vouchsafed to us Because this is an argument of great ingratitude And this we find recorded as a heavy charge upon the People of Israel that they remembred not the Lord their God who had delivered them out of the hand of all their enemies on every side neither shewed they kindness to the House of Jerubbaal namely Gideon who had been their Deliverer according to all the goodness which he had shewed to Israel God we see takes it very ill at our hands when we are ungrateful to the Instruments of our Deliverance but much more when we are unthankful to Him the Author of it And how severely does Nathan the Prophet reproach David upon this account Thus said the Lord God of Israel I anointed thee King over Israel and delivered thee out of the hand of Saul c. And if this had been too little I would moreover have done such and such things Wherefore hast thou despis'd the Commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight God here reckons up his manifold mercies and deliverances and aggravates David's Sin upon this account And he was very angry likewise with Solomon for the same reason because he had turned from the Lord God of Israel who had appear'd to him twice However we may slight the mercies of God he keeps a punctual and strict account of them It is particularly noted as a great blot upon Hezekiah that he returned not again according to the benefits done unto him God takes very severe notice of all the unkind and unworthy returns that are made to Him for his Goodness Ingratitude to God is so unnatural and monstrous that we find Him appealing against us for it to the inanimate Creatures Hear O Heavens and give ear O Earth for the Lord hath spoken I have nourish'd and brought up Children but they have rebelled against me And then he goes on and upbraids them with the Brute Creatures as being more grateful to men than men are to God The Ox knoweth his owner and the Ass her Masters Crib but Israel doth not know my People doth not consider And in the same Prophet there is the like complaint Let favour be shewn to the wicked yet will he not learn righteousness In the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly and will not behold the Majesty of the Lord. Lord when thy hand is lifted up they will not see but the shall see and be ashamed They that will not acknowledge the Mercies of God's Providence shall feel the strokes of his Justice There is no greater evidence in the World of an intractable disposition than not to be wrought upon by kindness not to be melted by mercies not to be obliged by benefits not to be tamed by gentle usage Nay God expects that his mercies should lay so great an obligation upon us that even a Miracle should not tempt us to be unthankful If there arise among you a Prophet says Moses to the People of Israel or a Dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a Sign or a Wonder and the Sign or the Wonder cometh to pass whereof he spake to thee saying let us go after other Gods and serve them thou shalt not hearken to the words of that Prophet And he gives the reason because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord God of Israel which brought you out of the Land of Egypt and delivered you out of the House of Bondage 3. It is a greater aggravation yet after gteat Mercies and Judgments to return to the same Sins Because this can hardly be without our sinning against knowledge and after we are convinced how evil and bitter the Sin is which we were guilty of and have been so sorely punish'd for before This is an argument of a very perverse and incorrigible temper and that which made the Sin of the People of Israel so above measure sinful that after so many signal Deliverances and so many terrible Judgments they fell into the same Sin of murmuring ten times murmuring against God the Author and against Moses the glorious Instrument of their Deliverance out of Egypt which was one of the two great Types of the Old Testament both of temporal and spiritual Oppression and Tyranny Hear with what resentment God speaks of the ill returns which they made to him for that great Mercy and Deliverance Because all these men which have seen my glory and my miracles which I did in Egypt and in the Wilderness and have tempted me now these ten times and have not hearkned unto my voice surely they shall not see the Land which I sware to their Fathers And after he had brought them into the promised Land and wrought great Deliverances for them several times how does he upbraid them with their proneness to fall again into the same Sin of Idolatry And the Lord said unto the Children of Israel did not I deliver you from the Egyptians and from the Amorites from the Children of Ammon and from the Philistins The Zidonians also and the Amalekites and Maonites did oppress you and ye cryed unto me and I delivered you out of their hand yet you have forsaken me and served other Gods wherefore I will deliver you no more go and cry unto the Gods which ye have chosen let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation This incensed God so highly against them that they still relaps'd into the same Sin of Idolatry after so many afflictions and so many deliverances Upon such an occasion well might the Prophet say Thine own wickedness shall correct thee and thy sins shall reprove thee know therefore that it is an evil and bitter thing that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God It is hardly possible but we should know that the wickedness for which we have been so severely corrected is an evil and bitter thing Thus much for the first part of the Observation namely that it is a fearful aggravation of Sin after great Judgments and great deliverances to return to Sin and especially to the same Sins again I proceed to the Second part namely That this is a fatal presage of ruin to a People Should we again break thy Commandments and join in affinity with the People of these abominations wouldst thou not be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor escaping And so God threatens the People of Israel in the Text which I cited before wherefore I will deliver you no more Wherefore that is because they would neither be reform'd by the Afflictions wherewith God had exercised them nor by the many wonderful Deliverances which he had wrought for them And there is great reason why God should deal thus with a People that continues impenitent both under the Judgments and Mercies of God 1. Because this doth ripen the Sins of a Nation and it is time for God to put in his Sickle when a People are ripe for ruin When the
gone backward therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee and deliver thee I am weary of repenting By our obstinate impenitency we harden the heart of God against us and make him weary of repenting And when his soul is thus departed from a People nothing remains but a fearful expectation of ruin Wo unto them saith God by the Prophet when I depart from them Therefore be thou instructed O Jerusalem lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a Land not inhabited Having given this account of the Words I shall observe from them three things well worth our consideration First The infinite goodness and patience of God towards a sinful People and his great unwillingness to bring ruin and destruction upon them lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a Land not inhabited How loth is He that things should come to this extremity He is not without great difficulty and some kind of violence as it were offered to himself brought to this severe resolution his soul is as it were rent and disjointed from them Secondly You see here what is the only proper and effectual means to prevent the misery and ruin of a sinful People If they will be instructed and take warning by the threatnings of God and will become wiser and better then his soul will not depart from them he will not bring upon them the desolation which he hath threatned Thirdly You have here intimated the miserable case and condition of a People when God takes off his affection from them and gives over all further care and concernment for them Wo unto them when his soul departs from them For when God once leaves them then all sorts of evils and calamities will break in upon them I shall speak as briefly as I can to these three Observations from the Text. First I observe the infinite patience and goodness of God towards a sinful People and his great unwillingness to bring ruin and destruction upon them lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a Land not inhabited How loth is God that things should come to this He is very patient to particular persons notwithstanding their great and innumerable provocations God is strong and patient though men provoke him every day And much greater is his patience to whole Nations and great Communities of men How great was it to the old World when the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah for the space of an hundred and twenty years And did not expire till he saw that the wickedness of man was grown great upon the earth and that all flesh had corrupted its way not till it was necessary to drown the World to cleanse it and to destroy Mankind to reform it by beginning a new World upon the only righteous Family that was left of all the last generation of the Old For so God testifies concerning Noah when he commanded him to enter into the Ark saying Come thou and all thy house into the Ark for thee that is thee only have I seen righteous before me in this Generation The patience of God was great likewise to Sodom and Gomorrah and the Cities about them For when the cry of their sins had reached heaven and called loud for vengeance to be poured down upon them to express the wonderful patience of God towards such grievous Sinners though nothing is hid from his sight and knowledge yet he is represented as coming down from Heaven to Earth on purpose to enquire into the truth of things and whether they were altogether according to the cry that was come up to him And when he found things as bad as was possible yet then was he willing to have come almost to the lowest terms imaginable that if there had been but ten righteous persons in those wicked Cities he would not have destroy'd them for the ten 's sake Nay he seems to come to lower terms yet with the City of Jerusalem Jer. 5.1 Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem and see now and know and seek in the broad places thereof if ye can find a man if there be any that executeth judgment and seeketh the truth and I will pardon it What can be imagin'd more slow and mild and merciful than the proceedings of the Divine justice against a sinful People God is represented in Scripture as taking a long time to make ready his bow and to whet his glittering sword before his hand takes hold of vengeance as if the instruments of his wrath lay by him blunt and rusty and unready for use Many a time he threatens and many a time lifts up his hand before he gives the fatal blow And how glad is he when any good man will step in and interpose to stay his hand As we read Psal 106.23 Therefore he said speaking of the People of Israel that he would destroy them had not Moses his servant stood in the breach to turn away his wrath lest he should destroy them And how kindly doth God take it of Phinehas as a most acceptable piece of service done to him and which he hardly knew how sufficiently to reward that he was a means of putting a stop to his anger against the People of Israel Insomuch that the Psalmist tells us that it was accounted to him for righteousness to all generations for evermore I will recite the whole passage at large because it is remarkable When the People of Israel were seduced into Idolatry and Whoredom by the Daughters of Moab Phinehas in great zeal stood up and executed judgment upon Zimri and Cozbi in the very act By which means the Plague which was broken out upon the Congregation of Israel was presently stayed Hear what God says to Moses concerning this act of Phinehas The Lord spake unto Moses saying Phinehas the son of Eleazer the son of Aaron the Priest hath turned away my wrath from the Children of Israel whilst he was zealous for my sake that I consumed them not Wherefore say Behold I give unto him my Covenant of peace and he shall have it and his seed after him even the Covenant of an everlasting Priesthood because he was zealous for his God and made an atonement for the Children of Israel That which God takes so kindly at his hands next to his zeal for Him is that he pacified God's wrath towards the Children of Israel And thus did God from time to time deal with the People of Israel that great Example of the Old Testament of the merciful methods of the Divine Providence towards a sinful Nation And an Example as St. Paul tells us purposely recorded for our admonition upon whom the ends of the World are come Let us therefore consider a little the astonishing patience of God towards that perverse People After all the signs and wonders which he had wrought in their deliverance out of Egypt and for their support in the Wilderness and notwithstanding
Christian Religion will permit us to believe and hope well of them and rather be contented to err a little on the favourable and charitable part than to be mistaken on the censorious and damning side And for this reason perhaps it is that our B. Saviour thought fit to frame his Parables with so remarkable a Byass to the charitable side Partly to instruct us to extend our charity towards all Christian Churches and Professors of the Christian Religion and our good hopes concerning them as far as with reason we can And partly to reprove the uncharitableness of the Jews who positively excluded all the rest of Mankind besides themselves from all hopes of Salvation An odious temper which to the infinite Scandal of the Christian Name and Profession hath prevail'd upon some Christians to that notorious degree as not only to shut out all the Reform'd Part of the Western Church almost equal in number to themselves from all hopes of Salvation under the notion of Hereticks but likewise to un-church all the other Churches of the Christian World which are of much greater extent and number than themselves that do not own subjection to the Bishop of Rome And this they do by declaring it to be of necessity to Salvation for every Creature to be subject to the Roman Bishop And this Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome over all Christian Churches Bellarmin calls the Sum of the Christian Religion So that the Roman Communion is plainly founded in Schism that is in the most unchristian and uncharitable Principle that can be namely that they are the only true Church of Christ out of which none can be saved which was the very Schism of the Donatists And in this they are so positive that the Learned men of that Church in their Disputes and Writings are much more inclinable to believe the Salvation of Heathens to be possible than of any of those Christians whom they are pleas'd to call Hereticks The Faith of the Church of Rome is certainly none of the best but of one of the greatest and most essential Vertues of the Christian Religion I mean Charity I doubt they have the least share of any Christian Church this day in the World Secondly I observe not from any particular circumstance but from the main Scope and design of this Parable How very apt a great part of Christians are to neglect this great concernment of their Souls viz a careful and due preparation for another World and how willing they are to deceive themselves in this matter and to depend upon any thing else how groundless and unreasonable soever rather than to take the pains to be really good and fit for Heaven And this is in a very lively manner represented to us in the description of the foolish Virgins who had provided no supply of Oyl in their Vessels and when the Bridegroom was coming would have furnish'd themselves by borrowing or buying of others vers 8 9 10. They contented themselves with having their Lamps lighted at their first setting out to meet the Bridegroom that is with their being admitted into the Profession of Christianity by Baptism but either were not stedfast in this Profession or were not careful to adorn it with the Graces and Vertues of a good life And the true Reason why men are so very apt to deceive themselves in this matter and are so hardly brought to those things wherein Religion mainly consists I mean the fruits of the Spirit and the practice of real Goodness I say the true reason of this is because they are extremely desirous to reconcile if it were possible the hopes of eternal happiness in another World with a liberty to live as they list in this present World They are loth to be at the trouble and drudgery of mortifying their lusts and governing their passions and bridling their tongues and practising all those duties which are comprehended in those two great Commandments of the Love of God and of our Neighbour They would fain gain the favour of God and make their calling and election sure by some easier way than by giving all diligence to add to their Faith and Knowledge the Graces and Vertues of a good life For the plain truth of the matter is men had rather that Religion should be any thing than what indeed it is viz the thwarting and crossing of their vicious inclinations the curing of their evil and corrupt affections the due care and government of their unruly appetites and passions the sincere endeavour and the constant practice of all holiness and virtue in their lives And therefore they had much rather have something that might handsomely palliate and excuse their evil inclinations and practices than to be obliged to retrench and renounce them and rather than amend and reform their wicked lives they would be contented to make an honourable amends and compensation to Almighty God in some other way This hath been the way and folly of Mankind in all ages to defeat the great end and design of Religion and to thrust it by by substituting something else in the place of it which as they think may serve the turn as well having the appearance of as much devotion and respect towards God and really costing them more money and pains than that which God requires of them Men have ever been apt thus to impose upon themselves and to please themselves with a conceit of pleasing God full as well or better by some other way than that which he hath prescribed and appointed for them By this means and upon this false Principle Religion hath ever been apt to degenerate both among Jews and Christians into external and little observances and into a great zeal for lesser things with a total neglect of the greater and weightier matters of Religion and in a word into infinite Superstitions of one kind or other and an arrogant conceit of the extraordinary righteousness and merit of these things In which some have proceeded to that height as if they could drive a strict bargain with God for eternal life and happiness and have treated Him in so insolent a manner by their Doctrine of the Merit of their Devotions and good Works as if God were as much beholden to them for their service and obedience as they are to Him for the reward of them which they are not afraid to say they may challenge at God's hands as of right and justice belonging to them Nay so far have they carried this Doctrine in the Church of Rome as not only to pretend to merit eternal life for themselves but likewise to do a great deal more for the benefit and advantage of others who have not righteousness and goodness enough of their own Which was the silly conceit of the foolish Virgins here in the Parable as I shall have occasion to shew more fully by and by And it is no great wonder that such easy ways of Religion and pleasing God are very grateful to the corrupt nature of Man
though he was as the Scripture tells us light of foot as a wild Roe yet did he not escape the spear of Abner It seems that among the Ancients swiftness was look'd upon as a great qualification in a Warriour both because it serves for a sudden assault and onset and likewise for that which in civility we call a nimble retreat And therefore David in his Poetical Lamentation over those two great Captains Saul and Jonathan takes particular notice of this warlike quality of theirs They were says he swifter than Eagles stronger than Lyons And the constant Character which Homer gives of Achilles one of his principal Heroes is that he was swift of foot The Poet feigns of him that by some charm or gift of the Gods he was invulnerable in all parts of his body except his heel And that was the part to which he trusted and in that he received his mortal wound The wise Poet hereby instructing us that many times our greatest danger lies there where we place our chief confidence and safety Nor yet bread to the wise or to the learned The poverty of Poets is Proverbial and there are frequent instances in History of eminently learned persons that have been reduced to great straits and necessities Nor yet riches to men of understanding By which whether we understand men of great parts or of great diligence and industry it is obvious to every man's observation that an ordinary capacity and understanding does usually lie more level to the business of a common Trade and Profession than more refin'd and elevated parts which lie rather for speculation than practice and are better fitted for the pleasure and ornament of conversation than for the toil and drudgery of business As a fine Razor is admirable for cutting hairs but the dull Hatchet much more proper for hewing a hard and knotty piece of timber And even when Parts and Industry meet together they are many times less successful in the raising of a great Estate than men of much lower and slower understandings because these are apt to admire riches which is a great spur to industry and because they are perpetually intent upon one thing and mind but one business from which their thoughts never straggle into vain and useless enquiries after knowledge or news or publick affairs all which being foreign to their business they leave to those who are as they are wont to say of them in scorn more curious and too wise to be rich Nor yet favour to men of skill All History is full of Instances of the casual advancement of men to great favour and honour when others who have made it their serious study and business have fallen short of it I could give a famous Example in this kind of the manifold and manifest disappointment of a whole Order of men the slyest and most subtile in their generation of all the children of this World the most politically instituted and the best studied and skill'd in the tempers and interests of men the most pragmatical and cunning to insinuate themselves into the Intrigues of Courts and great Families and who by long experience and an universal intelligence and communicated observations have reduced humane affairs at least as they think to a certain Art and Method and to the most steddy Rules that such contingent things are capable of I believe you all guess before-hand whom I mean even the honest Jesuits And yet these men of so much art and skill have met with as many checks and disappointments as any sort of men ever did They have been discountenanc'd by almost all Princes and States and one time or other banish'd out of most of the Courts and Countries of Europe And it is no small argument of the Divine Providence that so much cunning hath met with so little countenance and success and hath been so often so grosly infatuated and their counsels turn'd into foolishness But I promis'd only to mention these and to insist upon the second Instance in the Text I return'd and saw under the Sun that the battel is not to the strong to the Gibborim the Gyants for so the Hebrew word signifies in which Solomon might possibly have respect to the history of the Israelites subduing the Canaanites a People of great strength and stature among whom were the Gyants the sons of Anak or more probably to the famous encounter of his Father David with the great Goliah But however that be the Scripture is full of Examples to this purpose that when the Providence of God is pleased to interpose in favour of any side it becomes victorious according to the saying of King Asa in his prayer to God it is nothing with thee to help whether with many or with those that have no power Sometimes God hath defeated great Armies by plain and apparent Miracles Such was the drowning of Pharaoh and his Host in the Red Sea and the Stars fighting in their courses against Sisera by which Poetical expression I suppose is meant Sisera's being remarkably defeated by a visible hand from Heaven And such was the destruction of the proud King of Assyria's Army by an Angel who slew an hundred and fourscore and five thousand of them in one night Sometimes God does this by more humane ways by striking mighty Armies with a Panick and unaccountable fear and sometimes by putting extraordinary spirits and courage into the weaker side so that an hundred shall chase a thousand and a thousand shall put ten thousand to flight This made David so frequently to acknowledge the Providence of God especially in the affairs of War There is no King saved by the multitude of an Host neither is a mighty man delivered by much strength And again I will not trust in my bow neither shall my sword save me And Solomon confirms the same observation There is no wisdom says he nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord. The horse is prepared against the day of battel but safety or as some Translations render it Victory is of the Lord. Gideon by a very odd stratagem of Lamps and Pitchers defeated a very numerous Army only with three hundred men Jonathan and his Armour-bearer by climbing up a Rock and coming suddenly on the back of the Philistines Camp struck them with such a terror as put their whole Army to flight King Asa with a much inferior number defeated that huge Ethiopian Army which consisted of a Million And how was Xerxes his mighty Army overthrown almost by a handful of Grecians And to come nearer our selves how was that formidable Fleet of the Spaniards which they presumptuously called invincible shatter'd and broken in pieces chiefly by the Winds and the Sea So many accidents are there especially in War whereby the Divine Providence doth sometimes interpose and give Victory to the weaker side And this hath been so apparent in all Ages that even the Heathen did always acknowledge in the affairs of War a special interposition
Enemies that we may sin against Him without fear all the days of our Lives To what purpose should the Providence of God take so much care to preserve our Religion to us when we make no better use of it for the direction and government of our Lives When it serves most of us only to talk of it and too many amongst us to talk against it to deride it and despitefully to use it If this be the truth of our Case what can we say why the Kingdom of God should not be taken from us and given to a Nation that will bring forth the fruits of it What can we say why our Candlestick should not be remov'd and the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ which we have so long enjoyed and so long rebelled against should not be utterly extinguish'd amongst us And if I cannot prevail with you to come to these good Resolutions and to make them good If you will not be persuaded to practise yet be pleas'd to attend to what we say Hear our words at least if ye will not do them This the People of the Jews would do when they were at the worst So God tells the Prophet concerning them They come unto thee as the People cometh and they sit before thee as my People and they hear thy words but they will not do them I had much rather at any time have occasion to praise than to reprove especially in this great Assembly And yet it is not to be dissembled that the behaviour of too many in this place is frequently so careless and irreverent as is very mis-becoming those who are in the more peculiar Presence of the Great and Glorious Majesty of Heaven and Earth and profess at that very time to worship Him I am sure we have a better Pattern perpetually before us of a decent and unaffected devotion of a most serious and steddy attention without wandring without diversion and without drowsiness such an Example as I cannot but hope will in a short time gain upon us all and by a more gentle and silent reproof win us to the imitation of it And if we could but be prevail'd upon to demean our selves with that Reverence and to hear with that Attention which becomes the Worship and the Word of God it might then be hop'd that we would consider what is said and consideration would probably work conviction and conviction bring us to a better mind and to a firm purpose of doing what we are inwardly convinc'd it is both our duty and our interest to do Let us then go away from this Solemnity with a resolution to do every one what we ought truly and earnestly to repent us of our sins past and to lead a new life for the future to fear that great and terrible God in whose presence we have humbled our selves this Day and to turn to Him that hath smitten us lest we provoke him to punish us yet seven times more and after that seven times more for our sins and for our impenitency in them till at last He make our plagues wonderfull To conclude Let us every one with that true Penitent in Job take words to our selves and say Surely it is meet to be said unto God I have born chastisement I will not offend any more that which I see not teach thou me and if I have done iniquity I will do no more Oh! that there were such a heart in us that it might be well with us and with our children for ever Which God of his infinite Goodness grant for his Mercies sake in Jesus Christ To whom with thee O Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory both now and ever Amen That God is the only Happiness of Man IN A SERMON Preached before the QUEEN AT WHITE-HALL March the 20 th 1691 2. That God is the only Happiness of Man PSALM Lxxiij 25 Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee THE design of this Psalm is to vindicate the Goodness and Justice of the Divine Providence notwithstanding the prosperous estate of the wicked and the afflicted condition of good men many times in this World And in the first place the Psalmist whoever he was whether David or Asaph lays down this for a most certain Truth that God is good to good men Of a truth God is good to Israel to such as are of a clean heart And yet for all this he tells us that at some times he was under no small temptation to question the truth of this Principle when he beheld the promiscuous dispensation of things here below that the wicked are often prosperous and good men exposed to great calamities in this life as if God either neglected humane affairs or had a greater kindness for the workers of iniquity than for pious and good men As for me my foot had well-nigh slipp'd for I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked This he says was a very great slumbling-block to good men and tempted them to doubt of the Providence of God Therefore his People return hither and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them and they say Doth God know and is there knowledge in the most High This Sentence is somewhat obscurely rendred in our Translation so as to make the sence of it difficult which is plainly this Therefore his people return hither that is therefore good men come to this in the greatness of their affliction and in the bitterness of their soul to question God's knowledge and care of humane affairs Behold say they these are the ungodly and yet they are the prosperous in the world they increase in riches To what purpose then is it for any man to be Religious and Vertuous Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocency In vain have I endeavoured after purity of heart and innocency of life since so little good comes of it nay so far from that that I have been in continual trouble and affliction All the day long have I been plagued and chastned every morning Such thoughts as these often came into his mind and gave him great trouble and disquiet But he presently corrects himself If I say I will speak thus I should offend against the generation of thy Children that is I should go against the sense of all pious and good men who have always believed the Providence of God notwithstanding this Objection Which at last he tells us he had raised on purpose to try if he could find the solution of it I thought to know this which was grievous in mine eyes And then he resolves all into the unsearchable Wisdom of the Divine Providence which if we fully understood from first to last we should see good reason to be satisfied with the equity of it When I go into the Sanctuary of God then shall I understand
miracle though we take but little notice of it that every one of us did not die every day since we were born I say considering the nice and curious frame of our Bodies and the innumerable contingencies and hazards of humane Life which is set in so slippery a place that we still continue in the land of the living we cannot ascribe to any thing but the watchful Providence of Almighty God who holds our soul in life and suffers not our foot to be moved To the same merciful Providence of God we owe that whilst we continue in life we have any comfortable possession and enjoyment of our selves and of that which makes us men I mean our Reason and Understanding That our Imagination is not let loose upon us to haunt and torment us with melancholick freaks and fears That we are not deliver'd up to the horrors of a gloomy and guilty mind That every day we do not fall into frenzy and distraction which next to wickedness and vice is the sorest calamity and saddest disguise of humane Nature I say next to wickedness and vice which is a wilful frenzy a madness not from misfortune but from choice whereas the other proceeds from natural and necessary causes such as are in a great measure out of our power so that we are perpetually liable to it from any secret and sudden disorder of the Brain from the violence of a Disease or the vehement transport of any Passion Now if things were under no government what could hinder so many probable evils from breaking in upon us and from treading upon the heels of one another like the calamities of Job when the hedge which God had set about him and all that he had was broken down and removed So that if there were no God to take care of us we could be secure of no sort no degree of happiness in this World no not for one moment And there would be no other World for us to be happy in and to make amends to us for all the fears and dangers all the troubles and calamities of this present life For God and another World stand and fall together Without Him there can be no Life after this and if our hopes of happiness were only in this Life Man of all other Beings in this lower World would certainly be the most miserable I cannot say that all the Evils which I have mentioned would happen to all if the Providence of God did not rule the World but that every man would be in danger of them all and have nothing to support and comfort him against the fear of that danger For the Nature of Man consider'd by it self is plainly insufficient for its own happiness so that we must necessarily look abroad and seek for it somewhere else And who can shew us that good that is equal to all the wants and necessities all the capacities and desires all the fears and hopes of humane Nature Whatsoever can answer all these must have these following Properties First It must be an All-sufficient good Secondly It must be perfect goodness Thirdly It must be firm and unchangeable in it self Fourthly It must be such a good as none can deprive us of and take away from us Fifthly It must be eternal Sixthly It must be able to support and comfort us in every condition and under all the accidents and adversities of humane Life Lastly It must be such a good as can give perfect rest and tranquillity to our minds Nothing that is short of all this can make us happy And no Creature no not the whole Creation can pretend to be all this to us All these Properties meet only in God who is the perfect and supreme Good as I shall endeavour in the following Discourse more particularly to shew and consequently That God is the only happiness of Man First God is an All-sufficient Good And this does import two things Wisdom to contrive our happiness and Power to effect it for neither of these without the other is sufficient and both these in the highest and most eminent degree are in God He is infinitely Wise to design and contrive our happiness because he knows what Happiness is and how to frame us so as to be capable of the happiness he designs for us and how to order and dispose all other things so as that they shall be no hindrance and impediment to it He perfectly understands all the possibilities of things and how to fit means to any end He knows all our wants and how to supply them all our hopes and desires and how to satisfie them He fore-sees all the dangers and evils which threaten us and knows how to prevent or divert them if he think fit or if he permit them to come how to support us under them or to deliver us out of them or to turn them to our greater benefit and advantage in the last issue and result of things His Wisdom cannot be surprized by any accident which he did not fore-see and which he is not sufficiently provided against The wisdom of men is but short and imperfect and liable to infinite errors and mistakes In many cases men know not what is safest and best for them nor whether this or that will conduce most to their happiness Nay it often happens that those very means which the wisest men chuse for their security do prove the occasions of their ruine and they are thrown down by those very ways whereby they thought to raise and to establish themselves Especially if God breathe upon the Counsels of men how are their designs blasted How are they infatuated and foil'd in their deepest contrivances and snared in the work of their own hands When it is of the Lord the wisdom of the greatest Politicians is turned into foolishness For there is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord. But the Divine Wisdom being founded upon infinite knowledge is thereby secur'd against all possibility of error and mistake God perfectly knows the natures and the powers of all his Creatures and therefore can never be mistaken in the use and application of them to any of his purposes So that none of his designs of love and mercy to the Sons of men can miscarry for want of good contrivance or wise conduct And as he is perfectly wise to contrive our happiness so is he infinitely powerful to effect it and to remove out of the way all the obstacles and impediments of it We may understand many times what would conduce to our happiness but may not be able to compass it but nothing is out of the reach of Omnipotency Many things are difficult to us but nothing is too hard for God Many things are impossible with us but with God all things are possible For He is the Fountain and Original of all Power from whom it is deriv'd and upon whom it depends and to whom it is perfectly subject and subordinate He can do all things at once and in
the land of the living unless it be that one infallible Point of Wisdom to which God directs every man and of which every man is capable viz. Religion and the Fear of God Vnto man he said Behold the fear of the Lord that is wisdom and to depart from evil is understanding Secondly When knowledge and wisdom are with great difficulty in any competent measure attain'd how easily are they lost By a disease by a blow upon the head by a sudden and violent passion which may disorder the strongest Brain and confound the clearest Understanding in a moment Nay even the excess of knowledge and wisdom especially if attended with pride as too often it is is very dangerous and does many times border upon distraction and run into madness Like an Athletick constitution and perfect state of health which is observ'd by Physicians to verge upon some dangerous disease and to be a forerunner of it And when a man's Understanding is once craz'd and shatter'd how are the finest notions and thoughts of the wisest man blunder'd and broken perplex'd and entangled like a puzled lump of silk so that the man cannot draw out a thought to any length but is forc'd to break it off and to begin at another end Upon all which and many more accounts Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom which is so very imperfect so hard to be attain'd and yet so easie to be lost 2. Neither let the mighty man glory in his might Which whether it be meant of natural strength of body or of military force and power how weak and imperfect is it and how frequently foil'd by an unequal strength If we understand it of the natural strength of men's bodies how little reason is there to glory in that in which so many of the Creatures below us do by so many degrees excell us In that which may so many ways be lost by sickness by a maime and by many other external Accidents and which however will decay of it self and by Age sink into infirmity and weakness And how little reason is there to glory in that which is so frequently foil'd by an unequal strength of which Goliah is a famous Instance When he defied the Host of Israel and would needs have the matter decided by single Combate God inspired David to accept the Challenge who though he was no wise comparable to him in strength and would have been nothing in his hands in close fight yet God directed him to assail him at a distance by a weapon that was too hard for him a stone out of a sling which struck the Giant in the forehead and brought his unwieldy bulk down to the Earth Or if by might we understand military force and power how little likewise is that to be gloried in considering the uncertain events of War and how very often and remarkably the Providence of God doth interpose to cast the Victory on the unlikely Side It is Solomon's observation that such are the interpositions of Divine Providences in humane Affairs that the Event of things is many times not at all answerable to the power and probability of second Causes I returned says he and saw under the Sun that the race is not to the swift nor the battel to the strong And one way among many others whereby the Providence of God doth often interpose to decide the Events of War is by a remarkable change of the Seasons and Weather in favour of one Side As by sending great Snows or violent Rains to hinder the early motion and march of a powerful Army to the disappointment or prejudice of some great Design By remarkable Winds and Storms at Sea to prevent the Conjunction of a powerful Fleet And by governing all these for a long time together so visibly to the Advantage of one Side us utterly to defeat the well laid design of the other Of all which by the great mercy and goodness of God to us we have had the happy experience in all our late signal Deliverances and Victories And here I cannot but take notice of a passage to this purpose in the Book of Job Which may deserve our more attentive regard and consideration because I take this Book to be incomparably the most ancient of all other and much elder than Moses And yet it is written with as lively a sense of the Providence of God and as noble Figures and Flights of Eloquence as perhaps any Book extant in the World The Passage I mean is where God to convince Job of his ignorance in the secrets of Nature and Providence poseth him with many hard Questions and with this amongst the rest Hast thou entred into the treasures of the Snow hast thou seen the treasures of the Hail which I have reserv'd against the time of trouble against the Day of Battel and War The meaning of which is that the Providence of God doth sometimes interpose to determine the Events of War by governing the Seasons and the Weather and by making the Snows and Rains the Winds and Storms to fulfil his word and to execute his pleasure Of this we have a remarkable Instance in the defeat of Sisera's mighty Army against whom in the Song of Deborah the Stars are said to have fought in their courses The expression is Poetical but the plain meaning of it is that by mighty and sudden Rains which the common Opinion did ascribe to a special influence of the Planets the River of Kishon near which Sisera's Army lay was so raised and swoln as to drown the greatest part of that huge Host For so Deborah explains the fighting of the Stars in their courses against Sisera They fought says she from Heaven the Stars in their courses fought against Sisera the River of Kishon swept them away As if the Stars which were supposed by their influence to have caused those sudden and extraordinary Rains had set themselves in Battel-array against Sisera and his Army Therefore let not the mighty man glory in his might which is so small in it self but in opposition to God is weakness and nothing The weakness of God says St. Paul is stronger than men All power to do mischief is but impotence and therefore no matter of boasting Why boastest thou thy self thou Tyrant that thou art able to do mischief the goodness of God endureth continually The goodness of God is too hard for the pride and malice of man and will last and hold out when that has tir'd and spent it self Thirdly Let not the rich man glory in his riches In these men are apt to pride themselves even the meanest and poorest spirits who have nothing to be proud of but their money when they have got good store of that together how will they swell and strut as if because they are rich and increased in goods they wanted nothing But we may do well to consider that Riches are things without us not the real Excellencies of our Nature but