Infancy Can it be thought that Man by his Merit could deserve Celestial Glory and Confirmation freeing him from the hazard of falling in Sin or losing that blessed State by Mortality or Annihilation and yet there is no ground to doubt that as the Angels were confirmed after their Trial so would Men have been which with the Immortality God had promised he lost and became mortal and miserable by eating the forbidden Fruit. Whence there is enough to satisfy the Consciences of Men of God's Dispensation in suffering Adam to fall whereby neither he nor any of his Posterity could ever by themselves recover that blessed Estate which he had lost to himself and them by his Fall albeit they could not conceive how God could eternally torment all his Posterity for his Sin tho they had none of their own But blessed be God that Christ was separate from Sin unto the end and became the second Adam expiating Sin and procuring for the Elect that Blessedness which through Adam's Fall they had lost How unreasonable then and odious must the Meritmongers of Rome be who not only hold that sinful Men acquire Heaven by their Merits but that they have so great store of Works of Supererrogation to which they were forced to flee when the horrid Grossness of the Pope's setting to Sale Indulgences for Money through most of the Dominions of his Obedience had awakened a great part of the World to see that it was impossible he could be Christ's Vicar on Earth but rather the Antichrist There was no Evasion with any pretence but that there was a Treasure of the Supererrogatory Merits of the Saints whereof the Pope was the sole Dispenser and yet tho that Treasure was not pretended to be infinite and inexhaustable the Popes neither knew what was the measure of it nor how much was exhausted and how much remained or if any thing at all for there was no Record kept of what Indulgences were given out or how much they needed that got them nor could there be seeing the Indulgences were not given by the Popes immediately and upon trial but were gifted and farmed to his Emissaries who were the vilest of Men who rendered that Religion absolutely ridiculous I pity the deceived Multitude of that Synagogue but I abhor their chief Leaders and without the breach of Charity I think I may safely say that many of them must be convinced of gross Errors in that Church but cannot acknowledg them because of the Canons already made unless therewith they quit Infallibilty which is the Pillar and Ground of their Faith God's Punitive Justice has not escaped dangerous Errors not only from those who make all God's Laws to be only obliging by his Will so that he may not only dispense with them without any Punishment but may abrogate them of which I have cleared my self before in meditating upon his Holiness but from those that think his Justice requires no exact Proportion between the Crime and the Punishment but that it is meerly Arbitrary that God might have accepted the Sacrifice of a Lamb for the greatest Sin or the Penance that Men inflict upon themselves and that the Mosaical Sacrifices did expiate Sin of themselves not as Types of the only one satisfying Sacrifice of Christ. I am convinced that the very Nature of the Justice of God imports an exact Proportion of Rewards and Punishments to the Objects of them and that therein God's Justice differs from the Justice of Man who neither can know the exact Proportion nor can adjust a Punishment to expiate any Sin Mens Justice in Punishments are not to satisfy Justice or to expiate Crimes past but to prevent and suppress them for time to come and therefore they become unjust and cruel by applying Arbitrary Punishments more than are needful to suppress the Crimes but God perfectly knows the just Proportion of Rewards and Punishments and he hath not that Indifferency in applying them as he hath in his Acts of Bounty Sin is so opposite and so odious to God that his Aversion to it is infinite and therefore it cannot be expiated but by a Punishment infinite in Value and therefore in the Damned Punishment is only eternal because in no Time the finite Natures of Creatures can bear an infinite Punishment The Sins of the Elect are expiated by the Sufferings of Christ which were short in Time but infinite in Value because of the Dignity of the Person that suffered yet God having denounced the Wages of Sin to be Death both by the Separation of the Soul and Body and by the Separation of both from the Joy arising from God's Countenance Justice required that the Mediator should suffer both tho but for a short time in his Agony in the Garden and on the Cross when innocent Nature made him cry out in the one that if it were possible that Cup might be removed yet with voluntary Submission and in the other when he said My God! My God! why hast thou forsaken me They must be strangely deluded that attribute that Cry to the Pains or Sense of Death for therein he should have been exceeded by innumerable Martyrs none of which cried that they were forsaken of God and many have triumphed over their Tormentors and have sung in the midst of the Flames I think they are both bold and ignorant who presume to assert that any Suffering of Christ without Death had been sufficient to expiate the Sins of the Elect None but God can know the just Punishment of Sin Common Reason may assure that God would not afflict his innocent Son in vain but Revelation putteth it beyond doubt by the Apostle's arguing against the Possibility of Salvation by Works of the Law saying If Righteousness come by the Law then Christ is dead in vain It is necessarily understood as in all such Arguments but that is impossible that Christ should have died in vain nor would it conclude if by dying in vain were understood dying to no purpose For tho it had been indifferent to God to have brought Salvation by the Law or by the Death of Christ yet neither of the ways had been in vain that is to no purpose which soever of the two God had chosen But then it would not have concluded that Righteousness could not have come by the Law therefore in vain must be understood as ordinarily it is that which is needless or unnecessary and then the Argument is clear and convincing thus If Righteousness had been by the Law then Christ's dying had been needless because the Law alone could have brought Righteousness but it is impossible that Christ should have died when there was no necessity for it therefore the Law nor no other way could do it There is another dangerous Mistake about God's Punitive Justice as if the Consideration of his Punishment were to compense the Displeasure he had from Sin by his Pleasure in the suffering of his Creature as Men commonly do but the true Consideration is
sweet to the Ear and others harsh than this free Gift of God For tho some Difference might arise from the grating of the Ear or the easy insinuating in it I see not how that could go the length of the Pleasure of Harmony or Displeasure of Discord nor can there another sufficient Reason be given of the Pleasure arising from certain Figures and Colours and of the Displeasure from others nor of that great variety of Smells and Tastes or of the Pleasure that arises from the Touch beside that Smoothness or Ruggedness of any pungent Impression It is a farther degree of God's Bounty that he gave Man so many Senses by which he might perceive the Impression of all bodily Objects and receive Pleasure and Profit by them and shun Displeasure and Hurt Food being necessary for the Subsistence of Man God hath placed three Senses as Sentinels at different distances warning what Food is convenient or inconvenient for him The Eye sees ordinarily at the farthest distance by which at the view his Appetite is moved the very Brutes at view discern their Food and Physick more exactly than Man because he hath the use of Reason and Experience but many things which cannot be discerned by the Sight being brought near the Nose will be discerned by the Smell and what cannot be so distinguished will be discerned by the Taste The Bounty of God hath yet further gratified Man by variety of Creatures affecting all his Senses not only for his Necessity but for an innumerable variety of Pleasures There is a several kind of Perfection by the Goodness of God given to Man in the wonderful Structure of his Body wherein there is such variety and multitude of Instruments serving for the use of the Soul that there is nothing in it or of it but what is befitted to be an Instrument of the Soul that all the Industry of Physicians till of late made a very small Progress by Inference from the sensible Effects of the Body of Man or by Anatomical Inspection and every day there are new Discoveries made wherein the late Invention of Microscopes helpeth much discovering these minute Vessels which are impossible otherwise to be seen so that the Psalmist cries out with Admiration I am fearfully and wonderfully made No Man hath yet given any probable account of the Formation of the Body of Man or other Animals nor how the Bones do grow in the Womb of her that is with Child Whence there is a great Check to Man's Presumption who is so slow in acknowledging a Being superior to himself and so apt to admire his own Knowledg as if there were nothing he could not reach when yet he knows so very little of his own Body The Comeliness and Beauty of Man's Body is a farther degree of the Bounty of God which tho it be much marred hath in some so much remaining whence it may be considered how great the Beauty of Man was before the Fall and shall be yet much more after the Resurrection of the Elect for they shall be like unto Christ's glorious Body It were but a vain Curiosity to inquire what Alteration in Man's Body would be congruous unto that State The Bounty of God is signally seen in the admirable Union of the Soul and Body which are two diverse Substances which can and do subsist apart and are of the most different Natures and yet are so firmly united that the Soul will never desert the Body were it never so unfirm and crazy while it can exercise its Faculties by it and doth so love it that it feels all things that make Impression upon it it hath Pleasure in all that befits the Body to be its Instrument and Grief or Pain on the perception of all that is hurtful to the Body Yea it apprehends not only that the Grief and Pain but that the Hurt that causeth it is subjected in the Soul it self the Excess and Abuse of which makes Men reflecting upon themselves to apprehend themselves much more as a Body than as a Spirit as if the Soul were subordinate to the Rody and its chief Use were only to enliven and preserve it And therefore in the sharp Pains confounding Terrors or excessive Joys arising from Sense or Imagination the Soul can hardly admit of another Thought by still reflecting upon these and therefore sensible Pleasures do divert and seduce the Soul from Objects and Delights which are more spiritual and sutable to it self more noble and sublime the increase or continuance whereof will never breed loathing or lessening of their Pleasure thence arising as sensible Pleasures do yet this is not to be imputed to nor doth it blemish the Goodness of God in giving sensible Pleasures which cherish and befit the Mind when rightly used The Stoical Severity doth not a little reflect upon the Wisdom and Goodness of God There is no small Debate among the Learned about the Cause of the Union of the Soul and Body which I am not now to prosecute but I cannot so well satisfy my self as by apprehending that this Union is by an Instinct freely given of God to the Soul by which it doth so cleave to the Body and delight in it that it can never leave it while it is able to serve it which is not in the Essence of the Soul tho it be comprehended in the Essence of Man implying more than a Soul and an organized Body by which it can receive Impressions and act accordingly which an Angelical Spirit can do and Experience hath shown that they oft-times have done acting by a fresh and incorrupted Body whence the Soul was departed that it was not discernable from a Man Yea evil Spirits have frequently possessed living Bodies and have overacted the Soul contrary to its Inclinations and Attempts as being a stronger Spirit When I consider the Strength of Self-love that is another inavoidable Instinct or even the fresh and tender Affection of Parents to their Children having nothing in them to breed Aversion which no reasoning can overpower I have no Hesitation that the Soul is capable of this Instinct and that it ceaseth not to have a desire to be reunited to the Body even in its glorious State of Separation else the Resurrection should not be a farther Perfection of Glory Neither do I like the excessive Expressions of the Soul 's being in the Body as in a Prison for tho the Soul be more happy when out of the Body when it is in a sinful State because a great part of Mens Sins arise from their bodily Affections whereof Angelical Spirits are not capable yet that is from Man's Corruption through Sin and doth nothing derogate the Goodness of God I do not believe that these Spirits acting a Body have Pleasure or Pain as Souls have by the Impressions or Actings through that Body If it were not for this inavoidable Instinct would not the Soul prevent the Pains of Torture and Death Oft-times with Ignominy and Cruelty to prevent which
Unjust he openeth his bountiful Hand and bestows what is necessary for every living thing while he allows it Life He is merciful and pitieth the very Ravens when they cry for want of Food and much more supplies the Necessities of Men even when they do not trust or expect it All these Perfections respect his Creatures and it is evident that they are without Obligation and in that differ from his Justice and so is also his Providence and Government of the World but his Truth and his Wisdom are Perfections terminated on himself as their peculiar End they are free for none can be obliged to himself yet they are more necessary than the Acts of Bounty which he might forbear but they are comprehended under the Decency proper to God on his own account tho there had never been a Creature he would ever have been true his Thoughts being ever conform to their Objects The Faithfulness of God then is comprehended in his Bounty or Benignity respecting his Creature as warrantably trusting in him As the Term Faithfulness is variously taken so the thing is commonly very indistinctly and sometimes erroniously understood confounding Faithfulness with Justice and Truth and supposing there is no Warrant for Faithfulness but upon Promise and upon the Truth of God in that Promise which is a great Mistake for the Performance of a Promise is an Act of Justice and Truth is not an Object of Trust but when Words or Signs to express it are emitted but Faith may warrantably be where God hath made no Promise nor expressed any Word When God created Angels and Men before he made any Promise to them they did know from his excellent Nature and firmly trust that if they did not offend him he would never make them miserable and they might have trusted for particular Favours not in the way of Reward I know no clear Evidence from Scripture that God promised to Adam that he should never be annihilated only I see that he threatneth Death if he transgressed his Command in eating the forbidden Fruit whence it is collected that God promised him Eternal Life and even Immortality and that he entered into Covenant with him wherein Adam willingly ingaged himself to the Obedience of God and God did promise Life and Immortality to him to his Wife and their Posterity and to raise them from an Animal Life on Earth to an Angelical Life in Heaven without the Dissolution of Soul and Body by Death and as it is commonly believed the good Angels after they had given proof of their Obedience were confirmed that they should never fall There is no less ground to believe that the like Favour would have been granted to Man not only for himself that he should not fall but that a greater measure of Perfection should be given to his Posterity that they might not be under the Necessity of falling and it is evident and certain that by his Transgression in eating the forbidden Fruit he lost these Benefits both to himself and his Posterity but by the infinite Mercy and Benignity of God Christ the second Adam perfected and performed what the first Adam had lost Can any Man pretend that the particular Favours that the Saints have always prayed for from God were all promised by God or did he express his Purpose to give them No certainly and yet they did warrantably trust and prayed in Faith for them and obtained that which they prayed for whereof there are innumerable Examples in Scripture and Experience And therefore it is said that the fervent Prayer of the Godly availeth much If the Import of Mens Prayers should only be that God should be just in the performance of his Promise and be as good his Word I see not how Prayer could be said to avail much for God would be true and just whether any Creature prayed or not But God granteth many things upon the earnest Prayer of his People which were neither promised nor necessary and had no other Conveniency but to satisfy their longing Desire which if it be not incongruous for God to do or them to receive as being hurtful to them if Faith be not wanting the Effect will not fail Was there either Necessity or Promise for the Prophet's stopping the Clouds of Heaven for three Years and six Months and for obtaining Rain when there was no second Cause for it Is it not warrantable to pray to be inclined or directed in the Choice of a Calling a Match or any lawful Undertaking or for the Success of the Choice Is there any Promise for these Particulars Yea tho it be said by Christ to the Apostles That whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name he will do it I take it rather to be a Declaration of God's Faithfulness and of the Effect of faithful Prayer not signifying an Engagement but a Resolution And I think it were a very unbecoming manner of praying to say Lord Thou hast promised that whatsoever I demand in Christ's Name thou wilt grant it this I demand and therefore I claim it as due by thy Justice and Truth which thou canst not refuse With God's Grace that never shall be my strain God hath declared that he will give Salvation and Glory to all that shall have saving Faith trusting to obtain these with Sutableness which cannot be towards those who resolve to cleave to and pursue their Sins Suppose this were not only a Declaration but a proper Promise and that the Performance were an Act of God's Justice and Truth yet where hath he promised that he will give Faith to this or that Man that believeth And should he that believeth claim Salvation as an Act of Truth and Justice and not as a free Act of God's Mercy and Benevolence and specially as an Act of God's Faithfulness that he will not disappoint the becoming Hope or Trust of his Creature Trust among Men is not accounted when they obtain a clear Obligation tho it had been granted freely because the Obliged can be compelled to perform but it is accounted a Trust when there is no Promise but that from the Nature of the Deed it is to be presumed not to be a Donation in favour of the Person trusted but with Intention and Expectation that he would restore to the Truster or those who derive Right from him upon demand God of his Benignity to further the Faith of his Creatures does not only promise where no Promise was necessary but gives Seals and Oaths not so much to secure the Effect as to produce Faith and therefore the Effect should ever be attributed to God's Faithfulness and to the Creature 's Faith resting on that Faithfulness I know that God's Justice Truth and Faithfulness have been oftentimes joined as Man 's also may When a Man obtains a written valid Obligation suppose it were for a valuable Consideration there concurs the Justice of that Person who may be compelled to perform his Truth that as he expressed his Purpose to perform so
by God and unalterable by Man but in other things their Pactions are effectual as in other Cases So also in Civil Government the Form of Government the Persons governing the Extensions of their Power more than what is requsite for Order and Determination of Controversies are by the express and tacit Pactions of the Parties except what God did immediately determine in the Government of Israel God did also institute a distinct Government for his own Worship and separated it from the Paternal and Civil Authority both among the Jews in the Levitical Priesthood which was propagated by imitation to most other Nations and among Christians a Church became a distinct Society from a State and hath its proper Ecclesiastick Government tho both Societies may concur in the same Persons The Civil Government is for the outward State of their Society and the Means of their Government is outward by extrinsick Rewards and forcible Punishments The Ecclesiastick Government is about the inward State of those of their Society in so far as Man's Knowledg can reach to promote Holiness and internal and eternal Happiness and about their outward Acts only as they signify their inward Condition and their Rewards and Punishments are only by application of the Divine Ordinances in exciting Joy or Grief Fear or Hope as is conducible for the inward State but without temporal Rewards and forcible Punishments But there is yet a more inward and secret Dominion of God exercised by the Conscience which is his Deputy by which he distributes the most powerful and important Rewards and Punishments not only in this Life but chiefly after Death The most eminent and important Dispensations of God's Dominion is by the Covenants he made with Men which therefore require a particular Consideration especially the general Covenants relating to all Mankind It was a high Honour put upon Men that God was pleased to enter into mutual Ingagements with them by way of Covenant whereby God promised some Favours to them besides those which arose from their Creation which Favours they could not warrantably believe nor expect by his Justice Bounty Mercy or even by his Faithfulness but only by his Promise in these Covenants And on the other part there was not ground to expect them even from the Promises unless there were a voluntary Engagement on Man's part by entring into these Covenants God's Dispensations might have been without any Covenant either by commanding Men to do that which he proposed to them to do whereby the not Performance became a Transgression of his Command and Sin or he might have made Promises conditional without requiring Mens Engagements I see very many Covenants between God and Man in Scripture but the purely Celestial and Eternal Covenants are only two the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace The Covenant of Grace is the chief Concern of Mankind and it runs through the whole Current of Scripture It was published to our first Parents immediately after their Fall and tho the Record of it in Scripture at first be no more but that the Seed of the Woman shall bruise the Head of the Serpent I doubt not but it was more fully manifested to and understood by the first Parents It was more fully manifested to Abraham to whom it was said That in thy Seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed It was continued in the Church in the Revelation and Expectation of the Messiah who was to deliver his People from their Sins and was represented by the Sacrifices instituted by God from the beginning and by the Sacraments and Ceremonies instituted thereafter tho the Jews in their latter times were wholly perverted believing their Messiah to be a Temporal Monarch to raise their Nation to great Glory wherein Christ the Messiah himself did fully confute them from the Old Testament and brought Life and Immortality to light in a clear Discovery of the Covenant of Grace as it remains recorded in the Gospel The Covenant of Works being broken and become void there is but little of it expressed in Scripture in which that Name of the Covenant is no where mentioned and tho it may seem a needless Curiosity to enquire into the Terms of it I conceive it is not unprofitable but very useful to manifest the Glory and Goodness of God in all his Dispensations with Mankind and for the understanding the Covenant of Grace that came in its place which will appear by that excellent Parallel of the Apostle Paul betwixt the first and second Adam It hath been the common Opinion of Christians that there was a Covenant between God and Adam upon solid Grounds It is certainly a great Condescension and Kindness in God to enter into Covenant with Creatures but seeing it is certain that he hath so often admitted sinful Creatures to covenant with him there is no ground to doubt that he enter'd into Covenant with innocent Adam which is yet more clear from the Parallel of the first and second Adam whereby both are acknowledged to represent and undertake for the whole or a great part of the Race of Mankind that through Adam's Failure Sin entered in the World and that Christ had obtained a better Covenant It is therefore inferred that there was a prior Covenant As to the Terms of the first Covenant it is clear that God promised Adam Immortality seeing the Penalty expressed by Moses for the Breach in eating the forbidden Fruit is Death not only Temporal by the Separation of the Soul and Body and the Corruption of the Body but Eternal by the Separation from the Favour of God therefore Life and Immortality is implied which tho it was possible to have been preserved in Adam and his Posterity by the continuance of Adam and his Posterity upon Earth living an Animal Life but this Earth could not have sufficed for all the Posterity of Adam if none had died or been removed yea Immortality could not have been continued in that State wherein the Body was perpetually wearing with its Food and Exercise if there had not been extraordinary Means to have preserved or restored it Therefore I do not conceive that Immortality was competent to innocent Man by his Nature and was taken from him as his Punishment against his Nature but that it was only promised to be given as a part of that Covenant the loss of which was a great Penalty It is true the Soul was naturally immortal and could not cease to exist but by taking away that which was given in its Nature but it will not follow that Man the Complex of Soul and Body was so immortal The Parallel doth also give ground to infer that it was a part of God's Promise in the first Covenant that Adam and his Posterity should be exalted from an Animal Life on Earth to an Angelical Life in Heaven which is evidently a part of the Covenant of Grace and is frequently expressed by Restitution and Redemption importing that it belonged to Mankind before but
if they continued sinless during the time of their Trial But tho innocent Adam was capable of Merit by improving the Holiness God gave him yet so great a Reward as God promised him upon his Persistance was not a Reward of meer Debt but of Grace so that only the Covenant of Grace is of meer Grace without any thing of Merit in the Elect. Therefore as Faith in the Covenant of Grace is only the Manner freely chosen of God so Persistance in Obedience was the Manner freely chosen of God in the Covenant of Works So then the clearest way of taking up the Covenant of Grace is that Christ by his Humiliation and Suffering did so fully vindicate the Purity of God and his Justice that thereupon God might have forgiven the Sins of the whole World and of every individual Man and he did exclude none from Mercy but malicious and obstinate Sinners that rejected the Motions of Conversion and the Offers of Grace but did even include some of these and that he advanced the Elect to Celestial Glory upon Christ's entire fulfilling of his Law being also as the Manner freely chosen for the Covenant of Grace as Adam's Performance was for the Covenant of Works and so not only Christ's Passive Obedience is imputed to Believers but his Active Obedience as the Terms of the Covenant and so the exceeding superabundant Grace of the Goodness of God is manifested not only in accepting the Expiation of Sin by a Mediator but in giving to the Elect Glory freely as a Reward by Grace and not of Debt whereby the Difficulties on both Hands in the forementioned Controversy do evanish If Christ's Sufferings had been properly a Payment of the Debt of Sin it could have had no effect in relation to the Reprobate nor could they have been restored to a possibility of Salvation nor could God complain of the Hardness of their Hearts For if Christ had suffered as to pay the Debt of Sin he could not have paid the Debt of those that were to perish or else God had exacted that Debt of them which Christ had paid nor should Christ have suffered more than what were sufficient to pay the Debt of the Elect only whereas all agree that his Sufferings were sufficient for the Sins of the whole World but being conceived as the Vindication of God's Aversion from Sin he not only saved the Elect but stopt the Mouths of the Reprobate and Damned and made them inexcusable so that their own Conscience will condemn them and be their perpetual Tormentor that they have thrown themselves into Hell when they might have escaped if it had not been their own deserving fault This way doth far more illustrate to my Soul the infinitely amiable Representation of God both in his Grace and his Justice than any other way that I can apprehend in which I am exceedingly confirmed by that excellent Parallel of the first and second Adam held so clearly forth to the Romans by the blessed Apostle of the Gentiles saying Death reigned from Adam to Moses even in them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's Transgression who is the Figure or Type of him that was to come that is of Christ. Where the similitude of Adam's Transgression distinguishing it from others is that by it the whole Benefit of the Covenant was lost not only to himself but to all his Posterity For if through the Offence of one Man many be dead much more the Grace of God and the Gift by Grace which is by one Man Jesus Christ bath abounded unto many If then Adam was a Type of Christ certainly it was not in that he sinned and lost his Posterity but in this that as if he had continued obedient to God he had brought himself and his Posterity to Glory and as his bringing them to Glory were not by Merit but by fulfilling the Terms of the Covenant of Works so Christ's bringing the Elect to Glory is by fulfilling the whole Will of God as his part of the Terms of the Covenant of Grace The same Apostle to the Corintbians makes the Type and Parallel yet more clear For since by Man came Death by Man came also the Resurrection of the dead And so it is written the first Man Adam was made a living Soul the last Man Adam was made a quickning Spirit But seeing the second Adam not only performed the Terms of Salvation by Obedience but hath expiated Sin by his Suffering therefore it is said For this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament that by the means of Death for the Redemption of the Transgressions that were under the first Covenant they which are called might receive the Promise of Eternal Inheritance Here the Transgressions that were under the first Covenant must be meant of the accumulated Sins in the Fall which were redeemed repaired and restored by Christ the second Adam's fulfilling all Righteousness and purging the Sins of the Elect. And again it is said Not as the Offence so also is the free Gift Not as it was by one that sinned so was the Gift for the Judgment was by one to Condemnation but the free Gift is of many Offences to Justification where the Gift to Adam is said to be to Condemnation not by the Intent but by the Event through his failing whereas the second Adam could not fail in performing his Undertaking By this Explication of the Covenant of Grace I find my Mind cleared and eased of these perplexing Difficulties about God's Decrees and Dispensations in the Salvation and Reprobation of his Rational Creatures and about the Terms and Tenor both of the Covenant of Works and of the Covenant of Grace The most learned and most accurate in all Churches and all Ways have been perplexed in thinking how God would decree to reject damn and eternally torment a great part of his Rational Creatures for that which was never in their Power to perform much more without any cause on the Creatures part but only by his meer Soveraignty or that they were never in a possibility to have escaped eternal Misery Or that Christ the second Adam had not so far exceeded the first Adam that as the first Adam might have preserved all his Posterity in a Capacity to be saved if he had not fallen so the second Adam should not at least have put all Manking in a Capacity to be saved and escape eternal Misery by the Covenant of Grace And yet on the other hand the Scripture is so plain and positive that it is not in Man's Power to believe by a saving Faith to be holy or how it could consist with the Veracity and Sincerity of God to exhort and expostulate with Men to repent believe and be holy tho it were neither in the Power of the Elect or Reprobate to perform the same Whereupon some found no Outgate but by recurring to that Freedom that once was in Adam and that a Creditor might press his Debitor to pay his Debt
many not the meanest and ignoblest of Men have wilfully made their Bodies uncapable to serve their Souls that they might escape it and how many more would if without that Pain they could flee out of their Bodies few would suffer Misery in them but those who knew and did acknowledg the Trust and Command to preserve them given by God under an higher Pain than they could suffer by abiding in them A farther degree of the Goodness of God is manifested in the other inbred Inclinations which God hath freely given to the Soul beside that of cleaving to the Body which is not by fatal Necessity seeing the Soul is a separable Substance and might easily escape from the Body if it could please so to do Such Principles are the Love to God above all as being the Soveraign Good and incomparably most amiable Object the Love to Mankind preferring the Interest of Manking to the Interest of any part of Men and in most things to Self-interest Self-love also is a Gift of God and good in it self when kept within its Bounds tho by the Corruption of Sin it is become the Cause of most Evils Men do either wholly exclude the Love of God and of Mankind or do exceedingly abate them and subordinate them to Self-love For these Affections cannot arise before or without the Perception of their proper Objects Therefore it is that because it is long before the Perception of the Deity or of the common Interest arise in the Soul during which time Self-love doth wholly and solely possess the Soul and all its Affections are exercised without Restraint except what ariseth by the Fear of Chastisement or the natural or industrious Perception of the Uncomeliness of some extravagant Acts that Self-love becomes habitual and so strong that when the Perception of God or the common Interest of Mankind by the natural Conscience or Instruction is excited Self-love makes the Soul have a powerful Aversion from these Objects which would low or restrain it so that it can never be kept within Bounds especially in Subordination to God without supernatural Grace given by him It will sooner yield to the Love of a Family of a Society of a Country than to the Love of the common Interest of Mankind yet even Heathens have come a great length as to that but came never to any sutable Proportion of the Love to God as all their Writings and Actings do manifestly show There is another general inbred Principle and Inclination in Man to do that which is congruous to and becoming his Nature not only to what is essential to him but to what is superadded by the Divine Benignity which is more sensibly felt in the Aversion of things which are unbecoming Man and which all judg to be vicious and vile except in so far as they have eradicated their inbred Principles and debauched their Natural Inclinations so even natural Men love Temperance Sobriety Modesty Meekness Sincerity Constancy Courage and Comeliness and those whose Depravation make them love and practise the contrary in themselves do frequently hate them in others and never cherish them but when it is to lessen or abolish their own Shame by making their Vice more common or that they require the Concourse of others to practise them Beside these general Principles which require Attention and Ratiocination God by his Bounty hath imprinted on the Soul of Man special Principles for eminent Cases which operate like Instincts without necessity of reasoning as the desire of Happiness the care to preserve Life the abhorrence of Cruelty the desire to relieve the Innocent opprest Gratitude to Benefactors Faithfulness to those that do rationally rely and trust Love to those in Society and Friendship that especially which is most entire and absolute by Marriage and the mutual natural Affection of Parents and Children and of those which are of one Kindred and Blood The Institution of Marriage was a farther degree of the Bounty of God appointed in Innocency that betwixt one Man and one Woman by the free Choice of both there should be so intimate a Society and Friendship as could be no greater having all their Interests common perpetual and most part incommunicable that each of them had more Right to and Enjoyment of all than when they had them alone excluding the other tho the unsutable Choice of some hath marred this Blessing it diminisheth not the Bounty of God being by the fault of the Parties at least is a Judgment for their other Faults and it was their Interest that this Society was indissolvable even by the Consent of both but only by Adultery or Desertion which gave a strong Inducement to compose their Humours tho naturally discrepant rather than to be in a continual Disquiet It was a great Addition to the Happiness of this Conjugal Estate that there was given them so strong an Inclination of these Imbraces necessary for Posterity which otherwise have nothing of Comeliness in them and Women would never have endured the Trouble and Pain of Child-bearing if this Affection and the natural desire of having Children did not over-master them How great Addition to Adam's Pleasure behoved it to be when awakening from his Sleep God presented him Eve the only Creature like to himself which was the first Glass in which he did behold the Beauty of his own Body as well as hers who was fitted for him in all things that he could desire not only passionately loved but even more passionately loving both being endued with the same Principles and Inclinations and requiring no need of farther Acquaintance than the first View both being innocent and void of all Vice and able to communicate their Thoughts by that Language with which God did endue them without their own Industry by which they might communicate their Knowledg of God their Admiration Confidence and Delight in him their Love and Reverence to him and Obsequiousness to his Pleasure in all things which they knew by the Moral Law written in their Hearts and which it is like he did explain and declare unto them as he did his positive Command of the forbidden Fruit to be a Test of their Obedience by restraining their Appetite from so pleasant a Fruit for which Restraint they had no inbred Inclination as they had to the Moral Duties but rather contrary except his Pleasure and Prohibition for if he had willed that they should not eat of it it would certainly have been effectual but he did only declare what they might eat and what they might not eat and denounced the Punishment if they did eat what was forbidden which sufficiently shews that their forbearing would have been acceptable to him which was sufficient to lay the strongest Obligation upon them and yet he expressed the heaviest Penalty if they trangressed which was implied by their knowledg of his Justice tho it had not been expressed which could not consist with his moving exciting or necessitating them to it Adam whose Knowledg was so great