and from every Creature to the great Landlord since all are Tenants and hold by him at his Will Every Creature in Heaven and Earth under the Earth and in the Sea were heard by John to ascribe blessing honour glory and power to him that sits on the Throne Rev. 5.13 We are as much bound to the soveraignty of God for his preâ—â—rvation of us as for his Creation of us We are no less oblig'd to him that preservs our beings when exposed to dangers than we are for bestowing a being upon us when we were not capable of danger Thankfulness is due to this Soveraign for publick concerns Hath he not preserved the Ship of his Church in the midst of whistling winds and roaring waves in the midst of the combats of men and Devils and rescued it often when it hath been near ship-wrackt 3. How should we be induc'd from hence to promote the honour of this Soveraign We should advance him as supream and all our actions should concur in his honour We should return to his Glory what we have receiv'd from his Soveraignty and enjoy by his mercy He that is the superior of all ought to be the end of all This is the harmony of the Creation that which is of an inferiour nature is order'd to the service of that which is of a more excellent nature thus water and earth that have a lower being are employ'd for the honour and beauty of the plants of the earth who are more excellent in having a principle of a growing life These plants are again subservient to the beasts and birds which exceed them in a principle of sense which the others want Those beasts and birds are order'd for the good of man who is superior to them in a Principle of reason and is invested with a Dominion over them Man having God for his superior ought as much to serve the glory of God as other things are design'd to be useful to man Other Governments are intended for the good of the Community the chief end is not the good of the Governours themselves But God being every way Soveraign the Soveraign being giving being to all things the Soveraign Ruler giving order and preservation to all things is also the end of all things to whose glory and honour all things all creatures are to be subservient Rom. 11.36 For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory for ever Of him as the efficient cause through him as the preserving cause to him as the final cause All our actions and thoughts ought to be addrest to his glory our whole beings ought to be consecrated to his honour though we should have no reward but the honour of having been subservient to the end of our Creation So much doth the excellency and Majesty of God infinitely elevated above us challenge of us Subjects use to value the safety honour and satisfaction of a good Prince above their own David is accounted worth 10000 of the people and some of his Courtiers thought themselves oblig'd to venture their lives for his satisfaction in so mean a thing as a little water from the Well of Bethlehem Doth not so great so good a Soveraign as God deserve the same affection from us Do we swear saith a Heathen * Arrian in Epicter to prefer none before Caesar and have we not greater reason to prefer none before God 'T is a Justice due from us to God to maintain his Glory as it is a Justice to preserve the right and property of another As God would lay aside his Deity if he did deny himself so a creature acts irregularly and out of the rank of a creature if it doth not deny it self for God He that makes himself his own end makes himself his own Soveraign To napkin up a gift he hath bestow'd upon us or to employ what we possess solely to our own Glory to use any thing barely for our selves without respect to God is to apply it to a wrong use and to injure God in his propriety and the end of his donation What we have ought to be us'd for the honour of God He retains the Dominion and Lordship though he grants us the use We are but Stewards not Proprietors in regard of God who expects an account from us how we have employ'd his goods to his honour The Kingdom of God is to be advanced by us we are to pray that his Kingdom may come we are to endeavour that his Kingdom may come that is that God may be known to be the chief Soveraign that his Dominion which was obscur'd by Adam's fall may be more manifested that his Subjects which are supprest in the World may be supported his Laws which are violated by the rebellions of men may be more obeyed and his enemies be fully subdued by his final judgment the last evidence of his Dominion in this State of the World that the Empire of sin and the Devil may be abolish'd and the Kingdom of God be perfected that none may rule but the great and rightful Soveraign Thus while we endeavour to advance the honour of his Throne we shall not want an honour to our selves He is too gracious a Soveraign to neglect them that are mindful of his Glory those that honour him he will honour 1 Sam. 2.30 4. Fear and reverence of God in himself and in his actions is a duty incumbent on us from this Doctrine Jer. 10.7 Who would not fear thee O King of Nations The ingratitude of the World is taxt in not reverencing God as a great King who had given so many marks of his Royal Government among them The Prophet wonders there was no fear of so great a King in the World Since among all the wise men of the Nations and among all their Kings there is none like unto this No more reverence of him since none ruled so wisely nor any ruled so graciously The dominion of God is one of the first sparks that gives fire to Religion and Worship consider'd with the goodness of this Soveraign Psal 22.27.28 All the Nations shall worship before thee for the Kingdom is the Lord's and he is Governour among the Nations Epicurus who thought God careless of humane affairs leaving thâ—â— at hap-hazard to the conduct of mens wisdom and mutability of fortune yet acknowledged that God ought to be worshipped by man for the excellency of his nature and greatness of his Majesty How should we reverence that God that hath a Throne encompast with such Glorious Creatures as Angels whose faces we are not able to behold though shadow'd in assum'd bodies How should we fear the Lord of Hosts that hath so many Armies at his command in the Heavens above and in the Earth below whom he can dispose to the exact obedience of his will how should men be afraid to censure any of his actions to sit judge of their Judge and call him to an account to their Bar How should such
so ever doth never contradict it self And this is so convincing an argument of the Existence of God that God never vouchsafed any Miracle or put forth any act of Omnipotency besides what was evident in the Creatures for the satisfaction of the Curiosity of any Atheist or the evincing of his Being as he hath done for the Evidencing those Truths which were not written in the book of nature or for the restoring a decayed worship or the protection or deliverance of his people Those Miracles in publishing the Gospel indeed did demonstrate the existence of some supream Power but they were not seals designedly affixt for that but for the confirmation of that truth which was above the ken of purblind Reason and purely the birth of Divine Revelation Yet what proves the Truth of any Spiritual Doctrine proves also in that act the Existence of the Divine Author of it The Revelation alwayes implies a Revealer and that which manifests it to be a Revelation manifests also the supream Revealer of it By the same light the Sun manifests other things to us it also manifests it self But what Miracles could rationally be supposed to work upon an Atheist who is not drawn to a sence of the Truth proclaimed aloud by so many wonders of the Creation Let us now proceed to the demonstration of the Atheists Folly T is a Folly to deny or doubt of a Soveraign Being incomprehensible in his Nature infinite in his Essence and Perfections independent in his Operations who hath given Being to the whole frame of sensible and intelligible Creatures and governs them according to their several natures by an unconceivable Wisdom who fills the Heavens with the Glory of his Majesty and the Earth with the influences of his Goodness 'T is a Folly inexcusable to renounce in this case all appeal to universal consent and the joynt assurances of the Creatures Reason 1. 'T is a Folly to deny or doubt of that which hath been the acknowledged Sentiment of all Nations in all places and ages There is no Nation but hath owned some kind of Religion and therefore no Nation but hath consented in the notion of a supream Creator and Governor 1. This hath been universal 2. It hath been constant and uninterrupted 3. Natural and innate First I. It hath been universally assented to by the Judgments and practices of all Nations in the World 1. No Nation hath been exempt from it All Histories of former and latter Ages have not produced any one Nation but fell under the force of this Truth Though they have differed in their Religions they have agreed in this Truth here both Heathen Turk Jew and Christian center without any Contention No quarrel was ever commenced upon this score though about other opinions Wars have been sharp and Enmities Irriconcilable The notion of the Existence of a Deity was the same in all Indians as well as Britains Americans as well as Jews It hath not been an opinion peculiar to this or that people to this or that Sect of Philosophers but hath been as universal as the reason whereby men are differenc'd from other Creatures so that some have rather defin'd man by animal religiosum then animal rationale 'T is so twisted with Reason that a man cannot be accounted rational unless he own an object of Religion Therefore he that understands not this renounceth his Humanity when he renounceth a Divinity No instance can be given of any one people in the World that disclaimed it It hath been owned by the Wise and ignorant by the learned and stupid by those who had no other guide but the dimmest light of Nature as well as by those whose Candles were snuft by a more polite Education and that without any solemne debate and contention Though some Philosophers have been known to change their opinions in the concerns of Nature yet none can be proved to have absolutely changed their opinion concerning the Being of a God One died for asserting one God none in the former Ages upon record hath died for asserting no God Go to the utmost bounds of America you may find people without some broken peices of the Law of nature but not without this signature and stamp upon them though they wanted commerce with other Nation except as Savage as themselves in whom the light of nature was as it were sunk into the Socket who are but one remove from Brutes who cloath not their bodies cover not their shame yet were they as soon known to own a God as they were known to be a people they were possessed with the Notion of a Supream Being the Author of the World had an object of Religious adoration put up Prayers to the Deity they owned for the good things they wanted and the diverting the evils they feared no people so untamed where absolute perfect Atheism hath gained a footing Not one Nation of the World known in the time of the Romans that were without their Ceremonies whereby they signified their devotion to a Deity They had their places of Worship where they made their Vows presented their Prayers offered their Sacrifices and implored the Assistance of what they thought to be a God And in their distresses run immediatly without any deliberation to their Gods so that the notion of a Deity was as inward and setled in them as their own Souls and indeed runs in the blood of mankind the distempers of the understanding cannot utterly deface it you shall scarce find the most distracted Bedlam in his raving sits to deny a God though he may Blaspheme and fancy himself one 2. Nor doth the Idolatry and multiplicity of Gods in the World weaken but confirm this universal consent Whatsoever unworthy conceits men have had of God in all Nations or whatsoever degrading representations they have made of him yet they all concur in this that there is a Supream Power to he ador'd Tho one People worshipped the Sun others the Fire and the Egyptians gods out of their Rivers Gardens and Fields yet the Notion of a Deity existent who created and governed the World and conferred daily benefits upon them was maintained by all tho applyed to the Stars and in part to those sordid Creatures All the Dagons of the World establish this Truth and fall down before it Had not the Nations owned the Being of a God they had never offered Incense to an Idol Had there not been a deep impression of the Existence of a Deity they had never exalted Creatures below themselves to the honour of Altars Men could not so easily have been deceived by forged Deities if they had not had a Notion of a real one Their fondness to set up others in the place of God evidenced a natural knowledg that there was one who had a right to be worshipped If there were not this sentiment of a Deity no man would ever have made an Image of a peice of Wood worshipp'd it pray'd to it and said deliver me for thou art my God
* Isa 44.17 They applyed a general Notion to a perticular Image The difference is in the manner and immediate object of worship not in the formal ground of worship The worship sprung from a true Principal though it was not applyed to a right object While they were rational Creatures they could not deface the Notion yet while they were corrupt Creatures it was not difficult to apply themselves to a wrong object from a true principle A blind man knows he hath a way to go as well as one of the clearest sight but because of his blindness he may miss the way and stumble into a Ditch No man would be impos'd upon to take a Bristol Stone instead of a Diamond if he did not know that there were such things as Diamonds in the World nor any man spread forth his hands to an Idol if he were altogether without the sense of a Deity Whether it be a false or a true God men apply to yet in both the natural sentiment of a God is evidenc'd all their mistakes were grafts inserted in this Stock since they would multiply gods rather than deny a Deity * Charron de la Sagesse Livr 1. Cha. 7. p. 43. 44. How should such a general submission be entered into the by all the world so as to adore things of a base alloy if the force of Religion were not such that in any fashion a man would seek the satisfaction of his natural instinct to some object of worship This great diversity confirms this consent to be a good argument for it evidenceth it not to be a Cheat combination or conspiracy to deceive or a mutual intelligence but every one finds it in his climate yea in himself * Gassend Phys § 1. lib. 4. Ca. 2. p. 291. People would never have given the Title of a God to men or Brutes had there not been a pre-existing and unquestioned perswasion that there was such a Being how else should the Notion of a God come into their minds the Notion that there is a God must be more ancient 3. Whatsoever disputes there have been in the World this of the existence of God was never the subject of contention All other things have been questioned What Jarrings were there among Philosophers about natural things into how many parties were they split with what animosities did they maintain their several judgments but we hear of no solemn Controversies about the Existence of a Supream Being this never met with any considerable contradiction no Nation that hath put other things to question would ever suffer this to be disparaged so much as by a publick doubt * Amyrant des Religion p. 50. We find among the Heathen contentions about the Nature of God and the number of gods some asserted an innumerable multitude of gods some affirmed him to be subject to birth and death some affirmed the intire World was God others fancied him to be a circle of a bright Fire others that he was a Spirit diffused through the whole World Yet they unanimously concurr'd in this as the judgment of Universal Reason that there was such a sovereign Being And those that were sceptical in every thing else and asserted that the greatest certainty was that there was nothing certain profest a certainty in this The question was not whether there was a First Cause but why it was * Gassend Phys § 1. lâ—b 4. Ca. 2. p. 291. 'T is much the same thing as the disputes about the Nature and matter of the Heavens the Sun and Planets tho there be great diversity of Judgments yet all agree that there are Heavens Sun Planets so all the Contentions among men about the Nature of God weaken not but rather confirm that there is a God since there was never a publick formal debate about his Existence Those that have been ready to pull out one anothers eyes for their dissent from their judgments sharply censured one anothers sentiments envied the births of one anothers wits alwayes shook hands with an unanimous consent in this never censured one another for being of this perswasion never called it into question as what was never controverted among men professing Christianity but acknowledged by all though contending about other things has reason to be judged a certain Truth belonging to the Christian Religion so what was never subjected to any Controversy but acknowledged by the whole World hath reason to be imbraced as a Truth without any doubt 4. This Vniversal Consent is not prejudiced by some few Dissenters History doth not reckon twenty profest Atheists in all Ages in the compass of the whole World Gassend Phys § 1. lib. 4. cap. 7. p. 282. and we have not the name of any one absolute Atheist upon Record in Scripture yet it is questioned whether any of them noted in History with that infamous name were down-right denyers of the Existence of God but rather because they disparaged the Deities commonly worshipped by the Nations where they lived as being of a clearer reason to discern that those qualities vulgarly attributed to their gods as lust and luxury wantonness and quarrels were unworthy of the nature of a God But suppose they were really what they are termed to be what are they to the multitude of men that have sprung out of the loyns of Adam not so much as one grain of ashes is to all that were ever turned into that form by any fires in your Chimnies And many more were not sufficient to weigh down the contrary consent of the whole World and bear down an universal impression Should the Laws of a Country agreed universally to by the whole Body of the People be accounted vain because a hundred men of those millions disapprove of them when not their reason but their folly and base interest perswades them to dislike them and dispute against them * Gassend ibid. p. 290. What if some men be blind shall any conclude from thence that eyes are not natural to men shall we say that the notion of the Existence of God is not natural to men because a very small number have been of a contrary opinion shall a man in a dungeon that never saw the Sun deny that there is a Sun because one or two blind men tell him there is none when thousands assure him there is Why should then the exceptions of a few not one to millions discredit that which is voted certainly true by the joynt consent of the World Add this too that if those that are reported to be Atheists had had any considerable reason to step aside from the common perswasion of the whole world 't is a wonder it met not with entertainment by great numbers of those who by reason of their notorious wickedness and inward disquiets might reasonably be thought to wish in their hearts that there were no God 'T is strange if there were any reason on their side that in so long a space of time as hath run
of God in the Earth as if one heart acted every Man in the world The great Apostle cites the Text to verefie the charge he brought against all mankind * Rom. 3.9 10.11.12 In his interpretation the Jews who owned one God and were dignified with special priviledges as well as the Gentiles that maintained many Gods are within the compass of this Character The Apostle leaves out the first part of the Text the fool hath said in his heart but takes in the latter part and the verses following He charges all because all every man of them was under sin There is none that seeks God and ver 19. He adds what the law saith it speaks to those that are under the Law That none should imagine he included only the Gentiles and exempted the Jews from this description The Leprosie of Atheism had infected the whole Mass of human nature No Man among Jews or Gentiles did naturally seek God and therefore all were void of any spark of the practical sence of the Deity The effects of this Atheism are not in all externally of an equal size Yet in the fundamentals and radicals of it there is not a hairs difference between the best and the worst men that ever traversed the world The distinction is laid either in common Grace bounding and suppressing it or in special Grace killing and crucifying it T is in every one either triumphant or militant reigning or deposed No Man is any more born with sensible acknowledgments of God than he is born with a clear knowledge of the nature of all the Stars in the Heavens or Plants upon the Earth None seeks after God * Coccei None seek God as his rule as his end as his happiness which is a debt the Creature naturally owes to God he desires no communion with God He places his happiness in any thing inferior to God He prefers every thing before him glorifies every thing above him he hath no delight to know him he regards not those paths which lead to him he loves his own filth better than Gods Holiness his actions are tinctured and dyed with self and are void of that respect which is due from him to God The noblest Faculty of Man his Understanding wherein the remaining Lineaments of the Image of God are visible the highest Operation of that Faculty which is Wisdom is in the Judgment of the Spirit of God Devilish whiles it is earthly and sensual * Jam. 3.15 and the Wisdom of the best man is no better by Nature a legion of impure Spirits possess it Devilish as the Devil who though he believe there is a God yet acts as if there were none and wishes he had no Superior to prescribe him a Law and inflict that punishment upon him which his Crimes have merited Hence the Poyson of Man by Nature is said to be like the Poyson of a Serpent alluding to that serpentine temptation which first infected Mankind and changed the nature of Man into the likeness of that of the Devil * Psal 58.4 So that notwithstanding the Harmony of the World that presents men not only with the Notice of the Being of a God but darts into their minds some remarks of his Power and Eternity yet the thoughts and reasonings of Man are so corrupt as may well be called Diabolical and as contrary to the Perfection of God and the original Law of their Nature as the actings of the Devil are For since every natural Man is a Child of the Devil and is acted by the Diabolical Spirit he must needs have that Nature which his Father hath and the Infusion of that Venom which the Spirit that acts him is possessed with though the full Discovery of it may be restrained by various Circumstances Eph. 2.2 To conclude though no man or at least very few arrive to a round and positive Conclusion in their hearts that there is no God yet there is no man that naturally hath in his heart any reverence of God In general before I come to a particular Proof take some Propositions Proposition 1. Actions are a greater discovery of a Principle than Words The Testimony of Works is louder and clearer than that of Words and the Frame of mens hearts must be measured rather by what they do than by what they say There may be a mighty distance between the Tongue and the Heart but a Course of Actions is as little guilty of lying as Interest is according to our common saying All outward Impieties are the branches of an Atheism at the root of our Nature as all pestilential sores are expressions of the Contagion in the Blood Sin is therefore frequently called Ungodliness in our English Dialect Mens Practices are the best Indexes of their Principles The Current of a Mans Life is the counter-part of the Frame of his Heart Who can deny an Error in the Spring or Wheels when he perceives an Error in the hand of the Dial Who can deny an Atheism in the Heart when so much is visible in the Life The Tast of the water discovers what Mineral 't is strained through A practical Denial of God is worse than a verbal because deeds have usually more of deliberation than words words may be the fruit of a Passion but a set of evil actions are the fruit and evidence of a predominant evil Principle in the Heart All slighting words of a Prince do not argue an habitual Treason but a succession of overt treasonable Attempts signifie a setled treasonable disposition in the Mind Those therefore are more deservedly termed Atheists who acknowledge a God and walk as if there were none than those if there can be any such that deny a God and walk as if there were one A Sense of God in the Heart would burst out in the Life Where there is no reverence of God in the Life 't is easily concluded there is less in the Heart What doth not influence a Man when it hath the addition of the Eyes and censures of outward Spectators and the care of a Reputation so much the God of the world to strengthen it and restrain the action must certainly have less power over the Heart when it is single without any other concurrence The Flames breaking out of a house discover the Fire to be much stronger and fiercer within The Apostle judgeth those of the Circumcision who gave heed to Jewish Fables to be Denyers of God though he doth not tax them with any notorious Prophaness Tit. 1.16 They profess that they know God but in works they deny him he gives them Epithites contrary to what they arrogated to themselves * Illyric They boasted themselves to be holy the Apostle calls them abominable They bragged that they fulfilled the Law and observed the Traditions of their Fathers the Apostle calls them disobedient or unperswadable They boasted that they only had the Rule of Righteousness and a sound Judgment concerning it the Apostle said they had a
with hatred The beneficence and patience of God and his readiness to pardon men is the reason of the honour they return to him And this is so evident a motive that generally the Idolatrous world rankt those Creatures in the number of their Gods which they perceived useful and neficial to man-kind as the Sun and Mooâ— the Aegyptians the Ox c. And the more beneficial any thing appeared to mankind the higher station men gave it in the rank of their deities and bestowed a more peculiar and solemn worship upon it Men worshipped God to procure or continue his favour which would not have been acted by them had they not conceived it a pleasing thing to him to be merciful and gracious Sometimes his Justice is proposed to us as a motive of worship Heb. 12.28 29. Serve God with Reverence and Godly fear for our God is a consuming fire which includes his holiness whereby he doth hate sin as well as his wrath whereby he doth punish it Who but a mad and totally brutish person or one that was resolved to make war against heaven could behold the effects of Gods anger in the world consider him in his Justice as a consuming fire and despise him and rather be drawn out by that consideration to blasphemy and despair than to seek all ways to appease him Now tho the infinite power of God his unspeakable wisdom his incomprehensible goodness the holiness of his nature the vigilance of his Providence the bounty of his hand signifie to man that he should love and honour him and are the motives of worship yet the Spirituality of his nature is the rule of worship and directs us to render our duty to him with all the powers of our Soul As his goodness beams out upon us worship is due in Justice to him and as he is the most excellent nature veneration is due to him in the highest manner with the choicest affections So that indeed the Spirituality of God comes chiefly into consideration in matter of worship All his perfections are grounded upon this He could not be infinite immutable omniscient if he were a Corporeal being * Amirald dissert 6. disp 1. pa. 11. We cannot give him a worship unless we Judge him worthy excellent and deserving a worship at our hands And we cannot Judge him worthy of a worship unless we have some apprehensions and admirations of his infinite vertues And we cannot apprehend and admire those perfections but as we see them as causes shining in their effects When we see therefore the frame of the world to be the work of his power the order of the world to be the fruit of his wisdom and the usefulness of the world to be the product of his goodness We find the motives and reasons of worship and weighing that this power wisdom goodness infinitely transcend any corporeal nature we find a rule of worship that it ought to be offered by us in a manner sutable to such a nature as is infinitely above any bodily Being His being a Spirit declares what he is his other perfections declare what kind of Spirit he is All Gods perfections suppose him a Spirit all center in this His wisdom doth not suppose him merciful or his mercy suppose him omniscient There may be distinct notions of those but all suppose him to be of a spiritual nature How cold and frozen will our devotions be if we consider not his omniscience whereby he discerns our hearts How carnal will our services be if we consider him not as a pure Spirit * Amyraut de Relig. In our offers to and transactions with men we deal not with them as meer Animals but as rational Creatures and we debase their natures if we treat them otherwise And if we have not raised apprehensions of Gods spiritual nature in our treating with him but allow him only such frames as we think fit enough for men we debase his spirituality to the littleness of our own Being We must therefore possess our Souls with this we shall else render him no better than a fleshly service We do not much concern our selves in those things of which we are either utterly ignorant or have but slight apprehensions of That is the first Proposition The right exercise of worship is grounded upon the spirituality of God Propos 2. This spiritual worship of God is manifest by the light of Nature to be due to him In reference to this consider 1. The outward means or matter of that worship which would be acceptable to God was not known by the light of Nature The Law for a Worship and for a spiritual worship by the faculties of our Souls was natural and part of the Law of Creation though the determination of the particular acts whereby God would have this homage testified was of positive institution and depended not upon the Law of Creation Though Adam in Innocence knew God was to be worshipped yet by Nature he did not know by what outward acts he was to pay this respect or at what time he was more solemnly to be exercised in it than at another This depended upon the directions God as the soveraign Governour and Law-giver should prescribe You therefore find the positive institutions of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil and the determination of the time of worship Gen. 2.3.17 Had there been any such notion in Adam naturally as strong as that other that a worship was due to God there would have been found some reliques of these modes universally consented to by Mankind as well as of the other But though all Nations have by an universal consent concurred in the acknowledgment of the Being of God and his right to adoration and the obligation of the Creature to it and that there ought to be some publick rule and polity in matters of Religion for no Nation hath been in the world without a worship and without external acts and certain ceremonies to signifie that worship yet their modes and rites have been as various as their climates unless in that common notion of sacrifices not descending to them by nature but tradition from Adam and the various ways of worship have been more provoking than pleasing Every Nation suted the kind of worship to their particular ends and polities they designed to rule by How God was to be worshipped is more difficult to be discerned by Nature with its eyes out than with its eyes clear * King on Jonah P. 63. The pillars upon which the worship of God stands cannot be discerned without revelation no more than blind Sampson could tell where the pillars of the Philistians Theatre stood without one to conduct him What Adam could not see with his sound eyes we cannot with our dim eyes He must be told from Heaven what worship was fit for the God of Heaven 'T is not by Nature that we can have such a full prospect of God as may content and quiet us This is the noble
some thoughts pitch'd upon God in worship and as many willingly upon the World David sought God not with a moity of his heart but with his whole heart with his intire frame * Psal 119.10 He brought not half his heart and left the other in the possession of another Master It was a good lesson Pythagoras gave his Scholars * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jamblich l. 1. c. 518. p. 87. Not to make the Observance of God a work by the by If those Guests be invited or entertained kindly or if they come unexpected the spirituality of that worship is lost the Soul kicks down what it wrought before But if they be Brow-beaten by us and our grief rather than our pleasure they divert our spiritual intention from the work in hand but hinder not Gods acceptance of it as spiritual because they are not the acts of our Will but offences to our Wills 5. Spiritual Worship is performed with a spiritual activity and sensibleness of God With an active Understanding to meditate on his excellency and an active Will to embrace him when he drops upon the Soul If we understand the amiableness of God our affections will be ravisht if we understand the immensity of his goodness our Spirits will be enlarged We are to act with the highest intention sutable to the greatness of that God with whom we have to do Psal 150.2 Praise him according to his excellent greatness Not that we can worship him equally but in some proportion the frame of the heart is to be suted to the excellency of the Object Our spiritual strength is to be put out to the utmost as Creatures that act naturally do The Sun shines and the Fire burns to the utmost of their natural power This is so necessary that David a spiritual Worshipper prays for it before he sets upon acts of adoration Psal 80.18 quicken us that we may call upon thy Name As he was loth to have a drowzy faculty he was loth to hâ—â— a drowzy instrument and would willingly have them as lively as himself Psal 57.8 Awake up my glory awake Psaltery and Harp I my self will awake early How would this Divine Soul serue himself up to God and be turned into nothing but a holy flame Our Souls must be boyling hot when we serve the Lord * Rom. 12.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The heart doth no less burn when it Spiritually comes to God than when God doth Spiritually approach to it * Luke 24.32 A Nabals heart one as cold as a stone cannot offer up a Spiritual service Whatsoever is enjoyned us as our duty ought to be performed with the greatest intensness of our Spirit As it is our duty to pray so it is our duty to pray with the most fervent importunity T is our duty to love God but with the purest and most sublime affections Every Command of God requires the whole strength of the Creature to be imployed in it That love to God wherein all our duty to God is summed up is to be with all our strength with all our might c. * Lady Falklands life pa. 130. Tho in the Covenant of grace he hath mitigated the severity of the Law and requires not from us such an elevation of our affections as was possible in the state of innocence yet God requires of us the utmost moral industry to raise our affections to a pitch at least equal to what they are in other things What strength of affections we naturally have ought to be as much and more excited in acts of worship than upon other occasions and our ordinary works As there was an inactivity of Soul in worship and a quickness to sin when sin had the dominion so when the Soul is Spiritualized the temper is changed there is an inactivity to sin and an ardor in duty The more the Soul is dead to sin the more it is alive to God * Rom. 6.11 and the more lively too in all that concerns God and his honour For grace being a new strength added to our natural determines the affections to new objects and excites them to a greater vigor And as the hatred of sin is more sharp the love to every thing that destroys the dominion of it is more strong And acts of worship may be reckoned as the cheifest batteries against the power of this inbred enemy When the Spirit is in the Soul like the Rivers of waters flowing out of the belly the Soul hath the activity of a River and makes hast to be swallowed up in God as the streams of the River in the Sea Christ makes his people Kings and Priests to God * Revel 1.6 first Kings then Priests Gives first a Royal temper of heart that they may offer Spiritual Sacrifices as Priests Kings and Priests to God acting with a magnificent Spirit in all their motions to him We cannot be Spiritual Priests till we be Spiritual Kings The Spirit appeared in the likeness of fire and where he resides Communicates like fire purity and activity Dulness is against the light of nature I do not remember that the Heathen ever offered a Snail to any of their false Deities nor an Ass but to Priapus their unclean Idol but the Persians Sacrificed to the Sun a Horse a swift and generous Creature God provided against those in the Law Commanding an Asses Firstling the off-spring of a sluggish Creature to be Redeemed or his neck broke but by no means to be offered to him * Exod. 13.13 God is a Spirit infinitely active and therefore frozen and benummed frames are unsutable to him He rides upon a Cherub and flies he comes upon the wings of the wind he rides upon a swift cloud * Isa 19.1 and therefore demands of us not a dull reason but an active Spirit God is a living God therefore must have a lively service Christ is life and slothful adorations are not fit to be offered up in the name of life The worship of God is called wrestling in Scripture and Paul was a striver in the service of his Master * Col. 1.29 in an agony * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Angels worship God Spiritually with their wings on and when God Commands them to worship Christ the next Scripture quoted is that he makes them flames of fire * Heb. 1.7 If it be thus how may we charge our selves What Paul said of the sensual Widow * 1 Tim. 5.6 that she is dead while she lives we may say often of our Selves we are dead while we worship Our hearts are in duty as the Jews were in deliverances as those in a dream * Psa 126.1 by which unexpectedness God shewed the greatness of his care and mercy and we attend him as men in a dream whereby we discover our negligence and folly This activity doth not consist in outward acts The body may be hot and the heart may be faint but in an inward stirring
was so as that he never began Is to come so as that he never shall end By whom all things are what they are who hath both eternal knowledge to remember our service and eternal goodness to reward It. A DISCOURSE UPON THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. Psalm 102.26 27. They shall perish but thou shalt endure yea all of them shall wax old as a Garment as a Vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed But thou art the same and thy years shall have no end THIS Psalm contains a Complaint of a People pressed with a great Calamity some think of the Jewish Church in Babylon others think the Psalmist doth here personate Mankind lying under a state of corruption because he wishes for the coming of the Messiah to accomplish that Redemption promised by God and needed by them Indeed the title of the Psalm is a Prayer of the Afflicted when he is overwhelmed and pours out his complaint before the Lord Whether afflicted with the sense of corruption or with the sense of oppression And the Redemption by the Messiah which the ancient Church looked upon as the fountain of their Deliverance from a sinful or a servile Bondage is in this Psalm spoken of A set time appointed for the discovery of his mercy to Sion v. 13. An appearance in glory to build up Sion v. 16. The loosing of the Prisoner by Redemption and them that are appointed to Death v. 20. The calling of the Gentiles v. 22. And the latter part of the Psalm wherein are the verse I have read are applied to Christ Heb. 1. Whatsoever the design of the Psalm might be many things are intermingled that concern the Kingdom of the Messiah and Redemption by Christ Some make three parts of the Psalm 1. A Petition plainly delivered v. 1.2 Hear my Prayer oh Lord and let my cry come unto thee c. 2. The Petition strongly and argumentatively enforced and pleaded v. 3. from the misery of the Petitioner in himself and his reproach from his Enemies 3. An acting of Faith in the expectation of an Answer in the general Redemption promised v. 12 13. But thou oh Lord shalt endure for ever thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Sion The Heathen shall fear thy Name The first part is the Petition pleaded the second part is the Petition answered in an assurance that there should in time be a full deliverance * Pareus The design of the Pen-man is to confirm the Church in the truth of the Divine Promises that though the foundations of the World should be ript up and the Heavens clatter together and the whole Fabrick of them be unpinn'd and fall to pieces the firmest parts of it dissolved yet the Church should continue in its stability because it stands not upon the changeableness of Creatures but is built upon the immutable Rock of the truth God which is as little subject to change as his Essence They shall perish thou shalt change them As he had before ascribed to God the foundation of Heaven and Earth * verse 25. so he ascribes to God here the destruction of them Both the beginning and end of the World are here ascertained There is nothing indeed from the present appearance of things that can demonstrate the cessation of the world The Heaven and Earth stand firm the motions of the heavenly Bodies are the same their beautie is not decayed Individuals corrupt but the Species and Kinds remain The Successions of the Year observe their due order but the Sin of Man renders the change of the present appearance of the world necessary to accomplish the design of God for the glory of his Elect. The Heavens do not naturally perish as some fancied an old age of the world wherein it must necessarily decay as the Bodies of Animals do or that the parts of the Heavens are broken off by their rubbing one against another in their motion and falling to the Earth are the Seeds of those things that grow among us * Plin. Hist lib. 2. cap. 3. The Earth and Heavens He names here the most stable parts of the world and the most beautiful parts of the Creation those that are freest from corruptibility and change to illustrate thereby the Immutability of God that though the Heavens and Earth have a Prerogative of fixedness above other parts of the world and the Creatures that reside below the Heavens remain the same as they were created and the Center of the Earth retains its fixedness and are as beautiful and fresh in their age as they were in their youth many years ago notwithstanding the change of the Elements Fire and Water being often turned into Air so that there may remain but little of that Air which was first created by reason of the continual transmutation yet this firmness of the Earth and Heavens is not to be regarded in comparison of the unmoveableness and fixedness of the Being of God As their beauty comes short of the glory of his Being so doth their firmness come short of his stability Some by Heavens and Earth understand the Creatures which reside in the Earth and those which are in the Air which is called Heaven often in Scripture but the ruin and fall of these being seen every day had been no fit illustration of the unchangeableness of God They shall perish they shall be changed 1. They may perish say some they have it not from themselves that they do not perish but from thee who didst endue them with an incorruptible nature They shall perish if thou speakest the word Thou canst with as much ease destroy them as thou didst create them But the Psalmist speaks not of their possibility but the certainty of their perishing 2. They shall perish in their qualities and motion not in their substance say others They shall cease from that motion which is designed properly for the generation and corruption of things in the Earth but in regard of their substance and beauty they shall remain As when the strings or Wheels of a Clock or Watch are taken off the material parts remain though the motion of it and the use for discovering the time of the day ceaseth * Coccei in loc To perish doth not signify alway a falling into nothing an annihilation by which both the matter and the form are destroyed but a ceasing of the present apearance of them a ceasing to be what they now are as a man is said to perish when he dies whereas the better part of man doth not cease to be The figure of the Body moulders away and the matter of it returns to Dust but the Soul being immortal ceaseth not to act when the Body by reason of the absence of the Soul is uncapable of acting So the Heavens shall perish the appearance they now have shall vanish and a more glorious and incorruptible frame be erected by the power and goodness of God The dissolution of Heaven and Earth is meant by the
word perish the raising a new frame is signified by the word changed as if the Spirit of God would prevent any wrong meaning of the word perish by alleviating the sense of that by another which signifies only a mutation and change as when we change a Habit and Garment we quit the old to receive the new As a Garment as a Vesture Thou shalt change them * Septuag 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou shalt fold them up The Heavens are compared to a Curtain * Psal 104.2 and shall in due time be folded up as Clothes and Curtains are As a Garment encompasseth the whole body so do the Heavens encircle the Earth * Estius in Heb. 1. Some say as a Garment is folded up to be laid aside that when there is need it may be taken again for use so shalt thou fold up the Heavens like a Garment that when they are repaired thou mayest again stretch them out about the Earth Thou shalt fold them up so that what did appear shall not now appear It may be illustrated by the metaphor of a Scrole or Book which the Spirit of God useth Isa 34.4 Rev. 6.14 The Heavens departed as a Scrole when it is rouled together When a Book is rouled up or shut nothing can be read in it till it be opened again so the Face of the Heavens wherein the Stars are as Letters declaring the Glory of God shall be shut or rouled together so that nothing shall appear till by its renovation it be opened again As a Garment it shall be changed not to be used in the same fashion and for the same use again It seems indeed to be for the worse an old Garment is not changed but into raggs to be put to other uses and afterwards thrown upon the Dung-hill But Similitudes are not to be pressed too far and this will not agree with the new Heavens and new Earth physically so as well as metaphorically so 'T is not likely the Heavens will be put to a worse use than God designed them for in Creation However a change as a Garment speaks not a total corruption but an alteration of qualities as a Garment not to be used in the same fashion as before We may observe 1. That 〈◊〉 probable the world shall not be annihilated but refin'd It shall lose its present form and fashion but not its foundation Indeed as God raised it from nothing so he can reduce it into nothing yet it doth not appear that God will annihilate it and utterly destroy both the matter and form of it part shall be consumed and part purified 2 Pet. 3.12 13. The Heavens shall be on fire and dissolved nevertheless we according to his promise look for a new Heaven and a new Earth They shall be melted down as Gold by the Artificer to be refined from its Dross and wrought into a more beautiful fashion that they may serve the design of God for those that shall reside therein a new world wherein Righteousness shall dwell The Apostle opposing it thereby to the old world wherein wickedness did reside The Heavens are to be purged as the Vessels that held the Sin-offering were to be purified by the fire of the Sanctuary God indeed will take down this Scaffold which he hath built to publish his Glory As every Individual hath a certain term of its duration so an end is appointed for thâ— universal nature of Heaven and Earth Isa 51.6 The Heavens shall vanish like Smoke which disappears As Smoke is resolved and attenuated into Air not annihilated So shall the world assume a new face and have a greater clearness and splendor As the Bodies of Men dissolved into Dust shall have more glorious qualities at their Resurrection As a Vessel of Gold is melted down to remove the batterings in it and receive a more comely Form by the Skill of the Workman 1. The world was not destroyed by the Deluge It was rather washed by water than consumed So it shall be rather refined by the last fire than lie under an irrecoverable ruin 2. 'T is not likely God would liken the everlastingness of his Covenant and the perpetuity of his spiritual Israel to the duration of the ordinances of the Heavens as he doth in Jer. 21.35 36. if they were wholly to depart from before him* Though that place may only tend to an assurance of a Church in the world while the world endures yet it would be but small comfort if the happiness of Believers should endure no longer than the Heavens and Earth if they were to have a total period 3. Besides the Bodies of the Saints must have place for their support to move in and glorious objects suted to these glorious senses which shall be restored to them Not in any carnal way which our Saviour rejects when he saith there is no eating or drinking or marrying c. in the other world but whereby they may glorify God though how or in what manner their senses shall be used would be rashness to determine only something is necessary for the corporeal state of men that there may be an employment for their Senses as well as their Souls 4. Again How could the Creature the world or any part of it be said to be delivered from the bondage of Corruption * Rom. 8.21 into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God if the whole Frame of Heaven and Earth were to be annihilated Rom. 8.21 The Apostle saith also that the Creature waits with an earnest expectation for this manifestation of the Sons of God v. 19. which would have no foundation if the whole frame should be reduced to nothing What joyful expectation can there be in any of a total ruin How should the Creature be capable of partaking in this glorious liberty of the Sons of God * Hâ—per in Heb. 1. As the World for the sin of man lost its first dignity and was cursed after the fall and the beauty bestowed upon it by creation defaced So it shall recover that ancient glory when he shall be fully restored by the Resurrection to that dignity he lost by his first sin As Man shall be freed from his corruptibility to receive that glory which is prepared for him so shall the Creatures be freed from that imperfection or corruptibility those stains and spots upon the face of them to receive a new glory suted to their nature and answerable to the design of God when the glorious liberty of the Saints shall be accomplisht * Mestraezat sur Heb. 1. As when a Princes Nuptials are solemnized the whole Country eccho's with joy So the inanimate Creatures when the time of the Marriage of the Lamb is come shall have a delight and pleasure from that renovation The Apostle sets forth the whole world as a person groaning and the Scripture is frequent in such Metaphors as when the Creatures are said to wait upon God and to be troubled * Psal 104.27 29. the
Hills are said to leap and the Mountains to rejoyce The Creature is said to groan as the Heavens are said to declare the glory of God passively naturally not rationally 'T is not likely Angels are here meant though they cannot but desire it since they are affected with the dishonour and reproach God hath in the world they cannot but long for the restoration of his honour in the restoration of the Creature to its true end And indeed the Angels are employed to serve man in this sinful state and cannot but in holiness wish the Creature freed from his corruption Nor is it meant of the new Creatures which have the first fruits of the Spirit those he brings in afterwards groaning and waiting for the Adoption * Verse 23. where he distinguisheth the rational Creature from the Creature he had spoken of before If he had meant the believing Creature by that Creature that desired the liberty of the Sons of God what need had there been of that additional distinction and not only they but we also who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan within our selves Whereby it seems he means some Creatures below rational Creatures since neither Angels nor blessed Souls can be said to travail in pain with that distress as a Woman in travail hath as the word signifies who perform the work joyfully which God sets them upon * Mestraezat fur Heb. 1. If the Creatures be subject to vanity by the sin of man they shall also partake of a happiness by the restoration of man The Eâ—â—â—h hath born Thorns and Thistles and venemous Beasts The Air hath had its Tempests and infectious Qualities The Water hath caused its Flouds and Deluges The Creature hath been abused to luxury and intemperance and been tyranniz'd over by Man contrary to the end of its creation 'T is convenient that some time should be allotted for the Creature 's attaining its true end and that it may partake of the peace of Man as it hath done of the fruits of his sin otherwise it would seem that sin had prevailed more than grace and would have had more power to deface than grace to restore and things into their due order 5. Again upon what account should the Psalmist exhort the Heavens to rejoyce and the Earth to be glad when God comes to judge the world with Righteousness * Psal 96.11 12 13. if they should be annihilated and sunk for ever into nothing It would seem saith Daille to be an impertinent figure if the Judge of the world brought to them a total destruction an entire ruin could not be matter of triumph to Creatures who naturally have that instinct or inclination put into them by their Creator to preserve themselves and to affect their own preservation 6. Again The Lord is to rejoyce in his works Psal 104.31 The Glory of the Lord shall endure for ever the Lord shall rejoyce in his works not hath but shall rejoyce in his works In the works of Creation which the Psalmist had enumerated and which is the whole scope of the Psalm And he intimates that it is part of the glory of the Lord which endures for ever that is his manifestative glory to rejoyce in his works The Glory of the Lord must be understood with reference to the Creation he had spoken of before How short was that joy God had in his works after he had sent them beautified out of his hand How soon did he repent not only that he had made Man but was grieved at the heart also that he made the other Creatures which Man's sin had disordered What joy can God have in them * Gen. 6.7 since the Curse upon the entrance of sin into the world remains upon them If they are to be annihilated upon the full restoration of his Holiness what time will God have to rejoyce in the other works of Creation 'T is the joy of God to see all his works in their due order every one pointing to their true end marching together in their excellency according to his first intendment in their Creation Did God create the World to perform its end only for one day scarce so much if Adam fell the very first day of his Creation What would have been their end if Adam had been confirm'd in a state of happiness as the Angels were 'T is likely will be answered and performed upon the compleat restoration of Man to that happy state from whence he fell What Artificer compiles a work by his skill but to rejoyce in it And shall God have no joy from the works of his hands Since God can only rejoyce in goodness the Creatures must have that goodness restored to them which God pronounced them to have at the first Creation and which he ordained them for before he can again rejoyce in his works The goodness of the Creatures is the glory and joy of God Inference 1. We may infer from hence what a base and vile thing Sin is which lays the foundation of the worlds change Sin brings it to a decrepit age Sin overturned the whole work of God * Gen. 3.17 so that to render it useful to its proper end there is a necessity of a kind of a new creating it This causes God to fire the Earth for a purification of it from that infection and contagion brought upon it by the apostacy and corruption of Man It hath served sinful man and therefore must undergo a purging Flame to be fit to serve the holy and righteous Creator As Sin is so riveted in the body of man that there is need of a change by death to rase it out so hath the Curse for sin got so deep into the bowels of the world that there is need of a change by fire to refine it for its Masters use Let us look upon Sin with no other notion than as the Object of Gods hatred the cause of his grief in the Creatures and the Spring of the pain and ruin of the World 2. How foolish a thing is it to set our hearts upon that which shall perish and be no more what it is now The Heavens and Earth the solidest and firmest parts of the Creation shall not continue in the posture they are they must perish and undergo a refining change How feeble and weak are the other parts of the Creation the little Creatures walking upon and fluttering about the world that are perishing and dying every day and we scarce see them clothed with life and beauty this day but they wither and are despoyl'd of all the next and are such frail things fit Objects for our everlasting Spirits and Affections Though the daily employment of the Heavens is the declaration of the glory of God * Psal 19.1 yet neither this nor their harmony order beauty amazing greatness and glory of them shall preserve them from a dissolution and melting at the presence of the Lord Though they have remained in the same posture from
cannot be well governed but by one endowed with infinite Discretion Providential government can be no more without infinite wisdom than infinite wisdom can be without Providence Reas 3. The Creatures working for an end without their own knowledge demonstrates the wisdom of God that guides them All things in the World work for some end the ends are unknown to them though many of their ends are visible to us As there was some prime Cause which by his power inspir'd them with their several instincts so there must be some supream wisdom which moves and guides them to their end As their Being manifests his power that endowed them so the acting according to the rules of their Nature which they themselves understand not manifests his wisdom in directing them Every thing that acts for an end must know that end or be directed by another to attain that end The Arrow doth not know who shoots it or to what end it is shot or what Mark is aimed at but the Archer that puts it in and darts it out of the Bow knows A Watch hath a regular motion but neither the Spring nor the Wheels that move know the end of their motion no man will judge a wisdom to be in the Watch but in the Artificer that dispos'd the Wheels and Spring by a joint combination to produce such a motion for such an end Doth either the Sun that enlivens the Earth or the Earth that travels with the Plant know what Plant it produceth in such a Soil what temper it should be of what fruit it should bear and of what colour What Plant knows its own medicinal qualities it s own beautiful flowers and for what use they are ordain'd When it strikes up its head from the Earth doth it know what proportion of them there will be Yet it produceth all these things in a state of ignorance The Sun warms the Earth concocts the humours excites the vertue of it and cherishes the Seeds which are cast into her lap yet all unknown to the Sun or the Earth Since therefore that Nature that is the immediate cause of those things doth not understand its own quality nor operation nor the end of its action that which thus directs them must be conceived to have an infinite wisdom When things act by a Rule they know not and move for an end they understand not and yet work harmoniously together for one end that all of them we are sure are ignorant of it mounts up our minds to acknowledge the wisdom of that supream Cause that hath rang'd all these inferiour Causes in their order and imprinted upon them the Laws of their motions according to the Ideas in his own Mind who orders the Rule by which they act and the end for which they act and directs every motion according to their several Natures and therefore is possessed with infinite wisdom in his own Nature Reas 4. God is the fountain of all wisdom in the creatures and therefore is infinitely wise himself As he hath a fulness of being in himself because the streams of being are derived to other things from him So he hath a fulness of wisdom because he is the spring of wisdom to Angels and men That Being must be infinitely wise from whence all other wisdom derives its original For nothing can be in the effect which is not eminently in the cause the cause is alway more perfect than the effect If therefore the creatures are wise the Creator must be much more wise If the Creator were destitute of wisdom the creature would be much more perfect than the Creator If you consider the wisdom of the Spider in her web which is both her house and net the artifice of the Bee in her Comb which is both her chamber and granary the provision of the Pismire in her repositories for corn the wisdom of the Creator is illustrated by them whatsoever excellency you see in any creature is an Image of some excellency in God The skill of the artificer is visible in the fruits of his Art a workman transcribes his spirit in the work of his hands But the wisdom of rational creatures as men doth more illustrate it All Arts among men are the rayes of divine Wisdom shining upon them and by a common gift of the Spirit enlightning their minds to curious inventions as Prov. 8.12 I wisdom find out the knowledge of witty inventions that is I give a faculty to men to find them out without my wisdom all things would be buried in darkness and ignorance Whatsoever wisdom there is in the World it is but a shadow of the wisdom of God a small Rivulet derived from him a spark leaping out from Uncreated Wisdom Isa 54.16 He created the Smith that bloweth the coals in the fire and makes the Instruments The skill to use those weapons in War-like Enterprises is from him I have created the waster to destroy 'T is not meant of creating their Persons but communicating to them their Art He speaks it there to expell fear from the Church of all war-like preparations against them He had given Men the skill to form and use Weapons and could as well strip them of it and defeat their purposes The Art of husbandry is a fruit of divine teaching Isa 28.24 25. If those lower kinds of Knowledge that are common to all Nations and easily learn'd by all are discoveries of Divine Wisdom much more the nobler Sciences intellectual and Political Wisdom Dan. 2.21 He gives Wisdom to the wise and knowledge to them that know understanding speaking of the more abstruse parts of knowledge The inspiration of the Almighty gives Vnderstanding Job 32.8 Hence the Wisdom which Solomon exprest in the Harlots case 1 Kings 3.28 was in the Judgment of all Israel the Wisdom of God that is a fruit of Divine Wisdom a beam communicated to him from God Every mans Soul is endowed more or less with those noble qualities The Soul of every man exceeds that of a Brute If the streams be so excellent the Fountain must be fuller and clearer The first Spirit must infinitely more possess what other Spirits derive from him by Creation Were the Wisdom of all the Angels in Heaven and men on Earth collected in one Spirit it must be infinitely less than what is in the Spring for no Creature can be equal to the Creator As the highest Creature already made or that we can conceive may be made by Infinite Power would be infinitely below God in the Notion of a Creature so it would be infinitely below God in the Notion of Wise IV. The fourth Thing is Wherein the Wisdom of God appears It appears 1. In Creation 2. In Government 3. In Redemption 1. In Creation As in a Musical Instrument there is first the skill of the Workman in the frame then the skill of the Musician in stringing it proper for such Musical Notes as he will express upon it and after that the tempering of the Strings by
a Chain as a ravenous Lion or a furious wild Horse by the Creator and Governour of the World What remedy could be used by Man against the activity of this unseen and swift Spirit The World could not subsist under his Malice he would practise the same things upon All as he did upon Job when he had got leave from his Governour turn the Swords of Men into one anothers bowels send Fire from Heaven upon the Fruits of the Earth and the Cattle intended for the use of Man Raise Winds to shake and tear our Houses upon our Heads daub our Bodies with Scabs and Boils and let all the humors in our Blood loose upon us He that envied Adam a Paradise doth envy us the pleasure of enjoying its out-works If we were not destroyed by him we should live in a continued vexation by Spectrums and Apparitions affrighting sounds and noise as some think the Egyptians did in that three days Darkness He would be alway winnowing us as he desired to winnow Peter Luke 22.31 But God over-masters his strength that he cannot move a hairs breadth beyond his Tedder not only he is unable to touch an Upright Job but to lay his fingers upon one of the Unbelieving Gadarens forbidden and filthy Swine without special licence Mat. 8.31 When he is cast out of one place he walks through dry places seeking rest Luke 11.24 new objects for his Malicious designs but finding none till God le ts loose the reins upon him for a new employment Though Satans Power be great yet God suffers him not to tempt as much as his Diabolical appetite would but as much as Divine Wisdom thinks fit And the Divine Power tempers the others active Malice and gives the Creature victory where the Enemy intended spoil and captivity How much stronger is God than all the Legions of Hell Luke 11.22 as he that holds a strong man from effecting his purpose testifies more ability than his Adversary How doth he lock him up for a Thousand years in a Pownd which he cannot leap over Rev. 20.3 and this restraint is wrought partly by blinding the Devil in his designs partly by denying him concourse to his motion As he hindered the active quality of the Fire upon the Three Children by withdrawing his power which was necessary to the motion of it and his power is as necessary for the motion of the Devil as for that of any other Creature Sometimes he makes him to confess him against his own interest as Apollo's Oracle confest †Caeteâ—â—â— deos aeâ—eos esse c. Grot. â—eâ—it reâ— lib. 4. And though when the Devil was cast out of the possessed person he publickly owned Christ to be the Holy one of God Mark 1.24 to render him suspected by the People of having commerce with the Unclean Spirits yet this he could not do without the leave and permission of God that the power of Christ in stopping his mouth and imposing silence upon him might be evidenced and that it reaches to the Gates of Hell as well as to the quieting of Winds and Waves This is a part of the Strength as well as the Wisdom of God Job 12.16 that the deceived and the deceiver are his Wisdom to defeat and Power to over-rule his most Malicious designs to his own glory 2. In the restraint of the Natural Corruption of Men. Since the impetus of Original Corruption runs in the Blood conveyed down from Adam to the Veins of all his Posterity and universally diffus'd in all Mankind what wrack and havock would it make in the World if it were not supprest by this Divine Power which presides over the hearts of Men Man is so wretched by Nature that nothing but what is vile and pernicious can drop from him Man drinks Iniquity like water Job 15.16 being by Nature abominable and filthy He greedily swallows all matter for Iniquity every thing suitable to the mire and poyson in his Nature and would sprout it out with all fierceness and insolence God himself gives us the description of Mans Nature Gen. 6.5 that he hath not one good imagination at any time Rom. 3.10 c. And the Apostle from the Psalmist dilates and comments upon it There is none righteous no not one their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness their feet are swift to shed blood c. This Corruption is equal in all natural to all 't is not more poysonous or more fierce in one Man than in another The Root of all Men is the same all the Branches therefore do equally possess the Villanous nature of the Root No Child of Adam can by Natural descent be better than Adam or have less of baseness and vileness and venom than Adam How fruitful would this loathsom Lake be in all kind of steams What unbridled Licentiousness and head-strong Fury would triumph in the World if the Power of God did not interpose it self to lock down the Floud-gates of it What rooting up of Humane society would there be how would the World be drencht in Blood the number of Malefactors be greater than that of Apprehenders and Punishers How would the prints of Natural Laws be raz'd out of the heart if God should leave Humane nature to it self Who can read the first Chapter to the Romans 24 25 26 27 28 29 Verses without acknowledging this Truth where there is a Catalogue of those Villanies which followed upon Gods pulling up the Sluces and letting the malignity of their Inward Corruption have its natural course If God did not hold back the fury of Man his Garden would be over-run his Vine rooted up the Inclinations of Men would hurry them to the worst of Wickedness How great is that Power that curbs bridles or changes as many head-strong Horses at once and every minute as there are Sons of Adam upon the Earth The floods lift up their waves Psal 93.3 4. the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many Waters yea than the mighty waves of the Sea that doth hush and pen in the turbulent Passions of Men. 3. In the ordering and framing the hearts of Men to his own ends That must be an Omnipotent hand that grasps and contains the Hearts of all Men the Heart of the Meanest person as well as of the most towring Angel and turns them as he pleases and makes them sometime ignorantly sometime knowingly concur to the accomplishment of his own purposes When the Hearts of Men are so numerous their Thoughts so various and different from one another yet he hath a Key to those Millions of Hearts and with Infinite Power guided by as Infinite Wisdom he draws them into what Chanels he pleases for the gaining his own ends Though the Jews had embrued their hands in the Blood of our Saviour and their Rage was yet reeking-hot against his Followers God bridled their Fury in the Churches Infancy till it had got some strength and cast a Terror
beaten down and like Lazarus hath seemed to lie in the Grave for some days that the Power of God might be more visible in her sudden resurrection and lifting up her head above the Throne of her Persecutors 2. In his Judicial proceedings The Deluge was no small testimony of his Power in opening the Cisterns of Heaven and pulling up the Sluces of the Sea He doth but call for the waters of the Sea and they pour themselves upon the face of the Earth Amos 9.6 In Forty days time the Waters overtopt the highest Mountains fifteen Cubits Gen. 7.17 19 20. and by the same Power he afterwards reduc'd the Sea to its proper Channel as a roaring Lion into his Den. A shower of Fire from Heaven upon Sodom and the Cities of the Plain was a signal display of his Power either in creating it on the sudden for the execution of his Righteous sentence or sending down the Element of Fire contrary to its nature which affects ascent for the punishment of Rebels against the light of Nature How often hath he ruin'd the most flourishing Monarchies led Princes away spoil'd and overthrown the Mighty Which Job makes an Argument of his Strength Job 12.13 14. Troops of unknown People the Goths and Vandals broke the Romans a Warlike People and hurl'd down all before them They could not have had the thought to succeed in such an Attempt unless God had given them strength and motion for the executing his Judicial Vengeance upon the People of his Wrath. How did he evidence his Power by dawbing the Throne of Pharaoh and his Chamber of Presence Exod. 8.3 as well as the Houses of his Subjects with the slime of Frogs turning their Waters into Blood Exod. 7.20 and their Dust into biting Lice raising his Militia of Locusts against them causing a Three days Darkness without stopping the motion of the Sun Taking off their First-born the excellency of their strength in a Night by the stroke of the Angels Sword He takes off the Chariot Wheels of Pharoah and presents him with a Destruction where he expected a Victory brings those Waves over the heads of him and his Host which stood firm as Marble Walls for the safety of his People The Sea is made to swallow them up that durst not by the order of their Governour touch the Israelites It only sprinkled the one as a type of Baptism and drowned the other as an image of Hell Thus he made it both a Deliverer and a Revenger the Instrument of an offensive and defensive War Isai 40.23 24. He brings Princes to nothing and makes the Judges of the Earth as vanity Great Monarchs have by his Power been hurl'd from their Thrones and their Scepters like Venice-Glasses broken before their faces and They been advanced that have had the least hopes of Grandure He hath pluckt up Cedars by the Roots lopt off the Branches and set a Shrub to grow up in the place dissolv'd Rocks and establisht Bubbles Luke 1.52 He hath shewed strength with his arm he hath scattered the proud in the imaginâ—tion of their hearts he hath put down the mighty from their seat and exalted them of low degree And these things he doth magnifie his Power in 1. By ordering the nature of Creatures as he pleases By restraining their force or guiding their motions The restraint of the destructive qualities of the Creatures argues as great a Power as the change of their Natures yea and a greater The qualities of Creatures may be chang'd by Art and Composition as in the preparing of Medicines but what but a Divine Power could restrain the operation of the Fire from the Three Children while it retain'd its heat and burning quality in Nebuchadnezzars Furnace The operation was curb'd while its nature was preserved All Creatures are called his Host because he Marshals and ranks them as an Army to serve his purposes The whole Scheme of Nature is ready to favour Men when God orders it and ready to punish Men when God commâ—ssions it He gave the Red Sea but a check and it obeyed his Voice Psal 106.9 He rebuked the Red Sea also and it was dried up the motion of it ceased and the Waters of it were rang'd as defensive Walls to secure the march of his People And at the motion of the Hand of Moses the Servant of the Lord the Sea recovered its violence and the Walls that were framed came tumbling down upon the Egyptians heads * Exod. 14.27 The Creator of Nature is not led by the necessity of Nature He that setled the order of Nature can change or restrain the order of Nature according to his Soveraign pleasure The most necessary and useful Creatures he can use as Instruments of his Vengeance Water is necessary to cleanse and by that he can deface a World Fire is necessary to warm and by that he can burn a Sodom From the Water he form'd the Fowl †Gen. 1.21 and by that he dissolves them in the Deluge Fire or Heat is necessary to the Generation of Creatures and by that he ruines the Cities of the Plain He orders all as he pleases to perform every tittle and punctilio of his purpose The Sea observ'd him so exactly that it drowned not one Israelite nor saved one Egyptian Psal 106.11 There was not One of them left And to perfect the Israelites Deliverance he followed them with Testimonies of his Power above the strength of Nature When they wanted Drink he orders Moses to strike a Rock and the Rock spouts a River and a Channel is formed for it to attend them in their Journey When they wanted Bread he drest Manna for them in the Heavens and sent it to their Tables in the Desart When he would declare his Strength he calls to the Heavens to pour down Righteousness and to the Earth to bring forth Salvation Isai 45.8 Though God had created Righteousness or Deliverance for the Jews in Babylon yet he calls to the Heavens and the Earth to be assistant to the design of Cyrus whom he had raised for that purpose as he speaks in the beginning of the Chapter vers 1 2 3 4. As God created Man for a supernatural end and all Creatures for Man as their immediate end so he makes them according to opportunities subservient to that supernatural end of Man for which he created him He that spans the Heavens with his fist can shoot all Creatures like an Arrow to hit what mark he pleases He that spread the Heavens and the Earth by a Word and can by a Word fold them up more easily than a Man can a garment ‖ Heb. 1.12 can order the streams of Nature Cannot he work without Nature as well as with it beyond Nature contrary to Nature that can as it were fillip Nature with his finger into that Nothing whence he drew it Who can cast down the Sun from his Throne clap the distinguisht parts of the World together and
of a Woman ‖ Gal. 4 4. That part of the Flesh of the Virgin whereof the Humane Nature of Christ was made was refin'd and purifi'd from Corruption by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost as a skilful Workman separates the Dross from the Gold Our Saviour is therefore called that Holy thing * Luke 1.35 though born of the Virgin He was necessarily some way to descend from Adam God indeed might have created his Body out of Nothing or have formed it as he did Adams out of the Dust of the Ground But had he been thus extraordinarily formed and not propagated from Adam though he had been a Man like one of us yet he would not have been of kin to us because it would not have been a Nature deriv'd from Adam the Common Parent of us all †Amyrald in Symbol p. 103 c. It was therefore necessary to an affinity with us not only that he should have the same Humane Nature but that it should slow from the same Principle and be propagated to him But now by this way of producing the Humanity of Christ of the Substance of the Virgin He was in Adam say some Corporally but not Seminally of the Substance of Adam or a Daughter of Adam but not of the Seed of Adam And so he is of the same Nature that had sinned so what he did and suffered may be imputed to us which had he been created as Adam could not be claim'd in a Legal and Judicial way 2. It was not convenient he should be born in the Common order of Nature of Father and Mother For whosoever is so born is polluted A Clean thing cannot be brought out of an unclean ‖ Job 14.4 And our Saviour had been uncapable of being a Redeemer had he been tainted with the least Spot of our Nature but would have stood in need of Redemption himself Besides it had been inconsistent with the Holiness of the Divine Nature to have assumed a tainted and defiled Body He that was the Fountain of Blessedness to all Nations was not to be subject to the Curse of the Law for himself which he would have been had he been conceiv'd in an ordinary way He that was to overturn the Devils Empire was not to be any way captive under the Devils Power as a Creature under the Curse nor could he be able to break the Serpents head had he been tainted with the Serpents breath Again supposing that Almighty God by his Divine Power had so order'd the matter and so perfectly sanctified an Earthly Father and Mother from all Original spot that the Humane Nature might have been transmitted Immaculate to him as well as the Holy Ghost did purge that part of the flesh of the Virgin of which the Body of Christ was made yet it was not convenient that that Person that was God blessed for ever as well as Man partaking of our Nature should have a Conception in the same manner as ours but different and in some measure conformable to the Infinite dignity of his Person which could not have been had not a supernatural Power and a Divine Person been concern'd as an active Principle in it Besides such a Birth had not been agreeable to the first Promise Gen. 1.15 which calls him The Seed of the woman not of the Man and so the Veracity of God had suffer'd some detriment The seed of the woman only is set in opposition to the seed of the Serpent 3. By this manner of Conception the Holiness of his Nature is secur'd and his fitness for his Office is assur'd to us 'T is now a pure and unpolluted Humanity that is the Temple and Tabernacle of the Divinity The Fulness of the Godhead dwells in him bodily and dwells in him Holily His Humanity is supernaturaliz'd and elevated by the activity of the Holy Ghost hatching the Flesh of the Virgin into Man as the Chaos into a World Though we read of some sanctified from the Womb it was not a pure and perfect Holiness it was like the Light of Fire mixed with Smoak an infus'd Holiness accompanied with a Natural tâ—int But the Holiness of the Redeemer by this Conception is like the Light of the Sun pure and without spot The Spirit of Holiness supplying the place of a Father in a way of Creation His Fitness for his Office is also assur'd to us for being born of the Virgin one of our Nature but conceived by the Spirit a Divine Person the guilt of our Sins may be imputed to him because of our Nature without the stain of Sin inherent in him because of his Supernatural Conception he is capable as one of Kin to us to bear our Curse without being toucht by our Taint By this means our sinful Nature is assum'd without Sin in that Nature which was assum'd by him Flesh he hath but not Sinful flesh Rom. 8.3 Real Flesh but not really Sinful only by way of Imputation Nothing but the Power of God is evident in this whole Work By the ordinary Laws and course of Nature a Virgin could not bear a Son nothing but a Supernatural and Almighty Grace could intervene to make so holy and perfect a Conjunction * Amyrant sâ—r â—imole p. 292. The generation of others in an ordinary way is by Male and Female But the Virgin is overshadow'd by the Spirit and Power of the Highest Man only is the product of Natural generation this which is born of the Virgin is the Holy thing the Son of God In other generations a Rational Soul is only united to a Material Body But in this the Divine Nature is united with the Humane in one Person by an indissoluble Union II. The Second Act of Power in the Person Redeeming is the Union of the two Natures the Divine and Humane The designing indeed of this was an act of Wisdom but the accomplishing it was an act of Power 1. There is in this Redeeming Person a Union of two Natures He is God and Man in one Person Heb. 1.8 9. Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever God even thy God hath anointed thee with the Oil of Gladness c. The Son is called God having a Throne for ever and ever and the Unction speaks him Man The Godhead cannot be Anointed nor hath any Fellows Humanity and Divinity are ascrib'd to him Rom. 1.3 4. He was of the Seed of David according to the Flesh and declared to be the Son of God by hiâ— Resurrection from the dead The Divinity and Humanity are both Prophetically joyn'd Zach. 12.10 I will pour out my Spirit the pouring forth the Spirit is an Act only of Divine Grace and Power And they shâ—ll look upon me whom they have pierced the same Person pours forth the Spirit as God and is pierced as Man The Word was made Flesh John 1.14 Word from Eternity was made Flesh in time Word and Flesh in one Person a great God and a little Infant 2. The
at the Presence of the Council that had their hands yet reeking with the Blood of his Master but being filled with the Holy Ghost seems to dare the Power of the Priests and Jewish Governours and is as confident in the Council Chamber as he had been cowardly in the High Priests Hall †Acts 4.9 c. the efficacy of Grace triumphing over the Fearfulness of Nature Whence should this Ardor and Zeal to propagate a Doctrine that had already born the Scars of the Peoples Fury be but from a mighty Power which changed those Hares into Lions and stript them of their Natural Cowardize â—o cloath them with a Divine Courage making them in a moment both Wise and Magnanimous alienating them from any Consultations with Flesh and Blood As soon as ever the Holy Ghost came upon them as a mighty rushing Wind they move up and down for the Interest of God as Fish after a great Clap of Thunder are rowz'd and move more nimbly on the top of the Water therefore that which did so fit them for this undertaking is called by the title of Power from on high Luke 24.49 III. The Divine Power appears in the Means whereby it was propagated 1. By Means different from the Methods of the World Not by force of Arms as some Religions have taken root in the World Mahomets Horse hath trampled upon the Heads of Men to imprint an Alcoran in their Brains and robb'd Men of their Goods to plant their Religion But the Apostles bore not this Doctrine through the World upon the Points of their Swords they presented a Bodily death where they would bestow an Immortal life They employ'd not Troops of Men in a Warlike posture which had been possible for them after the Gospel was once spread they had no Ambition to subdue Men unto themselves but to God they coveted not the Possessions of others design'd not to enrich themselves invaded not the Rights of Princes nor the Liberties and Properties of the People They rifled them not of their Estates nor scar'd them into this Religion by a fear of losing their Worldly happiness The Arguments they used would naturally drive them from an entertainment of this Doctrine rather than allure them to be Proselytes to it Their design was to change their Hearts not their Government to wean them from the love of the World to a love of a Redeemer to remove that which would ruine their Souls It was not to enslave them but ransom them they had a warfare but not with Carnal weapons but such as were mighty through God for the pulling down of strong holds 2 Cor. 10.4 they used no weapons but the Doctrine they preach'd Others that have not gained Conquests by the Edge of the Sword and the Stratagems of War have extended their Opinions to others by the strength of Humane Reason and the Insinuations of Eloquence But the Apostles had as little flourish in their Tongues as edge upon their Swords Their Preaching was not with the enticing words of Mans wisdom * 1 Cor. 2.4 their Presence was mean and their Discourses without varnish their Doctrine was plain a Crucified Christ a Doctrine unlac'd ungarnisht untoothsom to the World but they had the demonstration of the Spirit and a mighty Power for their Companion in the work The Doctrine they preached viz. the Death Resurrection and Ascension of Christ are called the Powers not of this World but of the World to come †Heb. 6.5 No less than a Supernatural Power could conduct them in this Attempt with such weak Methods in Humane appearance 2. Against all the Force Power and Wit of the World The Divisions in the Eastern Empire and the feeble and consuming State of the Western contributed to Mahomets Success ‖ Dailâ—é 15. Serm. p. 57. But never was Rome in a more flourishing condition Learning Eloquence Wisdom Strength were at the highest pitch Never was there a more diligent Watch against any Innovations never was that State governed by more severe and suspicious Princes than at the time when Tiberius and Nero held the Rains No time seemed to be more unfit for the entrance of a New Doctrine than that Age wherein it begun to be first publish'd never did any Religion meet with that Opposition from Men. Idolatry hath been often setled without any Contest but this hath suffered the same Fate with the Institutor of it and endured the Contradictions of Sinners against it self And those that publish'd it were not only without any Worldly prop but expos'd themselves to the Hatred and Fury to the Racks and Tortures of the strongest Powers on Earth It never set foot in any place but the Country was in an uproar †Acts 19.28 Swords were drawn to destroy it Laws made to suppress it Prisons provided for the Professors of it Fires kindled to consume them and Executioners had a perpetual employment to stifle the progress of it Rome in its Conquest of Countries chang'd not the Religion Rites and Modes of their Worship They alter'd their Civil Government but left them to the liberty of their Religion and many times joyned with them in the Worship of their Peculiar gods and sometime imitated them at Rome instead of abolishing them in the Cities they had subdued But all their Councils were assembled and their Force was bandied against the Lord and against his Christ and that City that kindly receiv'd all manner of Superstitions hated this Doctrine with an irreconcileable hatred It met with Reproaches from the Wise and Fury from the Potentates it was derided by the one as the greatest Folly and persecuted by the other as contrary to God and Mankind the one were afraid to lose their Esteems by the Doctrine and the other to lose their Authority by a Sedition they thought a change of Religion would introduce The Romans that had been Conquerors of the Earth feared Intestine Commotions and the falling asunder the Links of their Empire Scarce any of their first Emperors but had their Swords dy'd Red in the Blood of the Christians The Flesh with all its Lusts the World with all its Flatteries the Statesmen with all their Craft and the Mighty with all their Strength joyn'd together to extirpate it Though many Members were taken off by the Fires yet the Church not only lived but flourish'd in the Furnace Converts were made by the Death of Martyrs and the Flames which consumed their Bodies were the occasion of firing Mens hearts with a Zeal for the Profession of it Instead of being extinguish'd the Doctrine shone more bright and multiplied under the Sickles that were employed to cut it down God ordered every Circumstance so both in the Persons that publish'd it the Means whereby and the Time when that nothing but his Power might appear in it without any thing to dim and darken it IV. The Divine Power was conspicuous in the great success it had under all these difficulties Multitudes were Prophecied of to
others more than in God Thus God upbraids those by the Prophet that sought help from Egypt telling them Isai 31.3 The Egyptians were men and not gods intimating that by their dependance on them they render'd them gods and not Men and advanc'd them from the state of Creatures to that of Almighty Deities 'T is to set a pile of Dust a heap of Ashes above Him that created and preserves the World To trust in a Creature is to make it as Infinite as God to do that which is impossible in it self to be done God himself cannot make a Creature infinite for that were to make him God 'T is also contemn'd when we ascribe what we receive to the power of Instruments and not to the Power of God Men in whatsoever they do for us are but the Tools whereby the Creator works Is it not a disgrace to the Limner to admire his Pensil and not himself to the Artificer to admire his File and Engines and not his Power 'T is not I saith Paul that labour but the Grace the efficacious Grace of God which is in me Whatsoever good we do is from him not from our selves to ascribe it to our selves or to Instruments is to overlook and contemn his Power 5. Vnbelief of the Gospel is a contempt and disowning Divine Power This Perfection hath been discover'd in the Conception of Christ the Union of the two Natures his Resurrection from the Grave the Restoration of the World and the Conversion of Men more than in the Creation of the World Then what a disgrace is Vnbelief to all that Power that so severely punished the Jews for the rejecting the Gospel turn'd so many Nations from their beloved Superstitions humbled the Power of Princes and the Wisdom of Philosophers chas'd Devils from their Temples by the weakness of Fishermen planted the Standard of the Gospel against the common Notions and inveterate Customes of the World What a disgrace is Vnbelief to this Power which hath preserved Christianity from being extinguish'd by the force of Men and Devils and kept it flourishing in the midst of Sword Fire and Executioners that hath made the Simplicity of the Gospel overpower the Eloquence of Orators and multiplied it from the Ashes of Martyrs when it was destitute of all Humane Assistances Not heartily to believe and embrace that Doctrine which hath been attended with such Marks of Power is a high reflection upon this Divine Perfection so highly manifested in the first publication propagation and preservation of it II. The Power of God is abused as well as contemned 1. When we make use of it to justifie Contradictions The Doctrine of Transubstantiation is an abuse of this Power When the Maintainers of it cannot answer the Absurdities alledg'd against it they have recourse to the Power of God It implies a Contradiction that the same Body should be on Earth and in Heaven at the same instant of time that it should be at the Right hand of God and in the Mouth and Stomack of a Man that it should be a Body of Flesh and yet Bread to the Eye and to the Taste that it should be Visible and Invisible a glorious Body and yet gnawn by the Teeth of a Creature that it should be multiplied in a Thousand places and yet an entire Body in every one where there is no Member to be seen no Flesh to be tasted that it should be above us in the highest Heavens and yet within us in our lower Bowels Such Contradictions as these are an Abuse of the Power of God Again We abuse this Power when we believe every idle Story that is reported because God is able to make it so if he pleased We may as well believe Esop's Fables to be true that Birds spake and Beasts reasoned because the Power of God can enable such Creatures to such acts Gods Power is not the Rule of our Belief of a thing without the exercise of it in matter of Fact and the declaration of it upon sufficient Evidence 2. The Power of God is abus'd by presuming on it without using the Means he hath appointed When Men sit with folded-Arms and make a Confidence in his Power a glorious Title to their Idleness and Disobedience they would have his Strength do all and his Precept should move them to do nothing this is a trust of his Power against his Command a pretended glorifying his Power with a slight of his Soveraignty Though God be Almighty yet for the most part he exerciseth his Might in giving life and success to Second Causes and lawful endeavours When we stay in the mouth of Danger without any Call ordering us to to continue and against a Door of Providence open'd for our rescue and sanctuary our selves in the Power of God without any Promise without any Providence conducting us this is not to glorifie the Divine Might but to neglect it in neglecting the Means which his Power affords to us for our escape * Harwood p. 13. To condemn it to our humors to work Miracles for us according to our wills and against his own God could have sent a Worm to be Herods Executioner when he sought the life of our Saviour or employed an Angel from Heaven to have tied his hands or stopt his breath and not put Joseph upon a flight to Egypt with our Saviour yet had it not been an abuse of the Power of God for Joseph to have neglected the Precept and slighted the Means God gave him for the preserving his own life and that of the Childs Christ himself when the Jews consulted to destroy him presum'd not upon the Power of God to secure him but used ordinary means for his preservation by walking no more openly but retiring himself into a City near the Wilderness till the hour was come and the Call of his Father manifest †John 11.53 54. A rash running upon Danger though for the Truth it self is a presuming upon and consequently an abuse of this Power a proud challenging it to serve our turns against the Authority of his Will and the force of his Precept A not resting in his Ordinate Power but demanding his Absolute Power to pleasure our Follies and Presumptions concluding and expecting more from it than what is Authoriz'd by his Will 9. Instruction If Infinite Power be a peculiar Property of God How miserable will all wicked Rebels be under this Power of God Men may break his Laws but not impair his Arm they may slight his Word but cannot resist his Power If he swear that he will sweep a place with the Besom of Destruction As he hath thought so shall it come to pass and as he hath purposed so shall it stand Isai 14.23 24. Rebels against an Earthly Prince may exceed him in strength and be more powerful than their Soveraign None can equal God much less exceed him As none can exercise an act of Hostility against him without his permissive Will so none can struggle from under
his hand without his positive Will He hath an Arm not to be moved a Hand not to be wrung aside God is represented on his Throne like a Jasper Stone Revel 4.3 as one of Invincible Power when he comes to Judge the Jasper is a Stone which withstands the greatest force * Grot. in loc Though Men resist the Order of his Laws they cannot resist the Sentence of their punishment nor the Execution of it None can any more exempt themselves from the Arm of his Strength than they can from the Authority of his Dominion As they must bow to his Soveraignty so they must sink under his Force A Prisoner in this World may make his Escape but a Prisoner in the World to come cannot Job 10.7 There is none that can deliver out of thine hand There is none to deliver when he tears in pieces Psal 50.22 His Strength is uncontroulable hence his Throne is represented as a Fiery flame Dan. 7.9 As a spark of Fire hath power to kindle one thing after another and increase till it consumes a Forrest a City swallow up all combustible Matter till it consumes a World and many Worlds if they were in Being What power hath a Tree to resist the Fire though it seems mighty when it outbraves the Winds What Man to this day hath been able to free himself from that Chain of Death God clapt upon him for his Revolt And if he be too feeble to rescue himself from a Temporal much less from an Eternal Death The Devils have to this minute groaned under the Pile of Wrath without any success in delivering themselves by all their strength which much surmounts all the strength of Mankind nor have they any hopes to work their rescue to Eternity How foolish is every Sinner Can we poor Worms strut it out against Infinite Power We cannot resist the meanest Creatures when God Commissions them and puts a Sword into their hands They will not no not the Worms be startled at the glory of a King when they have their Creators Warrant to be his Executioners †Acts 12.23 Who can withstand him when he commands the Waves and Inundations of the Sea to leap over the Shore when he divides the Ground in Earthquakes and makes it gape wide to swallow the Inhabitants of it when the Air is corrupted to breed Pestilences when Storms and Showers unseasonably falling putrifie the Fruits of the Earth what Created Power can mend the matter and with a prevailing Voice say to him What dost thou There are two Atributes God will make glister in Hell to the full his Wrath and his Power Rom. 9.22 What if God willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known endured with much Longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction If it were meer Wrath and no Power to second it it were not so terrible but 't is Wrath and Power both are joyn'd together 'T is not only a sharp Sword but a powerful Arm and not only that for then it were well for the damned Creature To have many sharp blows and from a strong Arm this may be without putting forth the highest strength a Man hath But in this God makes it his design to make his Power known and conspicuous He takes the Sword as it were in both hands that he may shew the strength of his Arm in striking the harder blow and therefore the Apostle calls it 2 Thess 1.9 the Glory of his Power which puts a Sting into this Wrath and it is called Revel 19.15 the fierceness of the wrath of the Almighty God will do it in such a manner as to make Men sensible of his Almightiness in every stroke How great must that Vengeance be that is backed by all the Strength of God When there will be a powerful Wrath without a powerful Compassion when all his Power shall be exercised in Punishing and not the least mite of it exercis'd in Pitying how irresistible will be the load of such a weighty Hand How can the dust of the Ballance break the mighty Bars or get out of the Lists of a powerful Vengeance or hope for any grain of Comfort Oh that every obstinate Sinner would think of this and consider his unmeasurable boldness in thinking himself able to grapple with Omnipotence What force can any have to resist the presence of him before whom Rocks melt and the Heavens at length shall be shrivell'd up as a Parchment by the last Fire As the Light of Gods face is too dazeling to be beheld by us so the Arm of his Power is too Mighty to be opposed by us His Almightiness is above the reach of our Pot-sheard strength as his Infiniteness is above the capacity of our Purblind Understandings God were not Omnipotent if his Power could be rendred ineffectual by any Use II A Second Vse of this Point from the Consideration of the Infinite Power of God is of Comfort As Omnipotence is an Ocean that cannot be fathom'd Comfort so the Comforts from it are streams that cannot be exhausted What Joy can be wanting to him that finds himself folded in the Arms of Omnipotence This Perfection is made over to Believers in the Covenant as well as any other Attribute I am the Lord your God therefore that Power which is as essential to the Godhead as any other Perfection of his Nature is in the rights and extent of it assured unto you Nay may we not say It is made over more than any other because it is that which animates every other Perfection and is the Spirit that gives them Motion and Appearance in the World If God had exprest himself in particular as I am a True God a Wise God a Loving God a Righteous God I am yours what would all or any of those have signified unless the other also had been implyed as I am an Almighty God I am your God In Gods making over himself in any particular Attribute this of his Power is included in every one without which all his other Grants would be insignificant 'T is a Comfort that Power is in the hand of God it can never be better placed for he can never use his Power to injure his confiding Creature If it were in our own hands we might use it to injure our selves 'T is a Power in the hand of an indulgent Father not a hard-hearted Tyrant 'T is a just Power His right hand is full of Righteousness Psal 48.10 because of his Righteousness he can never use it ill and because of his Wisdom he can never use it unseasonably Men that have strength often misplace the actings of it because of their Folly and sometimes employ it to base ends because of their Wickedness But this Power in God is alway awakned by Goodness and conducted by Wisdom 't is never exercis'd by Self-will and Passion but according to the Immutable Rule of his own Nature which is Righteousness How Comfortable is it to think that you have a
Minds and Consciences of Men as the Author of Nature for the preservation of the World manifests the Holiness of the Law-maker and Governour 2. His Holiness appears in the Ceremonial Law In the variety of Sacrifices for Sin wherein he writ his detestation of Vnrighteousness in bloody Characters His Holiness was more constantly exprest in the continual Sacrifices than in those rarer sprinklings of Judgments now and then upon the World which often reached not the worst but the most moderate Sinners and were the occasions of the questioning of the Righteousness of his Providence both by Jews and Gentiles In Judgments his Purity was only now and then manifest By his long Patience he might be imagin'd by some reconcil'd to their Crimes or not much concern'd in them but by the Morning and Evening Sacrifice he witness'd a perpetual and uninterrupted Abhorrence of whatsoever was Evil. Besides those the occasional Washings and Sprinklings upon Ceremonial Defilements which polluted only the Body gave an evidence that every thing that had a resemblance to Evil was loathsom to him Add also the Prohibitions of eating such and such Creatures that were filthy as the Swine that wallowed in the Mire a fit Emblem for the prophane and brutish Sinner which had a Moral signification both of the loathsomness of Sin to God and the aversion themselves ought to have to every thing that was filthy 3. This Holiness appears in the Allurements annex'd to the Law for keeping it and the Affrightments to restrain from the breaking of it Both Promises and Threatnings have their Fundamental Root in the Holiness of God and are both Branches of this peculiar Perfection As they respect the Nature of God they are Declarations of his hatred of Sin and his love of Righteousness the one belong to his Threatnings the other to his Promises both joyn together to represent this Divine Perfection to the Creature and to excite to an imitation in the Creature In the one God would render Sin odious because dangerous and curb the practice of Evil which would otherwise be Licentious In the other he would commend Righteousness and excite a love of it which would otherwise be cold By these God sutes the two great Affections of Men Fear and Hope both the branches of Self-love in Man The Promises and Threatnings are both the Branches of Holiness in God The end of the Promises is the same with the Exhortation the Apostle concludes from them 2 Cor. 7.1 Having these Promises let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit perfecting Holiness in the fear of God As the end of Precepts is to direct the end of Threatnings is to deter from Iniquity so that of the Promises is to allure to Obedience Thus God breaths out his Love to Righteousness in every Promise his Hatred of Sin in every Threatning The Rewards offerd in the one are the Smiles of pleased Holiness and the Curses thundred in the other are the Sparklings of enraged Righteousness 4. His Holiness appears in the Judgments inflicted for the violation of this Law Divine Holiness is the Root of Divine Justice and Divine Justice is the Triumph of Divine Holiness Hence both are expressed in Scripture by one word of Righteousness which sometimes signifies the rectitude of the Divine Nature and sometimes the vindicative stroak of his Arm Psal 103.6 The Lord executeth Righteousness and Judgment for all that are oppressed So Dan. 9.7 Righteousness that is Justice belongs to thee The Vials of his Wrath are filled from his implacable aversion to Iniquity All Penal Evils showred down upon the heads of Wicked men spread their root in and branch out from this Perfection All the dreadful Storms and Tempests in the World are blown up by it Why doth he rain Snares Fire and Brimstone and a horrible Tempest because the righteous Lord loveth Righteousness Psal 11.6 7. And as was observed before when he was going about the dreadfullest Work that ever was in the World the overturning the Jewish State hardening the Hearts of that Unbelieving People and casheiring a Nation once dear to him from the honour of his Protection His Holiness as the Spring of all this is applauded by the Seraphims Isai 6.3 compared with Vers 9 10 11 c. Impunity argues the approbation of a Crime and Punishment the abhorrency of it The greatness of the Crime and the Righteousness of the Judge are the first Natural Sentiments that arise in the Minds of Men upon the appearance of Divine Judgments in the World by those that are near them †Amirant Moral Tom. 5. p. 388. As when Men see Gibbets erected Scaffolds prepared Instruments of Death and Torture provided and grievous Punishments inflicted the first reflection in the Spectators is the malignity of the Crime and the detestation the Governours are possessed with 1. How severely hath he punish'd his most Noble Creatures for it The once glorious Angels upon whom he had been at greater cost than upon other Creatures and drawn more lively Lineaments of his own Excellency upon the Transgression of his Law are thrown into the Furnace of Justice without any Mercy to pity them Jude 6. And though there were but one sort of Creatures upon the Earth that bore his Image and were only fit to publish and keep up his Honour below the Heavens yet upon their Apostacy though upon a Temptation from a subtile and insinuating Spirit the Man with all his Posterity is sentenc'd to Misery in Life and Death at last and the Woman with all her Sex have standing Punishments inflicted on them which as they begun in their Persons were to reach as far as the last Member of their successive Generations So Holy is God that he will not endure a Spot in his choicest Work Men indeed when there is a crack in an excellent piece of Work or a stain upon a rich Garment do not cast it away they value it for the remaining Excellency more than hate it for the contracted Spot But God saw no Excellency in his Creature worthy regarding after the Image of that which he most esteemed in himself was defaced 2. How detestable to him are the very Instruments of Sin For the Ill use the Serpent an Irrational Creature was put to by the Devil as an Instrument in the Fall of Man the whole brood of those Animals are Curst Gen. 3.14 Cursed above all Cattle and above every Beast of the field Not only the Devils Head is threatned to be for ever bruised and as some think render'd irrecoverable upon this further Testimony of his Malice in the Seduction of Man who perhaps without this new Act might have been admitted into the Arms of Mercy notwithstanding his first Sin though the Scripture gives us no account of this only this is the only Sentence we read of pronounc'd against the Devil which puts him into an irrecoverable state by a Mortal bruising of his Head But I say He is not only punish'd but the
his own goodness he needed none to make him good but all things needed him to be good by him Creatures are good by being made so by him and cleaving to him He is good without cleaving to any goodness without him Goodness is not a Quality in him but a Nature * Ficini epist lib. 11. epist 30. not a Habit added to his Essence but his Essence it self He is not first God and then afterwards Good but he is Good as he is God his Essence being one and the same is formally and equally God and Good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good of himself was one of the Names the Platonists gave him He is Essentially Good in his own Nature and not by any outward action which follows his Essence He is an Independent Being and hath nothing of goodness or happiness from any thing without him or any thing he doth act about If he were not good by his Essence he could not be Eternally good he could not be the first good he would have something before him from whence he derived that Goodness wherewith he is possessed Nor could he be perfectly good for he could not be equally good to that from whom he derived his Goodness No Star no splendid Body that derives light from the Sun doth equal that Sun by which it 's enlightned Hence his goodness must be infinite and circumscrib'd by no limits The Exercise of his goodness may be limited by himself but his Goodness the Principle cannot For since his Essence is Infinite and his Goodness is not distinguished from his Essence 't is Infinite also If it were limited it were Finite he cannot be bounded by any thing without him if so then he were not God because he would have something Superior to him to put bars in his way If there were any thing to fix him it must be a good or evil Being Good it cannot be for it is the property of goodness to encourage goodness not to bound it Evil it cannot be for then it would extinguish goodness as well as limit it it would not be content with the circumscribing it without destroying it for it is the nature of every Contrary to endeavour the destruction of its Opposite He is Essentially good by his own Essence therefore good of himself therefore Eternally good and therefore abundantly good 2. God is the prime and chief Goodness Being good per se and by his own Essence he must needs be the chief Goodness in whom there can be nothing but good from whom there can proceed nothing but good to whom all good whatsoever must be referr'd as the final cause of all good As he is the chief Being so he is the chief Good And as we rise by steps from the Existence of Created things to acknowledge one Supream Being which is God so we mount by Steps from the Consideration of the Goodness of Created things to acknowledge one Infinite Ocean of Soveraign Goodness whence the Streams of Created Goodness are deriv'd When we behold things that partake of Goodness from another we must acquiesce in one that hath Goodness by participation from no other but Originally from himself and therefore Supreamly in himself above all other things So that as nothing greater and more Majestick can be imagin'd so also nothing Better and more Excellent can be conceiv'd than God Nothing can add to him or make him better than he is nothing can detract from him to make him worse nothing can be added to him nothing can be sever'd from him No Created Good can render him more Excellent No Evil from any Creature can render him less Excellent †Psal 16.2 Our goodness extends not to him Wickedness may hurt a Man as we are and our Righteousness may profit the Son of Man but if we be Righteous what give we to him or what receives he at our hands * Job 35.7 8. As he hath no Superior in place above him so being chief of all he cannot be made better by any Inferior to him How can he be made better by any that hath from himself all that he hath The Goodness of a Creature may be chang'd but the Goodness of the Creator is immutable He is always like himself so Good that he cannot be Evil as he is so Blessed that he cannot be Miserable Nothing is good but God because nothing is of it self but God As all things being from nothing are nothing in comparison of God so all things being from nothing are scanty and evil in comparison of God If any thing had been ex Deo God being the Matter of it it had been as good as God is but since the Principle whence all things were drawn was nothing though the Efficient Cause by which they were extracted from nothing was God they are as nothing in goodness and not esteemable in comparison of God †Psal 73.25 Whom have I in Heaven but thee c. God is all good every Creature hath a distinct variety of goodness God distinctly pronounced every days work in the Creation good Food communicates the goodness of its Nourishing Virtue to our Bodies Flowers the goodness of their Odors to our Smell every Creature a goodness of Comeliness to our Sight Plants the goodness of Healing Qualities for our Cure And all derive from themselves a goodness of Knowledge objectively to our Understandings The Sun by one sort of goodness warms us Metals enrich us living Creatures sustain us and delight us by another All those have distinct kinds of Goodness which are eminently summed up in God and are all but parts of his Immense Goodness 'T is he that enlightens us by his Sun nourisheth us by Bread * Matth. 4.4 'T is not by Bread alone that we live but by the Word of God 'T is all but his own Supream Goodness conveyed to us through those varieties of Conduit-pipes God is all Good other things are good in their kind as a Good Man a Good Angel a Good Tree a Good Plant but God hath a Good of all kinds eminently in his Nature He is no less All-good than he is Almighty and All-knowing As the Sun contains in it all the Light and more Light than is in all the clearest Bodies in the World so doth God contain in himself all the Good and more Good than is in the Richest Creatures Nothing is Good but as it Resembles him as nothing is Hot but as it Resembles Fire the Prime Subject of Heat God is Omnipotent therefore no Good can be wanting to him If he were destitute of any which he could not have he were not Almighty He is so Good that there is no mixture of any thing which can be call'd not Good in him every thing besides him wants some Good which others have Nothing can be so Evil as God is Good There can be no Evil but there is some mixture of Good with it No Nature so Evil but there is some spark of Goodness in it But
recede from God 'T is then our own fault that we are miserable God cannot be charg'd with any injustice if we be miserable since his Goodness gave means to prevent it and afterwards added means to recover us from it but all despis'd by us The Doctrine of Divine Goodness justifies every Stone laid in the Foundation of Hell and every Spark in that burning Furnace since it is for the abuse of Infinite Goodness that it was kindled 4. The fourth Information Here is a certain Argument both for Gods fitness to govern the World and his actual Government of it 1. This renders him fit for the Government of the World and gives him a full Title to it This Perfection doth the Psalmist Celebrate throughout the 107 Psalm where he declares Gods Works of Providence vers 8 15 21 32. Power without goodness would deface instead of preserving Ruine is the fruit of rigor without kindness But God because of his infinite and immutable goodness cannot do any thing unworthy of himself and uncomely in it self or destructive to any Moral goodness in the Creature 'T is impossible he should do any thing that is base or act any thing but for the best because he is essentially and naturally and therefore necessarily good As a good Tree cannot bring forth bad Fruit so a good God cannot produce evil acts no more than a pure Beam of the Sun can engender so much as a mite of darkness or infinite Heat produce any particle of Cold. As God is so much Light that he can be no Darkness so he is so much Gâ—od that he can have no Evil and because there is no Evil in him nothing simply Evil can be produced by him Since he is good by Nature all evil is against his Nature and God can do nothing against his Nature It would be a part of impotence in him to Will that which is Evil and therefore the Misery Man feels as well as the Sin whereby he deserves that Misery are said to be from himself * Hos 13.9 Oh Israel thou hast destroy'd thy self And though God sends Judgments upon the World we have shewn these to be intended for the support and vindication of his Goodness And Hezekiah judg'd no otherewise when after the threatning of the Devastation of his House the Plundering his Treasures and Captivity of his Posterity He replies Good is the Word of the Lord which thou hast spoken * Isai 39.8 God cannot act any thing that is base and Cruel because his Goodness is as infinite as his Power and his Power acts nothing but what his Wisdom directs and his Goodness moves him to Wisdom is the Head in Government Omniscience the Eye Power the Arm and Goodness the Heart and Spirit in them that animates all 2. As Goodness renders him fit to govern the World so God doth actually govern the World Can we understand this Perfection aright and yet imagine that he is of so Morose a Disposition as to neglect the care of his Creatures That his Excellency which was display'd in framing the World should withdraw and wrap up it self in his own Bosom without looking out and darting it self out in the disposal of them Can that which moved him first to Erect a World suffer him to be unmindful of his own Work Would he design first to display it in Creation and afterwards obscure the Honour of it That cannot be Entitled an Infinite permanent Goodness which should be so indifferent as to let the Creatures tumble together as they please without any order after he had Moulded them in his hand If Goodness be diffusive and communicative of it self can it consist with the Nature of it to extend it self to the giving the Creatures Being and then withdraw and contract it self not caring what becomes of them 'T is the Nature of Goodness after it hath communicated it self to enlarge its Channels That Fountain that springs up in a little hollow part of the Earth doth in a short progress increase its Streams and widen the Passages through which it runs It would be a blemish to Divine Goodness if it did desert what it made and leave things to wild Confusions which would be if a good hand did not manage them and a good Mind preside over them This is the Lesson intended to us by all his Judgments * Dan. 4.17 That the living may know that the Most High Rules in the Kingdoms of Men. If he doth not actually govern the World he must have devolv'd it somewhere either to Men or Angels Not to Men who naturally want a goodness and Wisdom to govern themselves much more to govern others exactly And besides the misinterpretations of actions they are liable to the want of Patience to bear with the provocations of the World Since some of the best at one time in the World and in the greatest example of meekness and sweetness would have kindled a Fire in Heaven to have consumed the Samaritans for no other affront than a non Entertainment of their Master and themselves * Luke 9.54 Nor hath he committed the disposal of things to Angels either good or bad though he useth them as Instruments in his Government yet they are not the principal Pilots to Steer the World Bad Angels certainly are not they would make continual Ravages meditate Ruine never defeat their own Counsels which they manage by the Wicked as their Instruments in the World nor fill their Spirits with disquiet and restlesness when they are engaged in some Ruinous Design as often is experienc'd Nor hath he committed it to the good Angels who for ought we know are not more numerous than the evil ones are But besides we can scarcely think their Finite Nature capable of so much goodness as to bear the innumerable Debaucheries Villanies Blasphemies vented in one year one week one day one hour throughout the World Their Zeal for their Creator might well be suppos'd to move them to testifie their affection to him in a constant and speedy Righting of his injured Honour upon the heads of the Offenders The evil Angels have too much Cruelty and would have no care of Justice but take pleasure in the Blood of the most Innocent as well as the most Criminal And the good Angels have too little tenderness to suffer so many Crimes Since the World therefore continues without those flouds of Judgments which it daily merits since notwithstanding all the provocations the order of it is preserved 'T is a testimony that an Infinite Goodness holds the Helm in his hands and spreads its warm Wings over it 5. The fifth Information is this Hence we may infer the ground of all Religion 't is this Perfection of Goodness As the Goodness of God is the lustre of all his Attributes so it is the Foundation and Link of all true Religious Worship The natural Religion of the Heathens was introduc'd by the consideration of Divine Goodness in the Being he had bestow'd upon
attempters and often oversets the disturbers of the peace of the World 3. Information God can do no wrong since he is absolute soveraign Man may do wrong Princes may oppress and rifle but it is a crime in them so to do Because their power is a power of Government and not of propriety in the goods or lives of their subjects but God cannot do any wrong whatsoever the clamours of Creatures are Because he can do nothing but what he hath a soveraign right to do If he takes away your goods he takes not away any thing that is yours more than his own since though he intrusted you with them he devested not himself of the propriety When he takes away our lives he takes what he gave us by a temporary donation to be surrendred at his call We can claim no right in any thing but by his will He is no debtor to us and since he owes us nothing he can wrong us in nothing that he takes away His own soveraignty excuseth him in all those acts which are most distastful to the Creature If we crop a medicinal plant for our use or a flower for our pleasure or kill a Lamb for our food we do neither of them any wrong Because the original of them was for our use and they had their life and nourishment and pleasing qualities for our delight and support and are not we much more made for the pleasure and use of God than any of those can be for us Of him and to him are all things Rom. 11.36 Hath not God as much right over any one of us as over the meanest Worm Though there be a vast difference in nature between the Angels in Heaven and the Worms on Earth yet they are all one in regard of subjection to God he is as much the Lord of the one as the other as much the proprietor of the one as the other as much the Governour of the one as the other Not a cranny in the World is exempt from his jurisdiction Not a mite or grain of a Creature exempt from his propriety He is not our Lord by election he was a Lord before we were in being he had no terms put upon him who capitulated with him and set him in his Throne by Covenant What Oath did he take to any subject at his first investiture in his Authority His right is as natural as eternal as himself As natural as his existence and as necessary as his Deity Hath he any Law but his own will What wrong can he do that breaks no Law that fulfils his Law in every thing he doth by fulfilling his own will which as it is absolutely soveraign so it is infinitely righteous In what soever he takes from us then he cannot injure us 't is no crime in any man to seize upon his own goods to vindicate his own honour and shall it be thought a wrong in God to do such things Besides the occasion he hath from every man and that every day provoking him to do it He seems rather to wrong himself by forbearing such a seizure than wrong us by executing it 4. If God have a soveraignty over the whole World then merit is totally excluded His right is so absolute over all Creatures that he neither is nor can be a debtor to any not to the undefiled holiness of the blessed Angels much less to poor earthly worms those blessed Spirits enjoy their glory by the title of his soveraign pleasure not by vertue of any obligation devolving from them upon God Are not the faculties whereby they and we perform any act of obedience his grant to us Is not the strength whereby they and we are enabled to do any thing pleasing to him a gift from him Can a vassal merit of his Lord or a slave of his Master by using his tools and employing his strength in his service though it was a strength he had naturally not by donation from the man in whose service it is employ'd God is Lord of all all is due to him how can we oblige him by giving him what is his own more his to whom it is presented than ours by whom it is offered * Austin He becomes not a debtor by receiving any thing from us but by promising something to us 5. If God hath a soveraign dominion over the whole World then hence it follows that all Magistrates are but soveraigns under God He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords all the Potentates of the World are no other than his Lieutenants moveable at his pleasure and more at his disposal than their subjects are at theirs Though they are dignified with the title of Gods yet still they are at an infinite distance from the supream Lord. Gods under God not to be above him not to be against him The want of the due sence of their subordination to God hath made many in the World act as soveraigns above him more than soveraigns under him Had they all bore a deep conviction of this upon their spirits such audacious language had never dropt from the mouth of Pharoah who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let Israel go Exod. 5.2 Presuming that there was no superior to controul him nor any in Heaven able to be a match for him Darius had never publisht such a doting Edict as to prohibit any petition to God Nero had never fir'd Rome and sung at the sight of the devouring flames nor ever had he ript up his mothers belly to see the Womb where he first lodg'd and received a life so hateful to his Country Nor would Abner and Joab the two Generals have accounted the death of men but a sport and interlude 2 Sam. 2.14 Let the young men arise and play before us what play it was the next verse acquaints you with thrusting their Swords into one anothers sides They were no more troubled at the death of thousands than a man is to kill a fly or a flea Had a sence of this but hover'd over their Souls People in many Countries had not been made their foot-balls and used worse than their dogs Nor had the lives of millions worth more than a World been expos'd to Fire and Sword to support some sordid lust or breach of Faith upon an idle quarrel and for the depredation of their Neighbours estates the flames of Cities had not been so bright nor the streams of blood so dâ—ep nor the cries of innocents so loud In Particular 1. If God be soveraign All under-Soveraigns are not to rule against him but to be obedient to his Orders If they rule by his Authority Prov. 8.15 they are not to rule against his interest they are not to imagine themselves as absolute as God and that their Laws must be of as soveraign Authority against his honour as the Divine are for it If they are his Leiutenants on Earth they ought to act according to his Orders No man but will account a Governour or a
a day or two but continually In whatsoever day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye but not understanding his dying that very day he should eat of it Referring day to the extensiveness of the prohibition as to time But to leave this as uncertain it may be answered that as in some threatnings a condition is implyed though not exprest as in that positive denouncing of the destruction of Niniveh Jonah 3.4 Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroy'd the condition is imply'd unless they humble themselves and repent for upon their Repentance the sentence was deferred So here in the day thou eatest thereof thou shall dye the death or certainly dye unless there be a way found for the expiation of thy crime and the righting my honour This condition in regard of the event may as well be asserted to be implyed in this threatning as that of Repentance was in the other Or rather thou shalt dye thou shalt die spiritually thou shalt loose that image of mine in thy nature that Righteousness which is as much the Life of thy Soul as thy Soul is the life of thy Body that Righteousness whereby thou art enabled to live to me and thy own happiness What the Soul is to the Body a quickning Soul that the image of God is to the Soul a quickning image Or thou shalt dye the death or certainly dye thou shalt be liable to death * Perer in loc And so it is to be understood not of an actual death of the Body but the merit of death and the necessity of death thou wilt be obnoxious to death which will be avoided if thou dost forbear to eat of the forbidden fruit thou shalt be a guilty person and so under a sentence of death that I may when I please inflict it on thee Death did come upon Adam that day because his nature was vitiated He was then also under an expectation of death he was obnoxious to it though that day it was not poured out upon him in the full bitterness and gall of it As when the Apostle saith Rom. 8.10 The Body is dead because of sin he speaks to the Living and yet tells them the body was dead because of sin he means no more than that it was under a sentence and so a necessity of dying though not actually dead So thou shalt be under the sentence of death that day as certainly as if that day thou shouldst sink into the dust And as by his Patience towards man not sending forth death upon him in all the bitter ingredients of it his Justice afterwards was more eminent upon mans surety than it would have been if it had been then employ'd in all its severe operations upon man So was his Veracity eminent also in making good this threatning in inflicting the punishment included in it upon our nature assum'd by a mighty person and upon that person in our nature who was infinitely higher than our nature 2. His justice and righteousness are not prejudiced by his patience There is a hatred of the sin in his holiness and a sentence past against the sin in his justice though the execution of that sentence be suspended and the person reprieved by patience which is implyed Eccles 8.11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil Sentence is past but a speedy execution is stopt Some of the Heathens who would not imagine God unjust and yet seeing the villanies and oppressions of men in the World remain unpunisht and frequently beholding prosperous wickedness to free him from the charge of injustice denyed his providence and actual Government of the World for if he did take notice of humane affairs and concern himself in what was done upon the Earth they could not think an infinite goodness and Justice could be so slow to punish oppressors and relieve the miserable and leave the World in that disorder under the injustice of men They judged such a patience as was exercised by him if he did govern the World was drawn out beyond the line of fit and just Is it not a presumption in men to prescribe a rule of Righteousness and conveniency to their Creator It might be demanded of such whether they never injur'd any in their lives and when certainly they have one way or other would they not think it a very unworthy if not unjust thing that a person so injur'd by them should take a speedy and severe revenge on them And if every man should do the like would there not be a speedy dispatch made of Mankind Would not the World be a shambles and men rush forwards to one anothers destruction for the wrongs they have mutually received If it be accounted a virtue in man and no unrighteousness not presently to be all on fire against an offence by what right should any question the consistency of Gods patience with his justice Do we praise the lenity of Parents to children and shall we disparage the long suffering of God to men We do not censure the righteousness of Physitians and Chirurgeons because they cut not off a corrupt member this day as well as to morrow And is it just to asperse God because he doth deferr his vengeance which man assumes to himself a right to do We never account him a bad Governour that deferrs the tryal and consequently the condemnation and execution of a notorious offender for important reasons and beneficial to the publick either to make the nature of his crime more evident or to find out the rest of his complices by his discovery A Governour indeed were unjust if he commanded that which were unrighteous and forbad that which were worthy and commendable But if he delayes the execution of a convict offender for weighty reasons either for the benefit of the state whereof he is the Ruler or for some advantage to the offender himself to make him have a sence of and a regret for his offence we account him not unjust for this God doth not by his patience dispense with the holiness of his Law nor cut off any thing from its due Authority If men do strengthen themselves by his long suffering against his Law 't is their fault not any unrighteousness in him He will take a time to vindicate the Righteousness of his own commands if men will wholly neglect the time of his patience in forbearing to pay a dutiful observance to his Precept If Justice be natural to him and he cannot but punish sin yet he is not necessitated to consume sinners as the fire doth stubble put into it which hath no command over its own qualities to restrain them from acting But God is a free agent and may choose his own time for the distribution of that punishment his nature leads him to Though he be naturally just yet it is not so natural to him as to deprive him of a dominion over his own acts and a
interest of the rest of the World that they should have been extinguisht for the instruction of their contemporaries and posterity The best of them had turned all Religion into a fable coyn'd a World of rites some unnatural in themselves and most of them unbecoming a rational creature to offer and a Deity to accept Yet he did not presently arm himself against them with Fire and Sword nor stopt the course of their Generations nor tare out all those reliques of natural light which were left in their minds He did not do what he might have done but he winkt at the times of that ignorance Act. 17.30 their ignorant Idolatry for that it referrs to ver 29. They thought the God-head was like to Gold or Silver or stone graven by Art and mens device 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 overlooking them He demean'd himself so as if he did not take notice of them He winkt as if he did not see them and would not deal so severely with them the eye of his Justice seem'd to wink in not calling them to an account for their sin 3. His slowness to anger is manifest to the Israelites You know how often they are call'd a stiff-necked people they are said to do evil from their youth i. e. from the time wherein they were erected a Nation and Common-wealth and that the City had been a provocation of his anger and of his fury from the day that they built it even to this day i. e. the day of Jeremiah's Prophesie that he should remove it from before his face Jer. 32.31 From the dayes of Solomon say some which is too much a curtailing of the Text as though their provocations had taken date no higher than from the time of Solomon's rearing the Temple and beautifying the City whereby it seem'd to be a new Building They began more early they scarce discontinued their revolting from God they were a grief to him 40 years together in the Wilderness Psal 95.10 Yet he suffer'd their manners Act. 13.18 He bore with their ill behaviour and sawcyness towards him And no sooner was Joshua's head laid and the Elders that were their conductors gathered to their fathers but the next Generation forsook God and smutted themselves with the Idolatry of the Nations Judg. 2.7.10 11. And when he punished them by prospering the Arms of their enemies against them they were no sooner delivered upon their cry and humiliation but they began a new Scene of Idolatry And though he brought upon them the power of the Babylonian Empire and laid chains upon them to bring them to their right mind And at 70 years end he struck off their chains by altering the whole posture of affairs in that part of the World for their sakes Overturning one Empire and settling another for their Restoration to their antient City And though they did not after disown him for their God and set up Baal in his Throne yet they multiplyed foolish traditions whereby they impaired the Authority of the Law yet he sustained them with a wonderful Patience and preferred them before all other people in the first offers of the Gospel And after they had outrag'd not only his servants the Prophets but his Son the Redeemer yet he did not forsake them but employed his Apostles to sollicit them and publish among them the Doctrine of Salvation So that his treating this people might well be call'd much long suffering it being above 1500 years wherein he bore with them or mildly punished them far less than their deserts Their coming out of Egypt being about the year of the World 2450 and their final destruction as a Common-wealth not till about 40 years after the death of Christ And all this while his Patience did sometimes wholly restrain his Justice and sometimes let it fall upon them in some few drops but made no total devastation of their Country nor wrote his revenge in extraordinary bloody Characters till the Roman conquest wherein he put a period to them both as a Church and State In particular this Patience is manifest 1. In his giving warnings of Judgments before he orders them to go forth He doth not punish in a passion and hastily He speakes before he strikes and speakes that he may not strike Wrath is publisht before it is executed and that a long time An 120 years Advertisement was given to a debauch'd World before the Heavens were open'd to spout down a deluge upon them He will not be accused of coming unawares upon a people He inflicts nothing but what he foretold either immediately to the people that provoke him or anciently to them that have been their fore-runners in the same provocation Hos 7.12 I will chastise them as their Congregation hath heard Many of the leaves of the Old Testament are full of those Presages and Warnings of approaching judgment These make up a great part of the Volume of it in various Editions according to the State of the several provoking times Warnings are given to those people that are most abominable in his sight Zeph. 2.1 2. Gather your selves together yea gather together Oh Nation not desired 't is a Meiosis Oh Nation abhorr'd before the decree bring forth He sends his Heralds before he sends his Armies He summons them by the voice of his Prophets before he confounds them by the voice of his Thunders When a parley is beaten a white flagg of Peace is hung out before a black flagg of fury is set up He seldom cuts down men by his Judgments before he hath hewed them by his Prophets Hos 6.5 Not a remarkable judgment but was foretold the Floud to the Old World by Noah The Famine to Egypt by Joseph The Earthquake by Amos. Amos 1.1 The storm from Chaldea by Jeremy The Captivity of the Ten Tribes by Hosea The total destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by Christ himself He hath chosen the best persons in the World to give those intimations Noah the most Righteous person on the earth for the Old World And his Son the most beloved person in Heaven for the Jews in the later time And in other parts of the World and in the later times where he hath not warned by Prophets he hath supplyed it by Prodigies in the Air and Earth Histories are full of such Items from Heaven Lesser judgments are fore-warners of greater as Lightnings before Thunder are Messengers to tell us of a succeeding clap 1. He doth often give warning of Judgments He comes not to extremity till he hath often shaken the rod over Men He thunders often before he crusheth them with his Thunder-bolt He doth not till after the first and second admonition punish a rebel as he would have us reject a Heretick He speaks once yea twice Job 33.14 and man percieves it not He sends one Message after another and waits the success of many messages before he strikes Eight Prophets were order'd to acquaint the Old World with approaching judgment 2 Pet. 2.5 He saved
He sends but a few drops out of the Cloud which he might make to break in the gross and fall down upon our heads to overwhelm us he abates much of what he might do When he might sweep away a whole Nation by deluges of water corruption of the Air or convulsions of the Earth or by other wayes that are not wanting at his order He picks out only some Persons some Families some Cities sends a plague into one house and not into another here is Patience to the stock of a Nation while he inflicts punishment upon some of the most notorious sinners in it Herod is suddenly snatcht away being willingly flattered into the thoughts of his being a God God singl'd out the chief in the herd for whose sake he had been affronted by the rabble Act. 12.22 23. Some find him sparing them while others feel him destroying them He arrests some when he might seize all all being his Debtors And often in great desolations brought upon a people for their sin he hath left a stump in the Earth as Daniel speakes Dan. 4.15 for a Nation to grow upon it again and arise to a stronger constitution He doth punish less than our iniquities deserve Ezra 9.13 and rewards us not according to our iniquities Psal 103.10 The greatness of any punishment in this Life answers not the greatness of the crime Though there be an equity in whatsoever he doth yet there is not an equality to what we deserve Our iniquities would justifie a severer treating of us His Justice goes not here to the end of its line 't is stopped in its progress and the blows of it weakned by his Patience He did not curse the Earth after Adam's fall that it should bring forth no fruit but that it should not bring forth fruit without the wearysome toyl of man and subjected him to distempers presently but inflicted not death immediately while he punished him he supported him And while he expelled him from Paradise he did not order him not to cast his eye towards it and conceive some hopes of regaining that happy place 5. His Patience is seen in giving great mercies after provocations He is so slow to anger that he heaps many kindnesses upon a rebel instead of punishment There is a prosperous wickedness wherein the provokers strength continues firm The troubles which like Clouds drop upon others are blown away from them and they are not plagued like other men that have a more worthy demeanour towards God Psal 73.3 4 5. He doth not only continue their lives but sends out fresh beams of his goodness upon them and calls them by his Blessings that they may acknowledge their own fault and his bounty which he is not obliged to by any gratitude he meets with from them but by the richness of his own patient nature for he finds the unthank fulness of men as great as his benefits to them He doth not only continue his outward mercies while we continue our sins but sometimes gives fresh benefits after new provocations that if possible he might excite an ingenuity in men When Israel at the Red Sea flung dirt in the face of God by quarrelling with his servant Moses for bringing them out of Egypt and mis-judging God in his design of deliverance and were ready to submit themselves to their former oppressors Exod. 14.11 12. which might justly have urged God to say to them take your own course yet he is not only patient under their unjust charge but makes bare his Arm in a deliverance at the Red Sea that was to be an amazing monument to the World in all Ages and afterwards when they repiningly quarrelled with him in their wants in the Wilderness he did not only not revenge himself upon them or cast off the conduct of them but bore with them by a miraculous long suffering and supplyed them with miraculous provision Manna from Heaven and Water from a Rock Food is given to support us and Cloaths to cover us and Divine Patience makes the creatures which we turn to another use than what they were at first intended for serve us contrary to their own Genius For had they reason no question but they would complain to be subjected to the service of man who hath been so ungrateful to their Creator and groan at the abuse of God's Patience in the abuse they themselves suffer from the hands of man 6. All this is more manifest if we consider the provocations he hath Wherein his slowness to Anger infinitely transcends the Patience of any creature nay the Spirits of all the Angels and Glorified Saints in Heaven would be too narrow to bear the sins of the World for one day nay not so much as the sins of Churches which is a little spot in the whole World 't is because he is the Lord one of an infinite power over himself that not only the whole Mass of the Rebellious World but of the Sons of Jacob either considered as a Church and Nation springing from the loyns of Jacob or considered as the Regenerate part of the World sometimes called the Seed of Jacob are not consumed Mal. 3.6 A Jonah was angry with God for recalling his Anger from a sinful people Had God committed the Government of the World to the Glorified Saints who are perfect in Love and Holiness the World would have had an end long ago They would have acted that which they sue for at the hands of God and is not granted them Rev. 6.10 How long Lord holy and true dost thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the Earth God hath designs of Patience above the World above the unsinning Angels and perfectly renewed Spirits in Glory The greatest Created long suffering is infinitely disproportion'd to the Divine Fire from Heaven would have been showred down before the greatest part of a day were spent if a Created Patience had the conduct of the World though that creature were possessed with the spirit of Patience extracted from all the creatures which are in Heaven or are or ever were upon the earth Methinks Moses intimates this for as soon as God had passed by proclaiming his Name gracious and long suffering As soon as ever Moses had paid his Adoration he falls a Praying that God would go with the Israelites Exod. 34.8 9. For it is a stiffneck'd people What an Argument is here for God to go along with them He might rather since he had heard him but just before say he would by no means clear the guilty desire God to stand further off from them for fear the fire of his wrath should burst out from him to burn them as he did the Sodomites But he considers that as none but God had such anger to destroy them so none but God had such a Patience to bear with them 'T is as much as if he should have said Lord if thou should'st send the most tender hearted Angel in Heaven to have the guidance of this people
that their corruption should be so deep and strong that so much patience could not overcome it It would certainly make a man asham'd of his nature as well as his actions 3. The consideration of his patience would make us resent more the injuries done by others to God A Patient sufferer though a deserving sufferer attracts the pity of men that have a value for any vertue though clouded with a heap of vice How much more should we have a concern for God who suffers so many abuses from others And be grieved that so admirable a patience should be slighted by men who solely live by and under the daily influence of it The impression of this would make us take Gods part as it is usual with men to take the part of good dispositions that lie under oppression 4. It would make us patient under Gods hand His slowness to Anger and his forbearance is visible in the very strokes we feel in this Life We have no reason to murmur against him who gives us so little cause and in the greatest afflictions gives us more occasion of thankfulness than of repining Did not slowness to the extreamest Anger moderate every affliction it had been a Scorpion instead of a rod. We have reason to bless him who from his long-suffering sends temporal sufferings where eternal are justly due Ezra 9.13 Thou hast punished us less than our iniquities do deserve His indulgences towards us have been more than our corrections and the length of his patience hath exceeded the sharpness of his rod Upon the account of his long-suffering our mutinies against God have as little to excuse them as our sins against him have to deserve his forbearance The consideration of this would shew us more reason to repine at our own repinings than at any of his smarter dealings And the consideration of this would make us submissive under the Judgments we expect His undeserved patience hath been more than our merited judgments can possibly be thought to be If we fear the removal of the Gospel for a season as we have reason to do we should rather bless him that by his waiting patience he hath continued it so long then murmur that he threatens to take it away so late He hath born with us many a year since the light of it was re-kindled when our Ancestors had but six years of patience between the rise of Edward the VI and the ascent of Queen Mary to the Crown 2. Exhortation is to admire and stand astonisht at his patience and bless him for it If you should have defil'd your Neighbors bed or sullyed his reputation or rifled his Goods would he have withheld his vengeance unless he had been too weak to execute it We have done worse to God then we can do to man and yet he draws not that Sword of Wrath out of the scabbard of his patience to sheath it in our hearts 'T is not so much a wonder that any Judgments are sent as that there are no more and sharper That the World shall be fired at last is not a thing so strange as that fire doth not come down every day upon some part of it Had the disciples that saw such excellent patterns of mildness from their Master and were so often urg'd to learn of him that was lowly and meek the Government of the World it had been long since turn'd into ashes since they were too forward to desire him to open his magazine of judgments and kindle a fire to consume a Samaritan Village for a slight affront in comparison of what he received from others and afterwards from themselves in their forsaking of him Luke 9.52 53 54. We should admire and praise that here which shall be prais'd in Heaven though patience shall cease as to its exercise after the consummation of the World it shall not cease from receiving the acknowledgments of what it did when it traversed the stage of this Earth If the Name of God be glorified and acknowledged in Heaven no question but this will also since long-suffering is one of his Divine Titles a letter in his name as well as Merciful and Gracious Abundant in Goodness and Truth And there is good reason to think that the patience exercised towards some before converting grace was ordered to seize upon them will bear a great part in the Anthems of Heaven The greater his long-suffering hath been to men that lay covered with their own dung a long time before they were freed by grace from their filth the more admiringly and loudly they will cry up his Mercy to them after they have past the gulf and see a deserv'd Hell at a distance from them and many in that place of torments who never had the tasts of so much forbearance If mercy will be prais'd there that which began the Alphabet of it cannot be forgot If Paul speak so highly of it in a damping World and under the pull-backs of a body of death as he doth 1 Tim. 1.16 17. For this cause I obtained mercy that Christ might shew forth all long-suffering Now unto the King Eternal Immortal Invisible the Only Wise God be Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen No doubt but he will have a higher note for it when he is surrounded with a heavenly flame and freed from all remains of dullness shall it be praised above and have we no notes for it here below Admire Christ too who sued out your repreive upon the account of his merit As mercy acts not upon any but in Christ so neither had patience born with any but in Christ The pronouncing the arrest of Judgment Gen. 8.21 was when God smell'd a sweet savour from Noahs sacrifice not from the Beasts offer'd but the Antitypical sacrifice represented That we may be raised to bless God for it let us consider 1. The multitude of our provocations Though some have blacker guilt than others and deeper stains yet let none wipe his mouth but rather imagine himself to have but little reason to bless it Are not all our offences as many as their have been minutes in our lives All the moments of our continuance in the World have been moments of his Patience and our ingratitude Adam was punished for one sin Moses excluded Canaan for a passionate unbelieving word Ananias and Saphira lost their lives for one sin against the Holy Ghost One sin sullyed the beauty of the World defaced the works of God had crackt Heaven and Earth in pieces had not infinite satisfaction been proposed to the provoked Justice by the Redeemer And not one sin committed but is of the same venemous nature How many of those contradictions against himself hath he born with Had we been only unprofitable to him his forbearance of us had been miraculous But how much doth it exceed a miracle and lift it self above the meanness of a conjunction with such an Epithet since we have been provoking Had there been no more than our impudent or careless