away our guilt on the Cross and pleads for our Persons at the Throne of Grace That Blood which silenc'd the Curse pacifi'd Heaven and purg'd Earth is given to us for our refreshment This is the Bread sent from Heaven the true Manna The Cup is the Cup of Blessing and therefore a Cup of Goodness †1 Cor. 10.15 'T is true Bread doth not cease to be Bread nor the Wine cease to be Wine neither of them lose their Substance but both acquire a Sanctification by the relation they have to that which they represent and give a nourishment to that Faith that receives them In those God offers us a Remedy for the Sting of Sin and troubles of Conscience He gives us not the Blood of a meer Man or the Blood of an incarnate Angel but of God blessed for ever A Blood that can secure us against the wrath of Heaven and the tumults of our Consciencies A Blood that can wash away our Sins and beautifie our Souls A Blood that hath more strength than our Filth and more prevalency than our Accuser A Blood that secures us against the terrours of Death and purifies us for the Blessedness of Heaven The Goodness of God complies with our senses and condescends to our weakness He instructs us by the Eye as well as by the Ear He lets us see and taste and feel him as well as hear him He vails his Glory under Earthly Elements and informs our understanding in the Mysteries of Salvation by signs familiar to our Senses and because we cannot with our Bodily Eyes behold him in his Glory he presents him to the Eyes of our Minds in Elements to affect our understandings in the representations of his Death The Body of Christ Crucified is more visible to our Spiritual sense than the invisible Deity could be visible in his Flesh upon Earth And the Power of his Body and Blood is as well experimented in our Souls as the power of his Divinity was seen by the Jews in his miraculous actions in his Body in the World 'T is the Goodness of God to mind us frequently of the great things Christ hath purchased That as himself would not let them be out of his mind to communicate them to us so he would give us means to preserve them in our minds to adore him for them and request them of him whereby he doth evidence his own solicitousness that we should not be depriv'd by our own forgetfulness of that Grace Christ hath purchased for us It was to remember the Redeemer and shew his Death till he came * 1 Cor. 1â—â— 25 26. 1. His Goodness is seen in the end of it which is a sealing the Covenant of Grace * Amyral 〈◊〉 p. 16 â—7 The common Nature and End of Sacraments is to seal the Covenant they belong to and the truths of the Promises of it The legal Sacraments of Circumcision and the Passover sealed the legal Promises and the Covenant in the Judaical Administration of it And the Evangelical Sacraments seal the Evangelical Promises as a Ring confirms a contract of Marriage and a Seal the Articles of a Compact By the same reason Circumcision is call'd a Seal of the Righteousnâ—ss of Faith †Rom. 4.11 other Sacraments may have the same Title God doth attest that he will remain firm in his Promise and the Receiver atteâ—ts he will remain firm in his Faith In all Reciprocal Covenants there are mutual Engagements and that which serves for a Seal on the part of the one serves for a Seal also on the part of the other God obligeth himself to the performance of the Promise and Man engageth himself to the performance of his Duty The thing confirm'd by this Sacrament is the perpetuity of this Covenant in the Blood of Christ whence it is called the New Testament or Covenant in the Blood of Christ * Lâ—ke 22.20 In every repetition of it God by presenting confirms his resolution to us of sticking to this Covenant for the Merit of Christs Blood and the Receiver by eating the Body and drinking the Blood engageth himself to keep close to the Condition of Faith expecting a full Salvation and a blessed Immortality upon the Merit of the same Blood alone This Sacrament could not be called the New Testament or Covenant if it had not some relation to the Covenant and what it can be but this I do not understand The Covenant it self was confirm'd by the Death of Christ †Heb. 9.15 and thereby made unchangeable both in the Benefits to us and the Condition requir'd of us but he seals it to our sense in a Sacrament to give us strong consolation Or rather the Articles of the Covenant of Redemption between the Father and the Son agreed on from Eternity were accomplisht on Christs part by his Death on the Fathers part by his Resurrection Christ performed what he promsed in the one and God acknowledgeth the validity of it and performs what he had promised in the other The Covenant of Grace founded upon this Covenant of Redemption is sealed in the Sacrament God owns his standing to the terms of it as sealed by the Blood of the Mediator by presenting him to us under those Signs and gives us a right upon Faith to the enjoyment of the Fruits of it As the right of a House is made over by the delivery of the Key and the right of Land translated by the delivery of a Turf whereby he gives us assurance of his reality and a strong support to our confidence in him Not that there is any vertue and power of sealing in the Elements themselves no more than there is in a Turf to give an Infeoffment in a parcel of Land but as the power of the one is derived from the Order of the Law so the confirming power of the Sacrament is deriv'd from the Institution of God As the Oyl wherewith Kings were anointed did not of it self confer upon them that Royal Dignity but it was a sign of their investiture into Office order'd by Divine Institution We can with no reason imagine that God intended them as naked Signs or Pictures to please our Eyes with the Image of them to represent their own Figures to our Eyes but to confirm something to our understanding by the Efficacy of the Spirit accompanying them * Daille Melâ—â—g part 1. p. 153. They convey to the Believing Receiver what they represent as the great Seal of a Prince fixed to the Parchment doth the Pardon of the Rebel as well as its own Figure Christs Death and the Grace of the Covenant is not only signified but the Fruits and Merit of that Death communicated also Thus doth Divine Goodness evidence it self not only in making a Gracious Covenant with us but fixing Seals to it not to strengthen his own Obligation which stood stronger than the Foundations of Heaven and Earth upon the Credit of his Word but to strengthen our weakness and
which is past And tho' God be said to forget in Scripture and not to know his People and his People pray to him to remember them as if he had forgotten them Psal 119 49. This is improperly ascrib'd to God * Bradward As God is said to repent when he changes things according to his Counsel beyond the expectation of men so he is said to forget when he defers the making good his Promise to the Godly or his Threatnings to the Wicked this is not a defect of Memory belonging to his mind but an act of his Will When he is said to remember his Covenant 't is to Will Grace according to his Covenant when he is said to forget his Covenant 't is to intercept the influences of it whereby to punish the Sin of his People and when he is said not to know his People 't is not an absolute forgetfulness of them but withdrawing from them the Testimonies of his Kindness and clouding the Signs of his favour so God in Pardon is said to forget Sin not that he ceaseth to know it but ceaseth to punish it 'T is not to be meant of a simple forgetfulness or a lapse of his Memory but of a Judicial Forgetfulness so when his People in Scripture Pray Lord Remember thy Word unto thy Servant no more is to be understood but Lord fulfil thy Word and Promise to thy Servant 3. He knows things Present Heb. 4.13 All things are naked and opened unto the Eyes of him with whom we have to do This is grounded upon the Knowledg of himself 't is not so difficult to know all Creatures exactly as to know himself because they are finite but himself is infinite he knows his own Power and therefore every thing through which his Omnipotence is diffus'd all the acts and objects of it not the least thing that is the Birth of his Power can be conceal'd from him he knows his own Goodness and therefore every object upon which the warm beams of his Goodness strike he therefore knows distinctly the properties of every Creature because every Property in them is a Ray of his Goodness he is not only the efficient but the exemplary cause therefore as he knows all that his Power hath wrought as he is the efficient so he knows them in himself as the pattern As a Carpenter can give an account of every part and passage in a House he hath built by consulting the Model in his own mind whereby he built it He looked upon all things after he had made them and pronounc'd them good Gen. 1.3 full of a natural goodness he had endowed them with he did not ignorantly pronounce them so and call them good whether he knew them or not and therefore he knows them in particular as he knew them all in their first Presence Is there any reason he should be ignorant of every thing now present in the World or that any thing that derives an existence from him as a free cause should be concealed from him If he did not know things present in their particularities many things would be known by man yea by Beasts which the infinite God were ignorant of and if he did not know all things present but only some 't is possible for the most Blessed God to be deceived and be miserable Ignorance is a Calamity to the Understanding He could not prescribe Laws to his Creatures unless he knew their Natures to which those Laws were to be suited no not natural Ordinances to the Sun Moon and Heavenly Bodies and inanimate Creatures unless he knew the vigour and vertue in them to execute those Ordinances for to prescribe Laws above the nature of things is inconsistent with the Wisdom of Government he must know how far they were able to obey whether the Laws were suted to their ability And for his rational Creatures Whether the Punishments annext to the Law were proper and suited to the Transgression of the Creature 1. First He knows all Creatures from the highest to the lowest the least as well as the greatest He knows the Ravens and their young ones Job â—â— 41. the Drops of Rain and Dew which he hath begotten Job 38. â—â— every Bird in the Air as well as any man doth what he hath in a Cage at home Psal 50.11 I know all the Fowls in the Mountains and the wild Beasts in the Field which some read creeping things The Clouds are numbred in his Wisdom Job 38.37 every Worm in the Earth every drop of Rain that falls upon the ground the flakes of Snow and the knots of Hail the Sands upon the Sea-shore the Hairs upon the Head 't is no more absurd to imagine that God knows them than that God made them they are all the effects of his Power as well as the Stars which he calls by their Names as well as the most glorious Angel and blessed Spirit he knows them as well as if there were none but them in particular for him to know the least things were framed by his Art as well as the greatest the least things partake of his goodness as well as the greatest he knows his own Arts and his own Goodness and therefore all the Stamps and Impressions of them upon all his Creatures he knows the immediate causes of the least and therefore the effects of those causes Since his knowledg is infinite it must extend to those things which are at the greatest distance from him to those which approach nearest to not Being since he did not want Power to Create he cannot want Understanding to know every thing he hath Created the dispositions qualities and vertues of the minutest Creature Nor is the Vnderstanding of God embas'd and suffers a diminution by the Knowledg of the vilest and most inconsiderable things Is it not an imperfection to be ignorant of the nature of any thing and can God have such a defect in his most perfect Understanding Is the Understanding of man of an impurer Alloy by knowing the nature of the rankest Poysons by understanding a Fly or a small Insect or by considering the deformity of a Toad Is it not generally counted a note of a Dignified mind to be able to Discourse of the Nature of them Was Solomon who knew all from the Cedar to the Hysop debas'd by so Rich a Present of Wisdom from his Creator Is any Glass defil'd by presenting a Deformed Image Is there any thing more vile than the imaginations which are only evil and continually doth not the mind of man descend to the mud of the Earth play the Adulterer or Idolater with mean objects suck in the most unclean things yet God knows these in all their circumstances in every appearance inside and outside Is there any thing viler than some thoughts of men than some actions of men their unclean Beds and Gluttonous Vomiting and Luciferian Pride yet do not these fall under the Eye of God in all their Nakedness The Second Person 's taking
or Wisdom to have let Man perpetually wallow in that Sink wherein he had plung'd himself since he was Criminal by his own will and therefore Miserable by his own fault Nothing could necessitate this Reparation If Divine Goodness could not be obliged by the Angelical Dignity to repair that Nature he is further from any Obligation by the meaness of Man to repair Humane Nature There was less necessity to restore Man than to restore the fallen Angels What could Man do to oblige God to a Reparation of him since he could not render him a Recompence for his Goodness manifested in his Creation He must be much more impotent to render him a Debtor for the Redemption of him from Misery Could it be a salary for any thing we had done Alass we are so far from Meriting it that by our daily Demerits we seem ambitious to put a stop to any further Effusions of it We could not have complain'd of him if he had left us in the Misery we had courted since he was bound by no Law to bestow upon us the Recovery we wanted When the Apostle speaks of the Gospel of Redemption he giveth it the Title of the Gospel of the Blessed God †2 Tim. 1.11 It was the Gospel of a God abounding in his own Blessedness which receiv'd no addition by Mans Redemption If he had been blessed by it it had been a goodness to himself as well as to the Creature It was not an Indigent Goodness needing the receiving any thing from us but it was a pure Goodness streaming out of it self without bringing any thing into it self for the Perfection of it There was no Goodness in us to be the Motive of his Love but his Goodness was the Fountain of our Benefit 3. It was a distinct Goodness of the whole Trinity In the Creation of Man we find a general Consultation * Gen. 1.26 without those distinct Labours and Offices of each Person and without those rais'd Expressions and Marks of Joy and Triumph as at Mans Restoration In this there are distinct Functions The Grace of the Father the Merit of the Son and the Efficacy of the Spirit The Father makes the Promise of Redemption the Son Seals it with his Blood and the Spirit applies it The Father Adopts us to be his Children the Son Redeems us to be his Members and the Spirit Renews us to be his Temples In this the Father testifies himself well pleased in a Voice The Son proclaims his own delight to do the will of God and the Spirit hastens with the Wing of a Dove to fit him for his work And afterwards in his apparition in the likeness of Fiery Tongues manifests his zeal for the propagation of the Redeeming Gospel 4. The Effects of it proclaim his great Goodness 'T is by this we are deliver'd from the Corruption of our Nature the Ruine of our Happiness the deformity of our Sins and the punishment of our Transgressions He frees us from the Ignorance wherewith we were darkned and from the Slavery wherein we were fetter'd When he came to make Adams Process after his Crime instead of pronouncing the Sentence of Death he had merited he utters a Promise that Man could not have expected His Kindness swells above his provoked Justice and while he chaseth him out of Paradise he gives him hopes of regaining the same or a better Habitation and is in the whole more ready to prevent him with the Blessings of his Goodness than charge him with the horrour of his Crimes †Gen. 3.17 'T is a Goodness that pardons us more Transgressions than there are Moments in our Lives and overlooks as many Follies as there are Thoughts in our Heart He doth not only relieve our wants but restores us to our Dignity 'T is a greater Testimony of Goodness to instate a Person in the highest Honour than barely to supply his present Necessity 'T is an admirable Pity whereby he was inclin'd to Redeem us and an incomparable Affection whereby he was resolv'd to exalt us What can be desir'd more of him than his Goodness hath granted He hath sought us out when we were lost and Ransom'd us when we were Captives He hath Pardon'd us when we were Condemn'd and rais'd us when we were Dead In Creation he rear'd us from nothing in Redemption he delivers our Understanding from ignorance and vanity and our Wills from impotence and obstinacy and our whole Man from a Death worse than that nothing he drew us from by Creation 5. Hence we may consider the height of this Goodness in Redemption to exceed that in Creation He gave Man a Being in Creation but did not draw him from unexpressible Misery by that act His Liberality in the Gospel doth infinitely surpass what we admire in the Works of Nature His Goodness in the latter is more astonishing to our belief than his Goodness in Creation is visible to our Eye There is more of his Bounty exprest in that one Verse * Joh. 3.16 So God loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son than there is in the whole Volume of the World 'T is an incomprehensible so a so that all the Angels in Heaven cannot Analyze and few Comment upon or understand the dimensions of this so In Creation he form'd an Innocent Creature of the Dust of the Ground in Redemption he restores a Rebellious Creature by the Blood of his Son It is greater than that Goodness manifested in Creation 1. In regard of the difficulty of effecting it In Creation meer nothing was vanquisht to bring us into Being In Redemption sullen Enmity was conquer'd for the enjoyment of our Restoration In Creation he subdued a Nullity to make us Creatures In Redemption his Goodness overcomes his Omnipotent Justice to restore us to Felicity A word from the Mouth of Goodness inspir'd the Dust of Mens Bodies with a living Soul but the Blood of his Son must be shed and the Laws of Natural Affection seem to be overturn'd to lay the Foundation of our renew'd Happiness In the first Heaven did but speak and the Earth was form'd In the second Heaven it self must sink to Earth and be clothed with dusty Earth to reduce Mans Dust to its Original State 2. This Goodness is greater than that manifested in Creation in regard of its Cost This was a more expensive Goodness than what was laid out in Creation The redemption of one Soul is pretious †Psal 49.8 much more costly than the whole Fabrick of the World or as many Worlds as the understandings of Angels in their utmost extent can conceive to be Created For the effecting of this God parts with his dearest Treasure and his Son Eclipses his choicest Glory For this God must be made Man Eternity must suffer Death the Lord of Angels must weep in a Cradle and the Creator of the World must hang like a Slave he must be in a Manger in Bethlehem and die upon a Cross on
admirable is it for God to speak so kindly to us through the pacifying Blood of the Covenant that silenc'd the terrours of the old and setled the tenderness of the new 2. His Goodness is seen in the Nature and Tenor of the new Covenant There are in this richer Streams of Love and Pity The language of one was die if thou Sin that of the other live if thou believest †Turreti ser p. 33. The old Covenant was founded upon the obedience of Man the new is not founded upon the inconstancy of Mans Will but the firmness of Divine Love and the valuable Merit of Christ The head of the first Covenant was Humane and mutable the head of the second is Divine and immutable The Curse due to us by the breach of the first is taken off by the indulgence of the second * Rom 8.1 We are by it snatcht from the Jaws of the Law to be wrapt up in the bosom of Grace †Rom. 6.14 For you are not under the Law but under Grace from the Curse and condemnation of the Law to the sweetness and forgiveness of Grace Christ bore the one being made a Curse for us * Gal. 3.13 that we might enjoy the sweetness of the other By this we are brought from Mount Sinai the Mount of Terrour to Mount Sion the Mount of Sacrificing the Type of the great Sacrifice †Heb. 12.18 22. That Covenant brought in Death upon one offence this Covenant offers Life after many offences * Rom. 5.16 â—7 That involved us in a Curse and this enricheth us with a Blessing The breaches of that expell'd us out of Paradise and the embracing of this admits us into Heaven This Covenant demands and admits of that Repentance whereof there was no mention in the first That demanded Obedience not Repentance upon a failure and though the exercises of it had been never so deep in the fall'n Creature nothing of the Laws severity had been remitted by any vertue of it Again the first Covenant demanded exact Righteousness but conveyed no cleansing vertue upon the contracting any filth The first demands a continuance in the Righteousness conferr'd in Creation the second imprints a gracious heart in Regeneration I will pour clean Water upon you I will put a new Spirit within you was the voice of the second Covenant not of the first Again as to Pardon Adams Covenant was to punish him not to pardon him if he fell That threatned Death upon Transgression this remits it That was an Act of Divine Soveraignty declaring the will of God this is an Act of Divine Grace passing an Act of Oblivion on the Crimes of the Creature That as it demanded no Repentance upon a failure so it promised no Mercy upon guilt That convened our Sin and condemned us for it this clears our guilt and comforts us under it The first Covenant related us to God as a Judge every transgression against it forfeited his indulgence as a Father The second delivers us from God as a condemning Judge to bring us under his Wing as an affectionate Father In the one there was a dreadful frown to scare us in the other a healing Wing to cover and relieve us Again in regard of Righteousness That demanded our performance of a Righteousness in and by our selves and our own strength This demands our acceptance of a Righteousness higher than ever the standing Angels had The Righteousness of the first Covenant was the Righteousness of a Man the Righteousness of the second is the Righteousness of a God †2 Cor. 5.21 Again in regard of that Obedience it demands it exacts not of us as a necessary condition the Perfection of Obedience but the sincerity of Obedience an uprightness in our intention not an unspottedness in our action an integrity in our aims and an industry in our compliance with Divine Precepts * Gen. 17.1 Walk before me and be thou perfect i. e. sincere What is hearty in our actions is accepted and what is defective is over-looked and not charg'd upon us because of the Obedience and Righteousness of our surety The first Covenant rejected all our services after Sin the services of a Person under the sentence of Death are but dead services This accepts our imperfect services after Faith in it That administred no strength to obey but supposed it This supposeth our inability to obey and confers some strength for it †Ezek. 36.27 I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes Again in regard of the Promises * Heb. 8.6 The old Covenant had good but the new hath better Promises of justification after guilt and sanctification after filth and glorification at last of the whole Man In the first there was provision against guilt but none for the removal of it Provision against filth but none for the cleansing of it Promise of happiness implied but not so great a one as that Life and Immortality in Heaven brought to light by the Gospel †2 Tim. 1.10 Why said to be brought to light by the Gospel because it was not only buried upon the fall of Man under the Curses of the Law but it was not so obvious to the conceptions of Man in his Innocent State Life indeed was implied to be promised upon his standing but not so glorious an immortality disclosed to be reserved for him if he stood As it is a Covenant of better Promises so a Covenant of sweeter Comforts Comforts more choice and Comforts more durable An everlasting Consolation and a good hâ—pe are the fruits of Grace i. e. the Covenant of Grace * 2 Thes 2.16 In the whole there is such a love disclosed as cannot be exprest The Apostle leaves it to every Mans mind to conceive it if he could what manner of love the Fâ—ther hath bâ—stowed upon us that we should be call'd the Sons of God †1 Joh. 3.1 It inâ—â—ates us in such a manner of the love of God as he bears to his Son the Image of his Person * John 17 2â— That the World may know that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me 3. This Goodness appears in the choice gift of himsâ—lf which he hath made over in this Covenant You know how it runs in Scripture I will be their God and they shall be my People †Gen. 17.7 A propriety in the Deity is made over by it As he gave the Blood of his Son to Seal the Covenant so he gave himself as the Blessing of the Covenant He is not ashamed to be called their God * Jer. 32.38 Though he be environ'd with Millions of Angels and presides over them in an unexpressible glory he is not ashamed of his condescensions to Man and to pass over himself as the propriety of his People as well as to take them to be his 'T is a diminution of the sense of the place to understand it of
the Kingdom of Heaven 'T is very reasonable that things so great and glorious so beneficial to Men and reveal'd to them by so sound an Authority and an unerring truth should be believed The Excellency of the thing disclos'd could admit of no lower a Condition than to be believ'd and embraced There is a sort of Faith that is a Natural Condition in every thing All Religion in the World though never so false depends upon a sort of it for unless there be a belief of future things there would never be a hope of Good or a fear of Evil the two great Hinges upon which Religion moves In all kinds of Learning many things must be believed before a progress can be made Belief of one another is necessary in all acts of Humane Life without which Humane Society would be unlinkt and dissolv'd What is that Faith that God requires of us in this Covenant but a willingness of Soul to take God for our God Christ for our Mediator and the Procurer of our Happiness * Rev. 22.17 What Prince could require less upon any Promise he makes his Subjects than to be believed as true and depended on as good That they should accept his Pardon and other gracious offers and be sincere in their Allegiance to him avoiding all things that may offend him and pursuing all things that may please him Thus God by so small and reasonable a Condition as Faith le ts in the Fruits of Christs Death into our Soul and wraps us up in the fruition of all the Priviledges purchas'd by it So much he hath condescended in his Goodness that upon so slight a Condition we may plead his Promise and humbly challenge by vertue of the Covenant those good things he hath promised in his Word 'T is so reasonable a Condition that if God did not require it in the Covenant of Grace the Creature were obliged to perform it For the publishing any Truth from God naturally calls for Credit to be given it by the Creature and an entertainment of it in Practice Could you offer a more reasonable Condition your selves had it been left to your choice Should a Prince proclaim a Pardon to a profligate Wretch would not all the World cry shame of him if he did not believe it upon the highest assurances and if Ingenuity did not make him sorry for his Crimes and careful in the Duty of a Subject surely the World would cry shame of such a Person 5. 'T is a necessary Condition 1. Necessary for the honour of God A Prince is disparag'd if his Authority in his Law and if his Graciousness in his Promises be not accepted and believed What Physician would undertake a Cure if his Precepts may not be Credited 'T is the first thing in the order of Nature that the Revelation of God should be believed that the reality of his Intentions in inviting Man to the acceptance of those Methods he hath prescribed for their attaining their chief Happiness should be acknowledged 'T is a debasing Notion of God that he should give a Happiness purchased by Divine Blood to a Person that hath no value for it nor any abhorrency of those Sins that occasion'd so great a Suffering nor any will to avoid them Should he not vilifie himself to bestow a Heaven upon that Man that will not believe the offers of it nor walk in those ways that leads to it That walks so as if he would declare there was no truth in his Word nor Holiness in his Nature Would not God by such an act verifie a truth in the language of their practice viz. that he were both false and impure careless of his Word and negligent of his Holiness As God was so desirous to ensure the Consolation of Believers that if there had been a greater Being than himself to attest and for him to be Responsible to for the confirmation of his Promise he would willingly have submitted to him and have made him the Umpire * Heb. 6.19 He swore by himself because he could not swear by a greater By the same reason Had it stood with the Majesty and Wisdom of God to stoop to lower Conditions in this Covenant for the reducing of Man to his Duty and Happiness he would have done it but his Goodness could not take lower steps with the preservation of the Rights of his Majesty and the Honour of his Wisdom Would you have had him wholly submitted to the obstinate will of a Rebellious Creature and be ruled only by his terms Would you have had him receiv'd Men to Happiness after they had heightned their Crimes by a contempt of his Grace as well as of his Creating Goodness and have made them blessed under the guilt of their Crimes without an acknowledgment Should he glorifie one that will not believe what he hath reveal'd nor repent of what himself hath committed and so save a Man after a repeated unthankfulness to the most immense Grace that ever was or can be discovered and offer'd without a detestation of his ingratitude and a voluntary acceptance of his offers 'T is necessary for the honour of God that Man should accept of his terms and not give Laws to him to whom he is obnoxious as a guilty Person as well as Subject as a Creature Again it was very equitable and necessary for the honour of God that since Man fell by an unbelief of his Precept and Threatning he should not rise again without a belief of his Promise and calling himself upon his Truth in that Since he had vilified the honour of his Truth in the Threatning Since Man in his fall would lean to his own understanding against God 't is fit that in his Recovery the highest powers of his Soul his Understanding and Will should be subjected to him in an intire Resignation Now whereas Knowledge seems to have a power over its Object Faith is a full submission to that which is the Object of it Since Man intended a glorying in himself the Evangelical Covenant directs its whole battery against it that Men may glory in nothing but Divine Goodness †1 Cor. 1.29 30 31. Had Man perform'd exact Obedience by his own Strength he had had something in himself as the Matter of his Glory And though after the fall Grace had made it self illustrious in setting him up upon a new Stock yet had the same Condition of exact Obedience been setled in the same manner Man would have had something to glory in which is strook off wholly by Faith whereby Man in every act must go out of himself for a supply to that Mediator which Divine Goodness and Grace hath appointed 2. 'T is necessary for the happiness of Man That can be no contenting Condition wherein the will of Man doth not concur He that is forced to the most delicious Diet or to wear the bravest Apparel or to be stor'd with abundance of Treasure cannot be happy in those things without an esteem of them
is true there is a guilt of the Body and Bloud of Christ contracted by a slightness in the manner of attending Is it not also contracted by a refusal and neglect What is the language of it If it speaks not the death of Christ in vain it speaks the institution of this Ordinance as a remembrance of his death to be a vanity and no mark of Divine Goodness Let us therefore put such a value upon Divine Goodness in this affair as to be willing to receive the conveyances of his love and fresh engagements of our duty the one is due from us to the kindness of our Friend and the other belongs to our duty as his Subjects 6. By this Redemption God restores us to a more excellent condition than Adam had in Innocence Christ was sent by Divine Goodness not only to restore the Life Adam's sin had stript us of but to give it more abundantly than Adam standing could have conveyed it to us * Joh. 10.10 I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly More abundantly for strength more abundantly for duration a life abounding with greater felicity and glory The substance of those better Promises of the New Covenant than what attended the old There are fuller Streams of Grace by Christ than flowed to Adam or could flow from Adam As Christ never restored any to health and strength while he was in the World but he gave them a greater measure of both than they had before so there is the same kindness no question manifested in our Spiritual condition Adam's life might have preserv'd us but Adam's death could not have rescued either Himself or his Posterity but in our Redemption we have a Redeemer who hath died to expiate our sins and so Crowned with life to save and for ever preserve our persons * Rom. 5.10 Because I live ye shall live also So that by Redeeming Goodness the life of a Believer is as perpetual as the life of the Redeemer Christ †Joh. 14.19 Adam though Innocent was under the danger of perishing a Believer though culpable is above the fears of Mutability Adam had a holiness in his Nature but capable of being lost by Christ Believers have a holiness bestowed not capable of being rifled but which will remain till it be at last fully perfected Though they have a power to change in their Nature yet they are above an actual final change by the indulgence of Divine Grace Adam stood by himself Believers stand in a Root impossible to be shaken or corrupted By this means the promise is sure to all the Sâ—ed * Rom. 4.16 Christ is a stronger person than Adam who can never break Covenant with God and the truth of God will never break Covenant with him We are united to a more excellent head than Adam Instead of a Root meerly Humane we have a Root Divine as well as Humane In him we had the Righteousness of a Creature meerly Humane In this we have a Righteousness Divine the Righteousness of God-man the stock is no longer in our own hands but in the hands of one that cannot imbezzle it or forfeit it Divine Goodness hath deposited it strongly for our security The stamp we receive by the Divine Goodness from the second Adam is more noble than that we should have received from the first had he remained in his created State Adam was formed of the Dust of the Earth and the New Man is formed by the incorruptible Seed of the word And at the Resurrection the Body of Man shall be endued with better qualities than Adam had at Creation They shall be like that glorious Body which is in Heaven in union with the person of the Son of God * Phil. 3.21 Adam at the best had but an Earthly Body but the Lord from Heaven hath a Heavenly Body the Image of which shall be born by the Redeemed Ones as they have born the Image of the Earthly * Cor. 1.15.47 48 49. Adam had the Society of Beasts Redeemed ones expect by Divine Goodness in Redemption a commerce with Angels as they are reconciled to them by his death they shall certainly come to converse with them at the consummation of their happiness As they are made of one Family so they will have a peculiar intimacy Adam had a Paradise and Redeem'd Ones a Heaven provided for them a happier place with a richer furniture 'T is much to give so compleat a Paradise to innocent Adam but more to give Heaven to an ungrateful Adam and his Rebellious Posterity It had been abundant Goodness to have restor'd us to the same condition in that Paradise from whence we were ejected but a super-abundant Goodness to bestow upon us a better habitation in Heaven which we could never have expected How great is that Goodness when by sin we were fallen to be worse than nothing that he should raise us to be more than what we were That restor'd us not to the first step of our Creation but to many degrees of elevation beyond it Not only restores us but prefers us not only striking off our Chains to set us free but cloathing us with a Robe of Righteousness to render us honourable Not only quenching our Hell but preparing a Heaven not regarnishing an earthly but providing a richer Palace His Goodness was so great that after it had rescued us it would not content it self with the old furniture but makes all new for us in another World A new Wine to drink a new Heaven to dwell in a more magnificent Structure for our Habitation Thus hath Goodness prepared for us a straiter Union a stronger Life a purer Righteousness an unshaken Standing and a fuller Glory All more excellent then was within the compass of innocent Adam's Possession 7. This Goodness in Redemption extends it self to the lower Creation It takes in not only Man but the whole Creation except the Fallen Angels and gives a participation of it to insensible Creatures upon the account of this Redemption the Sun and all kind of Creatures were preserv'd which otherwise had sunk into destruction upon the sin of Man and ceas'd from their Being as Man had utterly ceas'd from his Happiness * Colos 1.17 By him all things consist The Fall of Man brought not only a misery upon himself but a Vanity upon the Creature The Earth groaned under a Curse for his sake They were all created for the Glory of God and the support of Man in the performance of his duty who was obliged to use them for the honour of him that created them both Had Man been true to his obligations and used the Creatures for that end to which they were dedicated by the Creator As God would have then rejoiced in his Works so his Works would have rejoiced in the honour of answering so excellent an end But when Man lost his integrity the Creatures lost their Perfection the honour of them
self always before us is to acknowledge no being but our selves to be God Secondly 2. The second thing Man would make any thing his End and happiness rather than God An end is so necessary in all our actions that he deserves not the name of a rational Creature that proposeth not one to himself This is the distinction between rational Creatures and others they act with a formal intention whereas other Creatures are directed to their end by a natural instinct and moved by nature to what the others should be moved by reason When a Man therefore Acts for that end which was not intended him by the Law of his Creation nor is suited to the noble faculties of his Soul He acts contrary to God overturns his order and merits no better a title than that of an Atheist A Man may be said two ways to make a thing his last end and chief good 1. Formally When he actually Judges this or that thing to be his chiefest good and orders all things to it So Man doth not formally Judge sin to be good or any object which is the incentive of sin to be his last end This cannot be while he hath the exercise of his rational faculties 2. Vertually and implicitely When he loves any thing against the Command of God and preferrs in the stream of his actions the enjoyment of that before the fruition of God and lays out more strength and expends more time in the gaining that than answering the true end of his Creation VVhen he acts so as if something below God could make him happy without God or that God could not make him happy without the addition of something else Thus the Glutton makes a God of his dainties the ambitious Man of his Honour the incontinent Man of his lust and the Covetous Man of his wealth and Consequently esteems them as his chiefest good and the most noble end to which he directs his thoughts Thus he vilifies and lessens the true God which can make him happy in a multitude of false Gods that can only render him miserable He that loves pleasure more than God says in his heart there is no God but his pleasure He that loves his belly more than God says in his heart there is no God but his belly Their happiness is not accounted to lie in that God that made the World but in the pleasure or profit they make their God In this tho a Created object be the immediate and subordinate term to which we turn yet principally and ultimately the affection to it terminates in self Nothing is naturally entertained by us but as it affects our sense or mingles with some promise of advantage to us This is seen 1. In the fewer thoughts we have of God than of any thing else Did we apprehend God to be our chiefest good and highest end should we grudge him the pains of a few days thoughts upon him Men in their Travells are frequently thinking upon their intended stage But our thoughts run upon new acquisitions to increase our wealth rear up our Families Revenge our injuries and support our reputation Trifles possess us but God is not in all our thoughts * Psa 10.4 seldom the sole object of them VVe have durable thoughts of transitory things and flitting thoughts of a durable and Eternal good The Covenant of grace engageth the whole heart to God and bars any thing else from ingrossing it But what strangers are God and the Souls of most men Though we have the knowledge of him by Creation yet he is for the most part an unknown God in the Relations wherein he stands to us because a God undelighted in Hence it is as one obeserves * Jackson vol. book 1. cap. 14. pa. 48. that because we observe not the ways of Gods wisdom conceive not of him in his vast perfections nor are stricken with an admiration of his goodness that we have fewer good sacred Poems than of any other kind The wits of Men hang the wing when they come to exercise their reasons and fancies about God Parts and strength are given us as well as Corn and Wine to the Isralites for the service of God but those are Consecrated to some Cursed Baal * Hos 2.8 Like Venus in the Poet we forsake Heaven to follow some Adonis 2. In the greedy pursuit of the World * Quod quisque prae caeteris petit summum judicat bonum Bâ—et lib. 3. pa. 24. When we pursue worldly wealth or worldly reputation with more vehemency than the riches of grace or the favour of God VVhen we have a foolish imagination that our happiness consists in them we prefer Earth before Heaven broken Cisterns which can hold no water before an ever Springing Fountain of glory and bliss And as tho there were a defect in God cannot be content with him as our portion without an addition of something inferior to him VVhen we make it our hopes and say to the wedge thou art my Confidence and rejoyce more because it is great and because our hand hath gotten much than in the priviledge of Communion with God and the promise of an everlasting fruition of him * Job 31.24.25 This is so gross that Job joyns it with the Idolatry of the Sun and Moon which he purgeth himself of ver 26. And the Apostle when he mentions Covetousness or Covetous men passes it not over without the title of Idolatry to the vice and Idolater to the person * Col. 3.5 Eph. 5.5 In that it is a preferring Clay and Dirt as an end more desirable than the original of all goodness in regard of affection and dependence 3. In a strong addictedness to sensual pleasures Phil. 3.19 VVho make their belly their God subjecting the truths of God to the maintenance of their Luxury In debasing the higher faculties to project for the satisfaction of the sensitive appetite as their chief happiness whereby many render themselves no better than a rout of sublimated brutes among men and gross Atheists to God VVhen mens thoughts run also upon inventing new methods to satisfie their bestial appetite forsaking the pleasures which are to be had in God which are the delights of Angels for the satisfaction of brutes This is an open and unquestionable refusal of God for our end when our rest is in them as if they were the chief good and not God 4. In paying a service upon any success in the World to Instruments more than to God the Soveraign Author VVhen they Sacrifice to their Net and burn incense to their Drag * Hab. 1.16 Not that the Assyrian did offer a Sacrifice to his arms but ascrib'd to them what was due only to God and appropriated the Victory to his forces and arms The Prophet alludes to those that worshipped their VVarlike Instruments whereby they had attained great Victories and those Artificers who worshipped the Tools by which they had purchased great wealth in the stead of God
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
approach to the Object of the Souls affection Love is appetitus unionis The more love the more delight in the approachings of God to the Soul or the out-goings of the Soul to God As the Object of Worship is amiable in a spiritual eye so the â—â—â—hs tending to a communion with this Object are delightful in the exercise Where there is no delight in a duty there is no delight in the object of the duty The more of grace the more of pleasure in the actings of it As the more of nature there is in any natural Agent the more of pleasure in the Act So the more heavenly the Worship the more spiritual Delight is the frame and temper of Glory A heart filled up to the brim with joy is a heart filled up to the brim with the Spirit Joy is the fruit of the Holy-Ghost * Gal. 5.22 1. Not the joy of Gods dispensation flowing from God but a gracious active joy streaming to God There is a joy when the Comforts of God are dropt into the Soul as Oyle upon the Wheel which indeed makes the faculties move with more speed and activity in his service like the Chariots of Aminadab And a Soul may serve God in the strength of this taste and its delight terminated in the sensible comfort This is not the joy I mean but such a joy that hath God for its Object delighting in him as the term in worship as the way to him The first is Gods dispensation the other is our duty The first is an act of Gods favour to us the second a sprout of habitual grace in us The Comforts we have from God may elevate our duties but the grace we have within doth spiritualize our duties 2. Nor is every delight an argument of a spiritual service All the the requisites to worship must be taken in A man may invent a worship and delight in it as Micah in the adoration of his Idol when he was glad he had got both an Ephod and a Levite * Judges 17. As a man may have a contentment in Sin so he may have a contentment in Worship not because it is a worship of God but the worship of his own invention agreeable to his own humor and design as Isa 58.2 't is said they delighted in approaching to God but it was for carnal ends Novelty ingenders Complacency but it must be a worship wherein God will delight and that must be a worship according to his own Rule and infinite Wisdom and not our shallow fancies God requires a cheerfulness in his service especially under the Gospel where he sits upon a Throne of Grace discovers himself in his amiableness and acts the Covenant of Grace and the sweet relation of a Father The Priests of old were not to fully themselves with any sorrow when they were in the exercise of their functions God put a bar to the natural affections of Aaron and his Sons when Nadab and Abihu had been cut off by a severe hand of God * Lev. 10.6 Every true Christian in a higher order of Priest-hood is a person dedicated to joy and peace offering himself a lively Sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving And there is no Christian duty but is to be set off and seasoned with cheerfulness He that loves a cheerful Giver in acts of Charity requires no less a cheerful Spirit in acts of Worship As this is an ingredient in worship so it is the means to make your Spirits intent in worship When the heart triumphs in the consideration of Divine excellency and goodness it will be angry at any thing that offers to jogg and disturb it 8. Spiritual worship is to be performed though with a delight in God yet with a deep reverence of God The Gospel in advancing the spirituality of worship takes off the terror but not the reverence of God which is nothing else in its own nature but a due and high esteem of the excellency of a thing according to the nature of it And therefore the Gospel presenting us with more illustrious notices of the glorious nature of God is so far from indulging any disesteem of him that it requires of us a greater reverence sutable to the hight of its discovery above what could be spell'd in the Book of Creation The Gospel worship is therefore exprest by trembling Hos 11.10 They shall walk after the Lord he shall roar like a Lion when he shall roar then the Children shall tremble from the West When the Lion of the Tribe of Judah shall lift up his powerful voice in the Gospel the Western Gentiles shall run trembling to walk after the Lord. God hath alway attended his greatest manifestations with remarkable Characters of Majesty to create a reverence in his Creature He caused the wind to March before him to cut the Mountain when he manifested himself to Elijah 1 Kings 19.11 A Wind and a Cloud of Fire before that magnificent Vision to Ezekiel Ezek. 1.4 5. Thunders and Lightnings before the giving the Law Exod. 19.18 And a mighty wind before the giving the Spirit Acts 2. God requires of us an aw of him in the very act of performance The Angels are pure and cannot fear him as Sinners but in reverence they cover their Faces when they stand before him * Isa 6.2 His power should make us reverence him as we are Creatures His Justice as we are Sinners His goodness as we are restored Creatures * Daille Sur. 3. Jean P. 150. God is clothed with unspeakable Majesty the glory of his face shines brighter than the Lights of Heaven in their beauty Before him the Angels tremble and the Heavens melt we ought not therefore to come before him with the Sacrifice of Fools nor tender a duty to him without falling low upon our faces and bowing the knees of our hearts in token of reverence Not a slavish fear like that of Devils but a Godly fear like that of Saints * Heb. 12.28 joyned with a sense of an unmoveable Kingdom becomth us And this the Apostle calls a grace necessary to make our service acceptable And therefore the grace necessary to make it spiritual since nothing finds admission to God but what is of a spiritual nature The consideration of his glorious nature should imprint an awful respect upon our Souls to him His goodness should make his Majesty more adorable to us as his Majesty makes his goodness more admirable in his condescensions to us As God is a Spirit our worship must be spiritual and being he is the supream Spirit our worship must be reverential We must observe the State he takes upon him in his Ordinances He is in Heaven we upon the Earth we must not therefore be hasty to utter any thing before God Eccles 5.7 Consider him a Spirit in the highest Heavens and our selves Spirits dwelling in a dreggy Earth Loose and garish frames debase him to our own quality Slight postures of Spirit intimate him to
This unchangeableness of Gods Will shews him as ready to accept any that come to him as ever he was so that we may with confidence make our addresses to him since he cannot change his affections to goodness The fear of change in a friend hinders a full reliance upon him An assurance of stability encourages hope and confidence This attribute is the strongest Prop for faith in all our addresses t is not a single perfection but the glory of all those that belong to his nature for he is unchangeable in his love Jer. 31.3 in his truth Psal 117.2 The more solemn Revelation of himself in this name Jehovah which signifies chiefly his Eternity and immutability was to support the Israelites faith in expectation of a deliverance from Egypt that he had not retracted his purpose and his promise made to Abraham for giving Canaan to his posterity * Exod. 3.14 15 16 17. Herein is the basis and strength of all his promises therefore saith the Psalmist those that know thy name will put their trust in thee * Psal 9.10 Those that are Spiritually acquainted with thy name Jehovah and have a true sense of it upon their hearts will put their trust in thee His goodness could not be distrusted if his unchangeableness were well apprehended and considered All distrust would fly before it as darkness before the Sun it only gets advantage of us when we are not well grounded in his name and if ever we trusted God we have the same reason to trust him for ever Isa 26.4 Trust in the Lord for ever for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength or as t is in the Hebrew a Rock of Ages that is perpetually unchangeable We find the traces of Gods immutability in the Creatures he has by his peremptory decree set bounds to the Sea hitherto shalt thou come but no further and here shall thy proud waves be stayed * Job 38.11 Do we fear the Sea overflowing us in this Island No because of his fixt decree And is not his promise in his Word as unchangeable as his Word concerning inanimate things as good a ground to rest upon 1. The Covenant stands unchangeable Mutable Creatures break their Leagues and Covenants and snap them asunder like Sampsons Cords when they are not accommodated to their interests But an unchangeable God keeps his the Mountains shall depart and the hills be removed but my kindness shall not depart from thee nor shall the Covenant of my peace be removed * Isa 54.10 The Heaven and Earth shall sooner fall asunder and the strongest and firmest parts of the Creation crumble to dust sooner than one Iota of my Covenant shall fail It depends upon the unchangeableness of his Will and the unchangeableness of his word and therefore is called the immutability of his Counsel Heb. 6.17 T is the fruit of the everlasting purpose of God whence the Apostle links purpose and grace together * 2 Tim. 1.9 A Covenant with a Nation may be changeable because it may not be built upon the Eternal purpose of God to put his fear in the heart but with respect to the Creatures obedience Thus God chose Jerusalem as the place wherein he would dwell for ever * Psal 132.14 yet he threatens to depart from them when they had broken Covenant with him and the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the City to the Mountain on the east side * Ezek. 11.33 The Covenant of grace doth not run I will be your God if you will be my people But I will be their God and they shall be my people Hos 2.19 c. I will betroth thee to me for ever I will say thou art my people and they shall say thou art my God His everlasting purpose is to write his Laws in the hearts of the elect He puts a condition to his Covenant of Grace the condition of faith and he resolves to work that condition in the hearts of the Elect and therefore believers have two immutable pillars for their support stronger than those erected by Solomon at the porch of the Temple 1 Kings 7.21 called Jakin and Boaz to note the firmness of that building dedicated to God these are Election or the standing Counsel of God and the Covenant of grace He will not revoke the Covenant and blot the names of his elect out of the book of life 2. Perseverance is ascertained It consists not with the Majesty of God to call a person effectually to himself to day to make him sit for his Eternal love to give him faith and take away that faith to morrow his effectual call is the the fruit of his Eternal Election and that Counsel hath no other foundation but his constant and unchangeable Will a foundation that stands sure and therefore called the foundation of God and not of the Creature the foundation of God stands sure the Lord knows who are his * 2 Tim. 2.19 T is not founded upon our own natural strength it may be then subject to change as all the products of nature are The fallen Angels had Created Grace in their innocency but lost it by their fall * Turretin Ser. p. 322. Were this the foundation of the Creature it might soon be shaken since man after his revolt can ascribe nothing constant to himself but his own inconstancy But the foundation is not in the infirmity of nature but the strength of grace and of the grace of God who is immutable who wants not vertue to be able nor kindness to be willing to preserve his own foundation To what purpose doth our Saviour tell his Disciples their names were written in Heaven * Luk. 10.20 but to mark the infallible certainty of their Salvation by an opposition to those things which perish and have their names written in the Earth * Jer. 17.23 or upon the sand where they may be defaced And why should Christ order his Disciples to rejoyce that their names were written in Heaven if God were changeable to blot them out again or why should the Apostle assure us that tho God had rejected the greatest part of the Jews he had not therefore rejected his people elected according to his purpose and immutable Counsel because there are none of the elect of God but will come to Salvation For saith he the Election hath obtained it * Rom. 11.7 that is all those that are of the Election have obtained it and the others are hardned Where the Seal of Sanctification is stampt it is a testimony of Gods Election and that foundation shall stand sure The foundation of the Lord stands sure having this Seal the Lord knows who are his that is the foundation the naming the name of Christ or believing in Christ and departing from iniquity is the Seal * Cocceius As t is impossible when God calls those things that are not but that they should spring up into being and appear before
use them no better than Men do devouring Fish and untam'd Beasts with a Hook in the Nose and a Bridle in the Mouth Those States-men in Isa 29.15 thought their Contrivances too deep for God to fathom and too close for God to frustrate They seek deep to hide their Counsels from the Lord surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the Potters Clay of no more force and understanding than a Potters Vessel which understands not its own form wrought by the Artificer nor the use it is put to by the Buyer and Possessor or shall be esteemed as a Potters Vessel that can be as easily flung back into the Mass from whence it was taken as preserved in the Figure it is now endued with No secret Designer is shrowded from Gods sight or can be shelter'd from Gods Arm He understands the Venom of their Hearts better than we can feel it and discovers their inward fury more plainly than we can see the Sting or Teeth of a Viper when they are opened for mischief and to what purpose doth God know and see them but in order to deliver his People from them in his own due time I know their sorrow and am come down to deliver them * Ex. 3.7 8. The Walls of Jerusalem are continually before him he knows therefore all that would undermine and demolish them None can hurt Zion by any ignorance or inadvertency in God 'T is observable that our Saviour assuming to himself a different Title in every Epistle to the Seven Churches doth particularly ascribe to himself this of Knowledge and Wrath in that to Thyatira an Emblem or Description of the Romish State * Rev. 2 1â— And unto the Angel of the Church of Thyatira write These things saith the Son of God who hath his Eyes like to a flame of Fire and his Feet like fine Brass His Eyes like a flame of Fire are of a piercing nature insinuating themselves into all the Pores and parts of the Body they encounter with and his Feet like Brass to crush them with is explained Verse 23. I will k ll her Children with Death and all the Churches shall know that I am he which searches the Reins and the Heart and I will give to every one of you according to your works He knows every design of the Romish Party design'd by that Church of Thyatira * For the Evidence of it I refer you to Dr. More 's Exposition of the seven Churches worthy every Learned and Vnderstanding Mans reading and of every sober Romanist Jezabel there signifies a whorish Church such a Church as shall act as Jezabel Ahab's Wife who was not only a Worshipper of Idols but propagated Idolatry in Israel slew the Prophets persecuted Elijah murdered Naboth the Name whereof signifies Prophesie seiz'd upon his Possession And if it be said that Verse 19. this Church was commended for her Works Faith Patience 't is true Rome did at first strongly profess Christianity and maintain'd the interest of it but afterwards fell into the practice of Jezabel and committed Spiritual Adultery And is she to be owned for a Wife that now plays the Harlot because she was honest and modest at her first Marriage * Coc. in loc And though she shall be destroy'd yet not speedily Verse 22. I will cast her into a Bed seems to intimate the destruction of Jezabel not to be at once and speedily but in a lingring way and by degrees as Sicknes consumes a Body 2. This Perfection of God fits him to be a special Object of Trust If he were forgetful what comfort could we have in any Promise How could we depend upon him if he were ignorant of our State His Compassions to pity us his Readiness to relieve us his Power to protect and assist us would be insignificant without his Omniscience to inform his Goodness and direct the Arm of his Power This Perfection is as it were Gods Office of Intelligence As you go to your Memorandum Book to know what you are to do so doth God to his Omniscience This Perfection is Gods Eye to acquaint him with the necessities of his Church and directs all his other Attributes in their exercise for and about his People You may depend upon his Mercy that hath promised and upon his Truth to perform upon his Sufficiency to supply you and his Goodness to relieve you and his Righteousness to reward you because he hath an infinite Understanding to know you and your wants you and your services And without this knowledge of his no comfort could be drawn from any other Perfection none of them could be a sure Nail to hang our hopes and confidence upon This is that the Church alway Celebrated Psal 105.7 He hath remembred his Covenant for ever and the Word which he hath commanded to a thousand generations And Verse 42. He remembred his holy Promise and he remembred for them his Covenant * Psal 106.45 He remembers and understands his Covenant therefore his Promise to perform it and therefore our Wants to supply them 3. And the rather because God knows the Persons of all his own He hath in his infinite Understanding the exact number of all the individual Persons that belong to him 2 Tim. 2.19 The Lord knows them that are his He knows all things because he hath Created them and he knows his People because he hath not only made them but also chose them He could no more choose he knew not what than he could Create he knew not what He knows them under a double Title of Creation as Creatures in the common Mass of Creation as new Creatures by a particular act of Separation He cannot be ignorant of them in time whom he fore-knew from Eternity His knowledge in time is the same he had from Eternity He fore-knew them that he intended to give the Grace of Faith unto and he knows them after they believe because he knows his own act in bestowing Grace upon them and his own Mark and Seal wherewith he hath stampt them No doubt but he that calls the Stars of Heaven by their names * Psal 147.4 knows the number of those living Stars that sparkle in the Firmament of his Church He cannot be ignorant of their Persons when he numbers the Hairs of their Heads and hath Registred their Names in the Book of Life As he only had an infinite Mercy to make the choice so he only hath an infinite Understanding to comprehend their Persons We only know the Elect of God by a Moral assurance in the Judgment of Charity when the Conversation of Men is according to the Doctrine of God We have not an infallible knowledge of them we may be often mistaken Judas a Devil may be judged by Man for a Saint till he be stript of his disguise God only hath an infallible knowledge of them he knows his own Records and the Counterparts in the hearts of his People None can counterfeit
Pet. 1.12 It was publish'd in Paradise but in such words as Adam did not fully understand It was both discover'd and clouded in the Smoke of Sacrifices It was wrapped up in a Vail under the Law but not open'd till the Death of the Redeemer It was then plainly said to the Cities of Judah Behold your God comes The whole Transaction of it between the Father and the Son which is the Spirit of the Gospel was from Eternity the Creation of the World was in order to the manifestation of it Let us not then regard the Gospel as a Novelty the consideration of it as one of Gods Cabinet Rarities should enhance our Estimation of it No Traditions of Men no Inventions of vain Wits that pretend to be wiser than God should have the same Credit with that which bears date from Eternity 8. Observe That Divine Truth is Mysterious According to the revelation of the mystery Christ manifested in the flesh The whole Scheme of Godliness is a Mystery No Man or Angel could imagine how two Natures so distant as the Divine and Human should be united how the same Person should be Criminal and Righteous how a Just God should have a Satisfaction and Sinful Man a Justification how the Sin should be punish'd and the Sinner saved None could imagine such a way of Justification as the Apostle in this Epistle declares It was a Mystery when hid under the Shadows of the Law and a Mystery to the Prophets when it sounded from their Mouths they searched it without being able to comprehend it †1 Pet. 1.10 11. If it be a Mystery 't is humbly to be submitted to Mysteries surmount Human Reason The study of the Gospel must not be with a yawning and careless frame Trades you call Mysteries are not learned sleeping and nodding Diligence is required we must be Disciples at Gods Feet As it had God for the Author so we must have God for the Teacher of it the Contrivance was his and the Illumination of our Minds must be from him As God only manifested the Gospel so he only can open our Eyes to see the Mysteries of Christ in it In Verse 26. we may observe 1. The Scriptures of the Old Testament verifie the substance of the New and the New doth evidence the Authority of the Old By the Scriptures of the Prophets made known The Old Testament credits the New and the New illustrates the Old The New Testament is a Comment upon the Prophetick part of the Old The Old shews the Promises and Predictions of God and the New shews the Performance What was foretold in the Old is fulfilled in the New the Predictions are cleared by the Events The Predictions of the Old are Divine because they are above the Reason of Man to foreknow None but an Infinite Knowledge could foretell them because none but an Infinite Wisdom could order all things for the accomplishment of them The Christian Religion hath then the surest Foundation since the Scriptures of the Prophets wherein it is foretold are of undoubted Antiquity and owned by the Jews and many Heathens which are and were the great Enemies of Christ The Old Testament is therefore to be read for the strengthning of our Faith Our Blessed Saviour himself draws the Streams of his Doctrine from the Old Testament He clears up the Promise of Eternal Life and the Doctrine of the Resurrection from the words of the Covenant I am the God of Abraham c. Mat. 22.32 And our Apostle clears up the Doctrine of Justification by Faith from Gods Covenant with Abraham Rom. 4. It must be read and it must be read as it is writ It was writ to a Gospel End it must be studied with a Gospel Spirit The Old Testament was writ to give Credit to the New when it should be manifested in the World It must be read by us to give strength to our Faith and establish us in the Doctrine of Christianity How many view it as a bare story an Almanack out of date and regard it as a dry Bone without sucking from it the Evangelical Marrow Christ is in Genesis Abrahams Seed in Davids Psalms and the Prophets the Messiah and Redeemer of the World 2. Observe the Antiquity of the Gospel Is made manifest by the Scriptures of the Prophets It was of as Ancient a date as any Prophesy The first Prophesy was nothing else but a Gospel Charter it was not made at the Incarnation of Christ but made manifest It then rose up to its Meridian lustre and sprung out of the Clouds wherewith it was before obscur'd The Gospel was preached to the Ancients by the Prophets as well as to the Gentiles by the Apostles Heb. 4.2 Vnto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them To them first to us after to them indeed more cloudy to us more clear but they as well as we were Evangeliz'd as the word signifies The Covenant of Grace was the same in the Writings of the Prophets and the Declarations of the Evangelists and Apostles Though by our Saviours Incarnation the Gospel Light was clearer and by his Ascension the Effusions of the Spirit fuller and stronger yet the Believers under the Old Testament saw Christ in the Swadling Bands of Legal Ceremonies and the Lattice of Prophetical Writings they could not else offer one Sacrifice or read one Prophesy with a Faith of the right stamp Abrahams Justifying Faith had Christ for its Object though it was not so Explicit as ours because the Manifestation was not so clear as ours 3. All Truth is to be drawn from Scripture The Apostle refers them here to the Gospel and the Prophets The Scripture is the Source of Divine Knowledge not the Traditions of Men nor Reason separate from Scripture Whosoever brings another Doctrine coyns another Christ nothing is to be added to what is written nothing detracted from it He doth not send us for Truth to the Puddles of Human Inventions to the Enthusiasms of our Brain not to the See of Rome no nor to the Instructions of Angels but the Writings of the Prophets as they clear up the Declarations of the Apostles The Church of Rome is not made here the Standard of Truth but the Scriptures of the Prophets are to be the Touch-stone to the Romans for the Trial of the Truth of the Gospel 4. How great is the Goodness of God The Borders of Grace are enlarged to the Gentiles and not hid under the Skirts of the Jews He that was so long the God of the Jews is now also manifest to be the God of the Gentiles The Gospel is now made known to all Nations according to the Commandment of the Everlasting God Not only in a way of Common Providence but Special Grace in Calling them to the Knowledge of himself and a Justification of them by Faith He hath brought Strangers to him to the Adoption of Children and lodged them under the Wings of the Covenant that were before alienated from
it runs thus To the alone Wise God through Jesus Christ to him be glory for ever But we must not understand it as if God were Wise by Jesus Christ but that Thanks is to be given to God through Christ because in and by Christ God hath revealed his Wisdom to the World The Greek hath a Repetition of the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not exprest in the Translation To him be glory Beza expungeth this Article but without reason for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To him and joyning this The only Wise God with the 25th Verse To him that is of Power to establish you Reading it thus To him that is of Power to establish you the only Wise God leaving the rest in a Parenthesis it runs smoothly To him be glory through Jesus Christ And Crellius the Socinian observes that this Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which some leave out might be industriously inserted by the Apostle to shew that the Glory we ascribe to God is also given to Christ We may Observe That neither in this place nor any where in Scripture is the Virgin Mary or any of the Saints associated with God or Christ in the Glory ascrib'd to them In the Words there is 1. An Appropriation of Wisdom to God and a Remotion of it from all Creatures Only wise God 2. A Glorifying him for it The Point I shall insist upon is Doctr. That Wisdom is a transcendent Excellency of the Divine Nature We have before spoken of the Knowledge of God and the Infiniteness of it The next Attribute is the Wisdom of God Most confound the Knowledge and Wisdom of God together but there is a manifest distinction between them in our conception I shall handle it thus 1. Shew what Wisdom is Then lay down 2. Some Propositions about the Wisdom of God And shew 3. That God is Wise and only Wise 4. Wherein his Wisdom appears 5. The Vse I. What Wisdom is Wisdom among the Greeks first signified an eminent Perfection in any Art or Mystery so a good Statuary Engraver or Limner was called Wise as having an excellent Knowledge in his particular Art But afterwards the Title of Wise was appropriated to those that devoted themselves to the contemplation of the highest things that served for a Foundation to Speculative Sciences †A myrant Moral Iom 3. p. 123. But ordinarily we count a Man a Wise Man when he conducts his Affairs with discretion and governs his Passions with moderation and carries himself with a due proportion and harmony in all his concerns But in Particular Wisdom consists 1. In acting for a right End The chiefest part of Prudence is in fixing a right End and in chusing fit Means and directing them to that scope To shoot at random is a mark of Folly As he is the wisest Man that hath the noblest End and fittest Means so God is Infinitely Wise as he is the most excellent Being so he hath the most excellent End As there is none more excellent than himself nothing can be his End but himself As he is the Cause of all so he is the End of all and he puts a true Byass into all the Means he useth to hit the Mark he aims at Of him and through him and to him are all things Rom. 11.36 2. Wisdom consists in observing all Circumstances for Action He is counted a Wise man that lays hold of the fittest Opportunities to bring his designs about that hath the fullest foresight of all the little Intrigues which may happen in a Business he is to manage and Times every part of his Action in an exact harmony with the proper Minutes of it God hath all the Circumstances of things in one entire Image before him he hath a prospect of every little Creek in any design He sees what Second Causes will act and when they will act this or that yea he determines them to such and such Acts so that it is impossible he should be mistaken or miss of the due Season of bringing about his own Purposes As he hath more Goodness than to deceive any so he hath more Understanding than to be mistaken in any thing Hence the Time of the Incarnation of our Blessed Saviour is called the Fulness of Time the proper Season for his coming Every Circumstance about Christ was Tim'd according to the Predictions of God even so little a thing as not parting his Garment and the giving him Gall and Vinegar to drink And all the Blessings he showrs down upon his People according to the Covenant of Grace are said to come in his season Ezek. 34.25 26. 3. Wisdom consists In willing and acting according to the right Reason according to a right Judgment of things We never count a Wilful man a Wise man but him only that acts according to a right Rule when right Counsels are taken and vigorously executed The Resolves and Ways of God are not meer Will but Will guided by the Reason and Counsel of his own Infinite Understanding Eph. 1.11 Who works all things according to the counsel of his own will The Motions of the Divine Will are not rash but follow the Proposals of the Divine Mind He chooses that which is fittest to be done so that all his Works are graceful and all his Ways have a comeliness and decorum in them Hence all his Ways are said to be Judgment Deut. 32.4 not meer Will Hence it appears that Wisdom and Knowledge are two distinct Perfections Knowledge hath its seat in the Speculative Understanding Wisdom in the Practical Wisdom and Knowledge are evidently distinguish'd as two several gifts of the Spirit in Man 1 Cor. 12.8 To one is given by the Spirit the word of Wisdom to another the word of Knowledge by the same Spirit Knowledge is an understanding of general Rules and Wisdom is a drawing Conclusions from those Rules in order to particular cases A Man may have the Knowledge of the whole Scripture and have all Learning in the Treasury of his Memory and yet be destitute of Skill to make use of them upon particular Occasions and unty those knotty Questions which may be proposed to him by a ready application of those Rules Again Knowledge and Wisdom may be distinguish'd in our Conception as two distinct Perfections in God The Knowledge of God is his Understanding of all things his Wisdom is the Skilful resolving and acting of all things And the Apostle in his Admiration of him owns them as distinct Oh the depths of the riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God Rom. 11.33 Knowledge is the Foundation of Wisdom and antecedent to it Wisdom the Superstructure upon Knowledge Men may have Knowledge without Wisdom but not Wisdom without Knowledge according to our common Proverb The greatest Clerks are not the wisest Men. All Practical Knowledge is founded in Speculation either Secundum rem as in a Man or Secundum rationem as in God They agree
value and virtue of the Redeemers Merit which God from the beginning intended to magnifie The Value of it in taking off so much successive Guilt and the Virtue of it in washing away so much daily filth Th◠Wisdom of God hereby keeps up the Credit of Imputed Righteousness and manifests the Immense Treasure of the Redeemers Merit to pay such daily Debts Were we perfectly Sanctified we should stand upon our own Bottom and imagine no need of the continual and repeated Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ for our Justification We should confide in Inherent Righteousness and slight Imputed If God should take off all Remainders of Sin as well as the Guilt of it we should be apt to forget that we are Fallen Creatures and that we had a Redeemer But the Reliques of Sin in us mind us of the necessity of some higher strength to set us right They mind us both of our own Misery and the Redeemers perpetual benefit God by this keeps up the Dignity and Honour of our Saviours Blood to the height and therefore sometimes lets us see to our own cost what filth yet remains in us for the employment of that Blood which we should else but little think of and less admire Our Gratitude is so small to God as well as Man that the first Obligations are soon forgot if we stand not in need of fresh ones successively to second them we should lose our Thankful Remembrance of the first virtue of Christs Blood in washing us if our Infirmities did not mind us of fresh Reiterations and Applications of it Ours Saviours Office of Advocacy was erected especially for Sins committed after a Justified and Renewed state * 1 John 2.1 We should scarce remember we had an Advocate and scarce make use of him without some sensible Necessity but our Remainders of Sin discover our Impotency and an impossibility for us either to expiate our Sin or conform to the Law which necessitates us to have recourse to that Person whom God hath appointed to make up the breaches between God and us So the Apostle wraps up himself in the Covenant of Grace and his Interest in Christ after his conflict with Sin Rom. 7. ult I thank God through Jesus Christ Now after such a Body of Death a Principle within me that sends up daily steams yet as long as I serve God with my Mind as long as I keep the main Condition of the Covenant there is no Condemnation †Rom. 8.1 Christ takes my part procures my acceptance and holds the Band of Salvation firm in his hands The brightness of Christs Grace is set off by the darkness of our Sin We should not understand the Soveraignty of his Medicines if there were no Reliques of Sin for him to exercise his Skill upon The Physicians Art is most experimented and therefore most valued in Relapses as dangerous as the former Disease As the Wisdom of God brought our Saviour into Temptation that he might have Compassion to us so it permits us to be overcome by Temptation that we might have due Valuations of him 3. God hereby often engageth the Soul to a greater Industry for his glory The highest Persecutors when they have become Converts have been the greatest Champions for that Cause they both hated and opprest The Apostle Paul is such an Instance of this that it needs no enlargement By how much they have failed of answering the end of their Creation in glorifying God by so much the more they summon up all their Force for such an end after their Conversion to restore as much as they can of that Glory to God which they by their Sin had robb'd him of Their Sins by the order of Divine Wisdom prove Whetstones to sharpen the edge of their Spirits for God Paul never remembred his Persecuting Fury but he doubled his Industry for the Service of God which before he trampled under his feet The further we go back the greater Leap many times we take forward Our Saviour after his Resurrection put Peter upon the exercise of that Love to him which had so lately shrunk his head out of Suffering ‖ Iohn 21.15 16 17. and no doubt but the consideration of his base Denial together with a reflection upon a gracious Pardon engag'd his Ingenuous Soul to stronger and fiercer flames of Affection A Believers Courage for God is more sharpned oftentimes by the shame of his Fall He endeavours to repair the faults of his Ingratitude and Disingenuity by larger and stronger steps of Obedience As a Man in a fight having been foil'd by his Enemy reassumes new Courage by his Fall and is many times oblig'd to his Foil both for his Spirit and his Victory A gracious Heart will upon the very motions to sin double its Vigor as well as by good ones It is usually more quickned both in its motion to God and for God by the Temptations and Motions to Sin which run upon it This is another Good the Wisdom of God brings forth from Sin 4. Again Humility towards God is another Good Divine Wisdom brings forth from the Occasion of Sin By this God beats down all good opinion or our selves Hezekiah was more humbled by his fall into Pride than by all the Distress he had been in by Senacharibs Army 2 Chron. 32.26 Peters Confidence before his Fall gave way to an humble Modesty after it You see his Confidence Mark 14.24 Though all should be offended in thee yet will not I and you have the mark of his Modesty John 21.17 't is not then Lord I will love thee to the death I will not start from thee but Lord thou knowest that I love thee I cannot assure my self of any thing after this Miscarriage but Lord thou knowest there is a Principle of Love in me to thy Name He was asham'd that himself who appeared such a Pillar should bend as meanly as a Shrub to a Temptation The reflection upon Sin lays a Man as low as Hell in his Humiliation as the Commission of Sin did in the Merit When David comes to exercise Repentance for his Sin he begins it from the Well-head of Sin * Psal 51.5 his Original Corruption and draws down the streams of it to the last commission Perhaps he did not so seriously humble himself for the Sin of his Nature all his days so much as at that time at least we have not such Evidences of it And Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart not only for the Pride of his Act †2 Chron. 32.26 but for the Pride in the Heart which was the Spring of that Pride in Act in shewing his Treasures to the Babylonish Ambassadors God lets Sin continue in the Hearts of the best in this World and sometimes gives the Reins to Satan and a Man 's own Corruption to keep up a sense of the ancient Sale we made of our selves to both II. In regard of our selves Herein is the wonder of Divine
incourage our Obedience as to illustrate his Glory We cannot conceive â—hat could be done greater for the salvation of our Souls and consequently what could have been done more to enforce our observance We have a Redeemer as man to copy it to us and as God to perfect us in it It would make the heart of any to tremble to wound him that hath provided such a salve for our Sores and to make Grace a warrant for Rebellion Motives capable to form Rocks into a flexibleness Thus is the Wisdom of God seen in giving us a ground of the surest confidence and furnishing us with incentives to the greatest Obedience by the horrors of wrath death and sufferings of our Saviour 8. The Wisdom of God is apparent in the Condition he hath settled for the enjoying the fruits of Redemption and this is faith a wise and reasonable Condition And the concomitants of it 1. In that it is suted to mans lapsed state and Gods Glory Innocence is not required here that had been a Condition impossible in its own nature after the Fall The rejecting of Mercy is now only condemning where mercy is proposed Had the Condition of Perfection in Works been required it had rather been a condemnation than redemption Works are not demanded whereby the Creature might ascribe any thing to himself but a Condition which continues in man a sense of his Apostacy abates all aspiring Pride and makes the reward of Grace not of Debt A Condition whereby Mercy is owned and the Creature emptied Flesh silenc'd in the Dust and God set upon his Throne of Grace and Authority The Creature brought to the lowest debasement and Divine Glory raised to the highest pitch The Creature is brought to acknowledge Mercy and seal to Justice to own the Holiness of God in the hatred of sin the Justice of God in the Punishment of sin and the Mercy of God in the pardoning of sin A condition that despoils Nature of all its pretended excellency Beats down the glory of man at the foot of God 1 Cor. 1.29.31 It subjects the Reason and Will of man to the Wisdom and Authority of God it brings the Creature to an unreserved submission and intire resignation God is made the Soveraign Cause of all the Creature continued in his emptiness and reduced to a greater dependance upon God than by a Creation depending upon him for a constant influx for an intire happiness A Condition that renders God glorious in the Creature and the fallen creature happy in God God glorious in his Condescension to Man and Man happy in his emptiness before God Faith is made the Condition of mans recovery that the lofty looks of man might be humbled and the haughtiness of man be pulled down Isa 2.11 that every towring imagination might be levelled 2. Cor. 10.5 Man must have all from without doors he must not live upon himself but upon anothers allowance He must stand to the provision of God and be a perpetual Sutor at his Gates 2. A Condition opposite to that which was the cause of the Fall We fell from God an unbelief of the Threatning he recovers us by a belief of the Promise by Unbelief we laid the Foundation of Gods dishonour by Faith therefore God exalts the Glory of his free Grace We lost our selves by a desire of self dependence and our return is ordered by a way of self-emptiness 'T is reasonable we should be restored in a way contrary to that whereby we fell We sinned by a refusal of cleaving to God t is a part of divine Wisdom to restore us in a denial of our own righteousness and strength * Laud against Fisher p. 5. Man having sinned by Pride the Wisdom of God humbles him saith one at the very root of the Tree of Knowledge and makes him deny his own Vnderstanding and submit to Faith or else for ever to lose his desired Felicity 3. It is a Condition suted to the Common Sentiment and custome of the World There is more of belief than reason in the World All Instructers and Masters in Sciences and Arts require first a belief in their Disciples and a resignation of their Understandings and Wills to them And it is the Wisdom of God to require that of man which his own reason makes him submit to another which is his fellow Creature He therefore that quarrels with the Condition of Faith must quarrel with all the World since Belief is the beginning of all Knowledge †Bradward p. 28. yea and most of the Knowledge in the World may rather come under the title of Belief than of Knowledge For what we think we know this day we may find from others such Arguments as may stagger our Knowledge and make us doubt of that we thought our selves certain of before Nay sometimes we change our Opinions our Selves without anâ— Instructor and see a reason to entertain an Opinion quite contrary to what we had before And if we found a general Judgment of others â—o vote against what we think we know it would make us give the less Credit to our selves and our own Sentiments All Knowledge in the World is only a belief depending upon the testimony or arguings of others for indeed it may be said of all men as in Job 8. Job 9. We are but of yesterday and know nothing Since therefore Belief is so universal a thing in the World the Wisdom of God requires that of us which every man must count reasonable or render himself utterly ignorant of any thing It is a Condition that is common to all Religions All Religions are Founded upon a Belief Unless men did believe future things they would not hope nor fear A Belief and Resignation was required in all the Idolatries in the World so that God requires nothing but what a universal custome of the World gives its suffrage to the reasonableness of Indeed justifying Faith is not suted to the Sentiments of men but that Faith which must precede iustifying a beliefe of the Doctrine though not comprehended by Reason is common to the custome of the World * Jâ—neway p. 88. 'T is no less madness not to submit our Reason to Faith than not to regulate our Fancies by Reason 4. This Condition of Faith and Repentances is suted to the Conscience of Men. The Law of Nature teaches us thâ—t we are bound to believe every revelation from God when it is made known to us And not only to assent to it as true but embrace it as good This Nature dictates that we are as much obligeâ— to believe God because of his Truth as to love him because of his Goodness Every mans Reason tells him he cannot obey a Precept nor depend upon a Promise unless he believes both the one and the other No man's Conscience but will inform him upon hearing the revelation of God concerning his excellent contrivance of Redemption and the way to Enjoy it that it is very reasonable he should strip off
all affections to sin lye down in Sorrow and bewail what he hath done amiss against so tender a God Can you expect that any man that Promises you a great honour or a rich donative should demand less of you than to trust his word bear an affection to him and return him kindness Can any less be expected by a Prince than obedience from a pardoned Subject and a redeemed Captive If you have injured any man in his Body Estate Reputation would you not count it a reasonable Condition for the partaking of his Clemency and Forgiveness to express a hearty sorrow for it and a resolution not to fall into the like Crime again Such are the Conditions of the Gospel suted to the Consciences of men 5. The Wisdom of God appears in that this condition was only likely to attain the end There are but two Common Heads appointed by God Adam and Christ By one we are made a living Soul by the other a quickning Spirit By the one we are made sinners by the other we are made righteous Adam fell as a Head and all his members his whole Issue and Posterity fell with him because they proceeded from him by natural Generation But since the second Adam can not be our Head by natural Generation there must be some other way of engrafting us in him and uniting us to him as our Head which must be Moral and Spiritual this can not rationally be conceived to be by any other way than What is sutable to a reasonable Creature and therefore must be by an act of the Will Consent and Acceptance and owning the terms setled for an Admission to that Union And this is that we properly call Faith and therefore called a receiving of him John 1.12 Now this Condition of enjoying the Fruits of Redemption could not be a bare Knowledge for that is but only an act of the Understanding and doth not in itself include the act of the Will and so would have united only one Faculty to him not the whole Soul But Faith in an act both of the Understanding and Will too and principally of the Will which doth presuppose an act of the Understanding For there cannot be a Perswasion in the Will without a Proposition from the Understanding The Understanding must be convinced of the truth and goodness of a thing before the Will can be perswaded to make any motion towards it and therefore all the Promises Invitations and Proffers are suted to the Understanding and Will To the Understanding in regard of Knowledge to the Will in regard of Appetite to the Understanding as true to the Will as good To the Understanding as practical and influencing the Will 2. Nor could it be an intire Obedience That as was said before would have made the Creature have some matter of boasting and this was not sutable to the Condition he was sunk into by the fall Besides mans Nature being corrupted was rendered uncapable to obey and unable to have one thought of a due Obedience 2 Cor. 3.5 When man turned from God and upon that was turned out of Paradise his return was impossible by any strength of his own his Nature was as much corrupted as his re-entrance into Paradise was prohibited That Covenant whereby he stood in the garden required a perfection of action and intention in the observance of all the Commands of God But his Fall had crack'd his Ability to recover happiness by the terms and condition of an intire Obedience yet man being a person governable by a Law and capable of happiness by a Covenant if God would restore him and enter into a Covenant with him we must suppose it to have some Condition as all Covenants have That Condition could not be works because mans Nature was polluted Indeed had God reduced mans Body to the dust and his Soul to nothing and framed another man he might have govern'd him by a Covenant of Works But that had not been the same man that had revolted and upon his revolt was stain'd and disabled But suppose God had by any transcendent Grace wholly purified him from the stain of his former Transgression and restored to him the strength and ability he had lost might he not as easily have rebelled again And so the Condition would never have been accomplisht the Covenant never have been performed and Happiness never have been enjoyed There must be some other Condition then in the Covenant God would make for mans Security Now Faith is the most proper for receiving the Promise of Pardon of Sin Belief of those promises is the first natural reflection that a Malefactor can make upon a pardon offered him and acceptance of it is the first consequent from that beliefe Hence is Faith entitled a perswasion of and embraceing the Promises Heb 11.13 and a receiving the atonement Rom. 5.11 Thus the Wisdom of God is apparent in annexing such a Condition to the Covenant whereby man is restored as answers the end of God for his glory the State Conscience and necessity of Man and had the greatest congruity to his recovery 9. This Wisdom of God is manifest in the manner of the publishing and propagating this Doctrine of Redemption 1. In the gradual discoveries of it Flashing a great light in the face of a suddain is amazing should the Sun glare in our Eye in all its brightness on a suddain after we have been in a thick darkness it would blind us instead of comforting us So great a work as this must have several digestions God first reveals of what Seed the Redeeming Person should be the Seed of the Woman Gen. 3.15 Then of what Nation Gen. 26.4 then of what Tribe Gen. 49.12 of the Tribe of Judah then of what Family the family of David then what works he was to do what sufferings to undergoe The first Predictions of our Saviour were obscure Adam could not well see the Redemption in the Promise for the punishment of death which succeeded in the Threatning the Promise exercised his Faith and the Obscurity and bodily Death his Humility The Promise made to Abraham was clearer than the Revelations made before yet he could not tell how to reconcile his Redemption with his Exile God supported his Faith by the Promise and exercised his Humility by making him a Pilgrim and keeping him in a perpetual dependance upon him in all his motions The Declarations to Moses are brighter than those to Abraham The delineations of Christ by David in the Psalms more illustrious than the former And all those exceeded by the Revelations made to the Prophet Isaiah and the other Prophets according as the Age did approach wherein the Redeemer was to enter into his Office God wrapt up this Gospel in a multitude of Types and Ceremonies fitted to the Infant state of the Church Gal. 4.3 An Infant State is usually affected with sensible things yet all those Ceremonies were fitted to that great end of the Gospel which he would bring forth in
torments the Person that acts it 't is black and abominable and hath not a mite of Goodness in the Nature of it If it ends in any good 't is only from that Infinite Transcendency of skill that can bring Good out of Evil as well as Light out of Darkness Therefore God did not permit it as Sin but as it was an occasion for the manifestation of his own Glory Though the Goodness of God would have appear'd in the Preservation of the World as well as it did in the Creation of it yet his Mercy could not have appear'd without the Entrance of Sin because the Object of Mercy is a Miserable Creature but Man could not be Miserable as long as he remained Innocent The Reign of Sin opened a door for the Reign and Triumph of Grace Rom. 5.21 As sin hath reigned unto death so might grace reign through righteousness to eternal life Without it the Bowels of Mercy had never sounded and the ravishing Musick of Divine Grace could never have been heard by the Creature Mercy which renders God so amiable could never else have beam'd out to the World Angels and Men upon this occasion beheld the stirrings of Divine Grace and the Tenderness of Divine Nature and the glory of the Divine Persons in their several Functions about the Redemption of Man which had else been a Spring shut up and a Fountain sealed the Song of Glory to God and Good will to Men in a way of Redemption had never been Sung by them It appears in his dealings with Adam that he permitted his Fall not only to shew his Justice in punishing but principally his Mercy in rescuing since he proclaims to him first the Promise of a Redeemer to bruise the Serpents head before he setled the Punishment he should smart under in the World †Gen. 3.15 16 17. And what fairer prospect could the Creature have of the Holiness of God and his Hatred of Sin than in the edge of that Sword of Justice which punished it in the Sinner but glitter'd more in the Punishment of a Surety so near Allied to him Had not Man been Criminal he could not have been Punishable nor any been punishable for him And the Pulse of Divine Holiness could not have beaten so quick and been so visible without an exercise of his Vindicative Justice He left Mans mutable Nature to fall under Vnrighteousness that thereby he might commend the Righteousness of his own Nature * Rom. 3.7 Adams Sin in its Nature tended to the ruine of the World and God takes an occasion from it for the glory of his Grace in the Redemption of the World He brings forth thereby a new Scene of Wonders from Heaven and a surprizing Knowledge on Earth As the Sun breaks out more strongly after a Night of Darkness and Tempest As God in Creation framed a Chaos by his Power to manifest his Wisdom in bringing Order out of Disorder Light out of Darkness Beauty out of Confusion and Deformity when he was able by a Word to have made all Creatures stand up in their Beauty without the precedency of a Chaos So God permitted a Moral Chaos to manifest a greater Wisdom in the repairing a broken Image and restoring a deplorable Creature and bringing out those Perfections of his Nature which had else been wrapt up in a perpetual silence in his own bosom †But of the Wisdom of God in the permitting Sin in order to Redeâ—ption I have handled in the Attribute of Wisdom It was therefore very congruous to the Holiness of God to permit that which he could make subservient for his own glory and particularly for the manifestation of this Attribute of Holiness which seems to be in opposition to such a permission 5. Proposition The Holiness of God is not blemisht by his concurrence with the Creature in the material part of a sinful Act. Some to free God from having any hand in Sin deny his concurrence to the Actions of the Creature because if he concurs to a sinful Action he concurs to the Sin also Not understanding how there can be a distinction between the Act and the Sinfulness or Viciousness of it and how God can concur to a Natural Action without being stain'd by that Moral Evil which cleaves to it For the understanding of this observe 1. There is a concurrence of God to all the acts of the Creature Acts 17.28 In him we live and move and have our being We depend upon God in our Acting as well as in our Being There is as much an efficacy of God in our Motion as in our Production as none have life without his Power in producing it so none have any operation without his Providence concurring with it In him or by him that is by his Virtue preserving and governing our Motions as well as by his Power bringing us into Being Hence Man is compared to an Ax Isai 10.15 an Instrument that hath no action without the cooperation of a Superiour Agent handling it And the Actions of the Second Causes are ascrib'd to God the Grass that is the product of the Sun Rain and Earth he is said to make to grow upon the Mountains Psal 147.8 and the Skin and Flesh which is by Natural generation he is said to cloath us with Job 10.5 in regard of his co-working with Second Causes according to their Natures As nothing can exist so nothing can operate without him let his Concurrence be removed and the Being and Action of the Creature cease Remove the Sun from the Horizon or a Candle from a Room and the Light which flowed from either of them ceaseth Without Gods preserving and concurring Power the course of Nature would sink and the Creation be in vain ‖ Suarez Metaph part 1. p. 552. All Created things depend upon God as Agents as well as Beings and are subordinate to him in a way of Action as well as in a way of Existing If God suspend his Influence from their Action they would cease to act as the Fire did from burning the Three Children as well as if God suspend his Influence from their Being they would cease to be God supports the Nature whereby Actions are wrought the Mind where Actions are consulted and the Will where Actions are determin'd and the Motive power whereby Actions are produced The Mind could not contrive nor the Hand act a Wickedness if God did not support the Power of the one in designing and the Strength of the other in executing a wicked Intention Every faculty in its Being and every faculty in its Motion hath a dependance upon the Influence of God To make the Creature Independent upon God in any thing which speaks Perfection as Action considered as Action is is to make the Creature a Soveraign Being Indeed we cannot imagine the Concurrence of God to the good Actions of Men since the Fall without granting a Concurrence of God to evil Actions because there is no Action so purely
34.12 How despicable is a Judge that wants Innocence As Omniscience fits God to be a Judge so Holiness fits him to be a Righteous Judge Psal 1.6 The Lord knows that is loves the way of the Righteous but the way of the ungodly shall perish 9. Information If Holiness be an eminent Perfection of the Divine Nature The Christian Religion is of a Divine Extraction It discovers the Holiness of God and forms the Creature to a conformity to him It gives us a prospect of his Nature represents him in the Beauty of Holiness Psal 110.3 more than the whole Glass of the Creation 'T is in this Evangelical Glass the Glory of the Lord is beheld and rendred amiable and imitable †2 Cor. 3.18 'T is a Doctrine according to Godliness 1 Tim. 6.3 directing us to live the Life of God a life worthy of God and worthy of our first Creation by his hand It takes us off from our selves fixeth us upon a Noble End points our Actions and the scope of our lives to God It quells the Monsters of Sin discountenanceth the Motes of Wickedness and it is no mean Argument for the Divinity of it that it sets us no lower a Pattern for our Imitation than the Holiness of the Divine Majesty God is exalted upon the Throne of his Holiness in it and the Creature advanc'd to an Image and resemblance of it 1 Pet. 1.16 Be ye holy for I am holy Vse 2. The Second use is for Comfort This Attribute frowns upon Lapsed Nature but smiles in the Restorations made by the Gospel Gods Holiness in conjunction with his Justice is Terrible to a guilty Sinner but now in conjunction with his Mercy by the Satisfaction of Christ 't is sweet to a Believing Penitent In the first Covenant the Purity of his Nature was joyned with the Rigours of his Justice In the second Covenant the Purity of his Nature is joyned with the Sweetness and Tenderness of his Mercy In the one Justice flames against the Sinner in the right of Injur'd Holiness In the other Mercy yearns towards a Believer with the consent of Righted Holiness To rejoyce in the Holiness of God is the true and genuine Spirit of a Renewed Man My heart rejoyceth in the Lord what follows There is none holy as the Lord 1 Sam. 2.1 2. Some Perfections of the Divine Nature are Astonishing some Affrighting but this may may fill us both with Astonishment at it and a Joy in it 1. By Covenant we have an Interest in this Attribute as well as any other In that Clause of Gods being our God entire God with all his Glory all his Perfections are past over as a portion and a gracious Soul is brought into Union with God as his God Not with a part of God but with God in the Simplicity Extent Integrity of his Nature and therefore in this Attribute And upon some account it may seem more in this Attribute than in any other for if he be our God he is our God in his Life and Glory and therefore in his Purity especially without which he could not live he could not be happy and blessed Little comfort will it be to have a dead God or a vile God made over to us And as by this Covenant he is our Father so he gives us his Nature and communicates his Holiness in all his Dispensations and in those that are severest as well as those that are sweetest Heb. 12.10 But he corrects us for our profit that we might be partakers of his Holiness Not simply partakers of Holiness but of his Holiness to have a Portrayture of it in our Nature a Meddal of it in our hearts a spark of the same Nature with that Immense splendor and flame in himself The Holiness of a Covenant Soul is a resemblance of the Holiness of God and formed by it As the Picture of the Sun in a Cloud is a fruit of his Beams and an Image of its Author The fulness of the Perfection of Holiness remains in the Nature of God as the fulness of the Light doth in the Sun yet there are transmissions of Light from the Sun to the Moon and it is a Light of the same Nature both in the one and in the other The Holiness of a Creature is nothing else but a reflection of the Divine Holiness upon it and to make the Creature capable of it God takes various methods according to his Covenant Grace 2. This Attribute renders God a fit Object for Trust and Dependance The Notion of an Unholy and Unrighteous God is an uncomfortable Idea of him and beats off our hands from laying any hold of him 'T is upon this Attribute the Reputation and Honour of God in the World is built What encouragement can we have to believe him or what Incentives could we have to serve him without the lustre of this in his Nature The very thought of an Unrighteous God is enough to drive Men at the greatest distance from him As the Honesty of a Man gives a reputation to his Word so doth the Holiness of God give credit to his Promise 'T is by this he would have us stifle our Fears and fortifie our Trust Isai 41.14 Fear not thou worm Jacob and ye men of Israel I will help thee saith the Lord and thy Redeemer the holy one of Israel He will be in his Actions what he is in his Nature Nothing shall make him defile his own Excellency Unrighteousness is the ground of Mutability but the Promise of God doth never fail because the rectitude of his Nature doth never languish Were his Attributes without the conduct of this they would be altogether formidable As this is the glory of all his other Perfections so this only renders him comfortable to a Believing Soul Might we not fear his Power to crush us his Mercy to overlook us his Wisdom to design against us if this did not influence them What an oppression is Power without Righteousness in the hand of a Creature destructive instead of protecting The Devil is a mighty Spirit but not fit to be trusted because he is an Impure Spirit When God would give us the highest Security of the sincerity of his Intentions he swears by this Attribute †Psal 8.35 His Holiness as well as his Truth is laid to pawn for the Security of his Promise As we make God the Judge between us and others when we swear by him so he makes his Holiness the Judge between himself and his People when he swears by it 1. 'T is this renders him fit to be confided in for the answer of our Prayers This is tâ—e ground of his readiness to give * Matth. 7.11 If you being evil know how to give good gifts how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good thâ—ngâ— to them that ask him Though the holiness of God be not mention'd yet it is to be understood the Emphasis lies in those words if you being evil
God is then considered in a disposition contrary to this which can be nothing but his Righteousness If you that are unholy and have so much Corruption in you to render you cruel can bestow upon your Children the good things they want how much more shall God who is holy and hath nothing in him to check his mercifulness to his Creatures grant the Petitions of his Suppliants 'T was this Attribute edg'd the siduciary importunity of the Souls under the Altar for the revenging their blood unjustly shed upon the Earth Rev. 6.10 How long O Lord holy and true dost thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the Earth Let not thy holiness stand with folded Arms as careless of the eminent Sufferings of those that fear thee we implore thee by the holiness of thy Nature and the truth of thy Word 2. This renders him fit to be confided in for the comfort of our Souls in a broken condition The reviving the hearts of the spiritually afflicted is a part of the holiness of his Nature Isa 57.15 Thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabits eternity whose name is holy I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble He acknowledgeth himself the lofty One they might therefore fear he would not revive them but he is also the holy One and therefore he will refresh them he is not more lofty than he is holy besides the argument of the immutability of his Promise and the might of his Power here is the holiness of his Nature moving him to pity his drooping Creature His Promise is usher'd in with the name of power high and lofty One to bar their distrust of his strength and with a declaration of his holiness to check any despair of his Will There is no ground to think I should be false to my word or misemploy my Power since that cannot be because of the holiness of my Name and Nature 3. This renders him fit to be confided in for the maintenance of grace and protection of us against our spiritual Enemies What our Saviour thought an argument in Prayer we may well take as a ground of our confidence In the strength of this he puts up his sute when in his mediatory Capacity he intercedes for the preservation of his People John 17.11 Holy Father keep through thy own Name those that thou hast given me that they may be one as we are Holy Father not merciful Father or powerful or wise Father but holy and Verse 25. righteous Father Christ pleads that Attribute for the performance of God's Word which was laid to pawn when he past his word For it was by his Holiness that he swore That his seed should endure for ever and his Throne as the Sun before him †Psal 89.36 which is meant of the perpetuity of the Covenant which he made with Christ and is also meant of the preservation of the mystical Seed of David and the perpetuating his loving kindness to them ‖ Vers 32 33. Grace is an Image of God's holiness and therefore the holiness of God is most proper to be used as an Argument to interest and engage him in the preservation of it In the midst of Church provocations he will not utterly extinguish because he is the holy One in the midst of her * Hos 11.9 Nor in the midst of Judgments will he condemn his people to death because he is their holy one †Hab. 1.12 but their Enemies shall be ordained for Judgment and established for Correction One Prophet assures them in the Name of the Lord upon the strength of this Perfection and the other upon the same ground is confident of the protection of the Church because of Gods holiness engag'd in an inviolable Covenant 3. Comfort Since holiness is a glorious Perfection of the Nature of God he will certainly value every holy Soul 'T is of a greater value with him than the Souls of all men in the World that are destitute of it Wicked men are the worst of vilenesses meer dross and dunghil ‖ Psal 12.8 The vilest mâ—◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Purity then which is contrary to wickedness must be the most precious thing in his esteem he must needs love that quality which he is most pleas'd with in himself as a father looks with most delight upon the child which is possess'd with those dispositions he most values in his own nature His Countenance doth behold the upright Ps 11.7 He looks upon them with a full and open Face of favour with a countenance clear unmaskt and smiling with a Face full of delight Heaven it self is not such a pleasing Object to him as the Image of his own increated holiness in the created holiness of Men and Angels As a man esteems that most which is most like him of his own Generation more than a piece of Art which is meerly the product of his wit or strength And he must love holiness in the Creature he would not else love his own Image and consequently would undervalue himself He despiseth the Image the wicked bears * Psal 73.20 but he cannot disesteem his own stamp on the godly he cannot but delight in his own work his choice work the Master-piece of all his works the new Creation of things that which is next to himself as being a Divine Nature like himself †2 Pet. 1.4 When he overlooks strength parts knowledge he cannot overlook this He sets apart him that is godly for himself Psal 4.3 as a peculiar Object to take pleasure in he reserves such for his own complacency when he leaves the rest of the World to the Devils power he is choice of them above all his other works and will not let any have so great a propriety in them as himself If it be so dear to him here in its imperfect and mixt condition that he appropriates it as a peculiar Object for his own delight how much more will the unspotted purity of glorified Saints be infinitely pleasing to him So that he will take less pleasure in the material Heavens than in such a Soul Sin only is detestable to God and when this is done away the Soul becomes as lovely in his account as before it was loathsome 4. 'T is comfort upon this account That God will perfect holiness in every upright Soul We many times distrust God and despond in our selves because of the infinite holiness of the Divine Nature and the dunghil Corruptions in our own but the holiness of God engageth him to the preservation of it and consequently to the perfection of it as appears by our Saviour's Argument Joh. 17.11 Holy Father keep through thy own name those whom thou hast given me to what end that they may be one as we are one with us in the resemblances of Purity And the holiness of the Soul is used as an Argument by
Judgments upon some to form a new Generation for himself He destroy'd an old World to raise a new one more Righteous As a Man pulls down his old Buildings to erect a sounder and more stately Fabrick To sum up what hath been said in this particular How could God be a Friend to Goodness if he were not an Enemy to Evil How could he shew his enmity to Evil without revenging the abuse and contempt of his Goodness God would rather have the Repentance of a Sinner than his Punishment but the Sinner would rather expose himself to the severest frowns of God than pursue those Methods wherein he hath setled the conveyances of his kindness You will not come to me that you might have Life saith Christ How is Eternity of Punishment inconsistent with the Goodness of God Nay how can God be good without it If Wickedness always remain in the Nature of Man Is it not fit the Rod should always remain on the Back of Man Is it a want of goodness that keeps an incorrigible Offender in Chains in a Bridewell While Sin remains it 's fit it should be Punished Would not God else be an Enemy to his own Goodness and shew favour to that which doth abuse it and is contrary to it He hath threatned Eternal Flames to Sinners that he might the more strongly excite them to a Reformation of their Ways and a Practice of his Precepts In those Threatnings he hath manifested his Goodness And can it be bad in him to defend what his Goodness hath Commanded and Execute what his Goodness hath Threatned His Truth is also a part of his Goodness for it is nothing but his Goodness performing that which it oblig'd him to do That is the first thing Severe Judgments in the World are no Impeachments of his Goodness 2. The Afflictions God inflicts upon his Servants are no violations of his Goodness Sometimes God aflicts Men for their Temporal and Eternal good for the good of their Grace in order to the good of their Glory which is a more excellent Good than Afflictions can be an Evil. The Heathens reflected upon Vlysses his hardship as a Mark of Jupiters goodness and love to him that his Virtue might be more conspicuous By strong Persecutions brought upon the Church her Lethargy is Cur'd her Chaff Purg'd the glorious Fruit of the Gospel brought forth in the lives of her Children The number of her Proselytes multiply and the strength of her weak ones is increased by the Testimonies of Courage and Constancy which the stronger present to them in their Sufferings Do those good Effects speak a want of goodness in God who brings them into this condition By those he cures his People of their Corruptions and promotes their Glory by giving them the honour of suffering for the Truth and raiseth their Spirits to a Divine pitch The Epistles of Paul to the Ephes Philip. and Colos wrote by him while he was in Nero's Chains seem to have a higher strain than some of those he wrote when was at liberty As for Afflictions they are Marks of a greater measure of Fatherly Goodness than he discovers to those that live in an uninterrupted Prosperity who are not dignifi'd with that glorious Title of Sons as those are that he chasteneth * Heb. 12.6 7. Can any question the goodness of the Father that Corrects his Child to prevent his Vice and Ruine and breed him up to Vertue and Honour It would be a Cruelty in a Father leaving his Child without Chastisement to leave him to that Misery an ill Education would reduce him to God judges us that we might not be condemned with the World †1 Cor. 11.32 Is it not a greater Goodness to separate us from the World to Happiness by his Scourge than to leave us to the condemnation of the World for our Sins Is it not a greater Goodness to make us smart here than to see us scorcht hereafter As he is our Shepherd it is no part of his Enmity or ill will to us to make us feel sometimes the weight of his Shepherds Crook to reduce us from our Stragling The visiting our Transgressions with Rods and our Iniquities with Stripes is one of the Articles of the Covenant of Grace wherein the greatest lustre of his Goodness appears * Psal 89.33 The advantage and gain of our Afflictions is a greater Testimony of his Goodness to us than the pain can be of his Unkindness The Smart is well recompenced by the accession of clearer Graces It is rather a high Mark of his Goodness than an Argument for the want of it that he treats us as his Children and will not suffer us to run into that Destruction we are more ambitious of than the Happiness he hath prepared for us and by Afflictons he fits us for the partaking of by imparting his Holiness together with the inflicting his Rod †Heb. 12.10 That is the third thing God is Good The Fourth thing is The manifestation of this Goodness in Creation Redemption and Providence 1. In Creation This is apparent from what hath been said before That no other Attribute could be the Motive of his Creating but his Goodness His Goodness was the Cause that he made any thing and his Wisdom was the Cause that he made every thing in Order and Harmony He pronounced every thing good i. e. such as became his Goodness to bring forth into Being and rested in them more as they were Stamps of his Goodness than as they were Marks of his Power or Beams of his Wisdom And if all Creatures were able to answer to this Question What that was which Created them The Answer would be Almighty Power but employed by the Motion of Infinite Goodness * Cusan p. 228. All the varieties of Creatures are so many Apparitions of this Goodness Though God be one yet he cannot appear as a God but in variety As the greatness of Power is not manifest but in variety of Works and an Acute Understanding not discover'd but in variety of Reasonings so an Infinite Goodness is not so apparent as in variety of Communications 1. The Creation proceeds from Goodness 'T is the Goodness of God to extract such multitude of things from the depths of nothing Because God is Good things have a Being If he had not been Good nothing could have been Good Nothing could have imparted that which it possessed not Nothing but Goodness could have communicated to things an Excellency which before they wanted Being is much more Excellent than nothing By this Goodness therefore the whole Creation was brought out of the dark Womb of Nothing This formed their Natures this beautified them with their several Ornaments and Perfections whereby every thing was enabled to act for the good of the Common World God did not Create things because he was a Living Being but because he was a Good Being No Creature brought forth any thing in the World meerly because it is
for our selves What are we dead Dogs that he should behold us with so gracious an Eye This Goodness is thus inhanced if you consider the State of Man in his first Transgression and after 4. This Goodness further appears in the high advancement of our Nature after it had so highly offended By Creation we had an affinity with Animals in our Bodies with Angels in our Spirits with God in his Image but not with God in our Nature till the Incarnation of the Redeemer Adam by Creation was the Son of God * Luke 3.38 but his Nature was not one with the Person of God He was his Son as Created by him but had no affinity to him by vertue of union with him But now Man doth not only see his Nature in multitudes of Men on Earth but by an astonishing Goodness beholds his Nature united to the Deity in Heaven That as he was the Son of God by Creation he is now the Brother of God by Redemption for with such a Title doth that Person who was the Son of God as well as the Son of Man honour his Disciples †Joh. 20.17 And because he is of the same Nature with them he is not ashamed to call them Brethren Heb. 2.11 Our Nature which was infinitely distant from and below the Deity now makes one Person with the Son of God What Man sinfully aspired to God hath graciously granted and more Man aspired to a likeness in knowledge and God hath granted him an affinity in union It had been astonishing Goodness to Angelize our Natures but in Redemption Divine Goodness hath acted higher in a sort to Deifie our Natures In Creation our Nature was exalted above other Creatures on Earth in our Redemption our Nature is exalted above all the Host of Heaven We were higher than the Beasts as Creatures but lower than the Angels * Psal 8.5 But by the Incarnation of the Son of God our Nature is elevated many steps above them After it had sunk it self by Corruption below the Bestial Nature and as low as the Diabolical the fulness of the Godhead dwells in our Nature Bodily †Colos 2.9 but never in the Angels Angelically The Son of God descended to dignifie our Nature by assuming it and ascended with our Nature to have it crown'd above those standing Monuments of Divine Power and Goodness * 1 Ephes 20.21 That Person that descended in our Nature into the Grave and in the same Nature was raised up again is in that same Nature set at the right hand of God in Heaven far above all Principality and Power and Might and Dominion and every Name that is named Our Refined Clay by an indissoluble union with this Divine Person is honoured to sit for ever upon a Throne above all the Tribes of Seraphims and Cherubins and the Person thâ—t wears it is the head of the good Angels and the conqueror of the bad The one are put under his Feet and the other commanded to adore him that purged our Sins in our Nature †Heb. 1.3 6. That Divine Person in our Nature receives Adoration from the Angels but the Nature of Man is not order'd to pay any Homage and Adorations to the Angels How could Divine Goodness to Man more magnifie it self As we could not have a lower descent than we had by Sin How could we have a higher ascent than by a substantial participation of a Divine Life in our Nature in the unity of a Divine Person Our Earthly Nature is joyned to a Heavenly Person our undone Nature united to one equal with God * Phil. 2.6 It may truly be said that Man is God which is infinitely more glorious for us than if it could be said Man is an Angel If it were Goodness to advance our Innocent Nature above other Creatures the advancement of our degenerate Nature above Angels deserves a higher Title than meer Goodness 'T is a more gracious act than if all Men had been transformed into the pure Spiritual Nature of the loftiest Cherubins 5. This Goodness is manifest in the Covenant of Grace made with us whereby we are freâ—d from the rigor of that of Works God might have insisted upon the terms of the old Covenant and requir'd of Man the improvement of his Original Stock but God hath condescended to lower terms and offer'd Man more gracious Methods and mitigated the rigor of the first by the sweetness of the second 1. 'T is Goodness that he should condescend to make another Covenant with Man To Stipulate with Innocent and Righteous Adam for his Obedience was a stoop of his Soveraignty Though he gave the Precept as a Soveraign Lord yet in his Covenanting he seems to descend to some kind of equality with that Dust and Ashes with whom he treated Absolute Soveraigns do not usually Covenant with their People but exact Obedience and Duty without binding themselves to bestow a Reward and if they intend any they reserve the purpose in their own breasts without treating their Subjects with a solemn declaration of it There was no obligation on God to enter into the first Covenant much less after the violation of the first to the settlement of a new If God seem'd in some sort to equal himself to Man in the first he seem'd to descend below himself in treating with a Rebel upon more condescending terms in the second If his Covenant with Innocent Adam was a stoop of his Soveraignty this with Rebellious Adam seems to be a stripping himself of his Majesty in favour of his Goodness As if his happiness depended upon us and not ours upon him 'T is a Humiliation of himself to behold the things in Heaven the glorious Angels as well as things on Earth mortal Men †Psal 113.6 much more to bind himself in gracious bonds to the glorious Angels and much more if to Rebel Man In the first Covenant there was much of Soveraignty as well as Goodness In the second there is less of Soveraignty and more of Grace In the first there was a Righteous Man for a Holy God In the second a polluted Creature for a pure and provoked God In the first he holds his Scepter in his hand to Rule his Subjects In the second he seems to lay by his Scepter to Court and Espouse a Beggar * Hosea 2.18 19 20. In the first he is a Lord in the second a Husband and binds himself upon Gracious Conditions to become a Debtor How should this Goodness fill us with an humble astonishment as it did Abraham when he fell on his face when he heard God speaking of making a Covenant with him †Gen. 17.2.3 And if God speaking to Israel out of the Fire and making them to hear his voice out of Heaven that he might instruct them was a Consideration whereby Moses would heighten their admiration of Divine Goodness and engage their affectionate Obedience to him * Deut. 4.32 36 40. How much more
majestically and by way of Authority not as the look of a bare Spectator but the look of a Governor to pass a sentence upon them as a Judge His being in the Heavens renders him capable of doing whatsoever he pleases Psal 115.3 His Throne being there he can by a word in stopping the Motions of the Heavens turn the whole Earth into confusion In this respect it is said he rides upon the Heaven in thy help Deut. 33.26 Discharges his Thunders upon men and makes the influences of it serve his peoples interest By one turn of a cock as you see in Grottos he can cause streams from several parts of the Heavens to refresh or ruine the World 6. Duration of it The Heavens are incorruptible his Throne is placed there in an incorruptible state Earthly Empires have their decayes and dissolutions The Throne of God outlives the dissolution of the World His Kingdom rules over all He hath an absolute right over all things within the Circuit of Heaven and Earth though his Throne be in Heaven as the place where his Glory is most eminent and visible his Authority most exactly obey'd yet his Kingdom extends its self to the lower parts of the Earth He doth not mufle and cloud up himself in Heaven or confine his Soveraignty to that place his Royal power extends to all visible as well as invisible things He is proprietor and possessor of all Deut. 10.14 The Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens is the Lords thy God the Earth also with all that is there He hath right to dispose of all as he pleases He doth not say his Kingdom Rules all that fear him but over all so that it is not the Kingdom of Grace he here speaks of but his natural and universal Kingdom Over Angels and Men Jews and Gentiles Animate and Inanimate things The Psalmist considers God here as a great Monarch and General and all Creatures as his Hosts and Regiments under him and takes notice principally of two things 1. The Establishment of his Throne together with the Seat of it He hath prepared his Throne in the Heavens 2. The extent of his Empire His Kingdom rules over all This Text in all the parts of it is a fit basis for a discourse upon the Dominion of God and the observation will be this Doctrine God is Soveraign Lord and King and exerciseth a Dominion over the whole World both Heaven and Earth This is so clear that nothing is more spoken of in Scripture The very name Lord imports it a name originally belonging to Gods and from them translated to others And he is frequently called the Lord of Hosts because all the Troops and Armies of Spiritual and Corporeal Creatures are in his hands and at his service This is one of his principal Titles And the Angels are called his Hosts 21. ver following the Text his Camp and Militia But more plainly 1 Kings 22.19 God is presented upon his Throne encompast with all the Host of Heaven standing on his Right hand and on his Left which can be understood of no other than of the Angels that wait for the Commands of their Soveraign and stand about not to Counsel him but to receive his Orders The Sun Moon and Starrs are called his Hosts Deut. 4.19 Appointed by him for the Government of inferior things He hath an absolute Authority over the greatest and the least Creatures over those that are most dreadful and those that are most beneficial over the good Angels that willingly obey him over the Evil Angels that seem most uncapable of Government And as he is thus Lord of Hosts he is the King of Glory or a glorious King Psal 24.10 You find him called a great King the most High Psal 92.1 The supream Monarch there being no dignity in Heaven or Earth but what is dimm before him and infinitely inferior to him yea he hath the Title of Only King 1 Tim. 6.15 The Title of Royalty truly and properly only belongs to him You may see it described very magnificently by David at the freewill offering for the Building of the Temple 1 Chron. 29.11 12. Thine O Lord is the greatness and the Power and the Glory and the Victory and the Majesty thine is the Kingdom O God and thou art exalted as Head above all Both Riches and Honour come of thee and thou Reignest over all and in thy hand is Power and Might and in thy hand it is to make Great and to give strength to all He hath an eminency of Power or Authority above all All Earthly Princes received their Diadems from him yea even those that will not acknowledge him and he hath a more absolute power over them than they can challenge over their meanest Vassals As God hath a knowledge infinitely above our knowledge so he hath a Dominion incomprehensibly above any Dominion of Man and by all the shadows drawn from the Authority of one man over another we can have but weak glimmerings of the Authority and Dominion of God There is a threefold Dominion of God 1. Natural which is absolute over all Creatures and is founded in the Nature of God as Creator 2. Spiritual or Gracious which is a Dominion over his Church as Redeemed and founded in the Covenant of Grace 3. A Glorious Kingdom at the winding up of all wherein he shall Reign over all either in the Glory of his Mercy as over the glorified Saints or in the Glory of his Justice in the condemned Devils and Men. The first Dominion is founded in Nature The second in Grace The third in regard of the blessed in Grace in regard of the damn'd in demerit in them and Justice in him He is Lord of all things and always in regard of propriety Psal 24.1 The Earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof the World and all that dwell therein The Earth with the Riches and Treasures in the Bowels of it the habitable World with every thing that moves upon it are his he hath the sole right and what right soever any others have is deriv'd from him In regard also of possession Gen. 14.22 The most high God possessor of Heaven and Earth In respect of whom Man is not the proprietary nor possessor but usufructuary at the Will of this Grand Lord. In thâ— prosecution of this I. I shall lay down Some general propositions for the clearing and confirming it II. I shall shew Wherein this right of Dominion is founded III. What the nature of it is IV. Wherein it consists and how 't is manifested I. Some general Propositions for the clearing and confirming of it 1. We must know the difference between the Might or Power of God and his Authority We commonly mean by the Power of God the strength of God whereby he is able to effect all his purposes By the Authority of God we mean the right he hath to act what he pleases Omnipotence is his Physical power whereby he is able to do what he will Dominion is
own affections according to the holiness of his own Will As it is the effect of his power so it is an argument of his power the greatness of the effect demonstrates the fulness and sufficiency of the Cause The more feeble any man is in reason the less command he hath over his passions and he is the more heady to revenge Revenge is a sign of a Childish mind the stronger any man is in reason the more command he hath over himself Prov. 16.32 He that is slow to Anger is better than the mighty and he that rules his own Spirit than he that takes a City He that can restrain his Anger is stronger than the Coesars and Alexanders of the World that have fill'd the Earth with slain Carcasses and ruin'd Cities By the same reason God's slowness to Anger is a greater argument of his Power than the creating a World or the power of dissolving it by a Word In this he hath a Dominion over Creatures in the other over himself This is the reason he will not return to destroy because I am God and not Man Hosea 11.9 I am not so weak and impotent as man that cannot restrain his Anger This is a strength possessed only by a God wherein a Creature is no more able to parallel him than in any other So that he may be said to be the Lord of himself as it is in the verse before the Text that he is the Lord of Anger in the Hebrew instead of furious as we translate it so he is the Lord of Patience The end why God is Patient is to shew his Power Rom. 9.22 What if God willing to shew his Wrath and to make his Power known endured with much Long-suffering the Vessels of Wrath fitted to destruction To shew his Wrath upon Sinners and his Power over himself in bearing such indignities and forbearing punishment so long when men were vessels of wrath fitted for destruction of whom there was no hopes of amendment Had he immediately broken in peices those Vessels his power had not so eminently appear'd as it hath done in tolerating them so long that had provoked him to take them off so often There is indeed the power of his Anger and there is the power of his Patience and his power is more seen in his Patience than in his Wrath. 'T is no wonder that he that is above all is able to crush all But it is a wonder that he that is provok't by all doth not upon the first provocation rid his hands of all This is the reason why he did bear such a weight of provocations from vessels of wrath prepar'd for ruine that he might 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shew what he was able to do the Lordship and Royalty he had over himself The power of God is more manifest in his Patience to a multitude of Sinners than it could be in Creating Millions of Worlds out of nothing this was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a power over himself 5. This Patience being a branch of Mercy the exercise of it is founded in the Death of Christ Without the consideration of this we can give no account why Divine Patience should extend it self to us and not to the fallen Angels The threatning extends it self to us as well as to the fallen Angels The threatning must necessarily have sunk man as well as those glorious Creatures had not Christ stept into our relief * Testaâ—d de natur Grat. Thes 119. Had not Christ interposed to satisfie the Justice of God man upon his sin had been actually bound over to punishment as well as the fall'n Angels were upon theirs and been fettered in chains as strong as those Spirits feel The reason why man was not hurl'd into the same deplorable condition upon his sin as they were is Christs promise of taking our nature and not theirs Had God design'd Christ's taking their nature the same Patience had been exercised towards them and the same offers would have been made to them as are made to us In regard of these fruits of this Patience Christ is said to buy the wickedest Apostates from him 1 Pet. 2.1 Denying the Lord that bought them such were bought by him as bring upon themselves just destruction and whose damnation slumbers not ver 3. he purchased the continuance of their lives and the stay of their execution that offers of Grace might be made to them This Patience must be either upon the account of the Law or the Gospel for there are no other rules whereby God governs the World a fruit of the Law it was not that spake nothing but Curses after Disobedience not a letter of Mercy was writ upon that And therefore nothing of Patience Death and Wrath was denounced no slowness to Anger intimated It must be therefore upon the account of the Gospel and a fruit of the Covenant of Grace whereof Christ was Mediator Besides this perfection being God's waiting that he might be Gracious Isaiâ—h 30.18 that which made way for Gods Grace made way for his waiting to manifest it God discovered not his Grace but in Christ And therefore discovered not his Patience but in Christ 't is in him he met with the satisfaction of his Justice that he might have a ground for the manifestation of his Patience And the Sacrifices of the Law wherein the Life of a beast was accepted for the sin of a man discovered the ground of his forbearance of them to be the expectation of the great sacrifice whereby sin was to be compleatly expiated Gen. 8.21 The publication of his Patience to the end of the World is presently after the sweet savor he found in Noah's sacrifice The promised and design'd coming of Christ was the cause of that Patience God exercised before in the World And his gathering the Elect together is the reason of his Patience since his death 6. The naturalness of his Veracity and Holiness and the strictness of his Justice are no barrs to the exercise of his patience 1. His Veracity In those threatnings where the punishment is exprest but not the time of inflicting it prefixt and determined in the threatning his veracity suffers no dammage by the delaying Execution so it be once done though a long time after the credit of his Truth stands unshaken As when God promises a thing without fixing the time he is at liberty to pitch upon what time he pleases for the performance of it without staining his faithfulness to his Word by not giving the thing promised presently Why should the deferring of Justice upon an offender be any more against his Veracity than his delaying an answer to the petitions of a suppliant But the difference will lie in the threatning Gen. 2.17 In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death The time was there setled In that day thou shalt dye some referre day to eating not to dying and render the sentence thus I do not prohibit thee the eating this fruit for
we can Pag. 123 124 They must not be of him in a corporeal shape Pag. 124 125 There will be in them a similitude of some corporeal thing in our Fancy Pag. 125 126 We ought to refine and spiritualize them Pag. 126 Right Conceptions of him a great help to Spiritual Worship Pag. 176 177 God Concurs to all the Action of his Creatures Pag. 529 His concurring to sinful actions no blemish to his Holiness Pag. 530 ad 533 Various Conditions of men a fruit of Divine Wisdom Pag. 356 Conditions of the Covenant v. Covenant Faith and Repentance Confession of sin men may have bad ends in it 93. Partial ones a practical denial of God's Omniscience Pag. 326 Conscience proves a Deity Pag. 33 ad 36 Fears and stings of it in all men upon the commission of sin Pag. 34 35 Though never so secret ibid. Cannot be totally shaken off Pag. 35 36 Comforts a man in well-doing Pag. 36 Necessary for the good of the world ibid. Terrified ones wish there were no God Pag. 52 53 Men naturally displeas'd with it when it contradicts the desires of self Pag. 71 72 Obey carnal self against the light of it Pag. 84 Accusations of it evidence God's Knowledge of all things Pag. 313 God and he only can speak peace to it when troubled Pag. 471 720 721 His Laws only reach it Pag. 724 725 756 757 Constancy in that which is good we should labour after and why Pag. 238 Nothing but an Infinite good can content the Soul Pag. 36 37 Vide Satisfaction and Soul Contingents all foreknown by God Vide Knowledge of God Contradictions cannot be made true by God Pag. 432 433 434 435 Yet this doth not overthrow God's Omnipotence ibid. 'T is an abuse of God's Power to endeavour to justifie them by it Pag. 483 Contrary qualities linkt together in the Creatures Pag. 22 351 Conversion carnal Self-love a great hindrance to it Pag. 82 There may be a conversion from sin which is not good Pag. 90 91 Men are Enemies to it Pag. 98 99 The necessity of it Pag. 100 The difficulty of it Pag. 101 God only can be the Author of it Pag. 102 655 The Wisdom of God appears in it in the Subjects Seasons and Manner of it Pag. 367 368 369 And his Power Pag. 467 ad 470 And his Holiness Pag. 516 And his Goodness Pag. 654 655 And his Soveraignty Pag. 730 ad 734 He could convert all Pag. 730 731 Not bound to convert any Pag. 732 733 The various means and occasions of it Pag. 747 748 Genuine Convictions would be promoted by right and strong Apprehensions of God's Holiness Pag. 552 553 Corruptions the Knowledge of God a a comfort under fears of them lurking in the heart Pag. 333 †The Power of God a comfort when they are strong and stirring Pag. 486 In God's People shall be subdued Pag. 770 The Remainders of them God orders for their good Pag. 362 ad 366 The Covenant of God with his People eternal 194. and unchangeable Pag. 234 235 God in Covenant an eternal good to his people Pag. 194 195 The Conditions of the Covenant of Grace evidence the Wisdom of God Pag. 388 Suited to mans lapsed state and Gods glory ibid. Opposite to that which was the cause of the Fall ibid. Suited to the common Sentiments and Customs of the World and Consciences of men Pag. 388 389 Only likely to attain the end ibid. Evidence Gods Holiness Pag. 515 516 The Wisdom of God made over to Believers in it Pag. 4â—5 And Power Pag. 485 And Holiness Pag. 552 †A Promise of Life implyed in the Covenant of Works Pag. 612 Why not exprest Pag. 614 615 The Goodness of God manifest in making a Covenant of Grace after Man had broken the first Pag. 629. In the naâ—â—◠〈…〉 â—oâ— of it Pag. 629 630 631 In the â—â—â—â—ice gift of himself made over â—n it Pag. 631 632 In its confirmation Pag. 632 Its Conditions easy reasonable necessary Pag. 533 534 535 536 It promises a more excellent Reward than the life in Paradise Pag. 642 643 Covetousness vide Riches and World Creation the Wisdom of God appears in it 347 ad 351. should be meditated upon 351. motives to it Pag. 417 ad 4â—0 His Power Pag. 439 ad 445 His Holiness Pag. 507 508 His Goodness Pag. 604 ad 615 Goodness the end and motive of it Pag. 592 593 Ascribed to Christ Pag. 472 ad 475 The Foundation of God's Dominion Pag. 707 708 Creatures evidence the Being of God 5 Pag. 14 ad 29 In their production Pag. 15 ad 21 In their harmony Pag. 21 ad 27 In pursuing their several ends Pag. 27 28 29 In their preservation Pag. 29 Were not and cannot be from Eternity Pag. 16 17 190 191 None of them can make themselves Pag. 17 18 19 Or the World Pag. 20 Subservient to one another Pag. 22 251 252 Regular uniform and constant in it Pag. 24 25 Are various Pag. 25 26 347 348 Have several Natures Pag. 27 All fight against the Atheist Pag. 42 God ought to be studied in them Pag. 45 All manifest something of God's perfections ibid. Setting them up as our end v. End Must not be worship'd v. Idolatry Used by man to a contrary end than God appointed Pag. 89 All are changeable Pag. 220 221 Therefore an immutable God to be preferred before them Pag. 237 Are nothing to God Pag. 264 Are all known by God Pag. 284 285 Shall be restored to their primitive end Pag. 205 206 207 644 645 Their beautiful order and situation Pag. 348 349 Are fitted for their several ends Pag. 349 350 None of them can be Omnipresent Pag. 251 252 Or Omnipotent Pag. 426 427 Or infinitely perfect Pag. 431 God could have made more than he hath Pag. 427 ad 430 Made them all more perfect than they are Pag. 430 Yet all are made in the best manner Pag. 431 The Power that is in them demonstrates a greater to be in God Pag. 436 Ordered by God as he pleases Pag. 455 The meanest of them can destroy us by God's order Pag. 491 768 Making different ranks of them doth not impeach God's Goodness Pag. 595 596 597 Cursed for the sin of man Pag. 609 643 What benefit they have by the Redemption of man Pag. 643 644 Cannot comfort us if God be angry Pag. 768 All subject to God Pag. 717 ad 721 All obey God Pag. 781 Curiosity in enquiries about God's Counsels Actions a great folly Pag. 192 193 'T is an injuring God's knowledge Pag. 323 'T is a contempt of Divine wisdom Pag. 404 Should not be employ'd about what God hath not reveal'd Pag. 414 The consideration of God's Soveraignty would check it Pag. 775 D. DAy how necessary Pag. 350 Death of Christ its value is from his Divine Nature Pag. 382 Vindicated the honour of the Law both as to precept penalty Pag. 383 Overturn'd the Devils Empire Pag. 385 He suffered to rescue us
Eternity a property of God and Christ Pag. 181 191 192 What it is Pag. 182 In what respects God is eternal Pag. 183 ad 186 That he is so proved 186 ad 190 God's incommunicable property Pag. 16 17 190 191 Dreadful to sinners Pag. 193 194 Comfortable to the Righteous Pag. 194 ad 197 The thoughts of it should abate our Pride Pag. 197 198 199 Take off our love and confidence from the World Pag. 199 200 We should provide for an happy Interest in it Pag. 200 201 Often meditate on it Pag. 201 Renders him worthy of our choicest Affections Pag. 201 202 And our best Service Pag. 202 Exaltation of Christ the Holiness of God appears in it Pag. 514 515 His Goodness to us as well as to Christ Pag. 624 And his Soveraignty Pag. 751 Examination of our selves before and after worship and wherein our duty Pag. 162 163 164 178 Experience of God's Goodness a Preservative against Atheism Pag. 45 46 Extremity then God usually delivers his Church Pag. 487 488 F. FAith the same thing may be the object of it and of Reason too Pag. 4 Must be exercised in Spiritual worship Pag. 146 147 The Wisdom Holiness Goodness of God in prescribing it as a Condition of the Covenant of Grace v. Covenant Must look back as far as the foundation promise Pag. 341 †Only the obedience flowing from it acceptable to God Pag. 336 Distinct but inseparable from Obedience Pag. 336 337 Foresight of it not the ground of Election Pag. 729 730 Fall of man God no way the Author of it Pag. 505 506 519 How great it is Pag. 546 547 Doth not impeach God's Goodness Pag. 594 595 'T is evident Pag. 670 671 Brought a Curse on the Creatures v. Creatures Falls of God's Children turned to their good Pag. 361 ad 369 Fear not the cause of the Belief of a God Pag. 14 Men that are under a slavish fear of him wish there were no God Pag. 53 54 Of Man a contempt of God's Power Pag. 481 482 Should be of God and not of the pride or force of man Pag. 491 492 God's Soveraignty should cause it Pag. 779 Features different in every man and how necessary it should be so Pag. 31 32 348 Fervency v. Activity Flesh the Legal Services so called Pag. 135 Fools wicked men are so Pag. 1 400 Folly sin is so v. Sin Forgetfulness of God men naturally are prone to it Pag. 97 Of his Mercies a great sin v. Mercies How attributed to God Pag. 283 Foreknowledge in God of sin no blemish to his Holiness Pag. 520 521 Vide Knowledge of God Future things men desirous to know them Pag. 323 Known by God v. Knowledge of God G. GAbriel on what Messages he was sent Pag. 468 Generation could not be from Eternity Pag. 16 17. Gifts God can bestow them on men Pag. 719 His Soveraignty seen in giving greater measures to one than another Pag. 738 Glory of all they do or have men are apt to ascribe to themselves Pag. 82 83 Of God little minded in many seemingly good actions Pag. 72 73 Men are more concern'd for their own reputation than God's glory Pag. 83 Should be aim'd at in Spiritual worship Pag. 153 God's permission of sin is in order to it Pag. 528 529 Sould be advanced by us Pag. 778 God his Existence known by the light of Nature Pag. 4 5 By the Creatures Pag. 5 14 ad 29 Miracles not wrought to prove it Pag. 5 Owned by the universal consent of all Nations Pag. 6 Never disputed of old Pag. 7 Denied by very few if any Pag. 8 Constantly owned in all changes of the world Pag. 9 Under anxieties of Conscience ib. The Devil not able to root out the belief of it Pag. 9 10 Natural and innate Pag. 10 Not introduced meerly by Tradition Pag. 11 Nor Policy Pag. 12 13 Nor Fear Pag. 14 Witnessed to by the very Nature of Man Pag. 29 ad 37 And by extraordinary Occurrencies Pag. 37 38 Impossible to demonstrate there is none Pag. 41. 42 Motives to endeavour to be setled in the belief of it Pag. 44 45 Directions Pag. 45 Men wish there were none and who they are Pag. 52 53 54 Two ways of describing him Negation and Affirmation Pag. 113 Is active and communicative Pag. 126 127 Propriety in him a great Blessedness Vide Covenant Infinitely happy Pag. 476 477 Good That which is materially so may be done and not formally Pag. 69 72 73 Good Actions cannot be perform'd before Conversion Pag. 100 The thoughts of Gods Presence a Spur to them Pag. 270 God only is so Pag. 578 579 Goodness pure and perfect the Royal Prerogative of God only Pag. 581 Own'd by all Nations Pag. 582 Inseparable from the Notion of God Pag. 582 583 What is meant by it Pag. 583 How distinguish'd from Mercy Pag. 584 Comprehends all his Attributes Pag. 585 Is so by his Essence Pag. 586 The Chief Pag. 587 'T is communicative Pag. 588 Necessary to him Pag. 589 Voluntary Pag. 590 Communicative with the greatest pleasure Pag. 591 The displaying of it the Motive and End of all his Works Pag. 592 Arguments to prove it a Property of God Pag. 593 594 Vindicated from the Objections made against it Pag. 594 ad 604 Appears in Creation Pag. 604 ad 615 In Redemption Pag. 615 ad 645 In his Government Pag. 645 ad 660 Frequently contemn'd and abus'd Pag. 660 661 The Abuse and Contempt of it base and disingenuous Pag. 661 662 Highly resented by God Pag. 662 How 't is contemn'd and abus'd Pag. 660 ad 670 Men justly punish'd for it Pag. 671 Fits him for the Government of the World and engages him actually to govern it Pag. 671 6 2 The ground of all Religion Pag. 673 674 Renders God amiable to himself Pag. 674 675 Should do so to us and why Pag. 675 ad 678 Renders him a fit object of Trust with Motives to it drawn hence Pag. 678 679 680 And worthy to be obey'd and honour'd Pag. 680 681 682 Comfortable to the Righteous and wherein Pag. 682 ad 685 Should engage us to endeavour after the enjoyment of him with Motives Pag. 685 686 Should be often meditated on and the Advantages of so doing Pag. 681 682 683 We should be thankful for it Pag. 690 And imitate it and wherein Pag. 691 692 Gospel Men greater Enemies to than to the Law Pag. 101 Its Excellency Pag. 103 334 Called Spirit Pag. 135 The only Means of establishment Pag. 333 Of an Eternal Resolution tho of a Temporary Revelation Pag. 334 Mysterious ibi◠The first Preachers of it Vide Apostles It s Antiquity Pag. 335 The Goodness of God in spreading it among the Gentiles ibid. Gives no encouragement to Licentiousness Pag. 336 The Wisdom of God in its Propagation Pag. 390 ad 395 And Power Pag. 461 ad 467 Vide Christian Religion Government of the World God could not manage it without Immutability Pag. 220 And Knowledge Pag. 314
Goodness of God seen in them Pag. 450 607 Spaces imaginary beyond the World God is present with Pag. 249 250 251 Spirit that God is so plainly asserted but once in Scripture Pag. 112 Various acceptations of the word Pag. 113 That God is so how to be understood ibid. God the only pure one Pag. 114 Arguments to prove God is one Pag. 115 ad 118. Objection against it answered Pag. 118 119 Spirit of God his assistance necessary to Spiritual Worship Pag. 142 Spirits of men raised up and ordered by God as be pleases Pag. 743 744 Subjection to our Superiors God remits of his own right for preserving it Pag. 651 652 Success men apt to ascribe to themselves Pag. 82 Not to be ascribed to our selves Pag. 669 670 Denied by God to some Pag. 740 Summer how necessary Pag. 350 Sun conveniently placed Pag. 22 148 Its motion useful Pag. 22 23 25 148 The Power of God seen in it Pag. 450 Lord's Supper the goodness of God in appointing it Pag. 639 Seals the Covenant of Grace Pag. 640 641 In it we have Union and Communion with Christ Pag. 641 642 The neglect of it reproved Pag. 642 Supererogation an Opinion that injures the Holiness of God Pag. 546 Superstition proceeds from vain imaginations of God Pag. 95 Swearing by any Creature an injury to God's Omniscience Pag. 323 324 T. TEmptations the Presence of God a comfort in them Pag. 266 The thoughts of it would be a Shield against them Pag. 269 The Wisdom and Power of God a comfort under them Pag. 406 486 The goodness manifested to his people under them Pag. 658 659 660 The thoughts of God's Soveraignty would arm and make us watchful against them Pag. 774 Thankfulness a necessary ingredient in Spiritual worship Pag. 148 Due to God Pag. 689 690 777 778 823 824 825 A sense of his Goodness would promote it Pag. 689 Theft an Invasion of God's Dominion Pag. 758 Thoughts should be often upon God Pag. 46 Seldom are on him Pag. 86 97 98 All known by God only Pag. 285 286 287 And by Christ Pag. 316 317 Cherishing evil ones a practical denial of God's Knowledge Pag. 327 Thoughts of God's Knowledge would make us watchful over them Pag. 338 †Threatnings the not fulfilling them sometimes argue no change in God Pag. 226 227 Are conditional ibid. The goodness of God in them Pag. 613 Go before Judgments v. Judgments Time cannot be infinite Pag. 16 Times of bestowing Mercy God orders as a Soveraign Pag. 741 Tongue how curious a Workmanship Pag. 31 Traditions old ones generally lost Pag. 11 Belief of a God not owing meerly to it ibid. Transubstantiation an absurd Doctrine Pag. 483 Trees how useful Pag. 23 350 Trust in themselves men do and not in God Pag. 83 84 We should not in the World Pag. 199 200 236 God the fit Object of it Pag. 329 386 397 489 551 552 †678 779 Means to promote it Pag. 339 †773 Should not in our own Wisdom Pag. 411 412 In our selves a contempt of God's Power and Dominion Pag. 482 759 God's Power the main ground of trusting him Pag. 489 490 And sometimes the only one Pag. 490 Should be placed in God against outward appearances Pag. 558 Goodness the first motive of it Pag. 678 More foundations of it and motives to it under the Gospel than under the Law Pag. 679 Gives God the glory of his goodness Pag. 679 680 God's Patience to the Wicked a ground for the Righteous to trust in his promise Pag. 821 Truths of God most contrary to self man most opposite to And to those that are most holy spiritual lead most to God and relate most to him Pag. 59 60 Men unconstant in the belief of them Pag. 231 232 Corrupters of them no better than Devils Pag. 541 †Evangelical shall prevail ibid. U. UBiquity of Christ's Human Nature confuted Pag. 252 Venial sins an opinion that reproaches God's Holiness Pag. 546 Vertue and Vice not Arbitrary things Pag. 51 Vnbelief the Reason of it Pag. 101 102 A contempt of Divine Power Pag. 483 And Goodness Pag. 664 665 Vnion of Soul and Body an effect of Almighty Power Pag. 33 Of two Natures in Christ made no change in his Divine Nature Pag. 224 Shews the Wisdom of God Pag. 339 ad 383 How necessary for us Pag. 381 382 383 Shews the Power of God Pag. 458 459 460 Explain'd Pag. 459 460 Vide Incarnation Vsurpations of Men an Invasion of God's Soveraignty Pag. 754 755 W. WAter an excellent Creature Pag. 588 Weakness a sensibleness of it a necessary ingredient in Spiritual Worship Pag. 148 Will of God cannot be defeated Pag. 52 Man averse to it vide Man The same with his Essence Pag. 214 Always accompanied with his Understanding ibid. Unchangeable Pag. 214 215 The unchangeableness of it doth not make things willed by him so Pag. 215 216 Free Pag. 216 How conversant about Sin Pag. 522 Will of Man not necessitated by God's Fore-knowledge Pag. 301 ad 304 Of Man subject to God Pag. 720 Winds how useful Pag. 349 Winter how useful Pag. 350 Wisdom an Attribute of God Pag. 337 What it is and wherein it consists Pag. 338 Distinct from Knowledge Pag. 338 Essential which is the same with his Essence and personal Pag. 339 In what sense God is only wise Pag. 339 ad 343 Proved to be in God Pag. 343 ad 346 Appears in Creation Pag. 346 ad 351 In government of Man as Rational Pag. 352 ad 357 As fallen and sinful Pag. 357 ad 367 As restored Pag. 367 ad 373 In Redemption Pag. 373 ad 388 In the Condition of the Covenant of Grace Pag. 388 ad 390 In the propagation of the Gospel Pag. 390 ad 395 Ascribed to Christ Pag. 395 Renders God fit to govern the World and enclines him actually to govern it Pag. 395 396 A ground of his Patience and Immutability in his Decrees Pag. 396 397 Makes him a fit Object of our Trust Pag. 397 Infers a Day of Judgment Pag. 398 Calls for a Veneration of him ibid. A ground of Prayer to him Pag. 399 Prodigiously contemn'd and wherein Pag. 399 ad 405 Comfortable to the Righteous Pag. 405 406 407 In Creation and Government should be meditated on and Motives to it Pag. 407 ad 410 In Redemption to be studied and admired Pag. 410 411 To be submitted to in his Revelations Precepts Providences Pag. 413 414 415 Not to be censured in any of his ways Pag. 415 Wisdom no Man should be proud of or trust in Pag. 411 412 Should be sought from God Pag. 412 413 World was not and could not be from Eternity Pag. 16 17 Could not make it self Pag. 17 18 19 No Creature could make it Pag. 20 Its Harmony Pag. 21 ad 27 Greedily pursued by Men Pag. 86 Inordinate desires after it a great hindrance to Spiritual Worship Pag. 177 Our Love and Confidence not to be placed in it Pag. 199 200 207 Shall not be