But the Apostle the best Interpreter rectifies this in extending it by name to Jews as well as Gentiles Rom. 3.9 We have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin And v. 10.11 12. Cites part of his Psalm and other passages of Scripture for the further evidence of it concluding by Jews and Gentiles every person in the world naturally in this State of Corruption The Psalmist first declares the Corruption of the faculties of the Soul the fool hath said in his heart Secondly the streams issuing from thence they are corrupt c. the first in Athestical principles the other in unworthy practices and lays all the Evil Tyranny Lust and Persecutions by men as if the World were only for their sake upon the neglects of God and the Atheism cherished in their hearts The fool a term in Scripture signifying a wicked man used also by the Heathen Philosophers to signifie a vicious person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as coming from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the extinction of life in Men Animals and Plants so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken * Isa 40.7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the flower fadeth Isa 28.1 a plant that hath lost all that juyce that made it lovely and useful So a fool is one that hath lost his Wisdom and right notion of God and Divine things which were communicated to man by creation one dead in sin yet one not so much void of rational faculties as of Grace in those faculties not one that wants reason but abuses his reason In Scripture the word signifies foolish ‖ Mais 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 put together Deut. 32.6 Oh foolish people and unwise * Said in his heart that is he thinks or he doubts or he wishes The thoughts of the heart are in the nature of words to God though not to men T is used in the like case of the Atheistical person Psal 10.11.13 He hath said in his heart God hath forgotten he hath said in his heart thou wilt not require it He doth not form a Syllogism as Calvin speaks that there is no God he dares not openly publish it though he dares secretly think it He can not rase out the thoughts of a Deity though he endeavors to blot those Characters of God in his Soul He hath some doubts whither there be a God or no He wishes there were not any and sometimes hopes there is none at all He could not so ascertain him self by convincing arguments to produce to the World but he tampered with his own heart to bring it to that perswasion and smothered in himself those notices of a Deity which is so plain against the light of nature that such a man may well be called a fool for it There is no God * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non potestas Domini Chaldae T is not Jehovah which name signifies the Essence of God as the Prime and Supream being But Eloahia which name signifies the Providence of God * Muis. God as a Rector and Judge Not that he denyes the Existence of a Supream being that Created the World but his regarding the Creatures his Government of the world and consequently his reward of the Righteous or Punishments of the Wicked * Cocceius There is a threefold denyal of God 1. Quoad exisientiam this is absolute Atheism 2. Quoad Providentiam or his inspection into or care of the things of the World bounding him in the Heavens 3. Quoad naturam in regard of one or other of the perfections due to his nature Not owning him as the Egyptians called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of the denyal of the Providence of God most understand this * Eugubin in cloc not excluding the absolute Atheist as Diagoras is reported to be nor the Sceptical Atheist as Protagoras who doubted whither there were a God Those that deny the Providence of God do in effect deny the being of God for they strip him of that Wisdom Goodness Tenderness Mercy Justice Righteousness which are the Glory of the Deity And that principle of a greedy desire to be uncontroul'd in their Lusts which induceth men to a denyal of Providence that thereby they might stifle those seeds of fear which infect and embitter their sinful pleasures may as well lead them to deny that there is any such being as a God That at one blow their fears may be dasht all in peices and dissolved by the removal of the Foundation As men who desire liberty to commit works of darkness would not have the lights in the House dimm'd but extinguished What men say against Providence because they would have no check in their Lusts they may say in their hearts against the existence of God upon the same account little difference between the dissenting from the one and disowning the other They are corrupt they have done abominable works there is none that doth good He speaks of the Atheist in the singular the fool of the corruption issuing in the life in the plural Intimating that though some few may choak in their hearts the sentiments of God and his Providence and positively deny them yet there is something of a secret Atheism in all which is the fountain of the evil practices in their lives not an utter disowning of the Being of a God but a denyal or doubting of some of the rights of his nature * Atheism absolute is not in all mens judgements but practical is in all mens actions The Apostle in the Romans applying the later part of it to all mankind but not the former As the word translated corrupt signifies When men deny the God of purity they must needs be polluted in Soul and Body and grow brutish in their actions When the sense of Religion is shaken off all kind of wickedness is eagerly rusht into whereby they become as loathsome to God as putrified carcases are to men * Atheism absolute is not in all mens judgements but practical is in all mens actions The Apostle in the Romans applying the later part of it to all mankind but not the former As the word translated corrupt signifies Not one or two evil actions is the product of such a principle but the whole scene of a mans life is corrupted and becomes execrable No man is exempted from some spice of Atheism by the depravation of his nature which the Psalmist intimates there is none that doth good Though there are indelible convictions of the being of a God that they cannot absolutely deny it yet there are some Atheistical bublings in the hearts of men which Evidence themselves in their actions As the Apostle Tit. 1.16 They profess that they know God but in works they deny him Evil works are a dust stirred up by an Atheistical breath He that habituates himself in some sordid lust can scarcly be said seriously and firmly to believe that there
a bitter potion we are rather haled than run to it There is a contradiction of sin within us against our service as there was a contradiction of sinners without our Saviour against his doing the Will of God Our hearts are unweildy to any Spiritual service of God we are fain to use a violence with them sometimes Hezekiah it is said walked before the Lord with a perfect heart 2 Kings 20.9 he walked he made himself to walk Man naturally cares not for a walk with God If he hath any Communion with him t is with such a dulness and heaviness of Spirit as if he wished himself out of his Company Mans nature being contrary to holiness hath an aversion to any act of homage to God because Holiness must at least be pretended In every duty wherein we have a Communion with God Holiness is requisite Now as men are against the truth of Holiness because it is unsutable to them so they are not friends to those duties which require it and for some space divert them from the thoughts of their beloved lusts The word of the Lord is a Yoke Prayer a drudgery Obedience a strange Element We are like fish that drink up iniquity like water * Job 15.16 and come not to the bank without the force of an Angle No more willing to do service for God than a fish is of it self to do service for Man T is a constrained act to satisfie Conscience and such are servile not Son-like performances and spring from bondage more than affection If Conscience like a task Master did not scourge them to duty they would never perform it Let us appeal to our selves whether we are not more unwilling to secret Closet hearty duty to God than to joyn with others in some external service as if those inward services were a going to the rack and rather our pennance than priviledg How much service hath God in the world from the same principle that Vagrants perform their task in Bridewel How glad are many of evasions to back them in the neglect of the Commands of God of Corrupt reasonings from the flesh to way-lay an Act of obedience and a multitude of excuses to blunt the edge of the precept The very service of God shall be a pretence to deprive him of the obedience due to him Saul will not be ruled by Gods Will in the destroying the Cattle of the Amalekites but by his own and will impose upon the Will and Wisdom of God Judging God mistaken in his Command and that the Cattle God thought fittest to be meat to the fouls were fitter to be Sacrifices on the Altar * 1 Sam. 15.3.9.15.21 If we do perform any part of his Will is it not for our own ends to have some deliverance from trouble Isa 26.16 In trouble have they visited thee they poured out a Prayer when thy Chastening was upon them In affliction he shall find them kneeling in Homage and Devotion In prosperity he shall feel them kicking with contempt they can poure out a Prayer in distress and scarce drop one when they are delivered 2. There is a slightness in our service of God We are loath to come into his presence and when we do come we are loth to continue with him We pay not an Homage to him heartily as to our Lord and Governour we regard him not as our Master whose work we ought to do and whose Honour we ought to aime at 1. In regard of the matter of service When the torn the lame and the sick is offered to God * Mal. 1.13.14 so thin and lean a Sacrifice that you may have thrown it to the ground with a puff so some understand the meaning of you have snufft at it Men have naturally such slight thoughts of the Majesty and Law of God that they think any service is good enough for him and conformable to his Law The dullest and deadest times we think fittest to pay God a service in when sleep is ready to close our eyes and we are unfit to serve our selves we think it a fit time to open our hearts to God How few Morning Sacrifices hath God from many persons and Families Men leap out of their beds to their carnal pleasures or worldly employments without any thought of their Creator and Preserver or any reflection upon his Will as the rule of our dayly obedience And as many reserve the dregs of their Lives their Old-age to offer up their Souls to God So they reserve the Dreggs of the Day their sleeping time for the offering up their service to Him How many grudge to spend their best time in the serving the Will of God and reserve for him the sickly and rheumatick part of their Lives the remainder of that which the Devil and their own Lusts have fed upon Would not any Prince or Governour judge a Present half eaten up by Wild-beasts or that which died in a Ditch a contempt of his Royalty A corrupt thing is too base and vile for so great a King as God is whose Name is dreadful * Mal. 1.14 When by Age Men are weary of their own Bodies they would present them to God yet grudgingly as if a tired body were too good for him snuffing at the Command for Service God calls for our best and we give him the worst 2. In respect of Frame We think any frame will serve Gods turn which speaks our slight of God as a Ruler Man naturally performs duty with an unholy heart whereby it becomes an abomination to God Pro. 28.9 He that turns away his Ear from hearing the Law even his prayers shall be an abomination to God The Services which he commands he hates for their evil frames or corrupt ends Amos 5.21 I hate I despise your Feast-days I will not smell in your Solemn Assemblies God requires gracious services and we give him corrupt ones We do not rouze up our hearts as David called upon his Lute and Harp to awake Psal 57.8 Our hearts are not given to him we put him off with bodily exercise The heart is but Ice to what it doth not affect 1. There is not that natural vigor in the observance of God which we have in worldly business When we see a liveliness in men in other things change the Scene into a motion towards God how suddenly doth their vigoâ— shrink and their hearts freeze into sluggishness Many times we serve God as lanâ—guishingly as if we were afraid he should accept us and pray as coldly as if we were unwilling he should hear us and take away that lust by which we are Governed and which Conscience forces us to pray against as if we were afraid God should set up his own throne and Government in our hearts How fleeting are we in Divine Meditation how sleepy in Spiritual exercises but in other exercises active The Soul doth not awaken it self and excite those animal and vital Spirits which it will in bodily recreations and
All Spiritual acts must be acts of reason otherwise they are not human acts because they want that principle which is constitutive of man and doth difference him from other Creatures Acts done only by sense are the acts of a brute acts done by reason are the acts of a man That which is only an act of sense cannot be an act of Religion The sense without the conduct of reason is not the subject of Religious acts for then beasts were capable of Religion as well as Men There cannot be Religion where there is not reason and there cannot be the exercise of Religion where there is not an exercise of the rational faculties Nothing can be a Christian act that is not a human act Besides all worship must be for some end the worship of God must be for God t is by the exercise of our rational faculties that we only can intend an end An Ignorant and Carnal worship is a brutish worship Particularly 1. Spiritual Worship is a Worship from a spiritual Nature Not only Physically spiritual so our Souls are in their frame but morally spiritual by a renewing principle The heart must be first cast into the Mould of the Gospel before it can perform a Worship required by the Gospel Adam living in Paradice might perform a spiritual worship but Adam fallen from his rectitude could not We being Heirs of his Nature are Heirs of his Impotence Restoration to a spiritual Life must precede any act of spiritual Worship As no work can be good so no worship can be spiritual till we are created in Christ * Eph. 2.10 Christ is our Life * Col. 3.4 As no natural action can be performed without life in the root or heart so no spiritual act without Christ in the Soul Our being in Christ is as necessary to every spiritual act as the union of our Soul with our Body is necessary to natural action Nothing can exceed the limits of its nature for then it should exceed it self in acting and do that which it hath no principle to doe A Beast cannot act like a Man without partaking of the nature of a Man nor a Man act like an Angel without partaking of the Angelical nature How can we perform spiritual acts without a spiritual principle Whatsoever worship proceeds from the corrupted nature cannot deserve the title of spiritual worship because it springs not from a spiritual habit If those that are evil cannot speak good things those that are carnal cannot offer a spiritual service Poyson is the fruit of a Vipers nature Mat. 12.34 Oh Generation of Vipers how can you being evil speak good things For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks As the root is so is the fruit If the Soul be habitually carnal the worship cannot be actually spiritual There may be an intention of Spirit but there is no spiritual principle as a root of that intention A heart may be sensibly united with a duty when it is not spiritually united with Christ in it Carnal motives and carnal ends may fix the mind in an act of worship as the sense of some pressing affliction may enlarge a mans mind in Prayer Whatsoever is agreeable to the nature of God must have a stamp of Christ upon it a stamp of his grace in performance as well as of his mediation in the acceptance The Apostle lived not but Christ lived in him * Gal. 2.20 the Soul worships not but Christ in him Not that Christ performs the act of Worship but enables us spiritually to worship after he enables us spiritually to live As God counts not any Soul living but in Christ so he counts not any a spiritual Worshipper but in Christ The goodness and fatness of the fruit comes from the fatness of the Olive wherein we are engrafted We must find healing in Christs wings before God can find spirituality in our services All worship issuing from a dead nature is but a dead service A living action cannot be performed without being knit to a living root 2. Spiritual Worship is done by the influence and with the assistance of the Spirit of God A Heart may be spiritual when a particular act of Worship may not be spiritual The Spirit may dwell in the Heart when he may suspend his influence on the act Our worship is then spiritual when the fire that kindles our affections comes from Heaven as that fire upon the Altar wherewith the Sacrifices were consumed God tasts a sweetness in no service but as it is drest up by the hand of the Mediator and hath the Air of his own Spirit in it They are but natural acts without a supernatural assistance Without an actual influence we cannot act from spiritual motives nor for spiritual ends nor in a spiritual manner We cannot mortifie a Lust without the Spirit * Rom. 8.13 nor quicken a service without the Spirit Whatsoever corruption is killed is slain by his Power whatsoever duty is spiritualized is refined by his Breath He quickens our dead bodies in our Resurection * Rom. 8.11 He renews our dead Souls in our Regeneration He quickens our carnal services in our adorations The choicest acts of worship are but infirmities without his auxiliary help * Rom. 8.26 We are Loggs unable to move our selves till he raise our faculties to a pitch agreeable to God puts his hand to the duty and lifts that up and us with it Never any great act was performed by the Apostles to God or for God but they are said to be filled with the Holy-Ghost Christ could not have been conceived immaculate as that holy thing without the Spirits overshadowing the Virgin nor any spiritual act conceived in our heart without the Spirits moving upon us to bring forth a living Religion from us The acts of worship are said to be in the Spirit Supplication in the Spirit * Eph. 6.18 not only with the strength and affection of our own Spirits but with the mighty operation of the Holy-Ghost if Jude may be the Interpreter * Jude 20. The Holy-Ghost exciting us impelling us and firing our Souls by his divine flame raising up the affections and making the Soul cry with a holy importunity Abba Father To render our worship spiritual we should before every ingagement in it implore the actual presence of the Spirit without which we are not able to send forth one spiritual breath or groan but be Wind-bound like a Ship without a Gale and our worship be no better than carnal How doth the Spouse solicite the Spirit with an awake oh North-wind and come thou South-wind c. * Cant. 4.16 3. Spiritual Worship is done with Sincerity When the heart stands right to God and the Soul performs what it pretends to perform When we serve God with our Spirits as the Apostle Rom. 1.9 God is my Witness whom I serve with my Spirit in the Gospel of his Son This is not meant of the
following evidence The Church he would bring out from the Countries where she was scattered and bring the people into the bond of the Covenant He sometimes cuts off the Spirits of Princes Psal 76.12 i. e. cuts off their designs as men do the pipes of a water-course The hearts of all are as open to him as the riches of heaven where he resides He can slip an inclination into the heart of the mighty which they dream'd not of before and if he doth not change their projects he can make them abortive and way-lay them in their attempts Laâ—an marched with fury but God put a padlock upon his passion against Jacob. Gen. 31.24.29 The Devils which ravage mens minds must be still when he gives out his soveraign orders This soveraign can make his people find favour in the eyes of the cruel Egyptians which had so long opprest them Exod. 11.3 And speak a good word in the heart of Nebuchadnezzar for the Prophet Jeremy that he should order his Captain to take him into his special protection when he took Zedekiah away prisoner in chains and put out his eyes Jerem. 39.11 His people cannot want deliverance from him who hath all the world at his command when he is pleased to bestow it he hath as many instruments of deliverance as he hath Creatures at his beck in Heaven or Earth from the meanest to the highest As he is the Lord of Hosts the Church hath not only an interest in the strength he himself is possessed with but in the strength of all the Creatures that are under his command in the Elements below and Angels above in those armies of Heaven and in the inhabitants of the Earth he doth what he will Dan. 4.35 They are all in order and array at his command There are Angels to employ in a fatal stroke Lice and Froggs to quell the stubborn hearts of his Enemies He can range his Thunders and Lightnings the Canon and Granado's of Heaven and the Worms of the Earth in his service He can muzzle Lions calm the fury of the Fire turn his Enemies Swords into their own bowels and their Artillery on their own breasts set the wind in their Teeth and make their Chariot-wheels languish make the Sea enter a quarrel with them and wrap them in its waves till it hath stifled them in its lap The Angels have Storms and Tempests and Warrs in their hands but at the disposal of God when they shall cast them out against the Empire of Antichrist Rev. 7.1 2. then shall Satan be discharg'd from his Throne and no more seduce the Nations the everlasting Gospel shall be preached and God shall reign gloriously in Sion Let us therefore shelter our selves in the divine soveraignty regard God as the most High in our dangers and in our petitions This was Davids resolution Psal 57.1 2. I will cry unto unto God most high This Dominion of God is the true Tower of David wherein there are a thousand shields for defence and encouragement Cant. 4.4 IV. USE If God hath an extensive Dominion over the whole World this ought to be often meditated on and acknowledged by us This is the universal duty of mankind if he be the soveraign of all we should frequently think of our great Prince and acknowledge our selves his Subjects and him our Lord. God will be acknowledg'd the Lord of the whole Earth the neglect of this is the cause of the Judgments which are sent upon the World All the Prodigies were to this end that they might know or acknowledge that God was the Lord. Exod. 10.2 As God was proprietor he demanded the first-born of every Jew and the first-born of every Beast the one was to be Redeemed and the other Sacrificed this was the Quit-Rent they were to pay to him for their fruitful Land The first Fruits of the Earth were ordered to be paid to him as a homage due to the Landlord and an acknowledgment they held all in chief of him The practice of offering first-fruits for an acknowledgment of Gods soveraignty was among many of the Heathens and very ancient hence they dedicated some of the chief of their spoils owning thereby the Dominion and Goodness of God whereby they had gain'd the Victory Cain own'd this in offering the Fruits of the Earth and it was his sin he own'd no more viz. His being a sinner and meriting the Justice of God as his Brother Abel did in his bloody Sacrifice God was a soveraign Proprietor and Governour while man was in a state of innocence but when man proved a Rebel the soveraignty of God bore another relation towards him that of a Judge added to the other The First-fruits might have been offered to God in a state of innocence as a homage to him as Lord of the Manour of the World the design of them was to own Gods propriety in all things and mens dependance on him for the influences of heaven in producing the fruits of the Earth which he had ordered for their use The design of Sacrifices and placing beasts instead of the criminal was to acknowledg their own guilt and God as a soveraign Judge Cain own'd the first but not the second he acknowledged his dependance on God as a proprietor but not his obnoxiousness to God as a Judg which may be probably gathered from his own speech when God came to examine him and ask him for his Brother Gen. 4.9 Am I my Brothers keeper Why do you ask me though I own thee as the Lord of my Land and Goods yet I do not think my self accountable to thee for all my actions This Soveraignty of God ought to be acknowledged in all the parts of it in all the manifestations of it to the creature We should bear a sense of this always upon our Spirits and be often in the thoughts of it in our retirements We should fancy that we saw God upon his Throne in his Royal Garb and great attendants about him and take a view of it to imprint an awe upon our Spirits The meditation on this would 1. Fix us on him as an object of trust 'T is upon his Soveraign Dominion as much as upon anything that safe and secure confidence is built for if he had any superior above him to controul him in his designs and promises his veracity and power would be of little efficacy to form our souls to a close adherency to him It were not fit to make him the object of our trust that can be gainsaid by a higher than himself and had not a full Authority to answer our expectations If we were possessed with this notion fully and believingly that God were high above all that his Kingdom rules over all we should not catch at every broken reed and stand gaping for comforts from a pebble stone He that understands the Authority of a King would not wave a relyance on his promise to depend upon the breath of a changeling favorite None but an ignorant man would
other in its operations Is not this more admirable than to be the work of chance which is uncapable to settle such an order and fix particular and general ends causing an exact correspondency of all the parts with one another and every part to conspire together for one common end One thing is fitted for another The Eye is fitted for the Sun and the Sun fitted for the Eye Several sorts of food are fitted for several Creatures and those Creatures fitted with Organs for the partaking that food 1. Subserviency of Heavenly bodies * Lessius The Sun the heart of the world is not for it self but for the good of the World as the heart of man is for the good of the body How conveniently is the Sun placed at a distance from the Earth and the upper Heavens to enlighten the Stars above and enliven the Earth below If it were either higher or lower one part would want its influences T is not in the higher parts of the Heavens the Earth then which lives and fructifies by its influence would have been exposed to a perpetual Winter and chilness unable to have produced any thing for the sustenance of man or beast If seated lower the Earth had been parch'd up the world made uninhabitable and long since had been consumed to ashes by the strength of its heat Consider the motion as well as the Situation of the Sun Had it stood still one part of the World had been cherished by its beams and the other left in a desolate Widow-hood in a disconsolate darkness Besides the Earth would have had no shelter from its perpendicular beams striking perpetually and without any remission upon it The same incommodities would have followed upon its fixedness as upon its too great nearness By a constant day the beauty of the Stars had been obscured the knowledge of their motions been prevented and a considerable part of the Glorious wisdom of the Creator in those choice works of his fingers * Psal 8.3 had been vail'd from our eyes It moves in a fixed line visits all parts of the Earth scatters in the day its refreshing blessings in every creeke of the Earth and removes the mask from the other beauties of Heaven in the night which sparkle out to the glory of the Creator It spreads its Light warms the Earth cherisheth the Seeds excites the Spirit in the Earth and brings Fruit to maturity View also the Air the vast extent between Heaven and Earth which serves for a Water-course a Cistern for water to bedew the face of the Sun-burnt Earth to satisfie the desolate ground and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth * Job 38.25 27. Could Chance appoint the Clouds of the Air to interpose as fans between the scorching heat of the Sun and the faint bodies of the Creatures Can that be the Father of the Rain or beget the drops of dew * Job 38.28 Could any thing so blind settle those ordinances of Heaven for the preservation of Creatures on the Earth Can this either bring or stay the bottles of Heaven when the dust grows into hardness and the Clods cleave fast together * Job 38.37.38 2. Subserviency of the lower World the Earth and Sea which was Created to be inhabited Isa 45.18 The Sea affords water to the Rivers the Rivers like so many veins are spread through the whole body of the Earth to refresh and enable it to bring forth fruit for the sustenance of man and beast Psal 104.10.11 He sends the Springs into the Vallies which run among the Hills they give drink to every Beast of the Field the wild Asses quench their thirst He causes the Grass to grow for the Cattle and the herb for the service of man that he may bring forth food out of the Earth v. 14. The Trees are provided for shades against the extremity of heat a refuge for the panting beasts an habitation for Birds wherein to make their nests ver 17. and a Basket for their provision How are the Vallies and Mountains of the Earth disposed for the pleasure and profit of man Every year are the Feilds covered with Harvests for the nourishing the Creatures no part is Barren but beneficial to man The Mountains that are not cloathed with grass for his food are set with stones to make him an Habitation they have their peculiar services of metals and minerals for the conveniency and comfort and benefit of man Things which are not fit for his food are medicines for his cure under some painful sickness Where the Earth brings not forth Corn it brings forth Roots for the service of other Creatures Wood abounds more in those Countries where the cold is stronger than in others Can this be the result of Chance or not rather of an infinite Wisdom Consider the usefulness of the Sea for the supply of Rivers to refresh the Earth Which go up by the Mountains and down by the Vallies into the place God hath founded for them Psal 104.8 A store-house for fish for the nourishment of other Creatures a shop of Medicines for cure and Pearls for ornament The band that ties remote Nations together by giving opportunity of passage to and commerce with one another How should that natural inclination of the Sea to cover the Earth submit to this subserviency to the Creatures Who hath pounded in this fluid mass of Water in certain limits and confin'd it to its own Channel for the accommodation of such Creatures who by its common Law can only be upon the Earth Naturally the Earth was covered with the deep as with a Garment the waters stood above the Mountains Who set a bound that they might not pass over that they return not again to cover the Earth * Psa 104.6.9 Was it blind Chance or an Infinite Power that shut up the Sea with doors and made thick darkness a swadling band for it and said hitherto shall thou come and no further and here shall thy proud waves be staid * Job 38.8.9.11 All things are so ordered that they are not propter se but propter aliud What advantage accrues to the Sun by its unwearied rouling about the World Doth it increase the perfection of its nature by all its Circuits No but it serves the inferior world it impregnates things by its heat Not the most abject thing but hath its end and use There is a strait connexion the Earth could not bring forth fruit without the Heavens the Heavens could not water the Earth without vapours from it 3. All this Subserviency of Creatures centers in man Other Creatures are served by those things as well as our selves and they are provided for their nourishment and refreshment as well as ours * Amirald de Trinitate pa. 13. and pag. 18. yet both they and all Creatures meet in man as lines in their Centers Things that have no life or sense are made for those that have both life and
He Created the world for his glory a people for himself that he might have the Honour of his works That since we live and move in him and by him we should live and move to him and for him It was the condemnation of the Heathen world that when they knew there was a God they did not give him the Glory due to him * Rom. 1.21 He that denyes his being is an Atheist to his essence He that denyes his worship is an Atheist to his Honour 5. If it be a folly to deny the being of God It will be our Wisdom then since we acknowledge his being often to think of him Thoughts are the first issue of a Creature as reasonable * Pro. 4.23 He that hath given us the faculty whereby we are able to think should be the principal object about which the power of it should be exercised T is a Justice to God the Author of our understandings a Justice to the nature of our understandings that the noblest faculty should be imployed about the most excellent object Our minds are a beam from God and therefore as the Beams of the Sun when they touch the Earth should reflect back upon God As we seem to deny the being of God not to think of him we seem also to unsoul our Souls in misimploying the activity of them any other way like Flies to be oftner on Dunghils than Flowers T is made the black mark of an ungodly Man or an Atheist that God is not in all his thoughts Psal 10.4 What comfort can be had in the being of God without thinking of him with Reverence and delight A God forgotten is as good as no God to us A DISCOURSE UPON PRACTICAL ATHEISM Psalm 14.1 Doct. 2. PRACTICAL Atheism is natural to Man in his depraved state and very frequent in the hearts and lives of Men. The Fool hath said in his heart there is no God He regards him as little as if he had no being He said in his heart not with his tongue nor in his head He never firmly thought it nor openly asserted it Shame put a Bar to the first and natural reason to the second Yet perhaps he had sometimes some doubts whether there were a God or no He wished there were not any and sometimes hoped there were none at all He could not rase out the Notion of a Deity in his mind but he neglected the fixing the sence of God in his heart and made it too much his business to deface and blot out those Characters of God in his Soul which had been left under the ruines of original nature Men may have Atheistical hearts without Atheistical heads Their reasons may defend the Notion of a Deity while their hearts are empty of affection to the Deity Jobs Children may curse God in their hearts tho not with their lips * Job 1.5 There is no God Most understand it of a denial of the Providence of God as I have said in opening the former Doctrine He denies some essential Attribute of God or the exercise of that Attribute in the world * So the Chalde reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non potestas denying the authority of God in the world He that denies any essential Attribute may be said to deny the being of God Whosoever denies Angels or men to have Reason and Will denies the human and Angelical nature because Understanding and Will are essential to both those Natures there could neither be Angel nor Man without them No Nature can subsist without the perfections essential to that Nature nor God be conceived of without His The Apostle tells us Eph. 2.12 that the Gentiles were without God in the World So in some sence all unbelievers may be termed Atheists for rejecting the Mediator appointed by God they reject that God who appointed him But this is beyond the intended scope Natural Atheism being the only subject Yet this is deducible from it That the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not only belong to those who deny the Existence of God or to those who contemn all sence of a Deity and would root the Conscience and Reverence of God out of their Souls But it belongs also to these who give not that Worship to God which is due to him Who Worship many Gods or who Worship one God in a false and superstitious manner when they have not right conceptions of God nor intend an adoration of him according to the excellency of his Nature All those that are unconcerned for any particular Religion fall under this Character Though they own a God in general yet are willing to acknowledge any God that shall be coined by the powers under whom they live The Gentiles were without God in the world without the true Notion of God not without a God of their own framing This general or practical Atheism is natural to men 1. Not natural by Created but by corrupted Nature T is against nature as nature came out of the hand of God But universaly natural as nature hath been sophisticated and infected by the Serpents breath Inconsideration of God or misrepresentations of his nature are as agreeable to corrupt nature as the disowning the being of a God is contrary to common reason God is not denied naturâ sed vitiis * Augustin de Civit. Dei 2. T is universally natural The wicked are estranged from the Womb Psa 58.3 They go astray as soon as they be born their poyson is like the poyson of a Serpent The wicked And who by his birth hath a better title They go astray from the dictates of God and the rule of their Creation as soon as ever they be born Their poyson is like the poyson of a Serpent which is radically the same in all of the sames species T is seminally and fundamentally in all men though there may be a stronger restraint by a Divine hand upon some men than upon others This principle runs through the whole stream of Nature The natural bent of every mans heart is distant from God When we attempt any thing pleasing to God t is like the climbing up a Hill against nature when any thing is displeasing to him t is like a Current running down the Channel in its natural course When we attempt any thing that is an acknowledgment of the Holiness of God we are fain to rush with Armes in our hands through a multitude of natural passions and fight the way through the oppositions of our own sensitive appetite How softly do we naturally sink down into that which sets us at a greater distance from God There is no active potent efficacious sence of a God by nature The heart of the Sons of men is fully set in them to do evil Eccl. 8.11 The heart in the singular number as if there were but one Common heart beat in all mankind and bent as with own pulse with a joynt consent and force to wickedness without a sence of the Authority
Reprobate Sense and unfit for any good work and judges against all their vain glorious braggs that they had not a Reverence of God in their Hearts there was more of the Denial of God in their Works than there was Acknowledgement of God in their Words Those that have neither God in their Thoughts nor in their Tongues nor in their Works cannot properly be said to acknwledge him Where the Honour of God is not practically owned in the lives of men the Being of God is not sensibly acknowledged in the hearts of men The Principle must be of the same kind with the Actions if the Actions be Atheistical the Principal of them can be no better Prop. 2. All Sin is founded in a secret Atheism Atheism is the Spirit of every Sin all the Flouds of Impieties in the World break in at the Gate of a secret Atheism And though several sins may disagree with one another yet like Herod and Pilate against Christ they joyn hand in hand against the interest of God Though lusts and pleasures be divers yet they are all united in Disobedience to him * Tit. 3.3 All the wicked inclinations in the heart and strugling motions secret repinings self applauding confidences in our own wisdom strength c. envy ambition revenge are sparks from this latent fire the language of every one of these is I would be a Lord to my self and would not have a God Superior to me The variety of sins against the first and second Table the neglects of God and violences against Man are derived from this in the Text first the Fool hath said in his heart and then follows a legion of Devils As all vertuous actions spring from an acknowledgment of God so all vitious actions rise from a lurking Denial of him All licentiousness goes glib down where there is no sense of God Abraham judged himself not secure from Murder nor his Wife from Defilement in Gerar if there were no Fear of God there * Gen. 20.11 He that makes no Conscience of Sin has no regard to the Honour and consequently none to the Being of God By the Fear of God men depart from Evil Pro. 16.6 By the non-regarding of God men rush into Evil. Pharaoh opprest Israel because he knew not the Lord. If he did not deny the Being of a Deity yet he had such an unworthy Notion of God as was inconsistent with the Nature of a Deity he a poor Creature thought himself a Mate for the Creator In sins of Ommission we own not God in neglecting to perform what he enjoyns In sins of Commission we set up some lust in the place of God and pay to that the Homage which is due to our Maker In both we disown him in the one by not doing what he commands in the other by doing what he forbids We deny his Soveraignty when we violate his Laws we disgrace his Holiness when we cast our filth before his Face we disparage his Wisdom when we set up another Rule as the Guide of our Actions than that Law he hath fixed we slight his Sufficiency when we prefer a satisfaction in sin before a happiness in Him alone and his Goodness when we judge it not strong enough to attract us to him Every sin invades the Rights of God and strips him of one or other of his Perfections 'T is such a vilifying of God as if he were not God as if he were not the supream Creator and Benefactor of the World as if we had not our Being from Him as if the Air we breathed in the Food we lived by were our own by right of Supreamacy not of Donation For a Subject to slight his Soveraign is to slight his Royalty or a Servant his Master is to deny his Superiority Prop. 3. Sin implies that God is unworthy of a Being Every Sin is a kind of cursing God in the Heart * Job 1.5 an aim at the destruction of the Being of God not actually but vertually not in the intention of every Sinner but in the nature of every Sin That Affection which excites a man to break his Law would excite him to annihilate his Being if it were in his power A Man in every sin aims to set up his own will as his rule and his own glory as the end of his actions against the will and glory of God and could a Sinner attain his end God would be destroyed God cannot out live his will and his glory God cannot have another rule but his own will nor another end but his own honour Sin is called a turning the back upon God * Jer. 32.33 Deut. 32.15 a kicking against him * Jer. 32.33 Deut. 32.15 as if he were a slighter person than the meanest beggar What greater contempt can be shew'd to the meanest vilest person than to turn the back lift up the heel and thrust away with indignation All which actions though they signifie that such a one hath a Being yet they testifie also that he is unworthy of a Being that he is an unuseful Being in the world and that it were well the world were rid of him All Sin against Knowledge is called a Reproach of God * Numb 15.30 Ezek. 20.27 Reproach is a vilifying a man as unworthy to be admitted into Company We naturally Judge God unfit to be conversed with God is the term turned from by a sinner Sin is the term turned to which implies a greater excellency in the nature of sin than in the nature of God And as we naturally Judge it more worthy to have a being in our affections so consequently more worthy to have a being in the world than that infinite nature from whom we derive our beings and our all and upon whom with a kind of disdain we turn our backs Whosoever thinks the Notion of a Deity unfit to be cherished in his mind by warm Meditation implies that he cares not whether he hath a being in the world or no. Now tho the light of a Deity shines so clearly in Man and the stings of Conscience are so smart that he cannot absolutely deny the being of a God yet most Men endeavour to smother this knowledge and make the Notion of a God a sapless and useless thing Rom. 1.28 They like not to retain God in their knowledge It is said Cain went out from the presence of the Lord Gen. 4.16 That is from the Worship of God Our refusing or abhorring the presence of a man implies a carelessness whether he continue in the World or no T is a using him as if he had no being or as if we were not concerned in it Hence all men in Adam under the Emblem of the prodigal are said to go into a far Country Not in respect of place because of Gods Omnipresence but in respect of acknowledgment and affection they mind and love any thing but God And the descriptions of the Nations of the world lying in the Ruines of Adams fall
himself is an infinite Mirror of Goodness and ravishing Loveliness He is infinitely good and so universally good and nothing but good and is therefore so agreeable to a Creature as a Creature that it is impossible that the Creature while it bears itself to God as a Creature should be guilty of this but thirst after him and cherish every motion to him As no man wishes the destruction of any Creature as a Creature but as it may conduce to something which he counts may be beneficial to himself so no man doth nor perhaps can wish the cessation of the Being of God as God for then he must wish his own Being to cease also But as he considers him clothed with some perfections which he apprehends as injurious to him as his Holiness in forbidding Sin his Justice in punishing Sin And God being judged in those perfections contrary to what the revolted Creature thinks convenient and good for himself he may wish God stript of those perfections that thereby he may be free from all fear of trouble and grief from him in his fallen State In wishing God deprived of those he wishes God deprived of his Being because God cannot retain his Deity without a love of Righteousness and Hatred of Iniquity and he could not testifie his love to the one or his loathing of the other without encouraging Goodness and witnessing his Anger against Iniquity Let us now appeal to ourselves and examin our own Consciences Did we never please our selves sometimes in the thoughts how happy we should be how free in our vain pleasures if there were no God Have we not desired to be our own Lords without controle subject to no Law but our own and be guided by no Will but that of the Flesh Did we never rage against God under his afflicting Hand Did we never wish God stript of his Holy Will to command and his Righteous Will to punish c. Thus much for the general For the proof of this many considerations will bring in Evidence Most may be reduced to these two Generals Man would set himself up First as his own Rule Secondly as his own End and Happiness 1. Man would set himself up as his own Rule instead of God This will be evidenced in this Method 1. Man naturally disowns the Rule God sets him 2. He owns any other Rule rather than that of Gods prescribing 3. These he doth in order to the setting himself up as his own Rule 4. He makes himself not only his own Rule but would make himself the Rule of God and give Laws to his Creator 1. Man naturally disowns the Rule God sets him 'T is all one to deny his Royalty and to deny his Being When we disown his Authority we disown his God-head 'T is the Right of God to be the Soveraign of his Creatures and it must be a very loose and trivial assent that such men have to Gods Superiority over them and consequently to the Excellency of his Being upon which that Authority is founded who are scarce at ease in themselves but when they are invading his Rights breaking his Bands casting away his Cords and contradicting his Will Every man naturally is a Son of Belial would be without a Yoke and leap over Gods Inclosures and in breaking out against his Soveraignity we disown his Being as God For to be God and Soveraign are inseparable He could not be God if he were not Supreme nor could he be a Creator without being a Law-giver To be God and yet inferior to another is a Contradiction To make Rational Creatures without prescribing them a Law is to make them without Holiness Wisdom and Goodness 1. There is in Man naturally an unwillingness to have any acquaintance with the Rule God sets him Psal 14.2 None that did understand and seek God The refusing Instruction and casting his Word behind the back is a part of Atheism * Psal 50 1â— We are heavy in hearing the Instructions either of Law or Gospel * Heb. 5.11 12. and slow in the Apprehension of what we hear The people that God had hedged in from the Wilderness of the World for his own Garden were foolish and did not know God were sottish and had no understanding of him * Jer. 4.22 The Law of God is accounted a strange thing * Hos 8.12 a thing of a different Clymate and a far Country from the heart of Man wherewith the mind of Man had no natural acquaintance and had no desire to have any or they regarded it as a sordid thing What God accounts great and valuable they account mean and despicable Men may shew a Civility to a Stranger but scarce contract an Intimacy There can be no Amicable Agreement between the holy Will of God and the heart of a depraved Creature One is holy the other unholy one is universally good the other stark naught The purity of the Divine Rule renders it nauseous to the impurity of a carnal heart Water and Fire may as well friendly kiss each other and live together without quarrelling and hissing as the holy Will of God and the unregenerate heart of a fallen Creature The nauseating a Holy Rule is an Evidence of Atheism in the heart as the nauseating wholesome Food is of putrified Flegm in the Stomack 'T is found more or less in every Christian in the Remainders though not in a full Empire As there is a Law in his Mind whereby he delights in the Law of God so there is a Law in his Members whereby he wars against the Law of God Rom. 7.22 23 25. How predominant is this loathing of the Law of God when corrupt Nature is in its full strength without any Principle to controul it There is in the Mind of such a one a Darkness whereby it is ignorant of it and in the Will a Depravedness whereby it is repugnant to it If Man were naturally willing and able to have an intimate acquaintance with and delight in the Law of God it had not been such a signal favour for God to promise to write the Law in the heart A man may sooner engrave the Chronicle of a whole Nation or all the Records of God in the Scripture upon the hardest Marble with his bare finger than write one Syllable of the Law of God in a spiritual manner upon his heart For 1. Men are negligent in using the means for the knowledge of Gods Will. All natural men are Fools who know not how to use the price God puts into their hands * Pro. 17.16 They put not a due estimate upon opportunities and means of Grace and account that Law-Folly which is the Birth of an infinite and holy Wisdom The knowledge of God which they may glean from Creatures and is more pleasant to the natural gust of men is not improved to the Glory of God if we will believe the Indictment the Apostle brings against the Gentiles * Rom. 1.21 And most of those that have
Traditions against the Will of God are said to make his Law of none effect to strip it of all its Authority as the word signifies Mat. 15.6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. We have the greatest slight of that Will of God which is most for his Honour and his greatest Pleasure 'T is the Nature of Man ever since Adam to do so Hos 6.6.7 God desired Mercy and not Sacrifice the Knowledge of Himself more than burnt Offering but they like men as Adam have transgressed the Covenant invade Gods Rights and not let him be Lord of one Tree We are more curious Observers of the Fringes of the Law than of the greater concerns of it The Jews were diligent in Sacrifices and Offerings which God did not urge upon them as Principals but as Types of other things but negligent of the Faith which was to be established by him Holiness Mercy Pity which concerned the Honour of God as Governour of the World and were imitations of the Holiness and Goodness of God they were Strangers to This is Gods Complaint Isa 1.11 12. and 16 17. We shall find our hearts most averse to the observation of those Laws which are Eternal and Essential to Righteousness such that he could not but command as he is a Righteous Governour in the observation of which we come nearest to him and express his Image more clearly As those Laws for an inward and spiritual Worship a supreme Affection to him God in regard of his Righteousness and Holiness of his Nature and the Excellency of his Being could not command the contrary to these But this part of his Will our hearts most swell against our corruption doth most snarle at whereas those Laws which are only positive and have no intrinsick Righteousness in them but depend purely upon the Will of the Law-giver and may be changed at his pleasure which the other that have an intrinsick Righteousness in them cannot we better comply with than that part of his Will that doth express more the Righteousness of his Nature * Psal 5◠6.17 19. such as the Ceremonial part of Worship and the Ceremonial Law among the Jews We are more willing to observe Order in some outward attendances and glavering devotions than discard secret affections to evil crucify inward lusts and delightful thoughts A hanging down the head like a bulrish is not difficult but the breaking the heart like a Potters vessel to shreds and dust a sacrifice God delights in whereby the excellency of God and the vileness of the Creature is owned goes against the grain To cut off an outward branch is not so hard as to hack at the root What God mosts loaths as most contrary to his Will we most love No sin did God so severely hate and no sin were the Jews more enclined unto than that of Idolatry The Heathen had not changed their God as the Jews had changed their glory Jer. 2.11 And all men are naturally tainted with this sin which is so contrary to the holy and excellent nature of God By how much the more defect there is of purity in our respects to God by so much the more respect there is to some Idol within or without us to humor custom and interest c. Never did any Law of God meet with so much opposition as Christianity which was the design of God from the first promise to the exhibiting the Redeemer and from thence to the end of the World All people drew Swords at first against it The Romans prepared Yokes for their Neighbors but provided Temples for the Idols those people Worshipped But Christianity the choicest design and most delightful part of the Will of God never met with a kind entertainment at first in any place Rome that entertained all others persecuted this with Fire and Sword tho sealed by greater Testimonies from Heaven than their own Records could report in favour of their Idols 4. In running the greatest hazards and exposing our selves to more trouble to cross the Will of God than is necessary to the observance of it T is a vain charge men bring against the Divine precepts that they are rigorous severe difficult When besides the contradiction to our Saviour who tells us his Yoke is easy and his Burthen light they thwart their own calm reason and Judgment Is there not more difficulty to be Vicious Covetous Violent Cruel than to be Vertuous Charitable Kind Doth the Will of God enjoyn that that is not conformable to right reason and secretly delightful in the exercise and issue And on the contrary what doth Satan and the world engage us in that is not full of molestation and hazard Is it a sweet and comely thing to combat continually against our own Consciences and resist our own light and commence a perpetual quarrel against our selves as we ordinarily do when we sin They in the Prophet Mich. 6.6 7 8. would be at the expence of thousands of Rams and ten thousand Rivers of Oyl if they could compass them yea would strip themselves of their Natural affection to their first-born to expiate the sin of their Soul rather then to do Justice love mercy and walk humbly with God things more conducible to the Honour of God the welfare of the world the security of their Souls and of a more easie practice than the offerings they wished for Do not men then disown God when they will walk in ways hedged with thorns wherein they meet with the Arrows of Conscience at every turn in their sides and slidedown to an everlasting punishment sink under an intolerable slavery to contradict the Will of God When they will prefer a sensual satisfaction with a combustion in their Consciences violation of their reasons gnawing cares and weary travels before the Honour of God the dignity of their Natures the happiness of peace and health which might be preserved at a cheaper rate than they are at to destroy them 5. In the unwillingness and awkardness of the heart when it is to pay God a service Men do evil with both hands earnestly * Mich. 7.3 but do good with one hand faintly no life in the heart nor any diligence in the hand What slight and loose thoughts of God doth this unwillingness imply T is a wrong to his providence as tho we were not under his Government and had no need of his assistance A wrong to his excellency as tho there were no aimableness in him to make his service desirable An injury to his goodness and power as if he were not able or willing to reward the Creatures obedience or careless not to take notice of it T is a sign we receive little satisfaction in him and that there is a great unsutableness between him and us 1. There is a kind of constraint in the first engagement We are rather prest to it than enter our selves Volunteers What we call service to God is done naturally much against our Wills t is not a delightful food but
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
preferring them as the causes of their happiness before God who governs the world And are not our affections upon the receiving of good things more closely fixed to the Instruments of Conveyance than to the chief benefactor from whose Coffers they are taken Do we not more delight in them and hug them with a greater indearedness as if all our happiness depended on them and God were no more than a bare spectator Just as if when a Man were warmed by a beam he should adore that and not admire the Sun that darts it out upon him 5. In paying a respect to Man more than God VVhen in a publick attendance on his service we will not laugh or be garish because Men see us But our hearts shall be in a ridiculous posture playing with Feathers and trifling fancies tho God see us as tho our happiness consisted in the pleasing of Men and our misery in a respect to God There is no fool that saith in his heart there is no God but he sets up something in his heart as a God This is 1. A debasing of God 1. In setting up a Creature It speaks God less amiable than the Creature short of those perfections which some silly sordid thing which hath engrossed their affections is possessed with As if the cause of all being could be transcended by his Creature and a vile lust could equal yea surmount the Loveliness of God T is to say to God as the rich to the poor James 2.3 Stand thou there or sit here under my foot-stool T is to sink him below the mire of the world to order him to come down from his glorious throne and take his place below a contemptible Creature which in regard of its infinite distance is not to be compared with him It strips God of the love that is due to him by the right of his nature and the greatness of his Dignity and of the trust that is due to him as the first cause and the chiefest good as tho he were too feeble and mean to be our blessedness This is intolerable to make that which is Gods foot-stool the Earth to climb up into his throne to set that in our heart which God hath made even below our selves and put under our feet to make that which we trample upon to dispose of the right God hath to our hearts * Neremberg de adorat p. 30. T is worse than if a Queen should fall in love with the little Image of the Prince in the Palace and slight the beauty of his person and as if people should adore the foot-steps of a King in the dirt and turn their backs upon his presence 2. It doth more debase him to set up a sin a lust a carnal affection as our chief end To steal away the Honour due to God and appropriate it to that which is no work of his hands to that which is loathsome in his sight hath disturbed his rest and wrung out his just breath to kindle a Hell for its Eternal lodging a God dishonouring and a Soul Murdering lust is worse than to prefer Barabbas before Christ The baser the thing the worse is the injury to him with whom we would associate it If it were some generous principle a thing useful to the world that we place in an equality with or a superiority above him tho it were a vile usage yet it were not altogether so Criminal But to gratifie some unworthy appetite with the displeasure of the Creator something below the rational nature of Man much more infinitely below the excellent Majesty of God is a more unworthy usage of him To advance one of the most vertuous Nobles in a Kingdom as a mark of our service and subjection is not so dishonourable to a despised Prince as to take a Scabby Begger or a rotten Carcass to place in his throne Creeping things abominable beasts the Egyptian Idols Cats and Crocodiles were greater abominations and a greater despite done to God than the Image of Jealousy at the gate of the Altar * Ezek. 8.5 6 10. And let not any excuse themselves that t is but one lust or one Creature which is preferred as the end Is not he an Idolater that worships the Sun or Moon one Idol as well as he that worships the whole host of Heaven The inordinacy of the heart to one lust may imply a stronger contempt of him than if a Legion of lusts did possess the heart It argues a greater disesteem when he shall be slighted for a single vanity The depth of Esaus prophaneness in contemning his birth right and God in it is aggravated by his selling it for one morsel of meat * Heb. 12.16 and that none of the daintiest none of the costliest a mess of pottage implying had he parted with it at a greater rate it had been more tolerable and his prophaness more excusable And it is reckoned as a high aggravation of the Corruption of the Israelite Judges Amos 2.6 That they sold the poor for a pair of shoos That is that they would betray the cause of the poor for a bribe of no greater value than might purchase them a pair of shoos To place any one thing as our chief end tho never so light doth not excuse He that will not stick to break with God for a trifle a small pleasure will leap the hedge upon a greater temptation Nay and if wealth riches friends and the best thing in the world our own lives be preferred before God as our chief happiness and end but one moment t is an infinite wrong because the infinite goodness and excellency of God is denyed As tho the Creature or lust we love or our own life which we prefer in that short moment before him had a goodness in it self superior to and more desirable than the Blessedness in God And though it should be but one Minute and a Man in all the Periods of his days both before and after that Failure should actually and intentionally prefer God before all other things yet he doth him an infinite wrong because God in every moment is infinitely good and absolutely desirable and can never cease to be good and cannot have the least shadow or change in him and his Perfections 2. 'T is a denying of God Job 31.26 27 28. If I beheld the Sun when it shined and the Moon walking in its Brightness and my Heart hath been secretly enticed or my Mouth hath kist my Hand this also were Iniquity to be punished by the Judge for I should have denyed the Lord above This Denial of God is not only the act of an open Idolater but the consequent of a secret confidence and immoderate joy in worldly Goods This Denial of God is to be referred to v. 24.25 When a man saith to Gold thou art my confidence and rejoyces because his wealth is great he denies that God which is Superior to all those and the proper Object of Trust Both Idolatries
are coupled here together that which hath Wealth and that which hath those glorious Creatures in Heaven for its Object And though some may think it a light Sin yet the Crime being of deeper guilt a denial of God deserves a severer punishment and falls under the Sentence of the just Judge of all the Earth under that Notion which Job intimates in those words this also were an Iniquity to be punished by the Judge The kissing the hand to the Sun Moon or any Idol was an external Sign of Religious Worship among those and other Nations This is far less than an inward hearty Confidence and an affectionate Trust If the motion of the hand be much more is the affection of the heart to an excrementitious Creature or a brutish Pleasure is a Denial of God and a kind of an Abjuring of him siince the Supream Affection of the Soul is undoubtedly and solely the Right of the Soveraign Creator and not to be given in common to others as the outward gesture may in a way of civil respect Nothing that is an Honour peculiar to God can be given to a Creature without a plain exclusion of God to be God it being a disowning the rectitude and excellency of his Nature If God should command a Creature such a Love and such a Confidence in any thing inferior to him He would deny himself his own Glory He would deny himself to be the most excellent Being Can the Romanists be free from this when they call the Cross Spem unicam and say to the Virgin In te Domina speravi as Bonaventure c. Good reason therefore have Worldlings and Sensualists persons of immoderate fondness to any thing in the world to reflect upon themselves since though they own the Being of a God they are guilty of so great disrespect to him that cannot be excused from the title of an unworthy Atheism And those that are renewed by the Spirit of God may here see ground of a daily Humiliation for the frequent and too common Excursions of their Souls in Creature Confidences and Affections whereby they fall under the charge of an act of practical Atheism though they may be free from an habit of it 3. The third thing is Man would make himself the end of all Creatures Man would fit in the Seat of God and set his heart as the heart of God as the Lord saith of Tyrus Ezek. 28.2 What is the consequence of this but to be esteemed the chief Good and end of other Creatures A thing that the heart of God cannot but be set upon it being an inseparable Right of the Deity who must deny himself if he deny this affection of the Heart Since it is the nature of Man deriv'd from his Root to desire to be equal with God it follows that he desires no Creature should be equal with him but subservient to his ends and his glory He that would make himself God would have the Honour proper to God He that thinks himself worthy of his own supream affection thinks himself worthy to be the Object of the supream affection of others Whosoever counts himself the chiefest Good and last End would have the same place in the thoughts of others Nothing is more natural to Man than a desire to have his own Judgment the Rule and Measure of the Judgments and Opinions of the rest of Mankind He that sets himself in the Place of the Prince doth by that act challenge all the Prerogatives and Dues belonging to the Prince and apprehending himself fit to be a King apprehends himself also worthy of the Homage and Fealty of the Subjects He that loves himself chiefly and all other things and persons for himself would make himself the end of all Creatures It hath not been once or twice only in the World that some vain Princes have assumed to themselves the title of Gods and caused Divine Adorations to be given to them and Altars to smoke with Sacrifices for their Honour What hath been practised by one is by Nature seminally in all We would have all pay an Obedience to us and give to us the Esteem that is due to God This is evident 1. In Pride When we entertain an high Opinion of our selves and act for our own Reputes we dispossess God from our own hearts and while we would have our Fame to be in every mans mouth and be admired in the hearts of men we would chase God out of the hearts of others and deny his Glory a Residence any where else that our Glory should reside more in their minds than the Glory of God that their thoughts should be filled with our Atchievements more than the Works and Excellency of God with our Image and not with the Divine Pride would paramount God in the affections of others and justle God out of their Souls and by the same reason that man doth thus in the Place where he lives he would do so in the whole world and press the whole Creation from the Service of their true Lord to his own Service Every proud man would be counted by others as he counts himself the highest chiefest piece of Goodnes and be adored by others as much as he adores and admires himself No proud man in his self-love and self-admiration thinks himself in an Error and if he be worthy of his own admiration he thinks himself worthy of the highest esteem of others that they should value him above themselves and value themselves only for him What did Nebuchadnezzar intend by setting up a Golden Image and commanding all his Subjects to worship it upon the highest Penalty he could inflict but that all should aim only at the pleasing his Humor 2. In using the Creatures contrary to the End God has appointed God created the World and all things in it as steps whereby men might ascend to a Prospect of him and the acknowledgment of his Glory and we would use them to dishonour God and gratifie our selves He appointed them to supply our necessities and support our rational delights and we use them to cherish our sinful lusts We wring groans from the Creature in diverting them from their true scope to one of our own fixing when we use them not in his service but purely for our own and turn those things he created for himself to be instruments of Rebellion against him to serve our turns and hereby endeavour to defeat the ends of God in them to establish our own ends by them This is a high dishonour to God a Sacrilegious undermining of his Glory * Sabunde Tit. 200. P. 352. to reduce what God hath made to serve our own glory and our own pleasure It perverts the whole Order of the World and directs it to another end than what God hath constituted to another intention contrary to the intention of God and thus Man makes himself a God by his own Authority As all things were made by God so they are for God but while we
aspire to the end of the Creation we deny and envy God the honour of being Creator We cannot make our selves the chief end of the Creatures against Gods Order but we imply thereby that we were their first Principle For if we lived under a sense of the Creator of them while we enjoy them for our use we should return the glory to the right Owner This is Diabolical though the Devil for his first affecting an Authority in Heaven has been hurled down from the State of an Angel of Light into that of Darkness Vileness and Misery to be the most accursed Creature living yet he still aspires to mate God contrary to the knowledge of the impossibility of success in it Neither the terrors he feels nor the future torments he doth expect do a jot abate his Ambition to be Competitor with his Creator How often hath he since his first sin arrogated to himself the Honour of a God from the blind world and attempted to make the Son of God by a particular Worship count him as the chiefest Good and Benefactor of the World * Mat. 4.9 Since all men by Nature are the Devils Children the Serpents Seed they have something of this Venom in their Natures as well as others of his qualities We see that there may be and is a prodigious Atheism lurking under the Belief of a God The Devil knows there is a God but acts like an Atheist and so do his Children 4. Man would make himself the end of God This necessarily follows upon the former Whosoever makes himself his own Law and his own End in the place of God would make God the Subject in making himself the Soveraign He that steps into the Throne of a Prince sets the Prince at his Foot-stool and while he assumes the Princes Prerogative demands a Subjection from him The Order of the Creation has been inverted by the entrance of Sin * Pascal Pens §. 30. P. 294. God implanted an affection in Man with a double aspect the one to pitch upon God the other to respect our selves but with this proviso that our affection to God should be infinite in regard of the Object and Center in him as the chiefest Happiness and highest End Our affections to our selves should be finite and refer ultimately to God as the Original of our Being But Sin hath turned Mans affections wholy to himself Whereas he should love God first and himself in order to God he now loves himself first and God in order to himself Love to God is lost and Love to self hath usurpt the Throne As God by Creation put all thing under the feet of Man * Psal 8.6 reserving the Heart for himself Man by Corruption hath dispossessed God of his Heart and put him under his own feet We often intend our selves when we pretend the Honour of God and make God and Religion a Stale to some designs we have in hand our Creator a Tool for our own ends This is evident 1. In our loving God because of some self-pleasing benefits distributed by him There is in Men a kind of natural love to God but it is but a secondary one because God gives them the good things of this world spreads their Table fills their Cup stuffs their Coffers and doth them some good turns by unexpected Providences This is not an affection to God for the unbounded Excellency of his own Nature but for his beneficence as he opens his hand for them an affection to themselves and those Creatures their Gold thier honour which their hearts are most fixed upon without a strong Spiritual Inclination that God should be glorified by them in the use of those Mercies 'T is rather a disowning of God than any love to him because it postpones God to those things they love him for This would appear to be no love if God should cease to be their Benefactor and deal with them as a Judge if he should change his outward smiles into afflicting frowns and not only shut his hand but strip them of what he sent them The Motive of their love being expired the affection raised by it must cease for want of fewel to feed it So that God is beholden to sordid Creatures of no value but as they are his Creatures for most of the Love the Sons of Men pretend to him The Devil spake truth of most men though not of Job when he said Job 1.10 They love not God for nought but while he makes a hedge about them and their Families whilest he blesseth the works of their hands and increaseth their honour in the Land 'T is like Peter's sharp reproof of his Master when he spake of the ill usage even to death he was to meet with at Hierusalem This shall not be unto thee It was as much out of love to himself as zeal for his Masters Interest knowing his Master could not be in such a Storm without some drops lighting upon himself All the Apostacies of men in the world are Witnesses to this They fawn whilest they may have a prosperous Profession but will not bear one chip of the Cross for the Interest of God They would partake of his Blessings but not endure the prick of a Launce for him As those that admired the Miracles of our Saviour and shrunk at his Sufferings A time of tryal discovers these Mercenary Souls to be more Lovers of themselves than their Maker This is a pretended love of friendship to God but a real love to a Lust only to gain by God A good mans temper is contrary Quench Hell burn Heaven said a holy Man I will love and fear my God 2. 'T is evident in abstinence from some sins not because they offend God but because they are against the Interest of some other beloved Corruption or a Bar to something men hunt after in the World When temperance is cherished not to honour God but preserve a crazy Carcass Prodigality forsaken out of a humor of Avarice Uncleaness forsaken not out of a hatred of Lust but love to their mony Declining a Denial of the Interest and Truth of God not out of affection to them but an ambitious Zeal for their own Reputation There is a kind of Conversion from Sin when God is not made the Term of it Jer. 4.1 If thou wilt return oh Israel return unto me saith the Lord. * Trap on Gen. pa. 148. When we forbear Sin as Dogs do the Meat they love they forbear not out of a hatred of the Carrion but fear of the Cudgel These are as wicked in their abstaining from Sin as others are in their furious committing it Nothing of the Honour of God and the End of his appointments is indeed in all this but the conveniences self gathers from them Again many of the motives the generality of the world uses to their Friends and Relations to draw them from Vices are drawn from self and used to prop up natural or sinful self in them Come reform
as is inconsistent with his nature Better to deny his Existence than deny his perfection No wise Man but would rather have his memory rot than be accounted infamous and would be more obliged to him that should deny that ever he had a Being in the world than to say he did indeed live but he was a Sot a debaucht Person and a man not to be trusted When we apprehend God deceitful in his promises unrighteous in his threatnings unwilling to pardon upon repentance or resolved to pardon notwithstanding impenitency These are things either unworthy of the Nature of God or contrary to that Revelation he hath given of himself Better for a man never to have been born than be for ever miserable so better to be thought no God than represented impotent or negligent unjust or deceitful which are more contrary to the Nature of God than Hell can be to the greatest Criminal In this sense perhaps the Apostle affirms the Gentiles Eph. 2.12 to be such as are without God in the World as being more Atheists in adoring God under such Notions as they commonly did than if they had acknowledged no God at all 2. This is evident by our natural desire to be distant from him and unwillingness to have any acquaintance with him Sin set us first at a distance from God and every new act of gross Sin estrangeth us more from him and indisposeth us more for him It makes us both afraid and ashamed to be neer him Sensual men were of this frame that Job discourseth of Job 21.7 8 9 and 14 and 15. verses Where grace reigns the neerer to God the more vigorous the motion The neerer any thing approaches to us that is the Object of our desires the more eagerly do we press forward to it But our blood riseth at the approaches of any thing to which we have an aversion We have naturally a loathing of Gods coming to us or our return to him We seek not after him as our happiness and when he offers himself we like it nor but put a disgrace upon him in chusing other things before him God and we are naturally at as great a distance as Light and Darkness Life and Death Heaven and Hell The stronger impression of God any thing hath the more we fly from it The glory of God in reflection upon Moses his face scar'd the Israelites they who had desired God to speak to them by Moses when they saw a signal impression of God upon his Countenance were afraid to come neer him as they were before unwilling to come neer to God * Exod. 34.30 Not that the blessed God is in his own Nature a frightful Object but our own guilt renders him so to us and our selves indisposed to converse with him As the light of the Sun is as irksome to a distemper'd eye as it is in its own Nature desirable to a sound one The Saints themselves have had so much frailty that they have cried out that they were undone if they had any more than ordinary discoveries of God made unto them as if they wished him more remote from them Vileness cannot endure the splendor of Majesty nor Guilt the glory of a Judge We have naturally 1. No desire of remembrance of him 2. or converse with him 3. or thorough return to him 4. or close imitation of him As if there were not any such Being as God in the world or as if we wished there were none at all so feeble and spiritless are our thoughts of the Being of a God 1. No desire for the remembrance of him How delightful are other things in our minds How burdensome the Memorials of God from whom we have our Being With what pleasure do we contemplate the Nature of Creatures even of Flyes and Toads while our minds tire in the search of him who hath bestowed upon us our knowing and meditating Faculties Though God shews himself to us in every Creature in the meanest Weed as well as the highest Heavens and is more apparent in them to our reasons than themselves can be to our sense yet though we see them we will not behold God in them We will view them to please our sense to improve our reason in their natural perfections but pass by the consideration of Gods perfections so visibly beaming from them Thus we play the Beasts and Atheists in the very exercise of reason and neglect our Creator to gratifie our sense as though the pleasure of that were more desireable than the knowledge of God The desire of our Souls is not towards his Name and the Remembrance of him * Isa 26.8 when we set not our selves in a posture to feast our Souls with deep and serious meditations of him have a thought of him only by the by and away as if we were afraid of too intimate acquaintance with him Are not the thoughts of God rather our Invaders than our Guests seldome invited to reside and take up their home in our hearts Have we not when they have broke in upon us bid them depart from us * Job 22.17 and warned them to come no more upon our ground sent them packing as soon as we could and were glad when they were gone And when they have departed have we not often been afraid they should return again upon us and therefore lookt about for other inmates things not good or if good infinitely below God to possess the room of our hearts before any thoughts of him should appear again Have we not often been glad of excuses to shake off present thoughts of him and when we have wanted real ones found out pretences to keep God and our hearts at a distance Is not this a part of Atheism to be so unwilling to imploy our faculties about the giver of them to refuse to exercise them in a way of a grateful remembrance of him as though they were none of his gift but our own acquisition as though the God that truly gave them had no right to them and he that thinks on us every day in a way of Providence were not worthy to be thought on by us in a way of special Remembrance Do not the best that love the remembrance of him and abhorr this natural aversness find that when they would think of God many things tempt them and turn them to think elsewhere Do they not find their apprehensions too feeble their motions too dull and the impressions too slight This natural Atheism is spread over humane nature 2. No desire of converse with him The word remember in the command for keeping holy the Sabbath-Day including all the duties of the Day and the choicest of our lives implies our natural unwillingness to them and forgetfulness of them Gods pressing this Command with more reasons than the rest manifests that man hath no heart for Spiritual Duties No spiritual duty which sets us immediately Face to Face with God but in the attempts of it we find naturally a resistance
sin lies in the neglect of these all grace lies in the practice of them Without some degree of the mortification of these we cannot make profitable and comfortable approaches to God When we come with Idols in our hearts we shall be answered according to the multitude and the baseness of them too * Ezek. 14.4 What expectation of a good look from him can we have when we come before him with undeifying thoughts of him a Petition in our mouths and a Sword in our hearts to stab his honour To this purpose 1. Be often in the views of the excellencies of God When we have no intercourse with God by delightful Meditations we begin to be estranged from him and prepare our selves to live without God in the world Strangness is the Mother and Nurse of disaffection We slight men sometimes because we know them not The very beasts delight in the Company of men when being tamed and familiar they become acquainted with their disposition A dayly converse with God would discover so much of loveliness in his nature so much of sweetness in his ways that our injurious thoughts of God would wear off and we should count it our honour to contemn our selves and magnifie him By this means a slavish fear which is both a dishonour to God and a torment to the Soul * 1 Joh. 4.18 and the root of Atheism will be cast out and an ingenious fear of him wrought in the heart Exercised thoughts on him would issue out in affections to him which would engage our hearts to make him both our rule and our end This course would stifle any temptations to gross Atheism wherewith good Souls are sometimes haunted by confirming us more in the belief of a God and discourage any attempts to a deliberate practical Atheism We are not like to espouse any principle which is confuted by the delightful converse we dayly have with him The more we thus enter into the presence Chamber of God the more we cling about him with our affections the more vigorous and lively will the true Notion of God grow up in us and be able to prevent any thing which may dishonour him and debase our Souls Let us therefore consider him as the only happiness Set up the true God in our understandings possess our hearts with a deep sense of his desirable excellency above all other things This is the main thing we are to do in order to our great business All the directions in the world with the neglect of this will be insignificant Ciphers The neglect of this is Common and is the basis of all the mischiefs which happen to the Souls of men 2. To this purpose Prize and study the Scripture We can have no delight in Meditation on him unless we know him and we cannot know him but by the means of his own Revelation When the Revelation is despised the Revealer will be of little esteem Men do not throw off God from being their rule till they throw off Scripture from being their guide and God must needs be cast off from being an end when the Scripture is rejected from being a Rule Those that do not care to know his Will that love to be ignorant of his nature can never be affected to his honour Let therefore the subtilties of reason vail to the Doctrine of faith and the humor of the Will to the Command of the word 3. Take heed of sensual pleasures And be very watchful and cautious in the use of those comforts God allows us Job was afraid when his Sons feasted that they should Curse God in their hearts * Job 1.4 It was not without cause that the Apostle Peter joyned sobriety with watchfulness and Prayer 1 Pet. 4.7 The end of all things is at hand be ye therefore sober and watch unto Prayer A moderate use of worldly comforts Prayer is the great acknowledgment of God and too much sensuality is a hindrance of this and a step to Atheism Belshazzars lifting himself up against the Lord and not glorifying of God is charged upon his sensuality Dan. 5.23 Nothing is more apt to quench the Notions of God and root out the Conscience of him than an addictedness to sensual pleasures Therefore take heed of that snare 4. Take heed of sins against knowledge The more sins against knowledge are committed the more careless we are and the more careless we shall be of God and his honour We shall more fear his judicial power and the more we fear that the more we shall disaffect that God in whose hand vengeance is and to whom it doth belong Atheism in conversation proceeds to Atheism in affection and that will endeavour to sink into Atheism in opinion and Judgment The Sum of the Whole And now consider in the whole what has been spoken 1. Man would set himself up as his own Rule He disowns the Rule of God is unwilling to have any acquaintance with the Rule God sets him negligent in using the means for the knowledge of his Will and Endeavours to shake it off when any notices of it breaks in upon him VVhen he cannot expel it he hath no pleasure in the Consideration of it and the heart swels against it VVhen the Notions of the Will of God are entertained it is on some other Consideration or with wavering and unsetled affections Many times men designe to improve some lust by his truth This unwillingness respects Truth as t is most Spiritual and holy as it most relates and leads to God as it is most contrary to self He is guilty of Contempt of the Will of God which is seen in every presumptuous breach of his Law In the natural aversions to the declaration of his Will and mind which way soever he turns In slighting that part of his Will which is most for his honour In the awkwardness of the heart when it is to pay God a service A constraint in the first engagement slightness in the service in regard of the matter in regard of the frame without a natural vigour Many distractions much weariness in deserting the Rule of God when our expectations are not answered upon our service in breaking promises with God Man naturally owns any other Rule rather than that of Gods prescribing The Rule of Satan the Will of Man In complying more with the dictates of Men than the Will of God In observing that which is materially so not because it is his Will but the injunctions of Men. In obeying the Will of Man when it is contrary to the Will of God This Man doth in order to the setting up himself This is natural to Man as he is corrupted Men are disatisfied with their own Consciences when they contradict the desires of self Most actions in the world are done more because they are agreeable to self than as they are honourable to God As they are agreable to natural and moral self or sinful self 'T is evident in neglects of taking Gods
a Wilderness become Waters and speak a Chaos into a beautiful frame of Heaven and Earth He can act our souls with infinite more ease than our souls can act our bodies he can fix in us what motions frames inclinations he pleases he can come and settle in our hearts with all his Treasures 'T is an encouragement to confide in him when we petition him for spiritual Blessings As he is a Spirit he is possessed with spiritual Blessings * Eph. 1.3 A Spirit delights to bestow things sutable to its Nature do Bodies are to communicate what is agreeable to theirs As he is a Father of Spirits we may go to him for the Welfare of our Spirits he being a Spirit is as able to repair our Spirits as he was to create them As he is a Spirit he is indefatigable in acting The members of the body tire and flagg but whoever heard of a Soul wearied with being active Whoever heard of a weary Angel In the purest Simplicity there is the greatest Power the most efficacious Goodness the most reaching Justice to affect the Spirit that can insinuate it self every where to punish wickedness without weariness as well as to comfort goodness God is active because he is Spirit and if we be like to God the more spiritual we are the more active we shall be 6. Inference God being a Spirit is immortal His being immortal and being invisible are joyned together * 1 Tim. 1.17 Spirits are in their nature incorruptible they can only perish by that hand that framed them Every compounded thing is subject to mutation but God being a pure and simple Spirit is without corruption without any shadow of change * James 1.17 Where there is composition there is some kind of repugnancy of one part against the other and where there is repugnancy there is a capability of dissolution God in regard of his infinite spirituality hath nothing in his own nature contrary to it can have nothing in himself which is not himself The world perishes friends change and are dissolved bodies moulder because they are mutable God is a Spirit in the highest excellency and glory of Spirits nothing is beyond him nothing above him no contrariety within him This is our comfort if we devote our selves to him this God is our God this Spirit is our Spirit this is our all our immutable our incorruptible support a Spirit that cannot die and leave us 7. Inference If God be a Spirit we see how we can only converse with him by our Spirits Bodies and Spirits are not sutable to one another We can only see know embrace a Spirit with our Spirits He judges not of us by our corporeal actions nor our external devotions by our masks and disguises He fixes his eye upon the frame of the heart bends his ear to the groans of our Spirits He is not pleased with outward pomp He is not a Body therefore the beauty of Temples delicacy of Sacrifices fumes of Incense are not grateful to him by those or any external action we have no communion with him A Spirit when broken is his delightful Sacrifice * Psal 51.17 We must therefore have our Spirits fitted for him be renewed in the spirit of our minds * Eph. 4.23 that we may be in a posture to live with him and have an intercourse with him We can never be united to God but in our Spirits Bodies unite with Bodies Spirits with Spirits The more spiritual any thing is the more closely doth it unite Air hath the closest union nothing meets together sooner than that when the parts are divided by the interposition of a body 8. Inference If God be a Spirit he can only be the true satisfaction of our Spirits Spirit can only be fill'd with Spirit Content flows from likeness and sutableness As we have a resemblance to God in regard of the spiritual nature of our Soul so we can have no satisfaction but in him Spirit can no more be really satisfied with that which is corporeal than a beast can delight in the company of an Angel Corporeal things can no more fill a hungry Spirit than pure Spirit can feed an hungry Body God the highest Spirit can only reach out a full content to our spirits Man is Lord of the Creation nothing below him can be fit for his converse nothing above him offers it self to his converse but God We have no correspondence with Angels The influence they have upon us the protection they afford us is secret and undiscern'd but God the highest Spirit offers himself to us in his Son in his Ordinances is visible in every Creature presents himself to us in every providence to him we must seek in him we must rest God had no rest from the Creation till he had made Man and Man can have no rest in the Creation till he rests in God * Psal 90.1 God only is our dwelling place our Souls should only long for him our Souls should only wait upon him * Psal 63.1 The Spirit of Man never riseth to its original glory till it be carried up on the wings of Faith and Love to its original Copy The face of the Soul looks most beautiful when it is turned to the face of God the Father of Spirits when the derived Spirit is fixed upon the original Spirit drawing from it Life and Glory Spirit is only the receptacle of Spirit God as Spirit is our Principle we must therefore live upon him God as Spirit hath some resemblance to us as his Image we must therefore only satisfie our selves in him 9. Inference If God be a Spirit we should take most care of that wherein we are like to God Spirit is nobler than Body we must thererefore value our Spirits above our Bodies The Soul as Spirit partakes more of the Divine Nature and deserves more of our choycest cares If we have any love to this Spirit we should have a real affection to our own Spirits as bearing a stamp of the spiritual Divinity the chiefest of all the works of God as it is said of Behemoth Job 40.19 .. That which is most the Image of this immense Spirit should be our Darling So David calls his Soul Psal 35.17 Shall we take care of that wherein we partake not of God and not delight in the Jewel which hath his own Signature upon it God was not only the Framer of Spirits and the End of Spirits but the Copy and Exemplar of Spirits God partakes of no corporeity he is pure Spirit But how do we act as if we were only matter and body We have but little kindness for this great Spirit as well as our own if we take no care of his immediate offspring since he is not only Spirit but the Father of Spirits * Heb. 12.9 10. Inference If God be a Spirit let us take heed of those sins which are spiritual Paul distinguisheth between the filth of the Flesh and that of
Holy-Ghost for the Apostle would never have called the Spirit of God his own Spirit but with my Spirit that is a sincere frame of heart A Carnal-worship whether under the Law or Gospel is when we are busied about external rites without an inward compliance of Soul God demands the heart * Pro. 23.26 my Son give me thy heart not give me thy tongue or thy lips or thy hands these may be given without the heart but the heart can never be bestowed without these as its attendants A heap of services can be no more welcome to God without our Spirits than all Jacobs Sons could be to Joseph without the Benjamin he desired to see God is not taken with the Cabinet but the Jewel He first respected Abels Faith and Sincerity and then his Sacrifice he disrespected Cains Infidelity and Hypocrisie and then his Offering * Moulin Sermons Decad. 4. Ser. 4. P. 80. For this cause he rejected the Offerings of the Jews the Prayers of the Pharisees and the Alms of Ananias and Sapphira because their hearts and their duties were at a distance from one another In all spiritual Sacrifices our Spirits are Gods portion Under the Law the Reins were to be consumed by the Fire on the Altar because the secret intentions of the heart were signified by them Psal 7.9 The Lord trieth the Heart and the Reins It was an ill Omen among the Heathen if a Victim wanted a heart The Widows Mites with her heart in them were more esteemed than the richer Offerings without it Not the quantity of service but the will in it is of account with this infinite Spirit All that was to be brought for the framing of the Tabernacle was to be offered willingly with the heart * Exod. 25.7 The more of Will the more of Spirituality and Acceptableness to God Psal 119.108 Accept the Free-will-offering of my lips Sincerity is the Salt which seasons every Sacrifice The heart is most like to the object of worship The heart in the body is the spring of all vital actions and a spiritual Soul is the spring of all spiritual actions How can we imagin God can delight in the meer service of the Body any more than we can delight in converse with a Carcass Without the heart 't is no worship 'T is a Stage-play an acting a part without being that person really which is acted by us A Hypocrite in the notion of the word is a Stage-player We may as well say a man may believe with his body as worship God only with his body Faith is a great ingredient in Worship and it is with the heart Man believes unto Righteousness * Rom. 10.10 We may be truly said to worship God though we want perfection but we cannot be said to worship him if we want sincerity A Statue upon a Tomb with eyes and hands lifted up offers as good and true a service it wants only a voice the gestures and postures are the same nay the service is better 't is not a mockery it represents all that it can be framed to But to worship without our Spirits is a presenting God with a Picture an Eccho Voice and nothing else a Complement a meer Lye a compassing him about with Lyes * Hos 11.12 Without the heart the tongue is a Lyar and the greatest Zeal dissembling with him To present the Spirit is to present with that which can never naturally dye to present him only the Body is to present him that which is every day crumbling to dust and will at last lye rotting in the Grave To offer him a few Raggs easily torn a Skin for a Sacrifice a thing unworthy the Majesty of God a fixed eye and elevated hands with a sleepy Heart and earthly Soul are pitiful things for an ever blessed and glorious Spirit Nay it is so far from being spiritual that it is Blasphemy To pretend to be a Jew outwardly without being so inwardly is in the Judgment of Christ to blaspheme * Revel 2.9 And is not the same title to be given with as much reason to those that pretend a worship and perform none Such a one is not a spiritual Worshipper but a blaspheming Devil in Samuel's Mantle 4. Spiritual Worship is performed with an unitedness of heart The heart is not only now and then with God but united to fear or worship his name * Psal 86.11 A spiritual duty must have the engagement of the Spirit and the thoughts tyed up to the spiritual Object The union of all the parts of the heart together with the body is the life of the body and the moral union of our hearts is the life of any duty A heart quickly flitting from God makes not God his treasure he slights the worship and therein affronts the Object of Worship All our thoughts ought to be ravished with God bound up in him as in a bundle of life But when we start from him to gaze after every feather and run after every bubble we disown a full and affecting excellency and a satisfying sweetness in him When our thoughts run from God 't is a testimony we have no spiritual affection to God Affection would stake down the thoughts to the Object affected 'T is but a Mouth-love as the Prophet phraseth it * Ezek. 33.31 But their hearts go after their Covetousness Covetous Objects pipe and the heart danceth after them and thoughts of God are shifted off to receive a multitude of other imaginations The heart and the service stayed a while together and then took leave of one another The Psalmist * Psal 39.18 still found his heart with God when he awak'd still with God in spiritual affections and fixed meditations A carnal heart is seldom with God either in or out of worship If God should knock at the heart in any duty it would be found not at home but straying abroad Our worship is spiritual when the door of the heart is shut against all Intruders as our Saviour commands in Closet-duties * Mat. 6.6 It was not his meaning to command the shutting the Closet-door and leave the Heart-door open for every thought that would be apt to haunt us Worldly affections are to be laid aside if we would have our worship spiritual This was meant by the Jewish custom of wiping or washing off the dust of their feet before their entrance into the Temple and of not bringing mony in their girdles To be spiritual in worship is to have our Souls gathered and bound up wholly in themselves and offered to God Our Loyns must be girt as the fashion was in the Eastern Countries where they wore long Garments that they might not waver with the Wind and be blown between their leggs to obstruct them in their travel Our faculties must not hang loose about us He is a carnal Worshipper that gives God but a piece of his heart as well as he that denies him the whole of it that hath
will to please him longings to enjoy him as a holy and sanctifying God in his Ordinances as well as a blessed and glorified God in Heaven What do we expect in our approaches from him That which may make divine impressions upon us and more exactly conform us to the divine nature Or do we design nothing but an empty formality a rowling eye and a filling the Air with a few words without any openings of heart to receive the incomes which according to the nature of the duty might be conveyed to us Can this be a spiritual worship The Soul then closely waits upon him when its expectation is only from him Psal 62.6 Are our hearts seasoned with a sense of sin a sight of our spiritual wants raised notions of God glowing affections to Him strong appetite after a spiritual fulness Do we rouze up our sleepy Spirits and make a Covenant with all that is within us to attend upon him So much as we want of this so much we come short of a spiritual worship In Psal 57.7 My heart is fixed oh God my heart is fixed David would fix his heart before he would engage in a praising act of worship He appeals to God about it and that with doubling the expression as being certain of an inward preparedness Can we make the same appeals in a fixation of Spirit 2. How are our hearts fixed upon him How do they cleave to him in the duty Do we resign our Spirits to God and make them an intire Holocaust a whole burnt-offering in his worship Or do we not willingly admit carnal thoughts to mix themselves with spiritual duties and fasten our minds to the Creature under pretences of directing them to the Creator Do we not pass a meer complement on God by some superficial act of devotion while some covetous envious ambitious voluptuous imagination may possess our minds Do we not invert Gods Order and worship a Lust instead of God with our Spirits that should not have the least service either from our Souls or Bodies but with a spiritual disdain be sacrificed to the just indignation of God How often do we fight against his Will while we cry hail Master instead of crucifying our own thoughts crucifying the Lord of our Lives Our outward carriage plausible and our inward stark naught Do we not often regard iniquity more than God in our hearts in a time of worship Roul some filthy imagination as a sweet morsel under our tongues and taste more sweetness in that than in God Do not our Spirits smell rank of Earth while we offer to Heaven and have we not hearts full of thick Clay as their hands were full of blood * Isa 1.15 When we sacrifice do we not wrap up our Souls in communion with some sordid fancy when we should entwine our Spirits about an amiable God While we have some fear of him may we not have a love to something else above him This is to worship or swear by the Lord and by Malchom * Zeph. 1.5 How often doth an Apish-fancy render a service inwardly ridiculous under a grave outward posture skipping to the Shop Ware-house Compting-house in the space of a short Prayer And we are before God as a Babel a confusion of internal languages and this in those parts of worship which are in the right use most agreeable to God profitable for our selves ruinous to the Kingdom of Sin and Satan and means to bring us into a closer communion with the Divine Majesty Can this be a spiritual worship 3. How do we act our graces in worship Though the Instrument be strung if the strâ—ngs be not wound up what melody can be the issue All readiness and alacrity discover a strength of nature and a readiness in Spirituals discovers a spirituality in the heart As unaffecting thoughts of God are not spiritual thoughts so unaffecting addresses to God are not spiritual addresses Well tâ—en what awakenings and elevations of Faith and Love have we What strong outflowings of our Souls to him What indignation against Sin What admirations of redeeming Grace How low have we brought our corruptions to the foot-stool of Christ to be made his conquered Enemies How straitly have we claspt ouâ— Faith about the Cross and Throne of Christ to become his intimate Spouse Do we in hearing hang upon the lips of Christ in prayer take hold of God and wil not let him go in confessions rent the Caul of our hearts and indite our Souls before him with a deep humility Do we act more by a soaring love than a drooping fear So far as our Spitits are servile so far they are legal and carnal so much as they are free and spontaneous so much they are evangelical and spiritual As men under the Law are subject to the constraint of Bondage * Heb. 2.15 all their life-time in all their worship so under the Gospel they are under a constraint of love * 2 Cor. 5.14 How then are believing affections exercised which are alway accompanied with holy fear a fear of his goodness that admits us into his presence and a fear to offend him in our act of worship So much as we have of forced or feeble affection so much we have of carnality 4. How do we find our hearts after worship By an after carriage we may judge of the spirituality of it 1. How are we as to inward strength When a worship is spiritually performed grace is more strengthened corruption more mortified The Soul like Sampson after his awakening goes out with a renewed strength As the inward man is renewed day by day that is every day so it is renewed in every worship Every shower makes the grass and fruit grow in good ground where the root is good and the weeds where the ground is naught The more prepared the heart is to obedience in other duties after worship the more evidence there is that it hath been spiritual in the exercise of it 'T is the end of God in every dispensation as in that of John Baptist To make ready a People prepared for the Lord * Luke 1 17. When the heart is by worship prepared for fresh acts of obedience and hath a more exact watchfulness against the incroachments of Sin As carnal men after worship sprout up in spiritual wickedness so do spiritual Worshippers in spiritual graces Spiritual fruits are a sign of a spiritual frame When men are more prone to sin after duty 't is a sign there was but little communion with God in it and a greater strength of sin because such an act is contrary to the end of worship which is the subduing of Sin 'T is a sign the Physick hath wrought well when the stomach hath a better appetite to its appointed food and worship hath been well performed when we have a stronger inclination to other acts well pleasing to God and a more sensible distaste of those temptations we too much relisht before 'T is a sign of
to the Holiness of God as a frothy unmelted heart and a wanton fancy in a time of worship God is so holy that if we could offer the worship of Angels and the quintessence of our Souls in his service it would be beneath his infinite purity How unworthy then are they of him when they are presented not only without the sense of our uncleaness but sullied with the fumes and exhalations of our corrupt affections which are as so many Plague spots upon our duties contrary to the unspotted purity of the Divine Nature Is not this an unworthy conceit of God and injurious to his infinite Holiness 9. 'T is against the Love and Kindness of God 'T is a condescension in God to admit a piece of Earth to offer up a duty to him when he hath miriads of Angels to attend him in his Court and celebrate his Praise To admit Man to be an Attendant on him and a Partner with Angels is a high favour 'T is not a single mercy but a heap of mercies to be admitted into the presence of God Psal 5.7 I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercies When the blessed God is so kind as to give us access to his Majesty do we not undervalue his kindness when we deal uncivilly with him and deny him the choicest part of our selves 'T is a contempt of his Soveraignty as our Spirits are due to him by nature a contempt of his Goodness as our Spirits are due to him by gratitude How abusive a carriage is it to make use of his mercy to encourage our impudence that should excite our fear and reverence How unworthy would it be for an indigent Debtor to bring to his indulgent Creditor an empty Purse instead of Payment When God holds out his Golden Scepter to encourage our approaches to him stands ready to give us the pardon of sin and full felicity the best things he hath Is it a fit requital of his kindness to give him a formal outside only a shadow of Religion to have the heart overswayed with other thoughts and affections as if all his profers were so contemptible as to deserve only a slight at our hands 'T is a contempt of the love and kindness of God 10. 'T is against the Sufficiency and Fullness of God When we give God our Bodies and the Creature our Spirits it intimates a conceit that there is more content to be had in the Creature than in God blessed for ever that the waters in the Cistern are sweeter than those in the Fountain Is not this a practical giving God the Lye and denying those promises wherein he hath declared the satisfaction he can give to the Spirit as he is the God of the Spirits of all Flesh If we did imagin the excellency and loveliness of God were worthy to be the ultimate Object of our affections the heart would attend more closely upon him and be terminated in him did we believe God to be all sufficient full of grace and goodness a tender Father not willing to forsake his own willing as well as able to supply their wants the heart would not so lamely attend upon him and would not upon every impertinency be diverted from him There is much of a wrong notion of God and a predominancy of the world above him in the heart when we can more savourly relish the thoughts of low inferior things than heavenly and let our Spirits upon every trifling occasion be fugitives from him 'T is a testimony that we make not God our chiefest good If apprehensions of his excellency did possess our Souls they would be fastned on him glued to him we should not listen to that rabble of foolish thoughts that steal our hearts so often from him Were our breathings after God as strong as the pantings of the Hart after the water Brooks we should be like that Creature not diverted in our Course by every Puddle Were God the predominant satisfactory Object in our eye he would carry our whole Soul along with him When our Spirits readily retreat from God in worship upon every giddy motion 't is a kind of repentance that ever we did come near him and implies that there is a fuller satisfaction and more attractive excellency in that which doth so easily divert us than in that God to whose worship we did pretend to address our selves 'T is as if when we were petitioning a Prince we should immediately turn about and make request to one of his Guard as though so mean a person were more able to give us the boon we want than the Soveraign is 2. Consideration by way of motive To have our Spirits off from God in worship is a bad sign It was not so in Innocence The heart of Adam could cleave to God the Law of God was engraven upon him he could apply himself to the fulfilling of it without any twinkling there was no folly and vanity in his mind no independency in his thoughts no duty was his burden for there was in him a proneness to and delight in all the duties of worship 'T is the Fall hath distempered us and the more unwieldiness there is in our Spirits the more carnal our affections are in worship the more evidence there is of the strength of that revolted state 1. It argues much corruption in the heart As by the eructations of the Stomach we may judge of the windiness and foulness of it so by the inordinate motions of our minds and hearts we may judge of the weakness of its complexion A strength of sin is evidenced by the eruptions and ebullitions of it in worship when they are more sudden numerous and vigorous than the motions of grace When the heart is apt like tinder to catch fire from Satan 't is a sign of much combustible matter sutable to his temptation Were not corruption strong the Soul could not turn so easily from God when it is in his presence and hath an advantagious opportunity to create a fear and aw of God in it Such base fruit could not sprout up so suddenly were there not much sap and juice in the root of sin What communion with a living root can be evidenced without exercises of an inward life That Spirit which is a Well of living waters in a gracious heart will be especially springing up when it is before God 2. It shews much affection to earthly things and little to heavenly There must needs be an inordinate affection to earthly things when upon every slight sollicitation we can part with God and turn the back upon a service glorious for him and advantagious for our selves to wedd our hearts to some idle fancy that signifies nothing How can we be said to entertain God in our affections when we give him not the precedency in our understandings but let every trifle justle the sense of God out of our minds Were our hearts fully determined to spiritual things such vanities could not seat themselves in our
understandings and divide our Spirits from God Were our hearts ballanced with a love to God the world could never steal our hearts so much from his worship but his worship would draw our hearts to it It shews a base neutrality in the greatest concernments a halting between God and Baal a contrariety between Affection and Conscience when natural Conscience presses a man to duties of worship and his other affections pull him back draw him to carnal objects and make him slight that whereby he may honour God God argues the prophaness of the Jews hearts from the wickedness they brought into his house and acted there Jer. 23.11 Yea in my house that is my worship I found their wickedness saith the Lord. Carnality in worship is a kind of an Idolatrous frame when the heart is renewed Idols are cast to the Moles and the Batts Isa 2.20 3. It shews much hypocrisie to have our Spirits off from God The mouth speaks and the carriage pretends what the heart doth not think there is a dissent of the heart from the pretence of the body Instability is a sure sign of Hypocrisie Double thoughts argue a double heart The Wicked are compared to Chaff * Psal 1.4 for the uncertain and various motions of their minds by the least wind of fancy The least motion of a carnal Object diverts the Spirit from God as the scent of Carrion doth the Raven from the flight it was set upon The People of God are called Gods Spouse and God calls himself their Husband whereby is noted the most intimate union of the Soul with God and that there ought to be the highest love and affection to him and faithfulness in his worship but when the heart doth start from him in worship it is a sign of the unstedfastness of it with God and a disrelish of any communion with him It is as God complains of the Israelites a going a whoreing after our own imaginations As grace respects God as the object of worship so it looks most upon God in approaching to him Where there is a likeness and love there is a desire of converse and intimacy if there be no spiritual entwining about God in our worship it is a sign there is no likeness to him no true sense of him no renewed image of God in us Every living Image will move strongly to joyn it self with its original Copy and be glad with Jacob to sit steadily in those Chariots that shall convey him to his beloved Joseph Motion 3. Consider the danger of a carnal worship 1. We lose the comfort of worship The Soul is a great Gainer when it offers a spiritual worship and as great a loser when it is unfaithful with God Treachery and perfidiousness hinder commerce among men so doth Hypocrisie in its own nature communion with God God never promised any thing to the Carcass but to the Spirit of worship God hath no obligation upon him by any word of his to reward us with himself when we perform it not to himself When we give an outside worship we have only the outside of an ordinance We can expect no kernel when we give God only the shell He that only licks the outside of the Glass can never be refreshed with the rich Cordial enclosed within A cold and lazy formality will make God to withdraw the light of his countenance and not shine with any delightful communications upon our Souls but if we come before him with a liveliness of affections and steadiness of heart he will draw the vail and cause his glory to display it self before us An humble praying Christian and a warm affectionate Christian in worship will soon find a God who is delighted with such frames and cannot long withold himself from the Soul When our hearts are enflamed with love to him in worship 't is a preparation to some act of love on his part whereby he intends further to gratifie us When John was in the Spirit on the Lords day that is in spiritual employment and meditation and other duties he had that great Revelation of what should happen to the Church in all ages * Rev 1.10 His being in the Spirit intimates his ordinary course on that day and not any extraordinary act in him though it was followed with an extraordinary discovery of God to him When he was thus engaged he heard a voice behind him God doth not require of us spirituality in worship to advantage himself but that we might be prepared to be advantaged by him If we have a clear and well disposed eye 't is not a benefit to the Sun but fits us to receive benefits from his Beams Worship is an act that perfects our own Souls they are then most widened by spiritual frames to receive the influence of divine blessings as an eye most opened receives the fruit of the Suns light better than the eye that is shut The communications of God are more or less according as our spiritual frames are more or less in our worship God will not give his blessings to unsutable hearts What a nasty Vessel is a carnal heart for a spiritual communication The chief end of every duty enjoyned by God is to have communion with him and therefore it is called a drawing near to God 'T is impossible therefore that the outward part of any duty can answer the end of God in his institution 'T is not a bodily appearance or gesture whereby men can have communion with God but by the impressions of the heart and reflections of the heart upon God Without this all the rich streams of grace will run besides us and the growth of the Soul be hindered and impaired A diligent hand makes rich saith the wise man a diligent heart in spiritual worship brings in rich incomes to the humble and spiritual Soul 2. It renders the worship not only unacceptable but abominable to God It makes our Gold to become Dross it soyls our duties and bespotts our Souls A carnal and unsteady frame shews an indifferency of Spirit at best and luke warmness is as ungrateful to God as heavy and nauseous meat is to the stomach he spues them out of his mouth * Rev. 3.16 As our gracious God doth overlook infirmities where intentions are good and endeavours serious and strong so he loaths the services where the frames are stark naught Psal 66.118 If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear my Prayer Luke warm and indifferrent services stink in the Nostrils of God The heart seems to loath God when it starts from him upon every occasion when it is unwilling to employ it self about and stick close to him And can God be pleased with such a frame The more of the Heart and Spirit is in any service the more real goodness there is in it and the more savoury it is to God the less of the Heart and Spirit the less of goodness and the more nauseous to God who loves Righteousness
tendency to despoil God of his honour and our selves of the spiritual intentness in worship send it away Those that weed a Field of Corn examin not the nature and particular virtues of the Weeds but consider only how they choak the Corn to which the native juyce of the Soil is design'd Consider what you are about and if any thing interpose that may divert you or cool your affections in your present worship cast it out 7. As to private worship let us lay hold of the most melting oportunities and frames When we find our hearts in a more than ordinary spiritual frame let us look upon it as a Call from God to attend him Such impressions and motions are Gods Voice inviting us into communion with him in some particular act of worship and promising us some success in it When the Psalmist had a secret motion to seek Gods face and complied with it * Psal 27.8 the issue is the encouragement of his heart which breaks out into an exhortation to others to be of good courage and wait on the Lord v. 13 14. Wait on the Lord be of good courage and he shall strengthen thy heart wait I say on the Lord. * Reynold's One blow will do more on the Iron when it is hot than a hundred when it is cold Melted Metals may be stampt with any impression but once hardned will with difficulty be brought into the figure we intend 8. Let us examin our selves at the end of every act of worship and chide our selves for any carnality we perceive in them Let us take a review of them and examin the reason why art thou so low and carnal oh my Soul As David did of his disquietedness Psalm 42.5 Why art thou cast down oh my Soul and why art thou disquieted within me If any unworthy frames have surprized us in worship let us seek them out after worship call them to the bar make an exact scrutiny into the causes of them that we may prevent their incursions another time let our pulses beat quick by way of anger and indignation against them This would be a repairing what hath been amiss otherwise they may grow and clogg an after worship more than they did a former Dayly examination is an Antidote against the temptations of the following day and constant examination of our selves after duty is a Preservative against vain encroachments in following duties and upon the finding them out let us apply the blood of Christ by Faith for our Cure and draw strength from the death of Christ for the conquest of them and let us also be humbled for them God lifts up the humble When we are humbled for our carnal frames in one duty we shall find our selves by the Grace of God more elevated in the next A DISCOURSE UPON THE ETERNITY OF GOD. Psalm 90.2 Before the Mountains were brought forth or ever thou hadst formed the Earth and the World even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God THE Title of this Psalm is a Prayer The Author Moses Some think not only this but the Ten following Psalms were composed by him The Title wherewith he is dignified is The Man of God as also in Deut. 33.1 One inspir'd by him to be his Interpreter and deliver his Oracles One particularly directed by him * Coccei in Loc. One who as a Servant did diligently employ himself in his Masters business and acted for the Glory of God * Austin in Loc. He was the Minister of the Old Testament and the Prophet of the New There are two parts of this Psalm * Pareus in loc 1. A complaint of the frailty of Mans Life in general verse 3 4 5 6. And then a particular complaint of the condition of the Church v. 8 9 10. 2. A Prayer v. 12. But before he speaks of the shortness of humane life he fortifies them by the consideration of the refuge they had and should find in God v. 1. Lord thou hast been our dwelling place in all Generations We have had no settled abode in the Earth since the time of Abraham's being called out from Vr of the Chaldees We have had Canaan in a promise we have it not yet in possession We have been exposed to the Cruelties of an oppressing Enemy and the incommodities of a desert Wilderness we have wanted the fruits of the Earth but not the dews of Heaven Thou hast been our dwelling place in all Generations Abraham was under thy Conduct Isaac and Jacob under thy Care Their Posterity were multiplied by thee and that under their oppressions Thou hast been our Shield against dangers our security in the times of trouble When we were pursued to the Red-sea it was not a Creature delivered us and when we feared the pinching of our Bowels in the Desert it was no Creature rain'd Manna upon us Thou hast been our dwelling place Thou hast kept open house for us sheltered us against storms and preserved us from mischief as a house doth an Inhabitant from wind and weather and that not in one or two but in all Generations Some think an allusion is here made to the Ark to which they were to have recourse in all emergencies Our refuge and defence hath not been from created things not from the Ark but from the God of the Ark. Observe 1. God is a perpetual refuge and security to his People His Providence is not confin'd to one Generation 't is not one Age only that tastes of his bounty and compassion His eye never yet slept nor hath he suffered the little Ship of his Church to be swallowed up though it hath been tost upon the waves He hath always been an Haven to preserve us a House to secure us He hath alway had compassions to pity us and power to protect us He hath had a Face to shine when the world hath had an angry Countenance to frown * Theodoret in loc He brought Enoch home by an extraordinary translation from a brutish world and when he was resolved to reckon with men for their brutish lives he lodged Noah the Phoenix of the world in an Ark and kept him alive as a spark in the midst of many waters whereby to rekindle a Church in the world In all Generations he is a dwelling place to secure his people here or entertain them above His Providence is not wearied nor his Care fainting He never wanted Will to relieve us For he hath been our refuge Nor ever can want Power to support us for he is a God from everlasting to everlasting The Church never wanted a Pilot to steer her and a Rock to shelter her and dash in pieces the waves which threaten her 2. How worthy is it to remember former benefits when we come to beg for new Never were the Records of Gods mercies so exactly revised as when his people have stood in need of new Editions of his Power How necessary are our wants to stir us up to pay the rent
or nills nothing to be in Time but what he willed and nilled from Eternity if he willed in Time that to be that he willed not from Eternity then he would know that in Time which he knew not from Eternity For God knows nothing future but as his Will orders it to be future and in time to be brought into being 3. There can be no Reason for any change in the Will of God When men change in their minds it must be for want of foresight because they could not foresee all the Rubbs and Barrs which might suddenly offer themselves which if they had foreseen they would not have taken such measures hence men often will that which they afterwards wish they had not willed when they come to understand it clearer and see that to be injurious to them which they thought to be good for them or else the change proceeds from a natural instability without any just cause and an easiness to be drawn into that which is unrighteous or else it proceeds from a want of power when men take new Counsels because they are invincibly hindred from executing the old But none of those can be in God 1. It cannot be for want of foresight What can be wanting to an infinite Understanding How can any unknown event defeat his Purpose since nothing happens in the world but what he wills to effect or wills to permit and therefore all future events are present with him Besides it doth not consist with Gods Wisdom to resolve any thing but upon the highest reason and what is the highest and infinite reason cannot but be unalterable in it self for there can be no Reason and Wisdom higher than the highest All Gods purposes are not bare acts of Will but acts of Counsel Eph. 1.11 He works all things according to the Counsel of his own Will and he doth not say so much that his Will as that his Counsel shall stand Isa 46.10 It stands because it is Counsel And the Immutability of a Promise is called the Immutability of his Counsel Heb 6.17 as being introduced and setled by the most perfect Wisdom and therefore to be carried on to a full and compleat execution His Purpose then cannot be changed for want of foresight for this would be a charge of weakness 2. Nor can it proceed from a natural Instability of his Will or an easiness to be drawn to that which is unrighteous If his Will should not adhere to his Counsel 't is because it is not fit to be followed or because it will not follow it If not fit to be followed 't is a reflection upon his Wisdom if it be establisht and he will not follow it there is a contrariety in God as there is in a fallen Creature Will against Wisdom That cannot be in God which he hates in a Creature viz. the disorder of faculties and being out of their due place The Righteousness of God is like a great Mountain Psal 36.6 The rectitude of his Nature is as immoveable in it self as all the great Mountains in the World are by the strength of Man He is not as a Man that he should repent or lye Numb 23.19 who often changes out of a perversity of Will as well as want of wisdom to foresee or want of ability to perform His eternal Purpose must either be righteous or unrighteous if righteous and holy he would become unholy by the change if not righteous nor holy then he was unrighteous before the change which way soever it falls it would reflect upon the Righteousness of God which is a blasphemous imagination * Maxim Tyrius dissert 3.30 If God did change his Purpose it must be either for the better then the Counsel of God was bad before or for the worse then he was not wise and good before 3. Nor can it be for want of strength Who hath power to controul him Not all the combin'd devices and endeavours of men can make the Counsel of God to totter Prov. 19.21 There are many devices in a mans heart nevertheless the Counsel of the Lord that shall stand that and that only shall stand Man hath a power to devise and imagin but no power to effect and execute of himself God wants no more Power to effect what he will than he wants Understanding to know what is fit Well then since God wanted not Wisdom to frame his Decrees nor Holiness to regulate them nor Power to effect them what should make him change them Since there can be no reason superior to His no event unforeseen by him no Holiness comparable to His no Unrighteousness found in Him no Power equal to His to put a rub in his way 4. Though the Will of God be immutable yet it is not to be understood so as that the things themselves so willed are immutable Nor will the immutability of the things willed by him follow upon the unchangeableness of his Will in willing them though God be firm in willing them yet he doth not will that they should alway be God did not perpetually will the doing those things which he once decreed to be done He decreed that Christ should suffer but he did not decree that Christ should alway suffer so he willed the Mosaical Rites for a time but he did not will that they should alway continue He willed that they should endure only for a time and when the time came for their ceasing God had been mutable if he had not put an end to them because his Will had fixed such a Period So that the changing of those things which he had once appointed to be practised is so far from charging God with changeablness that God would be mutable if he did not take them away since he decreed as well their abolition at such a time as their continuance till such a time so that the removal of them was pursuant to his unchangeable Will and Decree If God had decreed that such Laws should alway continue and afterwards changed that Decree and resolved the abrogation of them then indeed God had been mutable He had rescinded one Decree by another He had then seen an error in his first resolve and there must be some weakness in the reason and wisdom whereon it was grounded * Turretin de satisfac p. 266. But it was not so here for the change of those Laws is so far from slurring God with any mutability that the very change of them is no other than the Issue of his eternal Decree for from Eternity he purposed in himself to change this or that dispensation though he did decree to bring such a dispensation into the world The Decree it self was eternal and immutable but the thing decreed was temporary and mutable As a Decree from Eternity doth not make the thing decreed to be eternal so neither doth the immutability of the Decree render the thing so decreed to be immutable As for Example God decreed from all Eternity to create the World the
good evil is present with me * Rom. 7.21 Never more present than when we have a mind to do good and never more present than when we have a mind to do the best and greatest good How hard is it to make our thoughts and affections keep their stand place them upon a good Object and they will be frisking from it as a Bird from one bough one fruit to another We vary postures according to the various objects we meet with The course of the World is a very airy thing suted to the uncertain motions of that Prince of the power of the Air which works in it * Eph. 2.2 This ought to be bewail'd by us Tho we may stand fast in the truth tho we may spin our resolutions into a firm web tho the Spirit may triumph over the flesh in our practice yet we ought to bewail it because inconstancy is our nature and what fixedness we have in good is from grace What we find practised by most men is natural to all * Lawrence of Faith p. 262. As face answers to face in a glass so doth heart to heart * Pro. 27.19 a face in the glass is not more like a natural face whose image it is than one mans heart is naturally like another 1. 'T is natural to those out of the Church Nebuchadnezzar is so affected with Daniels prophetick Spirit that he would have none accounted the true God but the God of Daniel * Dan. 2.47 How soon doth this notion slip from him and an image must be set up for all to worship upon pain of almost cruel painful death Daniels God is quite forgotten The miraculous deliverance of the three Children for not worshipping his Image makes him settle a Decree to secure the Honour of God from the reproach of his Subjects * Dan. 3.29 yet a little while after you have him strutting in his Palace as if there were no God but himself 2. 'T is natural to those in the Church The Israelites were the only Church God had in the World and a notable Example of inconstancy After the Miracles of Aegypt they murmured against God when they saw Pharaoh marching with an Army at their Heels They desired food and soon nauseated the Manna they were before fond of when they came into Canaan They sometimes worshipped God and sometimes Idols not only the Idols of one Nation but of all their Neighbours In which regard God calls this his Heritage a Speckled Bird * Jer. 12.9 a Peacock saith Hierom inconstant made up of varieties of Idolatrous colours and Ceremonies This levity of Spirit is the root of all mischeif it scatters our thoughts in the Service of God it is the cause of all revolts and Apostacies from him it makes us unfit to receive the communications of God whatsoever we hear is like words writ in sand ruffled out by the next gale whatsoever is put into us is like precious liquor in a palsie hand soon spilt It breeds distrust of God when we have an uncertain judgment of him we are not like to confide in him an uncertain judgment will be followed with a distrustful heart In fine where it is prevalent it is a certain sign of ungodliness to be driven with the wind like chaffe and to be ungodly is all one in the judgment of the Holy Ghost Psal 1.4 the ungodly are like the chaff which the wind drives away which signifies not their destruction but their disposition for their destruction is inferred from it ver 5. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in judgment How contrary is this to the unchangeable God who is alwayes the same and would have us the same in our religious Promises and Resolutions for good 4. If God be immutable 't is sad news to those that are resolved in wickedness or careless of returning to that duty he requires Sinners must not expect that God will alter his will make a breach upon his nature and violate his own Word to gratifie their lusts No 't is not reasonable God should dishonour himself to secure them and cease to be God that they may continue to be wicked by changing his own nature that they may be unchanged in their vanity God is the same goodness is as amiable in his sight and Sin as abominable in his eyes now as it was at the beginning of the world Being the same God he is the same Enemy to the Wicked as the same Friend to the Righteous He is the same in Knowledge and cannot forget sinful acts He is the same in Will and cannot approve of unrighteous Practices Goodness cannot but be alway the Object of his Love and Wickedness cannot but be alway the Object of his Hatred And as his aversion to Sin is alway the same so as he hath been in his Judgments upon Sinners the same he will be still for the same perfection of Immutability belongs to his Justice for the punishment of Sin as to his Holiness for his disaffection to Sin Though the Covenant of Works was changeable by the crime of man violating it yet it was unchangeable in regard of Gods justice vindicating it which is inflexible in the punishment of the breaches of his Law The Law had a preceptive part and a minatory part When man changed the observation of the Precept the righteous nature of God could not null the execution of the threatning He could not upon the account of this perfection neglect his just word and countenance the unrighteous transgression Tho there were no more rational Creatures in being but Adam and Eve yet God subjected them to that death he had assured them of and from this immutability of his Will ariseth the necessity of the suffering of the Son of God for the relief of the apostate Creature His Will in the second Covenant is as uncâ—aâ—â—eable as that in the first only repentance is settled as the condition of the second which was not indulged in the first and without repentance the sinner must iâ—â—voâ—â—bly pâ—rish or God must change his nature There must be a change in man there can be nâ—â—â—e in God his bow is bent his arrows are ready if the wicked do not turn * Psal 7.11 There is not an Atheist an hypocrite a prophane person that ever was upon the Earth but Gods Soul abhorred him as such and the like he will abhor for ever While any therefore continue so they may sooner expect the Heavens should roul as they please the Sun stand still at their order the Stars change their course at their beck than that God should change his nature which is opposite to prophaness and vanity Who hath hardned himself against him and hath prospered * Job 9.4 Use 2. Of comfort The immutability of a good God is a strong ground of consolation Subjects wish a good Prince to live for ever as being loath to change him but care not how soon they are rid of an Oppressor
him So it is impossible but that the seed of God by his Eternal purpose should be brought to a Spiritual life and that calling cannot be retracted for that gift and calling is without repentance * Rom. 11.29 And when repentance is removed from God in regard of some works the immutability of those works is declared And the reason of that immutability is their pure dependance on the Eternal favour and unchangeable grace of God * Eph. 1.9 11. purpos'd in himself and not upon the mutability of the Creature Hence their happiness is not as Patents among men quam diu bene se gesserint so long as they behave themselves well but they have a promise that they shall behave themselves so as never wholly to depart from God Jer. 32.40 I will make an everlasting Covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good but I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me God will not turn from them to do them good and promiseth that they shall not turn from him for ever or forsake him And the bottom of it is the everlasting Covenant and therefore believing and sealing for security are linkt together Eph. 1.13 And When God doth inwardly teach us his Law he puts in a Will not depart from it Psalm 119.102 I have not departed from thy Judgments what is the reason For thou hast taught me 3. By this Eternal Happiness is ensured This is the Inference made from the Eternity and Unchangeableness of God in the verse following the Text verse 28. The Children of thy Servants shall continue and their Seed shall be established before thee This is the sole conclusion drawn from those Perfections of God solemnly asserted before The Children which the Prophets and Apostles have begotten to thee shall be totally delivered from the reliques of their Apostacy and the punishment due to them and rendred partakers of Immortality with thee as Sons to dwell in their Fathers house for ever The Spirit begins a spiritual Life here to fit for an immutable Life in Glory hereafter where Believers shall be placed upon a Throne that cannot be shaken and possess a Crown that shall not be taken off their heads for ever 3. Use Of Exhortation 1. Let a sense of the changeableness and uncertainty of all other things beside God be upon us There are as many changes as there are figures in the world The whole fashion of the world is a transient thing every man may say as Job * Job 10.17 Changes and War are against me Lot chose the Plain of Sodom because it was the richer Soyl He was but a little time there before he was taken Prisoner and his substance made the Spoyl of his Enemie That is again restored but a while after Fire from Heaven devours his Wealth though his Person was secur'd from the Judgment by a special Providence We burn with a desire to settle our selves but mistake the way and build Castles in the Air which vanish like bubbles of Sope in water And therefore 1. Let not our thoughts dwell much upon them Do but consider those Souls that are in the possession of an unchangeable God that behold his never fading Glory Would it not be a kind of Hell to them to have their thoughts starting out to these things or find any desire in themselves to the changeable trifles of the Earth Nay have we not reason to think that they cover their faces with shame that ever they should have such a weakness of Spirit when they were here below as to spend more thoughts upon them than were necessary for this present Life much more that they should at any time value and court them above an unchangeable Good Do they not disdain themselves that they should ever debase the immutable perfections of God as to have neglecting thoughts of him at any time for the entertainment of such a mean and inconstant Rival 2. Much less should we trust in them or rejoyce in them The best things are mutable and things of such a Nature are not fit Objects of confidence Trust not in Riches they have their wanes as well as increases they rise sometimes like a Torrent and flow in upon men but resemble also a Torrent in as suddain a fall and departure and leave nothing but slime behind them Trust not in Honour all the Honour and Applause in the World is no better than an Inheritance of Wind which the Pilot is not sure of but shifts from one corner to another and stands not perpetually in the same point of the Heavens How in a few Ages did the house of David a great Monarch and a man after Gods own heart descend to a mean condition and all the glory of that house shut up in the stock of a Carpenter David's Sheep-hook was turned into a Scepter and the Scepter by the same hand of Providence turned into a Hatchet in Joseph his Descendent Rejoyce not immoderately in wisdom That and Learning languish with Age. A wound in the head may impair that which is the Glory of a Man If an Organ be out of frame Folly may succeed and all a mans Prudence be wound up in an irrecoverable Dotage Nebuchadnezzar was no Fool yet by a suddain hand of God he became not only a Fool or a mad Man but a kind of Brute Rejoyce not in strength that decays and a mighty Man may live to see his strong Arm withered and a Grass-hopper to become a Burthen * Eccles 12.5 The strong men shall bow themselves and the Grinders shall cease because they are few * V. 3. Nor rejoyce in Children they are like Birds upon a Tree that make a little chirping musick and presently fall into the Fowlers Net Little did Job expect such sad news as the loss of all his Progeny at a blow when the Messenger knocked at his Gate And such changes happen oftentimes when our expectations of comfort and a contentment in them are at the highest How often doth a string crack when the Musitian hath wound it up to a just height for a Tune and all his pains and delight marr'd in a Moment Nay all these things change while we are using them like Ice that melts between our fingers and Flowers that wither while we are smelling to them The Apostle gave them a good title when he called them uncertain riches and thought it a strong argument to disswade them from trusting in them * 1 Tim 6.17 The wealth of the Merchant depends upon the Winds and Waves and the revenue of the Husbandman upon the Clouds and since they depend upon those things which are used to express the most changeableness they can be no fit Object for trust Besides God sometimes kindles a Fire under all a mans Glory which doth insensibly consume it * Isa 10.16 and while we have them the fear of losing them renders us not very happy in the
fruition of them we can scarce tell whether they are contentments or no because sorrow follows them so close at the heels 'T is not an unnecessary exhortation for good men the best men have been apt to place too much trust in them David thought himself immutable in his Prosperity and such thoughts could not be without some immoderate outlets of the heart to them and confidences in them And Job promised himself to dye in his Nest and multiply his days as the Sand without any interruption * Job 29.18 19. c. but he was mistaken and disappointed Let me add this trust not in men who are as inconstant as any thing else and often change their most ardent affections into implacable hatred And though their affections may not be changed their Power to help you may Hamans Friends that depended on him one day were crest-fallen the next when their Patron was to exchange his Chariot of State for an ignominious Gallows 3. Prefer an immutable God before mutable Creatures Is it not a horrible thing to see what we are and what we possess daily crumbling to dust and in a continual flux from us and not seek out something that is permanent and always abides the same for our portion In God or Wisdom which is Christ there is substance * Pro. 8.21 in which respect he is opposed to all the things in the world that are but shadows that are shorter or longer according to the motion of the Sun mutable also by every little body that intervenes God is subject to no decay within to no force without nothing in his own nature can change him from what he is and there is no Power above can hinder him from being what he will to the Soul He is an Ocean of all Perfection He wants nothing without himself to render him blessed which may allure him to a change His Creatures can want nothing out of him to make them happy whereby they may be inticed to prefer any thing before him If we enjoy other things 't is by Gods donation who can as well withdraw them as bestow them and it is but a reasonable as well as a necessary thing to endeavour the enjoyment of the immutable Benefactor rather than his revocable Gifts If the Creatures had a sufficient vertue in themselves to ravish our thoughts and engross our Souls yet when we take a prospect of a fixed and unchangeable Being what beauty what strength have any of those things to vie with him How can they bear up and maintain their interest against a lively thought and sense of God All the Glory of them would fly before him like that of the Stars before the Sun They were once nothing they may be nothing again as their own nature brought them not out of nothing so their Nature secures them not from being reduced to nothing What an unhappiness is it to have our affections set upon that which retains something of its non esse with its esse it s not being with its being that lives indeed but in a continual Flux and may lose that pleasureableness to morrow which charms us to day 2. This Doctrin will teach us Patience under such Providences as declare his unchangeable Will The rectitude of our Wills consists in conformity to the Divine as discovered in his Words and manifested in his Providence which are the effluxes of his immutable Will The time of tryal is appointed by his immutable Will * Dan. 1 't is not in the Power of the Sufferer's Will to shorten it nor in the Power of the Enemies Will to lengthen it Whatsoever doth happen hath been decreed by God Eccles 6.10 That which hath been is named already therefore to murmur or be discontented is to contend with God who is mightier than we to maintain his own purposes God doth act all things conveniently for that immutable end intended by himself and according to the reason of his own Divine Will in the true point of time most proper for it and for us not too soon or too slow because he is unchangeable in Knowledge and Wisdom God doth not act any thing barely by an immutable Will but by an immutable Wisdom and an unchangeable Rule of Goodness and therefore we should not only acquiesce in what he works but have a complacency in it and by having our Wills thus knitting themselves with the immutable Will of God we attain some degree of likeness to him in his own Unchangeableness When therefore God hath manifested his Will in opening his Decree to the world by his work of Providence we must cease all disputes against it and with Aaron hold our peace though the affliction be very smart * Rev. 10.3 All Flesh must be silent before God * Zach. 2.13 For whatsoever is his Counsel shall stand and cannot be recall'd all struggling against it is like a brittle Glass contending with a Rock For if he cut off and shut up or gather together then who can hinder him Job 11.10 Nothing can help us if he hath determined to afflict us as nothing can hurt us if he hath determined to secure us The more clearly God hath evidenced this or that to be his Will the more sinful is our struggling against it Pharaoh's sin was the greater in keeping Israel by how much the more Gods Miracles had been Demonstrations of his setled Will to deliver them Let nothing snatch our hearts to a contradiction to him but let us fear and give Glory to him when the hour of Judgment which he hath appointed is come * Revel 14.7 that is comply with the unchangeable will of his Precept the more he declares the immutable will of his Providence We must not think God must disgrace his Nature and change his Proceedings for us Better the Creature should suffer than God be impair'd in any of his Perfections If God changed his Purpose he would change his Nature Patience is the way to perform the immutable Will of God and a means to attain a gracious Immutability for our selves by receiving the Promise Heb. 10.36 Ye have need of Patience that after ye have done the Will of God ye might receive the Promise 3. This Doctrine will teach us to imitate God in this perfection by striving to be immoveable in goodness God never goes back from himself he finds nothing better than himself for which he should change and can we find any thing better than God to allure our hearts to a change from him The Sun never declines from the Ecliptick line nor should we from the paths of Holiness A stedfast obedience is encouraged by an unchangeable God to reward it 1 Cor. 15.58 Be stedfast and immovable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that your labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. Unstedfastness is the note of an Hypocrite Psal 78.37 stedfastness in that which is good is the mark of a Saint 't is the Character of a
without the World in those infinite spaces which the mind of man can imagine In regard of his Immensity nothing in being can be distant from him wheresoever it is 2d Use is for Comfort That God is present every where is as much a Comfort to a good man as it is a Terror to a wicked one He is every where for his people not only by a necessary perfection of his nature but an immense diffusion of his goodness He is in all creatures as their preserver in the damned as their terror in his people as their Protector He fills hell with his severity heaven with his glory his people with his grace He is with his people as light in darkness a fountain in a garden as Manna in the Ark. God is in the World as a spring of preservation in the Church as his Cabinet a spring of grace and consolation A man is present sometimes in his field but more delightfully in his garden A Vineyard as it hath more of cost so more of care and a watchful presence of the Owner Isa 27.3 I the Lord do keep it viz. his Vineyard I will water it every moment lest any hurt it I will keep it night and day As there is a presence of Essence which is natural so there is a presence of Grace which is foederal A presence by Covenant I will not leave thee I will be with thee this later depends upon the former for take away the Immensity of God and you leave no foundation for his universal gracious presence with his people in all their emergencies in all their hearts And therefore where he is present in his essence he cannot be absent in his grace from them that fear him 'T is from his filling heaven and earth he proves his knowledg of the designs of the false prophets and from the same Topick may as well be inferr'd the employment of his power and grace for his people 1. The Omnipresence of God is a comfort in all violent temptations No fiery dart can be so present with us as God is present both with that and the marks-man The most raging Devils cannot be so near us as God is to us and them He is present with his people to relieve them and present with the Devil to manage him to his own holy purposes So he was with Job defeating his enemies and bringing him triumphantly out of those pressing trials This presence is such a terror that whatsoever the Devil can despoil us of he must leave this untoucht He might scratch the Apostle with a thorn 2 Cor. 12.7 9. but he could not rifle him of the presence of divine grace which God promised him He must prevail so far as to make God cease to be God before he can make him to be distant from us and while this cannot be the Devils and men can no more hinder the emanations of God to the Soul than a Child can cut off the Rays of the Sun from imbellishing the Earth 't is no mean support for a good man at any time buffeted by a Messenger of Satan to think God stands near him and beholds how ill he is us'd It would be a satisfaction to a Kings favourite in the midst of the Violence some Enemies might use to him upon a Surprise to understand that the King who loves him stands behind a Curtain and through a hole sees the injuries he suffers and were the Devil as considering as he is malicious he could not but be in great fear at Gods being in the Generation of the Righteous as his Serpentine Seed is Prov. 3.6 There were they in great fear for God is in the generation of the Righteous 2. The Omnipresence of God is a comfort in sharp Afflictions Good men have a Comfort in this Presence in their nasty Prisons oppressing Tribunals in the overflowing Waters or scorching Flames he is still with them Isa 43.2 and many times by his Presence keeps the Bush from Consuming when it seems to be all in a Flame In afflictions God shews himself most present when Friends are most absent When my Father and Mother forsake me then the Lord shall take me up Psal 27.10 then God will stoop and gather me into his Protection or Hebr. shall gather me alluding to those Tribes that were to bring up the Rear in the Israelites March to take care that none were left behind and expos'd to Famine or wild Beasts by reason of some Disease that disennabled them to keep pace with their Brethren He that is the Sanctuary of his People in all Calamities is more present with them to support them than their Adversaries can be present with them to afflict them Psal 46.2 A present help in the time of Trouble He is present with all things for this end tho' his Presence be a necessary Presence in regard of the Immensity of his Nature yet the end of this Presence in regard that it is for the good of his People is a voluntary Presence 'T is for the good of man he is present in the lower World and principally for the good of his People for whose sake he keeps up the World 2 Chron. 16.9 His eyes run to and fro throughout the whole Earth to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him If he doth not deliver good men from Afflictions he will be so present as to manage them in them as that his Glory shall issue from them and their Grace be brightned by them Chrysostome What a man was Paul when he was lodg'd in a Prison or dragged to the Courts of Judicature when he was torn with Rods or laden with Chains then did he shew the greatest Miracles made the Judg Tremble upon the Bench and brake the Heart tho' not the Prison of the Jaylor so powerful is the Presence of God in the pressures of his People This Presence outweighs all other Comforts and is more valuable to a Christian than Barns of Corn or Cellars of Wine can be to a Covetous man Psal 4.7 It was this Presence was Davids Cordial in the mutinying of his Soldiers 1 Sam 30.6 What a Comfort is this in Exile or a forced desertion of our Habitations Good men may be Banish'd from their Country but never from the Presence of their Protector Ye cannot say of any corner of the Earth or of any Dungeon in a Prison God is not here if you were cast out of your Country 1000 Miles off you are not out of Gods Precinct his Arm is there to cherish the good as well as to drag out the wicked 't is the same God the same Presence in every Country as well as the same Sun Moon and Stars and were not God every where yet he could not be meaner than his Creature the Sun in the Firmament which visits every part of the habitable World in 24 hours 2. The Omnipresence of God is a Comfort in all Duties of
Human Nature tho' it obscur'd yet it did not disparage the Deity or bring any disgrace to it Is Gold the worse for being formed into the Image of a Fly doth it not still retain the nobleness of the Metal When men are despis'd for descending to the knowledg of mean and vile things 't is because they neglect the knowledg of the greater and Sin in their enquiries after lesser things with a neglect of that which concerns more the Honour of God and the Happiness of themselves to be ambitious of such a Knowledg and careless of that of more concern is criminal and contemptible But God knows the greatest as well as the least mean things are not known by him to exclude the knowledg of the greater nor are vile things govern'd by him to exclude the order of the better The Deformity of Objects known by God doth not deform him nor defile him he doth not view them without himself but within himself wherein all things in their Ideas are Beautiful and Comely Our knowledg of a Deformed thing is not a Deforming of our Understanding but is beautiful in the Knowledg tho' it be not in the object nor is there any fear that the Understanding of God should become material by knowing material things any more than our Understandings lose their Spirituality by knowing the nature of Bodies 't is to be observed therefore that only those senses of men as seeing hearing smelling which have those qualities for their objects that come nearest the nature of spiritual things as Light Sounds fragrant Odours are ascrib'd to God in Scripture not Touching or Tasting which are senses that are not exercis'd without a more immediate commerce with gross matter and the reason may be because we should have no gross thoughts of God as if he were a body and made of matter like the things he knows 2. As he knows all Creatures so God knows all the actions of Creatures He counts in particular all the ways of men Doth he not see all my ways and count all my steps Job 31.4 He tells their wandrings as if one by one Psal 56.8 His eyes are upon all the ways of man and he sees all his goings Job 34.21 a Metaphor taken from men when they look wistly with fixed Eyes upon a thing to view it in every circumstance whence it comes whether it goes to observe every little motion of it Gods Eye is not a wandring but a fixed Eye and the ways of man are not only before his eyes but he doth exactly ponder them Prov. 5.21 as one that will not be ignorant of the least Mite in them but weigh and examine them by the Standard of his Law he may as well know the motions of our Members as the Hairs of our Heads the smallest actions before they be whether Civil Natural or Religious fall under his Cognizance what meaner than a man carrying a Pitcher yet our Saviour foretels it Luke 22.10 God knows not only what men do but what they would have done had he not restrained them what Abimelech would have done to Sarah had not God put a Bar in his way Gen. 20.6 What a man that is taken away in his Youth would have done had he lived to a riper Age yea he knows the most secret words as well as actions the words spoken by the King of Israel in his Bed-Chamber were revealed to Elisha 2 Kings 6.12 and indeed how can any action of man be conceal'd from God Can we view the various actions of a heap of Ants or a Hive of Bees in a glass without turning our Eyes and shall not God behold the actions of all men in the World which are less than Bees or Ants in his Sight and more visible to him than an Ant-Hill or Bee-Hive can be to the acutest eye of man 3. As God knows all the actions of Creatures so he knows all the Thoughts of Creatures The thoughts are the most closetted acts of man hid from men and Angels unless disclos'd by some outward Expressions but God descends into the depths and abysses of the Soul discerns the most inward contrivances nothing is impenetrable to him the Sun doth not so much enlighten the Earth as God understands the Heart all thoughts are as visible to him as Flies and Motes enclos'd in a body of transparent Chrystal this man naturally allows to God Men often speak to God by the motions of their minds and secret Ejaculations which they would not do if it were not naturally implanted in them that God knows all their inward motions the Scripture is plain and positive in this He tries the Heart and the Reins Psal 7.9 as men by the use of Fire discern the drossy and purer parts of Metals The secret intentions and aims the most lurking affections seated in the Reins he knows that which no man no Angel is able to know which a man himself knows not nor makes any particular reflection upon yea he weighs the Spirit Prov. 16.2 he exactly numbers all the devices and inclinations of men as men do every piece of Coyn they tell out of a heap He discerns the Thoughts and intents of the heart Heb. 4.12 all that is in the mind all that is in the affections every stirring and purpose so that not one thought can be withheld from him Job 42.2 yea Hell and Destruction are before him much more then the Hearts of the Children of men Prov. 15.11 he works all things in the Bowels of the Earth and brings forth all things out of that Treasure say some but more naturally God knows the whole state of the dead all the receptacles and Graves of their bodies all the bodies of men consumed by the Earth or devoured by living Creatures things that seem to be out of all Being he knows the Thoughts of the Devils and Damned Creatures whom he hath cast out of his care for ever into the arms of his Justice never more to cast a delightful glance towards them not a secret in any Soul in Hell which he hath no need to know because he shall not judg them by any of the Thoughts they now have since they were condemned to punishment is hid from him much more is he acquainted with the Thoughts of living men the counsels of whose hearts are yet to be manifested in order to their Tryal and Censure yea he knows them before they spring up into actual being Psal 139.2 thou understandest my Thoughts afar off my Thoughts that is every Thought tho' innumerable Thoughts pass through me in a day and that in the Sourse and Fountain when it is yet in the Womb before it is our Thought if he knows them before their Existence before they can be properly called ours much more doth he know them when they actually spring up in us he knows the tendency of them where the Bird will light when it is in flight he knows them exactly he is therefore called a discerner or criticizer of the Heart
Heb. 4.12 As a Critick discerns every Letter Point and Stop he is more intimate with us than our Souls with our Bodies and hath more the Possession of us than we have of our selves he knows them by an inspection into the heart not by the Mediation of second causes by the looks or gestures of men as men may discern the Thoughts of one another 1. God discerns all good motions of the Mind and Will These he puts into men and needs must God know his own act he knew the Son of Jeroboam to have some good thing in him towards the Lord God of Israel 1 Kings 14.13 and the integrity of David and Hezekiah the freest motions of the Will and Affections to him Lord thou knowest that I love thee saith Peter John 21.17 Love can be no more restrain'd than the Will it self can A man may make another to grieve and desire but none can force another to Love 2. God discerns all the evil motions of the Mind and Will Every imagination of the Heart Gen. 6.5 the vanity of mens thoughts Psal 94.11 their inward darkness and deceitful disguises No wonder that God who fashion'd the heart should understand the motions of it Psal 33.13 15. He looks from Heaven and beholds all the Children of men he fashioneth their hearts alike and considers all their Works Doth any man make a Watch and yet be ignorant of its motion Did God fling away the Key to this secret Cabinet when he framed it and put off the power of unlocking it when he pleased He did not surely frame it in such a posture as that any thing in it should be hid from his Eye he did not fashion it to be Priviledged from his Government which would follow if he were ignorant of what was Minted and Coined in it He could not be a Judg to punish men if the inward frames and Principles of mens actions were concealed from him an outward action may glitter to an outward eye yet the secret spring be a desire of applause and not the Fear and Love of God If the inward frames of the heart did lye covered from him in the secret recesses of the heart those plausible acts which in regard of their Principles would merit a Punishment would meet with a Reward and God should bestow Happiness where he had denounced Misery As without the knowledg of what is just he could not be a Wise Law-giver so without the knowledg of what is inwardly committed he could not be a Righteous Judg acts that are rotten in the spring might be judged good by the fair colour and appearance This is the glory of God at the last day to manifest the secrets of all hearts 1 Cor. 4.5 and the Prophet Jeremiah links the power of Judging and the Prerogative of trying the Hearts together Jer. 11.20 but thou O Lord of Hosts that Judgest Righteously that tryest the Reins and the Heart and Jer. 17.10 I the Lord search the Heart I try the Reins to what end even to give every man according to his way and according to the fruit of his doings And indeed his binding up the whole Law with that command of not coveting evidenceth that he will Judg men by the inward affections and frames of their hearts Again God sustains the mind of man in every act of thinking In him we have not only the Principle of Life but every motion the motion of our minds as vvell as of our members In him we live and move c. Acts 17.28 Since he supports the vigor of the faculty in every act can he be ignorant of those acts vvhich spring from the faculty to vvhich he doth at that instant communicate povver and ability Novv this knovvledg of the Thoughts of men is 1. An incommunicable Property belonging only to the Divine Vnderstanding Creatures indeed may knovv the thoughts of others by Divine Revelation but not by themselves no Creature hath a Key immediately to open the minds of men and see all that lodgeth there no Creature can Fathom the heart by the Line of Created Knowledge Daille serm Part 1. p. 230. Devils may have a conjectural Knowledg and may guess at them by the acquaintance they have with the Disposition and Constitution of men and the Images they behold in their Fancies and by some marks which an inward imagination may stamp upon the Brain Blood Animal Spirits Face c. But the knowing the Thougnts meerly as Thought without any Impression by it is a Royalty God appropriates to himself as the main secret of his Government and a Perfection declarative of his Deity as much as any else Jer. 17.9 10. the heart of man is desperately wicked who can know it yes there is one and but one I the Lord search the Heart I try the Reins Man looks on the outward appearance but the Lord looks upon the Heart 1 Sam. 16.7 where God is distinguisht by this Perfection from all men whatsoever others may know by Revelation as Elisha did what was in Gehazi's heart 2 Kings 5.26 But God knows a man more than any man knows himself What person upon earth understands the windings and turnings of his own heart what reserves it will have what contrivances what inclinations all which God knows exactly 2. God acquires no new Knowledg of the thoughts and heart by the Discovery of them in the actions He would then be but equal in this part of Knowledg to his Creature no man or Angel but may thus arrive to the Knowledg of them God were then excluded from an absolute Dominion over the prime work of his lower Creation he would have made a Creature superior in this respect to himself upon whose Will to discover his knowledg of their inward intentions should depend and therefore when God is said to search the heart we must not understand it as if God were ignorant before and was fain to make an exact scrutiny and enquiry before he attained what he desired to know but God condescends to our capacity in the expression of his own Knowledg signifying that his Knowledg is as compleat as any mans Knowledg can be of the designs of others after he hath sifted them by a strict and through examination and wrung out a discovery of their intentions that he knows them as perfectly as if he had put them upon the rack and forced them to make a discovery of their secret Plottings Nor must we understand that in Gen. 22.12 where God saith after Abraham had stretched out his hand to Sacrifice his Son Now I know that thou fearest God as though God was ignorant of Abrahams gracious disposition to him did Abrahams drawing his Knife furnish God with a new Knowledg no God knew Abrahams pious inclinations before Gen. 18.19 I know him that he will command his Children after him c. Knowledg is sometimes taken for approbation then the sense will be now I approve this Fact as a Testimony of thy fear of me since thy
if God understands his own Power and Excellency nothing can be hid from him that was brought forth by that Power as well as nothing can be unknown to him that that Power is able to produce * Bradwardin p. 6. If God knows nothing besides himself he may then believe there is nothing beside himself we shall then fancy a God miserably mistaken If he knows nothing besides himself then things were not Created by him or not understandingly and voluntarily Created but drop'd from him before he was aware To think that the first cause of all should be ignorant of those things he is the cause of is to make him not a voluntary but natural Agent and therefore necessary and then that the Creature came from him as Light from the Sun and moisture from the Water this would bean absurd opinion of the Worlds Creation if God be a voluntary Agent as he is he must be an intelligent Agent The faculty of Will is not in any Creature without that of Understanding also If God be an intelligent Agent his knowledg must extend as far as his operation and every object of his operation unless we imagine God hath lost his Memory in that long Tract of time since the first Creation of them An Artificer cannot be ignorant of his own Work If God knows himself he knows himself to be a Cause how can he know himself to be a Cause unless he know the Effects he is the Cause of One relation implies another a man cannot know himself to be a Father unless he hath a Child because it is a name of relation and in the notion of it refers to another The name of cause is a name of relation and implies an effect If God therefore know himself in all his Perfections as the Cause of things he must know all his acts what his Wisdom contrived what his Counsel determin'd and what his Power effected The knowledg of God is to be suppos'd in a free determination of himself and that knowledg must be perfect both of the object act and all the circumstances of it How can his Will freely produce any thing that was not first known in his Understanding From this the Prophet argues the understanding of God and the unsearchableness of it because he is the Creator of the ends of the earth Isa 40.28 and the same reason David gives of Gods Knowledg of him and of every thing he did and that afar off because he was formed by him Psal 139.2 15 16. As the perfect making of things only belongs to God so doth the perfect knowledg of things 't is absurd to think that God should be ignorant of what he hath given Being to that he should not know all the Creatures and their qualities the Plants and their vertues as that a man should not know the Letters that are formed by him in Writing Every thing bears in it self the mark of Gods Perfections and shall not God know the representation of his own vertue 5. Without this Knowledg God could no more be the Governour than he could be the Creator of the World Knowledg is the Basis of Providence to Know things is before the Government of things a practical knowledg cannot be without a theoretical knowledg Nothing could be directed to its proper end without the knowledg of the nature of it and its suitableness to answer that end for which it is intended As every thing even the minutest falls under the conduct of God so every thing falls under the knowledg of God A Blind Coach-man is not able to hold the Reins of his Horses and direct them in right Paths Since the Providence of God is about particulars his Knowledg must be about particulars he could not else govern them in particular nor could all things be said to depend upon him in their Being and Operations Providence depends upon the knowledg of God and the exercise of it upon the Goodness of God it cannot be without Understanding and Will Understanding to know what is convenient and Will to perform it When our Saviour therefore speaks of Providence he intimates these two in a special manner Your Heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things Mat. 6.32 and goodness in Luke 11.13 The reason of Providence is so joyned with Omniscience that they cannot be separated What a kind of God would he be that were ignorant of those things that were governed by him The ascribing this Perfection to him asserts his Providence for it is as easy for one that knows all things to look over the whole World if writ with Monosyllables in every little particular of it as it is with a man to take a view of one Letter in an Alphabet Sabund Tit. 84. much changed Again if God were not Omniscient how could he reward the Good and punish the Evil the works of men are either rewardable or punishable not only according to their outward circumstances but inward Principles and Ends and the degrees of Venom lurking in the heart The exact discerning of these without a possibility to be deceived is necessary to pass a right and infallible Judgment upon them and proportion the censure and punishment to the Crime Without such a Knowledg and discerning men would not have their due nay a Judgment just for the matter would be unjust in the manner because unjustly past without an understanding of the merit of the Cause 'T is necessary therefore that the Supream Judg of the World should not be thought to be blindfold when he distributes his Rewards and Punishments and muffle his face when he passes his Sentence 'T is necessary to ascribe to him the knowledg of mens thoughts and intentions the secret wills and aims the hidden works of darkness in every mans Conscience because every mans work is to be measured by the Will and inward frame 'T is necessary that he should perpetually retain all those things in the indelible and plain records of his Memory that there may not be any work without a just proportion of what is due to it This is the glory of God to discover the secrets of all hearts at last as 1 Cor. 4.5 the Lord shall bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the Counsels of all hearts and then shall every man have praise of God This knowledg fits him to be a Judg the reason why the ungodly shall not stand in Judgment is because God knows their ways which is implyed in his knowing the way of the righteous * Psal 1.5 6. I now proceed to the Vse VSE the first is of information or instruction If God hath all knowledg then 1. Jesus Christ is not a meer Creature The two Titles of wonderful Counsellor and mighty God are given him in conjunction Isa 9.6 not only the Angel of the Covenant as he is called Malach. 3.1 or the Executor of his Counsels but a Counsellor in conjunction with him in Counsel as well as
Shall we take only here with a limitation as some that are no Friends to the Deity of Christ would and say God only knows the hearts of men from himself and by his own infinite vertue Why may we not take only in other places with a limitation and make nonsence of it as Psal 86.10 Thou art God alone Is it to be understood that God is God alone from himself but other Gods may be made by him and so there may be numberless infinites As God is God alone so that none can be God but himself so he alone knows all the hearts Of all the Children of men and none but he can know them this knowledg is from his nature Placaeus de deitate Christi The reason why God knows the hearts of men is rendered in the Scripture double because he created them and because he is present every where Psal 33.13 15. these two are by the Confession of Christians and Pagans universally received as the proper Characters of Divinity whereby the Deity is distinguish'd from all Creatures Now when Christ ascribes this to himself and that with such an Emphasis that nothing greater than that could be urg'd as he doth Rev. 2.23 we must conclude that he is of the same Essence with God one with him in his Nature as well as one with him in his Attributes God only knows the hearts of the Children of men there is the unity of God Christ searches the Hearts and Reins there is a distinction of Persons in an oneness of essence he knows the hearts of all men not only of those that were with him in the time of the Flesh that have been and shall be since his Ascension but of those that lived and died before his coming because he is to be the Judg of all that lived before his humiliation on earth as well as after his exaltation in Heaven It pertains to him as a Judg to know distinctly the merits of the Cause of which he is to Judg and this excellency of searching the hearts is mention'd by himself with relation to his judicial Proceeding I will give to every one of you according to your Works And tho' a Creature may know what is in a mans heart if it be revealed to him yet such a knowledg is a knowledg only by report not by inspection yet this latter is ascrib'd to Christ John 2.24.25 he knew all men and needed not that any should testify of man for he knew what was in man he looked into their hearts The Evangelist to allay the amazement of men at his relation of our Saviours knowledg of the inward falsity of those that made a splendid Profession of him doth not say the Father revealed it to him but intimates it to be an unseparable Property of his nature No covering was so thick as to bound his eye no pretence so glittering as to impose upon his understanding Those that made a Profession of him and could not be discerned by the eye of man from his faithfullest Attendants were in their inside known to him plainer than their outside was to others and therefore he committed not himself to them tho' they seemed to be perswaded to a real belief in his name because of the Power of his Miracles and were touched with an admiration of him as some great Prophet and perhaps declared him to be the Messiah ver 23. 4. He had a foreknowledg of the particular inclinations of men before those distinct inclinations were in actual Being in them This is plainly asserted John 6.64 but there are some of you that believe not for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not and who should betray him When Christ assured them from the knowledg of the hearts of his followers that some of them were void of that Faith they profest The Evangelist to stop their amazement that Christ should have such a power and vertue adds that he knew from the beginning that he had not only a present knowledg but a foreknowledg of every ones inclination he knew not only now and then what was in the Hearts of his Disciples but from the beginning of any ones giving up their Names to him he knew whether it were a pretence or sincere he knew who should betray him and there was no mans inward affection but was foreseen by him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From the beginning whether we understand it from the beginning of the World as when Christ saith concerning Divorces from the beginning it was not so that is from the beginning of the World from the beginning of the Law of Nature or from the beginning of their attending him as it is taken Luke 1.2 he had a certain prescience of the inward dispositions of mens hearts and their succeeding sentiments he foreknew the treacherous heart of Judas in the midst of his splendid Profession and discern'd his resolution in the root and his thought in the confus'd Chaos of his natural corruption he knew how it would spring up before it did spring up before Judas had any distinct and formal conception of it himself or before there was any actual preparation to a resolve Peters denyal was not unknown to him when Peter had a present resolution and no question spake it in the present sincerity of his Soul never to forsake him he foreknew what would be the result of that Poyson which lurkt in Peters nature before Peter himself imagin'd any thing of it he discern'd Peters Apostatizing heart when Peter resolved the contrary our Saviours Prediction was accomplisht and Peters valiant resolution languisht into Cowardice Shall we then conclude our Blessed Saviour a Creature who perfectly and only knew the Father who knew all Creatures who had all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledg who knew the inward motions of mens hearts by his own Vertue and had not only a present Knowledg but a Prescience of them Inform. 2. The second Instruction from this position That God hath an infinite Knowledg and Understanding Then there is a Providence exercis'd by God in the World and that about every thing As Providence infers Omniscience as the guide of it so Omniscience infers Providence as the end of it What Exercise would there be of this Attribute but in the Government of the World To this this infinite Perfection refers Jer. 17.10 I the Lord search the heart I try the Reins to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings He searches the heart to reward he rewards every man according to the rewardableness of his actions his Government therefore extends to every man in the World there is no heart but he searches therefore no heart but he governs to what purpose else would be this Knowledg of all his Creatures for a meer Contemplation of them no What pleasure can that be to God who knows himself who is infinitely more excellent than all his Creatures Doth he know them to neglect all care
or by any Creature is Blasphemous it sets the Creature in the place of God and invests it in that which is the peculiar honour of the Divinity for when any swear truly they intend the invocation of an infallible Witness and the bringing an undoubted Testimony for what they do assert While any therefore Swear by a Creature or a false God they profess that that Creature or that which they esteem to be a God is an infallible Witness which to be is only the right of God they attribute to the Creature that which is the Property of God alone to know the Heart and to be a Witness whether they speak true or no and this was accounted by all Nations the true Design of an Oath As to Swear falsely is a plain denyal of the All-Knowledg of God so to Swear by any Creature is to set the Creature upon the Throne of God in ascribing that Perfection to the Creature which Soveraignly belongs to the Creator for it is not in the Power of any to Witness to the truth of the heart but of him that is the searcher of hearts 4. We Sin against this Attribute by censuring the hearts of others An open Crime indeed falls under our Cognizance and therefore under our Judgment for whatsoever falls under the Authority of man to be punished falls under the Judgment of man to be censured as an act contrary to the Law of God yet when a censure is built upon the evil of the act which is obvious to the view if we take a step farther to judg the heart and state we leave the revealed rule of the Law and ambitiously erect a Tribunal equal with Gods and usurp a Judicial Power pertaining only to the Supream Governour of the World and consequently pretend to be possest of this Perfection of Omniscience which is necessary to render him capable of the exercise of that Soveraign Authority For it is in respect of his Dominion that God hath the supream right to Judg and in respect of his Knowledg that he hath an incommunicable capacity to Judg. In an action that is doubtful the good or evil whereof depends only upon Gods determination and wherein much of the Judgment depends upon the discerning the intention of the Agent we cannot Judg any man without a manifest invasion of Gods peculiar right such actions are to be Tryed by Gods knowledg not by our surmises God only is the Master in such cases to whom a person stands or falls Rom. 14.4 Till the true Principle and ends of an action be known by the confession of the party acting it a true Judgment of it is not in our Power Principles and Ends lye deep and hid from us and it is intollerable Pride to pretend to have a joint Key with God to open that Cabinet which he hath reserved to himself Besides the violation of the Rule of Charity in misconstruing actions which may be great and generous in their root and principle we invade Gods Right as if our ungrounded imaginations and conjectures were in joint Commission with this Sovereign Perfection and thereby we become Usurping Judges of evil thoughts James 2.4 'T is therefore a boldness worthy to be punished by the Judge to assume to our selves the Capacity and Authority of him who is the only Judg. For as the Execution of the Divine Law for the inward violation of it belongs only to God so is the right of Judging a Prerogative belonging only to his Omniscience his Right is therefore invaded if we pretend to a knowledg of it This Humor of men the Apostle checks when he saith 1 Cor. 4.5 He that judgeth me is the Lord therefore judg nothing before the time until the Lord come who will manifest the Counsels of all hearts 'T is not the time yet for God to erect the Tribunal for the tryal of mens hearts and the Principles of their Actions He hath reserv'd the glorious discovery of this Attribute for another season We must not therefore presume to Judge of the Counsels of mens hearts till God hath reveal'd them by opening the Treasures of his own Knowledg much less are we to judge any Mans final Condition Manasseh may Sacrifice to Devils and unconverted Paul tear the Church in pieces but God had Mercy on them and called them The Action may be Censur'd not the State for we know not whom God may call In Censuring Men we may doubly imitate the Devil in a false accusation of the Brethren as well as in an ambitious usurpation of the Rights of God 2. This Perfection is injured by presuming upon it or making an ill use of it As in the neglect of Prayer for the supply of Men's wants because God knows them already so that that which is an encouragement to Prayer they make the reason of restraining it before God Prayer is not to administer knowledge to God but to acknowledge this admirable Perfection of the Divine Nature If God did not know there were indeed no use of Prayer it would be as vain a thing to send up our Prayers to Heaven as to implore the senseless Statue or Picture of a Prince for a Protection We Pray because God knows for though he know our wants with a knowledge of Vision yet he will not know them with a knowledge of supply till he be sought unto All the Excellencies of God are ground of Adoration * Mat. 6.32.33 Matth. 7.11 and this Excellency is the ground of that part of Worship we call Prayer If God be to be Worshipped he is to be called upon Invocations of his name in our necessities is a chief act of Worship whence the Temple the place of solemn Worship was not called the House of Sacrifice but the House of Prayer Prayer was not appointed for Gods information as if he were ignorant but for the expression of our desires not to furnish him with a knowledge of what we want but to manifest to him by some Rational Sign convenient to our Nature our sense of that want which he knows by himself So that Prayer is not design'd to acquaint God with our wants but to express the desire of a Remedy of our wants God knows our wants but hath not made promises barely to our wants but to our asking That his Omniscience in hearing as well as his sufficiency in supplying may have a sensible honour in our acknowledgments and receits 'T is therefore an ill use of this Excellency of God to neglect Prayer to him as needless because he knows already 4. This Perfection of God is wrong'd by a practical denial of it 'T is the language of every Sin and so God takes it when he comes to reckon with Men for their Impieties Upon this he charges the greatness of the iniquity of Israel the overflowing of Blood in the Land and the perversness of the City They say the Lord hath forsaken the Earth and the Lord sees not * Ezek. 9.9 They deny his Eyes to see
the suggestions of their Carnal Wisdom The Brats of Soul-destroying Errors may walk about the World in a garb and disguise of good words and fair speeches as it is in the 18th Verse by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple And for their encouragement to a constancy in the Gospel Doctrine he assures them that all those that would dispossess them of Truth to possess them with Vanity are but Satans Instruments and will fall under the same Captivity and Yoke with their Principal Verse 18. The God of Peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly Whence observe 1. All Corrupters of Divine Truth and Troublers of the Churches Peace are no better than Devils Our Saviour thought the Name Satan a Title merited by Peter when he breathed out an Advice as an Ax at the Root of the Gospel the Death of Christ the foundation of all Gospel Truth and the Apostle concludes them under the same Character which hinder the superstructure and would mix their Chaff with his Wheat Mat. 16.23 Get thee behind me Satan 'T is not Get thee behind me Simon or Get thee behind me Peter but Get thee behind me Satan thou art an offence to me Thou dost oppose thy self to the Wisdom and Grace and Authority of God to the Redemption of Man and to the good of the World As the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Truth so is Satan the Spirit of Falshood As the Holy Ghost inspires Believers with Truth so doth the Devil corrupt Unbelievers with Error Let us cleave to the Truth of the Gospel that we may not be counted by God as part of the Corporation of Fallen Angels and not be barely reckon'd as Enemies of God but in league with the greatest Enemy to his Glory in the World 2. The Reconciler of the World will be the subduer of Satan The God of Peace sent the Prince of Peace to be the Restorer of his Rights and the Hammer to beat in pieces the Usurper of them As a God of Truth he will make good his Promise as a God of Peace he will perfect the design his Wisdom hath laid and begun to act In the subduing Satan he will be the Conqueror of his Instruments He saith nor God shall bruise your Troublers and Hereticks but Satan The fall of a General proves the rout of the Army Since God as a God of Peace hath delivered his own he will perfect the Victory and make them cease from bruising the heel of his Spiritual Seed 3. Divine Evangelical Truth shall be Victorious No Weapon formed against it shall prosper The Head of the Wicked shall fall as low as the Feet of the Godly The Devil never yet bluster'd in the World but he met at last with a disappointment His Fall hath been like Lightning sudden certain vanishing 4. Faith must look back as far as the foundation Promise The God of Peace shall bruise c. The Apostle seems to allude to the first Promise Gen. 2.15 A Promise that hath vigor to nourish the Church in all Ages of the World 'T is the standing Cordial out of the Womb of this Promise all the rest have taken their birth The Promises of the Old Testament were designed for those under the New and the full performance of them is to be expected and will be enjoyed by them 'T is a mighty strengthning to Faith to trace the footsteps of Gods Truth and Wisdom from the Threatning against the Serpent in Eden to the bruise he received in Calvary and the Triumph over him upon Mount Olivet 5. We are to confide in the Promise of God but leave the season of its accomplishment to his Wisdom He will bruise Satan under your feet therefore do not doubt it and shortly therefore wait for it Shortly it will be done that is quickly when you think it may be a great way off or shortly that is seasonably when Satans Rage is hottest God is the best Judge of the seasons of distributing his own Mercies and darting out his own Glory 'T is enough to encourage our waiting that it will be and that it will be shortly but we must not measure God's shortly by our Minutes The Apostle after this concludes with a comfortable Prayer That since they were liable to many Temptations to turn their backs upon the Doctrine which they had learned yet he desires God who had brought them to the knowledge of his Truth would confirm them in the belief of it since it was the Gospel of Christ his dear Son and a Mystery he had been chary of and kept in his own Cabinet and now brought forth to the World in pursuance of the ancient Prophesies and now had publish'd to all Nations for that end that it might be obeyed and concludes with a Doxology a voice of Praise to him who was only Wise to effect his own purposes Verses 25 26 27. Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the Mystery which was kept secret since the World began but now is made manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the commandment of the Everlasting God made known to all Nations for the obedience of Faith This Doxology is interlac'd with many Comforts for the Romans He explains the causes of this glory to God Power and Wisdom Power to establish the Romans in Grace which includes his Will This he proves from a Divine Testimony viz. the Gospel the Gospel committed to him and preached by him which he commends by calling it the preaching of Christ and describes it for the instruction and comfort of the Church from the Adjuncts the obscurity of it under the old Testament and the clearness of it under the New It was hid from the former Ages and kept in silence not simply and absolutely but comparatively and in part because in the Old Testament the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ was confin'd to the limits of Judea preached only to the Inhabitants of that Country To them he gave his Statutes and his Judgments and dealt not so magnificently with any Nation †Psal 147.19 20. but now he causes it to spring with greater Majesty out of those narrow bounds and spread its Wings about the World This manifestation of the Gospel he declares first from the subject All Nations 2. From the principal efficient cause of it The Commandment and Order of God 3. The Instrumental cause The Prophetick Scriptures 4. From the End of it Gomarus in loc The obedience of Faith 1. Observe The glorious Attributes of God bear a comfortable respect to Believers Power and Wisdom are here mention'd as two props of their Faith his Power here includes his Goodness Power to help without Will to assist is a dry Chip The Apostle mentions not Gods Power simply and absolutely considered for that of it self is no more comfort to Men than it is to Devils but
him through the universal Corruption of Nature Now he hath manifested himself a God of Truth mindful of his Promise in Blessing all Nations in the Seed of Abraham The Fury of Devils and the Violence of Men could not hinder the propagation of this Gospel Its Light hath been dispersed as far as that of the Sun and that Grace that sounded in the Gentiles Ears hath bent many of their Hearts to the Obedience of it 5. Observe That Libertinism and Licentiousness find no encouragement in the Gospel It was made known to all Nations for the Obedience of Faith The Goodness of God is publish'd that our Enmity to him may be parted with Christs Righteousness is not offered to us to be put on that we may roul more warmly in our Lusts The Doctrine of Grace commands us to give up our selves to Christ to be accepted through him and to be ruled by him Obedience is due to God as a Soveraign Lord in his Law and 't is due out of gratitude as he is a God of Grace in the Gospel The discovery of a further perfection in God weakens not the right of another nor the obligation of the Duty the former Attribute claims at our hands The Gospel frees us from the Curse but not from the Duty and Service We are delivered from the hands of our Enemies that we might serve God in Holiness and Righteousness Luke 1.74 This is the will of God in the Gospel even our Sanctification When a Prince strikes off a Malefactors Chains though he deliver him from the punishment of his Crime he frees him not from the Duty of a Subject His Pardon adds a greater obligation than his Protection did before while he was Loyal Christs Righteousness gives us a Title to Heaven but there must be a Holiness to give us a fitness for Heaven 6. Observe That Evangelical Obedience or the Obedience of Faith is only acceptable to God Obedience of Faith Genitivus speciei noting the kind of Obedience God requires an Obedience springing from Faith animated and influenced by Faith Not Obedience of Faith as though Faith were the Rule and the Law were abrogated but to the Law as a Rule and from Faith as a Principle There is no true Obedience before Faith Heb. 11.6 Without Faith it is impossible to please God and therefore without Faith impossible to obey him A good Work cannot proceed from a defil'd Mind and Conscience and without Faith every mans Mind is darkned and his Conscience polluted * Tit. 1.15 Faith is the Band of Union to Christ and Obedience is the Fruit of Union we cannot bring forth fruit without being Branches †John 15.4 5. and we cannot be Branches without Believing Legitimate Fruit follows upon Marriage to Christ not before it Rom. 7.4 That you should be married to another even to him that is raised from the dead that you should bring forth fruit unto God All Fruit before Marriage is Bastard and Bastards were excluded from the Sanctuary Our Persons must be first accepted in Christ before our Services can be acceptable those Works are not acceptable where the Person is not pardoned Good Works flow from a pure Heart but the Heart cannot be pure before Faith All the Good Works reckoned up in the 11th Chapter of the Hebrews were from this Spring those Heroes first believed and then obeyed By Faith Abel was righteous before God without it his Sacrifice had been no better than Cains By Faith Enoch pleased God and had a Divine Testimony to his Obedience before his Translation By Faith Abraham offered up Isaac without which he had been no better than a Murderer All Obedience hath its Root in Faith and is not done in our own strength but in the strength and virtue of another of Christ whom God hath set forth as our Head and Root 7. Observe Faith and Obedience are distinct though inseparable The Obedience of Faith Faith indeed is Obedience to a Gospel Command which enjoyns us to believe but it is not all our Obedience Justification and Sanctification are distinct Acts of God Justification respects the Person Sanctification the Nature Justification is first in order of Nature and Sanctification follows They are distinct but inseparable every Justified Person hath a Sanctified Nature and every Sanctified Nature supposeth a Justified Person So Faith and Obedience are distinct Faith as the Principle Obedience as the Product Faith as the Cause Obedience as the Effect the Cause and the Effect are not the same By Faith we own Christ as our Lord by Obedience we regulate our selves according to his Command The acceptance of the Relation to him as a Subject precedes the performance of our Duty By Faith we receive his Law and by Obedience we fulfil it Faith makes us Gods Children Gal. 3.26 Obedience manifests us to be Christs Disciples John 15.8 Faith is the Touchstone of Obedience the Touchstone and that which is tried by it are not the same But though they are distinct yet they are inseparable Faith and Obedience are joyned together Obedience follows Faith at the heels Faith purifies the heart and a pure Heart cannot be without pure Actions Faith unites us to Christ whereby we partake of his Liâ—e and a living Branch cannot be without fruit in its season and much fruit John 15.5 and that naturally from a newness of Spirit Rom. 7.9 not constrained by the rigors of the Law but drawn forth from a sweetness of Love for Faith works by Love The Love of God is the strong Motive and Love to God is the quickning Principle as there can be no Obedience without Faith so no Faith without Obedience After all this the Apostle ends with the celebration of the Wisdom of God To God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ for ever The rich Discovery of the Gospel cannot be thought of by a gracious Soul without a return of Praise to God and Admiration of his singular Wisdom Wise God His Power before and his Wisdom here are mentioned in conjunction in which his Goodness is included as interested in his establishing Power as the ground of all the Glory and Praise God hath from his Creatures Only Wise As Christ saith Mat. 19.17 None is good but God so the Apostle saith None Wise but God As all Creatures are unclean in regard of his Purity so they are all Fools in regard of his Wisdom yea the glorious Angels themselves * Job 4.18 Wisdom is the Royalty of God the proper Dialect of all his Ways and Works No Creature can lay claim to it He is so Wise that he is Wisdom it self Be glory through Jesus Christ As God is only known in and by Christ so he must be only worshipped and celebrated in and through Christ In him we must Pray to him and in him we must Praise him As all Mercies flow from God through Christ to us so all our Duties are to be presented to God through Christ In the Greek verbatim
Stock for the Redeemer yet God gave a Son from that Unlawful Bed whereof Christ came according to the flesh Gen. 38.29 compared with Mat. 1.3 Jonahs Sin was probably the first and remote occasion of the Ninivites giving credit to his Prophesy His Sin was the cause of his Punishment and his being slung into the Sea might facilitate the reception of his Message and excite the Ninivites Repentance whereby a Cloud of severe Judgment was blown away from them 'T is thought by some That when Jonah passed through the Streets of Niniveh with his Proclamation of Destruction he might be known by some of the Mariners of that Ship from whence he was cast Over-board into the Sea and might after their Voyage be occasionally in that City the Metropolis of the Nation and the place of some of their Births and might acquaint the People that this was the same Person they had cast into the Sea by his own consent for his acknowledg'd running from the Presence of the Lord for that he had told them Jonah 1.10 and the Marriners Prayer Verse 14. evidenceth it whereupon they might conclude his Message worthy of Belief since they knew from such Evidences that he had sunk into the Bowels of the Waters and now saw him safe in their Streets by a Deliverance unknown to them and that therefore that Power that delivered him could easily verifie his Word in the threatned Judgment Had Jonah gone at first without committing that Sin and receiving that Punishment his Message had not been judged a Divine Prediction but a fruit of some Enthusiastick madness His Sin upon this account was the first occasion of averting a Judgment from so great a City 3. The good of the Sinner himself is sometimes promoted by Divine Wisdom ordering the Sin As God had not permitted Sin to enter upon the World unless to bring Glory to himself by it so he would not let Sin remain in the little World of a Believers Heart if he did not intend to order it for his good What is done by Man to his damage and disparagement is directed by Divine Wisdom to his advantage not that it is the intent of the Sin or the Sinner but it is the event of the Sin by the Ordination of Divine Wisdom and Grace As without the Wisdom of God permitting Sin to enter into the World some Attributes of God had not been Experimentally known so some Graces could not have been exercis'd For where had there been an Object for that Noble Zeal in vindicating the Glory of God had it not been invaded by an Enemy The intenseness of Love to him could not have been so strong had we not an Enemy to hate for his sake Where had there been any place for that Noble part of Charity in holy Admonitions and Compassion to the Souls of our Neighbours and Endeavours to reduce them out of a destructive to a happy Path Humility would not have had so many grounds for its growth and exercise and holy Sorrow had had no fewel And as without the appearance of Sin there had been no exercise of the Patience of God so without Afflictions the Fruits of Sin there had been no ground for the exercise of the Patience of a Christian one of the Noblest parts of Valour Now Sin being Evil and such as cannot but be Evil hath no respect in it self to any good and cannot work a gracious End or any thing profitable to the Creature nay it is a hindrance to any good and therefore what good comes from it is Accidental occasioned indeed by Sin but efficiently caused by the over-ruling Wisdom of God taking occasion thereby to display it self and the Divine Goodness The Sins and Corruptions remaining in the Heart of a Man God orders for good and there are good effects by the direction of his Wisdom and Grace I. As the Soul respects God 1. God often brings forth a sensibleness of the necessity of Dependance on him The Nurse often lets the Child slip that it may the better know who supports it and may not be too venturous and confident of its own strength Peter would trust in Habitual Grace and God suffers him to Fall that he might trust more in Assisting Grace Mat. 26.35 Though I should die with thee yet I will not deny thee God leaves sometimes the brightest Souls in an Eclipse to manifest that their Holiness and the preservation of it depend upon the darting out his Beams upon them As the Falls of Men are the effects of their coldness and remisness in Acts of Faith and Repentance so the fruit of these Falls is often a running to him for Refuge and a deeper sensibleness where their Security lies It makes us Lower our swelling Sails and come under the Lee and Protection of Divine Grace When the Pleasures of Sin answer the expectations of a Revolted Creature he reflects upon his former state and sticks more close to God when before God had little of hâ—s Company Hos 2.7 I will return to my first husband for then it was better with me than now As God makes the Sins of Men sometimes an occasion of their Conversion so he sometimes makes them an occasion of a further Conversion Onesimus run from Philemon and was met with by Paul who proved an Instrument of his Conversion Philem. 10. My Son Onesimus whom I have begotten in my Bonds His slight from his Master was the occasion of his Regeneration by Paul a Prisoner The Falls of Believers God orders to their further stability He that is fallen for want of using his Staff will Lean more upon it to preserve himself from the like Disaster God by permitting the Lapses of Men doth often make them despair of their own strength to subdue their Enemies and rely upon the strength of Christ wherein God hath laid up Power for us and so becomes stronger in that strength which God hath ordained for them We are very apt to trust in our selves and have confidence in our own worth and strength and God lets loose Corruptions to abate this swelling humor This was the reason of the Apostle Pauls Thorn in the flesh 2 Cor. 12.9 whether it were a Temptation or Corruption or Sickness that he might be sensible of his own inability and where the sufficiency of Grace for him was placed He that is in danger of Drowning and hath the Waves come over his head will with all the might he hath lay hold upon any thing near him which is capable to Save him God lets his People sometâ—mes sink into such a condition that they may lay the faster hold on him who is near to all that call upon him 2. God hereby raiseth higher Estimations of the value and virtue of the Blood of Christ As the great Reason why God permitted Sin to enter into the World was to honour himself in the Redeemer so the Continuance of Sin and the Conquests it sometimes makes in Renewed Men are to honour the Infinite
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
there been some reason of any disgust it could not have ballanced that kindness which had so much reason to oblige him However he had received no courtesie from the fallen Angel to oblige him to turn into his Camp Was it not enough that one of thy Creatures would have stript thee of the glory of Heaven but this also must deprive thee of thy glory upon Earth which was due from him to thee as his Creator Can he charge the difficulty of the Command No It was rather below than above his strength He might rather complain that it was no higher whereby his Obedience and Gratitude might have a larger scope and a more spacious Field to move in than a Precept so light so easie as to abstain from one Fruit in the Garden What excuse can he have that would prefer the liquorishness of his Sense before the dictates of his Reason and the Obligations of his Creation The Law thou didst set him was righteous and reasonable and shall Righteousness and Reason be rejected by the Supream and Infallible Reason because the rebellious Creature hath trampled upon it What must God abrogate his holy Law because the Creature hath slighted it What Reflection will this be upon the Wisdom that enacted it And upon the Equity of the Command and Sanction of it Either Man must suffer or the Holy Law be expunged and for ever out of date And is it not better Man should Eternally smart under his Crime than any dishonourable Reflections of Unrighteousness be cast upon the Law and of folly and want foresight upon the Lawgiver Not to punish would be to approve the Devils Lye and justifie the Creatures Revolt It would be a Condemnation of thy own Law as unrighteous and a Sentencing thy own Wisdom as imprudent Better Man should for ever bear the Punishment of his Offence than God bear the dishonour of his Attributes Better Man should be miserable than God should be unrighteous unwise false and tamely bear the denial of his Soveraignty But what advantage would it be to gratifie Mercy by Pardoning the Malefactor Besides the irreparable dishonour to the Law the falsifying thy veracity in not executing the denounced threatning he would receive incouragement by such a grace to spurn more at thy Soveraignty and oppose thy Holiness by running on in a course of sin with hopes of Impunity If the Creature be restored it can not be expected that he that hath fared so well after the breach of it should be very careful of a future observance His easy readmission would abet him in the repetition of his Offence and thou shalt soon find him cast off all Moral dependance on thee Shall he be restored without any Condition or Covenant He is a Creature not to be governed without a Law and a Law is not be enacted without a Penalty What future regard will he have to thy Precept or what fear will he have of thy Threatning if his Crime be so lightly past over Is it the stability of thy Word What reason will he have to give credit to that which he hath found already disregarded by thy self Thy Truth in future Threatnings will be of no force with him who hath experienced thy laying it aside in the former 'T is necessary therefore that the rebellious creature should be punished for the preservation of the honour of the Law and the honour of the Lawgiver with all those perfections that are united in the composure of it 2. Secondly Mercy doth not want a Plea 'T is true indeed the sin of man wants not its aggravations He hath slighted thy Goodness and accepted thy Enemy as his Counsellor but it was not a pure act of his own as the Devils revolt was He had a Tempter and the Devil had none He had I acknowledge an Understanding to know thy Will and a Power to obey it yet he was mutable and had a capacity to fall It was no difficult task that was set him nor a hard yoke that was laid upon him yet he had a brutish part as well as a rational and sense as well as Soul whereas the fallen Angel was a pure Intellectual Spirit Did God create the World to suffer an eternal dishonour in letting himself be out-witted by Satan and his work wrested out of his hands Shall the work of eternal Counsel presently sink into irreparable destruction and the honour of an Almighty and wise Work be lost in the ruine of the Creature This would seem contrary to the nature of thy Goodness to make Man only to render him miserable To design him in his Creation for the Service of the Devil and not for the Service of his Creator What else could be the issue if the chief work of thy Hand defaced presently after the erecting should for ever remain in this marred condition What can be expected upon the continuance of his misery but a perpetual hatred and enmity of thy Creature against thee Did God in Creation design his being hated or his being loved by his Creature Shall God make a holy Law and have no obedience to that Law from that Creature whom it was made to govern Shall the curious workmanship of God and the excellent Engravings of the Law of Nature in his heart be so soon defaced and remain in that blotted condition for ever This fall thou couldst not but in the treasures of thy Infinite Knowledge foresee Why hadst thou Goodness then to Create him in an Integrity if thou wouldst not have Mercy to pity him in Misery Shall thy Enemy for ever trample upon the honour of thy Work and triumph over the glory of God and applaud himself in the success of his subtilty Shall thy Creature only passively glorifie thee as an Avenger and not actively as a Compassionater Am not I a perfection of thy Nature as well as Justice Shall Justice ingross all and I never come into view 'T is resolved already that the fallen Angels shall be no Subjects for me to exercise my self upon and I have now less reason than before to plead for them They fell with a full consent of will without any motion from another and not content with their own Apostacy they envy thee and thy glory upon Earth as well as in Heaven and have drawn into their party the best part of the Creation below Shall Satan plunge the whole Creation in the same irreparable ruine with himself If the Creature be restored will he contract a boldness in sin by impurity Hast thou not a Grace to render him ingenuous in Obedience as well as a Compassion to recover him from Misery What will hinder but that such a Grace which hath established the standing Angels may establish this recovered Creature If I am utterly excluded from exercising my self on men as I have been from Devils a whole Species is lost nay I can never expect to appear upon the Stage If thou wilt quite ruine him by Justice and create another World and another
and dispose of all his Creatures for the bringing his Purposes and his Promises to their designed perfection 6. Hence appears the necessity of a publick review of the Management of the World and of a Day of Judgment As a Day of Judgment may be inferr'd from many Attribute of God as his Soveraignty Justice Omniscience c. so among the rest from this of Wisdom How much of this Perfection will lie unvail'd and obscure if the Sins of Men be not brought to view whereby the ordering the unrighteous Actions of Men by his directing and over-ruling Hand of Providence in subserviency to his own Purposes and his Peoples good may appear in all its glory Without such a publick Review this part of Wisdom will not be clearly visible how those Actions which had a vile foundation in the Hearts and designs of Men and were formed there to gratifie some base Lust Ambition and Covetousness c. were by a secret Wisdom presiding over them conducted to amazing Ends. 'T is a part of Divine Wisdom to right it self and convince Men of the reasonableness of its Laws and the unreasonableness of their Contradictions to it The execution of the Sentence is an act of Justice but the conviction of the reasonableness of the Sentence is an act of Wisdom clearing up the Righteousness of the proceeding and this precedes and the other follows Jude 15. To convince all that are ungodly of all their ungodly deeds That Wisdom which contrived satisfaction as well as that Justice which required it is concerned in righting the Law which was enacted by it The Wisdom of a Soveraign Law-giver is engaged not to see his Law vilified and trampled on and exposed to the Lusts and Affronts of Men without being concerned in vindicating the Honour of it It would appear a Folly to enact and publish it if there were not a Resolution to right and execute it The Wisdom of God can no more associate Iniquity and Happiness together than the Justice of God can separate Iniquity from Punishment It would be defective if it did always tamely bear the Insolences of Offenders without a time of remark of their Crimes and a Justification of the Precept rebelliously spurn'd at He would be Unwise if he were Unjust Unrighteousness hath no better a Title in Scripture than that of Folly 'T is no part of Wisdom to give birth to those Laws which he will always behold ineffectual and neither vindicate his Law by a due execution of the Penalty nor right his own Authority conâ—emn'd in the violation of his Law by a just Revenge Besides What Wisdom would it be for the Soveraign Judge to lodge such a Spokesman for himself as Conscience in the Soul of Man if it should be alway found speaking and at length be found false in all that it speaks There is therefore an apparent prospect of the Day of Account from the consideration of this Perfection of the Divine Nature 7. Hence we have a ground for a mighty Reverence and Veneration of the Divine Majesty Who can contemplate the Sparklings of this Perfection in the variety of the Works of his hands and the exact Government of all his Creatures without a raised Admiration of the Excellency of his Being and a falling flat before him in a posture of Reverence to so great a Being Can we behold so great a mass of Matter digested into several Forms so exact a Harmony and Temperament in all the Creatures the proportions of Numbers and Measures and one Creature answering the Ends and Designs of another the distinct Beauties of all the perpetual Motion of all things without checking one another the variety of the Nature of things and all acting according to their Nature with an admirable Agreement and altogether like differing strings upon an Instrument emitting divers Sounds but all reduc'd to order in one delightful Lesson I say Can we behold all this without Admiring and Adoring the Divine Wisdom which appears in all And from the Consideration of this let us pass to the Consideration of his Wisdom in Redemption in reconciling divided Interests untying Hard-knots drawing one contrary out of another and we must needs acknowledge that the Wisdom of all the Men on Earth and Angels in Heaven is worse than Nothing and Vanity in comparison of this vast Ocean And as we have a greater esteem for those that invent some excellent Artificial Engines what Reverence ought we to have for him that hath stampt an unimitable Wisdom upon all his Works Nature orders us to give Honour to our Superiours in Knowledge and conside in their Counsels but none ought to be Reverenc'd as much as God since none equals him in Wisdom 8. If God be Infinitely Wise it shews us the necessity of our Address to him and Invocation of his Name We are subject to Mistakes and often overseen we are not able rightly to Counsel our selves In some cases all Creatures are too short-sighted to apprehend them and too ignorant to g ve Advice proper for them and to contrive Remedies for their ease but with the Lord there is Counsel Jer. 32.19 He is great in counsel and mighty in working great in Counsel to advise us mighty in Working to assist us We know not how to effect a design or prevent an expected Evil. We have an Infinite Wisdom to go to that is every way skilful to manage any business we desire to avert any Evil we fear to accomplish any thing we commit into his hands When we know not what to resolve he hath a Counsel to guide us Psal 73.24 He is not more Powerful to effect what is needful than Wise to direct what is fitting All Men stand in need of the Help of God as one Man stands in need of the assistance of other Men and will not do any thing without Advice and he that takes Advice deserves the Title of a Wise man as well as he that gives Advice But no Man needs so much the Advice of another Man as all Men need the Counsel and Assistance of God Neither is any mans Wit and Wisdom so far inâ—eriour to the Prudence and Ability of an Angel as the Wisdom of the wisest Man and the most sharp-sighted Angel is inferiour to the Infinite Wisdom of God We see therefore that it is best for us to go to the Fountain and not content our selves with the Streams to beg Advice from a Wisdom that is Infinite and Infallible rather than from that which is Finite and Fallible Vse II. If Wisdom be the Perfection of the Divine Majesty How prodigious is the Contempt of it in the World In General All Sin strikes at this Attribute and is in one part or other a degrading of it The first Sin directed its Venom against this As the Devils endeavoured to equal their Creator in Power so Man endeavoured to equal him in Wisdom Both indeed scorn'd to be rul'd by his Order but Man evidently exalted himself against the Wisdom
the Arms of a Redeemer by whom the Guilt is wip'd of and the filth shall be totally washed away Though he hates their sin and cannot but hate it yet he loves their Persons as being united as Members to the Mediator and Mystical Head A man may love a gangren'd Member because 't is a Member of his own Body or a Member of a dear Relation but he loaths the gangrene in it more than in those wherein he is not so much concern'd Though God's hatred of Believers Persons is removed by Faith in the Satisfactory Death of Jesus Christ yet his Antipathy against sin was not taken away by that Blood nay it was impossible it should It was never design'd nor had it any capacity to alter the unchangeable Nature of God but to manifest the unspottedness of his Will and his eternal Aversion to any thing that was contrary to the Purity of his Being and the Righteousness of his Laws 4. Perpetually This must necessarily follow upon the others He can no more cease to hate Impurity than he can cease to love Holiness If he should in the least instant approve of any thing that is filthy in that moment he would disapprove of his own Nature and Being there would be an interruption in his love of himself which is as Eternal as it is Infinite How can he love any sin which is contrary to his Nature but for one moment without hating his own Nature which is essentially contrary to sin Two Contraries cannot be loved at the same time God must first begin to hate himself before he can approve of any evil which is directly opposite to himself We indeed are changed with a Temptation sometimes bear an affection to it and sometimes testifie an indignation against it but God is always the same without any shadow of change and is angry with the wicked every day Psal 7.11 that is uninterruptedly in the nature of his Anger though not in the effects of it God indeed may be reconciled to the Sinner but never to the sin for then he should renounce himself deny his own Essence and his own Divinity if his inclinations to the love of Goodness and his aversion from Evil could be changed if he suffered the Contempt of the one and encouraged the Practise of the other 4. God is so holy that he cannot but love Holiness in others Not that he owes any thing to his Creature but from the unspeakable holiness of his Nature whence affections to all things that bear a resemblance of him do flow as Light shoots out from the Sun or any glittering Body 'T is essential to the infinite Righteousness of his Nature to love Righteousness wherever he beholds it Psal 11.7 The righteous Lord loveth righteousness He cannot because of his Nature but love that which bears some agreement with his Nature that which is the curious Draught of his own Wisdom and Purity He cannot but be delighted with a Copy of himself He would not have a holy Nature if he did not love Holiness in every Nature His own Nature would be denied by him if he did not affect every thing that had a Stamp of his own Nature upon it There was indeed nothing without God that could invite him to manifest such Goodness to man as he did in Creation But after he had stampt that rational Nature with a Righteousness convenient for it it was impossible but that he should ardently love that Impression of himself because he loves his own Deity and consequently all things which are any Sparks and Images of it And were the Devils capable of an act of Righteousness the Holiness of his Nature would incline him to love it even in those dark and revolted Spirits 5. God is so holy that he cannot positively will or encourage sin in any How can he give any Encouragement to that which he cannot in the least approve of or look upon without loathing not only the Crime but the Criminal Light may sooner be the cause of Darkness than Holiness it self be the cause of Unholiness absolutely contrary to it 'T is a Contradiction that he that is the Fountain of Good should be the source of Evil as if the same Fountain should bubble up both sweet and bitter Streams salt and fresh * Jam. 3.11 Since whatsoever Good is in man acknowledges God for its Author it follows that men are Evil by their own fault There is no need for men to be incited to that to which the Corruption of their own Nature doth so powerfully bend them Water hath a forcible principle in its own Nature to carry it downward it needs no force to hasten the motion God tempts no man but every man is drawn away by his own Lust Jam. 1 13.14 All the preparations for glory are from God Rom. 9.23 but men are said to be fitted to destruction Verse 22. but God is not said to fit them they by their Iniquities fit themselves for ruine and he by his long suffering keeps the destruction from them for a while 1. First God cannot command any Vnrighteousness As all Vertue is summ'd up in a love to God so all Iniquity is summ'd up in an enmity to God Every wicked Work declares a man an Enemy to God Col. 1.21 Enemies in your minds by wicked Works If he could command his Creature any thing which bears an enmity in its Nature to himself he would then implicitly command the hatred of himself and he would be in some measure a hater of himself He that commands another to deprive him of his Life cannot be said to bear any love to his own Life God can never hate himself and therefore cannot command any thing that is hateful to him and tends to a hating of him and driving the Creature further from him In that very moment that God should command such a thing he would cease to be Good What can be more absur'd to imagine then that infinite Goodness should enjoyn a thing contrary to it self and contrary to the essential Duty of a Creature and order him to do any thing that bespeaks an enmity to the Nature of the Creator or a deflouring and disparaging his Works God cannot but love himself and his own Goodness he were not otherwise Good and therefore cannot order the Creature to do any thing opposite to this Goodness or any thing hurtful to the Creature it self as Unrighteousness is 2. Nor can God secretly inspire any Evil into us 'T is as much against his Nature to incline the heart to sin as it is to command it As it is impossible but that he should love himself and therefore impossible to enjoyn any thing that tends to a hatred of himself by the same reason it is as impossible that he should infuse such a Principle in the heart that might carry a man out to any act of Enmity against him To enjoyn one thing and incline to another would be an Argument of such insincerity unfaithfulness contradiction to
it self that it cannot be conceived to fall within the Compass of the Divine Nature †Deut. 32.4 who is a God without iniquity because a God of truth and sincerity just and right is he To bestow excellent Faculties upon Man in Creation and incline him by a suddain impulsion to things contrary to the true end of him and induce an inevitable ruin upon that Work which he had composed with so much Wisdom and Goodness and pronounced good with so much delight and Pleasure is inconsistent with that love which God bears to the Creature of his own framing To incline his Will to that which would render him the Object of his hatred the Fuel for his Justice and sink him into deplorable Misery 't is most absurd and unchristian-like to imagine 3. Nor can God necessitate man to sin Indeed sin cannot be committed by force there is no sin but is in some sort voluntary Voluntary in the root or voluntary in the branch voluntary by an immediate act of the Will or voluntary by a general or natural inclination of the Will That is not a Crime to which a man is violenc'd without any concurrence of the Faculties of the Soul to that act 't is indeed not an act but a passion a man that is forced is not an Agent but a Patient under the force But what necessity can there be upon Man from God since he hath implanted such a Principle in him that he cannot desire any thing but what is good either really or apparently and if a man mistakes the Object 't is his own fault for God hath endowed him with Reason to discern and liberty of Will to choose upon that Judgment And though 't is to be acknowledged that God hath an Absolute Soveraign Dominion over his Creature without any Limitation and may do what he pleases and dispose of it according to his own Will as a Potter doth with his Vessel Rom. 9.21 according as the Church speaks Isa 64.8 We are the Clay and thou our Potter and we all are the work of thy hand Yet he cannot pollute any undefiled Creature by virtue of that Soveraign Power which he hath to do what he will with it because such an act would be contrary to the Foundation and Right of his Dominion which consists in the excellency of his Nature his immense Wisdom and unspotted Purity If God should therefore do any such act he would expunge the right of his Dominion by blotting out that nature which renders him fit for that Dominion and the exercise of it * Amyrald disert pa 103 104. Any Dominion which is exercis'd without the Rules of goodness is not a true Soveraignty but an insupportable Tyranny God would cease to be a rightful Soveraign if he ceased to be good and he would cease to be good if he did command necessitate or by any positive operation incline inwardly the heart of a Creature directly to that which were morally evil and contrary to the eminency of his own Nature But that we may the better conceive of this let us trace Man in his first fall whereby he subjected himself and all his Posterity to the Curse of the Law and hatred of God we shall find no foot-steps either of Precept outward force or inward impulsion †Amyrald defens de Calvin p. 151. 152 The plain story of Man's Apostacy dischargeth God from any interest in the Crime as an incouragement and excuseth him from any appearance of suspicion when he shewed him the Tree he had reserved as a mark of his Soveraignty and forbad him to eat of the Fruit of it He backt the Prohibition with the threatning the greatest Evil viz. Death which could be understood to imply nothing less than the loss of all his happiness and in that couch'd an assurance of the perpetuity of his felicity if he did not rebelliously reach forth his hand to take and eat of the Fruit * Gen. 2.16 17 'T is true God had given that Fruit an excellency a goodness for food and a pleasantness to the eye †Gen. 3.6 He had given Man an appetite whereby he was capable of desiring so pleasant a Fruit but God had by Creation rang'd it under the Command of Reason if man would have kept it in its due Obedience he had fixed a severe Threatning to bar the unlawful Excursions of it He had allowed him a multitude of other Fruits in the Garden and given him liberty enough to satisfie his Curiosity in all except this only Could there be any thing more obliging to Man to let God have his reserve of that one Tree than the grant of all the rest and more deterring from any disobedient Attempt than so strict a Command spirited with so dreadful a Penalty God did not sollicite him to rebel against him A sollicitation to it and a command against it were inconsistent The Devil assaults him and God permitted it and stands as it were a Spectator of the issue of the Combat There could be no necessity upon Man to listen to and entertain the Suggestions of the Serpent He had a power to resist him and he had an answer ready for all the Devils Arguments had they been multiplied to more than they were the opposing the Order of God had been a sufficient Confutaion of all the Devils plausible reasonings That Creator who hath given me my being hath ordered me not to eat of it Though the pleasure of the Fruit might allure him yet the force of his Reason might have quell'd the liquorishness of his Sense The perpetual thinking of and sounding out the command of God had silenc'd both Satan and his own Appetite had disarm'd the Tempter and preserved his Sensitive part in its due subjection What inclination can we suppose there could be from the Creator when upon the very first offer of the Temptation Eve opposes to the Tempter the Prohibition and Threatning of God and strains it to a higher peg than we find God had delivered it in For in Gen. 2.17 't is you shall not eat of it but she adds Gen. 3.3 neither shall you touch it which was a Remark that might have had more influence to restrain her Had our first Parents kept this fixed upon their Understandings and Thoughts that God had forbidden any such act as the Eating of the Fruit and that he was true to execute the Threatning he had uttered of which Truth of God they could not but have a natural Notion with what ease might they have withstood the Devils attack'd and defeated his Design And it had been easie with them to have kept their Understandings by the force of such a thought from entertaining any contrary Imagination There is no ground for any jealousie of any Encouragements inward Impulsions or necessity from God in this Affair A discharge of God from this first sin will easily induce a freedom of him from all other sins which follow upon it God doth not then
said unto him Why callest thou me good There is none good but one that is God THE words are part of a Reply of our Saviour to the Young-mans Petition to him A certain Person came in haste running as being eager for satisfaction to entreat his directions what he should do to inherit Everlasting Life The Person is described only in general vers 17. There came one A certain Man But Luke describes him by his Dignity * Luke 18.18 A certain Ruler One of Authority among the Jews He desires of him an Answer to a legal Question What he should do Or as Matthew hath it What good thing shall I do that I may have Eternal Life * Mat. 19.16 He imagin'd Everlasting Felicity was to be purchased by the works of the Law He had not the least Sentiments of Faith Christ's Answer implies there was no hopes of the happiness of another World by the works of the Law unless they were perfect and answerable to every Divine Precept He doth not seem to have any ill or hypocritical intent in his Address to Christ not to tempt him but to be instructed by him He seems to come with an ardent desire to be satisfi'd in his Demand he performed a solemn act of Respect to him he kneeled to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prostrated himself upon the ground Besides Christ is said vers 21. to love him which had been inconsistent with the knowledge Christ had of the hearts and thoughts of Men and the abhorrence he had of Hypocrites had he been only a Counterfeit in this Question But the first Reply Christ makes to him respects the Title of Good Master which this Ruler gave him in his Salutation 1. Some think that Christ hereby would draw him to an acknowledgment of him as God You acknowledge me good How come you to salute me with so great a Title since you do not afford it to your greatest Doctors Lightfoot in loc observes that the Title of Rabbi bone is not in all the Talmud You must own me to be God since you own me to be good Goodness being a Title only due and properly belonging to the Supream Being If you take me for a Common-man with what Conscience can you salute me in a manner proper to God Since no Man is good no not one but the heart of Man is evil continually The Arrians used this place to back their denying the Deity of Christ Because say they He did not acknowledge himself good therefore he did not acknowledge himself God * Erasm in loc But he doth not here deny his Deity but reproves him for calling him Good when he had not yet confest him to be more than a Man * Augustin You behold my Flesh but you consider not the fulness of my Deity If you account me Good account me God and imagine me not to be a simple and a meer Man He disowns not his own Deity but allures the Young-man to a confession of it Why call'st thou me good since thou dost not discover any apprehensions of my being more than a Man Though thou comest with a greater Esteem to me than is commonly entertain'd of the Doctors of the Chair why dost thou own me to 〈◊〉 unless thou own me to be God If Christ had deny'd himself in this Speech to be good he had rather entertain'd this Person with a frown and sharp reproof for giving him a Title due to God alone than have received him with that courtesie and complaisance as he did * Hensius in Matth. Had he said there is none good but the Father he had excluded himself but in saying there is none good but God he comprehends himself 2. Others say that Christ had no intention to draw him to an acknowledg◠〈◊〉 of his Deity but only asserts his Divine Authority or Mission from God * Calvin in loc For which interpretation Maldonat calls Calvin an Arrianizer He doth not here assert the Essence of his Deity but the Authority of his Doctrine As if he should have said you do without ground give me the Title of good unless you believe I have a Divine Commission for what I declare and act Many do think me an Impostor an Enemy of God and a friend to Devils you must firmly believe that I am not so as your Rulers report me but that I am sent of God and authorized by him you cannot else give me the Title of good but of wicked And the reason they give for this interpretation is because it is a question whether any of the Apostles understood him at this time to be God which seems to have no great strength in it since not only the Devil had publickly owned him to be the Holy One of God * Luke 4.34 but John the Baptist had born Record that he was the Son of God †Joh. 1.32 34. and before this time Peter had confest him openly in the hearing of the rest of the Disciples that he was the Christ the Son of the living God ‖ Mat. 16.16 But I think Paraeus his interpretation is best which takes in both those Either you are serious or deceitful in this Address if you are serious Why do you call me good and make bold to fix so great a Title upon one you have no higher thoughts of than of a meer Man Christ takes occasion from hence to assert God to be only and Sovereignly good * Trismegist Paemand câ—p 2. There is none good but God God only hath the honour of absolute goodness and none but God merits the name of good ‖ Eugubin de Peren. Philos lib. 5. cap. 9. A Heathen could say much after the same manner All other things are far from the nature of good call none else good but God for this would be a profane Errour Other things are only good in opinion but have not the true Substance of Goodness He is Good in a more excellent way than any Creature can be denominated Good 1. God is only Originally Good Good of himself All Created Goodness is a Rivulet from this Fountain but Divine Goodness hath no Spring God depends upon no other for his Goodness he hath it in and of himself Man hath no Goodness from himself God hath no Goodness from without himself His Goodness is no more derived from another than his Being If he were Good by any External thing that thing must be in being before him or after him If before him he was not then himself from Eternity If after him he was not Good in himself from Eternity The End of his Creating things then was not to confer a Goodness upon his Creatures but to partake of a Goodness from his Creatures God is Good by and in himself since all things are only Good by him and all that Goodness which is in Creatures is but the breathing of his own Goodness upon them They have all their loveliness from the same Hand they have their Being
to the Innocent and Culpable Could you account him Good if he did always with pleasure behold Evil and perpetually suffer the Oppressions of the Innocent under unpunisht Wickedness How should we know the Goodness of the Divine Nature and his Affection to the goodness of his Creature if he did not by some acts of severity witness his implacable aversion against Sin and his care to preserve the good Government of the World If corrupted Creatures should always be exempt from the effects of his Indignation he would declare himself not to be Infinitely Good because he would not be really Righteous No Man thinks it a Natural Vice in the Sun by the power of its scorching heat to dry up and consume the unwholsom Vapours of the Air nor are the demonstrations of Divine Justice any blots upon his Goodness since they are both for the defence and glory of his Holiness and for the preservation of the beauty and order of the World 2. Is it not part of the Goodness of God to make Laws and annex Threatn ngs And shall it be an impeachment of his Goodness to support them The more severe Laws are made for deterring Evil the better is that Prince accounted in making such provision for the welfare of the Community The design of Laws and the design of upholding the honour of those Laws by the punishment of Offenders is to promote Goodness and restrain Evil The Execution of those Laws must be therefore pursuant to the same design of Goodness which first setled them Would it not be contrary to Goodness to suffer that which was design'd for the support of Goodness to be scorn'd and slighted It would neither be prudence nor goodness but folly and vice to let Laws which were made to promote Vertue be broken with impunity Would not this be to weaken Vertue and give a new life and vigor to Vice Not only the Righteousness of the Law it self but the Wisdom of the Law-giver would be exposed to contempt if the Violations of it remained uncontroul'd and the Violence offer'd by Men passed unpunished None but will acknowledge the Divine Precepts to be the Image of the Righteousness of God and beneficial for the common good of the World * Rom. 7.12 The Law is holy just and good and so is every Precept of it The Law was for no other end but to keep the Creature in subjection to and dependance on God This dependance could not be preserved without a Law nor that Law be kept in Reputation without a Penalty nor would that Penalty be significant without an Execution Every Law loseth the nature of a Law without a Penalty and the Penalty loseth its vigor without the infliction of it How can those Laws attain their end if the Transgressions of them be not punished Would not the wickedness of Mens hearts be encouraged by such a kind of uncomely Goodness And all the threatnings be to no other end than to engender vain and fruitless fears in the minds of Men Is it good for the Majesty of God to suffer it self to be trampled on by his Vassals To suffer Men by their Rebellion to level his Law with the wickedness of their own hearts and by impunity slight his own Glory and incourage their Disobedience Who would give any Man any Prince any Father that should do so the name of a good Governor If it were a fruit of Divine Goodness to make Laws is it contrary to Goodness to support the honour of them 'T is every whit as rational and as good to vindicate the honour of his Laws by Justice as at first to settle them by Authority As much goodness to vindicate it from Contempt as at first to Enact it As it is as much Wisdom to preserve a Law as at first to frame it Shall his Precepts be thought by him unworthy of a support that were not thought by him unworthy to be made The same reason of Goodness that led him to enjoyn them will lead him to revenge them Did Evil appear odious to him while he Enacted his Law and would not his own Goodness as well as his Wisdom appear odious to him if he did never Execute it Would it not be a denial of his own Goodness to be led by the foolish and corrupt Judgment of his Creatures and slight his own Law because his Rebels spurn at it Since he valued it before they could actually contemn it would he not misjudge his own Law and his own Wisdom discount from the true value of them condemn his own Acts censure his Precepts as Unrighteous and therefore Evil and Injurious Remove the differences between Good and Evil look upon Vice and Virtue and Wickedness as Righteousness if he thought his Commands unworthy of a Vindication How can there be any support to the honour of his Precepts without sometimes Executing the severity of his Threatnings And as to his Threatnings of Punishment for the breach of his Laws are they not designed to discourage Wickedness as the Promises of Reward were designed to encourage Goodness Hath he not multiplied the one to scare Men from Sin as well as the other to allure Men to Obedience Is not the same Truth engaged to support the one as well as the other And how could he be abundant in Goodness if he were not abundant in Truth Both are linkt together * Exod. 34.6 If he neglected his Truth he would be out of love with his own Goodness since it cannot be manifested in performing the Promises to the Obedient if it be not also manifested in executing his Threatnings upon the Rebellious Had not God annext Threatnings to his Laws he would have had no care of his own Goodness The Order between God and the Creature wherein the declaration of his Goodness consisted might have been easily broken by his Creature Man would have freed himself from subjection to God been unaccountable to him Had this consisted with that infinite Goodness whereby he loves himself and loves his Creatures As therefore the annexing Threatnings to his Law was a part of his Goodness the Execution of them is so far from being a blemish that it is the honour of his Goodness The Rewards of Obedience and the Punishment of Disobedience refer to the same end viz. the due manifestation of the valuation of his own Law the glorifying his own Goodness which enjoyned so beneficial a Law for Man and the support of that goodness in the Creatures which by that Law he demands righteously and kindly of them 3. Hence it follows That not to punish Evil would be a want of Goodness to himself The Goodness of God is an indulgent Goodness in a way of Wisdom and Reason not a fond Goodness in a way of weakness and folly Would it not be a weakness always to bear with the Impenitent A want of expressing a goodness to Goodness it self Would not Goodness have more reason to complain for a want of Justice to rescue it
and delight in them If they be nauseous to him the indisposition of his mind is a dead Fly in those Boxes of precious Ointment Now Faith being a sincere willingness to accept of Christ and to come to God by him and Repentance being a detestation of that which made Mans separation from God 't is impossible he could be yoluntarily happy without it Man cannot attain and enjoy a true happiness without an operation of his understanding about the Object proposed and the means appointed to enjoy it There must be a knowledge of what is offer'd and of the way of it and such a knowledge as may determine the will to affect that end and embrace those means which the will can never do till the understanding be fully perswaded of the truth of the Offerer and the goodness of the Proposal it self and the conveniency of the means for the attaining of it 'T is necessary in the nature of the thing that what is reveal'd should be believ'd to be a Divine Revelation God must be judged true in the Promising Justification and Sanctification the means of happiness and if any Man desires to be Partaker of those Promises he must desire to be Sanctified and how can he desire that which is the Matter of those Promises if he wallow in his own lusts and desire to do so a thing repugnant to the Promise it self Would you have God force Man to be happy against his will Is it not very reasonable he should demand the consent of his reasonable Creature to that Blessedness he offers him The new Covenant is a Marriage Covenant * Hos 2.16 19 20. which implies a consent on our parts as well as a consent on Gods part That is no Marriage that hath not the consent of both Parties Now Faith is our actual Consent and Repentance and sincere Obedience are the Testimonies of the truth and reality of this Consent 6. Divine Goodness is eminent in his Methods of treating with Men to embrace this Covenant They are Methods of gentleness and sweetness 'T is a wooing Go dness and a bewailing Goodness His Expressions are with strong motions of affection He carrieth not on the Gospel by force of Arms He doth not solely menace Men into it as Worldly Conquerors have done He doth not as Mahomet plunder Mens Estates and wound their Bodies to imprint a Religion on their Souls He doth not erect Gibbets and kindle Faggots to scare Men to an entring into Covenant with him What Multitudes might he have raised by his power as well as others What Legions of Angels might he have Rendezvouz'd from Heaven to have beaten Men into a profession of the Gospel Nor doth he only interpose his Soveraign Authority in the Precept of Faith but useth Rational Expostulations to move Men voluntarily to comply with his Proposals †Isaiah 1.18 Come now saith the Lord let us reason together He seems to call Heaven and Earth to be judge whether he had been wanting in any reasonable ways of Goodness to overcome the perversity of the Creature * Isaiah 1.2 Hear O Heavens and give ear O Earth I have nourished and brought up Children What various encouragements doth he use agreeable to the Nature of Men endeavouring to perswade them with all tenderness not to despise their own Mercies and be Enemies to their own Happiness He would allure us by his Beauty and win us by his Mercy He uses the Arms of his own Excellency and our necessity to prevail upon us and this after the highest provocations When Adam had trampl'd upon his Creating Goodness it was not crusht and when Man had cast it from him it took the higher rebound When the Rebels provocation was fresh in his mind he sought him out with a promise in his hand though Adam fled from him out of enmity as well as fear * Gen. 3. And when the Jews had outrag'd his Son whom he loved from Eternity and made the Lord of Heaven and Earth bow down his head like a Slave on the Cross yet in that place where the most horrible wickedness had been committed must the Gospel be preached The Law must go forth out of that Sion and the Apostles must not stir from thence till they had received the promise of the Spirit and publisht the Word of Grace in that ungrateful City whose Inhabitants yet swelled with indignation against the Lord of Life and the Doctrine he had preached among them †Luke 24.47 He would overlook their indignities out of tenderness to their Souls and expose the Apostles to the peril of their Lives rather than expose his Enemies to the fury of the Devil 1. How affectionately doth he invite Men What multitudes of alluring Promises and pressing Exhortations are there every where sprinkled in the Scripture and in such a passionate manner as if God were solely concern'd in our good without a glance on his own glory How tenderly doth he woe flinty hearts and express more pity to them than they do to themselves With what affection do his Bowels rise up to his Lips in his Speech in the Prophet * Acts 1.4.5 Hearken to me O my People and give ear unto me O my Nation my People my Nation Melting Expressions of a tender God solliciting a rebellious People to make their retreat to him He never emptied his hand of his Bounty nor devested his Lips of those charitable Expressions He sent Noah to move the Wicked of the old World to an embracing of his Goodness and frequent Prophets to the provoking Jews and as the World continued and grew up to a taller stature in Sin he stoops more in the manner of his Expressions Never was the World at a higher pitch of Idolatry than at the first publishing the Gospel yet when we should have expected him to be a punishing he is a beseeching God The Apostle fears not to use the Expression for the glory of Divine Goodness †Isaiah 51.4 We are Ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us * 2 Cor. 5.20 The beseeching voice of God is in the voice of the Ministry as the voice of the Prince is in that of the Herald 'T is as if Divine Goodness did kneel down to a Sinner with wringed Hands and blubber'd Cheeks intreating him not to force him to re-assume a Tribunal of Justice in the nature of a Judge since he would treat with Man upon a Throne of Grace in the nature of a Father yea he seems to put himself into the posture of the Criminal that the offending Creature might not feel the punishment due to a Rebel 'T is not the condescension but the interest of a Traytor to creep upon his knees in Sackcloth to his Soveraign to beg his life But it is a Miraculous Goodness in the Soveraign to creep in the lowest posture to the Rebel to importune him not only for an amity to him but a love to his own life and
upon a higher ground of outward Prosperity vaunt it loftily above their Neighbours the common fault of those that enjoy a Worldly Sun-shine which the Apostle observes in his Direction to Timothy * 1 Tim. 6.17 Charge them that are rich in this World that they be not high-mâ—nded 'T is an ill use of Divine Blessings to be fill'd by them with Pride and Wind. Also 2. When Men abuse Plenty to Ease because they have abundance spend their time in idleness and make no other use of Divine Benefits than to trifle away their time and be utterly useless to the World 3. When they also abuse Peace and other Blessings to security As they which would not believe the threatnings of Judgment and the Storm coming from a far Country because the Lord was in Sion and her King in her * Jer. 8.19 Is not the Lord in Sion is not her King in her thinking they might continue their progress in their Sin because they had the Temple the Seat of the Divine Glory Sion and the promise of an everlasting Kingdom to David abusing the Promise of God to presumption and security and turning the Grace of God into wantonness 4. Again When they abuse the Bounty of God to sensuality and luxury mis-employing the Provisions God gives them in resolving to live like Beasts when by a good improvement of them they might attain the Life of Angels Thus is the light of the Sun abus'd to conduct them and the Fruits of the Earth abus'd to enable them to their prodigious Debauchery As we do saith one * Young of Affliction p. 34. with the Thames which brings us in Provision and we soil it with our Rubbish The more God sowes his Gifts the more we sow our Cockle and Darnel Thus we make our outward Happiness the most unhappy part of of our lives and by the strength of Divine Blessings exceed all Laws of Reason and Religion too How unworthy a Carriage is this to use the Expressions of Divine Goodness as occasions of a greater outrage and affront of him When we stab his Honour by those Instruments he puts into our hands to glorifie him as if a favorite should turn that Sword into the Bowels of his Prince wherewith he Knighted him And a Servant enricht by a Lord should hire by that Wealth Murderers to take away his life How brutish is it the more God Courts us with his Blessings the more to spurn at him with our Feet Like the Mule that lifts up its Heel against the Dam as soon as ever it hath suckt her We never beat God out of our hearts but by his own Gifts He receives no blows from Men but by those Instruments he gave them to promote their Happiness While Man is an Enjoyer he makes God a Looser by his own Blessings inflames his Rebellion by those Benefits which should kindle his love and runs from him by the strength of those favours which should endear the Donor to him Do you thus requite the Lord Oh foolish People and unwise is the Expostulati n Deut. 32.6 Divine Goodness appears in the complaint of the abuse of it in giving them Titles below their Crime and complaining more of their being unfaithful to their own Interest than Enemies to his Glory Foolish and unwise in neglecting their own Happiness a Charge below the Crime which deserved to be abominable ungrateful People to a Prodigy All this Carriage towards God is as if a Man should knock the Chirurgeon on the Head as soon as he hath set and bound up his Dislocated Members So God compares the ungrateful behaviour of the Israelites against him * Hos 7 1â— Though I have bound and strengthn'd their Arms yet do they imagine mischief against me A Metaphor taken from a Chirurgeon that applies Corroborating Playsters to a broken Limb. 9. We contemn the Goodness of God in ascribing our Benefits to other Causes than Divine Goodness Thus Israel ascribed her Felicity Plenty and Success to her Idols as Rewards which her lovers had given her * Hos 2.5.12 And this Charge Daniel brought home upon Belshazzâ—r †Dan. 5.23 Thou hast praised the Gods of Silver and Gold and Brass and Iron and the God in whose hand is thy breath and whose are all thy ways hast thou not glorify'd The God who hath given success to the Arms of thy Ancestors and convey'd by their hands so large a Dominion to thee thou hast not honour'd in the same Rank with the sordidest of thy Idols 'T is the same case when we own him not as the Author of any success in our Affairs but by an over-weening conceit of our own Sagacity applaud and admire our selves and over-look the Hand that conducted us and brought our endeavours to a good issue We Eclipse the Glory of Divine Goodness by setting the Crown that is due to it upon the head of our own Industry A Sacriledge worse than Belshazzar's drinking of Wine with his Lords and Concubines in the Sacred Vessels pilfer'd from the Temple as in that place of Daniel This was the proud vaunt of the Assyrian Conqueror for which God threatens to punish the fruit of his stout heart * Isai 10.12.13 14. By the strength of my hand I have done it and by my Wisdom for I am prudent and I have removed the bounds of the People and have robbed their Treasures and I have put down the Inhabitants like a valiant Man Not a word of Divine Goodness and Assistance in all this but applauding his own Courage and Conduct This is a robbing of God to set up our selves and making Divine Goodness a Footstool to ascend into his Throne And as it is unjust so it is ridiculous to ascribe to our selves or Instruments the chief honour of any work As ridiculous as if a Soldier after a Victory should Erect an Altar to the honour of his Sword or an Artificer offer Sacrifices to the Tools whereby he compleated some excellent and useful Invention A practice that every Rational Man would disdain where he should see it 'T is a discarding any thoughts of the Goodness of God when we imagine that we chiefly owe any thing in this World to our own Industry or Wit to Friends or Means as though Divine Goodness did not open its hand to interest it self in our Affairs support our Ability direct our Counsels and mingle it self with any thing we do God is the principal Author of any advantage that accrues to us of any wise Resolution we fix upon or any proper way we take to compass it No Man can be wise in opposition to God act wisely or well without him His Goodness inspires Men with generous and magnificent Counsels and furnisheth them with fit and proportionable Means When he withdraws his hand Mens heads grow foolish and their hands feeble folly and weakness drops upon them as darkness upon the World upon the removal of the Sun 'T is an abuse of Divine Goodness
we be to approve of his actions and not have an ill will towards him for his Goodness or towards those he is pleased to make the Subjects of it Since all his Doles are given to invite Man to Repentance * Rom. 2.4 to envy them those Goods God hath bestow'd upon them is to envy God the Glory of his own Goodness and them the felicity those things might move them to aspire to 'T is to wish God more contracted and thy Neighbour more miserable But a deep sense of his Soveraign Goodness would make us rejoyce in any marks of it upon others and move us to bless him instead of censuring him 7. It would make us thankful What can be the most proper the most natural Reflection when we behold the most magnificent Characters he hath imprinted upon our Souls the conveniency of the Members he hath compacted in our Bodies but a Praise of him Such Motion had David upon the first Consideration * Psal 139.14 I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made What could be the most natural Reflection when we behold the rich Prerogatives of our Natures above other Creatures the provision he hath made for us for our delight in the beauties of Heaven for our support in the Creatures on Earth What can reasonably be expected from uncorrupted Man to be the first motion of his Soul but an extolling the bountiful hand of the invisible Donor who ever he be This would make us venture at some endeavours of a grateful acknowledgment though we should despair of rendring any thing proportionable to the greatness of the Benefit and such an acknowledgment of our own weakness would be an acceptable part of our gratitude Without a due and deep sense of Divine Goodness our praise of it and thankfulness for it will be but cold formal and customary our Tongues may bless him and our Heart slight him And this will lead us to the third Exhortation 3. Which is that of thankfulness for Divine Goodness The absolute Goodness of God as it is the Excellency of his Nature is the Object of Praise The Relative Goodness of God as he is our Benefactor is the Object Thankfulness This was always a Debt due from Man to God he had Obligations in the time of his Integrity and was then to render it he is not less but more oblig'd to it in the State of Corruption The Benefits being the greater by how much the more unworthy he is of them by reason of his Revolt The Bounty bestow'd upon an Enemy that merits the contrary ought to be received with a greater Resentment than that bestow'd on a Friend who is not unworthy of Testimonies of Respect Gratitude to God is the Duty of every Creature that hath a sense of it self The more Excellent Being any enjoy the more devout ought to be the acknowledgment How often doth David stir up not only himself but summon all Creatures even the insensible ones to joyn in the Consort * Psal 148. He calls to the Deeps Fire Hail Snow Mountains and Hills to bear a part in this work of Praise Not that they are able to do it actively but to shew that Man is to call in the whole Creation to assist him passively and should have so much Charity to all Creatures as to receive what they offer and so much affection to God as to present to him what he receives from him Snow and Hail cannot bless and praise God but Man ought to praise God for those things wherein there is a mixture of trouble and inconvenience something to molest our sense as well as something that improves the Earth for Fruit. This God requires of us for this he instituted several Offerings and requir'd a little Portion of Fruits to be presented to him as an acknowledgment they held the whole from his Bounty And the end of the Festival Days among the Jews was to revive the memory of those signal acts wherein his Power for them and his Goodness to them had been extraordinarily evident 'T is no more but our Mouths to Praise him and our Hand to Obey him that he exacts at our hands He commands us not to expend what he allows us in the Erecting stately Temples to his Honour all the Coyn he requires to be paid with for his Expence is the offering of Thanksgiving * Psal 50.14 And this we ought to do as much as we can since we cannot do it as much as he Merits for who can shew forth all his praise Psal 106.2 If we have the Fruit of his Goodness 't is fit he should have the Fruit of our Lips * Heb. 13.15 The least Kindness should inflame our Souls with a kindly Resentment Though some of his Benefits have a brighter some a darker aspect towards us yet they all come from this common Spring His Goodness shines in all there are the footsteps of Goodness in the least as well as the smiles of Goodness in the greatest the meanest therefore is not to pass without a regard of the Author As the Glory of of God is more illustrious in some Creatures than in others yet it glitters in all and the lowest as well as the highest administers matter of Praise But they are not only little things but the choicer favours he hath bestow'd upon us How much doth it deserve our acknowledgment that he should contrive our Recovery when we had plotted our Ruine That when he did from Eternity behold the Crimes wherewith we would incense him he should not according to the Rights of Justice cast us into Hell but prize us at the Rate of the Blood and Life of his only Son in value above the Blood of Men and Lives of Angels How should we bless that God that we have yet a Gospel among us that we are not driven into the utmost Regions that we can attend upon him in the face of the Sun and not forced to the secret obscurities of the Night Whatsoever we enjoy whatsoever we receive we must own him as the Donor and read his Hand in it Rob him not of any Praise to give to an Instrument No Man hath wherewithal to do us good nor a heart to do us good nor opportunities of benefiting us without him When the Cripple received the soundness of his Limbs from Peter he praised the Hand that sent it not the Hand that brought it * Acts 3.6 Verse 8. He praised God When we want any thing that is good let the goodness of Divine Nature move us to Davids practice to thirst after God * Psal 42.1 And when we feel the motions of his Goodness to us let us imitate the Temper of the same Holy Man * Psal 103.2 Bless the Lord O my Soul and forget not all his benefits 'T is an unworthy Carriage to deal with him as a Traveller doth with a Fountain kneel down to drink of it when he is thirsty and turn his back
upon it and perhaps never think of it more after he is satisfied 4. And Lastly Imitate this Goodness of God If his Goodness hath such an influence upon us as to make us love him it will also move us with an ardent Zeal to imitate him in it Christ makes this use from the Doctrine of Divine Goodness * Matth. 5.44 45. Do good to them that hate you that you may be the Children of your Father which is in Heaven for he makes his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good As Holiness is a Resemblance of Gods Purity so Charity is a Resemblance of Gods Goodness And this our Saviour calls Perfection Verse 48. Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect As God would not be a perfect God without Goodness so neither can any be a perfect Christian without Kindness Charity and Love being the splendour and loveliness of all Christian Graces as Goodness is the splendour and loveliness of all Divine Attributes This and Holiness are order'd in the Scripture to be the grand Patterns of our imitation Imitate the Goodness of God in two things 1. In relieving and assisting others in distress Let our heart be as large in the capacity of Creatures as God's is in the capacity of a Creator A large heart from him to us and a strait heart from us to others will not suit Let us not think any so far below us as to be unworthy of our Care since God thinks none that are infinitely distant from him too mean for his His infinite Glory mounts him above the Creature but his infinite Goodness stoops him to the meanest Works of his hands As he lets not the Transgressions of Prosperity pass without punishment so he lets not the distress of his Afflicted People pass him without support Shall God provide for the ease of Beasts and shall not we have some tenderness towards those that are of the same Blood with our selves and have as good Blood to boast of as runs in the Veins of the mightiest Monarch on Earth and as mean and as little as they are can lay claim to as ancient a Pedigree as the stateliest Prince in the World who cannot ascend to Ancestors beyond Adam Shall we glut our selves with Divine Beneficence to us and wear his Livery only on our own backs forgeting the Afflictions of some dear Joseph when God who hath an unblemisht felicity in his own Nature looks out of himself to view and relieve the miseries of poor Creatures Why hath God increased the Doles of his Treasures to some more than others Was it meerly for themselves or rather that they might have a bottom to attain the honour of imitating him Shall we embezzel his Goods to our own use as if we were absolute Proprietors and not Stewards entrusted for others Shall we make a difficulty to part with something to others out of that abundance he hath bestow'd upon any of us Did not his Goodness strip his Son of the Glory of Heaven for a time to enrich us and shall we shrug when we are to part with a little to pleasure him 'T is not very becoming for any to be backward in supplying the necessities of others with a few morsels who have had the happiness to have had their greatest necessities supplied with his Sons Blood He demands not that we should strip our selves of all for others but of a pittance something of superfluity which will turn more to our account than what is vainly and unprofitably consumed on our Backs and Bellies If he hath given much to any of us 't is rather to lay aside part of the Income for his Service Else we would Monopolize Divine Goodness to our selves and seem to distrust under our present Experiments his future Kindness as though the last thing he gave us was attended with this language Hoard up this and expect no more from me Use it only to the glutting your Avarice and feeding your Ambition which would be against the whose scope of Divine Goodness If we do not endeavour to write after the Comely Copy he hath set us we may provoke him to harden himself against us and in wrath bestow that on the Fire or on our Enemies which his Goodness hath imparted to us for his Glory and the supplying the necessities of poor Creatures And on the contrary he is so delighted with this kind of imitation of him that a Cup of cold Water when there is no more to be done shall not be unrewarded 2. Imitate God in his Goodness in a kindness to our worst Enemies The best Man is more unworthy to receive any thing from God than the worst can be to receive from us How kind is God to those that blaspheme him and gives them the same Sun and the same Showers that he doth to the best Men in the World Is it not more our glory to imitate God in doing good to thâ—se that hate us than to imitate the Men of the World in requiting evil by a return of a sevenfold mischief This would be a goodness which would vanquish the hearts of Men and render us greater than Alexanders and Caesars who did only triumph over miserable Carcases Yea it is to triumph over our selves in being good against the sentiments of Corrupt Nature Revenge makes us Slaves to our Passions as much as the Offenders and good Returns render us Victorious over our Adversaries * Rom. 12.21 Be not overcome of evil but overcome evil with good When we took up our Arms against God his Goodness contrived not our Ruine but our Recovery This is such a Goodness of God as could not be discover'd in an Innocent State While Man had continued in his Duty he could not have been guilty of an Enmity And God could not but affect him unless he had denied himself So this of being good to our Enemies could never have been practised in a State of Rectitude since where was a perfect Innocence there could be no spark of Enmity to one another It can be no disparagement to any Mans Dignity to cast his influences on his greatest Opposers since God who acts for his own Glory thinks not himself disparag'd by sending forth the Streams of his Bounty on the wickedest Persons who are far meaner to him than those of the same Blood can be to us Who hath the worse thoughts of the Sun for shining upon the Earth that sends up Vapours to Cloud it It can be no disgrace to resemble God if his Hand and Bowels be open to us let not ours be shut to any A DISCOURSE UPON GODS Dominion PSALM CIII Verse 19. The Lord hath prepared his Throne in the Heavens And his Kingdom Ruleth over all THE Psalm begins with the praise of God wherein the Penman excites his soul to a right and elevated management of so great a duty Ver. 1. Bless the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me bless his
the Moral Law was publisht had been a vain exhortation had there been no revelation of the mind of God in all Ages 2. The dominion of God is manifest in the extent of his Laws As he is the Governour and Soveraign of the whole World so he Enacts Laws for the whole World One Prince cannot make Laws for another unless he makes him his Subject by right of conquest Spain cannot make Laws for England or England for Spain But God having the supream Government as King over all is a Lawgiver to all to irrational as well as rational Creatures The Heavens have their Ordinances Job 38.33 All Creatures have a Law imprinted on their beings Rational Creatures have Divine Statutes Copied in their heart For men it is clear Rom. 2.14 Every Son of Adam at his coming into the World brings with him a Law in his nature and when reason clears it self up from the Clouds of sence he can make some difference between Good and Evil discern something of fit and just Every man finds a Law within him that checks him if he offends it Noâ—◠〈◊〉 without a legal indictment and a legal Executioner within them God 〈…〉 was the Author of this as a Soveraign Lord in establishing a Law iâ— man at the same time wherein as an Almighty Creator he imparted a being This Law proceeds from God's general power of governing as he is the Author of nature and binds not barely as it is the reason of man but by the Authority of God as it is a Law engraven on his Conscience And no doubt but a Law was given to the Angels God did not Govern those intellectual Creatures as he doth brutes and in a way inferior to his rule of Man Some sinned all might have sinned in regard of the changeableness of their nature Sin cannot be but against some rule Where there is no Law there is no Transgression what that Law was is not reveal'd but certainly it must be the same in part with the Moral Law so far as it agreed with their spiritual natures a love to God a Worship of him and a love to one another in their Societies and Persons 3. The dominion of God is manifest in the reason of some Laws which seem to be nothing else than purely his own Will Some Laws there are for which a reason may be rendered from the nature of the thing enjoyned as to Love Honour and Worship God For others none but this God will have it so such was that positive Law to Adam of not eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil Gen. 2.17 which was meerly an asserting his own dominion and was different from that Law of Nature God had written in his heart No other reason of this seems to us but a resolve to try mans Obedience in away of absolute Soveraignty and to manifest his right over all Creatures to reserve what he pleased to himself and permit the use of what he pleased to man and to signifie to man that he was to depend on him who was his Lord and not on his own will There was no more hurt in it self for Adam to have eaten of that than of any other in the Garden the Fruit was pleasant to the Eye and Good for Food but God would shew the right he had over his own goods and his Authority over man to reserve what he pleases of his own Creation from his touch that since man could not claim a propriety in any thing he was to meddle with nothing but by the leave of his Soveraign either discovered by a special or general License Thus God shewed himself the Lord of Man and that man was but his Steward to act by his Orders If God had forbidden man the use of more Trees in the Garden his command had been just Since as a Soveraign Lord he might dispose of his own Goods and when he had granted him the whole compass of that pleasant Garden and the whole World round about for him and his posterity it was a more tolerable exercise of his dominion to reserve this one Tree as a mark of his Soveraignty when he had left all others to the use of Adam He reserv'd nothing to himself as Lord of the Manour but this and Adam was prohibited nothing else but this one as a sign of his subjection Now for this no reason can be rendered by any man but meerly the Will of God this was meerly a fruit of his Dominion For the moral Laws a reason may be rendred to Love God hath reason to enforce it besides Gods Will viz. The Excellency of his Nature and the greatness and multitudes of his benefits To love our Neighbour hath enforcing reasons viz. the Conjunction in blood and the preservation of humane Society and the need we may stand in of their love our selves But no reason can be assign'd of this positive command about the Tree of knowledge of good and evil but meerly the pleasure of God It was a branch of his pure dominion to try mans Obedience and a mark of his Goodness to try it by so easie and light a precept when he might have extended his Authority further Had not God given this or the like order his absolute dominion had not been so conspicuous 'T is true Adam had a Law of Nature in him whereby he was obliged to perpetual Obedience and though it was a part of God's dominion to implant it in him yet his supream dominion over the Creatures had not been so visible to man but by this or a precept of the same kind What was commanded or prohibited by the Law of Nature did bespeak a comeliness in it self it appear'd Good or Evil to the reason of man but this was neither Good nor Evil in it self it receiv'd its sole Authority from the absolute Will of God and nothing could result from the fruit it self as a reason why man should not tast it but only the sole Will of God And as God's dominion was most conspicuous in this precept so man's obedience had been most eminent in observing it For in his obedience to it nothing but the sole power and Authority of God which is the proper rule of obedience could have been respected not any reason from the thing it self To this we may referre some other Commands as that of appointing the time of solemn and public Worship the seventh day though the Worship of God be a part of the Law of Nature yet the appointing a particular day wherein he would be more formally and solemnly acknowledged than on other days was grounded upon his absolute right of Legislation For there was nothing in the time it self that could render that day more Holy than another though God respected his finishing the work of Creation in his institution of that day Gen. 2.3 Such were the Ceremonial Commands of Sacrifices and Washings under the Law and the Commands of Sacraments under the Gospel The one to last till the first
Why did he give Grace to Abel and not to Cain since they both lay in the same womb and equally deriv'd from their Parents a taint in their Nature But that he would show a standing example of his Soveraignty to the future ages of the World in the first posterity of man Why did he give Grace to Abraham and separate him from his Idolatrous Kindred to dignifie him to be the root of the Messiah Why did he confine his promise to Isaac and not extend it to Ishmael the Seed of the same Abraham by Hagar or to the Children he had by Keturah after Sarahs death What reason can be alledged for this but his Soveraign Will Why did he not give the fallen Angels a moment of Repentance after their sin but condemned them to irrevocable pains Is it not as free for him to give Grace to whom he please as Create what Worlds he please to form this corrupted clay into his own Image as to take such a parcel of dust from all the rest of the Creation whereof to compact Adam's body Hath he not as much jurisdiction over the sinful mass of his Creatures in a new Creation as he had over the Chaos in the old And what reason can be rendered of his advancing this part of matter to the nobler dignity of a Star and leaving that other part to make up the dark body of the Earth To compact one part into a glorious Sun and another part into a hard Rock but his Royal Prerogative What is the reason a Prince subjects one Malefactor to punishment and lifts up another to a place of truth and profit That Pharoah honoured the Butler with an attendance on his Person and remitted the Baker to the hands of the Executioner It was his pleasure And is not as great a right due to God as is allow'd to the worms of the Earth What is the reason he hardens a Pharoah by a denying him that Grace which should mollifie him and allows it to another 'T is because he will Rom. 9.18 Whom he will he hardens Hath not man the liberty to pull up the sluce and let the water run into what part of the ground he pleases What is the reason some have not a heart to understand the beauty of his ways Because the Lord doth not give it them Deut. 29.4 Why doth he not give all his converts an equal measure of his sanctifying Grace some have Mites and some have Treasures Why doth he give his Grace to some sooner to some later some are inspir'd in their infancy others not till a full age and after some not till they have fallen into some gross sin as Paul some betimes that they may do him service others later as the Thief upon the Cross and presently snatcheth them out of the World Some are weaker some stronger in nature some more beautiful and lovely others more uncomely and sluggish 'T is so in supernaturals What reason is there for this but his own will This is instead of all that can be assigned on the part of God He is the free disposer of his own Goods and as a Father may give a greater portion to one Child than to another And what reason of complaint is there against God may not a Toad complain that God did not make it a man and give it a portion of reason Or a Fly complain that God did not make it an Angel and give it a Garment of Light had they but any spark of understanding as well as man complain that God did not give him Grace as well as another Unless he sincerely desir'd it and then was denyed it he might complain of God though not as Soveraign yet as a promiser of Grace to them that ask it God doth not render his Soveraignty formidable he shuts not up his Throne of Grace from any that seek him he invites man his Arms are open and the Scepter stretched out and no man continues under the arrest of his Lusts but he that is unwilling to be otherwise and such a one hath no reason to complain of God 3. His Soveraignty is manifest in disposing the means of Grace to some not to all He hath caus'd the Sun to shine bright in one place while he hath left others benighted and deluded by the Devils Oracles Why do the Evangelical dews fall in this or that place and not in another Why was the Gospel publisht in Rome so soon and not in Tartary Why hath it been extinguisht in some places as soon almost as it had been kindled in them Why hath one place been honoured with the beams of it in one age and been covered with darkness the next One Country hath been made a sphear for this Star that directs to Christ to move in and afterwards it hath been taken away and placed in another Sometimes more clearly it hath shone sometimes more darkly in the same place what is the reason of this 'T is true something of it may be referred to the Justice of God but much more to the Soveraignty of God That the Gospel is publisht latter and not sooner the Apostle tell us is according to the Commandement of the Everlasting God Rom. 16.26 1. The means of Grace after the Families from Adam became distinct were never granted to all the World After that fatal breach in Adam's Family by the death of Abel and Cain's separation we read not of the means of Grace continued among Cain's Posterity it seems to be continued in Adam's sole Family and not publisht in Societies till the time of Seth. Gen. 4.26 Then began men to call upon the Name of the Lord. It was continued in that Family till the Deluge which was 1523 years after the Creation according to some or 1656 years according to others After that when the World degenerated it was communicated to Abraham and setled in the posterity that descended from Jacob Though he left not the World without a witness of himself and some sprinklings of revelations in other parts as appears by the book of Job and the discourses of his Friends 2. The Jews had this priviledge granted them above other Nations to have a clearer Revelation of God God separated them from all the World to honour them with the depositum of his Oracles Rom. 3.2 To them were committed the Oracles of God In which regard all other Nations are said to be without God as being destitute of so great a priviledge Eph. 2.12 The Spirit blew in Canaan when the Lands about it felt not the saving breath of it He hath not dealt so with any Nation and as for his Judgments they have not known them Psal 147.20 The rest had no warnings from the Prophets no dictates from Heaven but what they had by the light of Nature the view of the works of Creation and the Administration of Providence and what remain'd among them of some ancient Traditions deriv'd from Noah which in tract of time were much defaced We read but
a man of them succeeded in the Throne but the Crown is transferr'd to Jehu by Gods disposal In Warrs whereby flourishing Kingdoms are overthrown God hath the cheif hand in reference to which it is observed that in the two Prophets Isaiah and Jeremy God is called the Lord of Hosts 130 times 'T is not the Sword of the Captain but the Sword of the Lord bears the first rank The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon Judg. 7.18 The Sword of a Conqueror is the Sword of the Lord and receives its Charge and Commission from the great Soveraign Jerem. 47.6 7. VVe are apt to confine our thoughts to second Causes lay the fault upon the miscarriages of persons the Ambition of the one and the Covetousness of another and regard them not as the effects of Gods soveraign Authority linking second Causes together to serve his own purpose The skill of one man may lay open the folly of a Counsellour an earthly force may break in peices the power of a mighty Prince But Job in his consideration of those things referrs the matter higher Job 12.18 He looseth the bond of Kings and girdeth their Loyns with a girdle He looseth the Bonds of Kings i. â— takes off the yokes they lay upon their Subjects and girds their Loyns with a girdle A Cord as the Vulgar he lays upon them those fetters they fram'd for others such a girdle or band as is the mark of Captivity as the words ver 19. confirm it He leads Princes away spoil'd and overthrows the mighty God lifts up some to a great height and casts down others to a disgraceful ruine All those changes in the face of the World the revolutions of Emâ—ires the desolating and ravaging wars which are often immediately the birth of the Vice Ambition and fury of Princes are the Royal Acts of God as Governour of the World All Government belongs to him he is the Fountain of all the Great and the Petty Dominions in the World And therefore may place in them what substitutes and Vicegerents he pleaseth As a Prince may remove his Officers at pleasure and take their Commissions from them The highest are setled by God durante bene placito and not quamdiu bene se gâ—ssâ—rint Those Princes that have been the Glory of their Country have sway'd the Scepter but a short time when the more Wolvish ones have remain'd longâ—r in Commission as God hath seen fit for the ends of his own Soveraign Government Now by the revolutions in the World and Changes in Governours and Government God keeps up the acknowledgment of his Soveraignty when he doth arrest grand and publick offenders that wear a Crown by his Providence and employ it by their pride against him that plac'd it there When he arraigns such by a signal hand from Heaven he makes them the publick examples of the rights of his Soveraignty declaring thereby that the Cedars of Lebanon are as much at his foot as the Shrubs of the Valley that he hath as Soveraign an Authority over the Throne in the Palace as over the Stool in the Cottage 2. The Dominion of God is manifested in raising up and ordering the Spirits of men according to his pleasure He doth as the Father of Spirits communicate an influence to the Spirits of men as well as an existence he puts what inclinations he pleaseth into the will stores it with what habits he please whither natural or supernatural whereby it may be render'd more ready to act according to the divine purpose The will of man is a finite principle and therefore subject to him who hath an infinite Soveraignty over all things and God having a Soveraignty over the will in the manner of its acting as causeth it to will what he wills as to the outward act and the outward manner of performing it There are many examples of this part of his Soveraignty God by his Soveraign conduct ordered Moses a Protectoress as soon as his Parents had form'd an Ark of Bulrushes wherein to set him floting on the River Exod. 2.3 4.5.6 They expose him to the waves and the waves expose him to the view of Pharoahs Daughter whom God by his secret ordering her motion had posted in that place and though she was the Daughter of a Prince that inveterately hated the whole Nation and had by various Arts endeavour'd to extirpate them yet God inspires the Royal Lady with sentiments of compassion to the forlorn Infant though she knew him to be one of the Hebrews Children ver 6. i. e. one of that race whom her Father had devoted to the hands of an Executioner yet God that doth by his Soveraignty rule over the Spirits of all men moves her to take that Infant into her protection and nourish him at her own charge give him a liberal Education Adopt him her Son who in time was to be the ruin of her race and the Saviour of his Nation Thus he appointed Cyrus to be his Shepherd and gave him a Pastoral Spirit for the Restauration of the City and Temple of Jerusalem Isaiah 44.28 And Isaiah 45.5 Tells them in the Prophesie that he had girded him though Cyrus had not known him i. e. God had given him a military Spirit and strength for so great an attempt though he did not know that he was acted by God for those divine purposes And when the time came for the House of the Lord to be re-built the Spirits of the people were rais'd up not by themselves but by God Ezra 1.5 Whose Spirit God had rais'd to go up And not only the Spirit of Zerubbabel the Magistrate and of Joshua the Priest but the Spirit of all the people from the highest to the meanest that attended him were acted by God to strengthen their hands and promote the work Hag. 1.14 The Spirits of men even in those works which are naturally desirable to them as the Restauration of the City and rebuilding of the Temple was to those Jews are acted by God as the soveraign over them much more when the wheels of mens spirits are lifted up above their ordinary temper and motion It was this Empire of God good Nehemiah regarded as that whence he was to hope for success he did not assure himself so much of it from the favour he had with the King nor the reasonableness of his intended Petition but the absolute power God had over the heart of that great Monarch And therefore he supplicates the heavenly before he petitioned the earthly Throne Nehem. 2.4 So I pray'd to the God of Heaven The Heathens had some glance of this 't is an expression that Cicero hath some where That the Roman Common-wealth was rather Govern'd by the Assistance of the supream Divinity over the Hearts of Men than by their own Counsels and Management How often hath the feeble courage of men been heightned to such a pitch as to stare death in the face which before were dampt with the least thought or glance of
as he would have done those sinners in whose stead he suffer'd Without this Act of Soveraignty in God we had for ever perished For if we could suppose Christ laying down his life for us without the pleasure and order of God he could not have been said to have born our punishment What could he have undergone in his Humanity but a temporal death but more than this was due to us even the wrath of God which far exceeds the calamity of a meer bodily death The Soul being principal in the crime was to be principal in the punishment The wrath of God could not have dropt upon his Soul and render'd it so full of Agonies without the hand of God A creature is not capable to reach the Soul neither as to comfort nor terror and the Justice of God could not have made him a sufferer if it had not first consider'd him a sinner by imputation or by inhaerency and actual commission of a crime in his own person The latter was far from Christ who was holy harmless and undefiled He must be considered then in the other state of imputation which could not be without a Soveraign appointment or at least concession of God For without it he could have had no more Authority to lay down his life for us than Abraham could have had to have sacrific'd his son or any man to expose himself to death without a call Nor could any Plea have been entred in the Court of Heaven either by Christ for us or by us for our selves And though the death of so great a person had been meritorious in it self it had not been meritorious for us or accepted for us Christ is deliver'd up by him Rom. 8.32 in every part of that condition wherein he was and suffer'd and to that end that we might become the Righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 That we might have the Righteousness of him that was God imputed to us or that we might have a Righteousness as great and proportion'd to the Righteousness of God as God requir'd It was an act of Divine Soveraignty to account him that was Righteous a sinner in our stead and to account us who were sinners Righteous upon the merit of his death 4. This was done by the command of God by God as a Law-giver having the supream Legislative and Praeceptive Authority In which respect the whole work of Christ is said to be an answer to a Law not one given him but put into his heart as the Law of nature was in the heart of man at first Psal 40.7 8. Thy Law is within my heart This Law was not the Law of Nature or Moral Law though that was also in the heart of Christ but the command of doing those things which were necessary for our Salvation and not a command so much of doing as of dying The Moral Law in the heart of Christ would have done us no good without the Mediatory Law We had been where we were by the sole observance of the Precepts of the Moral Law without his suffering the penalty of it The Law in the heart of Christ was the Law of suffering or dying the doing that for us by his death which the blood of Sacrifices was unable to effect Legal Sacrifices thou would'st not thy Law is within my heart i. e. thy Law ordered me to be a Sacrifice It was that Law his obedience to which was principally accepted and esteem'd and that was principally his passive his obedience to death Phil. 2.8 This was the special command received from God that he should dye John 10.18 'T is not so clearly manifested when this command was given whither after the incarnation of Christ or at the point of his constitution as Mediator upon the transaction between the father and the son concerning the affair of Redemption The promise was given before the World began Tit. 1.2 Might not the Precept be given before the World began to Christ as consider'd in the quality of Mediator and Redeemer Precepts and Promises usually attend one another Every Covenant is made up of both Christ consider'd here as the Son of God in the Divine Nature was not capable of a command or promise but consider'd in the relation of Mediator between God and Man he was capable of both Promises of Assistance were made before his actual incarnation of which the Prophets are full why not Precepts for his obedience since long before his incarnation this was his speech in the Prophet thy Law is within my heart However a command a law it was which is a fruit of the Divine Soveraignty That as the Soveraignty of God was impeached and violated by the disobedience of Adam it might be own'd and vindicated by the obedience of Christ That as we fell by disloyalty to it we might rise by the highest submission to it in another head infinitely superior in his person to Adam by whom we fell 5. This Soveraignty of God appears in exalting Christ to such a Soveraign dignity as our Redeemer * Lessius de perfect divin lib. 10. p. 65. Some indeed say that this Soveraignty of Christ's Humane Nature was natural and the right of it resulted from its Union with the Divine as a Lady of mean condition when Espous'd and Marryed to a Prince hath by virtue of that a natural right to some kind of jurisdiction over the whole Kingdom because she is one with the King But to wave this the Scripture placeth wholly the conferring such an Authority upon the pleasure and will of God As Christ was a gift of God's Soveraign will to us so this was a gift of God's Soveraign will to Christ Matt. 28.28 All power is given me And he gave him to be head over all things to the Church Eph. 1.22 God gave him a name above every name Phil. 2.9 And therefore his Throne he sits upon is call'd the Throne of his Father Rev. 3.21 And he committed all Judgment to the Son i. e. All Government and Dominion An Empire in Heaven and Earth Joh. 5.22 and that because he is the son of Man v. 27. which may be understood that the Father hath given him Authority to exercise that Judgment and Government as the son of man which he Originally had as the son of God or rather because he became a servant and humbled himself to death he gives him this Authority as the reward of his Obedience and Humility conformable to Phil. 2.9 This is an act of the high Soveraignty of God to obscure his own Authority in a sence and take into association with him or vicarious subordination to him the Humane Nature of Christ as united to the Divine Not only lifting it above the heads of all the Angels but giving that person in our nature an Empire over them whose nature was more excellent than ours Yea the Soveraignty of God appears in the whole management of this Kingly Office of Christ for it is managed in every part of it
than a Talent without it In the little Paul did he comforts himself in this that with the mind he serv'd the Law of God Rom. 7.25 The Testimonies of God were David's delight Psal 119.24 Our Understandings must take pleasure in knowing him our wills delightfully embrace him and our actions be cheerfully squar'd to him This credits the Soveraignty of God in the World makes others believe him to be a gracious Lord and move them to have some veneration for his Authority 8. It must be perpetual Obedience As man is a subject as soon as he is a creature so he is a Subject as long as he is a Creature God's Soveraignty is of perpetual duration as long as he is God Man's obedience must be perpetual while he is a man God cannot part with his Soveraignty and a creature cannot be exempted from subjection We must not only serve him but cleave to him Deut. 13.4 Obedience is continued in Heaven his Throne is established in Heaven it must be bow'd to in Heaven as well as in Earth The Angels continually fulfil his pleasure 7. Exhortation Patience is a duty flowing from this Doctrine In all strokes upon our selves or thick showers upon the Church The Lord reigns is a consideration to prevent muttering against him and make us quietly wait to see what the issue of his divine pleasure will be 'T is too great an insolence against the Divine Majesty to censure what he acts or quarrel with him for what he inflicts Proud clay doth very unbecomingly swell against an infinite superior If God be our Soveraign we ought to subscribe to his afflicting will without debates as well as to his liberal will with affectionate applauses We should be as full of patience under his sharper as of praise under his more grateful dispensations and be without reluctancy against his penal as well as his preceptive pleasure 'T is God's part to inflict and the creatures part to submit This Doctrine affords us motives and shews us the nature of Patience 1. Motives to it 1. God being Soveraign hath an absolute right to dispose of all things His Title to our persons and possessions is upon this account stronger than our own can be We have as much reason to be angry with our selves when we assert our worldly right against others as to be angry with God for asserting the right of his Dominion over us Why should we enter a charge against him because he hath not temper'd us so strong in our bodies drawn us with as fair colours embellisht our spirits with as rich gifts as others Is he not the Soveraign of his own goods to impart what and in what measure he pleaseth Would you be content your servants should check your pleasure in dispensing your own favors 'T is an unreasonable thing not to leave God to the exercise of his own dominion Though Job were a pattern of patience yet he had deep tinctures of impatience he often complains of God's usage of him as too hard and stands much upon his own integrity But when God comes in the latter Chapters of that book to justifie his carriage towards him he chargeth him not as a criminal but considers him only as his Vassal He might have found flaws enough in Job's carriage and corruption enough in Job's nature to clear the equity of his proceeding as a Judge but he useth no other medium to convince him but the greatness of his Majesty the unlimitedness of his soveraignty which so appales the good man that he puts his finger on his mouth and stands mute with a self-abhorrenc before him as a soveraign rather than as a Judge When he doth pinch us and deprive us of what we most affect his right to do it should silence our lips and calm our hearts from any boysterous uproars against him 2. The property of all still remains in God since he is soveraign He did not devest himself of the property when he granted us the use The Earth is his not ours the fulness of the Earth is his 't is not ours the fulness any of us have as well as the fulness others have After he had given the Israelites Corn Wine and Oyl he calls them all His and emphatically adds My to every one of them Hos 2.9 His right is universal over every mite we have and perpetual too He may therefore take from us what he please He did but deposite in our hands for a while the benefits we enjoy either Children Friends Estate or Lives he did not make a total conveyance of them and alienate his own property when he put them into our hands we can shew no Patent for them wherein the full right is past over to us to hold them against his will and pleasure and implead him if he offer to reassume them He reserved a power to dispossess us upon a forfeiture as he is the Lord and Governour Did any of us yet answer the condition of his grant It was his indulgence to allow them so long There is reason to submit to him when he reassumes what he lent us and rather to thank him that he lent it so long and did not seize upon it sooner 3. Other things have more reason to complain of our soveraignty over them than we of God's exercise of his soveraignty over us Do we not exercise an Authority over our Beasts as to strike them when we please and meerly for our pleasure and think we merit no reproof for it because they are our own and of a nature inferior to ours And shall not God who is absolute do as much with us who are more below him than the meanest Creatures are below us They are Creatures as well as we and we no more Creatures than they they were fram'd by omnipotence as well as we there is no more difference between them and us in the notion of Creatures As there is no difference between the greatest Monarch on Earth and the meanest Beggar on the dunghil in the notion of a man The Beggar is a man as well as the Monarch and as much a man the difference consists in the special Endowments we have above them by the bounty of their and our common Creator We are less if compared with God than the worst meanest most sordid Creature can be if compared with us Hath not a Bird or a Hare if they had a capacity more reason to complain of mens persecuting them by their Hawks and their Dogs but would their complaints appear reasonable since both were made for the use of man and man doth but use the nature of the one to attain a benefit by the other Have we any reason to complain of God if he le ts loose other Creatures the devouring Hounds of the World to bite and afflict us We must not open our lips against him nor let our heart swell against his scourge since both they and we were made for his use as well as other Creatures for ours This is
holiness and righteousness commanded God appointed it to magnifie his Justice and check the Idolatry that had been supported by that family Jehu acted it to satisfie his revenge and ambition he did it to fulfil his lust not the will of God who enjoyn'd him Jehu applauds it as zeal and God abhors it as murder and therefore would avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu Hos 1.4 Such kind of services are not paid to God for his own sake but to our selves for our lusts sake 4. This is evident in neglecting to take Gods direction upon emergent occasions This follows the Text none did seek God When we consult not with him but trust more to our own Will and Counsel we make our selves our own Governours and Lords independent upon him As though we could be our own Counsellors and manage our Concerns without his leave and assistance as though our works were in our own hands and not in the hands of God * Eccles 9.1 that we can by our own strength and sagacity direct them to a successful end without him If we must acquaint our selves with God before we decree a thing * Job 22.28 then to decree a thing without acquainting God with it is to prefer our purblind wisdom before the infinite Wisdom of God to resolve without consulting God is to depose God and deifie self our own wit and strength We would rather like Lot follow our own humor and stay in Sodom than observe the Angels order to go out of it 5. As we account the actions of others to be good or evil as they suit with or spurn against our fancies and humours Vertue is a crime and vice a vertue as it is contrary or concurrent with our humors Little Reason have many men to blame the actions of others but because they are not agreeable to what they affect and desire We would have all men take directions from us and move according to our beck Hence that common Speech in the world such an one is an honest friend why because he is of their humour and lackies according to their wills Thus we make self the measure and square of good and evil in the rest of mankind and judge of it by our own fancies and not by the will of God the proper rule of Judgment Well then let us Consider Is not this very common are we not naturally more willing to displease God than displease our selves when it comes to a point that we must do one or other Is not our own Counsel of more value with us than Conformity to the will of the Creator Do not our Judgments often run Counter to the Judgment of God Have his Laws a greater respect from us than our own humours Do we scruple the staining his honour when it comes in competition with our own Are not the Lives of most men a pleasing themselves without a repentance that ever they displeased God Is not this to undeifie God to deifie our selves and disown the propriety he hath in us by the right of Creation and Beneficence We order our own ways by our own humours as though we were the Authors of our own being and had given our selves life and understanding This is to destroy the order that God hath placed between our wills and his own and a lifting up of the foot above the head 't is the deformity of the Creature The honor of every rational Creature consists in the service of the first cause of his being as the welfare of every Creature consists in the orders and proportionable motion of its members according to the Law of it's Creation He that moves and acts according to a law of his own offers a manifest wrong to God the highest wisdom and chiefest good disturbs the order of the world nulls the design of the righteousness and holiness of God The Law of God is the rule of that order he would have observed in the world He that makes another law his rule thrusts out the order of the Creator and establishes the disorder of the Creature But this will yet be more evident in the fourth thing 4. Man would make himself the rule of God and give Laws to his Creator VVe are willing God should be our benefactor but not our ruler we are content to admire his excellency and pay him a worship provided he will walk by our rule * Decay of Christian piety p. 169. somewhat changed This commits a riot upon his nature To think him to be what we our selves would have him and wish him to be Psal 50.21 VVe would amplifie his Mercy and contract his Justice We would have his power enlarg'd to supply our wants and straightned when it goes about to revenge our crimes VVe would have him wise to defeat our enemies but not to disappoint our unworthy projects We would have him all eye to regard our indigence and blind not to discern our guilt We would have him true to his promises regardless of his precepts and false to his threatnings VVe would new mint the nature of God according to our models and shape a God according to our fancies as he made us at first according to his own Image Instead of obeying him we would have him obey us Instead of owning and admiring his perfections we would have him strip himself of his infinite excellency and cloth himself with a nature agreeable to our own This is not only to set up self as the Law of God but to make our own Imaginations the model of the nature of God Corrupted man takes a pleasure to accuse or suspect the actions of God We would not have him act conveniently to his nature but act what doth gratifie us and abstain from what distasts us Man is never well but when he is impeaching one or other perfection of Gods Nature and undermining his Glory as if all his Attributes must stand Indicted at the bar of our purblind Reason This Weed shoots up in the exercise of Grace Peter intended the refusal of our Saviours washing his feet as an act of humility but Christ understands it to be a prescribing a law to himself a correcting his love John 13.8 9. This is evidenc'd 1. In the strivings against his Law How many men imply by their Lives that they would have God depos'd from his Government and some unrighteous being step in to his Throne as if God had or should change his Laws of Holiness into Laws of Licentiousness as if he should abrogate his old Eternal Precepts and enact contrary ones in their stead What is the Language of such practices but that they would be Gods Law-givers and not his Subjects that he should deal with them according to their own wills and not according to his righteousness that they could make a more holy wise and righteous Law than the Law of God that their imaginations and not Gods righteousness should be the rule of his doing good to them Jer. 9.31 They have
forsaken my Law and walked after the imaginations of their own heart When an act is known to be a sin and the Law that forbids it acknowledg'd to be the Law of God and after this a we persist in that which is contrary to it we tax his wisdom as if he did not understand what was convenient for us we would teach God knowledge * Job 21◠'t is an implicite wish that God had laid aside the holiness of his nature and framed a Law to pleasure our lusts When God calls for weeping and mourning and girding with sackcloth upon approaching Judgments then the corrupt heart is for joy and gladness eating of Flesh and drinking of Wine because to morrow they should die * Isa 〈◊〉 13. As if God had mistaken himself when he ordered them so much sorrow when their lives were so near an end and had lost his understanding when he ordered such a precept Disobedience is therefore called contention Rom. 2.8 Cententious and obey not the truth Contention against God whose truth it is that they disobey a dispute with him which hath more of wisdom in it self and conveniency for them his truth or their imaginations The more the love goodness and holiness of God appears in any command the more are we naturally averse from it and cast an imputation on him as if he were foolish unjust cruel and that we could have advised and directed him better The goodness of God is eminent to us in appointing a day for his own worship wherein we might converse with him and he with us and our souls be refresht with spiritual Communications from him and we rather use it for the ease of our bodies than the advancement of our souls as if God were mistaken and injured his Creature when he urg'd the spiritual part of duty Every disobedience to the Law is an implicite giving Law to him and a charge against him that he might have provided better for his Creature 2. In disapproving the methods of Gods government of the world If the Counsels of Heaven roul not about according to their schemes instead of adoring the unsearchable depths of his judgments they call him to the bar and accuse him because they are not fitted to their narrow Vessels as if a Nut-shell could contain an Ocean As corrupt reason esteems the highest truths foolishness so it counts the most righteous ways unequal Thus we commence a suit against God as though he had not acted righteously and wisely but must give an account of his proceedings at our tribunal This is to make our selves Gods superiors and presume to instruct him better in the government of the world As though God hinder'd himself and the world in not making us of his Privy Counsel and not ordering his affairs according to the contrivances of our dim understandings Is not this manifest in our immoderate complaints of Gods dealings with his Church as though there were a coldness in Gods affections to his Church and a glowing heat toward◠it only in us Hence are those importunate desires for things which are not established by any promise as though we would over-rule and over-perswade God to comply with our humour We have an ambition to be Gods Tutors and direct him in his Counsels Who hath been his Counsellor saith the Apostle * Rom. 11.34 Who ought not to be his Counsellor saith corrupt nature Men will find fault with God in what he suffers to be done according to their own minds when they feel the bitter fruit of it When Cain had kill'd his brother and his Conscience rackt him how sawcily and discontedly doth he answer God Gen. 4.9 Am I my brothers keeper Since thou dost own thy self the Rector of the world thou shouldst have preserved his person from my fury since thou dost accept his Sacrifice before my Offering preservation was due as well as acceptance If this temper be found on earth no wonder it is lodged in hell That deplorable person under the sensible stroke of Gods Soveraign justice would oppose his Nay to Gods will Luke 16.30 And he said nay Father Abraham but if one went to them from the dead they will repent He would presume to prescribe more effectual means than Moses and the Prophets to inform men of the danger they incurr'd by their sensuality David was displeas'd it 's said 2 Sam. 6.8 When the Lord had made a breach upon Vzzah not with Vzzah who was the object of his pity but with God who was the inflicter of that punishment When any of our friends have been struck with a Rod against our Sentiments and wishes have not our hearts been apt to swell in complaints against God as though he disregarded the goodness of such a person did not see with our eyes and measure him by our esteem of him As if he should have ask'd our Counsel before he had resolved and managed himself according to our will rather than his own If he be patient to the wicked we are apt to tax his holiness and accuse him as an enemy to his own Law If he inflict severity upon the righteous we are ready to suspect his goodness and charge him to be an enemy to his affectionate Creature If he spare the Nimrods of the World we are ready to ask where is the God of Judgment * Mal 2.17 If he afflict the Pillars of the Earth we are ready to question where is the God of Mercy 'T is impossible since the depraved nature of man and the various interests and passions in the world that infinite power and wisdome can act righteously for the good of the Universe but he will shake some corrupt interest or other upon the earth so various are the inclinations of men and such a Weather-cock Judgment hath every man in himself that the divine method he applauds this day upon a change of his interest he will cavil at the next 'T is impossible for the just orders of God to please the same person many weeks scarce many minutes together God must cease to be God or to be a holy if he should manage the concerns of the world according to the fancies of men How unreasonable is it thus to impose Laws upon God Must God revoke his own orders Govern according to the dictates of his Creature Must God who hath only power and wisdom to sway the Scepter become the obedient Subject of every mans humour and manage every thing to serve the design of a simple Creature This is not to be God but to set the Creature in his Throne Though this be not formally done yet that it is interpretatively and practically done is every hours experience 3. In impatience in our particular concerns 'T is ordinary with man to charge God in his complaints in the time of affliction Therefore 't is the commendation the Holy Ghost gives to Job Job 1.22 That in all this that is in those many waves that roll'd over him he did not charge