distance from Jerusalem to assemble together at Jerusalem at the Feast of Pentecost And God pitched upon this Season that there might be Witnesses of thâ—s Miracle in many parts of the World There were some of every Nation under Heaven verse 5. that is of that known part of the World so saith the Text. Fourteen several Nations are mentioned and Proselytes as well as Jews by Birth They are called devout men men of Conscience whose testimony would carry weight with it among their Neighbours at their return because of their Reputation by their Religious Carriage Again this was not heard and seen by some of them at one time and some at another by some one hour by others the next successively * Faucheur in loc p. 294 295. but altogether in a Solemn Assembly that the testimony of so many Witnesses at a time might be more valid and the truth of the Doctrine appear more illustrious and undeniable And it must needs be astonishing to them to hear that Person magnified in so miraculous a manner who had so lately been condemned by their Country-men as a Malefactor Wisdom consists in the timing of things And in this Circumstance doth the wisdom of God appear in furnishing the Apostles with the Spirit at such a time and bringing forth such a Miracle as the gift of Tongues on a suddain that every Nation might hear in their own Language the wonder of Redemption and as Witnesses at their returns into their own Countreys report it to others that the credit they had in their several Places might facilitate the belief and entertainment of the Gospel when the Apostles or others should arrive to those several Charges and Dioceses appointed for them to preach the Gospel in Had this Miracle been wrought in the presence only of the Inhabitants of Judea that understood only their own Language or one or two of the Neighbouring Tongues it had been counted by them rather a Madness than a Miracle Or had they understood all the Tongues which they spoke the news of it had spread no further than the limits of their own Habitations and had been confin'd within the narrow bounds of the Land of Judea But now it is carried to several remote Nations where any of those Auditors then assembled had their Residence As God chose the time of the Passeover for the Death of Christ that there might be the greatest Number of the Inhabitants of the Country as Witnesses of the Matter of Fact the Innocence and Sufferings of Christ so he chose the time of Pentecost for the first publishing the value and end of this Blood to the World Thus the Evangelical Law was given in a Confluence of People from all Parts and Nations because it was a Covenant with all Nations And the variety of Languages spoken by a Company of poor Galileans bred up at the Lake of Tiberias and in poor corners of Canaan without the Instructions of men for so great a Skil might well evidence to the hearers that God that brought the Confusion of Languages first at Babel did only work that Cure of them and combine all together at Jerusalem 3. The wisdom of God is seen in the Instruments he employed in the publishing the Gospel He did not employ Philosophers but Fishermen used not acquired Arts but infus'd wisdom and courage This Treasure was put into and preserved in Earthen Vessels that the Wisdom as well as the Power of God might be magnified The weaker the means are which attain the end the greater is the skill of the Conductor of them Wise Princes choose men of most credit Interest Wisdom and Ability to be Ministers of their Affairs and Embassadors to others But what were these that God chose for so great a Work as the publishing a new Doctrine to the World What was their quality but mean what was their Authority without Interest What was their Ability without eminent Parts for so great a Work but what Divine Grace in a special manner endowed them with Nay what was their disposition to it as dull and unweildy Witness the frequent rebukes for their slow-heartedness from their Master when he conversed in the Flesh with them And One of the greatest of them so fond of the Jewish Ceremonies and Pharisaical Principles wherein he had been more than ordinarily principled that he hated the Christian Religion to extirpation and the Professors of it to death by those ways which were out of the rode of Human wisdom and would be accompted the greatest absurdity to be practis'd by men that have a repute for Discretion did God advance his Wisdom 1 Cor. 1.25 The foolishness of God is wiser than man By this means it was indisputably evidenc'd to unbyassed Minds that the Doctrine was Divine It could not rationally be imagined that Instruments destitute of all Human Advantages should be able to vanquish the World confound Judaism overturn Heathenism chase away the Devils strip them of their Temples alienate the Minds of men from their several Religions which had been rooted in them by Education and established by a long succession It could not I say reasonably be imagined to be without a Supernatural Assistance an heavenly and efficacious working Whereas had God taken a Course agreeable to the prudence of Man and used those that had been furnished with Learning tip'd with Eloquence and armed with Human Authority the Doctrines would have been thought to have been of a Human Invention and to be some subtle Contrivance for some unworthy and ambitious end The nothingness and weakness of the Instruments manifest them to be conducted by a Divine Power and declare the Doctrine it self to be from Heaven When we see such feeble Instruments proclaiming a Doctrine repugnant to Flesh and Blood sounding forth a crucified Christ to be believed in and trusted on and declaiming against the Religion and Worship under which the Roman Empire had long flourished exhorting them to the Contempt of the World preparation for Afflictions denying themselves and their own Honours by the hopes of an unseen reward things so repugnant to Flesh and Blood And these Instruments concurring in the same Story with an admirable Harmony in all parts and sealing this Doctrine with their Blood can we upon all this ascribe this Doctrine to a Human Contrivance or fix any lower Author of it than the wisdom of Heaven 'T is the wisdom of God that carries on his own Designs in methods most sutable to his own Greatness and different from the Customes and Modes of Men that less of Humanity and more of Divinity might appear 4. The wisdom of God appears in the ways and manner as well as in the Instruments of its propagation By ways seemingly contrary You know how God had sent the Jews into Captivity in Babylon and though he struck off their Chains and restored them to their Country yet many of them had no mind to leave a Country wherein they had been born and bred The distance from the
happiness This he doth not only in his general proclamations but in his particular wooings those inward courtings of his Spirit solliciting them with more diligence if they would observe it to their happiness than the Devil tempts them to the ways of their Misery As he was first in Christ reconciling the World when the World looked not after him so he is first in his Spirit wooing the World to accept of that Reconciliation when the World will not listen to him How often doth he flash up the Light of Nature and the Light of the Word in Mens hearts to move them not to lie down in sparks of their own kindling but to aspire to a better happiness and prepare them to be subject to a higher Mercy If they would improve his present intreaties to such an end And what are his Threatnings design'd for but to move the Wheel of our Fears that the Wheel of our Desire and Love might be set on Motion for the embracing his Promise They are not so much the Thunders of his Justice as the loud Rhetorick of his good Will to prevent Mens Misery under the Vials of Wrath. 'T is his kindness to feare Men by threatnings that Justice might not strike them with the Sword 'T is not the destruction but the preserving Reformation that he aims at He hath no pleasure in the death of the Wicked This he confirms by his Oath * Ezek. 33.11 His threatnings are gracious Expostulations with them Why will ye die O house of Israel They are like the noise a favourable Officer makes in the Street to warn the Criminal he comes to seize upon to make his escape He never used his Justice to crush Men till he had used his Kindness to allure them All the dreadful descriptions of a future Wrath as well as the lively descriptions of the happiness of another World are designed to perswade Men The Honey of his Goodness is in the Bowels of those roaring Lyons such pains doth Goodness take with Men to make them Candidates for Heaven 2. How readily doth he receive Men when they do return We have Davids Experience for it †Psal 32.5 I said I will confess my Transgressions unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my Sin Selah A sincere look from the Creature draws out his Arms and opens his Bosom he is ready with his Physick to heal us upon a resolution to acquaint him with our Disease and by his Medicines prevents the putting our Resolution into a Petition The Psalmist adds a Selah to it as a special Note of Thankfulness for Divine Goodness He doth not only stand ready to receive our Petitions while we are speaking but answers us before we call * Isai 65.24 listening to the Motions of our Hearts as well as to the supplications of our Lips He is the true Father that hath a quicker pace in meeting than the Prodigal hath in returning Who would not have his Embraces and Caresses interrupted by his Confession †Luke 15.20 21 22. The Confession follows doth not precede the Fathers Compassion How doth he rejoyce in having an opportunity to express his Grace when he hath prevail'd with a Rebel to throw down his Arms and lie at his Feet and this because he delights in Mercy * Mic. 7.18 He delights in the Expressions of it from himself and the acceptance of it by his Creature 3. How meltingly doth he bewail Mans wilful refusal of his Goodness 'T is a mighty Goddness to offer Grace to a Rebel a mighty Goodness to give it him after he hath a while stood off from the terms An astonishing Goodness to regret and lament his wilful perdition He seems to utter those words in a sigh †Psal 81.13 Oh that my People had hearkned unto me and Israel had walked in my way 'T is true God hath not Humane Passions but his Affections can not be exprest otherwise in a way intelligible to us The Excellency of his Nature is above the Passions of Men but such Expressions of himself manifest to us the sincerity of his Goodness and that were he capable of our Passions he would express himself in such a manner as we do And we find incarnate Goodness bewailing with tears and sighs the ruine of Jerusalem * Luke 19.42 By the same reason that when a Sinner returns there is joy in Heaven upon his obstinacy there is sorrow in Earth The one is as if a Prince should Cloth all his Court in Triumphant Scarlet upon a Rebels Repentance And the other as if a Prince should put himself and his Court in Mourning for a Rebels obstinate refusal of a Pardon when he lies at his Mercy Are not now these affectionate invitations and deep bewailings of their perversity high Testimonies of Divine Goodness Do not the unwearied repetitions of Gracious Encouragements deserve a higher name than that of meer Goodness What can be a stronger Evidence of the sincerity of it than the sound of his saving voice in our enjoyments the motion of his Spirit in our hearts and his grief for the neglect of all These are not Testimonies of any want of Goodness in his Nature to answer us or willingness to express it to his Creature Hath he any mind to deceive us that thus entreats us The Majesty of his Nature is too great for such shifts or if it were not the despicableness of our condition would render him above the using any Who would charge that Physician with want of kindness that freely offers his Soveraign Medicine importunes Men by the love they have to their health to take it and is dissolved into tears and sorrow when he finds it rejected by their peevish and conceited humor 7. Divine Goodness is eminent in the Sacraments he hath affixt to this Covenant especially in the Lords Supper As he gave himself in his Son so he gives his Son in the Sacrament He doth not only give him as a Sacrifice upon the Cross for the Expiation of our Crimes but as a Feast upon the Table for the noâ—â—ishment of our Souls In the one he was given to be offer'd in this he gives him to be partaked of with all the Fruits of his Death Under the Image of the Sacramental Signs every Believer doth eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of the great Mediator of the Covenant The words of Christ This is my Body and this is my Blood are true to the end of the World * Matth. 26.26 28. This is the most delicious Viand of Heaven the most exquisite Dainty Food God can feed us with the delight of the Deity the admiration of Angels A Feast with God is great but a Feast on God is greater Under those Signs that Body is presented that which was conceived by the Spirit inhabited by the Godhead bruised by the Father to be our Food as well as our Propitiation is presented to us on the Table That Blood which satisfied Justice washt
party we disaffect So the Will of God may be performed not as his Will but as it may gratifie some selfish consideration when we will please God so far as it may not displease our selves and serve him as our Master so far as his Command may be a Servant to our humor When we consider not who it is that Commands but how short it comes of displeasing that sin which Rules in our heart pick and chuse what is least burdensom to the flesh and distastful to our lusts He that doth the Will of God not out of Conscience of that Will but because it is agreeable to himself casts down the Will of God and sets his own Will in the place of it takes the Crown from the head of God and places it upon the head of self If things are done not because they are Commanded by God but desirable to us t is a disobedient obedience a conformity to Gods Will in regard of the matter a conformity to our own Will in regard of the motive either as the things done are agreeable to natural and moral self or sinful self 1. As they are agreeable to natural or moral self When men will practise some points of Religion and walk in the track of some Divine precepts not because they are Divine but because they are agreeable to their humor or constitution of nature from the sway of a natural bravery the Byas of a secular interest not from an ingenuous sense of Gods Authority or a voluntary submission to his Will As when a man will avoid excess in drinking not because it is dishonourable to God but as it is a blemish to his own reputation or an impair of the health of his body Doth this deserve the name of an observance of the Divine injunction or rather an obedience to our selves Or when a man will be liberal in the distribution of his Charity not with an eye to Gods precept but in compliance with his own natural compassion or to pleasure the generosity of his nature The one is obedience to a mans own preservation the other an obedience to the interest or impulse of a moral Vertue T is not respect to the rule of God but the Authority of self and at the best is but the performance of the material part of the Divine Rule without any concurrence of a Spiritual motive or a Spiritual manner That only is a maintaining the rights of God when we pay an observance to his rule without examining the agreeableness of it to our secular interest or consulting with the humour of flesh and blood when we will not decline his service though we find it cross and hath no affinity with the pleasure of our own nature Such an obedience as Abraham manifested in his readiness to sacrifice his Son Such an obedience as our Saviour demands in cutting off the right hand When we observe any thing of divine order upon the account of its suitableness to our natural Sentiments we shall readily divide from him when the interest of nature turns it's point against the interest of Gods honour we shall fall off from him according to the change we find in our own humours And can that be valued as a setting up the rule of God which must be depos'd upon the mutable interest of an inconstant mind Esau had no regard to God in delaying the execution of his resolution to shorten his brothers dayes though he was awed by the reverence of his Father to delay it he considered perhaps how justly he might lie under the imputation of hastening crazy Isaacs death by depriving him of a beloved Son But had the old mans head been laid neither the contrary command of God nor the nearness of a fraternal relation could have bound his hands from the act no more than they did his heart from the resolution Gen. 27.41 Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him and Esau said in his heart the days of mourning for my father are at hand then will I slay my brother So many Children that expect at the death of their Parents great Inheritances or Portions may be observant of them not in regard of the rule fixed by God but to their own hopes which they would not frustrate by a disobligement Whence is it that many men abstain from gross sins but in love to their reputation Wickedness may be acted privately which a mans one credit puts a bar to the open commission of The preserving his own esteem may divert him from entring into a brothell house to which he hath set his mind before against a known precept of his Creator As Pharaoh parted with the Israelites so do some men with their blemishing sins not out of a sense of Gods rule but the smart of present Judgments or fear of a future wrath Our security then and reputation is set up in the place of God This also may be and is in renewed men who have the law written in their hearts that is an habitual disposition to an agreement with the law of God when what is done is with a respect to this habitual inclination without eying the divine precept which is appointed to be their rule This also is to set up a creature as renewed self is instead of the Creator and that Law of his in his word which ought to be the rule of our actions Thus it is when men chuse a moral life not so much out of respect to the law of nature as it is the law of God but as it is a law become one with their souls and constitutions There is more of self in this than consideration of God For if it were the latter the revealed law of God would upon the same reason be received as well as his natural law From this principle of self morality comes by some to be advanced above Evangelical dictates 2. As they are agreeable to sinful self Not that the commands of God are suited to bolster up the corruptions of men no more than the law can be said to excite or revive sin * Rom. 7.8 9. But it is like a scandal taken not given an occasion taken by the tumultuousness of our depraved nature The Pharisees were devout in long Prayers not from a sense of duty or a care of Gods honour but to satisfie their ambition and rake together fuel for their covetuousness * Math. 23.14 You devour Widdows Houses and for a pretence makes long Prayers that they might have the greater esteem and richer offerings to free by their prayers the souls of deceased persons from Purgatory an opinion that some think the Jewish Synagogue had then entertain'd * Gerrard in loc since some of their Doctors have defended such a notion Men may observe some Precepts of God to have a better conveniency to break others Jehu was ordered to cut off the house of Ahab The service he undertook was in it self acceptable but corrupt nature misacted that which
there but to behold the beauty of the Lord * Psal 27.4 and taste the ravishing sweetness of his presence No doubt but Elijah's desires for the enjoyment of God while he was mounting to Heaven were as fiery as the Chariot wherein he was carried Unutterable groans acted in worship are the fruit of the Spirit and certainly render it a spiritual service * Rom. 8.26 Strong appetites are agreeable to God and prepare us to eat the fruit of worship A spiritual Paul presseth forward to know Christ and the power of his Resurrection and a spiritual Worshipper actually aspires in every duty to know God and the power of his Grace To desire worship as an end is carnal to desire it as a means and act desires in it for communion with God in it is spiritual and the fruit of a spiritual life 5. Thankfulness and admiration are to be exercised in spiritual services This is a worship of Spirits Praise is the adoration of the blessed Angels * Isa 6.3 and of glorified Spirits Rev. 4.11 Thou art worthy oh Lord to receive Glory and Honour and Power And Rev. 5.13.14 they worship him ascribing Blessing Honour Glory and Power to him that sits upon the Throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever Other acts of worship are confined to this Life and leave us as soon as we have set our foot in Heaven There no notes but this of Praise are warbled out The Power Wisdom Love and Grace in the dispensation of the Gospel seat themselves in the thoughts and tongues of blessed Souls Can a worship on Earth be spiritual that hath no mixture of an eternal heavenly duty with it The worship of God in Innocence had been chiefly an admiration of him in the works of Creation and should not our Evangelical worship be an admiration of him in the works of Redemption which is a restoration to a better State After the petitioning for pardoning Grace * Hos 14.2 there is a rendring the Calves or Heifers of our lips alluding to the Heifers used in Eucharistical Sacrifices The Praise of God is the choicest Sacrifice and Worship under a dispensation of redeeming Grace This is the prime and eternal part of worship under the Gospel The Psalmist Psalm 149. and 150. speaking of the Gospel times spurrs on to this kind of worship Sing to the Lord a new Song Let the Children of Zion be joyful iâ—â—â—â—ir King Let the Saints be joyful in glory and sing aloud upon their beds Let the high praises of God be in their mouths He begins and ends both Psalms with praise ye the Lord. That cannot be a spiritual and evangelical worship that hath nothing of the praise of God in the heart The consideration of Gods adorable perfections discovered in the Gospel will make us come to him with more seriousness beg blessings of him with more confidence fly to him with a winged Faith and Love and more spiritually glorify him in our attendances upon him 7. Spiritual Worship is performed with delight The Evangelical worship is prophetically signified by keeping the Feast of Tabernacles * Zach. 14.16 they shall go up from year to year to worship the King the Lord of Hosts and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles Why that Feast when there were other Feasts observed by the Jews That was a Feast celebrated with the greatest joy typical of the gladness which was to be under the exhibition of the Messiah and a thankful comemmoration of the Redemption wrought by him It was to be celebrated five days after the solemn day of Atonement Levit. 23.34 compared with v. 27. wherein there was one of the solemnest types of the Sacrifice of the death of Christ In this Feast they commemorated their exchange of Egypt for Canaan the Manna wherewith they were fed the Water out of the Rock wherewith they were refresht In remembrance of this they poured water on the ground pronouncing those words in Isaiah they shall draw waters out of the Wells of Salvation which our Saviour referrs to himself John 7.37 inviting them to him to drink upon the last day the great day of the Feast of Tabernacles wherein this solemn Ceremony was observed Since we are freed by the death of the Redeemer from the Curses of the Law God requires of us a Joy in spiritual priviledges A sad frame in worship gives the lye to all Gospel-liberty to the Purchase of the Redeemers Death the Triumphs of his Resurrection 'T is a carriage as if we were under the influences of the legal Fire and Lightning and an entring a Protest against the Freedom of the Gospel The Evangelical worship is a Spiritual worship and Praise Joy and Delight are prophecied of as great ingredients in attendance on Gospel Ordinances Isa 12.3 4 5. What was occasion of terror in the worship of God under the Law is the occasion of delight in the worship of God under the Gospel The Justice and Holiness of God so terrible in the Law becomes comfortable under the Gospel since they have feasted themselves on the active and passive obedience of the Redeemer The approach is to God as gracious not to God as unpacified as a Son to a Father not as a Criminal to a Judge Under the Law God was represented as a Judge remembring their Sin in their Sacrifices and representing the punishment they had merited in the Gospel as a Father accepting the Atonement and publishing the Reconciliation wrought by the Redeemer Delight in God is a Gospel frame therefore the more joyful the more spiritual The Sabbath is to be a delight not only in regard of the Day but in regard of the Duties of it * Isa 58.13 in regard of the marvelous work he wrought on it raising up our blessed Redeemer on that day whereby a foundation was laid for the rendring our persons and services acceptable to God Psal 118.24 This is the day which the Lord hath made we will be glad and rejoyce in it A lumpish frame becomes not a day and a duty that hath so noble and spiritual a mark upon it The Angels in the first act of worship after the Creation were highly joyful Job 38.7 They shouted for joy c. The Saints have particularly acted this in their Worship David would not content himself with an approach to the Altar without going to God as his exceeding joy Psal 43.4 My triumphant joy When he danced before the Ark he seems to be transformed into delight and pleasure 2 Sam. 6.14 16. He had as much delight in Worship as others had in their Harvest and Vintage And those that took joyfully the spoiling of their Goods would as joyfully attend upon the Communications of God Where there is a fullness of the Spirit there is a waking melody to God in the heart * Eph. 5.18.19 and where there is an acting of love as there is in all spiritual services the proper fruit of it is joy in a neer
Zech. 4.1 The Angel that talked with me came again and awaked me as a man is awaked out of sleep He had been rouzed up before but he was ready to drop down again his heart was gone till the Angel jogged him We may complain of such imaginations as Jerem. doth of the Enemies of the Jews * Lam. 4.19 Our Persecutors are swifter than Eagles they light upon us with as much speed as Eagles upon a Carcass they pursue us upon the Mountain of Divine institutions and they lay wait for us in the Wilderness in our retired addresses to God And this will be so while 1. There is natural corruption in us There are in a Godly man two contrary principles Flesh and Spirit which endeavour to hinder one anothers acts and are alway stirring upon the offensive or defensive part * Gal. 5.17 There is a body of death continually exhaling its noysom vapours 'T is a body of death in our worship as well as in our natures it snaps our resolutions asunder * Rom. 7.19 it hinders us in the doing good and contradicts our wills in the stirring up evil This corruption being seated in all the faculties and a constant Domestick in them has the greater opportunity to trouble us since it is by those faculties that we spiritually transact with God and it stirs more in the time of religious exercises though it be in part mortified As a wounded Beast though tired will rage and strive to its utmost when the Enemy is about to fetch a blow at it All duties of worship tend to the wounding of corruption and it is no wonder to feel the striving of sin to defend it self and offend us when we have our Arms in our hands to mortifie it that the blow may be diverted which is directed against it The Apostles had aspiring thoughts and being perswaded of an earthly Kingdom expected a Grandeur in it And though we find some appearance of it at other times as when they were casting out Devils and gave an account of it to their Master he gives them a kind of a check * Luke 10.20 intimating that there was some kind of evil in their rejoycing upon that account Yet this never swelled so high as to break out into a quarrel who should be greatest * Luke 22.24 until they had the most solemn Ordinance the Lords Supper to quell it* Our corruption is like Lime which discovers not its fire by any smoke or heat till you cast water the Enemy of fire upon it Neither doth our natural corruption rage so much as when we are using means to quench and destroy it 2. While there is a Devil and we in his Precinct As he accuseth us to God so he disturbs us in our selves He is a bold Spirit and loves to intrude himself when we are conversing with God We read that when the Angels presented themselves before God Satan comes among them * Job 1.6 Motions from Satan will thrust themselves in with our most raised and Angelical frames He loves to take off the edge of our Spirits from God He acts but after the old rate He from the first envied God an obedience from man and envied man the felicity of communion with God He is unwilling God should have the honour of worship and that we should have the fruit of it He hath himself lost it and therefore is unwilling we should enjoy it and being subtil he knows how to make impressions upon us sutable to our inbred corruptions and assault us in the weakest part He knows all the avenues to get within us as he did in the temptation of Eve and being a Spirit he wants not a power to dart them immediatly upon our fancy And being a Spirit and therefore active and nimble he can shoot those darts faster than our weakness can beat them off He is diligent also and watcheth for his Prey and seeks to devour our services as well as our Souls and snatch our best morsels from us We know he mixed himself with our Saviours retirements in the Wilderness and endeavoured to Fly-blow his holy converse with his Father in the preparation to his mediatory work Satan is Gods Ape and imitates the Spirit in the Office of a Remembrancer As the Spirit brings good thoughts and divine promises to mind to quicken our worship so the Devil brings evil things to mind and endeavours to fasten them in our Souls to disturb us And though all the foolish starts we have in worship are not purely his issue yet being of kin to him he claps his hands and sets them on like so many Mastives to tear the service in pieces And both those distractions which arise from our own corruption and from Satan are most rise in worship when we are under some pressing affliction This seems to be David's Case Psal 86. when in v. 11. He prays God to unite his heart to fear and worship his Name he seems to be under some affliction or fear of his Enemies Oh free me from those distractions of Spirit and those passions which arise in my Soul upon considering the designs of my enemies against me and press upon me in my addresses to thee and attendances on thee Job also in his affliction complains Job 17.11 That his purposes were broken off He could not make an even thread of thoughts and resolutions they were frequently snapt saunder like rotten Yarn when one is winding it up Good Men and spiritual Worshippers have lain under this trouble Though they are a sign of weakness of grace or some obstructions in the acting of strong grace yet they are not alway evidences of a want of grace What ariseth from our own corruption is to be matter of humiliation and resistance what ariseth from Satan should edge our minds to a noble conquest of them If the Apostle did comfort himself with his disapproving of what rose from the natural spring of sin within him with his consent to the Law and dissent from his Lust and charges it not upon himself but upon the sin that dwelt in him with which he had broken off the former League and was resolved never to enter into Amity with it By the same reason we may comfort our selves if such thoughts are undelighted in and alienate not our hearts from the worship of God by all their busie intrusions to interrupt us 2. These distractions not allowed may be occasions by an holy improvement to make our hearts more spiritual after worship though they disturb us in it By answering those ends for which we may suppose God permits them to invade us And that is 1. When they are occasions to humble us 1. For our carriage in the particular worship There is nothing so dangerous as spiritual pride It deprived Devils and Men of the presence of God and will hinder us of the influence of God If we had had raised and uninterrupted motions in worship we should be apt to be lifted
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
by Violent Persecutions till she was establish'd in the Faith He would not expose her to so great Combats while she was weak and feeble but gave her time to fortifie her self to be render'd more capable of bearing up under them He stifled all the motions of Passion the Idolaters might have for their Superstition till Religion was in such a condition as rather to be increased and purified than extinguish'd by Opposition Paul was sâ—cured from Neroes Chains and the Nets of his Enemies till he had broke off the Chain of the Devil from many Cities of the Gentiles and catched them by the Net of the Gospel out of the Sea of the World Thus the Wisdom of God is seen in the Seasons of Judgments and Afflictions 3. It is apparent in the gracious issue of Afflictions and Penal Evils It is a part of Wisdom to bring Good out of Evil of Punishment as well as to bring Good out of Sin The Church never was so like to Heaven as when it was most Persecuted by Hell The Storms often cleans'd it and the Lance often made it more healthful Jobs Integrity had not been so clear nor his Patience so illustrious had not the Devil been permitted to afflict him God by his Wisdom out-wits Satan when he by his Temptations intends to pollute us and buffet us God orders it to purifie us he often brings the clearest light out of the thickest darkness makes Poysons to become Medicines †Turretin Serm. p. 53. Death it self the greatest Punishment in this Life and the entrance into Hell in its own Nature he hath by his Wise contrivance made to his People the Gate of Heaven and the passage into Immortality Penal Evils in a Nation often end in in a publick Advantage Troubles and Wars among a People are many times not destroying but Medicinal and cure them of that Degeneracy Luxury and Effeminateness they contracted by a long Peace 4. This Wisdom is evident in the various Ends which God brings about by Afflictions The attainment of various Ends by one and the same Means is the fruit of the Agents Prudence By the same Affliction the Wise God corrects sometimes for some base Affection excites some sleepy Grace drives out some lurking Corruption refines the Soul and ruines the Lust discovers the greatness of a Crime the Vanity of the Creature and the Sufficiency in himself The Jews bind Paul and by the Judge he is sent to Rome whiâ— his Mouth is stopt in Judea 't is open'd in one of the greatest Cities of the World and his Enemies unwittingly contribute to the increase of the knowledge of Christ by those Chains in that City ‖ Acts 28.31 that triumphed over the Earth And his afflictive Bonds added Courage and Resolution to others Phil. 1.14 Many waxing confident by my Bonds which could not in their own Nature produce such an effect but by the order and contrivance of Divine Wisdom In their own nature they would rather make them disgust the Doctrine he suffered for and cool their Zeal in the propagating of it for fear of the same disgrace and hardship they saw him suffer * Daille sur Philip. Part 1. pag. 116 117. But the Wisdom of God changed the nature of these Fetters and conducted them to the glory of his Name the encouragement of others the increase of the Gospel and the comfort of the Apostle himself Phil. 1.12 13 18. The Sufferings of Paul at Rome confirm'd the Philippians a People at a distance from thence in the Doctrine they had already received at his hands Thus God makes Sufferings sometimes which appear like Judgments to be like the Viper on Pauls hand Acts 28.6 a means to clear up Innocence and procure favour to the Doctrine among those Barbarians How often hath he multiplied the Church by Death and Massacres and increased it by those means used to annihilate it 5. The Divine Wisdom is apparent in the Deliverances he affords to other parts of the World as well as to his Church There are delicate composures curious threds in his Webs and he works them like an Artificer A goodness wrought for them curiously wrought Psal 31.19 1. In making the Creatures subservient in their Natural order to his gracious Ends and Purposes He orders things in such a manner as not to be necessitated to put forth an extraordinary Power in things which some part of the Creation might accomplish Miraculous productions would speak his Power but the ordering the Natural course of things to occasion such effects they were never intended for is one part of the glory of his Wisdom And that his Wisdom may be seen in the course of Nature he conducts the Motions of Creatures and acts them in their own strength and doth that by various windings and turnings of them which he might do in an instant by his Power in a Supernatural way Indeed sometimes he hath made Invasions on Nature and suspended the Order of their Natural Laws for a season to shew himself the Absolute Lord and Governour of Nature Yet if frequent Alterations of this nature were made they would impede the knowledge of the Nature of things and be some bar to the discovery and glory of his Wisdom which is best seen by moving the wheels of Inferiour Creatures in an exact regularity to his own Ends. He might when his little Church in Jacobs Family was like to starve in Canaan have for their preservation turn'd the Stones of the Country into Bread but he sends them down to Egypt to procure Corn that a way might be opened for their removal into that Country the Truth of his Prediction in their Captivity accomplish'd and a way made after the declaration of his great Name Jehovah both in the fidelity of his Word and the greatness of his Power in their Deliverance from that Furnace of Affliction He might have struck Goliah the Captain of the Philistines Army with a Thunderbolt from Heaven when he Blasphemed his Name and scar'd his People but he useth the Natural strength of a Stone and the Artificial motion of a Sling by the Arm of David to confront the Giant and thereby to free Judea from the ravage of a potent Enemey He might have delivered the Jews from Babylon by as strange Miracles as he used in their Deliverance from Egypt He might have plagu'd their Enemies gather'd his People into a Body and protected them by the bulwark of a Cloud and a Pillar of Fire against the Assaults of their Enemies But he uses the differences between the Persians and those of Babylon to accomplish his Ends. How sometimes hath the veering about of the Wind on a sudden been the loss of a Navy when it hath been upon the point of Victory and driven back the Destruction upon those which intended it for others And the accidental stumbling or the Natural fierceness of a Horse flung down a General in the midst of a Battle where he hath lost his life
is the mysterious and manifold Wisdom of God 3. The end of this Vnion 1. He was hereby fitted to be Mediator He hath something like to Man and something like to God If he were in all things only like to Man he would be at a distance from God If he were in all things only like to God he would be at a distance from Man He is a true Mediator between Mortal Sinners and the Immortal Righteous One. He was near to us by the Infirmities of our Nature and near to God by the Perfections of the Divine as near to God in his Nature as to us in ours as near to us in our Nature as he is to God in the Divine Nothing that belongs to the Deity but he possesses nothing that belongs to the Human Nature but he is clothed with He had both the Nature which had offended and that Nature which was offended a Nature to please God and a Nature to pleasure us A Nature whereby he experimentally knew the excellency of God which was injured and understood the Glory due to him and consequently the Greatness of the Offence which was to be measur'd by the Dignity of his Person And a Nature whereby he might be sensible of the Miserie 's contracted by and endure the calamities due to the Offender that he might both have Compassion on him and make due Satisfaction for him * Gomb de relig p. 42. He had two distinct Natures capable of the Affections and Sentiments of the two Persons he was to accord he was a just Judge of the Rights of the one and the demerit of the other He could not have this full and perfect Understanding if he did not possess the Perfections of the one and the Qualities of the other The one fitted him for things appertaining to God Heb. 5.1 and the other furnisht him with a sense of the Infirmities of man Heb. 4.15 2. He was hereby fitted for the working out the happiness of man A Divine Nature to communicate to man and a Human Nature to carry up to God 1. He had a Nature whereby to suffer for us and a Nature whereby to be meritorious in those Sufferings A Nature to make him capable to bear the Penalty and a Nature to make his Sufferings sufficient for all that embraced him A Nature capable to be exposed to the flames of Divine Wrath and another Nature uncapable to be crusht by the weight or consum'd by the heat of it A Human Nature to suffer and stand a Sacrifice in the stead of Man a Divine Nature to sanctifie these Sufferings and fill the Nostrils of God with a sweet savour and thereby atone his wrath The one to bear the stroak due to us and the other to add merit to his Sufferings for us Had he not been Man he could not have filled our place in suffering and could he otherwise have suffered his sufferings had not been applicable to us and had he not been God his Sufferings had not been meritoriously and fruitfully applicable Had not his Blood been the Blood of God it had been of as little advantage as the Blood of an ordinary Man or the Blood of the Legal Sacrifices †Heb. 9.12 Nothing less than God could have satisfied God for the injury done by Man Nothing less than God could have countervail'd the Torments due to the offending Creature Nothing less than God could have rescued us out of the hands of the Jaylor too powerful for us 2. He had therefore a Nature to be compassionate to us and victorious for us A Nature sensibly to compassionate us and another Nature to render those Compassions effectual for our Relief he had the Compassions of our Nature to pity us and the Patience of the Divine Nature to bear with us He hath the affections of a Man to us and the power of a God for us A Nature to disarm the Devil for us and another Nature to be sensible of the working of the Devil in us and against us If he had been only God he would not have had an experimental sense of our Misery and if he had been only Man he could not have vanquish'd our Enemies Had he been only God he could not have died and had he been only Man he could not have conquered Death 3. A Nature efficaciously to instruct us As Man he was to instruct us sensibly as God he was to instruct us infallibly A Nature whereby he might converse with us and a Nature whereby he might influence us in those Converses A Human Mouth to minister Instruction to Man and a Divine Power to imprint it with efficacy 4. A Nature to be a pattern to us A Pattern of Grâ—ce as Man as Adam was to have been to his Posterity ‖ Amyrant morals Tom. 5. p. 468 469. A Divine Nature shining in the Human the Image of the invisible God in the glass of our Flesh that he might be a perfect Copy for our Imitation Col. 1.15 The Image of the invisible God and the first-born of every Creature in conjunction The Vertues of the Deity are sweetned and tempered by the Union with the Humanity as the Beams of the Sun are by shining through a colour'd Glass which condescends more to the weakness of our eye Thus the Perfections of the invisible God breaking through the first-born of every Creature glittering in Christ's created state became more sensible for Contemplation by our Mind and more imitable for Conformity in our practise 5. A Nature to be a ground of confidence in our approach to God A Nature wherein we may behold him and wherein we may approach to him A Nature for our comfort and a Nature for our confidence Had he been only Man he had been too feeble to assure us and had he been only God he had been too high to attract us But now we are allured by his Human Nature and assured by his Divine in our drawing near to Heaven Communion with God was desired by us but our Guilt stifled our hopes and the Infinite Excellency of the Divine Nature would have dampt our hopes of speeding but since these two Natures so far distant are met in a Marriage-knot we have a ground of hope nay an earnest that the Creator and believing Creature shall meet and converse together And since our sins are expiated by the Death of the Human Nature in conjunction with the Divine our Guilt upon believing shall not hinder us from this comfortable approach Had he been only Man he could not have assured us an approach to God Had he been only God his Justice would not have admitted us to approach to him he had been too terrible for guilty Persons and too holy for polluted Persons to come near to him But by being made Man his Justice is tempered and by his being God and Man his Mercy is ensured A Human Nature he had one with us that we might be related to God as one with him 6. A Nature to
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
us and how ignorant they are of what they possess It will cause us to reflect upon the deeper Impressions of Wisdom in the frame of our own Bodies and Souls an excellency far superiour to theirs this would make us admire the magnificence of his Wisdom and Goodness and sound forth his Praise for advancing us in dignity above other Works of his hands and stamping on us by Infinite Art a Nobler Image of himself And by such a Comparison of our selves with the Creatures below us we should be induced to act excellently according to the nature of our Souls not brutishly according to the nature of the Creatures God hath put under our feet 5. By the Contemplation of the Creatures we may receive some assistance in clearing our knowledge in the Wisdom of Redemption Though they cannot of themselves inform us of it yet since God hath revealed his Redeeming Grace they can illustrate some particulars of it to us Hence the Scripture makes use of the Creatures to set forth things of a higher orb to us Our Saviour is called a Sun a Vine and a Lion the Spirit likened to a Dove Fire and Water The Union of Christ and his Church is set forth by the Marriage Union of Adam and Eve God hath placed in Corporeal things the Images of Spiritual and wrapped up in his Creating Wisdom the representations of his Redeeming Grace Whence some call the Creatures Natural Types of what was to be transacted in a new formation of the World and Allusions to what God intended in and by Christ 6. The Meditation of Gods Wisdom in the Creatures is in part a beginning of Heaven upon Earth No doubt but there will be a perfect opening of the Model of Divine Wisdom Heaven is for clearing what is now obscure and a full discovering of what seems at present intricate Psal 36.9 In his light shall we see light All the Light in Creation Government and Redemption The Wisdom of God in the New Heavens and the New Earth would be to little purpose if that also were not to be regarded by the Inhabitants of them As the Saints are to be restored to the state of Adam and higher so they are to be restored to the employment of Adam and higher But his employment was to behold God in the Creatures The World was so soon depraved that God had but little joy in and Man but little knowledge of his Works And since the Wisdom of God in Creation is so little seen by our Ignorance here would not God lose much of the glory of it if the glorified Souls should lose the understanding of it above When their Darkness shall be expelled and their Advantages improved when the Eye that Adam lost shall be fully restored and with a greater clearness when the Creature shall be restored to its true End and Reason to its true Perfection * Rom. 8.21 22. when the Fountains of the depths of Nature and Government shall be opened Knowledge shall increase and according to the increase of our Knowledge shall the admiration of Divine Wisdom increase also The Wisdom of God in Creation was not surely intended to lie wholly unobserved in the greatest part of it but since there was so little time for the full observation of it there will be a time wherein the Wisdom of God shall enjoy a resurrection and be fully contemplated by his understanding and glorified Creature II. Exhortation Study and admire the Wisdom of God in Redemption This is the Duty of all Christians We are not called to understand the great depth of Philosophy we are not called to a skill in the Intricacies of Civil Government or understand all the methods of Physick but we are called to be Christians that is Studiers of Divine Evangelical Wisdom There are first Principles to be learned but not those Principles to be rested in without a further progress Heb. 6.1 Therefore leaving the principles of the Doctrine of Christ let us go on to perfection Duties must be practised but knowledge is not to be neglected The study of Gospel Mysteries the harmony of Divine Truths the sparkling of Divine Wisdom in their mutual combination to the great ends of Gods Glory and Mans Salvation is an Incentive to Duty a Spur to Worship and particularly to the greatest and highest part of Worship that part which shall remain in Heaven the Admiration and Praise of God and Delight in him If we acquaint not our selves with the Impressions of the glory of Divine Wisdom in it we shall not much regard it as worthy our observance in regard of that Duty The Gospel is a Mystery and as a Mystery hath something Great and Magnificent in it worthy of our daily inspection we shall find fresh Springs of New wonders which we shall be invited to adore with a Religious Astonishment It will both raise and satisfie our Longings Who can come to the depths of God manifested in the flesh How amazing is it and unworthy of a slight thought that the Death of the Son of God should purchase the happy Immortality of a Sinful Creature and the glory of a Rebel be wrought by the Ignominy of so great a Person That our Mediator should have a Nature whereby to Covenant with his Father and a Nature whereby to be a Surety for the Creature How admirable is it that the Fallen Creature should receive an advantage by the Forfeiture of his Happiness How Mysterious is it that the Son of God should bow down to Death upon a Cross for the satisfaction of Justice and rise Triumphantly out of the Grave as a declaration that Justice was contented and satisfied That he should be exalted to Heaven to Intercede for us and at last return into the World to receive us and invest us with a Glory for ever with himself Are these things worthy of a Careless regard or a Blockish amazement What Understanding can pâ—erce into the depths of the Divine Doctrine of the Incarnation and Birth of Christ the indissoluble Union of the two Natures What Capacity is able to measure the miracles of that Wisdom found in the whole Draught and Scheme of the Gospel Doth it not merit then to be the Object of our daily Meditation How comes it to pass then that we are so little curious to concern our Thoughts in those Wonders that we scarce taste or sip of these Delicacies That we busie our selves in Trifles and consider what we shall eat and in what fashion we shall be drest please our selves with the ingeniousness of a Lace or Feather admire a Moth-eaten Manuscript or some Half-worn piece of Antiquity and think our time Ill-spent in the contemplating and celebrating that wherein God hath busied himself and Eternity is design'd for the perpetual expressions of How Inquisitve are the Blessed Angels with what vigour do they renew their daily Contemplations of it and receive a fresh Contentment from it still learning and still enquiring 1 Pet. 1.12 their Eye is
what God hath hid as to be careless of what God hath manifested Too great an inquisitiveness beyond our line is as much a provoking arrogance as a blockish negligence of what is revealed is a slighting ingratitude 2. Submit to God in his Precepts and Methods Since they are the results of Infinite Wisdom disputes against them are not tolerable What orders are given out by Infallible Wisdom are to be entertained with respect and reverence though the reason of them be not visible to our purblind minds Shall God have less respect from us than Earthly Princes whose Laws we observe without being able to pierce into the exact reason of them all Since we know he hath not a Will without an Understanding our observance of him must be without Repining we must not think to mend our Creators Laws and presume to judg and condemn his Righteous Statutes If the flesh rise up in opposition we must cross its motions and Silence its Murmurings his Will should be an acceptable Will to us because it is a wise Will in itself God hath no need to impose upon us and deceive us He hath just and righteous waies to attain his glory and his Creatures good To deceive us would be to dishonour himself and contradict his own nature He cannot impose false injurious Precepts or unavailable to his subjects happiness not false because of his Truth not injurious because of his Goodness not vain because of his Wisdom Submit therefore to him in his Precepts and in his Methods too The honour of his Wisdom and the interest of our Happiness calls for it Had Noah disputed with God about building an Ark and listned to the scoffs of the sensless World he had perished under the same fate and lost the honour of a Preacher and worker of righteousness Had not the Israelites been their own enemies if they had been permitted to be their own guides and returned to the Egyptian bondage and furnaces instead of a liberty and earthly felicity in Canaan Had our Saviour gratified the Jews by descending from the Cross and freeing himself from the power of his Adversaries he might have had that Faith from them which they promised him but It had been a faith to no purpose because without ground they might have believed him to be the Son of God but he could not have been the Saviour of the World His death the great ground and object of Faith had been unaccomplished they had believed a God pardoning without a content to his Iustice and such a Faith could not have rescued them from falling into eternal Misery The Precepts and Methods of Divine Wisdom must be submitted to 3. Submit to God in all Crosses and Revolutions Infinite Wisdom cannot err in any of his paths or step the least hairs bredth from the way of Righteousness There is the Understanding of God in every motion an Eye in every Wheel the Wheel that goes over us and crusheth us We are led by Fancy more than Reason We know no more what we ask or what is fit for us than the Mother of Zebedees children did when she Petitioned Christ for her sons advancement when he came into his Temporal Kingdom * Mat. 20.22 The things we desire might pleasure our Fancy or Appetite but impair our health One man complains for want of Children but knows not whither they may prove Comforts or Crosses Another for want of Health but knows not whither the health of his Body may not prove the disease of his Soul We migh◠lose in Heavenly things if we possess in Earthly things what we long for God in regard of his infinite Wisdom is fitter to carve out a condition than we our selves our Shallow reason and self-love would wish for those things that are injurious to God to our selves to the World but God alwaies chooses what is best for his Glory and what is best for his Creatures either in regard of themselves or as they stand in relation to him or to others as parts of the World We are in danger from our self-love in no danger in complying with Gods Wisdom When Rachel would dye if she had no Children she had Children but Death with one of them †Gen. 30.1 Good men may conclude that whatsoever is done by God in them or with them is best and fittest for them because by the Covenant which makes over God to them as their God the conduct of his Wisdom is assured to them as well as any other Attribute And therefore as God in every transaction appears as their God so he appears as their wise Director and by this Wisdom he extracts good out of evill makes the affliction which destroys our outward Comforts consume our inward Defilements And the waves which threatned to swallow up the vessel to cast it upon the shore And when he hath occasion to manifest his Anger against his People his Wisdom directs his Wrath. In Judgment he hath a work to do upon Zion and when that work is done he punishes the fruit of the stout heart of the King of Assyria ‖ Isa 10 1◠As in the answers of Prayer he doth give oftentimes above what we ask or think Eph. 3.20 so in outward concerns he doth above what we can expect or by our short-sightedness conclude will be done Let us therefore in all things frame our minds to the Divine Wisdom and say with the Psalmist Psal 47.4 The Lord shall chuse our inheritance and condition for us 6. Exhortation Censure not God in any of his waies Can we Understand the full scope of Divine Wisdom in Creation which is perfected before our Eyes Can we by a rational knowledge walk over the whole Surface of the Earth and wade through the Sea Can we Understand the Nature of the Heavens Are all or most or the thousandth part of the particles of Divine Skil known by us yea or any of them throughly known How can we then Understand his deeper methods in things that are but of yesterday that we have not had a time to View We should not be too quick or too rash in our Judgments of him The best that we attain to is but feeble conjectures at the designs of God As there is something hid in whatsoever is revealed in his Word so there is some thing inaccessible to us in his Works as well as in his Nature and Majesty In our Saviours act in washing his Disciples feet he checkt Peters contradiction John 13.7 What I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter God were not infinitely wise if the reason of all his acts were obvious to our Shallowness He is no profound States-man whose inward intention can be sounded by vulgar Heads at the first act he starts in his designed method The wise God is in this like wisemen that have not breasts like glasses of Christal to discover all that they intend There are secrets of Wisdom above our reach * Iob 11.6 nay when
truly in it self all Power who wrought them without Engines without Instruments and therefore this Power must be infinite and possessed of an unalterable vertue of acting If it be eternal it must be infinite and hath neither beginning nor end what is eternal hath no bounds 〈◊〉 it be eternal and not limited by time it must be infinite and not to be restrain'd by any finite Object His Power never begun to be nor ever ceaseth to be it cannot languish men are fain to unbend themselves and must have some time to recruit their tyred spirits But the Power of God is perpetually vigorous without any interrupting qualm Isa 40.28 Hast thou not known hast thou not heard that the everlasting God the Lord the Creator of the ends of the Earth fainteth not neither is weary That Might which suffered no diminution from Eternity but hatcht so great a World by brooding upon nothing will not suffer any dimness or decrease to Eternity This Power being the same with his Essence is as durable as his Essence and resides for ever in his Nature 8. The Eighth Consideration for the right understanding of this Attribute The impossibility of Gods doing some things is no infringing of his Almightiness but rather a strengthning of it 'T is granted that some things God cannot do or rather as Aquinas and others 't is better to say such things cannot be done than to say that God cannot do them to remove all kind of imputation or reflection of weakness on God ‖ Robins observat p. 14. and because the reason of the impossibility of those things is in the nature of the things themselves 1. First Some things are impossible in their own nature Such are all those things which imply a Contradiction as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time for the Sun to shine and not to shine at the same moment of time for a Creature to act and not to act at the same instant One of those parts must be false for if it be true that the Sun shines this moment it must be false to say it doth not shine So it is impossible that a rational Creature can be without reason 'T is a contradiction to be a rational Creature and yet want that which is essential to a rational Creature So it is impossible that the Will of man can be compelled because Liberty is the Essence of the Will while it is Will it cannot be constrain'd and if it be constrain'd it ceaseth to be Will. * Magalano de scientiâ Dei part 2. c. 6. § 3. God cannot at one time act as the Author of the Will and the Destroyer of the Will 'T is impossible that Vice and Virtue Light and Darkness Life and Death should be the same thing Those things admit not of a Conception in any Understanding Some things are impossible to be done because of the incapability of the subject as for a Creature to be made infinite independent to preserve it self without the Divine concourse and assistance So a Brute cannot be taken into communion with God and to everlasting spiritual Blessedness because the Nature of a Brute is uncapable of such an Elevation A rational Creature only can understand and relish spiritual delights and is capable to enjoy God and have communion with him Indeed God may change the nature of a Brute and bestow such Faculties of Understanding and Will upon it as to render it capable of such a Blessedness but then 't is no more a Brute but a rational Creature but while it remains a Brute the excellency of the Nature of God doth not admit of communion with such a Subject So that this is not for want of Power in God but because of a deficiency in the Creature To suppose that God could make a Contradiction true is to make himself false and to do just nothing 2. Some things are impossible to the Nature and Being of God As to dye implies a flat repugnance to the Nature of God To be able to die is to be able to be cashierd out of being If God were able to deprive himself of life he might then cease to be He were not then a necessary but an uncertain contingent being and could not be said only to have Immortality as he is †1 Tim. 6.16 He cannot dye who is life it self and necessarily Existent He cannot grow old or decay because he cannot be measur'd by time And this is no part of Weakness but the perfection of Power His Power is that whereby he remains for ever fixed in his own everlasting being that cannot be reckoned as necessary to the Omnipotence of God which all Mankind count a part of weakness in themselves God is Omnipotent because he is not Impotent and if he could dye he would be Impotent not Omnipotent Death is the feebleness of Nature 'T is undoubtedly the greatest impotence to cease to be Who would count it a part of Omnipotency to disenable himself and sink into nothing and not being The impossibility for God to dye is not a fit Article to impeach his Omnipotence this would be a strange way of arguing a thing is not powerful because it is not feeble and cannot cease to be powerful for Death is a cessation of all Power ‖ August God is Almighty in doing what he will not in suffering what he will not To dye is not an active but a passive Power a defect of a Power God is of too noble a Nature to perish Some things are impossible to that eminency of Nature which he hath above all Creatures as to walk sleep feed these are Imperfections belonging to Bodies and compounded Natures If he could walk he were not every where present Motion speaks Succession If he could encrease he would not have been perfect before 3. Some things are impossible to the glorious perfections of God God cannot do any thing unbecoming his holiness and goodness any thing unworthy of himself and against the perfections of his Nature God can do whatsoever he can will As he doth actually do whatsoever he doth actually will so it is possible for him to do whatsoever it is possible for him to will He doth whatsoever he will and can do whatsoever he can will but he cannot do what he cannot will He cannot will any unrighteous thing and therefore cannot do any unrighteous thing God cannot love sin this is contrary to his Holiness he cannot violate his Word this is a denial of his Truth he cannot punish an Innocent this is contrary to his Goodness he cannot cherish an impenitent Sinner this is an injury to hâ—s Justice He cannot forget what is done in the World this is a disgrace to his Omniscience he cannot deceive his Creature This is contrary to his faithfulness none of these things can be done by him because of the perfection of his Nature Would it not be an imperfection in God to absolve the Guilty and condemn the Innocent Is
it congruous to the righteous and holy nature of God to command Murder and Adultery to command men not to worship him but to be base and unthankful These things would be against the Rules of Righteousness As when we say of a good Man he cannot rob or fight a Duel we do not mean that he wants a courage for such an Act or that he hath not a natural strength and knowledge to manage his Weapon as well as another but he hath a righteous Principle strong in him which will not suffer him to do it his will is setled against it No Power can pass into Act unless applied by the will But the will of God cannot will any thing but what is worthy of him and decent for his Goodness 1. The Scripture saith 't is impossible for God to lye * Hebr. 6.18 and God cannot deny himself because of his faithfulness †2 Tim. 2.13 As he cannot dye because he is life it self as he cannot deceive because he is goodness it self as he cannot do an unwise action because he is wisdom it self so he cannot speak a false word because he is truth it self If he should speak any thing as true and not know it where is his infinite Knowledge and Comprehensiveness of Understanding If he should speak any thing as true which he knows to be false where is his infinite Righteousness If he should deceive any Creature there is an end of his Perfection of Fidelity and Veracity If he should be deceiv'd himself there is an end of his Omniscience we must then fancy him to be a deceitful God an ignorant God that is no God at all ‖ Becan sum Theolog. p. â—3 If he should lye he would be God and no God God upon supposition and no God because not the first Truth All Unrighteousness is Weakness not Power 't is a Defection from right Reason a Deviation from Moral Principles and the Rule of perfect Action and ariseth from a defect of Goodness and Power 'T is a Weakness and not Omnipotence to lose Goodness * Maximus Tyrius God is Light 't is the perfection of Light not to become Darkness and a want of Power in Light if it should become Darkness His Power is infinitely strong so is his Wisdom infinitely clear and his Will infinitely pure Would it not be a part of Weakness to have a disorder in himself and these Perfections shock one against another Since all Perfections are in God in the most Soveraign height of Perfection nothing can be done by the Infiniteness of one against the Infiniteness of the other He would then be unstable in his own Perfections and depart from the infinite rectitude of his own Will if he shoul do an evil action Again †Ambrose What is an Argument of greater strength then to be utterly ignorant of Infirmity God is Omnipotent because he cannot do Evil and would not be Omnipotent if he could Those things would be Marks of Weakness and not Characters of Majesty Would you count a sweet Fountain impotent because it cannot send forth bitter Streams Or the Sun weak because it cannot diffuse Darkness as well as Light in the Air There is an inability arising from Weakness and an ability arising from Perfection 'T is the Perfection of Angels and blessed Spirits that they cannot sin And it would be the Imperfection of God if he could do Evil. 2. Hence it follows that 't is impossible that a thing past should not be past If we ascribe a Power to God to make a thing that is past not to be past we do not truly ascribe Power to him but a Weakness For it is to make God to lye As though God might not have created man yet after he had created Adam though he should presently have reduced Adam to his first nothing yet it would be for ever true that Adam was created and it would for ever be false that Adam never was created So though God may prevent sin yet when sin hath been committed it will alway be true that sin was committed It will never be true to say such a Creature that did sin did not sin his sin cannot be recalled Though God by pardon take off the Guilt of Peter's denying our Saviour yet it will be eternally true that Peter did deny him It is repugnant to the Righteousness and Truth of God to make that which was once true to become false and not true that is to make a Truth to become a Lye and a Lye to become a Truth This is well argued from Hebr. 6.18 'T is impossible for God to lye ‖ Becan sum Theol. p 84. Crel de Deo cap. 22. The Apostle argues that what God had promised and sworn will come to pass and cannot but come to pass Now if God could make a thing past not to be past this consequence would not be good for then he might make himself not to have promised not to have sworn after he hath promised and sworn And so if there were a power to undo that which is past there would be no foundation for Faith no certainty of Revelation It cannot be asserted that God hath created the World that God hath sent his Son to dye that God hath accepted his death for man These might not be true if it were possible that that which hath been done might be said never to have been done So that what any may imagine to be a want of Power in God is the highest perfection of God and the greatest security to a believing Creature that hath to do with God Fourthly Some things are impossible to be done because of God's Ordination Some things are impossible not in their own nature but in regard of the determin'd Will of God So God might have destroy'd the World after Adam's fall but it was impossible not that God wanted Power to do it but because he did not only decree from Eternity to create the World but did also decree to redeem the World by Jesus Christ and erected the World in order to the manifestation of his glory in Christ Eph. 1.4.5 The choice of some in Christ was before the foundation of the World Supposing that there was no hinderance in the Justice of God to pardon the sin of Adam after his fall and to execute no punishment on him yet in regard of Gods threatning that in the day he eat of the forbidden fruit he should dye it was impossible So though it was possible that the Cup should pass from our blessed Saviour that is possible in its own nature yet it was not possible in regard of the determination of Gods Will since he had both decreed and publisht his Will to redeem Man by the Passion and Blood of his Son These things God by his absolute Power might have done but upon the account of his decree they were impossible because it is repugnant to the Nature of God to be mutable 'T is to deny his own
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
crucified at Jerusalem Honours and Wealth were to be despis'd Flesh to be tam'd the Cross to be borne Enemies to be loved Revenge to be satisfied Blood to be spilt and Torments to be endured for the Honour of One they never saw nor ever before heard of who was preached with the Circumstances of a shameful Death enough to affright them from the Entertainment And the Report of a Resurrection and glorious Ascension were things never heard of by them before and unknown in the World that would not easily enter into the belief of men The Cross Disgrace Self-denial were only discours'd of in order to the attainment of an invisible World and an unseen reward which none of their Predecessors ever returned to acquaint them with a Patient death contrary to the pride of Nature was publisht as the way to Happiness and a blessed Immortality The dearest Lusts were to be pierced to death for the honour of this new Lord. Other Religions brought Wealth and Honour this struck them off from such Expectations and presented them with no Promise of any thing in this Life but a prospect of Misery Except those inward Consolations to which before they had been utter Strangers and had never experimented It made them to depend not upon themselves but upon the sole Grace of God It decried all natural all moral Idolatry things as dear to men as the Apple of their Eyes It despoyl'd them of whatsoever the Mind Will and Affections of men naturally lay claim to and glory in It pulled Self up by the Roots unman'd carnal Man and debas'd the Principle of Honour and Self-satisfaction which the World counted at that time noble and brave In a word it took them off from themselves to act like Creatures of God's framing to know no more than he would admit them and do no more than he did command them How difficult must it needs be to reduce men that plac'd all their happiness in the Pleasures of this Life from their pompous Idolatry and brutish Affections to this mortifying Religion What might the World say Here is a Doctrine will render us a company of puling Animals Farewel Generosity Bravery Sense of Honour Courage in enlarging the Bounds of our Country for an ardent Charity to the bitterest of our Enemies Here 's a Religion will rust our Swords Canker our Arms dispirit what we have hitherto called Vertue and annihilate what hath been esteem'd worthy and comely among Mankind Must we change Conquest for Suffering the increase of our Reputation for Self-denial the natural Sentiment of Self-preservation for affecting a dreadful Death How impossible was it that a Crucified Lord and a Crucifying Doctrine should be received in the World without the mighty Operation of a Divine Power upon the Hearts of Men And in this also the Almighty Power of God did notably shine forth II. Divine Power appear'd in the Instruments employ'd for the publishing and propagating the Gospel Who were 1. Mean and worthless in themselves Not noble and dignified with an earthly Grandeur but of a low Condition meanly bred So far from any splendid Estates that they possessed nothing but their Nets without any Credit and Reputation in the World without Comliness and Strength as unfit to subdue the World by Preaching as an Army of Hares were to conquer it by War Not learned Doctors bred up at the feet of the Famous Rabbins at Jerusalem whom Paul calls the Princes of the World * 1 Cor. 2.8 nor nurs'd up in the School of Athens under the Philosophers and Orators of the time Not the Wise-men of Greece but the Fishermen of Galilee naturally skill'd in no Language but their own and no more exact in that than those of the same Condition in any other Nation Ignorant of every thing but the Language of their Lakes and their fishing Trade except Paul call'd sometime after the rest to that Imployment And after the descent of the Spirit they were ignorant and unlearned in every thing but the Doctrine they were commanded to publish for the Council before whom they were summon'd prov'd them to be so which increased their wonder at them Acts 4.13 Had it been publish't by a Voice from Heaven That Twelve poor men taken out of Boats and Creeks without any help of Learning should conquer the World to the Cross it might have been thought an Illusion against all the Reason of Men yet we know it was undertaken and accomplish't by them They publish't this Doctrine in Jerusalem and quickly spread it over the greatest part of the World Folly outwitted Wisdom and Weakness over-powred Strength The Conquest of the East by Alexander was not so admirable as the Enterprise of these poor men He attempted his Conquest with the hands of a Warlike Nation though indeed but a small number of Thirty thousand against Multitudes many Hundred thousands of the Enemies yet an Effeminate Enemy a People inur'd to Slaughter and Victory attack'd great Numbers but enfeebled by Luxury and Voluptuousness Besides he was bred up to such Enterprizes had a learned Education under the best Philosopher and a Military Education under the best Commander and a natural Courage to animate him These Instruments had no such advantage from Nature the Heavenly Treasure was placed in those Earthen Vessels as Gideons Lamps in empty Pitchers Judges 7.16 that the excellency or Hyperbole of the Power might be of God 2 Cor. 4.7 and the strength of his Arm be display'd in the infirmity of the Instruments They were destitute of earthly Wisdom and therefore despis'd by the Jews and derided by the Gentiles the Publishers were accounted Mad men and the embracers Fools Had they been Men of known natural Endowments the Power of God had been vail'd under the Gifts of the Creature 2. Therefore a Divine Power suddenly spirited them and fitted them for so great a Work Instead of Ignorance they had the knowledge of the Tongues and they that were scarce well skill'd in their own Dialect were instructed on the sudden to speak the most flourishing Languages of the World and Discourse to the People of several Nations the great things of God †Acts 2.11 Though they were not enricht with any Worldly wealth and possessed nothing yet they were so sustained that they wanted nothing in any place where they came a Table was spread for them in the midst of their bitterest Enemies Their Fearfulness was chang'd into Courage and they that a few days before skulk'd in Corners for fear of the Jews ‖ John 20.19 speak boldly in the Name of that Jesus whom they had seen put to death by the Power of the Rulers and the Fury of the People They reproach them with the Murder of their Master and out-brave that great People in the midst of their Temple with the glory of that Person they had so lately Crucified * Acts 2.23 Acts 3.13 Peter that was not long before qualm'd at the presence of a Maid was not daunted
Minds and Consciences of Men as the Author of Nature for the preservation of the World manifests the Holiness of the Law-maker and Governour 2. His Holiness appears in the Ceremonial Law In the variety of Sacrifices for Sin wherein he writ his detestation of Vnrighteousness in bloody Characters His Holiness was more constantly exprest in the continual Sacrifices than in those rarer sprinklings of Judgments now and then upon the World which often reached not the worst but the most moderate Sinners and were the occasions of the questioning of the Righteousness of his Providence both by Jews and Gentiles In Judgments his Purity was only now and then manifest By his long Patience he might be imagin'd by some reconcil'd to their Crimes or not much concern'd in them but by the Morning and Evening Sacrifice he witness'd a perpetual and uninterrupted Abhorrence of whatsoever was Evil. Besides those the occasional Washings and Sprinklings upon Ceremonial Defilements which polluted only the Body gave an evidence that every thing that had a resemblance to Evil was loathsom to him Add also the Prohibitions of eating such and such Creatures that were filthy as the Swine that wallowed in the Mire a fit Emblem for the prophane and brutish Sinner which had a Moral signification both of the loathsomness of Sin to God and the aversion themselves ought to have to every thing that was filthy 3. This Holiness appears in the Allurements annex'd to the Law for keeping it and the Affrightments to restrain from the breaking of it Both Promises and Threatnings have their Fundamental Root in the Holiness of God and are both Branches of this peculiar Perfection As they respect the Nature of God they are Declarations of his hatred of Sin and his love of Righteousness the one belong to his Threatnings the other to his Promises both joyn together to represent this Divine Perfection to the Creature and to excite to an imitation in the Creature In the one God would render Sin odious because dangerous and curb the practice of Evil which would otherwise be Licentious In the other he would commend Righteousness and excite a love of it which would otherwise be cold By these God sutes the two great Affections of Men Fear and Hope both the branches of Self-love in Man The Promises and Threatnings are both the Branches of Holiness in God The end of the Promises is the same with the Exhortation the Apostle concludes from them 2 Cor. 7.1 Having these Promises let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit perfecting Holiness in the fear of God As the end of Precepts is to direct the end of Threatnings is to deter from Iniquity so that of the Promises is to allure to Obedience Thus God breaths out his Love to Righteousness in every Promise his Hatred of Sin in every Threatning The Rewards offerd in the one are the Smiles of pleased Holiness and the Curses thundred in the other are the Sparklings of enraged Righteousness 4. His Holiness appears in the Judgments inflicted for the violation of this Law Divine Holiness is the Root of Divine Justice and Divine Justice is the Triumph of Divine Holiness Hence both are expressed in Scripture by one word of Righteousness which sometimes signifies the rectitude of the Divine Nature and sometimes the vindicative stroak of his Arm Psal 103.6 The Lord executeth Righteousness and Judgment for all that are oppressed So Dan. 9.7 Righteousness that is Justice belongs to thee The Vials of his Wrath are filled from his implacable aversion to Iniquity All Penal Evils showred down upon the heads of Wicked men spread their root in and branch out from this Perfection All the dreadful Storms and Tempests in the World are blown up by it Why doth he rain Snares Fire and Brimstone and a horrible Tempest because the righteous Lord loveth Righteousness Psal 11.6 7. And as was observed before when he was going about the dreadfullest Work that ever was in the World the overturning the Jewish State hardening the Hearts of that Unbelieving People and casheiring a Nation once dear to him from the honour of his Protection His Holiness as the Spring of all this is applauded by the Seraphims Isai 6.3 compared with Vers 9 10 11 c. Impunity argues the approbation of a Crime and Punishment the abhorrency of it The greatness of the Crime and the Righteousness of the Judge are the first Natural Sentiments that arise in the Minds of Men upon the appearance of Divine Judgments in the World by those that are near them †Amirant Moral Tom. 5. p. 388. As when Men see Gibbets erected Scaffolds prepared Instruments of Death and Torture provided and grievous Punishments inflicted the first reflection in the Spectators is the malignity of the Crime and the detestation the Governours are possessed with 1. How severely hath he punish'd his most Noble Creatures for it The once glorious Angels upon whom he had been at greater cost than upon other Creatures and drawn more lively Lineaments of his own Excellency upon the Transgression of his Law are thrown into the Furnace of Justice without any Mercy to pity them Jude 6. And though there were but one sort of Creatures upon the Earth that bore his Image and were only fit to publish and keep up his Honour below the Heavens yet upon their Apostacy though upon a Temptation from a subtile and insinuating Spirit the Man with all his Posterity is sentenc'd to Misery in Life and Death at last and the Woman with all her Sex have standing Punishments inflicted on them which as they begun in their Persons were to reach as far as the last Member of their successive Generations So Holy is God that he will not endure a Spot in his choicest Work Men indeed when there is a crack in an excellent piece of Work or a stain upon a rich Garment do not cast it away they value it for the remaining Excellency more than hate it for the contracted Spot But God saw no Excellency in his Creature worthy regarding after the Image of that which he most esteemed in himself was defaced 2. How detestable to him are the very Instruments of Sin For the Ill use the Serpent an Irrational Creature was put to by the Devil as an Instrument in the Fall of Man the whole brood of those Animals are Curst Gen. 3.14 Cursed above all Cattle and above every Beast of the field Not only the Devils Head is threatned to be for ever bruised and as some think render'd irrecoverable upon this further Testimony of his Malice in the Seduction of Man who perhaps without this new Act might have been admitted into the Arms of Mercy notwithstanding his first Sin though the Scripture gives us no account of this only this is the only Sentence we read of pronounc'd against the Devil which puts him into an irrecoverable state by a Mortal bruising of his Head But I say He is not only punish'd but the
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
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
Calvary Unspotted Righteousness must be made Sin and unblemisht Blessedness be made a Curse He was at no other Expence than the Breath of his Mouth to form Man the Fruits of the Earth could have maintained Innocent Man without any other Cost but his broken Nature cannot be heal'd without the invaluable Medicine of the Blood of God View Christ in the Womb and in the Manger in his weary Steps and hungry Bowels in his Prostrations in the Garden and in his clodded drops of Bloody Sweat View his Head pierced with a Crown of Thorns and his Face besmeared with the Soldiers Slabber View him in his march to Calvary and his Elevation on the painful Cross with his Head hanged down and his Side streaming Blood View him pelted with the Scoffs of the Governours and the Derisions of the Rabble And see in all this what Cost Goodness was at for Mans Redemption In Creation his Power made the Sun to shine upon us and in Redemption his Bowels sent a Son to die for us 3. This Goodness of God in Redemption is greater than that manifested in Creation in regard of Mans desert of the contrary In the Creation as thre was nothing without him to allure him to the Expressions of his Bounty so there was nothing that did damp the Inclinations of his Goodness The nothing from whence the World was drawn could never merit nor demerit a Being because it was nothing As there was nothing to engage him so there was nothing to disoblige him As his Favour could not be merited so neither could his Anger be deserved But in this he finds ingratitude against the former Marks of his Goodness and Rebellion against the sweetness of his Soveraignty Crimes unworthy of the dews of Goodness and worthy of the sharpest stroaks of Vengeance And therefore the Scripture advanceth the honour of it above the Title of meer Goodness to that of Grace * Rom. 5.2 Tit. 2.11 because Men were not only unworthy of a Blessing but worthy of a Curse An Innocent Nothing more deserves Creation than a Culpable Creature deserves an exemption from Destruction When Man fell and gave occasion to God to repent of his Created Work his ravishing Goodness surmounted the occasions he had of repenting and the provocations he had to the destruction of his Frame 4. It was a greater Goodness than was exprest towards the Angels 1. A greater Goodness than was exprest towards the standing Angels The Son of God did no more expose his Life for the confirmation of those that stood than for the restoration of those that fell The Death of Christ was not for the holy Angels but for sinful Man They needed the Grace of God to confirm them but not the Death of Christ to restore or preserve them They had a beloved Holiness to be established by the powerful Grace of God but not any abominable Sin to be expiated and blotted out by the Blood of God They had no Debt to pay but that of Obedience but we had both a Debt of Obedience to the Precepts and a Debt of Suffering to the Penalty after the Fall Whether the holy Angels were confirm'd by Christ or no is a question some think they were from Colos 1.20 where things in Heaven are said to be reconcil'd but some think that place signifies no more than the Reconciliation of things in Heaven if meant of the Angels to things on Earth with whom they were at enmity in the Cause of their Soveraign or the Reconciliation of things in Heaven to God is meant the glorified Saints who were once in a State of Sin and whom the Death of Christ upon the Cross reached though dead long before But if Angels were confirm'd by Christ it was by him not as a slain Sacrifice but as the Soveraign head of the whole Creation appointed by God to gather all things into one which some think to be the intendment of Ephes 1.10 where all things as well those in Heaven as those in Earth are said to be gathered together in one in Christ Where is a syllable in Scripture of his being Crucified for Angels but only for Sinners Not for the Confirmation of the one but the Reconciliation of the other So that the Goodness whereby God continued those Blessed Spirits in Heaven through the effusions of his Grace is a small thing to the restoring us to our forfeited Happiness through the Streams of Divine Blood The preserving a Man in life is a little thing and a smaller benefit than the raising a Man from Death The rescuing a Man from an ignominious Punishment lays a greater obligation than barely to prevent him from committing a capital Crime The preserving a Man standing upon the top of a steep Hill is more easie than to bring a Crippled and Tissical Man from the bottom to the top The continuance God gave to the Angels is not so signal a Mark of Goodness as the deliverance he gave to us since they were not sunk into Sin nor by any Crime fallen into Misery 2. His Goodness in Redemption is greater than any Goodness expressed to the Fallen Angels 'T is the wonder of his Goodness to us that he was mindful of Fall'n Man and careless of Fall'n Angels That he should visit Man wallowing in Death and Blood with the Day-spring from on high and never turn the Aegyptian darkness of Devils into a chearful day When they Sinn'd Divine Thunder dasht them into Hell When Man Sinn'd Divine Blood wafts the Fallen Creature from his Misery The Angels wallow in their own Blood for ever while Christ is made partaker of our Blood and wallows in his Blood that we might not for ever corrupt in ours They tumbled down from Heaven and Divine Goodness would not vouchsafe to catch them Man tumbles down and Divine Goodness holds out a hand drencht in the Blood of him that was from the Foundations of the World to lift us up Heb. 2.16 He spared not those dignified Spirits when they Revolted and spared not punishing his Son for dusty Man when he offended when he might as well for ever have let Man lie in the Chains wherein he had intangled himself as them We were as fit Objects of Justice as they and they as fit Objects of Goodness as we they were not more wretched by their Fall than we and the poverty of our Nature rendred us more unable to recover our selves than the dignity of theirs did them They were his Reuben his first born they were his Might and the beginning of his Strength yet those Elder Sons he neglected to prefer the Younger They were the Prime and Golden Pieces of Creation not laden with gross Matter yet they lie under the Ruines of their Fall while Man Lead in comparison of them is refin'd for another World They seem'd to be fitter Objects of Divine Goodness in regard of the eminency of their Nature above the Humane One Angel excelled in Endowments of Mind and Spirit vastness of
'T is true Christ gave himself but by the order of Divine Goodness he that begat him pitcht upon him and call'd him to this great work †Heb. 5.5 He is therefore call'd the Lamb of God as being set apart by God to be a propitiating and appeasing Sacrifice He is the Wisdom of God since from the Father he reveals the Councel and Order of Redemption In this regard he calls God his God in the Prophet * Isaiah 49.4 and in the Evangelist †Joh. 20.17 though he was big with affection for the accomplishment yet he came not to do his own will but the will of Divine Goodness His own will it was too but not principally as being the first Wheel in Motion but subordinate to the eternal will of Divine Bounty It was by the will of God that he came and by his will he drank the dreggy Cup of Bitterness Divine Justice laid upon him the iniquity of us all but Divine Goodness intended it for our Rescue Divine Goodness singled him out and set him apart Divine Goodness invited him to it Divine Goodness commanded him to effect it and put a Law into his heart to biass him in the performing of it Divine Goodness sent him and Divine Goodness moved Justice to bruise him and after his Sacrifice Divine Goodness accepted him and caressed him for it So earnest was it for our Redemption as to give out special and irreversible Orders Death was commanded to be endured by him for us and Life commanded to be imparted by him to us * John 10.10 18. If God had not been the Mover but had received the proposal from another he might have heard it but was not bound to grant it His Soveraign Authority was not under any obligation to receive anothers Sponsion for the miserable Criminal As Christ is the head of Man so God is the head of Christ †1 Cor. 11.3 He did nothing but by his directions as he was not a Mediator but by the Constitution of Divine Goodness As a liberal Man deviseth liberal things * Isaiah 2.8 so did a bountiful God devise a bountiful act wherein his kindness and love as a Saviour appeared He was possessed with the resolutions to manifest his Goodness in Christ in the beginning of his way †Prov. 8.22 23. before he descended to the act of Creation This intention of Goodness preceded his making that Creature Man who he foresaw would fall and by his fall disjoynt and entangle the whole Frame of the World without such a provision 2. In Gods giving Christ to be our Redeemer he gave the highest gift that it was possible for Divine Goodness to bestow As there is not a greater God than himself to be conceiv'd so there is not a greater Gift for this great God to present to his Creatures Never did God go farther in any of his excellent Perfections than this 'T is such a Dole that cannot be transcended with a choicer He is as it were come to the last Mite of his Treasure And though he could Create Millions of Worlds for us he cannot give a greater Son to us He could abound in the expressions of his Power in new Creations of Worlds which have not yet been seen and in the lustre of his Wisdom in more stately Structures but if he should frame as many Worlds as there are Mites of Dust and Matter in this and make every one of them as bright and glorious as the Sun Though his Power and Wisdom would be more signalized yet his Goodness could not since he hath not a choicer Gift to bless those brighter Worlds withall than he hath conferr'd upon this Nor can Immense Goodness contrive a richer means to conduct those Worlds to Happiness than he hath both invented for this World and presented it with It cannot be imagin'd that it can extend it self farther than to give a Gift equal with himself a Gift as dear to him as himself His Wisdom had it studied millions of Eternities excuse the Expression since Eternity admits of no Millions it being an interminable duration it could have found out no more to give this Goodness could have bestow'd no more and our necessity could not have requir'd a greater offering for our relief When God intended in Redemption the manifestation of his highest Goodness it could not be without the Donation of the choicest Gift As when he would ensure our Comfort he swears by himself because he cannot swear by a greater * Heb. 6.13 So when he would ensure our Happiness he gives us his Son because he cannot give a greater being equal with himself Had the Father given himself in Person he had given one first in order but not greater in Essence and glorious Perfections It could have been no more than the life of God that should then have been laid down for us and so it was now since the Humane Nature did not subsist but in his Divine Person 1. 'T is a greater Gift than Worlds or all things purchased by him What was this Gift but the Image of his Person and the brightness of his Glory †Heb. 1.3 What was this Gift but one as rich as Eternal Blessedness could make him What was this Gift but one that possessed the fulness of Earth and the more Immense Riches of Heaven 'T is a more valuable Present than if he presented us with thousands of Worlds of Angels and inferior Creatures because his Person is incomparably greater not only than all conceivable but inconceivable Creations We are more obliged to him for it than if he had made us Angels of the highest Rank in Heaven because it is a Gift of more value than the whole Angelical Nature because he is an infinite Person and therefore infinitely transcends whatsoever is finite though of the highest Dignity The Wounds of an Almighty God for us are a greater Testimony of Goodness than if we had all the other Riches of Heaven and Earth This Perfection had not appeared in such an astonishing grandeur had it pardon'd us without so rich a satisfaction that had been pardon to our Sin not a God of our Nature God so loved the World that he pardon'd it had not sounded so great and so good as God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son Est aliquid in Christo formosius Servatore There is something in Christ more Excellent and Comely than the Office of a Saviour the greatness of his Person is more Excellent than the Salvation procured by his Death It was a greater Gift than was bestow'd upon innocent Adam or the holy Angels In the Creation his Goodness gave us Creatures for our use In our Redemption his Goodness gives us what was dearest to him for our Service our Soveraign in Office to benefit us as well as in a Royalty to govern us 2. It was a greater Gift because it was his own Son Not an Angel It had been a mighty
the Lord and his goodness or the Lord for his goodness Fear is often in the Old Testament taken for Faith or Trust This Divine Goodness the Object of Faith is that goodness discover'd in David their King the Messiah our Jesus God in this Dispensation recommends his goodness and love and reveals it more clearly than other Attributes that the Soul might have more prevailing and sweeter attractives to confide in him 3. A confidence in him gives him the glory of his goodness Most Nations that had nothing but the light of Nature thought it a great part of the Honour that was due to God to implore his Goodness and cast their Cares upon it To do good is the most honourable thing in the World and to acknowledge a goodness in a way of confidence is as high an honour as we can give to it and a great part of gratitude for what it hath already exprest Therefore we find often that an acknowledgment of one Benefit received was attended with a trust in him for what they should in the future need * Psal 56.13 Thou hast delivered my Soul from Death wilt thou not deliver my Feet from falling So 2 Cor. 1.10 And they who have been most eminent for their trust in him have had the greatest Elogies and Commendations from him As a diffidence doth disparage this Perfection thinking it meaner and shallower than it is so Confidence highly honours it We never please him more than when we trust in him * Psal 147.11 The Lord takes pleasure in them that fear him in them that hope in his Mercy He takes it for an Honour to have this Attribute exalted by such a Carriage of his Creature He is no less offended when we think his heart straitned as if he were a Parcimonious God than when we think his Arm shortned as if he were an impotent and feeble God Let us therefore make this use of his Goodness to hearten our Faith When we are scar'd by the terrours of his Justice when we are dazled by the arts of his Wisdom and confounded by the splendour of his Majesty we may take refuge in the Sanctuary of his Goodness this will encourage us as well as astonish us Whereas the consideration of his other Attributes would only amaze us but can never refresh us but when they are consider'd marching under the Conduct and Banners of this When all the other Perfections of the Divine Nature are lookt upon in conjunction with this Excellency each of them send forth ravishing and benign influences upon the applying Creature 'T is more advantageous to depend upon Divine Bounty than our own Cares We may have better assurance upon this account in his Cares for us than in ours for our selves Our goodness for our selves is Finite and besides we are too ignorant His goodness is Infinite and attended with an infinite Wisdom we have reason to distrust our selves not God We have reason to be at rest under that kind influence we have so often experimented He hath so much goodness that he can have no deceit His goodness in making the Promise and his goodness in working the heart to a Reliance on it are grounds of trust in him * Psal 119.49 Remember thy word to thy Servant upon which thou hast caused me to hope If his Promise did not please him why did he make it If Reliance on the Promise doth not please him why did his Goodness work it It would be inconsistent with his Goodness to mock his Creature and it would be the highest Mockery to publish his Word and Create a temper in the heart of his supplicant suited to his Promise which he never intended to satisfie He can as little wrong his Creature as wrong himself and therefore can never disappoint that Faith which in his own methods casts it self into the arms of his Kindness and is his own Workmanship and calls him Author That Goodness that imparted it self so freely in Creation will not neglect those nobler Creatures that put their trust in him This renders God a fit Object for trust and confidence 8. The eighth Instruction This renders God worthy to be obeyed and honour'd There is an Excellency in God to allure as well as Soveraignty to enjoyn Obedience The infinite Excellency of his Nature is so great that if his Goodness had promised us nothing to encourage our Obedience we ought to prefer him before our selves devote our selves to serve him and make his glory our greatest content but much more when he hath given such admirable Expressions of his Liberality and stor'd us with hopes of richer and fuller Streams of it When David consider'd the Absolute Goodness of his Nature and the Relative Goodness of his Benefits he presently expresseth an ardent desire to be acquainted with the Divine Statutes that he might make ingenuous returns in a dutiful observance * Psal 119.68 Thou art good and thou dost good teach me thy Statutes As his Goodness is the Original so the acknowledgment of it is the end of all which cannot be without an observance of his Will His Goodness requires of us an ingenuous not a servile Obedience And this is Establisht upon two Foundations 1. Because the Bounty of God hath laid upon us the strongest Obligations The strength of an Obligation depends upon the greatness and numerousness of the Benefits received The more Excellent the favours are which are conferr'd upon any Person the more right hath the Benefactor to claim an observance from the Person better'd by him Much of the Rule and Empire which hath been in several Ages conferred by Communities upon Princes hath had its first spring from a sense of the advantages they have receiv'd by them either in protecting them from their Enemies or rescuing them from an ignoble Captivity in enlarging their Territories or increasing their Wealth Conquest hath been the Original of a constrain'd but Beneficence always the Original of a voluntary and free Subjection * Amyrald Discert p. 65. Obedience to Parents is founded upon their right because they are instrumental in bestowing upon us Being and Life and because this of life is so great a benefit the Law of Nature never dissolves this Obligation of Obeying and Honouring Parents 'T is as long liv'd as the Law of Nature and hath an universal practice by the strength of that Law in all parts of the World And those rightful Chains are not unlockt but by that which unties the knot between Soul and Body Much more hath God a Right to be obey'd and reverenced who is the principal Benefactor and mov'd all those second Causes to impart to us what conduc'd to our advantage The just Authority of God over us results from the superlativeness of his Blessings he hath pour'd down upon us which cannot be equall'd much less exceeded by any other As therefore upon this account he hath a claim to our choicest Affections so he hath also to most exact Obedience and
and he is punctually obeyed by them as a Soveraign Lord. All Creatures stand ready for his call and are prepared to be Executioners of his vengeance when he speaks the word they are his Hosts by Creation and in array for his service at the sound of his Trumpet or beat of his Drum they troop together with their Arms in their hands to put his Orders exactly in execution 6. The Dominion of God is manifest in appointing to every man his calling and station in the World If the hairs of every mans head fall under his Soveraign care the Calling of every man wherein he is to glorifie God and serve his Generation which is of a greater concern than the hairs of the head falls under his Dominion He is the Master of the great Family and divides to every one his work as he pleaseth The whole work of the Messiah the time of every action as well as the hour of his Passion was ordered and appointed by God The separation of Paul to the Preaching of the Gospel was by the Soveraign disposal of God Rom. 1.1 By the same exercise of his Authority that he sets every man the bounds of his habitation Acts 17.26 he prescribes also to him the nature of his work He that ordered Adam the Father of mankind his work and the place of it the dressing the Garden Gen. 2.15 doth not let any of his posterity be their own choosers without an influence of his Soveraign direction on them Though our Callings are our work yet they are by Gods order wherein we are to be faithful to our great Master and Ruler 7. The Dominion of God is manifest in the means and occasions of mens Conversion Sometimes one occasion sometimes another one word lets a man go another arrests him and brings him before God and his own Conscience 't is as God gives out the order He lets Paul be a Prisoner at Jerusalem that his cause should not be determined there moves him to appeal to Caesar not only to make him a Prisoner but a Preacher in Caesars Court and render his chains an occasion to bring in a Harvest of Converts in Nero's Palace 1 Phil. 12.13 His bonds in or for Christ are manifest in all the Palace not the bare knowledge of his bonds but the soveraign design of God in those Bonds and the success of them the bare knowledge of them would not make others more confident for the Gospel as it follows v. 14. without a providential design of them Onesimus running from his Master is guided by Gods soveraign order into Pauls Company and thereby into Christ's arms and he who came a fugitive returns a Christian. Phil. 10.15 Some by a strong affliction have had by the Divine soveraignty their understandings awakened to consider and their wills spirited to conversion Monica being call'd Meribibula or toss-pot was brought to consider her way and reform her Life A word hath done that at one time which hath often before fallen without any fruit Many have come to suck in the Eloquence of the Minister and have found in the Hony for their Ears a sting for their Consciences Austin had no other intent in going to hear Ambrose but to have a tast of his famous Oratory but while Ambrose spake a Language to his Ear God spake a heavenly Dialect to his heart No reason can be render'd of the order and timing and influence of those things but the soveraign pleasure of God who will attend one occasion and season with his blessing and not another 8. The Dominion of God is manifest in disposing of the Lives of men He keeps the key of Death as well as that of the Womb in his own hand he hath given man a Life but not power to dispose of it or lay it down at his pleasure And therefore he hath ordered man not to murder not another not himself man must expect his call and grant to dispose of the Life of his Body Why doth he cut the thred of this mans Life and spin anothers out to a longer term Why doth one die an inglorious death and another more honourable One silently drops away in the multitude while another is made a Sacrifice for the Honour of God or the safety of his Countrey This is a mark of Honour he gives to one and not to another Phil. 1.29 To you it is given The manner of Peters death was appointed John 21.19 Why doth a small and slight Disease against the Rules of Physick and the Judgment of the best Practitioners dislodge one mans Soul out of his Body while a greater Disease is master'd in another and discharges the Patient to enjoy himself a longer time in the Land of the Living Is it the effect of means so much as of the soveraign disposer of all things If means only did it the same means would alway work the same effect and sooner master a dwarfish than a Gyant-like Distemper Our times are only in Gods hands Psal 31.15 Either to cut short or continue long As his soveraignty made the first Marriage knot so he reserves the sole Authority to himself to make the Divorce 4. The Dominion of God is manifest in his being a Redeemer as well as Law-giver Proprietor and Governour His Soveraignty was manifest in the Creation in bestowing upon this or that part of matter a form more excellent than upon another He was a Law-giver to Men and Angels and prescribed them rules according to the Councel of his own Will These were his Creatures and perfectly at his disposal but in Redemption a soveraignty is exercised over the Son the second Person in the Trinity one equal with the Father in essence and works by whom the worlds were created and by whom they do consist The whole Gospel is nothing else but a declaration of his soveraign pleasure concerning Christ and concerning us in him 't is therefore call'd the Mystery of his Will Eph. 1.9 The Will of God as distinct from the Will of Christ a purpose in himself not mov'd thereunto by any the whole design was fram'd in the Deity and as much the purpose of his soveraign Will as the contrivance of his immense Wisdom He decreed in his own pleasure to have the second person assume our Nature for to deliver mankind from that misery whereinto it was fallen The whole of the Gospel and the Priviledges of it are in that chapter resolved into the will and pleasure of God God is therefore called the head of Christ 1 Cor. 11.3 As Christ is superior to all men and the man superior to the woman so is God superior to Christ and of a more eminent dignity in regard of the constituting him mediator Christ is Subject to God as the Body to the Head Head is a Title of Government and Soveraignty and Magistrates were called the heads of the People As Christ is the head of Man so is God the head of Christ and as man is subject to Christ so is Christ
as he would have done those sinners in whose stead he suffer'd Without this Act of Soveraignty in God we had for ever perished For if we could suppose Christ laying down his life for us without the pleasure and order of God he could not have been said to have born our punishment What could he have undergone in his Humanity but a temporal death but more than this was due to us even the wrath of God which far exceeds the calamity of a meer bodily death The Soul being principal in the crime was to be principal in the punishment The wrath of God could not have dropt upon his Soul and render'd it so full of Agonies without the hand of God A creature is not capable to reach the Soul neither as to comfort nor terror and the Justice of God could not have made him a sufferer if it had not first consider'd him a sinner by imputation or by inhaerency and actual commission of a crime in his own person The latter was far from Christ who was holy harmless and undefiled He must be considered then in the other state of imputation which could not be without a Soveraign appointment or at least concession of God For without it he could have had no more Authority to lay down his life for us than Abraham could have had to have sacrific'd his son or any man to expose himself to death without a call Nor could any Plea have been entred in the Court of Heaven either by Christ for us or by us for our selves And though the death of so great a person had been meritorious in it self it had not been meritorious for us or accepted for us Christ is deliver'd up by him Rom. 8.32 in every part of that condition wherein he was and suffer'd and to that end that we might become the Righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 That we might have the Righteousness of him that was God imputed to us or that we might have a Righteousness as great and proportion'd to the Righteousness of God as God requir'd It was an act of Divine Soveraignty to account him that was Righteous a sinner in our stead and to account us who were sinners Righteous upon the merit of his death 4. This was done by the command of God by God as a Law-giver having the supream Legislative and Praeceptive Authority In which respect the whole work of Christ is said to be an answer to a Law not one given him but put into his heart as the Law of nature was in the heart of man at first Psal 40.7 8. Thy Law is within my heart This Law was not the Law of Nature or Moral Law though that was also in the heart of Christ but the command of doing those things which were necessary for our Salvation and not a command so much of doing as of dying The Moral Law in the heart of Christ would have done us no good without the Mediatory Law We had been where we were by the sole observance of the Precepts of the Moral Law without his suffering the penalty of it The Law in the heart of Christ was the Law of suffering or dying the doing that for us by his death which the blood of Sacrifices was unable to effect Legal Sacrifices thou would'st not thy Law is within my heart i. e. thy Law ordered me to be a Sacrifice It was that Law his obedience to which was principally accepted and esteem'd and that was principally his passive his obedience to death Phil. 2.8 This was the special command received from God that he should dye John 10.18 'T is not so clearly manifested when this command was given whither after the incarnation of Christ or at the point of his constitution as Mediator upon the transaction between the father and the son concerning the affair of Redemption The promise was given before the World began Tit. 1.2 Might not the Precept be given before the World began to Christ as consider'd in the quality of Mediator and Redeemer Precepts and Promises usually attend one another Every Covenant is made up of both Christ consider'd here as the Son of God in the Divine Nature was not capable of a command or promise but consider'd in the relation of Mediator between God and Man he was capable of both Promises of Assistance were made before his actual incarnation of which the Prophets are full why not Precepts for his obedience since long before his incarnation this was his speech in the Prophet thy Law is within my heart However a command a law it was which is a fruit of the Divine Soveraignty That as the Soveraignty of God was impeached and violated by the disobedience of Adam it might be own'd and vindicated by the obedience of Christ That as we fell by disloyalty to it we might rise by the highest submission to it in another head infinitely superior in his person to Adam by whom we fell 5. This Soveraignty of God appears in exalting Christ to such a Soveraign dignity as our Redeemer * Lessius de perfect divin lib. 10. p. 65. Some indeed say that this Soveraignty of Christ's Humane Nature was natural and the right of it resulted from its Union with the Divine as a Lady of mean condition when Espous'd and Marryed to a Prince hath by virtue of that a natural right to some kind of jurisdiction over the whole Kingdom because she is one with the King But to wave this the Scripture placeth wholly the conferring such an Authority upon the pleasure and will of God As Christ was a gift of God's Soveraign will to us so this was a gift of God's Soveraign will to Christ Matt. 28.28 All power is given me And he gave him to be head over all things to the Church Eph. 1.22 God gave him a name above every name Phil. 2.9 And therefore his Throne he sits upon is call'd the Throne of his Father Rev. 3.21 And he committed all Judgment to the Son i. e. All Government and Dominion An Empire in Heaven and Earth Joh. 5.22 and that because he is the son of Man v. 27. which may be understood that the Father hath given him Authority to exercise that Judgment and Government as the son of man which he Originally had as the son of God or rather because he became a servant and humbled himself to death he gives him this Authority as the reward of his Obedience and Humility conformable to Phil. 2.9 This is an act of the high Soveraignty of God to obscure his own Authority in a sence and take into association with him or vicarious subordination to him the Humane Nature of Christ as united to the Divine Not only lifting it above the heads of all the Angels but giving that person in our nature an Empire over them whose nature was more excellent than ours Yea the Soveraignty of God appears in the whole management of this Kingly Office of Christ for it is managed in every part of it
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
Garden one follow'd immediately the other Gen. 2.15 16. The Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and the Lord God commanded the man saying of every Tree of the Garden thou mayest freely eat but of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it c. Nothing was to be enjoyed by man but upon the condition of obedience to his Lord and it is observ'd that in the description of the Creation God is not call'd Lord till the finishing of the Creation and particularly in the forming of man Gen. 2.7 And the Lord God form'd man Though he was Lord of all Creatures yet it was in man he would have his soveraignty particularly manifested and by man have his Authority specially acknowledged The Law is prefac'd with this Title I am the Lord thy God Exod. 20.2 Authority in Lord sweetness in God the one to enjoyn the other to allure obedience and God enforceth several of the commands with the same Title And as he begins many precepts with it so he concludes them with the same Title I am the Lord Levit. 19.37 and in other places In all his communications of his Goodness to man in ways of blessing them he stands upon the preservation of the rights of his soveraignty and manifests his graciousness in favour of his Authority I am the Lord your God your God in all my perfections for your advantage but yet your soveraign for your obedience In all his condescensions he will have the rights of this untoucht and unviolated by us When Christ would give the most pregnant instance of his condescending and humble kindness he urgeth his Authority to ballast their Spirits from any presumptuous eruptions because of his humility John 13.13 You call me Master and Lord and you say well for so I am He asserts his Authority and presseth them to their duty when he had seem'd to lay it by for the demeanour of a Servant and had below the dignity of a Master put on the humility of a mean underling to wash the Disciples feet all which was to oblige them to perform the command he then gave them ver 14. in Obedience to his Authority and imitation of his Example 4. All Creatures obey him All Creatures punctually observe the Law he hath imprinted on their nature and in their several capacities acknowledge him their soveraign they move according to the inclinations he imprinted on them The Sea contains it self in its bounds and the Sun steps not out of its sphear the Stars march in their Order they continue this day according to thy Ordinance for all are thy Servants Psal 119.91 If he Orders things contrary to their primitive nature they obey him When he speaks the word the devouring fire becomes gentle and toucheth not a hair of the Children he will preserve The hunger-starv'd Lions suspend their ravenous nature when so good a morsel as Daniel is set before them And the Sun which had been in perpetual motion since its Creation obeys the writ of ease God sent it in Joshua's time and stands still Shall insensible and sensible Creatures be punctual to his Orders passively acknowledge his Authority Shall Lions and Serpents obey God in their places and shall not man who can by reason argue out the soveraignty of God and understand the sence and goodness of his Laws and actively obey God with that will he hath enricht him with above other Creatures Yet the truth is every sensitive yea every senseless Creature obeys God more than his rational more than his gracious Creatures in this World The rational Creatures since the fall have a prevailing principle of corruption Let the Obedience of other Creatures incite us more to imitate them and shame our remissness in not acknowledging the dominion of God in the just way he prescribes us to walk in Well then let us not pretend to own God as our Lord and yet act the part of Rebels Let us give him the reverence and pay him that obedience which of right belongs to so great a King Whatsoever he speaks as a true God ought to be beleiv'd whatsoever he orders as a Soveraign God ought to be obey'd Let not God have less than man nor man have more than God 'T is a common principle writ upon the reason of all men that respect and observance is due to the Majesty of a man much more to the Majesty of God as a Law-giver 2. As this Doctrine presents us motives so it directs us to the manner and kind of our Obedience to God 1. It must be with a respect to his Authority As the veracity of God is the formal object of faith and the reason why we believe the things he hath reveal'd so the Authority of God is the formal object of our obedience or the reason why we observe the things he hath commanded There must be a respect to his will as the rule as well as to his Glory as the end 'T is not formally obedience that is not done with a regard to the order of God though it may be materially obedience as it answers the matter of the Precept As when men will abstain from excess and rioting because it is ruinous to their health not because it is forbidden by the great Law-giver This is to pay a respect to our own conveniency and interest not a Conscientious observance to God a regard to our health not to our Soveraign a kindness to our selves not a justice due to the rights of God There must not only be a consideration of the matter of the Precept as convenient but a consideration of the Authority of the Law-giver as Obligatory Thus saith the Lord Ushers in every order of his directing our eye to the Authority enacting it Jeroboam did God's will of prophesie in taking the Kingdom of Israel And the devils may be subservient in God's will or providence but neither of them are put upon the account of obedience because not done intentionally with any Conscience of the Soveraignty of God God will have this owned by a regular respect to it So much he insists upon the honour of it that the Sacrifice of Christ God-man was most agreeable to him not only as it was great and admirable in it self but also for that ravishing obedience to his will which was the Life and Glory of his Sacrifice whereby the justice of God was not only owned in the Offering but the Soveraignty of God owned in the Obedience Phil. 2.8 He became obedient unto death Wherefore God highly exalted him 2. It must be the best and most exact obedience The most Soveraign Authority calls for the exactest and lowest observance the highest Lord for the deepest homage being he is a great King he must have the best in our flock Mal. 1. Obedience is due to God as King and the choicest obedience is due to him as he is the most excellent King The more majestick and noble
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