Selected quad for the lemma: honour_n
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A58795
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The Christian life. Part II wherein the fundamental principles of Christian duty are assigned, explained, and proved : volume I / by John Scott ...; Christian life. Part 2
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Scott, John, 1639-1695.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing S2050; ESTC R20527
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226,080
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of and it may be reasonably supposed that in those Summaries of our Duty wherein but a few Parts are enumerated they are such as are the Chief and principal it being contrary to all Rules of Language to express the Whole of any thing by the meanest and most inconsiderable Parts of it V. ANOTHER Evidence from Scripture that Moral Goodness is the principal Matter of Duty that God requires of us is that wheresoever such Persons as have been most dear and acceptable to God are described their Character is always made up of Instances of Morality Thus the Description of Job is that he was a man perfect and upright and one that feared God and eschewed evil Job 1.1 And in the 15th Psalm the Description which David gives of the man who should abide in the Tabernacle of the Lord is this that he walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart that he backbiteth not with his tongue nor doth evil to his neighbour nor taketh up a reproach against his Neighbour c. he that doth these things saith he shall never be moved And the greatest Character that is given of Moses the Darling and Favorite of God is that he was very meek above all the men that were upon the face of the Earth Numb 12.3 Thus also the Character of Cornelius by which he was so indeared to God is that he was a just and devout man one that feared God with all his house who gave much Alms to the people and prayed to God always Acts 10.2 And in a word the general Character of those whom God accepts is in every Nation he who doth righteousness is accepted of God Acts 10.35 Thus moral Goodness is the great Stamp and Impress that renders men current in the Esteem of God whereas on the contrary the common Brand by which Hypocrites and false Pretenders to Religion are stigmatized is their being zealous for the Positives and cold and indifferent as to the Morals of Religion For so our Saviour Characters the Pharisees woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites for ye pay tyth of Mint Annis and Cummin which yet was a positive Duty and have omitted the weightier matters of the Law Judgment Mercy and Faithfulness these ought ye to have done and not to leave the other undone Ye blind Guides ye strain at a Gnat and swallow a Camel Math. 23.23.24 plainly implying the Morals of Religion to be as much greater than the Positives in weight and moment as a Camel is than a Gnat in bulk Since therefore Moral Goodness is always mentioned as the great Character of Gods Favourites and the Neglect of it out of a pretended zeal to the positive Duties of Religion is always recorded as a Mark of the most odious Hypocrites this is a sufficient Argument how high a Value God sets upon the Moralities of Religion VI. and Lastly ANOTHER Evidence from Scripture that moral Goodness is the principal Part of Religion is that at the great Account between God and us his main Inquisition will be concerning such Actions as are morally good or evil For so Rom. 2.6 we are told that God will render to every man according to his deeds to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for honour and glory and immortality eternal life But to them who are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness tribulation and wrath indignation and anguish And accordingly Enoch as he is quoted by St. Jude verses 14.15 declares this to be the Occasion of the Lords coming with thousands of his Saints viz. to execute Judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him all which are matters of Fact against the eternal Rules of Morality And our Saviour himself in that Popular Scheme and Description he gives of the Proceedings of the Day of Judgment plainly declares that one of the principal Matters he will then inquire into will be our Neglect or Observance of that great moral Duty of Charity towards the poor and needy Mat. 25.32 46. Which is a plain Evidence that our obeying or disobeying the eternal Laws of Morality is that by which we do most please or displease God since 't is upon this that he will most insist in his final Arbitration of our eternal Fate For since his last Judgment is only the final Execution of his Laws we may be sure that whatsoever it is that he will principally insist on in his Judgment that is the principal matter of his Laws And now having sufficiently proved the Truth of the Proposition I proceed to the Reasons of it upon what Accounts it is that God hath made moral Goodness the main and principal Part of our Religion The chief Reasons of which are these four First BECAUSE 't is by moral Goodness that we do most honor him Secondly BECAUSE 't is by this that we do most imitate him Thirdly BECAUSE 't is by this that we advance to our own Happiness Fourthly WHEN all our positive Duty is ceast this is to be the eternal Work and Business of our Nature I. GOD hath made moral Goodness the principal Part of our Religion because 't is by this that we do him the greatest Honour It is an excellent saying of Hierocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the best honour we can do to a self sufficient being is to receive the good things he holds forth unto us and therefore 't is not by giving to God that you honour him but by rendring your selves worthy to receive of him for saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. whosoever gives honour to God as to one that wants doth not consider that he thereby sets himself above God For by his own self-sufficiency he is infinitely removed above all Capacity of Want and so can never need any additional Contributions of Glory and Happiness from his Creatures For Glory being nothing else but the Resplendency of Perfection which always reflects its own Beams upon it self where ever there is infinite perfection as to be sure there is in the Nature of God there must an infinite Glory proceed from it and therefore being infinitely glorious in himself it is impossible that any thing we do should add any further Glory to him So that if we would truly honour and glorify him it must not be by giving to but by receiving from him Now the best thing we can receive from God is Himself and Himself we do receive in our strict compliance with the eternal Laws of Goodness Which Laws being transcribed from the Nature of God from his own eternal Righteousness and Goodness we do by obeying them derive Gods Nature into ours So that while we write after the Copie of his Laws we write out the Perfections of his Being and his Laws being the Seal upon which he hath ingraven his
Actions and out of an high Complacency in the one and Abhorrence of the other treasures up both in everlasting Remembrance we cannot but discern our selves obliged by all the Reason in the World to choose what is good and eschew what is evil For what an infinite Encouragement is it to do good to consider that while we are doing it Gods Eye is upon us regarding us with high Applause and Approbation and entering it with all its acceptable Circumstances into the eternal Record of his own Mind from whence it shall be produced in the last Day and proclaimed before Men and Angels to our everlasting Honour and Glory So that when our Memory is lost upon Earth and all that we did is swallowed up in the deep Abyss of Oblivion all our Pieties and Virtues shall be famed in the Records of Heaven and have everlasting Memorials in the Mind of God As on the contrary what an infinite Discouragement is it from sinning to consider that the Eye of that God to whom Vengeance belongs is intent upon us following us through all our Retreats and Concealments and Recording every ill Deed with all its foul Aggravations in the eternal Volumes of his own Remembrance which he will one Day most certainly open and read out before all the World to our everlasting Shame and Confusion So that when the pleasure of our Sin is gone and all that rendred it tempting or desirable for ever vanisht and forgotten the Shame and Infamy of it shall stand upon Record and be transmitted down to eternal Ages VII and Lastly To oblige us to be truly religious it is also necessary we should believe that God will reward and punish us according to our doings that he is neither an idle nor an impotent Spectator of our Actions that merely pleases and vexes himself with the Contemplation of them but that all the Notice he takes of them is in order to his rewarding and punishing them which he will one day most certainly do to our everlasting Joy or Confusion But because this Argument will be the Subject of the ensuing Chapter I shall insist no farther on it here SECT II. Of the Proofs and Evidences which there are to create in us a Belief of the divine Providence HAVING in the foregoing Section given an account of those Parts or Branches of the Divine Providence which are necessary to be believed in order to the founding the Obligations of Religion I shall proceed in the next place to shew what Evidences there are to create this Belief in us and because this is the great Fundamental of all Religion upon the Belief of which it all immediately depends I shall endeavour to demonstrate the Truth of it 1. A priori by Arguments drawn from God himself 2. A posteriori by Arguments drawn from sensible Effects of God in the World I. I shall endeavour to assert the Truth of a divine Providence by Arguments drawn from God himself For supposing that there is a God that is to say an infinitely wise and good and powerful Cause of all things which I doubt not to make appear when I come to discourse of the sensible Effects of God in the World it will from thence necessarily follow that he upholds disposes and governs all things by an over-ruling Providence For 1. If there be such a God he must necessarily be and exist of himself without any dependence upon any superior Cause 2. He must necessarily be the Cause of all other things that are and do exist 3. He must necessarily be present with all things 4. Where ever he is so active are his Perfections that he cannot but operate wheresoever he finds Objects to work upon From all which I shall make appear it will necessarily follow that he continually exercises an over-ruling Providence over the World I. IF there be a God he must necessalily exist or be of himself without Dependence on any superiour Cause For when we speak of God we mean by him a Being that is as perfect as it is possible that hath nothing before him nothing superior to him nothing greater than himself which cannot be meant of any derived Being because all Effects are after their Causes and in some respect inferiour to them as deriving their Beings and all their Excellencies and Perfections from them But to say of God that he is after or any way inferiour to any Cause is a palpable Contradiction to the very Notion of him 't is to say that there is something before the eternal Something superior to the Supreme Something more perfect than infinite Perfection So that either there can be no such Being as a God in the World or he must be of himself or from his own Essence in which there must be such an infinite Fulness of Being as that from all Eternity past to all Eternity to come it is infinitely removed from not Being and so by a Necessity of Nature must from ever have been and for ever be And such a Being we must admit of whether we will admit of a God or no for either we must allow that this World or at least the Matter of it exists of it self by its own never failing Fulness of Being without ever needing any Cause to produce it which as I shall shew you by and by is impossible or that all things in it derive their Being from some first Cause who having no Cause in being before him must necessarily be uncaused and unproduced and if God exists of himself as he must do supposing he is he must be superiour to all things for that which is of it self cannot but be and that which cannot but be can have no Power above it because if it hath that Power might have either hindered or extinguished its Being and so it might not have been So that Gods Self-existence necessarily supposes him exalted above all Power and Superiority and consequently to be the supreme and sovereign Power over all things but to suppose him to be supreme and Sovereign without exercising Rule and Domion is ridiculous for without the Exercise of Dominion supreme Power is but a useless and insignificant Cypher-flourish with a glorious Name Rule and Dominion being the only proper Sphere for supreme Power as such to move and act in So that unless God rules and governs he is supreme to no Purpose and his sovereign Power is useless and in vain for if he exert his sovereign Power at all it must be in Rule and Dominion which is its only natural Province but if he doth not his Sovereignty is only a Majestick Sloth that sits sleeping in an awful Throne with its Hands in its Bosom without ever doing any thing that is Sovereign and of what Use is that sovereign Power that never exercises any act of Sovereignty Since therefore Gods Self-Existence necessarily supposes his sovereign Power over all things we must either grant that he continually exercises this Power in ruling and governing the World or assert that it is