and night in his Temple Had they not been defiled with sin they needed not have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb and having their robes so washed they are elevated in the praises of God 4. Finally We may as I said before be assured that God would not suffer so much sin in the world If much sin did not tend much to the glory of God at last Here may be applied all that I said before in the former part of my discourse on this Argument shewing you how the aboundings of sin conduce to the aboundings of grace 1. That grace wherein man is meerly passive and recipient aboundeth by the aboundings of sin The Apostle telleth us that love covereth a multitude of faults the more faults be covered the greater love is discovered God magnifieth grace in abundantly pardoning and there could not be abundant pardoning if there were not abounding sin a multitude of mercies could not be magnified but upon a multitude of Sin The bredth of the robes of Christs righteousness could never have been seen but for the extension of our nakedness it is the height and depth and length and breadth of Sin which maketh all Saints to comprehend what is the length and breadth and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledg that we might be filled with all the fulness of God Eph. 3.17 18. 2. That grace in the exercise of which we are active is also advantaged by the much Sin which God permitteth Our Saviour telleth us Luke 7. those who have much forgiven will love much and those to whom little is forgiven will love but little It wonderfully aggravates pardoning mercy in the sense of a gracious heart to think how many are grinding at the same Mill of sin that he was formerly imployed in and that he should be taken and they left again we should never fight the good fight so well to the glory of God if we had not many enemies to fight with But I have inlarged far enough in the Doctrinal part of this discourse shewing you the reasonableness of this motion of Divine providence in the sufferance of sin and sinners so much sin and so many sinners notwithstanding the opposition that sin hath to the honour and glory of God and to the purity and holiness of the Divine being nothing remains as to this discourse but to consider how this may be useful to us Vse 1. In the first place Let me appeal now to the reason of every one that hears me whether God in the sufferance of Sin and sinners doth not act consonantly to the wisdom of the Divine being It is nothing but our ignorance and inconsiderateness that can be any temptation to us to have any derogatory thoughts of God for these motions of his providence God doth all his own works in infinite wisdom and it is in infinite wisdom that he suffereth sinful men to walk in their own ways What though he be an holy God This will indeed conclude that himself cannot be tempted and that he tempteth no man but it will not argue that he may not suffer any one to be tempted that is as the Apostle James expoundeth it drawn away by his own lusts and enticed What though he hath a power to put a period to sin every moment yet certainly God is not obliged to do all that he can do but his power as ours also is is governed as to the exercise of it by his will What though sin dishonoureth God and impeacheth his glory he knoweth how to vindicate himself and to recompense himself as to his glory and that many ways from the sins of men True it is that it is from the lusts and wickedness of sinners hearts that so much sin is committed in the world yet it is also from the sufferance and permission of Divine Providence God being directed by his own infinite wisdom to govern the world in this method and thus to make a difference betwixt Earth and Heaven so to order it that hereby the vessels of wrath may be fitted for destruction and his chosen ones by many tribulations occasioned generally from the sins and sinners suffered in the world may be prepared for the Kingdom of God O the height and depth of Divine wisdom How unsearchable are Divine judgments how are the ways of God past our finding out Vse 2. But in the second place let every one take heed of taking any occasion from this discourse to give himself a liberty to sin This is the Apostles reflexion upon this he foresaw the ill conclusion which corrupt hearts would draw from these premises therefore adds Rom. 6.1 What shall we say then Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound God forbid he makes it his business in that Chapter to shew that no gracious justified Soul can do so How saith he can they that are dead to sin live any longer therein So again Rom. 3. v. 7 He foresaw that some would say if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lye why then am I judged as a sinner Such thoughts are ready to rise up in our hearts why am I blamed for sinning if God hath glory from my Sns Or why should I be judged as a sinner if the aboundings of sin advantage and make way for the aboundings of grace Surely God â—hen cannot so severely revenge himself upon me for sin To restrain such wild thoughts as these from entring or prevailing in any of your Souls let me offer some few things to your consideration 1. Consider first if any good come by sin to the particular soul that sinneth it must be from the abounding of graâ—e Sin doth not of it self or from any particular affection or disposition in it do any soul good God indeed sometimes turns it for good so that a soul may say it is good for me that God suffered me to fall into such a sin Sin in its own nature tendeth to nothing but the ruine and eternal destruction of a Soul it must be from the aboundings of grace if any good come to the soul from sin the aboundings of Divine grace in the free pardon and forgiveness of sin or the aboundings of grace in the infusion of gracious habits by which the soul is made more broken-hearted more humble in the sense of sin more watchful against it for the time to come and careful to avoid all temptations to it The wages of sin is death and the work of sin tendeth to death to debauch and to debase a soul If a sinner getteth to eternal Life it is through the gift of God if by reason of his former sinfulness he now loves God more and be more zealous for God and more afraid to offend God all this is of grace and grace is free Now reason teacheth every man not wilfully to run upon his own ruine in hope that he shall experience the kindness of a friend in such a ruined estate Who will
in me is thy help I Am now come to the second general Proposition which I promised you to discourse upon a little In my last exercise I discoursed to you of the Fountain of Life and Grace which we found to be the free-will of God There is no other account to be given of Gods shewing mercy but because he will shew mercy which is most certainly true as of Gods eternal acts of Grace so of his Acts of Providence as to the dispensation of his first Grace The next Proposition I mentioned was this 2. Prop. That God in his providential Dispensations of punishment never acteth by meer Prerogative but according to the demerit of his Creatures In his Dispensations of Grace and the means of it he acteth meerly from his own Will he will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy and there is no other account to be given of those Dispensations he sendeth the Gospel to this place rather than another because he will send it he changeth this Man or Womans heart and turneth it to himself because he will shew mercy But the case is otherwise in his penal Dispensations there God acteth not upon Prerogative God there hath a Prerogative for may not the Potter do what he will with his Clay But it is one thing to have Jus absolutum an absolute right and power which we must claim for God so long as we know him to have an absolute right and Soveraignty over the works of his hands 't is another thing for God agere secundum jus absolutum to act according to his Soveraignty and absolute power this we say God doth not I pray observe I restrain my Discourse to Gods Dispensations of actual Providence I shall not meddle with the eternal Councils of God in this case that is quite beyond my Subject propounded It is unquestionable that the punishments of Sinners both in this Life and that which is to come as well as the other great issues of his Providence concerning the rewards of righteous men were set in order by an Eternal deliberation but whether by a meer negative or positive Decree whether upon consideration of sin or no are points I am not at all concerned to interest my self in having all along restrained my discourse to the motions of Actual Providence and certain it is that God in those Dispensations doth punish none either here or hereafter meerly because he will but upon consideration of Sinners demerits Shewing mercy is an Act of Grace punishments are Acts of Justice The gift of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Eternal Life that is a guift and what is freer than gift But the Wages of Sin is Death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Man must earn Death before he hath it from the hand of a merciful God but Eternal Life must be given him if ever it be his Portion so saith my Text. O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self I will open this in two or three conclusions 1. I understand it of all kind of destructions possibly the Text may chiefly relate to temporal destructions 't is Ephraim to whom the Prophet is speaking and it is about a bodily destruction but the Conclusion is general and the Text is well enough applyed by Divines to Eternal destruction all destructions whether of Body or Soul are of our selves yea I take the Aphonimy of the Text to be more eminently true of the destruction of the Soul than of the destruction of the Body A Child may dye for the sins of the Parents Subjects may dye for the sin of their Prince as in the case of Saul's Children that were hanged in David's time and in the case of those many thousands which in David's time were cut off for his sin in numbring of the People The Children of God may be involved in a common destruction and suffer as they are a part of a sinful Nation God may take them off to deliver them from an evil to come as in the case of Abijam the Son of Jeroboam God may punish his people with afflictions of this Life for the trial and exercise of their graces but in Eternal destructions God can have no other end than the punishment of the person and all such destruction is for a mans sin his personal sin 3. When we say that Mens destruction is of themselves you must understand of themselves as the meritorious cause not of themselves as the principal efficient cause God is rightly enough entituled to all the Evil of punishment in the City It is no dishonour to his Majesty to be the Author of his own Judgments which is all that Mr. Calvin or any of the same mind with him have said which hath made some so clamour against them as having asserted God to be the Author of Sin For God to be the Author of punishments is no stain to his Glory but a Declaration of his Justice and of his Righteousness Christ himself shall come as the Apostle telleth us in flaming fire to take Vengeance upon them who know not God and obey not his glorious Gospel God shall say to those on his left hand depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels But our destruction is from our selves as the proximate and meritorious cause though from God as the efficient cause It is not from the Soveraign will of God meerly but from the stubborn and rebellious will of Man that any Soul perisheth Divines do say that though God cannot will the doing of any Sin yet he may will that it should be done The Holy Ghost telleth us that Herod and Pilate and the Jews employed in accusing condemning crucifying of Christ did no more than what the Council of God had determined should be done But I say notwithstanding this the proximate cause of mans Damnation is not because God hath willed their Damnation it is the guilt of their own Sins the demerit of their own Transgressions which bringeth them to the Pit of Destruction The Gracious God sheweth mercy and saveth all who are saved by Prerogative by Grace you are saved saith the Apostle he hath the same Prerogative in matters of Death that he hath in matters of Life but he useth it not but there acteth according to his Statute-Law The Soul that sinneth shall dye He who saveth men without themselves damneth none without themselves Men are saved by Grace but they are damned by Sin The wages of Sin is Death Omne peccatum est voluntarium all Sin is of ourselves it must have something of our own will and consent to and in it 3. Thirdly Although this be certain that all destruction all punishment is for Sin yet the particular proximate cause of some punishments is unknown to us I will instance in one particular a punishment undoubtedly a most severe punishment The withholding the Gospel and so the ordinary means of Grace and Salvation from the far greatest part of the world They hear nothing of the Lord Jesus
Vse 1. In the first place let then all men that live upon the Earth praise the Lord but especially such as are superiors and rulers over others and more especially such as are his Church The Psalmist Psal 135.1 calls to all saying Praise the Lord praise ye the name of the Lord and ver 19 20 21. He calleth in particular Bless the Lord O house of Israel Bless the Lord O house of Aaron Bless the Lord O house of Levi you that fear the Lord bless the Lord Blessed be the Lord out of Zion which dwelleth at Hierusalem 1. This observation calleth to all the sons and daughters of men to bless the Lord. We are all sociable creatures and much of the comfort of our lives lyeth in our societies and fellowships one with another either in our family-societies or in our civil-societies or in our Church-societies We should think it a life worse than death to be condemned to live like a wild Ass alone in the wilderness Now there are some lusts of men that would spoil us of all this comfort God peculiarly sets himself against them and makes these the marks for his arrows of vengeance The Jews said of the Centurion He hath loved our nation and hath built us a synagogue We may say of our good God he hath loved mankind for he hath taken care to preserve order in humane societies and severely to chasten the invaders upon the rights of others What an ingagement doth this lay upon all men to praise the Lord Certainly sirs there is a great deal of praise and glory and homage due to God from all men as they are concerned in their several societies There is a great deal of glory due to God from families for his testimony against those lusts of men such as are murtherers and adulterers which in a short time would spoil all the comfort of those societies Certainly every family is bound to worship God and to walk with God But particularly 1. Let Rulers praise the Lord. Let all the Princes of the Earth give homage to him that ought to be served they are more especial marks for furious and ambitious mens lusts Gods Providence as you have heard is eminently seen in preventing their dangers in revenging their harms 2 Sam. 23.3 4 5. Surely then as David saith those that rule over men should be just ruling them in the fear of the Lord their light should be like the light of the morning without clouds God hath not only set them up as lights upon an hill but he hath made his special Providence to be a lanthorn about them that 't is rarely that the wind of sedition and treason prevails to blow them out and then 't is ordinarily for some eminent Provocation of God But I am not speaking to persons in that capacity You that are parents praise the Lord Gods special Providence you see reacheth you and in a great measure secureth you from that great heart-ach of rebellious and disobedient children I know you will say How then cometh this to be the great affliction of many good parents To which I answer 1. There is many a good parent may have been but like good old Ely too indulgent and cockering to their children ordinarily God keepeth up the authority of parents over their children until themselves have prostituted it and in the rebellion and disobedience of their children they may read their own sin and see as much cause to be humbled for that as any thing else as David in the case of Adonijah 1 King 1.5 6. And herein the goodness of God towards parents will be seen that if he doth not upon their endeavours secure to them the duty of their children yet he will not fail to revenge their quarrels against them 2. Let the poor and weak of the earth praise the Lord he hath declared himself the father of the fatherless and the judg of the widows a refuge for the oppressed Psal 68.5 Exod. 22.5 Psal 10.11 How are all the widows and fatherless children all the poor and oppressed people of the world bound to praise and to serve this God who hath taken upon himself the special patronage and protection of them This indeed would be the best use we could possibly make of this Observation relating to the special Providence of God if it might lay a special obligation upon all those who are thus especially concerned to magnifie God as their great patron and defender And how can they praise God more effectually than in doing those particular duties which concern them all in their respective relations or with reference to those peculiar circumstances of Providence under which they are acted I shall add but one branch of Application more and indeed it is not a new Use for it is a part of our praise and homage which we owe unto God upon this Reflexion viz. Vse 2. To all to take heed of those sins which God in his word declares himself more eminently to abhor and in the execution of Providence doth most severely punish All sin is in it self a filthy and abominable thing and the just object of every good mans hatred for should not we hate what God hateth and what hath of all things the greatest opposition to God yes we ought to hate it with a perfect hatred But such is the naughtiness of our heart that we are not so led to an hatred and abhorrence of sin from the intrinsecal evil and obliquity of it as from the dangerous and pernicious consequence of it Death eternal death is the wages of every sin but this being only matter of faith to bold sinners none having ever come from the dead to give them an account of those flames the punishments of sin in this life are those things which most deter carnal sensual men But if men will look no further nor believe any more yet let this lay some law upon us and make us afraid of those sins which I have instanced in being such whose judgment the Providence of God seldom letteth sleep so long as to another life Let this mind us not to meddle with them that are given to change that curse Kings and Rulers in their bed-chambers and are of turbulent and unquiet spirits always plotting and contriving seditions and treasons and disturbances to civil governours it is very rarely that God suffereth their designs to come to issue or their persons to come to the grave in peace 2. What a law should it lay upon the rich and great men of the earth to take heed of violent perverting justice and judgment of turning away the causes of the widows and the fatherless in judgment To consider that he who is the highest doth consider the matter and there is one higher than the highest of them who abuse their power to trample the poor under foot If men be not turned Atheists and have banished all the fear of God from their eyes and hearts it must a little give them law and lay
by the way of efficiency Therefore God must be the Author or these Divines make him the Author Or because God is the Author of his own judgments and paenal dispensations and God sometimes punisheth sin with sin therefore God must be the Author of sin taken properly as it is an oblique action contrary to his Law This is forsooth their proof of that crimination when-as there are no Divines in the world but think it not only blasphemy but non-sense to talk of God as the Author of sin which must be an action contrary to the will liking and approbation of God as the very nature of sin doth import 2. Their second Crimination is That God hath damn'd his creatures out of his meer Prerogative and Soveraignty We do indeed think and must so think till our Adversaries can possess us with other Idea's and notions of God than either Scripture or reason will help us with That there is nothing which either hath or shall come to pass in the world but God did know from all eternity neither can we conceive how God should know any thing but because he willed it either in a way of efficiency or to permit it We do say that God had a jus absolutum from eternity an absolute right over his creatures to determine how he pleased concerning them But we also say That in his paenal dispensations he acteth not according to his Soveraignty and absolute right and that every mans destruction is of himself and the proximate and meritorious cause of the punishment and eternal ruin of any Soul is his own sin God doth not condemn any Soul but for sin recompensing their own iniquities upon their heads and whatsoever is absolute and Soveraign right his Law from which he never varieth in the motions of his Providence is The soul that sinneth shall die Where is the difference then What maketh this great clamour and odious representation of eminent Divines as to the method of Gods proceedings in his actual Providence Papists Arminians Calvinists all are agreed That the wages of sin is death The soul that sinneth shall die God will condemn none but for sin Only it seems they are not agreed as to the Nature and Attributes and Prerogatives of God Those Divines whom they call Calvinists must assert God to have the same Power over his creatures which a Potter hath over the clay This the other will not understand though God expressly told it the Prophet Jeremy and the Apostle from him hath expressly told it us and this is all the difference that I can understand 3. Vse Thirdly you may from hence learn How the Righteousness of God shall be cleared in the last day in the condemnation of sinners although it hath not pleased him to give to all a power to that which is truly and Spiritually good This is a point which very many in this Generation also will not understand but the fault is in themselves If God say they hath not given to all men a power to repent and to believe how shall he be righteous in the condemning of Sinners There is no consequence at all in this but upon this Hypothesis That except men have a power to do that which is Spiritually good they are in no capacity to do that which is morally evil Whether they have a power to repent or to believe without the effectual Grace of God yea or no Certainly they have a power in a thousand things to break the Law of God yea and to do also many things which are contained in the Law of God and although the doing of these things would not save them yet certainly the omiting of them or doing contrary to them may give God a righteous cause to condemn them Suppose one of you who are Fathers to have two Sons both of them wild and fond of their play and eager at it you call them both to come to you and tell them that if they will come you will give them both mony to go and buy such things but if by such a time they have not those things and appear to you in and with them you will certainly whip them One of these Children hearkens to you leaves his play comes running to you and begs the money you promised him then procures the things and appeareth to you in the habit you desired and you are well pleased with him The other Child is mad of his play which if he would he might leave he could not have the things without mony out of his Fathers Purse but he will not leave his play nor stir a foot towards his Father nor so much as ask his Father for mony his Father indeed sends him no mony but shuts him out of his sight and ordereth him to be severely whipt because that he would not leave his idle game and come to him and ask the mony of him which he promised and because he had not bought the things and appeared before him in that habit and dress which he had commanded will not one say this foolish Child is right served shall his Father be judged unrighteous or severe because he gave the Child no mony as he did the other and the Child could come by the things without mony and if it had them not could not appear in or with them before his Father The case is much the same betwixt God and us God seeth two Men or Women both his Creatures alike in Adam both born in Trespasses and Sins wildly playing over the hole of the Asp and the den of the Cockatrice sporting themselves in Sin and in an hourly danger of Hell-fire God calleth them by his Ministers to leave their Sins and to turn unto him he saith let him that hath been drunk be drunk no more let him that hath been unclean be unclean no more let him that hath told a lye that hath broke my Sabbaths lye and break my Sabbaths no more let him read my Word and hear my Word and let him come and pray unto me and beg of me an heart to believe and to repent and I will give it him and he that believeth shall be saved but in the great day it shall be found That he who hath not repented and hath not believed shall be damned One of these sinners leaveth off his leud courses falls to an external Discipline readeth the Word heareth the Word of God applyeth himself to God by Prayer beggeth of God an heart to repent and to believe his Gospel God hears him gives him a power gives him repentance unto Life and a saving Faith in Christ and he obtaineth everlasting Salvation The other is mad of his Lusts and after them he will go let what will be the issue of it he will not read the Word not hear that his Soul may live nor so much as ask special Grace of God not to plead with God for Faith or Repentance God giveth them not to him he dieth in his impenitency and unbelief God throweth him into Hell
for his not repenting not believing according to his Word Is there any unrighteousness with God in this case more than in the Fathers dealing with the Child upon the former Supposition What pretence is there for it The Sinner you will say could not repent could not believe without the special Grace of God which was never given him No more could the Child buy those things the Father willed it to have and come before him with unless the Father first gave it mony the Child had no mony of its own But the Child might have left its play it might have read and heard the Word he might have come to God by Prayer and begg'd of him a soft and contrite heart and a believing heart he had power to do all this and had he done this God had not been wanting to him in his further Grace To him that hath shall be given saith our Saviour that is to him that hath and useth and proveth what Gifts and Graces he hath as he ought to do shall be given more Grace But this the poor wretch hath not done but dieth an hard-hearted an impenitent and unbelieving wretch what unrighteousness is there with God in his condemnation he perisheth in his own iniquity his blood is upon his own head his damnation lieth at his own door his destruction is of himself his help might have been from God if he had not been wanting to himself O sinful men are not the Lords ways equal Yes yes they are our own ways that are unequal the straight ways of the Lord are only made crooked by our idle fancies our proud hearts and corrupt reasons and foolish misprisions Vse 4. In the last place let me apply this discourse by way of Exhortation it will afford matter of Exhortation 1. To the people of God 2. To the men of the World those I mean that are not yet converted unto God 1. To Gods People 1. To you it speaketh to make you more afraid of sin for the time to come Sin in Scripture is ordinarily resembled by sickness and a disease Now what is true of sickness is true of Sin every sickness is not unto death but every sickness hath something of death in it it leadeth to the Grave it is not the last stroke at the giving of which the Tree falleth but it is a blow in order to the fall of it Every sin doth not bring forth death yea as to you No sin shall bring forth death because Rom. 8.1 There is no condemnation to them that are in Jesus Christ but every sin hath something of the nature of a self-ruining and destruction in it The wages of every sin is death the natural tendency of every sin is unto death It is the Gift and Free-Grace of God that as to you prevents it and although your sins do not bring forth an Eternal ruine and destruction to you because the Blood of Christ and the Intercession of Christ hath prevented and will prevent that yet your sins may bring forth many lesser deaths to you for them you may be in deaths often for them there may be a death of your peace and comforts as there are no temporal Evils which sin may not bring upon the people of God so there are few spiritual Evils on this side of Hell to which it doth not subject them So that although you be not under the danger of an Eternal ruine yet you are under the danger of so many deaths so many destructions as may justly lay a Law upon you and make you afraid of sinning against God 2. But Secondly This calleth to all of you to admire the Divine Grace by which you are saved I hope it is the portion of many of you to whom I am speaking you are not yet got up to the new Hierusalem but you are in the right way that leadeth thereunto O cry Grace Grace unto the hand which set you upon that Shore It is true of you you also by sin had destroyed your selves by Grace you are saved you were once Fire-brands as well as any others are you now brands pluckt out of the Fire It was the hand of Grace that pluck'd you out You hath he quickned saith the Apostle Ephes 2.1 who were dead in Trespasses and sins Amongst whom also we had our conversation of old according to the Lusts of the Flesh you also were once acted by the Prince of the Air who yet worketh in the Children of Disobedience and were by Nature the Children of Wrath as much as others It is a sweet though in some sence a bitter meditation to cast a thought back and think Lord How had I also destroyed my self How near was I going to the Pit of Eternal ruine and destruction Nay how often yet is our Salvation from God We are every day destroying our selves we lye down with sin enough to justify God in destroying us before the Morning and rise up every day with sin enough to justify God in destroying us before the Evening By Grace we are saved 2. But Secondly let me speak to those which can have no such good hope through Grace They yet are in their natural State and condition in the Gall of bitterness and in the very bands of iniquity Sirs it is that which I have often told you and I wish the sound of it may never be out of your Ears you are Creatures ordained to Eternity when you dye you dye not like brute-Beasts Death will not determine your beings you shall be either Eternally happy or Eternally miserable All that I have to say to you is to plead with you that you would not ruine your selves and let me tell you that if ever you perish it must be because you have destroyed your selves Do not fright your selves with thoughts of Gods eternal decrees secret things belong to God revealed things to us Whatever Gods secret counsels and purposes be this is his revealed will The Soul that sinneth and that alone shall dye Trouble not your selves with any such thoughts as these If I be not elected do what I will I shall be damned If God hath cast me off I shall labour in vain It is the Sluggard saith Solomon which saith There is a Lion in the way We cannot ascend up into Heaven to search Gods Books there is no need of it The Word is near us even in our mouths that telleth us that God never destroyeth any Soul but the meritorious cause of it is in himself and this we know that all sin is voluntary O then take heed of destroying your selves by wilful and presumptuous sinning against God Nature teacheth every Man to look to himself as to his Life Health Estate and shall not our reasonable Nature instructed by the Word of God prompt us to take care of our selves as to our Eternal Interest You will say unto me what shall we do that we may not de destroyed for who liveth and sinneth not against God I have before told you that
which then hindered his being revealed and would let until he should be taken away The Roman Empire hindered nor is that hinderance yet taken away 'T is true there is but a stump of that Empire remaining in Germany Spain France England many other great boughs are lop'd off it but most of them kept their Antichristian favour though they changed their temporal Lords and set up for and by themselves as to temporal subjection and dominion You see and hear how fierce the French the Spaniards the Portugals c. the house of Austria are for the Romish Religion 'T is true England hath broke that yoke off its neck so hath Holland the Gospel hath got a great foot in Germany France Denmark Poland Sweden Hungary but yet the Devil hath a large Chappel in most of those places It is the National Religion of France Spain Portugal Italy the Imperial Proper-territories God is fitting the circumstances of the World much to his promised Work of destroying this Antichrist with the spirit of his mouth with the brightness of his coming England is fallen off Holland is fallen off a great part of Switzerland many Cities and Territories in Germany Sweden and Denmark great numbers in France God is by degrees doing his work and a great deal is done within the space of a hundred and fifty years last past for it is no longer since Luther began to shake his Throne but yet the circumstances of the World do not look as if it were like to be a work we should see in our age nor it may be our childrens children Methinks the Scripture looks as if that man of sin should die a natural death not a violent one I mean that that Religion should be loathed out of the World not fought out of it God will consume it with the Spirit of his mouth and with the brightness of his coming Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord I tell you but my judgment that before the fall of Antichrist you must yet see a greater falling off from Popery by the Princes of other Nations and their people The Worlds circumstances do not yet seem fitted to that great Work God may work Miracles in the case but I know no ground we have to expect them I am very confident that Antichrist is in his wane much past his full declining every day and therefore the fears of some that that ridiculous Religion should again over-spread England or Holland or any other reformed Church do not much afflict me I take that for granted that Babylon is falling but when we shall hear that joyful sound Babylon is fallen Babylon is fallen that I cannot tell you but in the general I think we must first see the World otherwise circumstanced than it is 2. By this observation of the motions of Providence you shall also understand much of Gods set time as to shewing mercy to your own particular soul viz. when your bodily or spiritual circumstances are fitted for the desired mercy 1. I say first when your bodily circumstances are fitted to it There is nothing more evident than the dependance of our minds upon our bodies and the influence that some bodily distempers especially have upon our souls and minds now although it be true that God can work miraculously and by light can break through a darkness be it never so thick and ravish a Soul with unspeakable joy and peace though at that time it be yoked to a dark cloudy melancholick disturbed body yet God useth not to work Miracles ordinarily but to move in a more ordinary course of Providence by the use and application of means that are proper so that as it is seldom but God useth the disorders and disturbances of the body to influence and afflict the mind and to be at least an adjuvant cause when he will trouble a Soul so he usually restoreth health and a better constitution of body when he intends to restore peace and quiet and a composure of spirit I say ordinarily he doth so And hence again in the next place 3. We by giving attendance to this Observation may learn our duty in reference to the use of Means so as to use what is proper to its season for there is great wisdom to be used in apportioning means For Example as to the bringing down of Antichrist if Gods time be not come the means are not girding our swords upon our thighs c. I question whether that will ever be a Mean proper to be used in that case but endeavouring by all means possible to loath the World of Popish superstitions and ceremonies and all the idolatry of that Synagogue and of all the cheats they put upon the World and alienate the hearts of people from them So for calling the Jews the means to be used is not inciting them to get into a body and heading them c. but to convince them of their errours to endeavour the sweetning of their spirits the enlightning their minds with the knowledg of the truth of the Gospel and reconciling them to the Christian Religion and shewing them the Examples of an holy life and conversation So in case of particular Souls where the discomposure of the mind is originated in or further advantaged by bodily distempers which is a thing very frequently happening I do not take it to be the duty of a Christian meerly to pray and hear but also to use natural means proper for the abating of these distempers yet not this without Prayer and use of Ordinances both for the blessing of God upon such means and for the further influences of his supernatural grace for God fitteth the circumstances of the person that is to receive the mercy to the desired mercy when he intendeth the bestowing of it as well as the circumstances of the World to the mercy which in his set-time he intendeth for his Church so as I say this observing of this method of Providence duly attended to addeth spiritual Wisdom to a Christian as in discerning of Gods time for mercy so also in directing him to his duty as to proper means to be used by him in the way of his duty in order to the obtaining of the mercy teaching him to know what Israel ought to do what a good Christian ought to do under the circumstances under which God hath brought him 2. By an attendance to this working of Providence you shall understand much of the loving-kindness of the Lord very much of the goodness and love of God to Nations and Churches is seen in this his fitting of the worlds circumstances to his designs before he produceth them as his designs are effected without tumult and bloodshed which otherwise through mens opposition to it would not be avoided With how much bloodshed in all humane probability must the Children of Israel have first came out of Egypt then out of Babylon had not God fitted the circumstances of the world to those designs of his Providence
against murther Gen. 9.6 Whoso sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed for in the image of God made he man The Image of God in man lay much in his Knowledg Wisdom Righteousness dominion over other creatures If God sendeth a people a Prince in whom nothing of the Image of God can be seen in the three former things Knowledg or Wisdom or Righteousness yet he hath given unto all Rulers a dominion over his creatures and that not only over brute and inanimate creatures every man hath such a dominion and is a great Prince but over rational creatures and herein much of the Image of God who is the King of kings and Lord of lords and ruler of Princes is to be seen Now I say considering this great relation of Rulers to God it is but reasonable that God should watch over them with a special eye of Providence maintaining his own Ordinance his own Creatures his own Vicegerents in the Earth 2 But secondly The reasonableness of it will appear if you consider the usefulness of Rulers unto men Upon the former account I have shewed you how God consulteth his own glory I shall now shew you how God in these motions of Providence consulteth our good It is usually said and I think very truly Better Tyranny than Anarchy better a very ill oppressive government then no government He that would pluck up the government of any place would but pluck up the bridg which in a short time himself will have occasion to go over so that God in his special Providence towards and for Rulers sheweth a special kindness to humane society What do laws signifie without Executors of them Now this is the office of Rulers to execute the Laws and if some of them be partial in the execution of them and spare some transgressors yet there 's none of them but in many things do execute justice and keep up something of the face of order of humane society But I have hitherto only instanced in one sort of sins eminently disturbing humane societies treasons seditions conspiracies c. I come now to a second 2. Oppression is another sin of this nature and this must be the sin of Superiors and men that are in power over others I may joyn with it tyranny and cruelty they are of a great cognation one to another Oppression is one of the crying sins of a Nation and the Providence of God is eminently seen in giving testimony against it this was that sin for which God so plagued Pharaoh Exod. 3.7 For the oppression of the poor for the sighing of the needy now will I arise saith the Lord and the vengeance of God is so certain against oppressors that the wise man calleth to us Prov. 3.31 Envy thou not the oppressor and chuse none of his ways Doth he flourish doth he grow rich and great Envy him not chuse none of his ways It is very seldom that God letteth eminent oppressors escape If they be amongst inferiour Rulers God stirreth up their superiours against them at one time or other If chief rulers be oppressors God hath other ways to punish them either immediately by his own hand as he did Pharaoh or suffering people to throw off the reins of Government which was the case of Abijam though he did but threaten oppression 1 King 12.11 All men are not wise the most of people are over-ruled by their own lusts and passions and not governed by reason but even for wise men Solomon tells us Eccles 7.7 That oppression will make them mad put them out of the government of their reason It is indeed madness and nothing but madness for private persons to rise up against a government but we see it sometimes done and usually oppression eminent and general oppression gives the occasion and is the proximate cause of it but one way or other God ordinarily revengeth oppression by signal Providences and therefore the wise man saith Eccles 5.8 If thou seest the oppression of the poor and the violent perverting of judgment and justice in a people marvel not at the matter for he that is higher than the highest regardeth and there is higher than they Now the reason of the special and remarkable Providence of God in this case may be conceived to be 1. Gods great love to Justice and Judgment 2. His great kindness to Political Societies God is a just and righteous God and loveth justice Justice is an essential Attribute of God he could not be God if he could be unjust he giveth to every one their due and he cannot but give every one their due and the righteous God loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity Now oppression is nothing else but a violent perverting of Justice and Judgment by him that hath power on his side Solomon saith Prov. 14.31 He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his maker he reproacheth his Maker because it is God that hath made his brother poor and put him under his feet Again he reproacheth his Maker because God hateth and abhorreth all oppression and injustice he pretendeth to rule in the place of God but he reproacheth his Maker God dealeth so by none his law directeth the quite contrary Again he reproacheth his Maker because God hath taken the poor the stranger the fatherless and the widow into his special protection and hath given many particular laws about them and given the world a particular charge concerning them 2. As God is a God of Justice and loveth that so he hath also a great kindness for humane societies and for brotherly love God hath in Creation disposed man to society he is not like the wild Ass that loveth to be alone in the wilderness he hath also disposed them to trades and employments serving one another so as though a beast or a bird could live without one another yet men can live in no degree of felicity outward felicity without company nor can society be well maintained without justice and brotherly love injustice violence and oppression break all humane society There is nothing that breaks humane society more than oppression doth when the greater devour the lesser and the richer swallow up those that are more poor that they might be left alone in the Earth There 's nothing more opposite to brotherly love the ligament of humane society than oppression is and therefore the special Providence of God in the punishment of it and delivering the oppressed from the bondage of it is not to be judged a strange thing but exceeding consonant to the nature of God 3. A third sin which makes gaps in humane societies is murder a private willful taking away the life of another I say private for if it be done by the hand of Justice it is no murther I add wilful to distinguish it from casual homicide when one is the cause of the death of another not in the least intending him death or any harm tendent to it It was one of Gods Precepts to Noah Gen. 9.6 Whoso
sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed for in the image of God made he him Afterwards it was one of his Ten Commandments given to his people on Mount Sinai Thou shalt do no murther And although in the case of casual homicide he appointed Cities of refuge to which the manslayer might fly and be free from the avenger of blood yet for the wilful murtherer Numb 35.31 he saith you shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murtherer which is guilty of death but he shall surely be put to death and verse 33. So shall you not pollute the land wherein you are for blood it defileth the land and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein but by the blood of him that shed it And accordingly the Providence of God hath generally ordered the government of the several parts of the world that unless it hath been in a very debauch't nation scarce any place hath been found where the Rulers have not been zealous even from the light of nature against wilful murtherers and the Providence of God is in nothing more eminently seen than in the discovery of such transgression and bringing them to justice It is a common observation therefore I shall need the less to insist upon the Justification of it Sometimes God makes use of the fear and passion and shy-looks of the guilty conscience of the murtherer to discover himself sometimes the birds of the air shall pursue him as I remember I have somewhere read of a famous story of murtherers pursued by Crows and Ravens sometimes a Dog shall do it sometimes a Spirit shall do it in short the stories are very many and strange of the Providence of God in discovering of murther Murthers make great gaps and disorders in humane societies 4. Adultery is another sin which maketh great confusion in humane society though not like those beforementioned but in a more secret way yet great disorder it begets By Gods old Law the adulterer was to be put to death it was an extraordinary act and one of those we call heroick acts not to be defended but by an immediate impetus by a command from God that of Phinehas I mean taking a javelin and at once running through Zimri and Cosbi God justified it and promised Phinehas a reward for it The vengeance of God upon those that have given up themselves to this sin is eminent he hath prepared a dart to strike through their livers which he useth in no other case a peculiar defiling tormenting disease The persons that are guilty are often sent to hell in the act by the jealousie of Husbands and by the Laws of most Nations such manslayers are justified It is a sin indeed that doth not make that havock in humane society which some of those beforementioned do and therefore the Providence of God is not so remarkably seen in preventing it and discovering preparations to it but it is eminently seen in the punishment of it both as to punishments in this life and in his threatnings as to depriving them of a life to come 5. I will instance in one more and that is Rebellion and disobedience to the lawful commands of parents It is the fifth of of the Ten Commandments Honour thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee Upon which account the Apostle calleth it the first commandment with promise Indeed this sin is the root of most disorder that is in political society The rebellious child seldom proveth a dutiful wife or good husband nor good servant nor good subject unless grace first maketh a change in their hearts and bringeth them from under the government of their passions the Providence of God is therefore eminently to be seen in the punishment of such children By the Law of God the Son that obeyed not his father was to be stoned to death Read Deut. 21.18 19 20. He that curseth his father or mother shall dye the death Exod. 21.17 Levit. 20.9 Mal. 15.4 Mar. 7.20 And if you observe the Providence of God it strangely pursueth rebellious children with vengeance they seldom prosper 6. I will instance but in one sin more That is persecution or eminent disturbance of others for their conscience towards God This is a sin which doth not only disturb humane society but the best of humane societies the society of the Church it disturbeth humane society ingageth husband against wife and children against parents and brother against brother it spoileth that commerce and traffique by which political societies are maintained and upheld As to that it cannot be without a great connexion and twisting of mens interests of divers perswasions one with another so as the interrupting the free course of one is the interruption of another and while persons are rifled in their houses haled to prisons there must needs be an interruption in their commerce But this sin hath this further aggravation That it makes disturbance in the best societies the Assemblies of Gods People for his worship are the best of humane societies God is in the midst of them more present with them than with any societies in the world besides them Those that rudely break in upon such Assemblies break in upon the great God of Heaven and Earth who hath said Wheresoever two or three are gathered together in my name I will be in the midst amongst them and may justly expect some such extraordinary judgment as the Sodomites met with when they would have broken open Lots house to have pull'd the Angels out but God doth not always work miraculously but seldom fails even in this life to set his mark upon this sort of sinners It is an observation that I have formerly made to you You shall in story read of persecutions which sometimes have lasted long very long but seldom of a persecutor that hath lasted long he is an odious abominable wretch whom vengeance will neither suffer to live nor often to dye after the ordinary death of men He that will but read over the story of the ten Primitive persecutions will see this abundantly confirmed or if any thinks those stories too old let him read what became of Gardiner and Bonner those two bloody wretches in Queen Maries days and of divers others that were their instruments and willingly followed their Commandments and possibly he may confirm himself in this Observation by later examples than those also But I have instanced in those sins which do most eminently disturb humane societies and spoken enough to the doctrinal part of this Observation I shall reduce all I shall say by way of Application to two heads 1. Shewing you what advantage this observation giveth me to call upon all men but especially those in higher orbs to praise the Lord. 2. To perswade all men to take heed as of all sin so especially of such sins as these are against which the wrath of God is so eminently revealed
But for a good man one that disperseth abroad and gives to the poor Prov. 3.9 10. David never saw such a mans seed begging their bread and 't is no wonder thousands of men grow poor by lending but he that gives to the poor lends to the Lord saith Solomon never any man lost by that lending The great God never yet failed never yet was unfaithful I could fill your ears with stories I will only give you one or two It is reported in the life of that famous Junius Minister in France and Holland he died but in the year 1602 he met with the Lot of many godly Divines in all ages as well as ours and came to be pinched with want and resolved for the supply of his necessities every each day to dig in the Town-ditch But see the Providence of God there lived near a Taylor a young man whose Mother had in France lived near to this Junius's mothers house and being very poor Junius's mother had often relieved her Her son remembreth this kindness and though but a poor man inviteth Junius to his house and provideth meat and lodging for him for seven months I could tell you many and strange stories of Gods repaying Charity in its kind of little pieces of silver given in this kind repaid with an hundred fold even in this life But this is an observation which justifieth it self in the experience of every one of you I shall rather shew you the reasonableness of this motion of Divine Providence which will be evident to you I will open it to you in five particulars 1. God doth this to evidence his general love to mankind and special care of Providence for the needy the poor and the fatherless the stranger and the widow Justice and Charity are the two pillars of the world all humane society is dependent upon them Justice because as I told you before from Solomon oppression makes the wise-man mad mens spirits will never be calm under a course of oppression hence Tyrants must have constant standing-armies to secure their lusts The Turkish Empire is little but injustice and oppression it could not stand but for his Janizaries Charity is another pillar of the Earth the reason is because as our Saviour told us The poor we shall have always with us Now God sheweth his great love to societies of men in eminent upholding of both these And besides the Scripture speaketh God to have taken the special patronage of the poor and needy the stranger and widow and fatherless God doth this by raising them up friends and it is a great means to raise them friends to incourage them by sensible rewards and that of the same kind 2. It is necessary that as our Saviour oft saith all righteousness should be fulfilled The promises might have a being given them I told you before that the promises made to mercy and charitableness are very many now some of these promises are made for a term within this life He shall not lack saith Solomon that must be a promise respecting reward in this life and so for the threatnings against cruelty and hard-heartedness towards them in misery or that exercise any barbarous dealings towards their brother so that it is necessary God should in this life retaliate such wickedness 3. It is necessary for the terror of such sorts of sinners God himself gives this as one of his ends in establishing the law of Retaliation in the case of false witnesses Deut. 19.16 17 18 19 20. And those which remain shall hear and fear and from henceforth commit no such evil more amongst you The most of men hearing that Adonibezek who cut off so many Princes thumbs and great toes came to be served in the same kind himself are afraid of such kind of Inhumanity 4. Again It is necessary for the conviction of unbelievers There are many sins against which there are dreadful Revelations of Divine Wrath in holy Writ and the Providence of God gives them a being every day but yet sinners will not believe when they see the vengeance that comes upon them that God designs to punish them for their unmercifulness and cruelty to their brethren no all things fall alike to all men and those that judg otherwise are with them in no better repute than as bold priers into the secrets of God and judges of his Counsels God therefore will please sometimes to write their sin in their plague It shall be wrote over the Gallows fifty cubits high upon which Haman was hanged this was the Gallows which he prepared for Mordecay The accusers of the three Children shall be thrown into the same fiery furnace which they had caused to be heated for the three children and Daniel's accusers into the same den of Lyons in which they would have had him perished He that leadeth into captivity shall be led into captivity and he that killeth with the sword shall be killed with the sword When men see this if they will believe any thing they will believe this 5. Lastly It is also reasonable for the more perfect demonstration of Gods favour to these exercises of grace and vertue Our Saviour faith All men have not faith The most of men live either meerly by sense or by reason The promises of a reward of Heaven are matters of faith A true believer only from these understands Gods favour to merciful men his faith being the evidence of things not seen indeed evidenceth to him Gods love sufficiently Inward rewards of grace are like the new-name given unto the People of God only known to them that have them The most of men are acted by sense and convinced by that mostly for in this cafe Reason will do little God is therefore pleased to reward such persons to great degrees in this life and that in the same kind too that all the Earth may know what he will do for such persons But I come to the Application which I shall dispatch in two branches making it a foundation Vse 1. First for Admonition to all that hear me to take heed of these sins I would have you brethren take heed of all sin for the wages of every sin is without repentance eternal death but especially take heed of sins eminently against charity Take heed of stopping your ears against the cry of the poor God will be even with you you or yours shall cry and not be heard It is a woful folly for a man so to govern himself in his Conversation as if he were not subject to changes it speaketh the man that doth it to be void of understanding and it is a most unreasonable madness for a man to expect that from another which himself would not do to another Abraham checks Dives in the parable for thinking that Lazarus should go to fetch him a cup of cold water when as he in his life-time would not afford him a cup of drink take heed of cruelty of false-witnessing of any eminent act of uncharitableness Remember
not so slow with all but either immediately by his own hand as in the case of Ananias and Saphira Acts 5. or else by the sword of the Magistrate he cuts them off presently and giveth them a sudden recompence of their evil deeds Now it may possibly be asked by some what are those sins or in what case is God so quick with sinners nor may the inquiry be unprofitable for us for because judgement is not executed speedily the heart of man is set in him to do evil Gods deferring judgment and giving day for the execution of his wrath doth much embolden sinners Let us therefore see in what cases God seldom grants reprieves but is very quick with sinners and sendeth them down to Hell reeking with their lusts this I shall indeavour to shew you in several particulars 1. It is hard to name any species of sins as to which God hath not made or doth not make some present examples of his vengeance So as no sinner can promise himself the reprieve of an hour or day 1. In the case of Idolatry which is a grievous sin against the first and second commandment you will find that God proceeded very slowly to judgment for this sin both in the Canaanites and in the Israelites with the Canaanites though they were abominable idolaters God bare many hundreds of years With the ten tribes who were idolaters from the time of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin unto the time when they were finally destroyed and carried away captives God bare with them a long time but you shall find God quicker at another time Exod. 32. The people make themselves a golden Calf Moses comes down from the Mount and findeth them at their idolatrous worship Moses commandeth the sons of Levi to put every man his sword by his side and to go in and out from gate to gate throughout the Camp and to slay every man his Brother and every man his companion and every man his neighbour and v. 28. it is said that the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses And there fell of the people that day about three thousand men There God was very quick with idolaters Blaspheming Cursing and swearing is a sin against the third commandment God as to the punishment of these sins sometimes proceedeth very slowly but not alwaies Look into Levit. 24.10 There was the son of an Israelitish woman that blasphemed the name of the Lord and cursed he was put in prison God presently giveth order concerning him v. 14. That he should be brought forth without the Camp and stoned to death presently Sabbath-breaking it is a sin against the fourth precept of the Decalogue God is ordinarily very slow in the punishing of this sin many a Sabbath-breaker goeth on year after year and yet is not punished but God doth not do thus with all The man that did but gather sticks upon the Sabbath-day was stoned to death by Gods express order and command Numb 30.35 Rebellion against Parents cursing them and dishonouring them is a very great sin yet God beareth with many wretches a long time that are guilty of it as we see in the experience of our own lives A wretched Child is a plague to his Parents many years but God doth not always bear with sinners in this case See what a Law God gave the Israelites in this case Deut. 21.18 19 20 21. God ordered That he should be presently stoned to death that would not obey the voice of his Father and Mother For Murther which is a sin against the sixth Commandment I shall not inlarge I shall shew you anon that it is a sin which God rarely suffereth to go long unpunished The Law of God determined present death for wilful murder and the laws of most nations are accordingly and we daily see the providence of God strangely working to make murtherers examples of his vengeance Adultery is a sin against the seventh Commandment God sometimes is very patient and proceedeth very slowly but yet not always sometimes he strikes a dart through his liver sooner God established a law in the Jewish polity That the Adulterer should be put to death Lev. 20.10 Deut. 22.22 and you know Phinehas presently took a Javelin and ran it through an Adulterer and an Adulteress and had an ample reward given him from God for it In the case of theft God may sometimes be very patient and doubtless there are many old Thieves in the world who yet will not escape the vengeance of God at last But God is not always patient with all these sinners Achan was an eminent Thief he laid his hands upon Gods goods God had first seized upon the goods of the Canaanites and set them a part for a sacrifice by fire to himself Achan steals a wedge of Gold and a Babilonish garment God presently revengeth it first upon all the Army of Israel of which he was a member then upon himself and his family who were stoned to death with stones For lying and bearing a false testimony witnessing against the life of another as a criminal who was not a criminal they are sins against the ninth Commandment God is often very patient with these sinners he doth not presently enter into judgement with every liar every Informer and accuser of the servants of God Some he reserveth in the chains of an hard and impenitent heart unto the judgement of the great day but yet with some of these sinners God is much quicker Ananias and Saphira as you know fell down dead with a lye in their mouths and the Accusers of the three children and Daniel were presently destroyed the first by the heat of that Furnace which they had made so hot for others the second by those Lions which they had procured Daniel to be thrown unto But this is enough to have said in justification of my first conclusion That it is hard to name any species of sinners but God hath been very quick with some individuals of their company 2. I find some Divines observing That God is ordinarily most severe upon the first violators of his laws and this is the reason that is given by some why the Sabbath-breaker was ordered to be stoned to death God had newly revealed his will upon Mount Sinai Exod. 31.14 and repeated it Exod. 35. Now God picks out one of the first open presumptuous violators of it to make him an example you know this is after the manner of men who are usually very severe upon the first execution of their laws Ananias and Saphira were not the first that had told a lye but they were the first that we read of who had told a lye in that business It was the Will of God that to supply the necessities of his Church at that time the Christians should have all things for a time common amongst them and it was not without a divine instinct at least that so many of them sold their goods and came
the justice or goodness of God To his justice who hath accepted a price and satisfaction for them at the hand of his Son concerning whom he hath said that in him as our Mediator he was well pleased How then can God punish mâ—n and women for those sins for which he hath accepted a price and satisfaction Or how is this reconcileable to the fulness of Gods pardoning grace How are those sins pardoned which God afterward punisheth But this Cavil proceedeth upon a double mistake or error 1. The first concerning the punishments of sin upon the Children of God 2. The second concerning the satisfaction of Christs death As to the first it supposeth that the afflictions and punishments of Gods people are all for satisfaction which if it were so they were of all men moâ—â— miseraâ—â—â— a their afflictions do ordinarily more abound than the afflictions of others It is true that the impenitent and irreconciled sinner hath no reason to look upon any affliction otherwise than as an arrest of divine vengeance upon every ague every feaver as Gods taking him by the throat and saying to him Pay me now what thou owest because they cannot apprehend any such thing as that Christ hath for them satisfied Divine Justice but the case is otherwise with a believer Supposing our afflictions and punishments of this nature these two things would follow from them 1. A Christian should never be able to see to the bottom of his bitter cup were satisfaction to be given by us when could we so much as hope to say All is finished We might burn but when could we hope to come out of the flames we might be paying and paying but when could we think to have paid the uttermost farthing Satisfaction in our persons must be an endless work the offended Justice being no less than infinite 2. We could never hope by our afflictions to be made gainers in grace If it were possible for us to apprehend that by our suffering we could make full payment to the Justice of God yet we could have no hope by affliction to grow more holy no man groweth richer by parting with money to pay his debts none could hope by afflictions to grow more holy that his affliction should purge away his dross or take away his tin or he by them be made more conformable to the Image of his blessed Saviour if our afflictions were for satisfaction But the holy Scripture giveth us quite another notion of afflictions so far as they concern the People of God it bottometh them in Divine Love it calleth them chastenings and calleth them fatherly corrections Heb. 12.6 7 8. We are bid not to despise the chastening of the Almighty we are told That they are blessed whom he chasteneth and teacheth out of his law we are told that he chasteneth whom he loveth and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth Now it is true satisfaction is not consistent with the satisfaction of Christ but corrections and fatherly chastisements are consistent enough with the price which Christ hath paid and the satisfaction which he hath given for us hanging the malefactor or otherwise putting him to death is not consistent with pardon but I hope whipping him branding sending him a while to Bridewel banishment of him when he deserved death is consistent enough with it The Papists indeed fancy that Christ hath only satisfied for the eternal punishment but still we are bound to satisfie by temporal punishments Hence are their penances and purgatory founded but that is a very uncomfortable notion and the more we look into it the more dreadful it will appear On the other side the Antinomians are as much almost on the other hand denying the afflictions of Gods People to be punishment of sins or judgments when the Scripture so calls them The truth lyes in the middle betwixt these two extreams they are judgments they are punishments of sin but they are no legal demands of satisfaction nor giving satisfaction Christ hath satisfied for the whole guilt of their sins for whom he died All of that nature as to them was finished upon the cross so that the afflictions of the People of God their punishments for sin have now both another name and notion than satisfactions 2. A second mistake upon which this objection is founded is That Christ by his death paid a price into the hands of his fathers justice for all temporal punishments due to man for sin so as to excuse those for whom he died from them Now as to this whatsoever we may fancy 1. It is manifest that our Lord Jesus never did purchase for his people any such thing as a freedom from temporal death and the smart of bodily afflictions He hath taken away the sting of death but not death he hath delivered us from the curse but not from the cross This is all which the Scripture saith Gal. 3.13 He hath redeemed us from the curse by being made a curse for us himself hath told us That if any one will be his disciple he must deny himself and take up the cross and follow him And we are told by the Apostle That all who will live godlily in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution And accordingly the servants of God have experienced it even Paul himself was in deaths often and had his thorn in the flesh 2. Nor was it any branch of that Covenant of Redemption and Grace in which Christ was a party with or a surety to the eternal father I put in those two terms Redemption and Grace I know some make two Covenants the one they call the Covenant of Redemption the other the Covenant of Grace and that there are very different notions of the Covenant of Grace For my own part I see no need of asserting more than one Covenant and that eternal Isa 42.6 This I take to be a paction from eternity made betwixt the Father the eternal Father on the one part and the Lord Jesus Christ on the other wherein Christ Covenanted with his Father that he would do his whole will for the redemption of his chosen ones Psal 40.7 Heb. 10.7 and that we by grace derived from him should do what the father requires of us in order to our salvation in respect of which he is said to be made the surety of a better Covenant Heb. 7.22 The Father mutually Covenanted with his Son that he would be well-pleased in him that he would give him the souls for whom he should dye that he might give them eternal life and all that grace and good which should be advantageous for them but neither did Christ ask of his Father neither did his Father promise him on their behalf an immunity from temporal punishments afflictions or chastisements for sin We cannot understand the terms of the Covenant of Grace but from the Exhibition of it in Scripture which was very various sometimes more clearly sometimes more darkly to Adam Noah Abraham David c. One of the fairest copies
the justice and goodness of God and the revelation of his will in Ezech. 18.4 and other Texts This dispensation at first view seemeth not to comport with the justice of God which must give every man his due and recompence to every one according to his work Now the work of the Father is not the work of the Child how then cometh it to be recompensed to the Child much less doth it seem to comport with the goodness of God to visit the iniquity of the Father upon the child and then it seemeth to cross what God hath said Ezech. 18.4 The soul that sinneth shall dye and again Jer. 31.29 30. Every one shall dye for his own iniquity every man that eateth the sowre grape his teeth shall be set on edge But I beseech you observe 1. How ready we are to quarrel with God for what is done every day with men and no man accuseth it of injustice to take away the estates of Children for the treasons of Parents for the debts of Parents c. How ordinarily in war do innocent Children suffer for their Parents yet as to man the law of God is plain Deut. 24.16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children neither shall the children be put to death for the parents every man shall be put to death for his own sin and reason holds much stronger for Gods punishing even with death the sin of the parent upon the child For 1. God can compensate the loss of a temporal life to the child with an eternal life this man cannot do This was Augustines reason 2. God seeth guilt enough in children to justifie his vengeance To man they are innocent yet according to that barbarous custom in war nothing is more ordinary than to take away the lives of children for the fathers faults yet the world doth not much clamour at this 2. The justice of God is sufficiently cleared in this That God never punisheth any for the sin of their correlate in whom there is not personal guilt enough to justifie God in that proceeding Every one in his punishment beareth his own burden though possibly his sin and the sin of his father be punished together 3. Correlates are the goods of their Relations Children are the great portion of Parents so are people the riches and goods of Princes thus Aquinas solveth this difficulty Filii sunt res parentum Thus the learned Rivet saith children have in them aliquid parentis indeed that is something more children are not only the portion and goods of their parents but they are pieces of their parents and their parents are punished in them As David was punished in the death of his first child by Bathsheba Some may say this is something if children were only punished during the life of their parents but how are their parents punished in them when they are dead before vengeance cometh upon the child Answ The fear of it all their life-time is a punishment 2. Is it no punishment to them though dead to have their names blotted out 4. The goodness of God is seen in this That it is a rational means to do good to the parents and parents are often advantaged by the punishment of the children David was so you know If God will say to the child I will punish you and use your punishment to do good to your parents what have we to say to it If we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren as St. John determines certainly if God calls children to it they ought to be willing to lay down their lives for their parents if God impose it upon them Debent parentibus hoc officium saith Augustine Plutarch disputing the justice of the gods he was a Heathen and that his dialect in this particular saith that Physitians use to bleed the arm for a pain in the head and by a parity of reason so excuseth the Divine Justice The Parents have been instruments of giving life to the Children and God giveth Children many advantages for the Parents sake 5. In the mean time if the children be good and holy their afflictions are but fatherly chastisements Their deaths do but remove them to a better life so that they have no wrong not suffering in their souls nor by eternal punishments for the sins of their parents 6. Lastly saith Augustine God by this means doth maintain discipline and keep up his authority and government in states in the world in his Church in particular families Now who shall deny God the liberty of exercising an act of meer Power and Soveraignty if it were no more when by it a discipline and government is kept up in the Universe and by it many greater disorders and wickednesses are prevented Sinners are terrified and the thoughts of the miseries their children may feel for their sins may affright those who would adventure their own skins and necks and souls too I have now done with the Doctrinal part of this Observation I come to the Practical Application of this discourse Vse 1. In the first place this may serve to satisfie us as to the Justice of God in the distribution of some rewards of this life to the worst of men by the rewards of this life I understand riches honours outward prosperity and blessing It is a saying usually imputed to Hierom Omnis Dives est vel injustus vel injusti haeres every rich man is either an unrighteous man or the son of an unrighteous man I do not know but we may say the contrary That every prosperous man is either justus aut haeres justi either himself a good and righteous man or the child of such a one I mean not the immediate child but descended from such a one I will not assert it too universally but shall refer it to your Observation If you see a leud and wicked man growing great rich prospering much in the world observe whether he be not one who like Jehu hath not personally done some eminent service for God so Jehu did so Assyria did so Nebuchadnezzar did he made his Army to do a great service against Tyre 2. If you cannot find that enquire if he were not a descendent from some that had done some such service Jeroboam the Son of Joash Jehu's Grandchild was a naughty man yet the Kingdom of Israel had no such time of prosperity as in his Reign God did not reward any personal vertue in him but he rewarded the service which his Grandfather Jehu had done against the house of Ahab The prosperity therefore of wicked men should not trouble us nor be a temptation to us we should only conclude thus How much more will the Lord reward his faithful servants who worship and serve him in truth and with a perfect heart Vse 2. In the second place This may serve to rectifie the mistakes of those who may be under a temptation to say with David That they have washed their hands in vain and cleansed their hearts
the holy Prophet Hab. 1.13 Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously 2. There is nothing in the world so contrary unto God as sin is nothing so repugnant to his nature nothing so prejudicial to his glory nothing that he hateth with so perfect an hatred 3. That it always was and is in the power of God to hinder sin God could have hindred Adams fall and all the sin which hath since that been committed in the world Now these things considered that yet God should not hinder sin but suffer men to walk in their own ways and to fulfil their unbridled lusts seems at first view of difficult apprehension It hath been so hard a Chapter to some that they have fancied two Gods the one to be the Principle of all the good the other of all the evil that is in the world they were not able to conceive how a pure and holy God could permit sin The Operations of Providence about sin I have heretofore more largely discoursed Amongst others I have instanced in these two 1. He doth permit and suffer it when he might hinder it 2. Providence doth co-operate as to the natural action though not as to the malice and sinfulness of the action It is most certain that in him every man lives and moves The blasphemer the lyer the profane curser and swearer could not speak if the Providence of God did not in the mean time uphold the natural faculties whose operations are necessary to such actions Now this is that which sometimes startles our deliberate thoughts if God indeed be so holy and pure a God as we have heard he is if he so hateth and abhorreth sinful actions and if he be so mighty and powerful a God why doth not God withdraw that Providence of his which upholdeth the sinner to the natural action while he seeth and knoweth which way the lust in the sinners heart will incline his action I conceive now my text gives some relief to our disquieted thoughts about this particular Why did God first suffer the law to enter That sin might abound that the offence might abound saith the Apostle v. 20. But why should sin abound why did the Providence of God suffer sin to abound That grace might much more abound For saith the text where sin abounded grace did much more abound That as sin hath reigned unto death even so grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ The Apostle is here doubtless speaking with a great respect to the first mans sin of which he had been speaking in the former verses Death passed over all men for that all have sinned and v. 15. Through the offence of one many be dead and so in the following verses you read of one mans sin one mans offence one mans disobedience c. But yet he is not speaking only of Adams sin for he tells you Many were made sinners and all have sinned and he is also speaking of sin as consequent to the law given which I do not think is to be understood of the law given to Adam and the Covenant made with him but of the law given by Moses and in that latitude I shall discourse this subject shewing you that God in a great deal of wisdom did first suffer sin to enter into the world and still suffereth sin to abound in the world You may take that for the Proposition Prop. The holy and omnipotent God in an infinite wisdom of Providence suffereth sin and sinners to abound in the world though himself be of purer eyes than to behold iniquity he hates and abhorreth every sin nothing so grieveth and dishonoureth him yet I say in infinite wisdom his Providence doth permit it suffering men to fulfil the lusts of their own hearts and to walk in their own ways My business must be to give you some account of the Divine Wisdom in it and to make Gods ways of Providence in this thing to appear unto you equal It is a true saying of one of the School-men Plus est bonum vel numero vel quantitate quod Deus elicit per mala quam quod destruitur per mala Al. Al. There is one way or other either in number or in quantity more good which God fetcheth out of sin than is destroyed by sin We may be confident of this or God would never suffer it And indeed the Doctrinal part of my discourse will be nothing else than a justification of that maxim I shall therefore this day entertain you with a resolution of this riddle much like that of Sampson when he had killed the Lyon and eaten of the honey the Bees had made in the carcase Jud. 14.4 shewing you how out of the eater cometh meat and out of the strong cometh sweetness How out of sin which is the vilest thing in the world the most opposite and repugnant thing to the glory of God the glory of God is yet fetched and that in a proportion to compensate the loss and prejudice to his glory from the sin of the sinner It is certain which Augustine long since said and gave as a reason of Gods permission of sin Deus judicavit melius de malis benefacere quam mala esse non permittere God judged it better to bring good out of sin than not permit sin to be committed 1. In the first place let me shew you how many Attributes of God are glorified by his permission of sin and sinners in the world 1. In the first place it is I think well observed by an acute Author That God in this motion of Providence magnifieth his equity to our humane nature Equity indeed is but a piece of justice But when I come to speak to that Attribute I shall restrain my discourse to Gods Punitive and Vindicative Justice Our great master who hath commanded us to give unto our servants that which is just and equal will much more do it himself and it is said of God He shall judg the people with equity Psal 98.9 and he took it very ill when his people said That his ways were not equal The equity of God required that he should leave humane nature to its liberty man was created with a reasonable soul and the very nature of it had been destroyed if it had been left under a coaction and in this the condition of humane nature had been worse than that of sensitive creatures which freely use their natural faculties and exercise their natural motions It is a saying of Aquinas That it is not the work of Providence in its government of man to destroy its nature but to heal and save it God in suffering men to walk in their own ways doth but leave men to their natural liberty and thus magnify the Equity of God to humane nature But this is one of the least 2. God by the permission of sin and sinners and the aboundings of
God hath many Children and his Children will have their wanton vagaries and extravagances and must be brought through the world to Heaven under the discipline of persecutions and many afflictions wicked and profane men in the world are Gods gaolers and bride-well men that keep his houses of correction when his servants are wanton and offend him he sends them to these gaolers he turns them over unto wicked men It was Davids curse of his enemies Psal 109.6 Set thou a wicked man over him and let Sathan stand at his right hand God when his people offend him sometimes sends them to the Extortioner to catch all that they have Sometimes to a barbarous Souldier to spoile all their labour sometimes to a persecutor to rifle their houses and plunder their pleasant things to lay them up in gaoles c. And thus a multitude of sinners is necessary to Gods government of the world But yet for we are very apt to dispute with God how is it that the providence of God suffers such an excess of riot such a world of iniquity in the world if some sin be suffered if some sinners must be endured in the world yet why so much sin Though an easy and manifold answer might be easily drawn up to this from my former discourse yet let me add 3 or 4 things 1. Dost thou that speakest thus consider what a dependency there is of one sin upon another and what an use God maketh of one sin to punish another Let me a little discourse each of these The moralist saith Virtutes sunt concatenatae Divines say as much of the graces of the Spirit of God they have a causative virtue and influence upon one another patience worketh experience experience hope The Apostle tells us faith worketh by love it is indeed productive both of love and hope c. It is also true that Vitia sunt concatenata vices and sinful habits are also linked together and are productive one of another Lust conceiveth and brings forth and sin finisheth and then bringeth forth death And as it is observed in nature the most noxious Creatures are most fruitful and teeming so vice and sin is a most fruitful teeming mother one sin bringeth forth a multitude of sin Drunkenness is the ordinary mother of whoredom filthy and profane discourse quarrellings and contentions Who hath contentions who hath babling saith Solomon in Pro. 23.29 They that tarry long at the wine they that go to seek for mixt wine 2. Again God in his providence maketh use of sin to punish sin But the equity of God in that motion of his providence God willing I shall hereafter more fully discourse 2. To quiet your thoughts upon this permission of Divine Providence I shall offer to your consideration what Nierembergius an acute Author though a Papist saith upon this argument That the quantity of sin which God permitteth in the world is nothing to what he bindreth in it What a Brothel house of uncleanness what a Field of blood and oppression What an universal Ale house would the world be were it not for the restrainings of Divine Grace what but this hindereth that every man is not a Cain unto his Brother a Judas to his Master that every one is not an Heliogabalus for lust and luxury as much a monster of cruelty as Nero The child of God jealous for the glory of God is often stumbled to see so much sin in the world whereas he should rather be taken up with the admiration of Divine Goodness that there is no more prodigious wickedness committed in it Gratulor saith the afore-mentioned ingenious Author compendium peccandi supremae illi bonitati fontanae miserationi quâ tantus malorum ardor extinguitur Would you blame a man who seeing your House all on fire should quench that fire and only leave some straw burning in the Yard The whole world lieth in wickedness there is a great depth of lust and sin in all our hearts by nature God so ordereth it in his Providence that though he thinks fit to leave some lust burning yet he smothereth and restraineth the far greater part He suffereth not the thousandth part of that blasphemy that uncleanness that drunkenness that oppression fraud cruelty and injustice which would be in the world if he took off his hand of restraint from mens spirits What he doth suffer his infinite wisdom knows how to make an advantagious use of for the glory of his great name 3. Consider that the time of sinning beareth no proportion to that time that the Creation shall be without sin The world hath lasted five or six thousand years Chronologers differ in their calculations how long it shall last none can tell many have guessed and already find they have been mistaken But suppose which is not very probable that it should last five six ten thousand more this indeed is a long time for the Devil who is the god of this world to reign and have a kingdom in and a world of sin hath been committed and is committed daily in the world and doubtless will yet be committed before God puts a period to the world and to sinning-time but if it were twice ten thousand years what is that to eternity that eternity that shall be consequent to the day of Judgement when there shall not be a sin committed nor a sinner seen The wicked and all they who forget God shall be turned into Hell There shall not be the black patch of a sin in the beautiful face of the new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness when that blessed time comes it shall be all spent in praises and Hallelujahs Stumble not then at Gods Providence in permitting some sin in the world who hath made so good a provision for his own glory unto a long eternity which also shall then be advantaged by the much sin suffered in the world For those who have much forgiven them will love much here and praise God much both here and hereafter the high praises of God in the mouths of glorified saints are doubtless elevated by the high and much sin which they were guilty of in the world You read Rev. 7. of many thousands of Gods sealed ones which John saw and vers 9 10. A great number which no man could count of all Nations and kindred and people and tongues that stood before the Throne and before the Lamb cloathed with white robes and palms in their hands who cryed with a loud voice salvation to our God who sitteth upon the Throne and to the lamb and again vers 12. Amen blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be given unto our God for ever and ever Now St. John desiring to know who these were had this answer These are they who are come out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb therefore are they before the Throne of God and serve him day
would pose the thoughts of any intelligent person I think I do indeed know that some tell us that Christ as to all men expiated the guilt of Adams sin some add also original sin others tell us that is all washed off in Baptism I want one clear Scripture for any thing of this but yet Arminius never denied so far as I have read him that infants have not upon them the guilt of original sin which God may punish certainly if not with eternal yet with temporal punishments for even past and pardoned sins may be thus punished as I have before shewed you in my Observations upon the motions of Actual Providence Every infant cometh into the world under the guilt of the first mans transgression reckoned to him as he was in the loyns of Adam and under the want of original righteousness with an innate pravity and corruption of nature averse naturally to all that is good prone and inclined unto that which is evil Supposing now what Arminius would have and can never be proved that God will eternally condemn none meerly for this sin yet surely he may justly scourge and correct with the utmost punishments short of eternal punishment even this guilt in children which have not actually finned It was Gods threatning annexed to his Covenant with Adam In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye Some question how God justified it when Adam lived to nine hundred and thirty years before he dyed Divines therefore expound it by eris mortalis thou shalt be subject and liable unto death in the day in which he did eat he became mortal from that day he began to dye and was made liable to that change Every child assoon it cometh into the world eateth of this forbidden fruit I mean becomes liable to the guilt of its proparents eating and so is liable unto death It is true the Lord doth not cut off all children how then should the world be replenished and stand but yet he cutteth off some for the declaration of his justice as a Prince when a whole City or Province is in a rebellion he will not cut them off all because he will not waste and depopulate a Country but he will cut off some for the declaration of his justice Thus you see this motion of Providence is easily reconcileable to the justice of God upon this hypothesis that children are sinners and under an original guilt and if we could be so confident as some are that none shall be damned for that sin only or that it is expiated on the behalf of all or washed away in Baptism as to all born within the pale of the Church Yet nothing hinders but by the same justice by which God punisheth past and pardoned sins which I have formerly at large opened to you God might yet justly trouble and afflict little ones they might be sick and they might dye as Jeroboams child mentioned in the Text did though vers 13. saith of him expresly That there was some good thing found in him towards the Lord God of Israel Let this be a second consideration to satisfie you as to the righteousness of God in these dispensations But I proceed yet further 3. This motion of Providence seemeth very reasonable and competent to the wisdom of God That he might declare to the world that he is that God in whom all breath he in whom they live they move and have their being If we should see none dye but in an old age we should be ready to think that our candle never went out but for want of oyl and should not understand how much we were beholden to God for every hour of life how much we depended upon him for our daily breath as well as for daily bread Now it is but reasonable that the world should understand God to be the fountain of life that sickness and death do not meerly depend upon second causes but there is a first cause that is the efficient the principal efficient cause of these changes though he useth a variety of second causes he will therefore suffer irregular motions of humours in children which shall in them cause sicknesses and death though they never were surfeited with meats nor Inflamed with drinks He bloweth out Candles newly lighted to let us know that the issues of life and death are in his hand and that the breath of man is not meerly in his own nostrils and it is but reasonable that God should make himself thus known to us as the God of our lives 4. Again this dispensation of Providence is reconcileable to the goodness of God God by this means doth deliver little ones from the evil to come This is the very case in the Text God was bringing evil upon the house of Jeroboam as he threatneth vers 10 11 12. he intended to take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam as a man taketh away dung from the earth Abijah falls sick and dies and this out of mercy to him that his eyes might not see nor he have any share in the evil which God was about to bring upon his Fathers house God gathereth up the Lambs before the storm cometh It is said of Babilon Psal 137. That he should be happy that should take their little ones and dash them against the stones and we read in Scripture of such famines as inforced women to eat their own children Now God often cuts off little ones in his mercy to them I might here further add that God by this dispensation preventeth much sin in those that are thus taken away But I pass on yet to some further considerations clearing Gods justice 5. It is but reasonable that God should do this to punish the sins of the Parents and to do them good It was one of my observations concerning the motions of Actual Providence That God doth very ordinarily punish Relations in their Correlates Parents in their Children and I shewed you the reasonableness of Divine Providence in this motion It was for the punishment of Davids sin that his child by Bathsheba died and the death of it was threatned by Nathan as a part of Davids punishment 2 Sam. 12.14 Possibly God may sometimes do it to abate our affections to our children and that he might have more of our heart and affections as the Gardiner cutteth off the suckers which draw too much from the root and the country Housewife takes away the Calf when it sucketh so much as it leaveth no milk for the pail 6. Finally Why may not this motion of Providence seem reasonable That room might be left in the world The world is a great Theatre in which he hath many to act their parts God at first lengthned out the lives of the Patriarchs to seven eight nine hundred years that the world might be replenished with Inhabitants He now shortneth the lives of those that are born into the world that the world might not be overburdened with Inhabitants More might be added By the death
fruit of the womb as a blessing and blesseth him that hath his quiver full of these shafts but now the poor man knoweth not how to understand this and it is hard for him not to repine at the multiplying of it a great error doubtless but such as for ought I know good people may fall into we cannot trust God to provide for those which he giveth us if this hath been thy error God but pays thee in thy own kind by shortning thy number and maketh thy own secret sinful wish now to be thy Plague and Torment but this ordinarily is the sin of the poorer and meaner sort of Christians 2. Didst thou not let thy heart run out too much upon thy Children God is jealous and it is the nature of jealousy not to suffer a rival in the object beloved be it a person or a thing God is the object and he will be the prime object of his peoples love desire and delight It is his Law Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy strength it may be thy Child had more of thy heart more of thy love and and delight than God had no wonder if he hath taken it from thee this is now usually the sin of those whose circumstances in the world are better they have a fair estate in the world and Children few enough to leave it to and in such cases it is a very hard thing to keep our hearts within due bounds but our affections are ready to overflow especially if there be nothing in the temper or behaviour of the Child that takes off the edge of our affections to it 3. Doth not thy heart smite thee for the neglect of thy duty to thy Child especially if it were of any years Thy duty in instructing it or thy duty in reproving and admonishing it Elie's Sons were indeed men grown but God cut off his Children though their personal guilt justified God in his severity against them yet Eli smarted in their punishments for honouring his Sons more than God for dealing too gently with them for their most enormous wickednesses Thou mayest also neglect thy duty towards them in instructing them in making them acquainted with the holy Scriptures in admonishing them to keep the Lords Sabbaths and seeing to their external Sanctification of them This is undoubtedly a second piece of thy duty upon such a dispensation and to be humbled before God for those sins which thy conscience smiteth thee for and suggesteth to thee as probable causes of this rod of God upon thee 3. It is doubtless thy duty whatsoever thou findest to be satisfied with Gods good pleasure Rachel mourned sinfully while she so mourned as that she refused to be comforted If thou findest that probably God hath punished thy sin in the sickness pain and death of thy Child it is indeed matter of humiliation to thee it offers thee a just opportunity to resolve for the time to come to amend thy errors as to any survivors which God shall lend thee but yesterday cannot be called back again God hath done what pleased him It may be in mercy to thy Child though it be in judgment unto thee thou hast no reason to quarrel or murmure at God for any of his dispensations If it be for thy Child 's Original sin still thou hast no reason to blame God he is just and righteous in what he hath done But if God hath done it to give thy Child a quicker passage to Heaven to bring it sooner to a state of perfection to deliver it from an evil to come here thou hast reason to admire and adore the Divine goodness rather than to quarrel at Divine Justice There are a great many things that may conduce to the relief of a godly man or woman disturbed at this dispensation of Divine Providence It is a very ordinary dispensation of God though therefore it may look like a digression from the principal argument of my discourse yet it may possibly be not so judged by some of you whose case it either at present is or may be to instance in some heads of arguments which occasionally you may make use of for the quieting of your Spirits 1. Consider what-ever was the moving cause on Gods part yet the will of God is revealed The will of God is such a thing to satisfy a Christian with as nothing can be more nothing greater We have our Heaven by the will of God fear not little flock it is your Fathers will to give you a Kingdom We have all our grace all our glory from the will of God and shall we not thankfully accept a cross when it is the will of our Father to lay it upon our necks We pray thy will be done and shall we murmure against it when we see it done This silenced Aaron David Heli Hezekiah it leaves no room for a good Christians reply to it it is our Fathers will that is enough It is our Fathers will revealed by an Act of his Providence The Lord hath given saith Job and the Lord hath taken blessed be the name of the Lord. 2. Consider how many sadder cases than thine there have been Thou hast lost a Child an infant Job lost all his Children when they were grown up feasting at their elder Brothers house Aarons was a sad cause he lost his two Sons grown up in an act of sinning yet he held his peace Helies case was sad to lose two such wicked Sons in a Battel Davids case was sad God had expresly told him the Child should dye because of his sin and that by it he had made the enemies of God to blaspheme What doth David do He fasteth he prayeth he humbleth himself before God so long as the Child lived and while he had any hope but when the will of God was revealed when the Child was dead he ariseth and eateth bread as he was wont to do he saith that he should go to it it should not return to him 3. Consider Let the case be as sad as it will yet if thou lookest round about it there is mercy in it either mercy to thy Child or mercy to thee or mercy to both if thy Child be gone to Heaven there is mercy in that if it be delivered from evil to come upon the World or that part of the world where it should have had its portion there is mercy in that David's case was as sad as one can well think of any of this nature yet there was this mercy in it the living monument and remembrance of David's sin and shame was taken away 4. Suppose that God hath for thy sin taken it away and thou canst not satisfie thy self but it is so yet consider God eternally punisheth none for the sins of their correlates God may punish persons with bodily and temporal punishments for the sins of their Parents but not eternally as to those punishments every soul shall bear no
more than its own iniquity Arminius I remember telleth us that he can see no reason but that Children may be equally punished eternally for the sins of their Parents as well as the whole posterity of Adam for his sin but certainly there is a vast difference the first Adam was a publick person with whom God made a Covenant for life or death for himself and for his posterity and he had a power as well to have conveyed life as death to all his posterity but surely none will assert this as to any Parent since his time 5. Consider how much comfort there is laid for parents mourning in that speech of our Saviour for of such is the kingdom of God Men that have large Gardens and Orchards have places for slips and Inlays as well as for old Stocks Nurseries for Plants as well as places for full-grown fruit-trees God hath his garden of Grace that is his Church and he hath his garden of Glory to both belong Nurseries The Children of believers are though imperfect members yet members of his Church and they may be heirs of Glory though they go out of this world under age as to any earthly inheritance Yet they may be of full age for the inheritance that is immortal incorruptible and which fadeth not away they will be of age in that Country where is no infant of days nor old man of years The possibility of little Childrens entering into the Kingdom of God yea the probability that the seed of such as fear God dying in infancy are so entred ought to be a wonderful relief to Godly parents mourning upon this account Some Mothers only people the earth with sinners God puts an honour upon thee if thou stockest Heaven with Saints and bringest forth to the kingdom of Glory 6. Consider Thou canst never lose a Child with more hope than in its infancy Some have thought that the death of Christ hath as to all expiated the guilt of Adams sin both the Socinians and Arminians seem so to judge Others think that by vertue of the New Covenant the water of Baptism washeth away original sin Augustine was called Durus pater infantum an hard Father to Infants because he thought all unbaptized Infants were damned by which it seems he deferred much to Baptism but I do not remember that I ever read in him or heard from him that he held that all baptized Infants should be saved if dying in infancy I durst not fix the comfort of mourning Parents upon these foundations But yet this is certain the Infant within the pale of the Church the Child of the believing the true believing Parent especially is in Covenant with God It hath not yet been defiled with wilfull presumptuous sinning we cannot say so of our Children when they are grown up to years A godly Parent can never lose a Child with more hopes of its eternal Salvation than in its infancy 7. Again Possibly what God hath done he hath done in mercy to thee to thy soul that thy affections may be more entirely upon him God knew thy heart better than thy self it may be by such a stroke he hath secured thy heart more unto himself it may be in mercy as to the comforts of thy life Zedekiah could better have followed his Children in their infancy to their grave than have seen them slain by a barbarous enemy before his face Thou knowest not what evil is coming upon the world 8. Lastly consider That for those that keep the Lords Sabbaths and chuse the things that please him and take hold of the Lords Covenant God hath Isa 56.45 promised a better name than that of sons and daughters even an everlasting name which shall never be cut off But I shall digress no further on this Argument 4. Lastly Having stilled thy impatience what hast thou to do but to fulfil the Lords will and ends under such a dispensation Let those do it that are patients under such providences Let us all do it who are spectators of them Are any of us patients under such Providences let us fulfil the Lords ends in them You will say what are they I Answer 1. Submission to his good will is doubtless one thing God by all afflictions of his people designeth to humble and to prove his people that he may do them good in the latter end Such dispensations are the rod of God upon us and his rod hath a voice and we are bound to hear his rod. God is now trying thy obedience Abraham's trial was a greater trial he had but one Child him a Son the Child of the promise God required him to kill him with his own hand he submitted and the Lord accepted his will for the deed Thy hearing the voice of one rod may prevent the Lords taking of another to scourge thee with 2. Humiliation for those sins which thou suspectest to have been the provoking cause of such a dispensation that 's another end which thou maist probably think that God aimeth at Afflictions are to humble us and to prove us 3. God calleth aloud to thee to take thy heart off thy creature-comforts Thou seest what gourds what blossoms they are what shadows they are which thou huggest what lyes thou hast in thy right hand he calls now to thee to fix thy heart and thine eyes upon him alone and to make him alone thy portion to fix all thy delight upon him For us that are spectators of such Providences let us also by them learn wisdom 1. By taking heed of such sins as may provoke God to such dispensations we stand concerned if we love our children to love God and to fear him to walk closely with him the wicked life of a Parent may shorten the life of a Child for that God in judgment may write him childless a man who shall not prosper nor his name out-live a present generation Take heed of those particular sins which may provoke God to such a stroke Take heed of murmuring at the blessing of a numerous off spring and distrusting the Providence of God as to a providing for them Take heed if Children be given you that you do not set your heart upon them Look upon them as fading flowers and such flowers as never fade sooner than while they are worn too near your heart Take heed of sins by which the enemies of God shall be made to blaspheme David for such sins lost his new born Child from his beloved Bathsheba 2. More especially take heed of neglecting your children Neglect not the ordinance of Baptism as to them I do not think that is damnable but I do think it is provocative of God I remember God met Moses in the Inn and was about to kill him for his omission of Circumcision Circumcision was in it self a pitiful thing but it was Gods ordinance it was his Covenant in the flesh with the seed of Abraham We are not upon a Divine institution to say To what purpose is it or what good
God hath given them up to strong delusions God hath thrown them off his hand of restraint withdrawn his common grace from them given them up to the Devil even in this life God is now punishing upon them their former falshood Give me leave to speak my fears I profess they are my thoughts my sad thoughts that we live in an age as full of persons that have sinned the sin that shall never be forgiven as any age ever was since our Lord was upon the Earth The sin unto death for which St. John saith we should not pray must certainly be prodigious sinning against light let but malicious be added to it in any Soul and I then shall believe he hath not sinned the sin against the holy ghost when I shall see God renewing such a one by repentance and not before To such persons I have little or nothing to say But O let them that stand take heed lest they fall Foelix quem faciunt c. That is an happy Soul that can learn to take heed by the dreadful falls of others it hath been the saying of others that Religion stands on tip-toes in our Land I can say nothing to that I hope better things but give me leave to say to those particular Souls in this City that hear me this day Your Souls stand on tip-toes I have now been a witness of the Gospels being preached to you thirty years if it be hid I fear it is hid to them that perish It is much to be feared that you who being of years of understanding have been hearers of the means of grace you have had for these years yet the faithful preaching of the Gospel did not commence with my first knowledg of this City are sealed one way or other either to Salvation or to damnation when I speak of being sealed to Salvation I do not understand blessed with a full assurance of it but the Spirit of God hath made ere this time such impressions upon their hearts as will make Salvation sure to them though it may be they have not within themselves sensibly the witness and assurance of it I say for those of you who are not thus far sealed it is much to be feared that you have another Seal upon you even a Seal of eternal condemnation It may be you are not in despair possibly if you had less hope it might be better for you hope slayeth the hypocrite but hath not God given you over Do not you find your hearts are grown more hard and insensible more filthy and vain and frothy there is a Seal and a dreadful one too For old professors to lose their profession to have cast off their awe and dread of God their practice of Religion in their Families and conversation to grow loose and vain to turn scoffers and enemies to Religion and Godliness You that yet stand O look to your standing I would have you look upon men that have had formerly much light made great profession and are fallen off to open courses of Sin as sad examples of Divine vengeance as if they were turned into Hell They are no better than brands of Hell-fire yet stinking and smoaking in the Land of the living that others may hear and fear and take heed of sinning against the degrees of light which they have sinned against O be afraid you that have yet light before you how you behave your selves towards it instead of disputing the justice holiness and goodness of God in punishing sin with sin be afraid lest this should be your portion shut not your eyes against the glorious light of the Gospel take heed of quenching the Spirit smothering the reflections of your conscience resisting your convictions struggling with and against the Spirit of God quarrelling with God for any lusts contrary to the Revelation of his will lest as God said of Ephraim Ephraim is joined to Idols let him alone so God should say concerning any of you such a one knows better but he is joined to his formalities to his vain superstitions Let him alone or such a one must have his Cups his Lusts his unjust gain Let him alone be assured if God once resolveth to Let thee alone thou wilt find thy Soul rouling to Hell fast enough Satan besides will not let that Soul alone of whom God hath pronounced Let him alone But this is enough to have spoken to this Subject SERMON XLII 2 Thes I. 9. Who shall be punished with Everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his Power I Am yet indeavouring to make those ways of Divine Providence plain which to our apprehensions appear difficult and hard to be understood by our weak capacities In my last discourse I trod upon the brink of the infernal Pit clearing up to you the justice of God in punishing sin with sin giving men up for former sinnings to blindness of mind hardness of heart a reprobate mind vile affections that is in effect a placing them in the very Suburbes of Hell My discourse this day will be about the pit it self Atheists doubt whether there be such a pit or no it is their interest to deny it others cannot tell how to reconcile an everlasting punishment to the Divine Justice there being no proportion between the pleasures of sin for a season and the torments of Hell for ever My Text you see plainly mentions a punishment with everlasting destruction If you consider the words of my Text with their reference to what went before you will find the Apostle v. 3. Blessing God for the Thessalonians increase in their Faith Charity and v. 4. Their patience in all the tribulations which they had indeed You must know that these Christian inhabitants of Thessalonica lived in the first and most furious times for Gospel persecutions when the Heathen amongst whom they lived had gotten a law and by that law as the Jews said of Christ those that owned the name of Christ ought to die or to be plundered of their Estates and imprisoned and amongst so many Heathens it was not possible they should want Informers Nor did they want some Judges that would to the utmost execute those severe Laws upon them Now in the enduring of all those hard things for Christ and his Gospels sake these Christians had shewed admirable patience and for this the Apostle thinks himself bound to bless God For it is given to us on the behalf of Christ to suffer as well as to believe Phil. 21.9 Having mentioned these persecutions he inlargeth a little further v. 5 6 7. Comforting them under them 1. From the Consideration of the testimony in them of the righteous judgment of God Which he proveth v. 6. It is saith he a righteous thing with God to render tribulation to them that trouble you 2. To give you who are troubled rest and peace Lest these Christians should say but when shall these things be He tells them When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed
the meritorious cause If indeed God did either condemn any righteous person or were any way obliged to give out effectual grace to all and did not this indeed would argue unrighteousness with God but he doth neither of these his wrath will indeed one day be revealed against them to whom Christ and his Gospel were never revealed to whom grace sufficient to bring them to Heaven and Eternal life was never given but it shall never be revealed but as the Apostle saith against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men now certainly God cannot be unrighteous in punishing unrighteousness or ungodliness If God indeed were a debtor for his grace to his creature he might be charged with unrighteousness if he did not give it out but he doth not deal out death and destruction but as a wages nor Salvation and Eternal life but as free gift Who asketh a reason why August Caesar did not bestow gifts upon all his Courtiers in proportion with those bestowed on Maecenas We may say of God as to all his dispensations of grace Placuit hoc satis est ubi non aliud jus aut ratio ipsa voluntas jus ratio est that is It so pleased God that is enough where there is no other right or reason the very will of God is Law and reason enough Besides if the distributions of Divine grace were equal how should God to any shew forth the riches of his Grace Let me but acquaint you with a passage of Augustine upon this Argument Doest thou ask saith he why grace is not given to all according to desert I answer because God is merciful you will say Why is not God merciful to all I answer saith he because he is just In this saith he that grace is given freely he sheweth what grace doth and worketh in those to whom it is given Let us not therefore be unthankful to God that according to the good pleasure of his will and for the praise of the glory of his grace he hath delivered us from so great a death whereas if he should deliver none yet he would not be unjust Let him therefore who is delivered love grace let him who is not delivered acknowledg justice if Divine goodness be understood in remitting the debt Justice also may be understood in exacting of it no way is there any iniquity found with God But you will say then Why is there in the case of Infants yea of Twins such a difference Is it not saith he the like Question why in a diverse cause there is the same judgment and the Workmen in the Vineyard who wrought the whole day had but a Penny as they had who had wrought but one hour The Case was different the judgment the same they murmured what saith the Master of the Vineyard to them Volo I will make the last like unto the first Thus because bounty was shewed to some there was no iniquity toward others so far as respecteth Justice and Grace As to the guilty person that is saved God saith I will As to others he saith Take what is thy own and go thy way I will give unto this man that which I do ow unto him Is thine eye evil because mine is good If he shall say and why not unto me Here he shall hear Who art thou who disputest with God Whom thou findest as to one man a bountiful giver as to another a just exactor as to none at all unjust for whereas he should be just if he should punish both he that is saved hath indeed reason to give thanks he that is damned hath no cause to find fault I wish all those who so talk of Fathers would shew us that they were the Children of this ancient Father to whom that name is usefully given But I come to the Application of this discourse 1. Vse In the first place let this Caution you against an hasty listing your selves in the Number of those who so cry up Vniversal grace and a sufficiency of the means of grace for all both the means of purchase and of Application I must confess it is a plausible point and appears to us very pleasing as well as reasonable that God should not punish any nor condemn any to whom he hath not given a sufficiency of grace and assistances in order to their Salvation but as smooth and plausible as it appeareth take heed of too hasty imbracing it it leadeth to strange notions in Divinity as you may partly learn from this discourse the maintaining ordinatam sufficientiam an ordained sufficiency for we are not now speaking of the value of the merits of the blood of Christ in it self in the Death of Christ for all those who shall perish as well as for those who shall be saved it will lead you either to deny that Christ's death was any purchase at all or to affirm that Christ purchased a possibility for some to be saved but under an impossible condition let it be Natural or Moral the absurdity is the same for so it must be if there were an Eternal Election or except man hath a power of himself to repent and believe c. And the maintaining of a sufficiency of grace given to all for the Application of Salvation will lead you to maintain That there is a Salvation may be had without a Christ That the Heathens may be saved by the light of Nature And that any Christians may be saved without any special operation of the Spirit of grace indeed without any grace at all taken in a strict and proper sence Doctrines of that consequence that although it may be possible that those who hold such things may be saved as having some further work of God upon their hearts than they understand and will own yet I fear it will be found impossible that any who have tasted the grace of God no further should ever come in the Kingdom of God Let not therefore the smoothness and plausibility of such notions in the sound of them deceive any of you for it is but a sound and no more And if the consequences of those notions be throughly considered and examined they will be found at last to bottome in such strange notions and apprehensions of the Nature of God as do no way sute the perfect nature of the Divine and Supreme being and what the Scripture revealeth concerning God yea and the very light of Nature and natural reason will evince it to us upon the Hypothesis of Gods being the first and Supreme being and the Fountain of all good and the Lord Jesus Christ's being Eternal God and equal with the Father 2. Vse This discourse calleth once more aloud unto all To walk up to the light which they have Though we deny that God giveth unto all yea that he giveth to any unless such as are ordained unto life a sufficiency of grace and gracious assistances in order to their eternal Salvation yet we say God granteth to all though in very different degrees