Light of the Sun obscures the lesser sparkling of the Stars yet it gives way in the Night to the discovery of them that God may be seen known and considered in all his Works of Wonder and Miracles of Nature No part of Scripture is more spiritual than the Psalms none filled with clearer Discoveries of Christ in the Old Testament yet how often do the Penmen consider the Creation of God and find their Meditations on him to be sweet as consider'd in his Works Psal 104.34 My meditation of him shall be sweet When why after a short History of the Goodness and Wisdom of God in the Frame of the World and the Species of the Creatures 2. The wisdom of God appears in his Government of his Creatures The regular motion of the Creatures speaks for this Perfection as well as the exact Composition of them If the exquisiteness of the Frame conducts us to the skill of the Contriver the exactness of their Order according to his Will and Law speaks no less the wisdom of the Governour It cannot be thought that a rash and irrational Power presides over a World so well disposed The disposition of things hath no less characters of Skill than the Creation of them No man can hear an excellent Lesson upon a Lute but must presently reflect upon the Art of the Person that touches it The Prudence of man appears in wrapping up the Concerns of a Kingdom in his mind for the well-ordering of it and shall not the wisdom of God shine forth as he is the Director of the World I shall omit his Government of Inanimate Creatures and confine the Discourse to his Government of Man as Rational as Sinful as Restor'd 1. In his Government of man as a Rational Creature 1. In the Law he gives to man Wisdom framed it though Will enacted it The will of God is the Rule of Righteousness to us but the wisdom of God is the Foundation of that Rule of Righteousness which he prescribes us * Castellio Dialog l. 4. p. 46. The Composure of a Musician is the Rule of singing to his Scholars yet the Consent and Harmony in that Composure derives not it self from his will but from his understanding he would not be a Musician if his Composures were contrary to the Rules of true Harmony So the Laws of men are compos'd by wisdom though they are enforc'd by will and authority The Moral Law which was the Law of Nature the Law imprinted upon Adam is so framed as to secure the Rights of God as Supream and the Rights of Men in their distinctions of Superiority and Equality 'T is therefore called holy and good Rom. 7.12 holy as it prescribes our duty to God in his worship good as it regulates the offices of human life and preserves the common interest of Mankind 1. 'T is suted to the Nature of Man As God hath given a Law of Nature a fixed Order to Inanimate Creatures so he hath given a Law of Reason to Rational Creatures Other Creatures are not capable of a Law differencing good and evil because they are destitute of Faculties and Capacities to make distinction between them It had not been agreeable to the wisdom of God to propose any Moral Law to them who had neither understanding to discern nor will to chuse 'T is therefore to be observed that whilst Christ exhorted others to the embracing his Doctrine yet he exhorted not little Children though he took them in his Arms because though they had Faculties yet they were not come to such a Maturity as to be capable of a Rational Instruction But there was a necessity for some Command for the government of man since God had made him a Rational Creature it was not agreeable to his wisdom to govern him as a Brute but as a Rational Creature capable of knowing his Precepts and voluntarily walking in them and without a Law he had not been capable of any exercise of his Reason in Services respecting God He therefore gives him a Law with a Covenant annext to it whereby man is obliged to Obedience and secured of a Reward This was enforced with severe Penalties Death with all the Horrours attending it to deterr him from Transgression Gen. 2.17 wherein is implied a Promise of continuance of Life and all its Felicities to allure him to a mindfulness of his Obligation So perfect a Hedge did Divine Wisdom set about him to keep him within the bounds of that Obedience which was both his Debt and Security that wheresoever he looked he saw either something to invite him or something to drive him to the payment of his Duty and perseverance in it Thus the Law was exactly framed to the Nature of man man had twisted in him a desire of Happiness the Promise was suted to cherish this natural Desire He had also the Passion of Fear the proper Object of this was any thing destructive to his Being Nature and Felicity this the threatning met
Will as a Natural Faculty concurs in the act or motion God doth not act in this in a way of Absolute Power without an Infinite Wisdom suting himself to the Nature of the things he acts upon He doth not change the Physical Nature though he doth the Moral As in the Government of the World he doth not make heavy things ascend nor light things descend ordinarily but guides their Motions according to their Natural qualities So God doth not strain the Faculties beyond their due pitch He lets the nature of the Faculty remain but changes the Principle in it The Understanding remains Understanding and the Will remains Will. But where there was before Folly in the Understanding he puts in a Spirit of Wisdom and where there was before a stoutness in the Will he forms it to a pliableness to his offers He hath a Key to fit every Ward in the Lock and opens the Will without injuring the Nature of the Will He doth not change the Soul by an alteration of the Faculties but by an alteration of something in them Not by an Inroad upon them or by meer power or a blind Instinct but by proposing to the Understanding something to be known and informing it of the Reasonableness of his Precepts and the Innate goodness and excellency of his Offers and by inclining the Will to love and embrace what is proposed And things are propos'd under those Notions which usually move our Wills and Affections We are moved by things as they are good pleasant profitable we entertain things as they make for us and detest things as they are contrary to us Nothing affects us but under such qualities and God sutes his Encouragements to these Natural Affections which are in us His Power and Wisdom go hand in hand together his Power to act what his Wisdom orders and his Wisdom to conduct what his Power executes He brings Men to him in ways suted to their Natural dispositions The stubborn he tears like a Lion the gentle he wins like a Turtle by sweetness he hath a Hammer to break the stout and a Cord of Love to draw the more pliable Tempers He works upon the more Rational in a way of Gospel Reason upon the more Ingenuous in a way of kindness and draws them by the Cords of Love The Wise-men were led to Christ by a Star and Means suted to the knowledge and study that those Eastern Nations used which was much in Astronomy He worketh upon others by Miracles accommodated to every ones sense and so proportions the Means according to the Nature of the Subjects he works upon 4. The Wisdom of God is apparent in his Discipline and Penal Evils The Wisdom of Human Governments is seen in the matter of their Laws and in the Penalties of their Laws and in the proportion of the Punishment to the Offence and in the good that redounds from the Punishment either to the Offender or to the Community The Wisdom of God is seen in the Penalty of Death upon the Transgression of his Law both in that it was the greatest Evil that Man might fear and so was a convenient means to keep him in his due bound and also in the proportion of it to the Transgression Nothing less could be in a Wise Justice inflicted upon an Offender for a Crime against the highest Being and the Supream Excellency But this hath been spoken of before in the Wisdom of his Laws I shall only mention some few it would be too tedious to run into all 1. His Wisdom appears in Judgments in the suting them to the qualities of Persons and nature of Sins He deviseth evil Jer. 18.11 his Judgments are fruits of Counsel He also is wise and will bring Evil Isai 31.2 Evil sutable to the Person offending and Evil sutable to the Offence committed As the Husbandman doth his Threshing Instruments to the Grain He hath a Rod for the Cummin a tenderer Seed and a Flayl for the harder so hath God greater Judgments for the obdurate Sinner and lighter for those that have something of tenderness in their Wickedness Isai 28.27 29. Because he is wonderful in Counsel and excellent in working so Some understand the place With the froward he will shew himself froward He proportions punishment to the Sin and writes the cause of the Judgment in the Forehead of the Judgment it self Sodom burned in Lust and was consumed by Fire from Heaven The Jews sold Christ for Thirty pence and at the Taking of Jerusalem Thirty of them were sold for a Penny So Adonibezek Cut off the Thumbs and great Toes of others and he is served in the same kind Judg. 1.7 The Babel Builders design'd an indissoluble union and God brings upon them an unintelligible Confusion And in Exod. 9.9 the Ashes of the Furnace where the Israelites burnt the Egyptian Bricks sprinkled towards Heaven brought Boyls upon the Egyptian Bodies that they might feel in their own what Pain they had caused in the Israelites flesh and find by the smart of the inflamed Scab what they had made the Israelites endure The Waters of the River Nilus are turned into Blood wherein they had stifled the breath of the Israelites Infants And at last the Prince and the flower of their Nobility are drowned in the Red Sea 'T is part of the Wisdom of Justice to proportion punishment to the Crime and the degrees of Wrath to the degrees of Malice in the Sin Afflictions also are wisely proportion'd God as a wise Physician considers the nature of the humor and strength of the Patient and sutes his Medicines both to the one and the other 1 Cor. 10.13 2. In the seasons of Punishments and Afflictions He stays till Sin be ripe that his Justice may appear more equitable and the Offender more inexcusable Dan. 9.14 he watches upon the evil to bring it upon Men. To bring it in the just Season and order for his righteous and gracious Purpose his Righteous purpose on the Enemies and his Gracious purpose on his People Jerusalems Calamity came upon them when the City was full of People at the Solemnity of the Passover that he might Mow down his Enemies at once and Time their Destruction to such a moment wherein they had Timed the Crucifixion of his Son He watched over the Clouds of his Judgments and kept them from pouring down till his People the Christians were provided for and had departed out of the City to the Chambers and Retiring places God had provided for them He made not Jerusalem the Shambles of his Enemies till he had made Pella and other places the Arks of his Friends As Pliny tells us The Providence of God holds the Sea in a calm for fifteen days that the Halcyons little Birds that frequent the Shoar may build their Nests and hatch up their Young The Judgment upon Sodom was suspended for some hours till Lot was secured | Daille sur 1 Cor. 10. p. 390. God suffer'd not the Church to be Invaded
all affections to sin lye down in Sorrow and bewail what he hath done amiss against so tender a God Can you expect that any man that Promises you a great honour or a rich donative should demand less of you than to trust his word bear an affection to him and return him kindness Can any less be expected by a Prince than obedience from a pardoned Subject and a redeemed Captive If you have injured any man in his Body Estate Reputation would you not count it a reasonable Condition for the partaking of his Clemency and Forgiveness to express a hearty sorrow for it and a resolution not to fall into the like Crime again Such are the Conditions of the Gospel suted to the Consciences of men 5. The Wisdom of God appears in that this condition was only likely to attain the end There are but two Common Heads appointed by God Adam and Christ By one we are made a living Soul by the other a quickning Spirit By the one we are made sinners by the other we are made righteous Adam fell as a Head and all his members his whole Issue and Posterity fell with him because they proceeded from him by natural Generation But since the second Adam can not be our Head by natural Generation there must be some other way of engrafting us in him and uniting us to him as our Head which must be Moral and Spiritual this can not rationally be conceived to be by any other way than What is sutable to a reasonable Creature and therefore must be by an act of the Will Consent and Acceptance and owning the terms setled for an Admission to that Union And this is that we properly call Faith and therefore called a receiving of him John 1.12 Now this Condition of enjoying the Fruits of Redemption could not be a bare Knowledge for that is but only an act of the Understanding and doth not in itself include the act of the Will and so would have united only one Faculty to him not the whole Soul But Faith in an act both of the Understanding and Will too and principally of the Will which doth presuppose an act of the Understanding For there cannot be a Perswasion in the Will without a Proposition from the Understanding The Understanding must be convinced of the truth and goodness of a thing before the Will can be perswaded to make any motion towards it and therefore all the Promises Invitations and Proffers are suted to the Understanding and Will To the Understanding in regard of Knowledge to the Will in regard of Appetite to the Understanding as true to the Will as good To the Understanding as practical and influencing the Will 2. Nor could it be an intire Obedience That as was said before would have made the Creature have some matter of boasting and this was not sutable to the Condition he was sunk into by the fall Besides mans Nature being corrupted was rendered uncapable to obey and unable to have one thought of a due Obedience 2 Cor. 3.5 When man turned from God and upon that was turned out of Paradise his return was impossible by any strength of his own his Nature was as much corrupted as his re-entrance into Paradise was prohibited That Covenant whereby he stood in the garden required a perfection of action and intention in the observance of all the Commands of God But his Fall had crack'd his Ability to recover happiness by the terms and condition of an intire Obedience yet man being a person governable by a Law and capable of happiness by a Covenant if God would restore him and enter into a Covenant with him we must suppose it to have some Condition as all Covenants have That Condition could not be works because mans Nature was polluted Indeed had God reduced mans Body to the dust and his Soul to nothing and framed another man he might have govern'd him by a Covenant of Works But that had not been the same man that had revolted and upon his revolt was stain'd and disabled But suppose God had by any transcendent Grace wholly purified him from the stain of his former Transgression and restored to him the strength and ability he had lost might he not as easily have rebelled again And so the Condition would never have been accomplisht the Covenant never have been performed and Happiness never have been enjoyed There must be some other Condition then in the Covenant God would make for mans Security Now Faith is the most proper for receiving the Promise of Pardon of Sin Belief of those promises is the first natural reflection that a Malefactor can make upon a pardon offered him and acceptance of it is the first consequent from that beliefe Hence is Faith entitled a perswasion of and embraceing the Promises Heb 11.13 and a receiving the atonement Rom. 5.11 Thus the Wisdom of God is apparent in annexing such a Condition to the Covenant whereby man is restored as answers the end of God for his glory the State Conscience and necessity of Man and had the greatest congruity to his recovery 9. This Wisdom of God is manifest in the manner of the publishing and propagating this Doctrine of Redemption 1. In the gradual discoveries of it Flashing a great light in the face of a suddain is amazing should the Sun glare in our Eye in all its brightness on a suddain after we have been in a thick darkness it would blind us instead of comforting us So great a work as this must have several digestions God first reveals of what Seed the Redeeming Person should be the Seed of the Woman Gen. 3.15 Then of what Nation Gen. 26.4 then of what Tribe Gen. 49.12 of the Tribe of Judah then of what Family the family of David then what works he was to do what sufferings to undergoe The first Predictions of our Saviour were obscure Adam could not well see the Redemption in the Promise for the punishment of death which succeeded in the Threatning the Promise exercised his Faith and the Obscurity and bodily Death his Humility The Promise made to Abraham was clearer than the Revelations made before yet he could not tell how to reconcile his Redemption with his Exile God supported his Faith by the Promise and exercised his Humility by making him a Pilgrim and keeping him in a perpetual dependance upon him in all his motions The Declarations to Moses are brighter than those to Abraham The delineations of Christ by David in the Psalms more illustrious than the former And all those exceeded by the Revelations made to the Prophet Isaiah and the other Prophets according as the Age did approach wherein the Redeemer was to enter into his Office God wrapt up this Gospel in a multitude of Types and Ceremonies fitted to the Infant state of the Church Gal. 4.3 An Infant State is usually affected with sensible things yet all those Ceremonies were fitted to that great end of the Gospel which he would bring forth in
make them march in the same order to their Confusion as they did in their Creation Who can jumble the whole Frame together and by a Word dissolve the Pillars of the World and make the Fabrick lie in a ruinous heap 2. In effecting his Purposes by small Means In making use of the Meanest Creatures As the Power of God is seen in the creation of the smallest Creatures and assembling so many perfections in the little body of an Insect as an Ant or Spider So his Power is not less magnified in the use he makes of them As he magnifies his Wisdom by using ignorant Instruments so he exalts his Power by employing weak Instruments in his service The Meaness and Imperfection of the matter sets off the Excellency of the Workman so the weakness of the Instrument is a foyl to the Power of the principal Agent When God hath effected things by Means in the Scripture he hath usually brought about his Purposes by weak Instruments Moses a Fugitive from Egypt and Aaron a Captive in it are the Instruments of the Israelites Deliverance By the motion of Moses his Rod he works Wonders in the Court of Pharaoh and summons up his Judgments against him He brought down Pharaohs stomack for a while by a squadron of Lice and Locusts wherein Divine Power was more seen than if Moses had brought him to his own Articles by a multitude of Warlike Troops The fall of the Walls of Jericho by the sound of Rams horns was a more glorious Character of Gods Power than if Joshuah had batter'd it down with an hundred of Warlike Engines Josh 6.20 Thus the great Army of the Midianites which lay as Grasshoppers upon the ground were routed by Gideon in the head of Three hundred Men and Goliah a Giant laid level with the ground by David a Stripling by the force of a Sling A Thousand Philistines dispatcht out of the World by the Jaw Bone of an Ass in the hand of Sampson He can master a stout Nation by an Army of Locusts and render the Teeth of those little Insects as destructive as the Teeth yea the strongest Teeth the Cheek Teeth of a great Lion * Joel 1.6 7. The Thunderbolt which produceth sometimes dreadful effects is compacted of little Atoms which fly in the Air small Vapors drawn up by the Sun and mixt with other Sulphurous matter and petrifying Juice Nothing is so weak but his Strength can make victorious nothing so small but by his Power he can accomplish his great ends by it nothing so vile but his Mâ—ght can conduct to his glory and no Nation so mighty but he can waste and enfeeble by the Meanest Creatures God is great in Power in the greatest things and not little in the smallest his Power in the minutest Creatures which he uses for his service surmounts the force of our Understanding III. The Power of God appears in Redemption As our Saviour is called the Wisdom of God 1 Cor. 1.24 so he is called the Power of God The Arm of Power was lifted up as high as the designs of Wisdom were laid deep As this way of Redemption could not be contriv'd but by an Infinite Wisdom so it could not be accomplish'd but by an Infinite Power None but God could shape such a design and none but God could effect it The Divine Power in Temporal deliverances and freedom from the slavery of humane Oppressors vails to that which glitters in Redemption whereby the Devil is defeated in his designs stript of his spoils and yok'd in his strength The Power of God in Creation requires not those degrees of Admiration as in Redemption In Creation the World was erected from Nothing as there was Nothing to act so there was Nothing to oppose no victorious Devil was in that to be subdued no thundring Law to be silenced no Death to be conquer'd no Transgression to be pardoned and rooted out no Hell to be shut no Ignominious death upon the Cross to be suffered It had been in the nature of the thing an easier thing to Divine Power to have created a new World than repair'd a broken and purified a polluted one This is the most admirable Work that ever God brought forth in the World greater than all the Marks of his Power in the first Creation And this will appear 1. In the Person Redeeming 2. In the publication and propagation of the Doctrine of Redemption 3. In the application of Redemption I. In the Person Redeeming First In his Conception 1. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost in the Womb of the Virgin Luke 1.35 The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee Which act is exprest to be the effect of the Infinite Power of God and it expresses the supernatural manner of the forming the Humanity of our Saviour and signifies not the Divine Nature of Christ infusing it self into the Womb of the Virgin for the Angel refers it to the manner of the operation of the Holy Ghost in the producing the Humane Nature of Christ and not to the Nature assuming that Humanity into union with it self The Holy Ghost or the Third Person in the Trinity overshadowed the Virgin and by a Creative act fram'd the Humanity of Christ and united it to the Divinity It is therefore exprest by a word of the same import with that used Gen. 1.2 The Spirit moved upon the face of the face of the Waters which signifies as it were a Brooding upon the Chaos shadowing it with his Wings as Hens sit upon their Eggs to form them and hatch them into Animals or else it is an allusion to the Cloud which covered the Tent of the Congregation when the Glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle * Exod. 40 34 It was not such a Creative Act as we call Immediate which is a production out of Nothing but a Mediate Creatâ—on such as Gods bringing things into form out of the first Matter which had nothing but an Obediential or Passive disposition to whatsoever stamp the Powerful Wisdom of God should imprint upon it So the substance of the Virgin had no active but only a passive disposition to this work The Matter of the Body was Earthy the substance of the Virgin the forming of it was Heavenly the Holy Ghost working upon that Matter And therefore when it is said Mat. 1.18 that she was found with Child of the Holy Ghost 't is to be understood of the Efficacy of the Holy Ghost not of the Substance of the Holy Ghost The matter was Natural but the manner of Conceiving was in a Supernatural way above the methods of Nature In reference to the Active Principle the Redeemer is called in the Prophecy †Isai 4.2 The Branch of the Lord in regard of the Divine hand that planted him In respect to the Passive Principle The Fruit of the Earth in regard of the Womb that bare him and therefore said to be made
the Psalmist Psal 86.2 Preserve my soul for I am holy that is I have an ardent desire to holiness Thou hast separated me from the mass of the corrupted World preserve perfect me with the Assembly of the glorified Quire The more holy any are the more communicative they are God being most holy is most communicative of that which he most esteems in himself and delights to see in his Creature He 〈◊〉 therefore more ready to impart his holiness to them that beg for it than to communicate his knowledge or his power Though he were holy yet he let Adam fall who never petition'd his Holiness to preserve him he let him fall to declare the Holiness of his own Nature which had wanted its due manifestation without it But since that cannot be declar'd in a higher manner than it hath been already in the death of the Surety that bore our Guilt there is no fear he should cast the work out of his hands since the design of the permission of man's Apostacy in the discovery of the perfections of his Nature has been fully answered The finishing the good work he hath begun hath a relation to the glory of Christ and his own glory in Christ to be manifested in the day of his Appearing * Phil. 1.6 wherein the glory both of his own holiness and the holiness of the Mediator are to receive their full manifestation As it is a part of the holiness of Christ to sanctifie his Church †Eph. 5.26 27. till not a wrinkle or spot be left so it is the part of God not to leave that work imperfect which his holiness hath attempted a second time to beautifie his Creature with He will not cease exalting this Attribute which is the Believers by the new Covenant till he utters that applauding Speech of his own work Cant. 4.7 Thou art all fair my Love there is no spot in thee Vse 3. Is for Exhortation Is holiness an eminent perfection of the Divine Nature then 1. Let us get and preserve right and strong apprehensions of this Divine Perfection Without a due sense of it we can never exalt God in our hearts and the more distinct Conceptions we have of this and the rest of his Attributes the more we glorifie him When Moses considered God as his strength and salvation he would exalt him ‖ Exod. 15.2 and he could never break out in so admirable a Doxology as that in the Text without a deep sense of the glory of his Purity which he speaks of with so much admiration Such a sense will be of use to us 1. In promoting genuine Convictions A deep consideration of the holiness of God cannot but be followed with a deep consideration of our impure and miserable Condition by reason of sin We cannot glance upon it without reflections upon our own Vileness Adam no sooner heard the Voice of a holy God in the Garden but he considered his own nakedness with shame and fear * Gen. 3.10 Much less can we fix our Minds upon it but we must be touched with a sense of our own uncleanness The clear beams of the Sun discover that filthiness in our Garments and Members which was not visible in the darkness of the night Impure Metals are discern'd by comparing them with that which is pure and perfect in its kind The sense of guilt is the first natural Result upon a sense of this excellent Perfection and the sense of the Imperfection of our own Righteousness is the next Who can think of it and reflect upon himself as an Object fit for Divine Love Who can have a due thought of it without regarding himself as stubble before a consuming Fire Who can without a confusion of heart and face glance upon that pure Eye which beholds with detestation the foul Motes as well as the filthier and bigger Spots When Isaiah saw his glory and heard how highly the Angels exalted God for this Perfection he was in a cold sweat ready to swoon till a Seraphim with a Coal from the Altar both purg'd and reviv'd him †Isa 6.5 6 7. They are sound and genuine Convictions which have the prospect of Divine Purity for their immediate Spring and not a foresight of our own Misery when it is not the punishment we have deserved but the holiness we have offended most grates our hearts Such Convictions are the first rude Draughts of the Divine Image in our Spirits and grateful to God because they are an acknowledgment of the glory of this Attribute and the first mark of honour given to it by the Creature Those that never had a sense of their own Vileness were alway destitute of a sense of God's holiness And by the way we may observe That those that scoff at any for hanging down the head under the Consideration and Conviction of Sin as is too usual with the World scoff at them for having deeper Apprehensions of the Purity of God than themselves and consequently make a mock of the holiness of God which is the ground of those Convictions a sense of this would prevent such a damnable reproaching 2. A sense of this will render us humble in the possession of the greatest holiness a Creature were capable of We are apt to be proud with the Pharisee when we look upon others wallowing in the Mire of base and unnatural Lusts but let any clap their Wings if they can in a vain boasting and exaltation when they view the holiness of God What Torch if it had reason would be proud and swagger in its own light if it compar'd it self with the Sun Who can stand before this holy Lord God is the just reflection of the holiest Person as it was of those 1 Sam. 6.20 that had felt the marks of his jealousie after their looking into the Ark though likely out of affection to it and triumphant joy at its return When did the Angels testifie by the covering of their Faces their weakness to bear the lustre of his Mâ—jesty but when they beheld his glory When did they signifie by their covering their feet the shame of their own Vileness but when their hearts wer fullest of the applaudings of this Perfection ‖ Isa 6.2 3. Though they found themselves without spot yet not with such a holiness that they could appear either with their faces or feet unvail'd and unmask't in the Presence of God Doth the immense splendor of this Attribute engender shaming reflections in those pure Spirits What will it â—hâ—â— should it do in us that dwell in Houses of Clay and creep up and down with that Clay upon our backs and too much of it in our hearts The Stars themselves which appear beautiful in the night are maskt at the awaking of the Sun What a dimm light is that of a Gloworm to that of the Sun The apprehensions of this made the Elders humble themselves in the midst of their glory by casting down their Crowns before his
it is a representation of the Divinity and a holy man ought to esteem himself excellent in being such in his measure as his God is and puts his principal felicity in the possession of the same purity in Truth This is the refin'd Complexion of the Angels that stand before his Throne The Devils lost their comliness when they fell from it It was the honour of the humane Nature of our Saviour not only to be united to the Deity but to be sanctified by it He was fairer than all the Children of men because he had a holiness above the Children of men Grace was poured into his lips Psal 45.2 It was the Jewel of the reasonable Nature in paradise Conformity to God was mans original happiness in his created state and what was naturally so cannot but be immutably so in its own Nature The beauty of every copyed thing consists in its likeness to the Original Every thing hath more of loveliness as it hath greater impressions of its first Pattern In this regard holiness hath more of beauty on it than the whole Creation because it partakes of a greater excellency of God than the Sun Moon and Stars No greater glory can be than to be a conspicuous and visible Image of the invisible and holy and blessed God As this is the splendor of all the Divine Attributes so it is the flower of all a Christians Graces the Crown of all Religion 'T is the glory of the Spirit In this regard the Kings Daughter is said to be all glorious within * Psal 45.13 'T is more excellent than the soul itself since the greatest soul is but a deformed piece without it A Diamond without lustre †Vaughan p. 4 5. What are the noble faculties of the Soul without it but as a curious rusty Watch a delicate heap of Disorder and confusion 'T is impossible there can be beauty where thâ—re are a multitude of spots and wrinkles that blemish a Countenance ‖ Eph. 5.27 It can never be in its true brightness but when it is perfect in Purity when it regains what it was possessed of by Creation and dispossessed of by the fall and recovers its primitive temper We are not so beautiful by being the work of God as by having a stamp of God upon us Worldly greatness may make men honourable in the sight of creeping worms Soft lives ambitious reaches luxurious pleasures and a pompous Religion render no man excellent and noble in the sight of God This is not the excellency and nobility of the Deity which we are bound to resemble Other lines of a Divine Image must be drawn in us to render us truly excellent 4. 'T is our life What is the life of God is truly the life of a rational Creature * Amirald in Heb. p. 101 102. The life of the body consists not in the perfection of its Members and the integrity of its Organs these remain when the body becomes a Carcass but in the presence of the Soul and its vigorous animation of every part to perform the distinct offices belonging to each of them The life of the Soul consists not in its being or spiritual substance or the excellency of its Faculties of understanding and will but in the moral and becoming operations of them The spirit is only life because of righteousness * Rom. 8.10 The Faculties are turned by it to acquit themselves in their functions according to the will of God the absence of this doth not only deform the Soul but in a sort annihilate it in regard of its true essence and end Grace gives a Christian being and a want of it is the want of a true being Cor. 1.15.10 When Adam devested himself of his original righteousness he came under the force of the threatning in regard of a spiritual death Every person is morally dead whiles he lives an unholy life †1. Tim. 5 6. What life is to the body that is righteousness to the Spirit and the greater measure of holiness it hath the more of life it hath because it is in a greater nearness and partakes more fully of the fountain of life Is not that the most worthy life which God makes most account of without which his life could not be a pleasant and blessed life but a life worse than death What a miserable life is that of the men of the World that are carried with greedy inclinations to all manner of unrighteousness whither their interests or their lusts invite them The most beautiful body is a Carcass and the most honorable person hath but a brutish life ‖ Psal 49.20 miserable Creatures when their life shall be extinct without a Divine rectitude when all other things will vanish as the shadows of the night at the appearance of the Sun Holiness is our life 5. 'T is this only fits us for Communion with God Since it is our beauty and our life without it what Communion can an excellent God have with deformed Creatures a living God with dead Creatures Without Holiness none shall see God Heb. 12.14 The Creature must be stript of his Unrighteousness or God of his Purity before they can come together Likeness is the ground of Communion and of Delight in it The opposition between God and unholy Souls is as great as that between light and darkness * 1 John 1.6 Divine fruition is not so much by a union of Presence as a union of Nature Heaven is not so much an outward as an inward life the foundation of Glory is laid in Grace a resemblance to God is our vital happiness without which the Vision of God would not be so much as a cloudy and shadowy happiness but rather a torment than a felicity unless we be of a like nature to God we cannot have a pleasing fruition of him Some Philosophers think that if our Bodies were of the same nature with the Heavens of an Ethereal Substance the nearness to the Sun would cherish not scorch us Were we partakers of a Divine nature we might enjoy God with delight whereas remaining in our unlikeness to him we cannot think of him and approach to him without terrour As soon as sin had stript man of the Image of God he was an Exile from the comfortable presence of God unworthy for God to hold any correspondence with He can no more delight in a defiled person than a man can take a Toad into intimate converse with him he would hereby discredit his own Nature and justifie our Impurity The holiness of a Creature only prepares him for an eternal conjunction with God in glory Enoch's walking with God was the cause of his being so soon wafted to the place of a full fruition of him he hath as much delight in such as in Heaven it self one is his Habitation as well as the other The one is his habitation of Glory and the other is the house of his Pleasure If he dwell in Zion it must be
Goodness would not have oblig'd the Creature to any thing but what is not only free from damaging him but wholly conducing to his VVelfare and Perfective of his Nature Infinite Wisdom could not order any thing but what was agreeable to Infinite Goodness As his Laws are the most Rational as being the contrivance of Infinite Wisdom so they are the best as being the Fruit of Infinite Goodness His Laws are not only the acts of his Soveraign Authority but the Effluxes of his Loving-Kindness and the Conductors of Man to an enjoyment of a greater Bounty He minds as well the promotion of his Creatures Felicity as the asserting his own Authority As good Princes make Laws for their Subjects benefit as well as their own honour What was said of a more difficult and burdensom Law long after Mans fall may much more be said of the easie Law of Nature in the state of Mans Innocence that it was for our good * Deut. 10.12 13. He never pleaded with the Israelites for the observation of his Commands upon the account of his Authority so much as upon the score of their benefit by them †Deut. 4.40 * Deut. 12.28 And when his Precepts were broken he seems sometimes to be more griev'd for Mens impairing their own felicity by it than for their violating his Authority †Esaiah 48.18 Oh that thou hadst hearken'd to my Commandments then had thy Peace been as a River Goodness cannot prescribe a thing prejudicial whatsoever it enjoyns is beneficial to the Spiritual and Eternal Happiness of the Rational Creature This was both the design of the Law given and the end of the Law Christ in his Answer to the Young mans Question refers him to the Moral Law which was the Law of Nature in Adam as that whereby Eternal Life was to be gained Which evidenceth that when the Law was first given as the Covenant of VVorks it was for the happiness of Man and the end of giving it was that Man might have Eternal Life by it There would else be no strength or truth in that Answer of Christ to that Ruler And therefore Stephen calls the Law given by Moses which was the same with the Law of Nature in Adam * Acts 7.38 The living Oracles He enjoyned Mens Services to them not simply for his own Glory but his Glory in Mens VVelfare As if there were any Being better than himself his Goodness and Righteousness would guide him to love that better than himself because it is Good and Righteous to love that best which is most amiable So if there were any that could do us more good and shour down more happiness upon us than himself †1 Kings 18.21 he would be content we should obey that as Soveraign and Steer our Course according to his Laws If God be God follow him but if Baal then follow him If the observance of the Precepts of Baal be more beneficial to you If you can advance your Nature by his Service and gain a more mighty Crown of Happiness than by mine follow him with all my heart I never intended to enjoyn you any thing to impair but increase your Happiness The chief design of God in his Law is the Happiness of the Subject and Obedience is intended by him as a means for the attaining of Happiness as well as preserving his own Soveraignty This is the reason why he wished that Israel had walked in his ways that their time might have endured for ever Psal 81.13 15 16. And by the same reason this was his intendment in his Law given to Man and his Covenant made with Man at the Creation that he might be fed with the finest part of his Bounty and be satisfied with Honey out of the Eternal Rock of Ages To Paraphrase his Expression there The Goodness of God appears further 3. In engaging Man to Obedience by Promises and Threatnings A Threatning is only mentioned Gen. 2.17 but a Promise is implied If Eternal Death were fixed for Transgression Eternal Life was thereby design'd for Obedience And that it was so the Answer of Christ to the Ruler evidenceth that the first intendment of the Precept was the Eternal Life of the Subject order'd to obey it 1. God might have acted in settling his Law only as a Soveraign Though he might have dealt with Man upon the score of his absolute Dominion over him as his Creature and signified his pleasure upon the right of his Soveraignty threatning only a Penalty if Man transgressed without the promising a bountiful acknowledgment of his Obedience by a Reward as a Benefactor yet he would treat with Man in gentle Methods and Rule him in a tract of Sweetness as well as Soveraignty He would preserve the rights of his Dominion in the Authority of his Commands and honour the condescensions of his Goodness in the allurements of a Promise He that might have solely demanded a compliance with his Will would kindly Article with him to oblige him to observe him out of love to himself as well as Duty to his Creator that he might have both the interest of avoiding the Threatned Evil to affright him and the interest of attaining the promised Good to allure him to Obedience How doth he value the Title of Benefactor above that of a Lord when he so kindly Sollicites as well as Commands and engageth to Reward that Obedience which he might have absolutely claim'd as his due by enforcing fears of the severest Penalty His Soveraignty seems to stoop below it self for the elevation of his Goodness and he is pleased to have his Kindness more taken notice of than his Authority Nothing imported more condescension than his bringing forth his Law in the Nature of a Covenant whereby he seems to humble himself and vail his Superiority to treat with Man as his equal that the very manner of his Treatment might oblige him in the richest Promises he made to draw him and the startling Threatnings he pronounced to link him to his Obedience And therefore is it observable that when after the Transgression of Adam God comes to deal with him he doth not do it in that thundring Rigor which might have been expected from an enrag'd Soveraign but in a gentle Examination * Gen. 3.11 13. Hast thou eaten of the Tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat To the Woman he said no more than What is this that thou hast done And in the Scripture we find when he cites the Israelites before him for their Sin he Expostulates with them not so much upon the absolute right he had to challenge their Obedience as upon the equity and reasonableness of his Law which they had transgrest That by the same Argument of sweetness wherewith he would attract them to their Duty he might shame them after their Offence †Isaiah 1.2 * Ezek. 18.25 2. By the Threatnings he manifests his Goodness as well as by his Promises He Promises that
Provision he had made for him in the World and the Commission given him to Increase and Multiply and to Rule as a Lord over his other Works whereas he could not so easily have imagined himself capable of being expos'd to such an extraordinary Calamity as an Eternal Death without some signification of it from God 'T is easily concludable that Eternal Life was supposed to be promised to be conferr'd upon him if he stood as well as Eternal Death to be inflicted on him if he Rebell'd * Suarez de Gratia Vol 1. p. 126 127. Now this Eternal Life was not due to his Nature but it was a pure Beam and Gift of Divine Goodness For there was no proportion between Mans Service in his Innocent Estate and a Reward so great both for Nature and duration It was a higher Reward than can be imagined either due to the Nature of Man or upon any Natural Right claimable by his Obedience All that could be expected by him was but a Natural Happiness not a Supernatural As there was no necessity upon the account of Natural Righteousness so there was no necessity upon the account of the Goodness of God to elevate the Nature of Man to a Supernatural Happiness meerly because he Created him For though it be necessary for God when he would Create in regard of his Wisdom to Create for some End yet it was not necessary that End should be a Supernatural End and Happiness since a Natural Blessedness had been sufficient for Man And though God in Creating Angels and Men intellectual and Rational Creatures did make them necessary for himself and his own Glory yet it was not necessarily for him to order either Angels or Men to such a Felicity as consists in a clear Vision and so high a Fruition of himself for all other things are made by him for himself and yet not for the Vision of himself God might have Created Man only for a Natural Happiness according to the Perfection of his Natural Faculties and had dealt Bountifully with him if he had never intended him a Supernatural Blessedness and an Eternal Recompence But what a largeness of Goodness is here to design Man in his Creation for so rich a Blessedness as an Eternal Life with the Fruition of himself He hath not only given to Man all things which are necessary but design'd for Man that which the poor Creature could not imagine He garnisht the Earth for him and garnisht him for an Eternal Felicity had he not by slighting the Goodness of God stript himself of the present and forfeited his future Blessedness 2. The second thing is the manifestation of this Goodness in Redemption The whole Gospel is nothing but one entire Mirror of Divine Goodness The whole of Redemption is wrapt up in that one Expression of the Angels Song Luke 2.14 Good will towards Man The Angels Sang but one Song before which is upon Record but the Matter of it seems to be the Wisdom of God chiefly in Creation Job 38.7 compar 9. v. 5 6 8 9. The Angels are there meant by the Morning Stars The visible Stars of Heaven were not distinctly form'd when the Foundations of the Earth were laid And the Title of the Sons of God verifies it since none but Creatures of understanding are dignifi'd in Scripture with that Title There they Celebrate his Wisdom in Creation here his Goodness in Redemption which is the intire Matter of the Song 1. Goodness was the Spring of Redemption All and every part of it owes only to this Perfection the appearance of it in the World This only excited Wisdom to bring forth from so great an Evil as the Apostacy of Man so great a Good as the Recovery of him When Man fell from his Created Goodness God would evidence that he could not fall from his Infinite Goodness That the greatest Evil could not surmount the ability of his Wisdom to contrive nor the Riches of his Bounty to present us a Remedy for it Divine Goodness would not stand by a Spectator without being Reliever of that Misery Man had plung'd himself into but by astonishing Methods it would recover him to Happiness who had wrested himself out of his hands to fling himself into the most deplorable Calamity And it was the greater since it surmounted those Natural Inclinations and those strong Provocations which he had to shower down the Power of his Wrath. What could be the Source of such a Procedure but this Excellency of the Divine Nature Since no Violence could force him nor was there any Merit to perswade to such a Restoration This under the name of his Love is render'd the sole cause of the Redeeming Death of the Son It was to commend his Love with the highest Gloss and in so singular a manner that had not its parallel in Nature nor in all his other Works and reaches in the brightness of it beyond the manifested extent of any other Attribute * Rom. 5.8 It must be only a miraculous Goodness that induced him to expose the Life of his Son to those difficulties in the World and Death upon the Cross for the freedom of sordid Rebels His great End was to give such a demonstration of the liberality of his Nature as might be attractive to his Creature remove its shakings and tremblings and encourage its approaches to him 'T is in this he would not only manifest his Love but assume the name of Love By this Name the Holy Ghost calls him in relation to this good will manifested in his Son †1 John 4.8 9. God is love In this is manifested the love of God towards us because that God sent his only begotten Son into the World that we might live through him He would take the Name he never exprest himself in before He was Jehovah in regard of the truth of his Promise so he would be known of old He is Goodness in regard of the grandeur of his Affection in the Mission of his Son And therefore he would be known by the Name of Love now in the days of the Gospel 2. It was a Pure Goodness He was under no obligation to pity our Misery and repair our Ruines He might have stood to the terms of the first Covenant and exacted our Eternal Death since we had committed an infinite Transgression He was under no tie to put off the Robes of a Judge for the Bowels of a Father and erect a Mercy-seat above his Tribunal of Justice * Rada Controvers Part. 3. p. 363. The reparation of Man had no necessary connexion with his Creation It follows not that because Goodness had extracted us from nothing by a mighty Power that it must lift us out of wilful Misery by a mighty Grace Certainly that God who had no need of Creating us had far less need of Redeeming us For since he Created one World he could have as easily destroyed it and rear'd another It had not been unbecoming the Divine Goodness
is true there is a guilt of the Body and Bloud of Christ contracted by a slightness in the manner of attending Is it not also contracted by a refusal and neglect What is the language of it If it speaks not the death of Christ in vain it speaks the institution of this Ordinance as a remembrance of his death to be a vanity and no mark of Divine Goodness Let us therefore put such a value upon Divine Goodness in this affair as to be willing to receive the conveyances of his love and fresh engagements of our duty the one is due from us to the kindness of our Friend and the other belongs to our duty as his Subjects 6. By this Redemption God restores us to a more excellent condition than Adam had in Innocence Christ was sent by Divine Goodness not only to restore the Life Adam's sin had stript us of but to give it more abundantly than Adam standing could have conveyed it to us * Joh. 10.10 I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly More abundantly for strength more abundantly for duration a life abounding with greater felicity and glory The substance of those better Promises of the New Covenant than what attended the old There are fuller Streams of Grace by Christ than flowed to Adam or could flow from Adam As Christ never restored any to health and strength while he was in the World but he gave them a greater measure of both than they had before so there is the same kindness no question manifested in our Spiritual condition Adam's life might have preserv'd us but Adam's death could not have rescued either Himself or his Posterity but in our Redemption we have a Redeemer who hath died to expiate our sins and so Crowned with life to save and for ever preserve our persons * Rom. 5.10 Because I live ye shall live also So that by Redeeming Goodness the life of a Believer is as perpetual as the life of the Redeemer Christ †Joh. 14.19 Adam though Innocent was under the danger of perishing a Believer though culpable is above the fears of Mutability Adam had a holiness in his Nature but capable of being lost by Christ Believers have a holiness bestowed not capable of being rifled but which will remain till it be at last fully perfected Though they have a power to change in their Nature yet they are above an actual final change by the indulgence of Divine Grace Adam stood by himself Believers stand in a Root impossible to be shaken or corrupted By this means the promise is sure to all the Sâ—ed * Rom. 4.16 Christ is a stronger person than Adam who can never break Covenant with God and the truth of God will never break Covenant with him We are united to a more excellent head than Adam Instead of a Root meerly Humane we have a Root Divine as well as Humane In him we had the Righteousness of a Creature meerly Humane In this we have a Righteousness Divine the Righteousness of God-man the stock is no longer in our own hands but in the hands of one that cannot imbezzle it or forfeit it Divine Goodness hath deposited it strongly for our security The stamp we receive by the Divine Goodness from the second Adam is more noble than that we should have received from the first had he remained in his created State Adam was formed of the Dust of the Earth and the New Man is formed by the incorruptible Seed of the word And at the Resurrection the Body of Man shall be endued with better qualities than Adam had at Creation They shall be like that glorious Body which is in Heaven in union with the person of the Son of God * Phil. 3.21 Adam at the best had but an Earthly Body but the Lord from Heaven hath a Heavenly Body the Image of which shall be born by the Redeemed Ones as they have born the Image of the Earthly * Cor. 1.15.47 48 49. Adam had the Society of Beasts Redeemed ones expect by Divine Goodness in Redemption a commerce with Angels as they are reconciled to them by his death they shall certainly come to converse with them at the consummation of their happiness As they are made of one Family so they will have a peculiar intimacy Adam had a Paradise and Redeem'd Ones a Heaven provided for them a happier place with a richer furniture 'T is much to give so compleat a Paradise to innocent Adam but more to give Heaven to an ungrateful Adam and his Rebellious Posterity It had been abundant Goodness to have restor'd us to the same condition in that Paradise from whence we were ejected but a super-abundant Goodness to bestow upon us a better habitation in Heaven which we could never have expected How great is that Goodness when by sin we were fallen to be worse than nothing that he should raise us to be more than what we were That restor'd us not to the first step of our Creation but to many degrees of elevation beyond it Not only restores us but prefers us not only striking off our Chains to set us free but cloathing us with a Robe of Righteousness to render us honourable Not only quenching our Hell but preparing a Heaven not regarnishing an earthly but providing a richer Palace His Goodness was so great that after it had rescued us it would not content it self with the old furniture but makes all new for us in another World A new Wine to drink a new Heaven to dwell in a more magnificent Structure for our Habitation Thus hath Goodness prepared for us a straiter Union a stronger Life a purer Righteousness an unshaken Standing and a fuller Glory All more excellent then was within the compass of innocent Adam's Possession 7. This Goodness in Redemption extends it self to the lower Creation It takes in not only Man but the whole Creation except the Fallen Angels and gives a participation of it to insensible Creatures upon the account of this Redemption the Sun and all kind of Creatures were preserv'd which otherwise had sunk into destruction upon the sin of Man and ceas'd from their Being as Man had utterly ceas'd from his Happiness * Colos 1.17 By him all things consist The Fall of Man brought not only a misery upon himself but a Vanity upon the Creature The Earth groaned under a Curse for his sake They were all created for the Glory of God and the support of Man in the performance of his duty who was obliged to use them for the honour of him that created them both Had Man been true to his obligations and used the Creatures for that end to which they were dedicated by the Creator As God would have then rejoiced in his Works so his Works would have rejoiced in the honour of answering so excellent an end But when Man lost his integrity the Creatures lost their Perfection the honour of them
to King Redeemer He hath revok'd the Law of works as a Covenant releas'd the penalty of it from the beleiving sinner by transferring it upon the surety who interpos'd himself by his own will and divine designation He hath establish'd another Covenant upon other promises in a higher root with greater Priviledges and easier terms Had not God had this right of Soveraignty not a man of Adam's posterity could have been blessed he and they must have lain groaning under the misery of the fall which had render'd both himself and all in his Loyns unable to observe the Terms of the first Covenant He hath as some speak dispens'd with his own Moral Law in some cases in commanding Abraham to Sacrifice his Son his only Son a Righteous Son a Son whereof he had the promise that in Isaac should his Seed be call'd yet he was commanded to Sacrifice him by the right of his absolute Soveraignty as the supream Lord of the Lives of his Creatures from the highest Angel to the lowest Worm whereby he bound his Subjects to this Law not himself Our Lives are due to him when he calls for them and they are a just forâ—â—it to him at the very moment we sin at the very moment we come into the World by reason of the venom of our nature against him and the disturbance the first sin of man whereof we are inheritors gave to his Glory Had Abraham sacrificed his Son of his own head he had sinned yea in attempting it but being Authoriz'd from Heaven his act was Obedience to the Soveraign of the World who had a power to dispense with his own Law and with this Law he had before dispens'd in the case of Cains Murder of Abel as to the immediate punishment of it with death which indeed was setled afterwards by his Authority but then omitted because of the paucity of men and for the peopling the World but setled afterwards when there was almost though not altogether the like occasion of omitting it for a time 3. His Soveraignty appears in punishing the Transgression of his Law 1. This is a branch of Gods Dominion as Lawgiver So was the vengeance God would take upon the Amalekites Exod. 17.16 The Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have War The Hebrew is the hand upon the Throne of the Lord as in the margent As a Lawgiver he saves or destroyes James 4.12 He acts according to his own Law in a congruity to the sanction of his own precepts though he be an Arbitrary Lawgiver appointing what Laws he pleases yet he is not an Arbitrary Judge As he commands nothing but what he hath a right to command so he punisheth none but whom he hath a right to punish and with such punishment as the Law hath denounced All his acts of Justice and inflictions of Curses are the effects of this Soveraign Dominion Psal 29.10 He sits King upon the Flouds Upon the deluge of Waters wherewith he drown'd the World say some 'T is a right belonging to the Authority of Magistrates to pull up the infectious weeds that corrupt a Common-Wealth 'T is no less the right of God as the Lawgiver and Judge of all the Earth to subject Criminals to his vengeance after they have rendered themselves abominable in his Eyes and carried themselves unworthy Subjects of so great and glorious a King The first name whereby God is made known in Scripture is Elohim Gen. 1.1 In the beginning God Created the Heaven and Earth A name which signifies his power of judging in the opinion of some Criticks from him it is deriv'd to earthly Magistrates their Judgment is said therefore to be the Judgement of God Deut. 1.17 When Christ came he propos'd this great motive of Repentance from the Kingdom of Heaven being at hand the Kingdom of his Grace whereby to invite men the Kingdom of his Justice in the punishment of the neglecters of it whereby to terrifie men Punishments as well as Rewards belong to Royalty it issued accordingly those that believ'd and repented came under his gracious Scepter those that neglected and rejected it fell under his Iron Rod. Jerusalem was destroy'd the Temple demolish'd the Inhabitants lost their lives by the edge of the Sword or linger'ed them out in the chains of a miserable Captivity This term of Judge which signifies a Soveraign right to govern and punish Delinquents Abraham gives him when 〈◊〉 came to root out the People of Sodom and make them the examples of his veâ—geance Gen. 18.25 2. Punishing the Transgressions of his Law This is necessary branch of Dominion His Soveraignty in making Laws would be a trifle if there were not also an Authority to vindicate those Laws from Contempt and Injury he would be a Lord only spurn'd at by Rebels Soveraignty is not preserved without Justice When the Psalmist speaks of the Majesty of God's Kingdom he tells us that Righteousness and Judgment are the Habitation of his Throne Psal 97.1 2. These are the Engines of Divine dignity which render him glorious and majestick A Legislative power would be trampled on without executive by this the reverential apprehensions of God are preserved in the Wâ—rld He is known to be Lord of the World by the Judgements which he executes Psal 9.16 When he seems to have lost his dominion or given it up in the World he recovers it by punishment When he takes some away with a Whirlwind and in his Wrath the natural consequence men make of it is this Surely there is a God that Judgeth the Earth Psal 58.9.11 He reduceth the Creature by the lash of his judgments that would not acknowledge his Authority in his precepts Those sins which disown his Government in the Heart and Conscience as Pride inward blasphemy c. he hath reserved a time hereafter to reckon for He doth not presently shoot his arrows into the marrow of every delinquent but those sins which traduce his Government of the World and tear up the Foundations of humane converse and a publick respect to him he reckons with particularly here as well as hereafter that the Life of his Soveraignty might not always faint in the World 3. This of punishing was the second discovery of his dominion in the World His first act of Soveraignty was the giving a Law the next his appearance in the State of a judge When his orders were violated he rescues the honour of them by an execution of Justice He first judg'd the Angels punishing the evil ones for their crime the first Court he kept among them as a Governour was to give them a Law the second Court he kept was as a Judge trying the Delinquents and adjudging the Offenders to be reserved in Chains of darkness till the final Execution Jude 6. And at the same time probably he confirmed the good ones in their obedience by Grace So the first discovery of his dominion to man was the giving him a precept the next was the inflicting a punishment for the
the World without any knowledge of God or promises of Christ The Jews might sooner in a way of reason have been wrought upon than the Gentiles who were ignorant of the Prophets by whose writings they might have examined the Truth of the Apostles Declarations thus are they refus'd that were the kindred of Christ according to the Flesh and the Gentiles that were at a greater distance from him brought in by God Thus he catcheth not at the subtle and mighty Devils who had an original in spiritual nature more like to him but at weak and simple man 2. Not for any Moral perfection Because he converts the most Sinful The Gentiles steept in Idolatry and Superstition He sow'd more Faith among the Romans than in Jerusalem more Faith in a City that was the common Sewer of all the Idolatry of the Nations conquered by them than in that City which had so signally been own'd by him and had not practised any Idolatry since the Babylonish Captivity He planted Saintship at Corinth a place notorious for the infamous Worship of Venus a Superstition attended with the grossest uncleanness At Ephesus that presented the whole World with a Cup of Fornication in their Temple of Diana Among the Colossians Votaries to Cybele in a manner of Worship attended with beastly and lascivious Ceremonies And what character had the Cretians from one of their own Poets mentioned by the Apostle to Titus whom he had plac'd among them to further the progress of the Gospel but the vilest and most abominable Tit. 1.12 Lyars not to be credited Evil Beasts not to be associated with Slow Bellies fit for no service What prerogative was there in the nature of such putrefaction As much as in that of a Toad to be elevated to the dignity of an Angel What steam from such Dunghils could be welcome to him and move him to cast his eye on them and sweeten them from Heaven What treasures of worth were here to open the treasures of his Grace Were such filthy snuffs fit of themselves to be kindled by and become a lodging for a Gospel beam What invitements could he have from Lying Beastliness Gluttony but only from his own Soveraignty By this he plucked firebrands out of the fire while he left straiter and more comely sticks to consume to ashes 3. Not for any Civil Perfection Because he turns the most despicable He elevates not nature to Grace upon the account of Wealth Honour or any Civil station in the World he dispenseth not ordinarily those Treasures to those that the mistaken World foolishly admire and dote upon 1 Cor. 1.26 Not many Mighty not many Noble A purple Robe is not usually deckt with this Jewel He takes more of mouldy Clay than refin'd dust to cast into his Image and lodges his Treasures more in the earthly Vessels than in the World 's Golden ones He gives out his richest doles to those that are the scorn and reproach of the World Should he impart his Grace most to those that abound in wealth or honour it had been some foundation for a conception that he had been mov'd by those vulgarly esteem'd excellencies to indulge them more than others And such a conceit languisheth when we behold the Subjects of his Grace as void originally of any allurements as they are full of provocations Hereby he declares himself free from all Created engagements and that he is not led by any external motives in the object 4. 'T is not from any obligation which lies upon him He is indebted to none disoblig'd by all No man deserves from him any Act of Grace but every man deserves what the most deplorable are left to suffer He is obliged by the Children of wrath to nothing else but showers of wrath owes no more a debt to fall'n man than to fall'n Devils to restore them to their first station by a superlative Grace how was he more bound to restore them than he was to preserve them to catch them after they fell than to put a barr in the way of their falling God as a Soveraign gave Laws to men and a strength sufficient to keep those Laws What obligation is there upon God to repair that strength man willfully lost and extract him out of that condition into which he voluntarily plung'd himself What if man sinned by temptation which is a reason alledged by some Might not many of the Devils do so too Though there was a first of them that sinned without a temptation yet many of them might be seduced into Rebellion by the Ringleader Upon that account he is no more bound to give Grace to all men than to Devils If he promis'd life upon Obedience he threatned death upon Transgression By man's disobedience God is quit of his promise and owes nothing but punishment upon the violation of his Law Indeed man may pretend to a claim of sufficient strength from him by Creation as God is the Author of Nature and he had it but since he hath extinguisht it by his sin he cannot in the least pretend any obligation on God for a new strength If it be a peradventure whither he will give Repentance as it is 2 Tim. 2.25 There is no tye in the case a tye would put it beyond a peradventure with a God that never forfeited his obligation * Claudes sur la parabole des Noces p. 29. No Husbandman thinks himself oblig'd to bestow cost and pains manure and tillage upon one field more than another though the nature of the ground may require more yet he is at his liberty whither he will expend more upon one than another He may let it lie Fallow as long as he please God is less oblig'd to till and prune his Creatures than man is oblig'd to his Feild or Trees If a King proclaim a pardon to a company of Rebels upon the condition of each of them paying such a summe of Money their Estates before were capable of satisfying the condition but their Rebellion hath reduc'd them to an indigent condition the proclamation it self is an act of Grace the condition requir'd is not impossible in it self the Prince out of a tenderness to some sends them that summe of Money he hath by his Proclamation oblig'd them to pay and thereby enabled them to answer the condition he requires the first he doth by a Soveraign Authority the second he doth by a Soveraign bounty he was oblig'd to neither of them punishment was a debt due to all of them if he would remit it upon condition he did relax his Soveraign right and if he would by his largess make any of them capable to fulfil the condition by sending them presently a sufficient summe to pay the fine he acted as proprietor of his own goods to dispose of them in such a quantity to those to whom he was not oblig'd to bestow a mite 5. It must therefore be an Act of his meer Soveraignty This can only sit arbitrator in every gracious act
Why did he give Grace to Abel and not to Cain since they both lay in the same womb and equally deriv'd from their Parents a taint in their Nature But that he would show a standing example of his Soveraignty to the future ages of the World in the first posterity of man Why did he give Grace to Abraham and separate him from his Idolatrous Kindred to dignifie him to be the root of the Messiah Why did he confine his promise to Isaac and not extend it to Ishmael the Seed of the same Abraham by Hagar or to the Children he had by Keturah after Sarahs death What reason can be alledged for this but his Soveraign Will Why did he not give the fallen Angels a moment of Repentance after their sin but condemned them to irrevocable pains Is it not as free for him to give Grace to whom he please as Create what Worlds he please to form this corrupted clay into his own Image as to take such a parcel of dust from all the rest of the Creation whereof to compact Adam's body Hath he not as much jurisdiction over the sinful mass of his Creatures in a new Creation as he had over the Chaos in the old And what reason can be rendered of his advancing this part of matter to the nobler dignity of a Star and leaving that other part to make up the dark body of the Earth To compact one part into a glorious Sun and another part into a hard Rock but his Royal Prerogative What is the reason a Prince subjects one Malefactor to punishment and lifts up another to a place of truth and profit That Pharoah honoured the Butler with an attendance on his Person and remitted the Baker to the hands of the Executioner It was his pleasure And is not as great a right due to God as is allow'd to the worms of the Earth What is the reason he hardens a Pharoah by a denying him that Grace which should mollifie him and allows it to another 'T is because he will Rom. 9.18 Whom he will he hardens Hath not man the liberty to pull up the sluce and let the water run into what part of the ground he pleases What is the reason some have not a heart to understand the beauty of his ways Because the Lord doth not give it them Deut. 29.4 Why doth he not give all his converts an equal measure of his sanctifying Grace some have Mites and some have Treasures Why doth he give his Grace to some sooner to some later some are inspir'd in their infancy others not till a full age and after some not till they have fallen into some gross sin as Paul some betimes that they may do him service others later as the Thief upon the Cross and presently snatcheth them out of the World Some are weaker some stronger in nature some more beautiful and lovely others more uncomely and sluggish 'T is so in supernaturals What reason is there for this but his own will This is instead of all that can be assigned on the part of God He is the free disposer of his own Goods and as a Father may give a greater portion to one Child than to another And what reason of complaint is there against God may not a Toad complain that God did not make it a man and give it a portion of reason Or a Fly complain that God did not make it an Angel and give it a Garment of Light had they but any spark of understanding as well as man complain that God did not give him Grace as well as another Unless he sincerely desir'd it and then was denyed it he might complain of God though not as Soveraign yet as a promiser of Grace to them that ask it God doth not render his Soveraignty formidable he shuts not up his Throne of Grace from any that seek him he invites man his Arms are open and the Scepter stretched out and no man continues under the arrest of his Lusts but he that is unwilling to be otherwise and such a one hath no reason to complain of God 3. His Soveraignty is manifest in disposing the means of Grace to some not to all He hath caus'd the Sun to shine bright in one place while he hath left others benighted and deluded by the Devils Oracles Why do the Evangelical dews fall in this or that place and not in another Why was the Gospel publisht in Rome so soon and not in Tartary Why hath it been extinguisht in some places as soon almost as it had been kindled in them Why hath one place been honoured with the beams of it in one age and been covered with darkness the next One Country hath been made a sphear for this Star that directs to Christ to move in and afterwards it hath been taken away and placed in another Sometimes more clearly it hath shone sometimes more darkly in the same place what is the reason of this 'T is true something of it may be referred to the Justice of God but much more to the Soveraignty of God That the Gospel is publisht latter and not sooner the Apostle tell us is according to the Commandement of the Everlasting God Rom. 16.26 1. The means of Grace after the Families from Adam became distinct were never granted to all the World After that fatal breach in Adam's Family by the death of Abel and Cain's separation we read not of the means of Grace continued among Cain's Posterity it seems to be continued in Adam's sole Family and not publisht in Societies till the time of Seth. Gen. 4.26 Then began men to call upon the Name of the Lord. It was continued in that Family till the Deluge which was 1523 years after the Creation according to some or 1656 years according to others After that when the World degenerated it was communicated to Abraham and setled in the posterity that descended from Jacob Though he left not the World without a witness of himself and some sprinklings of revelations in other parts as appears by the book of Job and the discourses of his Friends 2. The Jews had this priviledge granted them above other Nations to have a clearer Revelation of God God separated them from all the World to honour them with the depositum of his Oracles Rom. 3.2 To them were committed the Oracles of God In which regard all other Nations are said to be without God as being destitute of so great a priviledge Eph. 2.12 The Spirit blew in Canaan when the Lands about it felt not the saving breath of it He hath not dealt so with any Nation and as for his Judgments they have not known them Psal 147.20 The rest had no warnings from the Prophets no dictates from Heaven but what they had by the light of Nature the view of the works of Creation and the Administration of Providence and what remain'd among them of some ancient Traditions deriv'd from Noah which in tract of time were much defaced We read but
though Divines take notice of other sins in the fall of Adam yet God in his tryal chargeth him with none but this and doth put upon his question an Emphasis of his own Authority Gen. 3.11 Hast thou eaten of the Tree whereof I commanded ye that thou shoâ—ld'st not eat This I am displeased with that thou shouldest disown my dominion over thy self and this Garden This was the inlet to all the other sins as the acknowledgment of God's soveraignty is the first step to the practice of all the duties of a Creature so the disowning his soveraignty is the first spring of all the extravagancies of a Creature Every sin against the soveraign Law-giver is worthy of Death The Transgression of this positive command desâ—rved death and procured it to spread it self over the face of the World God's dominion cannot be despis'd without meriting the greatest punishment 1. Punishment necessarily follows upon the Doctrine of Soveraignty 'T is a faint and a feeble Soveraignty that cannot preserve it self and vindicate its own wrongs against râ—bellious subjects The height of God's dominion infers a vengeance on the contemners of it If God be an Eternal King he is an Eternal Judge Since sin unlinks the dependance between God the Soveraign and man the subject if God did not vindicate the rights of his Soveraignty and the Authority of his Law he would seem to despise his own dominion be weary of it and not act the part of a good Governour But God is tender of his prerogative and doth most bestir himself when men exalt themselves proudly against him Exod. 18.11 In the thing wherein they dealt proudly he will be above them When Pharaoh thought himself a mate for God and proudly rejected his commands as if they had been the messages of some petty Arabian Lord God rights his own Authority upon the life of his enemy by the ministry of the Red Sea He turned a great King into a beast to make him know that the most high ruled in the Kingdoms of men Dan. 4.16 17. The demand is by the word of the Holy ones to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the Kingdoms of men And that by the Petitions of the Angels who cannot endure that the Empire of God should be obscur'd and diminisht by the pride of man Besides the tender respect he hath to his own glory he is constantly presented with the sollicitations of the Angels to punish the proud ones of the earth that darken the glory of his Majesty 'T is necessary for the rescue of his honour and necessary for the satisfaction of his illustrious attendants who would think it a shame to them to serve a Lord that were always unconcern'd in the rebellions of his creatures and tamely suffer their spurns at his Throne and therefore there is a day wherein the haughtiness of man shall be bowed down the Cedars of Lebanon over-thrown and high Mountains levell'd that God may be exalted in that day Isa 2.11 12. c. Pride is a sin that immediately swells against God's Authority this shall be brought down that God may be exalted not that he should have a real exaltation as if he were actually depos'd from his Government but that he shall be manifested to be the Soveraign of the whole World 'T is necessary there should be a day to chase away those clouds that are upon his Throne that the lustre of his Majesty may break forth to the confusion of all the children of pride that vaunt against him God hath a dominion over us as a Law-giver as we are his creatures and a dominion over us in away of Justice as we are his criminals 2. This punishment is unavoidable 1. None can escape him He hath the sole Authority over Hell and Death the Keyes of both are in his hand The greatest Caesar can no more escape him than the meanest Peasant Who art thou O great Mountain before Zerubbabel Zac. 4.7 The height of Angels is no match for him much less that of the mortal grandees of the World they can no more resist him than the meanest person But are rather as the highest Steeples the fittest marks for his crushing thunder If he speaks the word the principalities of men come down and the Crown of their glory Jer. 13.18 He can take the Mighty away in a moment and that without hands i. e. without instruments Job 34.20 The strongest are like the feet of Nebuchadnezzar's Image Iron and Clay Iron to man but Clay to God to be crumbled to nothing 2. What comfort can be reapt from a creature when the Soveraign of the World arms himself with terrors and begins his visitation Isa 10.3 What will you do in the day of visitation to whom will you flie for help and where will you leave your glory The torments from a Subject may be releived by the Prince but where can there be an appeal from the Soveraign of the World Where is there any above him to controul him if he will overthrow us who is there to call him to account and say to him what dost thou He works by an uncontroulable Authority he needs not ask leave of any Isa 43.13 He works and none can let it As when he will relieve none can afflict so when he will wound none can relieve If a King appoint the punishment of a rebel the greatest Favorite in the Court cannot speak a comfortable word to him The most beloved Angel in Heaven cannot sweeten and ease the spirit of a man that the Soveraign power is set against to make the butt of his wrath The Devils lye under his sentence and wear their chains as marks of their condemnation without hope of ever having them filed off since they are laid upon them by the Authority of an unaccountable Soveraign 3. By his Soveraign Authority God can make any creature the instrument of his vengeance He hath all the creatures at his beck and can Commission any of them to be a dreadful scourge Strong winds and tempests fulfil his word Psal 148.8 The Lightnings answer him at his call and cry aloud here are we Job 38.35 By his Soveraign Authority he can render Locusts as mischievous as Lions forge the meanest creatures into Swords and Arrows and commission the most despicable to be his Executioners He can cut off joy from our spirits and make our own hearts be our tormentors our most confident friends our persecutors our nearest relations to be his avengers They are more his who is their Soveraign than ours who place a vain confidence in them Rather than Abraham shall want children he can raise up stones and adopt them into his Family And rather than not execute his vengeance he can array the stones in the streets and make them his armed subjects against us If he speak the word a hair shall drop from our heads to choak us or a vapour congeal'd into Rheum in our heads shall dropdown and putrifie our
Vitals He can never want weapons who is Soveraign over the thunders of Heaven and stones of the Earth over every creature and can by a Soveraign word turn our greatest comforts into curses 3. This Punishment must be terrible How doth David a great King sound in his body prosperous in his Crown and successful in his conquests setled in all his Royal conveniencies groan under the wrathful touch of a greater King than himself Psal 6. Psal 38. and his other Paenitential Psalms Not being able to give himself a writ of ease by all the delights of his Palace and Kingdom If the wrath of a King be as the roaring of a Lyon to a poor subject Prov. 19.10 how great is the wrath of the King of Kings that cannot be set forth by the terror of all the amazing vollies of thunder that have been since the Creation if the noise of all were gather'd into one single crack As there is an unconceivable ground of joy in the special favour of so mighty a King so is there of terror in his severe displeasure Psal 76.12 He is terrible to the Kings of the earth with God is terrible Majesty What a folly is it then to rebel against so mighty a Soveraign III. USE of Comfort The Throne of God drops hony and sweetness as well as dread and terror All his other attributes afford little relief without this of his dominion and Universal command When therefore he speaks of his being the God of his people he doth often preface it with the Lord thy God His Soveraignty as a Lord being the ground of all the comfort we can take in his federal relation as our God Thy God but Superior to thee thy God not as thy Cattle and Goods are thine in a way of sole propriety but a Lord too in a way of Soveraignty not only over thee but over all things else for thee As the end of God's setling Earthly Governments was for the good of the communities over which the Governours preside So God exerciseth his Government for the good of the World and more particularly for the good of the Church over which he is a peculiar Governour 1. His love to his people is as great as his Soveraignty over them He stands not upon his Dominion with his people so much as upon his affection to them He would not be call'd Baali my Lord i. e. he would not be known only by the name of Soveraignty but Ishi my Husband a name of Authority and sweetness together Hos 2.16.19 c. He signifies that he is not only the Lord of our spirits and bodies but a Husband by a Marriage knot admitting us to a nearness to him and Communion of goods with him Though he Majestically sits upon a high Throne yet it is a Throne encircled with a Rainbow Ezek. 1.28 To shew that his Government of his people is not only in away of absolute Dominion but also in a way of federal relation He seems to own himself their Subject rather than their Soveraign when he gives them a Charter to command him in the affairs of his Church Isa 45.11 Ask of me things to come concerning my sons and concerning the work of my hands command you me Some read it by way of question as a corrective of a sawcyness Do you ask of me things to come and seem to command me concerning the works of my hands as if you were more careful of my interest among my people than I am who have form'd them But if this were the sense it would seem to discourage an importunity of Prayer for publick deliverance And therefore to take it according to our Translation 't is an exhortation to Prayer and a mighty encouragement in the management and exercise of it Urge me with my promise in a way of humble importunity and you shall find me as willing to perform my word and gratifie your desires as if I were rather under your Authority than you under mine As much as to say if I be not as good as my word to satisfie those desires that are according to my promise implead me at my own Throne and if I be failing in it I will give Judgment against my self Almost like Princes Charters and gracious grants we grant such a thing against us and our heirs giving the subject power to implead them if they be not punctually observ'd by them How is the love of God seen in his condescension below the Majesty of Earthly Governours He that might command by the absoluteness of his Authority doth not only do that but intreats in the quality of a subject as if he had not a fulness to supply us but needed something from us for a supply of himself 2 Cor. 5.20 As though God did beseech you by us And when he may challenge as a due by the right of his propriety what we bestow upon his poor which are his Subjects as well as ours he reckons it as a loan to him as if what we had were more our own than his Prov. 19.17 He stands not upon his Dominion so much with us when he finds us Conscientious in paying the duty we owe to him He rules as a Father by Love as well as by Authority He enters into a peculiar Communion with poor Earthly Worms plants his gracious Tabernacle among the troops of sinners instructs us by his word invites us by his benefits admits us into his presence is more desirous to bestow his smiles than we to receive them And acts in such a manner as if he were willing to resign his Scepter into the hands of any that were possessed with more love and kindness to us than himself This is the comfort of Believers 2. In his being Soveraign his pardons carry in them a full security He that hath the Keyes of Hell and Death pardons the crime and wipes off the guilt Who can repeal the act of the chief Governour What tribunal can null the decrees of an absolute Throne Is 43.25 I even I am he that blots out thy transgressions for my names sake His soveraign dominion renders his mercy comfortable The clemency of a Subject though never so great cannot pardon people may pity a criminal while the Executioner tortures him and strips him of his Life but the clemency of the supream Prince establisheth a pardon Since we are under the dominion of God if he pardons who can reverse it If he doth not what will the pardons of men profit us in regard of an eternal state If God be a King for ever then he whom God forgives he in whom God reigns shall live for ever Else he would want Subjects on Earth and have none of his lower Creatures which he form'd upon the Earth to reign over after the dissolution of the World if his pardons did not stand secure he would after this Life have no voluntary subjects that had formerly a being upon the Earth he would be a King only over the damn'd Creatures 3
a day or two but continually In whatsoever day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye but not understanding his dying that very day he should eat of it Referring day to the extensiveness of the prohibition as to time But to leave this as uncertain it may be answered that as in some threatnings a condition is implyed though not exprest as in that positive denouncing of the destruction of Niniveh Jonah 3.4 Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroy'd the condition is imply'd unless they humble themselves and repent for upon their Repentance the sentence was deferred So here in the day thou eatest thereof thou shall dye the death or certainly dye unless there be a way found for the expiation of thy crime and the righting my honour This condition in regard of the event may as well be asserted to be implyed in this threatning as that of Repentance was in the other Or rather thou shalt dye thou shalt die spiritually thou shalt loose that image of mine in thy nature that Righteousness which is as much the Life of thy Soul as thy Soul is the life of thy Body that Righteousness whereby thou art enabled to live to me and thy own happiness What the Soul is to the Body a quickning Soul that the image of God is to the Soul a quickning image Or thou shalt dye the death or certainly dye thou shalt be liable to death * Perer in loc And so it is to be understood not of an actual death of the Body but the merit of death and the necessity of death thou wilt be obnoxious to death which will be avoided if thou dost forbear to eat of the forbidden fruit thou shalt be a guilty person and so under a sentence of death that I may when I please inflict it on thee Death did come upon Adam that day because his nature was vitiated He was then also under an expectation of death he was obnoxious to it though that day it was not poured out upon him in the full bitterness and gall of it As when the Apostle saith Rom. 8.10 The Body is dead because of sin he speaks to the Living and yet tells them the body was dead because of sin he means no more than that it was under a sentence and so a necessity of dying though not actually dead So thou shalt be under the sentence of death that day as certainly as if that day thou shouldst sink into the dust And as by his Patience towards man not sending forth death upon him in all the bitter ingredients of it his Justice afterwards was more eminent upon mans surety than it would have been if it had been then employ'd in all its severe operations upon man So was his Veracity eminent also in making good this threatning in inflicting the punishment included in it upon our nature assum'd by a mighty person and upon that person in our nature who was infinitely higher than our nature 2. His justice and righteousness are not prejudiced by his patience There is a hatred of the sin in his holiness and a sentence past against the sin in his justice though the execution of that sentence be suspended and the person reprieved by patience which is implyed Eccles 8.11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil Sentence is past but a speedy execution is stopt Some of the Heathens who would not imagine God unjust and yet seeing the villanies and oppressions of men in the World remain unpunisht and frequently beholding prosperous wickedness to free him from the charge of injustice denyed his providence and actual Government of the World for if he did take notice of humane affairs and concern himself in what was done upon the Earth they could not think an infinite goodness and Justice could be so slow to punish oppressors and relieve the miserable and leave the World in that disorder under the injustice of men They judged such a patience as was exercised by him if he did govern the World was drawn out beyond the line of fit and just Is it not a presumption in men to prescribe a rule of Righteousness and conveniency to their Creator It might be demanded of such whether they never injur'd any in their lives and when certainly they have one way or other would they not think it a very unworthy if not unjust thing that a person so injur'd by them should take a speedy and severe revenge on them And if every man should do the like would there not be a speedy dispatch made of Mankind Would not the World be a shambles and men rush forwards to one anothers destruction for the wrongs they have mutually received If it be accounted a virtue in man and no unrighteousness not presently to be all on fire against an offence by what right should any question the consistency of Gods patience with his justice Do we praise the lenity of Parents to children and shall we disparage the long suffering of God to men We do not censure the righteousness of Physitians and Chirurgeons because they cut not off a corrupt member this day as well as to morrow And is it just to asperse God because he doth deferr his vengeance which man assumes to himself a right to do We never account him a bad Governour that deferrs the tryal and consequently the condemnation and execution of a notorious offender for important reasons and beneficial to the publick either to make the nature of his crime more evident or to find out the rest of his complices by his discovery A Governour indeed were unjust if he commanded that which were unrighteous and forbad that which were worthy and commendable But if he delayes the execution of a convict offender for weighty reasons either for the benefit of the state whereof he is the Ruler or for some advantage to the offender himself to make him have a sence of and a regret for his offence we account him not unjust for this God doth not by his patience dispense with the holiness of his Law nor cut off any thing from its due Authority If men do strengthen themselves by his long suffering against his Law 't is their fault not any unrighteousness in him He will take a time to vindicate the Righteousness of his own commands if men will wholly neglect the time of his patience in forbearing to pay a dutiful observance to his Precept If Justice be natural to him and he cannot but punish sin yet he is not necessitated to consume sinners as the fire doth stubble put into it which hath no command over its own qualities to restrain them from acting But God is a free agent and may choose his own time for the distribution of that punishment his nature leads him to Though he be naturally just yet it is not so natural to him as to deprive him of a dominion over his own acts and a
He sends but a few drops out of the Cloud which he might make to break in the gross and fall down upon our heads to overwhelm us he abates much of what he might do When he might sweep away a whole Nation by deluges of water corruption of the Air or convulsions of the Earth or by other wayes that are not wanting at his order He picks out only some Persons some Families some Cities sends a plague into one house and not into another here is Patience to the stock of a Nation while he inflicts punishment upon some of the most notorious sinners in it Herod is suddenly snatcht away being willingly flattered into the thoughts of his being a God God singl'd out the chief in the herd for whose sake he had been affronted by the rabble Act. 12.22 23. Some find him sparing them while others feel him destroying them He arrests some when he might seize all all being his Debtors And often in great desolations brought upon a people for their sin he hath left a stump in the Earth as Daniel speakes Dan. 4.15 for a Nation to grow upon it again and arise to a stronger constitution He doth punish less than our iniquities deserve Ezra 9.13 and rewards us not according to our iniquities Psal 103.10 The greatness of any punishment in this Life answers not the greatness of the crime Though there be an equity in whatsoever he doth yet there is not an equality to what we deserve Our iniquities would justifie a severer treating of us His Justice goes not here to the end of its line 't is stopped in its progress and the blows of it weakned by his Patience He did not curse the Earth after Adam's fall that it should bring forth no fruit but that it should not bring forth fruit without the wearysome toyl of man and subjected him to distempers presently but inflicted not death immediately while he punished him he supported him And while he expelled him from Paradise he did not order him not to cast his eye towards it and conceive some hopes of regaining that happy place 5. His Patience is seen in giving great mercies after provocations He is so slow to anger that he heaps many kindnesses upon a rebel instead of punishment There is a prosperous wickedness wherein the provokers strength continues firm The troubles which like Clouds drop upon others are blown away from them and they are not plagued like other men that have a more worthy demeanour towards God Psal 73.3 4 5. He doth not only continue their lives but sends out fresh beams of his goodness upon them and calls them by his Blessings that they may acknowledge their own fault and his bounty which he is not obliged to by any gratitude he meets with from them but by the richness of his own patient nature for he finds the unthank fulness of men as great as his benefits to them He doth not only continue his outward mercies while we continue our sins but sometimes gives fresh benefits after new provocations that if possible he might excite an ingenuity in men When Israel at the Red Sea flung dirt in the face of God by quarrelling with his servant Moses for bringing them out of Egypt and mis-judging God in his design of deliverance and were ready to submit themselves to their former oppressors Exod. 14.11 12. which might justly have urged God to say to them take your own course yet he is not only patient under their unjust charge but makes bare his Arm in a deliverance at the Red Sea that was to be an amazing monument to the World in all Ages and afterwards when they repiningly quarrelled with him in their wants in the Wilderness he did not only not revenge himself upon them or cast off the conduct of them but bore with them by a miraculous long suffering and supplyed them with miraculous provision Manna from Heaven and Water from a Rock Food is given to support us and Cloaths to cover us and Divine Patience makes the creatures which we turn to another use than what they were at first intended for serve us contrary to their own Genius For had they reason no question but they would complain to be subjected to the service of man who hath been so ungrateful to their Creator and groan at the abuse of God's Patience in the abuse they themselves suffer from the hands of man 6. All this is more manifest if we consider the provocations he hath Wherein his slowness to Anger infinitely transcends the Patience of any creature nay the Spirits of all the Angels and Glorified Saints in Heaven would be too narrow to bear the sins of the World for one day nay not so much as the sins of Churches which is a little spot in the whole World 't is because he is the Lord one of an infinite power over himself that not only the whole Mass of the Rebellious World but of the Sons of Jacob either considered as a Church and Nation springing from the loyns of Jacob or considered as the Regenerate part of the World sometimes called the Seed of Jacob are not consumed Mal. 3.6 A Jonah was angry with God for recalling his Anger from a sinful people Had God committed the Government of the World to the Glorified Saints who are perfect in Love and Holiness the World would have had an end long ago They would have acted that which they sue for at the hands of God and is not granted them Rev. 6.10 How long Lord holy and true dost thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the Earth God hath designs of Patience above the World above the unsinning Angels and perfectly renewed Spirits in Glory The greatest Created long suffering is infinitely disproportion'd to the Divine Fire from Heaven would have been showred down before the greatest part of a day were spent if a Created Patience had the conduct of the World though that creature were possessed with the spirit of Patience extracted from all the creatures which are in Heaven or are or ever were upon the earth Methinks Moses intimates this for as soon as God had passed by proclaiming his Name gracious and long suffering As soon as ever Moses had paid his Adoration he falls a Praying that God would go with the Israelites Exod. 34.8 9. For it is a stiffneck'd people What an Argument is here for God to go along with them He might rather since he had heard him but just before say he would by no means clear the guilty desire God to stand further off from them for fear the fire of his wrath should burst out from him to burn them as he did the Sodomites But he considers that as none but God had such anger to destroy them so none but God had such a Patience to bear with them 'T is as much as if he should have said Lord if thou should'st send the most tender hearted Angel in Heaven to have the guidance of this people
Pag. 76 A Contempt of Gods Wisdom Pag. 404 405 And of his Goodness Pag. 663 664 And of his Dominion Pag. 760 Impenitence an Abuse of Gods Goodness Pag. 664 665 It will clear the Equity o◠God's Justice Pag. 813 814 An Abuse of Patience Pag. 815 Imperfections in Holy Duties we should be sensible of Pag. 148 Should make us prize Christ's Mediation Pag. 168 Impossible some things are in their own nature Pag. 432 433 Some things so to the Nature and Being of God and his Perfections Pag. 433 434 Some things so because of Gods Ordination Pag. 435 Do not infringe the Almightiness of God's Power Pag. 432 ad 435 Incarnation of Christ the Power of God seen in it Pag. 456 ad 460 Incomprehensible God is so Pag. 263 Inconstancy natural to Man Pag. 231 234 In the knowledge of the Truth Pag. 231 232 In Will and Affections Pag. 232 In Practice Pag. 233 234 'T is the Root of much Evil ibid. Infirmities the Knowledge of God a comfort to his People under them Pag. 332 333 †The Goodness of God in bearing with them Pag. 656 657 His Patience a Comfort under them Pag. 821 Injuries Men highly concern'd for those that are done to themselves little for those that are done to God Pag. 83 Gods Patience under them should make us resent them Pag. 822 Injustice a Contempt of Gods Dominion Pag. 758 Innocent Person whether God may inflict eternal Torments upon him Pag. 712 716 717 Instruments Men are apt to pay a Service to them rather than God Pag. 86 Which is a Contempt of Divine Power Pag. 482 And of his Goodness Pag. 669 670 Deliverances not to be chiefly ascribed to them Pag. 272 273 God makes use of Sinful ones Pag. 358 359 None in Creation Pag. 443 444 The Power of God seen in effecting his Purposes by weak Ones Pag. 455 456 Inventions of Men. Vide Addition and Worship Job when he lived Pag. 439 Jonah how he came to be believed by the Ninivites Pag. 361 Joy a necessary Ingredient in Spiritual Worship Pag. 150 Should accompany all our Duties Pag. 784 Judging the Hearts of others a great Sin Pag. 324 Their Eternal state a greater Pag. 325 Judgment Day a necessity of it Pag. 318 319 398 Judgments Extraordinary prove the Being of God Pag. 37 38 Men are apt to put bold Interpretations on them Pag. 78 79 God is Just in them Pag. 100 Especially after the abuse of his Goodness and Patience Pag. 671 813 814 On God's Enemies matter of Praise Pag. 494. 495 Declare God's Holiness Pag. 511 512 513 Which should be observed in them Pag. 557 Not sent without warning Pag. 602 800 801 802 Mercy mix'd with them Pag. 602 603 604 God sends them on whom he pleases Pag. 746 747 Delay'd a long time where there is no Repentance Pag. 802 803 God unwilling to pour them out when he cannot delay them any longer Pag. 803 Pour'd out with regret Pag. 803 804 By degrees Pag. 804 Moderated Pag. 805 Vide Punishments Justice of God a motive to Worship Pag. 130 Its plea against Man Pag. 375 376 Reconciled with Mercy in Christ Pag. 377 Vindictive natural to God Pag. 547 548 549 Requires Satisfaction Pag. 550 Justification cannot be by the best and strongest works of Nature Pag. 102 320 544 545 550 The Holiness of God appears in that of the Gospel Pag. 515 The expectations of it by the outward observance of the Law cannot satisfie an Inquisitive Conscience Pag. 579 Men naturally look for it by Works Pag. 580 K. KIngdoms are disposed of by God Pag. 742 743 Knowledge in God hath no succession Pag. 185 186 192 307 308 Immutable Pag. 211 212 213 311 312 Arguments to prove it 263 Pag. 312 ad 316 The manner of it Incomprehensible Pag. 214 215 288 295 God is Infinite in it Pag. 274 Own'd by all Pag. 274 275 He hath a Knowledge of Vision and Intelligence speculative and practical Pag. 276 277 Of Apprehension and Approbation Pag. 277 278 Hath a knowledge of himself Pag. 278 279 280 Of all things possible Pag. 280 281 282 Of all things past and present Pag. 282 283 Of all Creatures their Actions and Thoughts Pag. 283 ad 287 Of all Sins and how Pag. 287 288 289 Of all future things he alone and how Pag. 289 ad 296 Of all future Contingences Pag. 296 ad 301 Doth not necessitate the Will of Man Pag. 301 ad 304 'T is by his Essence Pag. 305 306 Intuitive Pag. 306 307 308 Independent Pag. 308 309 Distinct Pag. 309 310 Infallible Pag. 310 311 Arguments to prove it Pag. 263 312 ad 315 No blemish to his Holiness ib. Infinite attributed to Christ Pag. 315 316 317 Infers his Providence Pag. 317 318 And a Day of Judgment Pag. 318 319 And the Resurrection Pag. 319 320 Destroys all hopes of Justification by any thing in our selves Pag. 320 Calls for our adoring Thoughts of him Pag. 320 321 And Humility Pag. 321 322 How injured in the World and wherein Pag. 322 ad 228 Comfortable to the Righteous and wherein Pag. 328 ad 334 †Terrible to Sinners Pag. 334 ad 337 †We should have a sense of it on our hearts and the advantages of it Pag. 337 338 339 †Knowledge of God's Will Men negligent in using the Means to attain it Pag. 55 Enemies to it and have no delight in it Pag. 56 Seek it for by-ends Pag. 57 58 Admit it with wavering Affections Pag. 58 Seek it to improve some Lust by it Pag. 58 59 A sense of Man's hath a greater Influence on us than that of God Pag. 86 87 325 326 Sins against it should be avoided Pag. 107 Distinct from Wisdom Pag. 338 339 Of all Creatures is deriv'd from God Pag. 313 Ours how imperfect Pag. 321 L. LAw of God how opposite Man naturally is to it Vide Man There is one in the Minds of Men which is the Rule of Good and Evil Pag. 33 34 A change of them doth not infer a change in God Pag. 228. 229 Vindicated both as to the Precept and Penalty in the death of Christ Pag. 383 Suted to our Natures Happiness and Conscience Pag. 352 353 354 610 611 We should submit to them Pag. 414 415 The Transgression of them punish'd by God Pag. 511 512 726 727 God's enjoyning one which he knew Man would not observe no blemish to his Holiness Pag. 519 520 To charge them with Rigidness how great a Sin Pag. 545 We should imitate the Holiness of them Pag. 559 The Goodness of God in that of Innocence Pag. 610 ad 615 Cannot but be good Pag. 681 682 He gives Laws to all Pag. 722 723 Positive ones Pag. 723 724 His only reach the Conscience Pag. 724 725 Dispensed with by him but cannot by Man Pag. 725 726 754 755 To make any contrary to God's how great a Sin Pag. 755 Or make Additions to them Pag. 756 757 Or obey those of Men before them Pag.