he had so positively asserted and with so much heat argu'd the doctrines of Predestinanation yet was he so conscious of his being in the dark in these things that he made it one comfortable speculation in his thoughts about Heaven and the other state that he should then come to understand the vast mystery of God's decrees in what method they were dispos'd and what influences they had or had not upon mankind Then in a word will all the glories of the Creation unveil themselves then will all the intricacies of divine Providence be unravell'd and the just connexion of every link in that great Chain will be seen plainly and thankfully ador'd Then all our perplext enquiries into the reasons of strange and unaccountable events will be most transportingly satisfy'd Then all the murmuring and oblique reflections we have rashly cast upon Providence in this world shall turn into praises and adorations wondring and owning that infinite wisdom that has run through all the turns and windings of humane affairs and made all seeming contrarieties of action and event conspire in one great and subservient design of Gods glory and the eternal well-being of those that have trusted in and depended upon him As God will then call all the actions of men to a severe and particular account so will he condescend to give as fair and treatable reasons of his dealings in this world to the perfect satisfaction of all happy beings and to the surprizing Confusion of Devils and bad men when they shall see how much the mischiefs wherein God permitted them to be so successful and prosperous for a time tended not only to their own misery and undoing but to the furtherance of those very Persons happiness whom they so much disdained and hated which perhaps may be not obscurely intimated in that passage we shall know as we are known That is as God will sift all our actions and make his distinct enquiries what we have had and done in the world so will he lay before us all his own methods and show us all the just and wise reasons of his providence in this world Then David whose feet had well-nigh slipt when he saw the prosperity of the wicked and Jeremy who would have been pleading the case with God here wherefore the way of the wicked should prosper and all they be happy that had dealt very treacherously Nay I may add then all those bleeding Souls that have been so long crying under the Altar How long Lord Holy and true dost thou not judge and avenge our blood upon them that dwell upon the Earth they shall all joyn in one consort and make infinite harmony before the wise and faithful God in that Song of Moses and of the Lamb which comprehends the whole Church of God under both dispensations Great and marvelous are thy works Lord God Almighty just and true are thy ways O thou King of Saints Rev. 15.3 What wise and good mind should not long for this mighty advance into the knowledge of God where the knowledge of him will be so transporting and satisfactory and will advance mankind to such degrees of likeness and conformity with God To this glorious state of knowledge and enjoyment of himself the Blessed God bring us all through Jesus Christ our Lord to whom with himself and the eternal Spirit of grace be rendered as is most due all honour and glory and praise both now and for ever Amen FINIS BOOKS lately Printed for Tho. Bennet at the Half-Moon in St. Pauls Church yard AThena Oâ—onienses An Exact History of all the Writers and Bishops who have had their Education in the most ancient and famous University of Oxford from the Fifteenth Year of King Henry the Seventh Dom. 1500 to the End of the Year 1690. Representing the Birth Fortune Preferment and death of all those Authors and Prelates the great Accidents of their Lives and the Fate and Character of their Writings To which are added the Fastâ— or Annals of the said University for the same time The first Volume extending to the 10th Year of King Charles I. Dom. 1640. The Second Volume extending to 1691 is in the Press and will be published with all possible Expedition The Plagiary Exposed Or an Old Answer to a Newly Revived Calumny against the Memory of King Charles I. Being a Reply to a Book intitled King Charle's Case Formerly Written by John Cook of Grays Inn Barrister and since Copied out under the Title of Collonel Ludlow's Letter Written by Mr. Butler the Author of Hudibras And never before Printed A Critical History of the New-Testament In two Parts by Father Simon The Reasons of Mr. Bay's Changing his Religion In Three Parts The Second Edition
my Text appeals to the Works of his Creation and instances in so small a thing as a drop of Water the breaking of a Cloud and a clap of Thunder Behold God is great and we know him not For the maketh small the drops of water they pour down rain according to the Vapour thereof which the Clouds do drop and distill upon man abundantly Also can any understand the spreading of the Clouds or the noise of his Tabernacles v. 27 28 29. It is from these works of his that it pleases God to humble Job by laying them before him and thereby giving him a view of his own ignorance Job 38.16 Hast thou enter'd into the Springs of the Sea or hast thou walkt in the search of the deep Have the gates of death been open'd to thee or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death Hast thou perceiv'd the breadth of the Earth declare if thou knowest it at all Where is the way where light dwelleth and as for darkness where is the place of it Hast thou enter'd into the treasures of the snow or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail Out of whose womb came the Ice and the hoary frost who hath gender'd it Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion Canst thou bring forth Mazaroth in his season or canst thou guide Arcturus with his Sons c. We live by conjecture only as to the reasons and nature of all those things we either see or use It is no certain account we can give of the air we breathe in or the light that gives us the pleasure of all created glories not only the Stars of Heaven but the Spark in the Diamond and the lustres we meet with in a clod of Earth puzzles our deepest Philosophy Nothing we see either in the Air or Seas or Earth or Heaven but as they have been mighty subjects of enquiry so they never yet cou'd be so explain'd but that some new supposals of things have been offer'd with as probable reasons and the man of strongest fancy has usually made the most pleasing and acceptable guesses and all is but guess at last In short how can we expect well to understand the secrets of nature at a distance when we know so little nearer home We carry about with us in the nature of our own beings such numberless and insuperable difficulties that they are never to be solv'd till the Soul comes nearer to its first original and the body is refin'd from its corruption and dross that the whole man may discern himself if I may so express it in his own transparency Let our thoughts therefore turn a little inward and see what conjectures we can make about our own frame and nature and this perhaps will let us see how short our sight is as to all the other great works of the Creation This observation the wise man makes Eccl. 11.5 As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with Child even so thou knowest not the works of God that maketh all The Spirit that enlivens and actuates us lyes hid from us in the whole course of its motion discourse or thinking We know we subsist of something that can discourse and think can grieve and rejoice can remember and reflect but that Soul it self that does all this by all its reasoning can give no account how it came into the body nor where the seat of its own residence is nor by what way or influence it gives the body sense or motion It never yet has seen its own face in any glass that cou'd give it any tolerable representation of it self but must wait the time when it shall arrive at its own proper Countrey that world of Spirits where the body it self shall be spiritualiz'd and come so much nearer to the nature of that being that informs and is to dwell for ever in it But further 2. As our insight into the works of Gods creation is short and imperfect so is it no less into those of his providence We are apt to wonder and stand amazd at many unaccountable events in the world and many times can discern no other reason but the meer arbitrary will of God Several perplexing amusoments about the age and first birth of the World Why of no earlier a date than 7000 years ago About the fall of man why permitted to be so soon baffled by the Devil About the great mystery of Redemption why to be brought about by no less a method than the incarnation and death of the Son of God About the prosperity of some Kingdoms and the overthrow of others about particular events of providence to our selves our friends or our enemies and innumerable instances of this kind that may perplex and confound our thoughts but we must expect to have no tolerable account of them till we come to that state where all stories will be told over again all amazing revolutions of things shall be discern'd fully in their first causes and their last issues where wisdom will justifie it self in all the intricacies of its operations and the great Judge of all shall be clear indeed when he hath judged And thus much may serve for illustrating the argument viz. how infinitely short we are in our highest conceptions of God as to any just and adequate knowledge of him if we consider either his nature or his decrees and counsels or his works either of creation or providence Come we now to some useful inferences from the whole I. From all that has been said we learn what an inestimable treasure the H. Scriptures ought to be esteem'd by us Wherein it has pleas'd God to make known himself so far as our natures in this present condition of life are capable of apprehending him It is very little that we could ever have conjectur'd aright concerning God without some revelations of himself in what method he himself pleas'd It is indeed but little he has given us leave to know of him in this world by all that he hath told us in his word But herein are we blest and priviledg'd indeed that having this free use of the H. Scriptures if we will learn not to be wise beyond what revelation has thought fit to teach us we may be sure that all the knowledge of God which we acquire from the H. Scriptures is most unquestionably true because they are the dictates of that H. Spirit who only knows the nature and counsels and operations of God and is himself the God that cannot lye or deceive us And besides that what we learn of God from the H. Scriptures is unquestionably true so we shall not be accountable for what we do not know of God if we make the Scriptures our guide because therein is contained the whole revelation of the divine Nature so far as he is pleased to indulge it to us in this World If we
submit our speculations of God to these lively oracles by which and by which alone he hath taken care we should know any thing of him we are safe from all the false flights of Superstition on the one hand Enthusiasm on the other hand and all the wandring misguided opinions concerning God on every hand Here we may set our foot and acquiesce in what we certainly meet with here tho we may not be carried into those heights to which some vain opiniastres think they could be soaring or tho there may be some mysteries which leave our reason behind them and call in for the assistance of Faith as believing that they are the certain matter of revelation which must therefore be true because revealed to us by the H. Spirit of God There are two things wherein the Socinians have seemed to lay a barr against themselves as to the soundness of their Faith 1. The loose conceptions about the Divine inspiration of the H. Scriptures 2. Their apprehension that they must believe nothing which their own reasons cannot comprehend By the former they let go that firm hold they ought to have of some first principles on which they ought to rest and depend and lay themselves open to a gradual Scepticism throughout the whole Occonomy of Faith And by the other they discard all mystery in Religion and would pretend to fathom the utmost depths of that while they are uncapable of solving a thousand difficulties in every thing which they see and handle and converse immediately with Hence their hesitating in the great mystery of our redemption by Christ Jesus and the satisfaction to divine justice effected by his death the deep and unfathomable doctrine of the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity They forget the authority that matters of pure revelation ought to have with our Belief and that where our reason cannot reach they must not therefore cry out of Contradiction and Impossibility because we cannot tell what is contradictory or what is impossible where we cannot understand the nature of that thing about which we are apt to suspect an impossibility unless it appear contradictory to something that is plainly revealed It is therefore a good Caution of the Apostles which he gives and that in a peculiarly smart turn of words which he has hardly us'd more than this one time throughout his whole writings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not to think more highly than he ought to think but to think soberly Rom. 21.3 Let this be the measure we take in all matters of pure revelation first to satisfy our selves that this or that thing is unquestionably reveal'd and then how insuperable soever the difficulties may seem that attend it not to perplex our selves in nicely unfolding them but give Reason only the scope of arguing the necessity of believing what is reveal'd and after submitting the whole mystery of it to the obedience of faith And this will infinitely endear to us the H. Scriptures wherein we know is contain'd the whole compass of knowledge concerning God which we ought to aspire after in this world II. We may hence also infer how reasonable a thing it is for us to love one another in some differences of thought and opinion while we are on this side heaven Our knowledge of God is scanty and imperfect and in our imperfect way of thinking it is hardly possible not to think differently where therefore any differences in opinion have no influences to a bad life nor disturb the government nor lead to a necessity of throwing off the Authority of the Scriptures there our mutual love and forbearance whatever else is is a most undoubted command III. Last We may hence infer how justly the wise and the good mind may be longing after that state where their knowledge of God may be advanc'd to such unspeakable degrees suitably both to the nature of God and the capacious nature of our Souls Alas What is all this World in comparison but ignorance and mistake Where fancy chiefly proves the guide to reason and in recompence to all its travels in Worldly knowledge gives it little other satisfaction than cheat and delusion With what satisfaction can the wise mind linger and trifle here distant from home and a stranger to the interests and affairs of its own Country above Coopt up and confin'd to a place where so little light is conversing hardly with any thing but the shapes and images of things which a trivial fancy or a diseas'd eye is framing to it self It is in the other World only that the Soul can bath it self in the pure and clear streams of rational knowledge The Apostle tells us that we see but through a glass darkly and we know but in part i. e. it is but little we see at most and but uncertainly at best But when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away 1 Cor. 13.9 10 11 12. Then as to the nature and decrees and works of God We shall see all face to face and know even as we are known v. 12. That will be the land of Vision indeed where all things shall be seen as they are where all representations shall cease and metaphors prove useless Where every riddle shall be explain'd to the utmost satisfaction of greediest enquirers into the deep things of God Then tho the Divine Nature be so boundless and infinite that it surpasses the thoughts and comprehensions of Angels themselves yet will both Angels and Men so far comprehend the nature and being of God that they shall never entertain any unworthy or uncomely thoughts of him more They shall never frame to themselves any mean and wretched images of God but shall see him as he is and that so substantially and so much in reality that the very sight will in some measure transform them into his image and make them like him whom they thus view So S. John tells us Behold now we are the sons of God 1 Joh. 3.2 and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is We shall not then see the back parts only as it once pleas'd God to indulge to Moses in this world but we shall be able fully and substantially to contemplate his nature so as to acquiesce in the knowledge of him as a most sure and indissoluble bond of eternal Converse and Communion with him Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Matth. 5.8 And as they shall see him in his Nature so they shall see him in his Decrees too Then all the difficult knots of the divine foreknowledge shall be unty'd We shall then see how the liberty of mans will consisted with Gods praescience that this latter did not influence the former as to a necessity of the mans sinning and undoing himself but that he himself was the author and first mover in both S. Austin after