Principles of all Religious Obligations are deduced p. 202. Which are reduced to five Heads p. 102 103. CHAP. III. OF the necessity of believing the existence of God in order to our being truly Religious p. 104 105. Atheism resolved into the corruption of mens Wills and Imaginations Sect. 1. p. 106 107 108 109. The particular causes of it reduced to nine Heads and of the folly and unreasonableness of them p. 109 to p. 157. Of the great folly and madness of Atheism in its self p. 157 158. This shewn at large in six particulars p. 158 to p. 196. CHAP. IV. THat to the founding the Obligations of Religion it is necessary we should acknowledge the divine Providence p. 196 197 198 199. What are the particular Acts of Providence which we are to acknowledg shewn in five Particulars p. 200 to 244. The Divine Providence proved first à Priori by Arguments drawn from the nature of God which are reduced to four Heads p. 245 to 256. secondly à Posteriori by Arguments drawn from sensible effects of God in the World of which six instances are given p. 256 to p. 310. The most considerable Objections against a Divine Providence reduced to five Heads and particularly answered p. 310 to p. 354. CHAP. V. THe necessity of acknowledging divine Rewards and Punishments to oblige us to be truly Religious p. 355 356 357 358. How far it is necessary we should believe them shewn in four particulars p. 358 to 369. Of the Universal acknowledgment of future Rewards and Punishments p. 370 371 372 373. The reality of these future Rewards and Punishments proved by six Arguments p. 373 to 399. By what means our belief of future Rewards and Punishments is to be acquired and confirmed shewn in four particulars p. 399 to 410. Of the force and power of this belief to oblige us to be truly Religious p. 410 to 417. CHAP. VI. THe necessity of Right Notions of God to oblige us to be truly Religious p. 417 418. In what respects they are necessary to oblige us to be truly Religious shewn in four particulars p. 419 to p. 444. Of the way of forming right Notions of God in general p. 445 to 449. Si◠general Rules laid down for the framing right Notions of God p. 449 to 484. Of the common causes of mens misapprehensions of God in si◠particular instances p. 485 to 513. OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE PART II. CHAP. I. Concerning the Being and Nature of Moral Goodness ALL Humane Actions are either Necessary or Sinfull or Indifferent The Necessary are such as are commanded the Sinful such as are forbidden by God the Indifferent such as are neither commanded nor forbidden but left entirely free to our Choice and Discretion Again the necessary and the sinful actions are either such as are necessary and sinfull in themselves and are commanded and forbidden upon the account of some Good and Evil that is inseparable to their Natures or such as are indifferent in their own Natures as to any good or evil inherent in them but are made necessary or sinful by some positive Command or Prohibition superinduced upon them Of the first sort are those which we call Moral Actions as being the subject matter of the Moral Law which commands and forbids nothing but what is essentially and immutably good and evil and whilst there was no other Law but this every Action which did not oblige by some eternal Reason or which is the same by some inseparable good or evil was left free and indifferent But in process of time God superadded to this Moral Law a great many Positive ones whereby he obliged men to do and forbear sundry of those indifferent things which were left to their liberty by the Law of Nature For such we call the Rites and Ceremonies of the Mosaick Law all which were indifferent before they were imposed and as soon as ever the Imposition was taken off from them did immediately return to their Primitive Indifferency so that by the abolition of their Ceremonial Law the Jews were restored to all the Liberties of the Moral excepting only the matter of the two Sacraments and of maintaining a visible Communion with the Church which are determined by positive Laws of Christianity And of this later sort of necessary and sinful Actions are not only all those indifferent ones which God himself has commanded and forbidden immediately but also all those which he commands and forbids by his Vice-roys and Representatives in this World For whatsoever he hath not commanded or forbidden by his own immediate Dictate and Authority he hath Authorized his Vicegerents to command or forbid as they shall judge it most expedient for the Publick So that when they command what God hath not forbidden or forbid what he hath not commanded their will is God's who commands us by their Mouths and stamps their Injunctions with his own Authority And of this distinction between actions that are morally and positively Necessary the Scripture frequently takes notice and particularly Mich. vi 6.7 8. Wherewithall shall I come before the Lord and bow my self before the high God shall I come before him with Burnt-Offerings with Calves of a year old c. No these are not the things that will render me acceptable in his eyes and procure me a welcome Admission into his Presence and yet it is certain that these things were then required and commanded and therefore were positively necessary but that they were not necessary in themselves upon the account of any intrinsick Goodness that was in them is evident from what follows He hath shewed thee O man what is good as much as if he should have said the things above named are in their own nature indifferent having neither good nor evil in themselves and are made necessary meerly by positive Command upon which account they are insufficient to recommend you to God but there are other things that carry an intrinsick Beauty and Goodness in their Nature by which they strictly oblige you to imbrace and practise them and do thereupon recommend you by their own native Charms to the Love and Favour of God and what these good things are he hath sufficiently shewn or discovered to you viz. To do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God which are the main and principal Duties that he requires of you Which plainly implies that there are some Actions which are morally that is in their own Natures eternally good and therefore eternally necessary and some that are necessary only because for some present Reason God Wills and Commands them For no account can be given why he should be more pleased with Justice and Mercy and Humility than with Sacrifice unless we suppose the former to be good and therefore necessary upon immutable Reasons and upon that account to be immutably pleasing to him and the latter to be necessary only upon mutable reasons which therefore were to lose their Necessity as soon as those reasons
not to live like Hogs that wallow in the Mire while they are full and whine and clamor when they are empty which forbid them to feed on Eagles and other Birds of Prey to instruct them to live by honest Industry and not by Rapine which prohibits Fish without Scales that generally live in the Mud to teach the evil of Sensuality and earthly-mindedness c. From all which it is evident that Moral Goodness was the constant Mark at which all the positive Precepts of their Law were levelled AND then as for the Christian Religion all the positive Precepts it contains are directed to the same End It requires us to believe in Jesus Christ and in his Mediation to draw near unto God the Design of which Faith it expresly tells us is to Sanctifie our natures Acts 26.18 and to purifie our hearts Acts 15.9 It enjoyns us to be Baptized into the name of Jesus and for what purpose but to oblige us thereby to die to sin and to walk in newness of life Rom. 6.4 It requires us to commemorate our Saviour's Passion in a Sacramental Communion of his Body and Blood and to what End but only to excite us to Love and Thankfulness to God and Charity towards one another 1 Cor. 5.7 8. In a word it requires us to live in Vnity with the Church and not to separate our selves from her sacred Assemblies and for what other reason but that we might become an holy Temple and an habitation of God by being compacted together into an uniform and regular Society Eph. 2.21 22. Since therefore all the Precepts both of the Old and New Testament which are purely positive do bear a Respect to Moral Goodness and were imposed by God in subserviency thereunto it is evident that that is the principal Mark which he designs and aims at III. ANOTHER Evidence from Scripture that Moral Goodness is the principal Matter of our Duty is the great Contempt which God expresses of the positive Duties of Religion when ever they are separated from moral Goodness For thus concerning the Positives of the Jewish Religion we are told that the Sacrifice of the wicked is an Abomination to the Lord. Prov. 15.8 And concerning the Whole of their positive Religion the Prophet thus pronounces in the Name of God to what purpose is the multitude of your Sacrifices to me saith the Lord I am full of the burnt-Offerings of Rams and of the fat of fed Beasts i. e so full as that I loath them and I delight not in the Blood of Bullocks or of Lambs or of He-Goats When ye come to appear before me who hath required these things at your hands to tread my Courts bring no more vain Oblations Incense is Abomination to me the new Moons and Sabbaths the calling of Assâ—emblies I cannot away with it is Iniquity even the Solemn meetings Your new Moons and your appointed Feasts my Soul hateth they are a trouble to me I am weary to bear them And when you spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes yea when ye make many Prayers I will not hear And what I beseech you is the reason that God should thus dislike his own Institutions why he plainly tells you your hands are full of blood your Cruelty and Oppression doth prophane your Worship and turn it all into Impiety Isai. 1.11 to the 16th For so Isai. 66.3 he plainly tells them he that killeth an Ox is as if he slew a Man he that Sacrificeth a Lamb as if he cut off a Dogs neck he that offereth an Oblation as if he offered Swines blood he that burneth Incense as if he blessed an Idol and why so why they have chosen their own ways i. e. of Impiety and Wickedness and their Soul delighteth in their Abominations Nor doth God express a less Contempt of the Positives of Christianity when separated from Moral Goodness For thus St. James tells us even of our Faith or Belief in Jesus that without Works it is dead that is a sensless squalid thing that hath neither Life nor Beauty in it James 2.17 And S. Peter compares Baptism to the washing of a Swine when it is separated from Purity of Life and Manners 2 Pet. 2.22 And our receiving the Lords Supper without Charity and Devotion is by St. Paul stiled coming together to Condemnation 1 Cor. 11.34 All which is a plain Demonstration that moral Goodness is the principal matter that God insists on since 't was this that sanctified the Sacrifices of the Jews and crowned all their Ceremonial Observances with the divine Acceptation and without this all their other Services were noisom and offensive to him and it is this that perfumes our Faith and our Sacraments our Prayers and Religious Assemblies and renders them a grateful and sweet smelling savor in the Nostrils of God and without this they are all a hateful stench and Annoyance to him Doubtless therefore the principal Matter of Duty which God requires of us is that which he esteems the Grace and Fragrancy of all our other Duties IV. ANOTHER Evidence from Scripture that moral Goodness is the principal matter that God requires of us is that where ever we find the Whole of Religion summed up in a few Particulars they are always such as are Parts and Instances of moral Goodness Thus in the above cited Mic. 6. what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Thus also the Prophet Isaiah giving an account to his People what they were to do in order to their Reconciliation with God thus directs them wash ye make ye clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well seek judgment relieve the oppressed judg the Fatherless plead for the Widow come now and let us reason together saith the Lord Isai 1.16.17 18. So also our blessed Saviour sums up the Whole Duty of Man into two Particulars and what are they why thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy soul and with all thy mind this is the first and great Commandment And the second is like unto it thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self on these two Commandments hang the Law and the Prophets Mat. 22.37 38 39 40. Thus St. James True Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the Fatherless and Widows in their Affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the Word James 1.27 And elsewhere the Apostle sums up the whole Law into one leading Head of Morality and that is Love for love saith he is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 So this Observation generally holds true that in all those Summaries of Duty mentioned in the holy Scripture only such Duties are taken Notice of as are Parts and Instances of Morality Which is a plain Demonstration that 't is this which God principally requires since 't is this which he most takes notice
did alter or cease For had Sacrifices been good in their own Natures their goodness had been as unalterable as their Nature whereas on the contrary we find that whereas their Nature neither is nor can be altered yet their Goodness or Necessity is For as before God adopted them into the Rubrick of Religion by his own positive Institution they were indifferent things so after this Institution was repealed by a contrary Command they became unlawful So that it is now as necessary that we should not Offer them in the Worship of God as it was before that we should And the same may be said of all the other Rites of the Mosaick Law which being in their own Nature Indifferent could no otherewise be converted either into Necessary or Sinful but by God's express Command or Prohibition Whereas Justice and Mercy c. are good in themselves abstractly considered from all Will and Command and are not good meerly because they are Commanded but are commanded because they are good because they carry with them such unalterable Reasons as do in themselves render the practice of them eternally necessary For tho there be very good reason why men should not offer material Sacrifices notwithstanding they were once injoyned yet it can never be reasonable for them to be unjust or cruel or proud because the contrary vertues carry such fixed and immutable Reasons with them as will bind and oblige us to eternity insomuch that tho we had a Dispensation to be proud under the Broad-Seal of Heaven yet 't would still be very absurd and unreasonable to be so And as things that are only positively necessary or sinful derive all their necessity and sinfulness from God's direct or express Command and Prohibition so they cannot be commanded or forbidden by Consequence For if the Matter of them be antecedently Lawful or Indifferent it must necessarily remain so till it is directly commanded or forbidden there being no other Reason to bound and limit it but only the Will of the Law-giver in whose disposal it is and therefore till he directly signifies his Will either for or against it it must remain as it is i. e. Free and Indifferent But you will say Suppose God hath commanded such an indifferent thing for such a Reason doth it not thence follow that he thereby commands every other indifferent thing that hath the same reason for it I answer No for if the Reason why he commands it be necessary and eternal it is not a thing indifferent but morally necessary and so is every thing else that hath the same Reason for it and consequently the reason of the Law tho it be applyed but to one thing extends to every thing of the same Nature because in all moral Cases the Reason of the Law is the Law But if the thing commanded be in it self indifferent the Reason why it is commanded cannot be necessary and therefore tho there be the same Reason why another thing of the same Nature should be commanded yet it doth not necessarily oblige unless it be commanded actually because in such Cases it is not the Reason but the Authority of the Law that obliges and therefore where there is only the Reason and not the Law it lays no obligation on the Conscience From the whole therefore it is evident what is the difference between things that are positively and morally Necessary and Sinful which I thought very necessary to explain at large for the giving a fuller light to the ensuing Discourse in which I shall endeavor to shew First THAT there is such an intrinsick Goodness in some Humane Actions as renders them for ever necessary and obliging to us Secondly THAT God hath sufficiently discovered to us what those Humane Actions are which carry with them this perpetual obligation Thirdly THAT these Actions which carry with them this perpetual obligation are the main and principal parts of Religion SECT I. That there is such an Intrinsick Good in some Humane Actions as render them for ever Necessary and obliging to us GOOD is twofold Absolute or Respective or the Good of the End and the Good of the Means The good of the End is that which is the Perfection and Happiness of any Being the good of the Means is that which tends and conduces thereunto As for Instance the absolute Good of a Brute Animal consists in the Perfection and Satisfaction of its Sense or in having perfect Feeling and Sensation of such things as are most grateful to its Appetite and Senses It s respective Good is the Means by which its Senses are perfected or rendred lively and vigorous and by which it 's provided for with such things as are grateful and pleasing to them For there being in every animate nature a Principle whereby it 's necessarily inclined to promote its own Preservation and Well-being that which hath in it a fitness to promote this End is called Good as on the contrary that which is apt to hinder it Evil. Now Man being not only a sensitive but a rational Creature hath a twofold Good belonging to his Nature the first Sensitive which is the same with that of brute Animals consisting in the Perfection and Satisfaction of his bodily Senses and Appetites and in those means which conduce thereunto and this for distinction sake is called his Natural Good the second Rational which consists in the Perfection and Satisfaction of his Rational Faculties and in those means which tend thereunto and this is stiled his Moral Good though in reality 't is as much Natural as the former For Man being naturally as well Rational as Sensitive that which promotes his Rational Perfection and Happiness is no less naturally good for him than that which promotes his Sensitive Nay his Rational Nature being the much more noble and excellent part of him that which naturally promotes the Perfection and Happiness of it is in it self a much greater good to his Nature and ought to be preferred by him before any of those Natural goods which conduce only to the happiness of his sensitive Nature and he who indulges his sensitive Part in any Pleasure which his Rational disallows doth thereby create a torment to himself and raise a Devil in his own mind For tho Reason and Religion doth allow that the Sensitive nature should be gratified in all its natural Appetites and Desires yet neither allow that it should be pampered and indulged in any such Excsses as are prejudicial either to it self or to that Rational Nature whereunto it is joyned and he who indulges his Sense in any such Excesses renders himself obnoxious to his own Reason and to gratifie the Brute in him displeases the Man and sets his two Natures at variance So that there is nothing can be naturally good for us that is any way inconsistent with what is morally so i. e. with what conduces to the Perfection and Happiness of our rational Nature and tho this Natural and Moral Good are no way
of Horror in the Conscience Anguish in the mind Discord in the Affections Diseases in the Body and Confusions and Disturbances in Humane Society Since therefore the Divine Wisdom and Contrivance hath thus inseparably coupled good Effects to good Actions and evil ones to evil it hath hereby very plainly and sensibly declared to us what it would have us do and what not For seeing it hath so constituted things as that in the Course of Nature such Proportions of Happiness do necessarily result to us from such Actions and such Proportions of Misery from their Contraries what can be more evident than that its Design was hereby to encourage us to the one and affright us from the other So that by these natural Rewards and Punishments which in the Course of things God hath chained to our Actions he hath as expresly prescribed us what to do and what not as he could have done if he had spoken to us in an audible voice from the Battlements of Heaven For since the whole Train of Natural Effects is to be resolved into the Providence of God and since his Providence hath so ordered and contrived things as that in the ordinary Course of them good Effects do spring out of good Actions and evil out of evil ones what else could he intend by it but to allure us to the one and terrifie us from the other For it is by Rewards and Punishments that all Lawgivers declare their Will and Pleasure concerning those Actions which they command and sorbid and therefore since God in his Providential Government of the World hath thought good to link natural Rewards to such Actions and natural Punishments to such these are to be lookt upon as the great Sanctions of the Law of Nature whereby he commands what pleases and prohibits what displeases him For when God had no otherwise revealed himself to the World than only by the establsht Course and Nature of things that was the great Bible by which alone Mankind was instructed in their Duty and there being no revealed Threats or Promises annexed to good and bad Actions Gods Will and Pleasure concerning them was visible only in the good and bad Consequents which they drew after them which are so plain and obvious to the Observation of Mankind that 't would be the most inexcusable Inadvertency not to take Notice of them So that the moral Good and Evil of all Actions finally resolves into the natural Good and Evil that is appendant to them and therefore are our Actions morally good because they are naturally beneficial to us and therefore morally evil because they are naturally prejudicial and hurtful and those which in their own nature are neither good nor evil are indifferent in themselves and left altogether undetermined by the Law of Nature which commands and forbids nothing but under the Sanction of those natural Rewards and Punishments which in the Course of things are made necessary to Humane Actions V. TO these natural Rewards and Punishments which God hath entailed upon good and bad Actions he hath thought good many times to superadd supernatural Blessings and Judgments For tho he had before sufficiently expressed his Will concerning Humane Actions in the great Bible of Nature and by their natural Effects had plainly enough distinguished the good from the bad yet considering what heedless and inobservant Creatures we are and how apt to overlook the ordinary Consequents of our Actions he hath not altogether abandoned us to the easie Instructions of Nature but out of his superabundant Care to shew us what is Good and lead us to our Duty and Happiness he hath from time to time seconded the natural Rewards and Punishments of our Actions with supernatural Favours and Judgments that so by these he might awake our drowsie Attention and revive in us the languishing sense of our Duty Of which we have infinite Instances in the several Ages of the World there being scarce any History either Sacred or Prosane that abounds not with them Several of which both Blessings and Judgments do as plainly evince themselves to be intended by God for Rewards and Punishments as if they had been attended with a Voice from Heaven proclaiming the Reasons for which they were sent For how many famous Instances have of we miraculous Deliverances of Righteous Persons who by an Invisible Hand have been rescued from the greatest Dangers when in all outward appearance their Condition was hopeless and desperate and of wonderful Blessings that have hapned to them not only without but contrary to all secondary Causes of some that have been so eminently rewarded in kind as that the Goods which they received were most visible Significations of the Goods which they did of others who have received the Blessings which they have asked whilst they were praying for them and obtained them with such distinguishing Circumstances as plainly signified them to be the Answers and Returns of their devout Addresses to Heaven And so on the contrary how many notable Examples are there of such miraculous Judgments inflicted upon unrighteous Persons as have either exceeded the Power of secondary Causes or been caused by them contrary to their natural tendencies of men that have been punished in the very Act of their Sin and sometimes in the very Part by which they have offended that have had the evil of their Sin retaliated upon them in a correspondent Evil of Suffering and been struck with those very Judgments which they have imprecated on themselves in the Justification of a known Falshood All which supernatural Judgments and Blessings of God are only his Comments on the Text of Nature by which he farther explains to us the Meaning of those natural Rewards and Punishments which Vertue and Vice draw after them and shews us what clear Indications they are of his Almighty Pleasure and Displeasure For when he rewards men supernaturally it is for those Actions that carry a natural Reward with them and when he punishes them supernaturally it is for such Actions as do carry a natural Punishment with them so that his supernatural Rewards and Punishments do speak the same Sense and Language with his natural only they speak plainer and louder to rouse and awake those stupid Souls that are deaf to and regardless of the soft and still voice of natural Rewards and Punishments Thus when the old World by not attending to the natural Consequents of their own Actions had almost extinguished their Sense of Good and Evil God by a supernatural Deluge in which he drowned the wicked and preserved the righteous consigned to all future Generations a standing Monument of his Hatred of Sin and Love of Righteousness that so by the Remembrance of it he might keep Mens heedless Minds more attentive to the natural Rewards and Punishments of their Actions And when the Remembrance of this was almost worn out and with it mens natural Sense of good and evil God by raining down Fire and Brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorra and rescuing
inforced And if notwithstanding they would be so regardless of God as to take no notice of his Judgments and Mercies so rude to his Authority as not to mind either his Law within or his Law without them upon what reasonable Pretence can they excuse themselves But then as for us Christians we have not only all those natural Discoveries of our Duty which the Heathen had and all those Supernatural ones which the Jews had but a great deal more For in our Revelation the Laws and Motives of Vertue are set before us in a much clearer Light and are neither wrapt up in Mystical Senses nor overcast with typical Representations but laid before us in the most plain and easie Propositions For that which was the Mystical Sense of the Jewish Law is the literal Sense of the Christian in which all those Precepts and Promises and Threats which were delivered to the Jews in dark Riddles obscure and typical Adumbrations are brought forth to us from behind the Curtain and proposed in plain and popular Articles So that if we still continue in our sinful Courses we are of all men the most inexcusable The Heathen may plead against the Jews that their Law of Nature was not so clear in its Precepts nor yet so cogent in its Motives as the Law of Moses the Jews may plead against us Christians that their Law of Moses was neither so express in its Precepts nor yet so intelligible in its best and most powerful Motives as our Gospel but as for us Christians we have nothing to plead but by our own Obstinacy against the clearest Discoveries of our Duty do stand condemned to everlasting Silence So that when it shall appear at the dread Tribunal of God that we have persisted in our wickedness notwithstanding all these Advantages we must expect to be reproached by all the Reasonable World to be exploded and hiss'd at not only by Saints and Angels but by the Jews and the Gentiles and the Devils themselves who will all conspire with our own Consciences to second our woful Doom with the Loud Acclamation of Just and Righteous art thou O Lord in all thy Ways Wherefore as we would not perish for ever without Pity and Excuse let us make hast to forsake all ungodliness and worldly Lusts and to live soberly and righteously and godly in this present World SECT III. That those Actions which carry with them this perpetual Obligation are the main and principal Parts of Religion THE truth of which is most evident from the abovenamed Text Mic. 6.8 and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Which Interrogation tho it implies not an absolute Negation viz. that the Lord required nothing else of them for under the Law he required Sacrifices and sundry other positive Duties as under the Gospel he requires Sacraments and Reading and Hearing his holy Word c. which are positive Duties as well as those legal Institutions of Moses yet it plainly implies a comparative Negation viz. that the Lord requires nothing else so principally and affectionately so for the sake of the things themselves and upon the account of their own inherent Beauty and Goodness as he doth these Moral Duties here specified He did indeed require the Jews to offer Sacrifice to him and to perform those other Ceremonial Rites specified in the Law of Moses and for them wilfully to have neglected those Duties would have been such an avowed Defiance to his Authority as would have rendred them justly obnoxious to all the Judgments threatned in their Law but yet he did much more earnestly require them to be just and merciful and humble and manifested himself to be far better pleased with one Act of Moral Goodness than with a thousand Sacrifices And thus he requires of us Christians that we should communicate with him and with one another in our Evangelical Sacraments and dutifully conform to all those sacred Institutions and Solemnities of Religion which are contained in the Gospel and if we wilfully neglect them we justly incur all that everlasting Vengeance which is there denounced but yet our sincere compliance with the immutable Obligations of Piety and Vertue is a thousandfold more acceptable to God than our strictest Observation of these his positive Institutions So that the Question in the Text what doth the Lord require of thee plainly implies this Proposition that tho God doth exact of us certain Duties which are not moral i. e. have no intrinsick necessity in them yet it is the Moral Duties such as Justice and Mercy and Humility which he principally requires at our hand Thus concerning Sacrifice God plainly tells us I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice i. e. I will have Mercy rather than Sacrifice Hos. 6.6 And the Wise man assures us that to do Justice is more acceptable to the Lord than Sacrifice Prov. 21.3 And to the same purpose our Saviour himself pronounceth even before that Ceremonial Worship was Abolished that to love the Lord with all our heart with all our understanding with all our Soul and with all our strength and to love our neighbour as our selves is more than all burnt-Offerings and Sacrifices Mark 12.33 But for the clearer Demonstration of this great and necessary Truth I shall endeavour First to prove the Truth of it by some Scripture Arguments Secondly to assign the Reasons of it As for the Proof of it the following Particulars will be abundantly sufficient First THAT the Scripture plainly declares that the great Design of all the Doctrinals of Religion hath always been to move and perswade men to the practice of Moral Goodness Secondly THAT the main Drift and Scope of all the positive Duties of Religion hath been always to improve and perfect men in Moral Goodness Thirdly THAT God expresses in Scripture a great Contempt of all the positive Duties of Religion when ever they are separated from Moral Goodness Fourthly THAT where ever we find the Whole of Religion summ'd up in a few Particulars they are always such as are Instances of Moral Goodness Fifthly THAT wherever such Persons as have been most dear and acceptable to God are described in Scripture their Character always consists of some Instances or other of Moral Goodness Sixthly THAT the Scripture plainly declares that at the great Account between God and our Souls the main Inquisition will be concerning our Moral Good or Evil. I. THE Scripture expresly declares that the great Design of the Doctrins of Religion is to move and perswade men to Moral Goodness For so the Apostle speaking of the Grace of God i. e. the Gospel assures us that its great Design is to teach men to deny all ungodliness and Worldly Lusts and to live soberly righteously and Godly in this present World Tit. 2.12 And if we consider the Doctrines in Particular we shall find that they all conspire in this great Design For so the Doctrine of eternal life is
Nature we do in obeying them take Impression from him and stamp his blessed Nature on our own For all those virtuous Dispositions of mind which we acquire by the Practice of Virtue are so many genuine Signatures of God taken from the Seal of his Law and Participations of his Nature For so Holiness which consists in a Conformity of Soul with the eternal Laws of Goodness is in Scripture called the Signature or impression of the Spirit of God whereby we are sealed unto the day of Redemption Eph. 4.30 and such as do righteousness are said to be born of God 1 John 2.29 which implies their deriving from him who is their divine Parent a divine and Godlike Nature even as Children do their humane Nature from their humane Parents So that by the Practice of moral Goodness we receive from God the best thing he can bestow viz. a divine and Godlike Nature and consequently by so doing we render him the highest Honour and Glory For since we can no otherwise honour him but by receiving from him we doubtless do him the greatest honour when we receive Himself by partaking of the Perfections of his Nature which are the greatest Gift he can communicate to us Herein saith our Saviour is my Father Glorified that ye bear much fruit John 15.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the aforenamed Philosopher i. e. he only knows how to honour God who presenrs himself a Sacrifice to him carves his own Soul into a divine Image and composes his Mind into a Temple for the Entertainment of God and the Reception of the divine Light and Glory 'T is then therefore that we best honour God when by the Practice of true Godliness we conform our Wills and Affections to him and derive into our selves his Nature and Perfections and should you erect to him a Temple more magnificent than Solomons and load its Altars with Hecatombs of Sacrifices and make it perpetually ring with Psalms and resounding Choirs of Halelujahs it would not be comparably so great an Honour to him as to convert your own Souls into living Temples and make them the Habitations of his Glory and Perfections For he values no Sacrifice like that of an obedient Will delights in no Choir like that of pure and heavenly Affections nor hath he in all his Creation an Ensign of Honour so truly worthy of him as that of a divine and God-like Soul a Soul that reflects his Image and shines back his own Glory upon him Wherefore since 't is by the Practice of moral Goodness that we receive God and copie his Nature into our own it is no wonder he should make it the principal Part of our Duty For how can it be otherwise expected but that he should exact that chiefly of us which most conduces to his own glory Since then nothing we can do can conduce to his Glory but only our receiving Benefits from him and since no Benefit we receive from him can so much conduce to it as our receiving Himself and since we can no otherwise receive himself but by practising that Goodness which is the Perfection of his Nature we must hereby doubtless render him the greatest Honour and Glory II. GOD hath made moral Goodness the principal Part of our Duty because 't is by this that we do most truely imitate him For so you find in Scripture that wherever God is proposed to us for a Pattern of Action it is by some Act or other of Morality that we are required to transcribe and imitate him So 1 Pet. 1.16 be ye holy for I am holy and Luke 6.36 be ye merciful as your Father is merciful and Mat. 5.48 be you perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect And indeed 't is only in Moral Goodness that God can be the Pattern of our Imitation as for those Perfections of his which for Distinction-sake we call natural viz. his Omniscience and Omnipresence Omnipotence and Eternity they are all beyond the Sphere of our Imitation and therefore were never proposed to us as the Copies of our Action But as for his moral Perfections viz. his Goodness and Righteousness and Purity and Mercy they are the Fundamental Rules and Standards of all moral Action For the Nature of God as it is infinitely good and righteous is the eternal Fountain whence all the Laws of Morality are derived and all those moral Precepts by which he governs his rational Creation are only so many Exemplifications of the moral Perfections of his own Nature For the Holiness of God which comprehends all his moral Perfections consists in that essential Rectitude of Nature whereby he always chooses and acts conformably to the Dictates of his own infallible Reason and 't is to this Rectitude of choosing and acting that all his moral Laws do oblige us For moral Laws are only the Dictates of right Reason prescribing us what to do and what to avoid so that in our Complyance with them we follow the Rule of Gods own Will and Actions and thereby imitate the eternal Rectitude of his Nature For tho in those different States and Relations of God and Creature right Reason cannot be supposed to oblige him and us to all the same particular Choices and Actions yet it obliges us both to act reasonably in our respective States and Relations it obliges God to act reasonably and as it becomes the State and Relation of a God and Creator and it obliges us to act reasonably and as it becomes the State and Relation of men and Creatures And as for God He is invariably inclined to do all that right Reason obliges him to by the essential Rectitude of his own Nature and herein consists all his moral Perfection which is nothing else but the immutable Inclination of his Nature to do whatever is just and good and reasonable So that while we live according to the Dictates of Reason or which is the same thing the eternal Laws of Morality we trace and imitate the moral Perfections of God and in our Place and Station live at the same Rate and by the same Rule that He doth in his We do what God himself would do if he were in our Place and what the Son of God did do when he was in our Nature and there is no other Difference between his Life and ours but what necessarily arises out of our different States and Relations Since therefore Moral Goodness is an Imitation of God 't is no wonder that he so much prefers it before all other matter of Duty For he must needs be supposed to love that above all things which is the true Copie and Image of those Perfections of his Nature for the sake of which he loves Himself above all For he loves himself not merely because he is Himself but because he is in all respects morally Good and his Will and Power are perfectly compliant with the infallible Dictates of his own Reason and hence arises his infinite Complacency in himself that there is
and when he pleases directs them quite contrary to their Intentions for the way of Man saith the Prophet is not in himself it is not in Man that walketh to direct his steps Jer. 10.23 It is the Man that walks and acts but it is God alone that leads his Way and directs his Actions to what End he pleases ALL which it is necessary we should believe in order to our being truly religious For while we look upon God as a Foreiner to the World that hath altogether retired himself from the Affairs of it and abandoned it to the Disposal of blind Chance or Necessity he must stand for a Cypher in our Esteem and signifie no more to us than the Emperor of the World in the Moon who for all we know may be a glorious and puissant Prince but is so far removed from us and our Affairs that he can do us neither good nor hurt And if God intermeddle not with those Goods and Evils which happen here below what doth he signifie to us who live apart from him in another World from which he is wholly retired and withdrawn But if we firmly believe that there is nothing befalls us whether it be in the Course of Nature or by Chance or Design but by his Order and Direction we must lay aside our Reason and Humanity if for every Good we want or do receive we do not apply our selves to him with humble and submissive thankfull and ingenuous Minds and if under every Evil that we feel or fear we do not resign up our Wills and lift up our Eyes to him as to the sole Arbitrator of our Fate For where should we pay our Thanks or whence should we expect our Supplies and Deliverances but to him who is the Fountain of all Good and from him who is the supreme Moderator of all Events Who is there in Heaven or Earth whom we are so much concerned to please and so much obliged to acknowledge and submit to so much engaged to trust to and rely on as him who hath all our Fortunes in his Hands and the absolute Disposal of every thing in which we are or may or can be any way interested or concerned So that the Belief of Gods over-ruling Providence hath every Link of our Duty fastened to it in a strong and rational Concatenation and if it be loosened from this Principle the whole Chain must necessarily fall in sunder V. and Lastly To oblige us to be truly religious it is also necessary we should believe that God is the Supreme Governor of the rational World which is a distinct Branch of Providence from the former For all things whatsoever are subject to Gods Order and Disposal but in strictness of Speech 't is only rational Beings that are subject to his Government For Government supposes Laws and Laws Rewards and Punishments of which rational Beings alone are capable they alone having the power to deliberate and upon Deliberation to choose what is good and refuse what is Evil without which no Being can deserve either to be rewarded or punished So that the Government of God in strictness of Speech respects only the rational World consisting of Angels and Men. As for the Government of Angels 't is impossible we should understand any more of it than what God hath revealed because tho they converse with us and our Affairs yet we do not converse with them our Spiritual Nature by which we are near allied to them being shut up in Matter which like a Wall of Partition divides us from them and hinders us from looking over into their World and from seeing their Nature and Operations and surveying their Polity and Government Indeed so far as we understand their Natures we may easily understand the Laws by which God Governs them because we know Gods Laws are always adapted to the Natures of things and consequently since we know that they are rational Creatures we may conclude from thence that whatsoever is fit and decorous for rational Creatures as such they stand obliged to by the Law of their Natures But since there are particular Powers and Properties in their Natures which we understand not 't is impossible we should understand all the particular Laws by which they are Governed Only thus much in general we know that the whole Order of Angelical Beings were from the first Moment of their Creation subjected to Laws fitted to their Nature by which natural Laws they stood obliged to obey their Creator in all his positive Commands and Institutions and that these Laws whatsoever they were both natural and positive were established in Rewards and Punishments by which if they continued obedient they were to continue for ever in their most blissful Ranks and Stations but if they rebelled were immediately to be banished thence into everlasting Wretchedness and Misery that a certain Order of these Angelical Beings excited either by their Pride or Envy or sensual Affection did under their Head or Chieftain revolt from God by transgressing some natural or positive Law for which they were expelled the high Territories of Happiness and driven into these lower Parts of the World where under the Prince of their Rebellion they have ever since waged War against God and Man that in this state of War they are under the Restraint of Gods almighty Power who sets Bounds to their Power and Malice which it cannot pass and determins it to what Ends and Purposes he pleases employing it sometimes to try and chasten good Men sometimes to execute his Wrath upon the Children of Disobedience and sometimes again letting it loose merely to display his own almighty Power in its Defeat and Overthrow in which State they are reserved as Prisoners at large to the Judgment of the great Day whereby together with wicked men they shall be sentenced and confined to everlasting Flames and Darkness that the good Angels in reward of their constant Obedience are continued and fixed in a most blissful Condition in which they enjoy the constant Smiles of God and the unspeakable Pleasure of being entirely resigned to his Will who upon all Occasions sends them to and fro the World as the great Messengers and Ministers of his Providence to Minister to the Recovery of recoverable Sinners and to pour out the Vials of his Wrath upon the obstinate and unreclaimable to assist protect and comfort good Men while they live and when they depart from hence to conduct their Spirits through the aery Territories of the wicked Angels into those blissful Mansions that are prepared to receive them till the Resurrection at which time their Part will be to summon and gather both the good and bad before the Tribunal of Christ to receive their final Sentence to everlasting Weal or Wo. THIS is the main of what we know concerning Gods Government of Angels the sincere Belief of which will be of vast Advantage to us in the whole Course of our Religion For since there is such a mighty Colony of evil
reserving the absolute propriety in himself and his right being supreme absolute and independent and ours but subordinate and conditional whatsoever we can justly do he can justly do and abundantly more so that though we may argue this or that is just in the Creature therefore it is just in God yet we cannot argue è contra this or that is just in God therefore it is just in the Creature because his right in all things is infinitely Paramount to our right in any thing and therefore though he cannot without our own fault and forfeiture reduce us to a worse state than that of not being wherein he found us because to do so would be equivalent to the taking away from us more than he gave us and consequently more than he hath a right to yet Gods right being infinitely more absolute and extensive than ours he can justly take away from us infinitely more than we can justly take away from one another And therefore to correct the iniquities of wicked Nations and Parents God sometimes lays his hand upon good Kings and innocent Children and either deprives them of their comforts and pursues them with constant infelicities or puts an untimely period to their lives and when he doth so he hath an absolute right to do it which no other Being can pretend to Wherefore in attributing to God the perfections of the Creature we are carefully to distinguish between the state of God and Creatures and neither to ascribe to him any of those perfections which belong to a Creature as a Creature nor to bound the exercise of those absolute perfections we ascribe to him by the Rules and Limitations of the Creature V. ALTHOUGH in arguing from the perfections of the Creature to the perfections of God we are not to subject him to the Rules of a Creature yet we ought always to suppose his Will and Power to be intirely subject to the Moral perfections of his own nature For God who is infinitely exalted above all other Beings can be subject to no other Law but that of his own Essential Wisdom and Justice and Goodness and since every thing hath a right to exercise its own faculties so far forth as it is just and lawful God who is subject to no other Law but only that of his own perfections hath an essential right to will and do whatever that Law allows and approves of Now the perfections of God which give Law to his Will and Power are those which for distinction sake we call Moral because their Office is the same in him with that of moral Vertues in the Creature viz. to conduct and regulate his Will and Powers of action and these Moral perfections are his Wisdom and Goodness Justice and Truth which being all essential to him are as much a Law to his Will and Power as Moral Laws are to ours And to suppose his Will and Power not to be perfectly subject to them is to suppose him a very defective and imperfect Being a lawless Will and Power being the greatest defect in Nature Wherefore to secure our minds against all injurious apprehensions of God this is a most necessary Rule that we conceive him to be such a Being as can neither Will nor Act any thing but what his own Essential Wisdom and Goodness and Justice do approve that in all his Decrees Purposes Choices and Actions consults his Moral perfections and perfectly regulates himself by them and doth neither chuse nor refuse elect nor reprobate save nor damn without their full consent and approbation For to affirm that he is not obliged to regulate himself by Wisdom and Justice and Goodness or that he can do otherwise is to attribute to him a Power to Will and Act foolishly maliciously and unjustly which indeed is not so properly Power as Impotence and to suppose that he can thus Will and Act is to deny that he is infinitely Wise and Just and Good which utterly excludes all possibility of being otherwise in any respect or degree For to be infinitely Wise and Just is to be infinitely removed from folly and injustice which nothing can be that hath the least degree of possibility to act unwisely or unjustly Wherefore in conceiving of God it is always to be supposed that his Will and Power are so immutably subject to the Moral perfections of his Nature as that it is impossible for him to Will or Act against them For all that liberty of Will that is determinable to good or evil just or unjust is a flaw and imperfection in the reasonable nature because it speaks the Will to be defective in that which is the utmost possibility of Goodness and Justice i. e. in being immutably determined thereunto and therefore to attribute such a liberty to God is to scandalize his Nature and reproach it with imperfection For all that Power which is not conducted by Justice and Goodness is only power to do mischief to Tyrannize over other Beings and to sport and play with their miseries which is so far from being a perfection of Power that it proceeds from the most wretched weakness and impotence So that by attributing such a power to God we foully asperse and blaspheme him and instead of a God imagine a worse Devil and more qualified to do mischief than any that are now in Hell who though they are powerful enough to do mischief are none of them Omnipotently mischievous it is to imagine a God without a Deity that is without that Essential Rectitude of Will wherein all his Moral perfections do consist which are the Crown and Glory of his Nature For to be good and just are the brightest Rays of the Deity the Rays that illustrate and glorifie all his other perfections and without which infinite Knowledg and infinite Power would be nothing but infinite Craft and Mischief so that to imagine that he hath any Will or Power that is not Essentially subject to his Moral perfections is to deface the very beauty of his Nature and represent him the most horrid thing in the World Wherefore in conceiving of God we ought to fix this as the main and fundamental Rule of our thoughts that he hath no Will to Chuse or Power to Act but what are in perfect subjection to infinite Wisdom and Justice and Goodness and this will secure our minds from all those rigid and sour apprehensions of him which by reflecting on his Moral perfections do him the greatest dishonour and represent him the most disadvantageously to mankind VI. AND lastly It is also necessary that in conceiving of the perfections of God we always suppose them exactly harmonious and consistent with each other For all perfections of Being so far forth as they are perfections are consistent with each other and like strait lines drawn from the same Center run Parallel together without any crossing or interfering For there is nothing contrary to perfection but imperfection and there is no disagreement but what arises from contrariety
Doctrines which have been handled at large in other English Treatises of the Christian Faith and especially in that incomparable one of our most learned Bishop of Chester on the Creed a Book which next to the Bible I thankfully acknowledg my self more beholden to for my instruction in the Doctrines of Religion than to any one I ever read I have contracted my self into as narrow a compass as the barely necessary explication of them would permit me but where that renowned Pen hath insisted more Cursorily as for instance on the particular Offices of our blessed Mediator I have most enlarged my self though even there I have for brevity sake pretermitted some things I intended less immediate and necessary appertaining to the Argument UPON the whole I can truly say that to the best of my understanding I have herein delivered nothing but what is agreeable to the Doctrine of the Primitive Church which as the most faithful Comment on the holy Writings of our Saviour and his Apostles I have all along carefully consulted in doubtful and difficult cases and this is the reason why it hath stuck so long in hand the pains I have taken in consulting the ancient Monuments of Christianity about it being as I may truly say at least double to that of composing it and in following the Primitive Doctrine I have followed the Doctrine of the Church of England which in its Faith Government and Discipline I believe in my conscience is the most Primitive Church in the World As for the Method I have chosen which is to deduce all the Doctrines of Christianity from one general Head viz. the Doctrine of the Mediator it is the most convenient I could think of for my purpose which was to represent at once to the Readers view all the parts of our holy Religion in their natural connexion with and dependence on one another that so he might be the better able to judge of the beautiful contexture and admirable contrivance of the whole and that by seeing how regularly all the parts of it proceed out of one common Principle and conspire in one common end he may be the better satisfied that Christianity is so far from being a heap of incoherencies as some have injuriously represented it that considering it merely as an Hypothesis abstracted from all that external evidence that accompanies it the very Art and contrivance of it the proportion symetry and correspondence of its parts their subserviency to each other and the concurrence and tendency of them all together to the common ends of Religion are such as do apparently exceed all humane Invention and argue it to be the product of a divine mind For as he who would form a true Idea of the beauty of a Picture must not contemplate the parts of it separately but survey them all together and consider them in their proportions and correspondencies with each other so he who would frame a right Notion of Religion must not look upon it as it lies scattered and divided into single parts and propositions but consider them in contexture and as they are connected all together into one body or hypothesis For it is in their apt Junctures their mutual dependencies and admirable coherencies with one another that the beauty and harmony of the whole consists And therefore to do right to Christianity and enable the Reader to contemplate it with the greatest advantage I have endeavoured to represent to him the whole in a view and to give him a prospect of all the parts of it together in an harmonious union and connexion with each other For I verily believe that the mean opinion which some witty men have entertained of Christianity proceeds in a great measure from their broken and imperfect apprehensions of it they understand it piecemeal and take it asunder into single propositions which they consider separately and apart by themselves without ever putting them together into one regular System and presenting them to their thoughts in that orderly connexion wherein the holy Oracles have delivered them to us For I can scarce imagine how any man of sense should contemplate Christianity all together and throughly consider the harmonious coherence of all its parts and the wonderful contrivance of the whole without being captivated with the beauty and elegancy of it AND now I have nothing further to add concerning this Treatise but only to intreat the Reader not to be too severe in the perusal of it For though as for the Doctrine of it I see no reason at all to Apologize for it because I am fully persuaded of the truth of it yet being forced as I was to compose it by snatches and in the more quiet intervals of a busie and uneasie life I very much suspect the exactness both of the Stile and Method of it and therefore all the favour I desire is this that where I have improperly or obscurely express'd my self I may be construed in the most favourable sense and that wherever I may seem to be confused or immethodical it may be attributed to those frequent interruptions which the disorders of my body have given to my thoughts And these are requests so very just and reasonable that I am confident none will be so peevish as to deny me but they who read Books only to carp and find fault and without any design to Edifie their own understandings But I hope the Reader will consider that the Argument here treated of is of too great moment to him to be so wretchedly trifled with and that therefore he will not be either so disingenuous to me or uncharitable to himself as to peruse with such a spiteful design that which I sincerely intended for his good and which he I am sure if he pleases may be the better for for ever THE CONTENTS CHAPTER I. HUmane Actions of three sorts page 1. Necessary and sinful Actions are either such as are good or evil in themselves which are those we call Moral Actions or such as are commanded and forbid by positive Law p. 2 3 4 5 6 7. The Nature of Moral Good explained Sect. 1. p. 8 9 10 11. That there is such a thing as Moral Good in humane Actions proved in five Propositions p. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27. The various ways by which God hath discovered to us what is Morally Good in six particulars Sect. 2. p. 28 to p. 53. Actions Morally Good are the principal parts of Religion Sect. 3. p. 53 54 55. This demonstrated by six Arguments from Scripture p. 55 to p. 71. Four Reasons why God principally requires what is Morally Good p. 71 to p. 91. CHAP. II. OF the nature of Religion in General and of natural Religion what it is p. 92 93 94 95 96. And of Revealed Religion p. 97 98 99 100. A definition of natural and revealed Religion considered as they are now in conjunction p. 101 102. From the nature of Religion thus defined the
of Contradictory Judgments For should one Rational Faculty naturally judge this and another the contrary they must necessarily be so framed as to contradict each other and consequently he who framed both must be the Author of the Contradiction So that this universal Consent of Men concerning the Good and Evil of Humane Actions is a plain Evidence that God and all other Rational Beings are consenting with ' em V. AND Lastly that Mens acting conformably to these Rules of Moral Goodness in which they are thus universally consenting hath by long and constant Experience been found most conducive to Mens Welfare and Happiness For the Proof whereof I shall need urge no other Argument than this that the great Design of all Humane Laws and Constitutions hath been to secure and inforce these Rules of Morality which is a plain Argument that Men have always found by Experience that they are naturally good and productive of their Happiness and Wellfare For how can it be thought that after men have had so many thousand years Trial of Piety and Justice and Mercy and Temperance they should still be so solicitous to fence and guard 'em with Laws had they not found 'em highly advantagious and their Contraries as mischievous to Mankind For do but suppose that the Contraries to all Vertue were for Experiment-sake imposed for some time upon Mankind and it were made as Penal by the Laws of Nations to be Pious and Just Merciful and Temperate as it is now to be the contrary is it imaginable that that which we now call Vice should in process of time acquire the same Universal Reputation that Virtue hath always had among men Or at least is it probable that after some thousand years Trial and Experience of such a Law Men should still be as much concerned to guard and inforce it as they are and always have been to secure the Laws of Piety and Virtue No it is most certain they would not For the very injoyning of Impiety Injustice and Cruelty would be in effect to injoyn men to render themselves most wretched and miserable to surrender up all the Supports of their Hope the Peace of their Consciences and the Tranquillity of their Minds to live in everlasting Broils and Discords and turn Robbers and Cut-throats to one another and utterly deprive themselves of all the Comforts and Securities of Humane Society So that there is no doubt but after a few Years Experience of the mischievous Consequents of such a Law the whole World would groan under it as an insupportable Tyranny and even the most Vicious would soon grow quite weary of it and heartily wish that it were for ever Repealed and the good old Laws of Piety and Virtue restored and inforc'd upon Mankind And if so it is plain that Virtue and Vice are distinguished by their Natures into good and evil and that the Obligations we lie under to practise the one and abstain from the other are not founded in any Arbitrary Constitution but in the essential Goodness and Malignity that inseparably adheres to them AND if we consult the Experience of particular Men we shall always find that whereas Impiety and Injustice Fraud and Malice do naturally torment mens Minds with Anguish and Confusion haunt their Breasts with fearful Thoughts and dire Expectations harrass their Souls with perpetual Malecontentedness and intricate their whole Lives with everlasting Shifts and Intrigues Piety and Justice Truth and Benevolence do as naturally sooth and ravish their Minds fill 'em with blessed Hopes and chearful Reflections compose their Passions strengthen and invigorate their Hearts and render the whole Course of their Lives plain and direct even and easie And hereby Vertue doth sensibly recommend it self to our Natures in all its Capacities as being suted to the Satisfaction of all its reasonable Desires and so by consequence designed to make up the compleatest and most intire Enjoyment All which is as plain and obvious to the Reason of Mankind as any Matter of Fact that is before us So that 't is not only the Reason but also the Experience of Mankind that universally agrees and consents in this great Truth that there is such a Good in Virtuous and such an Evil in Vicious Actions as doth eternally and inseparably cleave to their Natures AND therefore since our Nature is to continue the same for ever the same Vertues and Vices which are now the Perfection and Depravation and consequently the Happiness and Misery of it will be so for ever From whence it necessarily follows that our eternal Happiness and Misery is founded in the Course of our own Actions So that as in the Course of a virtuous Life we are growing up into a State of fixed and everlasting Vertue wherein we shall be everlastingly Perfect and Happy so on the contrary in a course of vicious Actions we are sinking into a state of everlasting Viciousness wherein we shall be everlastingly wretched and miserable For since Virtue is good for and Vice evil to us in its own Nature it necessarily follows that according as we remain Virtuous or Vicious for ever our Condition must be good or evil for ever And this being so of what unspeakable Consequence are the Actions of Men that thus draw after 'em a Chain of Joys or Woes as long as Eternity And how careful ought we to be to what course of Life we determine our selves considering that our eternal Fate depends upon what we are now doing that every Moral Action we perform is a step Heaven or Hell wards that in every bad or good Choice we make we are planting our Tophet or our Paradise and that in the Consequents of our present Actions we shall rue or rejoyce to eternal Ages O would to God men would at last be so wise as to consider these things before it be too late and not live at Random as they do without any Regard to the certain and unavoidable Fate of their own Actions For doubtless would they but throughly weigh the Nature and Event of things and look before they leap into Action they would see infinitely more Charm and Terror in that Good and Evil which inseparably adheres to virtuous and vicious Actions than in all the Temptations in the World Wherefore in the name of God let us look about us and for once resolve to act like Beings that must for ever feel the bad or good effects of our own Doings Which if we do we shall not only live well and happily here but to all Eternity experience the blessed Consequents of it SECT II. That God hath sufficiently discovered to us what those Humane Actions are which are Morally Good and upon that account perpetually obliging THE Truth of which will evidently appear by considering the Particulars what it is that God hath done in order to the making this great Discovery to us the most considerable of which are reducible to these six Heads First HE hath implanted in us a natural Desire of
the Righteous Lot from that dire Conflagration alarmed the World with a new Declaration of the wide Distinction he makes between Vertue and Vice And lastly when the Vertue of these great Examples was almost spent God raised up the People of Israel and by the miraculous Blessings he bestowed on them when they did well and the stupendous Judgments he inflicted when they did wickedly exposed them to all the Nations round about for a standing Demonstration of the vast Difference he makes between Good and Evil. For so the Psalmist tells us Psalm 98. verse 2. compared with Psalm 102. verse 15. The Lord hath made known his Salvation his Righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the Heathen that the Heathen might fear the Name of the Lord and all the Kings of the Earth his Glory Thus by frequent Examples of supernatural Rewards and Punishments God hath been always instructing the degenerate World in the essential Differences between Good and Evil. VI. AND lastly To inforce all this God hath made sundry supernatural Revelations wherein he hath plainly instructed us what Actions are good and what evil That he hath made sundry Revelations to the World is evident in Fact because there are sundry Revelations extant which by those many miraculous Effects of the Divine Power that attended the Ministration of them have been sufficiently demonstrated to be of a divine Original And such are those contained in the five Books of Moses and the Prophets which have been all most amply confirmed both by the Miracles which were wrought by their inspired Authors and the exact Accomplishment of the several Predictions contained in them And such is also the last and best Revelation contained in the New Testament which both by the Types and Predictions of the Law and Prophets and the infinite Miracles wrought by Jesus and his Followers together with its own inherent Wisdom and Goodness hath been so effectually proved a divine Revelation that nothing but Ignorance or inveterate Prejudice can cause any man to disbelieve or suspect it NOW if you consult these several Revelations you will find that the main Drift and Design of them is to detect and expose what is morally evil and explain and recommend to us what is morally good For thus the several Revelations made to Abraham and his Children were only so many Repetitions of that Covenant of Righteousness which God had struck with them to encourage them to persevere in Well-doing Thus the Law of Moses consisted partly of Ceremonial Rites which were either intended for Divine Hieroglyphics to instruct that dull and stupid People in the Principles of inward Purity and Goodness or else for Types and Figures of the holy Mysteries of the Gospel and partly of Precepts of Morality together with some few of Policy suited to the Genius of that People and partly of such Promises and Threats as were judged most apt to oblige them to the Practice of Piety And as for the Prophets the substance of their Revelations was either Reprehensions of Sin together with severe Denunciations against it or Invitations to Vertue and Piety together with gracious Promises to encourage them to practise it or Predictions of the Messias and of that everlasting Righteousness which was to be introduced by him And then as for the Gospel all the Duty of it consists either in Instances or Means and Instruments of Moral Goodness and all the Doctrins of it are nothing but powerful Arguments to oblige us to the Practice of those Duties Thus the great Intendment of all Gods Revelations is to explain and enforce the Duties of Morality to discover the Nature and lead us on to the Practice of them by the most powerful Obligations And in this most perfect Map of the Road to Happiness all the Tracts of Piety and Vertue are so plainly described and delineated to us that no man can possibly miss his Way that sincerely inquires after it For tho in matters of Opinion men may be innocently mislead and deceived yet there is no Article either of Doctine or Duty upon which our Happiness necessarily depends wherein it is possible for an honest and diligent Mind to be mistaken And thus you see by how many excellent Ways God hath discovered to us which of our Actions are good and which evil So that if after all this we proceed in any sinful and immoral Courses we are utterly inexcusable For if after God hath thus plainly made known his Will to us we still persist to contradict it in our Practice we do thereby in effect declare that we regard not the Almighty and that we will do what we list let him will what he pleases And what an unpardonable Insolence is it for us who depend upon his Breath and hang upon his Providence every moment to treat him as if he had nothing to do with us and were the merest Cypher and most insignificant Being in the World For though 't is true he hath not made so full a Discovery of his Will to some as to others yet he hath so sufficiently discovered it to all that none can pretend to the Excuse either of invincible or unaffected Ignorance For as for the Heathen though they have no Revelation of Gods Will without them yet they have the Bible of Conscience within them and the large and legible Bible of Nature that lies continually open before them in which they may easily read the principal Differences between Good and Evil and all the great Principles of Morality And if notwithstanding this they will be so regardless of God as not to attend to and comply with those natural Discoveries of his Will what Pretence can be made for them why they should not perish for ever in their Obstinacy For as the Apostle tells us though they had not the Law that is the revealed Law yet they did or at least might have done by nature the things contained in the Law and therefore as many of them saith he as sinned without this revealed Law shall perish without the Law that is by the Sentence of the Law of Nature Rom. 2.12 14. And then as for the Jews besides those natural Indications of Gods Will which they had in common with the Heathen they had sundry supernatural ones they had sundry great and notorious Examples of Gods rewarding good men and punishing bad and besides they had the Law of Moses the Moral part of which was but a new Edition of the Law of Nature as for the Ceremonial Part of it it was though an obscure yet an intelligible Representation of all those sublime Motives to Piety and Vertue which the Gospel more plainly proposes So that would the Jews but have heedfully attended either to the spiritual Sense of their Law or to the Sermons of their Prophets which very much cleared and explained it they could not have been ignorant either of any material Part of their Duty or of any considerable Motive by which it is pressed and
proposed by God to perswade us to cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit and to perfect holiness in the fear of God 2. Cor. 7.1 So also the Doctrine of our future Punishment is levell'd against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men Rom. 1.18 And as for those Doctrines which concern the Transactions of our Saviour they are all proposed to us as Arguments to perswade us to Piety and Vertue For 't was for this cause that Christ was manifested to destroy the works of the Devil 1 John 3.8 't was for this purpose that he bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live to Righteousness 1 Pet. 2.24 't was for this end that he rose from the dead that thereby he might prevail with us to walk in newness of life Rom. 6.4 and 't is for this end that he intercedes for us at the right hand of God that thereby he might encourage us to come to God by him Heb. 7.2 and in a word for this cause he hath told us he will come to Judgment to reward every man according to his works that thereby he might stir us up to Sobriety and Vigilance and to all holy conversation and Godliness Mat. 24.42 compared with 2 Pet. 3. verse 11. Thus you see all the Doctrines of Religion are only so many Topics of divine Perswasion whereby God addresses himself to our Hope and Fear and every other Affection in us that is capable of Perswasion to excite us to comply with the eternal Obligations of Morality and there is no one Article in all our Religion that is matter of mere Speculation or that entertains our Minds with dry and empty Notions that have no Influence on our Wills and Affections For since the Design of Religion in General is to bind and fasten our Souls to God we may be sure that there is no Part of it but what doth in some measure contribute hereunto Since therefore 't is moral Goodness that God chiefly recommends to us by the Perswasions of Religion we may be sure that what his Arguments do chiefly perswade us to that his Commands do chiefly oblige us to II. FROM Scripture it is also evident that the main Drift and Scope of all the positive Duties of Religion is to improve and perfect men in moral Goodness We find the Jewish Religion exceedingly abounded with positive Precepts for such were all those sacred Rites and Solemnities of which the Bark and Outside of that Religion consisted of all which 't is true what the Psalmist saith of Sacrifices in particular thou desirest not Sacrifices thou delightest not in burnt Offerings Psal. 51.16 that is thou takest no delight in them upon the score of any internal Goodness that is in them but desirest them merely as they are instituted means and Instruments of Moral Goodness For so many of the Rites of the Mosaic Law were instituted in opposition to the Magical Vnclean and Idolatrous Rites of the Eastern Heathen As particularly that Prohibition of sowing their Fields with mingled Seed Lev. 19.19 in Opposition to that Magical Rite which the Heathens used as a Charm for Fructification So also that Command of sprinkling the Blood of their Sacrifices upon the Ground like Water and covering it with Dust in Opposition to that Idolatrous Rite of gathering the Blood into a Trench or Vessel and then sitting round it in a Circle whilst they imagined their gods to be licking it up And to name no more of this kind the Prohibition of seething a Kid in his Mothers Milk Exod. 23.19 was in Opposition to a Custom of the Ancient Heathen who at the Ingathering of their Fruits were wont to take a Kid and seeth it in the milk of its Dam and then in a Magical Procession to sprinkle all their Trees and Fields and Gardens with it thereby to render them more fruitful the following Year Besides all which you may find a World of other Instances in Maimonides More-Nevoch lib. 3. who tells us that the Knowledg of the Opinions and Customs of these Eastern Heathens was porta magna ad reddendas praeceptorum causas the great Rationale of the Mosaic Precepts and that multarum legum rationes causae mihi innotuerint ex cognitione fidei rituum Cultus Zabiorum i. e. that by being acquainted with the opinions and customs of those Eastern Heathens he understood the grounds and reasons of many of the Laws of Moses More-Nevoch lib. 3. cap. 29. So that tho these Precepts were not Moral yet were they set up as so many Fences by God to keep his People from stragling into those Heathen Immoralities AGAIN there are other Rites of their Religion which were instituted to shadow out the Holy Mysteries of the Gospel the great Design of which Mysteries was to invite and perswade men to comply with the eternal Laws of Morality Thus their Laws of Sacrifice were instituted to represent to them the great Transactions of their future Messias his Incarnation and immaculate Life his Death and Resurrection Ascension and Intercession at the right hand of God So also their Festival Laws and particularly their Laws of Jubilee were made to shadow out the Doctrines of our Redemption and eternal Life and their powring out Water in their Sacrifices and their Ritual Purgations from uncleanness were intended for obscure Intimations of the Effusion of the holy Spirit and the Doctrine of Remission of Sins all which Doctrines carry with them the most pregnant Invitations to Piety and Vertue Lastly THERE are other Rites of that Law which were appointed to instruct them in Moral Duties For God finding them not only a perverse but a dull and sottish People as those generally are that have been born and bred in Slavery apprehended that the most effectual way to instruct them would be by Signs and material Representations even as Parents do their Children by Pictures And accordingly in Isaiah 28.10 he tells us that he gave them line upon line and precept upon precept here a little and there a little with a stammering tongue i. e. he look'd upon them as Children and so condescended to their Weakness and spake to them in their own Dialect And this way of instructing them by outward and visible Signs being much in use in the Eastern Countries and more especially in Egypt whose manners they were infinitely fond of was of all others the most probable and taking And accordingly a great part of the Jewish Rites consisted of Hieroglyphics or visible Signs by which their minds were instructed in the Precepts of Morality Thus by Circumcision God signified to them the necessity of mortifying their unchast Desires by their Legal Washings he intimated to them their Obligation to cleanse themselves from all Impurities of Flesh and Spirit yea this as St. Barnabas in his Epistle tells us was the Intent of all that Difference of Meats in the Jewish Law which pronounced Swines flesh unclean to instruct them
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
capacity of our Souls to survive our Bodies and enjoy future Rewards and suffer future Punishments it also follows that there is a future state of Reward and Punishment For we find in our Souls a certain innate force and power whereby they determine themselves which way they please in their motions and operations whereby they are exempt from the necessitating influence of any thing that is forein to 'em and this innate liberty or power of self-determination is necessarily supposed in the management of all humane Affairs in Commerce and Treaties in Government and Laws and Administrations of Justice in Councils Admonitions reproofs and persuasions in all which applications are made to our Souls as to free and self-determining Agents that have the absolute disposal of their own motions and can direct 'em which way they please and indeed were not our Souls left to their own free disposal but concluded by the Laws of a fatal necessity as we see all material Agents are such applications to 'em as these would be very absurd and ridiculous and we may as reasonably hope to tame Wolves and Tygers by reading Ethicks to 'em or to still the North-wind by sending Ambassadours to him to propose Articles of Peace as to prevail upon Mens minds by moral addresses and persuasions because if they are not masters of their own choices whatsoever the rigid Laws of necessity determine 'em to they must necessarily choose in despight of all persuasions to the contrary NOW by this self-determining Power our Souls do evidently manifest themselves to be immaterial substances and consequently not liable to Death and Corruption For if they were matter they would be moved like matter i. e. by the pressure or thrusting of other matter upon 'em and it would be no more in their power to move any other way than that which some other matter presses and impels 'em than it is for a stone not to move upwards when 't is impel'd by the force which your Arm impresses on it and not to move down again when that force is spent and 't is prest back by its own weight and gravity Whereas we feel in our Soul an innate power to determine it self which way it pleases and even to move quite contrary to all forein impressions For when 't is prest on by outward Object to such and such thoughts and purposes with all imaginable vigour it often stems the impetuous Tide and thinks and purposes the quite contrary How then can that be matter which is not determined in its motions by matter but when it pleases can either move counter to all material impressions or of two material impressions can move counter to the strongest THAT our Souls therefore are immaterial is just as evident as that they have liberty of will and that they have liberty of will needs no other proof than the common sense and feeling of mankind and whatsoever essence feels this freedom within it self whereby it is absolved from the rigid Laws of matter may with all the reason in the World conclude it self immaterial and if our Souls are immaterial substances to be sure they can naturally subsist and live without these Bodies and must necessarily do so unless God destroys 'em as having no contrary qualities or divisible parts no principles of death or corruption in 'em and since God hath made our Soul of an immaterial and immortal nature we have all the reason in the World to conclude that he will not unravel his own workmanship but permit it to survive its Body and enjoy or indure that happy ot miserable Fate which it self hath chosen and made IV. FROM the natural expectance we have of future Rewards and dread of future Punishments it is also evident that there is a state of future Rewards and Punishments Thus after the commission of any flagitious wickedness there naturally arise ill-abodings in Mens minds of a dire after-reckoning and though the Commission be secret and conceal'd from all humane cognizance so that there is no reason to dread the corrections of publique Justice for it yet when ever the Man reflects on it it fills his mind with horrible presages of a woful Futurity as on the contrary when ever a Man doth any great good or conquers any violent temptation to evil it lifts up his Soul into a blessed expectation and swells his hope with the promise of a future Reward and though the good he hath done or the evil he hath avoided gives him no kind of prospect of any present advantage yet his mind is soothed and ravished with the contemplation of it which naturally suggests to him the joyous hopes of a recompence to come For whence should this hope and dread spring up in Mens minds upon the Commission of good and bad actions but from some common impression upon humane nature intimating to us a future state of Reward and Punishment If you say 't is from those religious Principles which we imbibe in our Education I would fain know how came this Principle concerning the future state to be so universally imbibed if there were not something in it that is very agreeable with the reason of all mankind For whatever is the matter wee see 't is very easily embraced but very difficultly parted with Mens Minds do catch at it with a strange kind of greediness but when once they have swallowed it it never comes up again without straining and violence and what should be the reason of this if there were not something in it that is very agreeable with the natural tast and rellish of our understandings We know there have been great Wits and Philosophers that have taken as much pains to rase the belief of a future state out of Mens minds as ever any others did to imprint it there and yet though their Doctrine hath been always highly befriended by Mens wicked lusts and affections to which the belief of a future state is the most terrible and vexatious thing in the World yet with all their Wit and Sophistry they have never been able to root it out of Mens minds If then our hopes and fears of another World be merely owing to our Teaching and Education why should not teaching erase as well as imprint 'em especially when it is so powerfully seconded with all the Bosom Rhetorick of Mens vitious inclinations Whereas on the contrary those who have most industriously attempted to extinguish their sense of another World have generally been very unsuccessful and though in the Riot of their sinful delights they many times charm and stupifie it for the present yet no sooner do they retire into themselves and coolly reflect upon their own minds but it presently awakes again and haunts and pursues 'em and though they use all imaginable ways to divert their minds from the thoughts of another world and to avoid these Bosom Accusers and Tormentors run for Sanctuary to all things without 'em to Sports and Recreations to Wine and Women to Care and Business
When therefore we conceive of the perfections of God we must so conceive of them as that there may be no manner of inconsistency or disagreement between them otherwise we must admit into our conceptions of them something or other that is defective or imperfect As for instance in God there is infinite Wisdom and infinite Justice infinite Goodness and infinite Mercy wherefore if we would conceive aright of these his glorious perfections we must take care not to admit any Notion of any one of them that renders it repugnant to any other but so to conceive of them altogether as that they may mutually accord and agree with each other For while we apprehend his Goodness to be such as that it will not accord with his Wisdom we must either suppose his Wisdom to be Craft or his Goodness to be Folly and whilst we apprehend his Mercy to be such as that it will not agree with his Justice we must either suppose his Justice to be Cruelty or his Mercy to be blind Pity and Fondness and it is certain that that goodness cannot be a perfection which exceeds the measures of Wisdom nor that Mercy neither which transgresses the bounds of Justice and so on the contrary For if either Gods goodness excludes his wisdom or his wisdom his goodness if either his Mercy swallow up his Justice or his Justice his Mercy there is an apparent repugnance and contrariety between them and where there is a contrariety there must be imperfection in one or t'other or both WHEREFORE if we would apprehend them altogether as they truly are in God that is under the notion of perfections we must so conceive of them as that in all respects they may be perfectly consistent and harmonious as that his Wisdom may not clash with his Goodness nor his Goodness with his Wisdom as that his Mercy may not justle with his Justice nor his Justice with his Mercy that is we must conceive him to be as wise as he can be with infinite goodness as good as he can be with infinite wisdom as just as he can be with infinite mercy and as merciful as he can be with infinite justice which is to be wise and good and just and merciful so far as it is a perfection to be so For to be wise beyond what is good is Craft to be good beyond what is wise is Dotage to be just beyond what is merciful is Rigour to be merciful beyond what is just is Easiness that is they are all imperfection so far as they are beyond what is perfect Wherefore we ought to be very careful not to represent these his Moral perfections as running a tilt at one another but to conceive of them all together as one intire perfection which though like the Center of a Circle it hath many Lines drawn from it round about and so is looked upon sometimes as the term of this Line and sometimes of that yet is but one common and undivided term to them all or to speak more plainly though it exerts it self in different ways and actions and operates diversly according to the diversities of its Objects and accordingly admits of divers Names such as Wisdom Goodness Justice and Mercy yet is in it self but one simple and indivisible principle of action all whose operations how diverse soever are such as perfectly accord with each other whose acts of Wisdom are all infinitely good whose acts of goodness are all infinitely wise whose acts of justice are infinitely merciful and whose acts of mercy are infinitely just so that in this as well as in their extension and degrees they are all most perfect viz. that they always operate with mutual consent and in perfect harmony And while we thus conceive of the divine perfections our minds will be mightily secured against all those false apprehensions of God which lead to superstition and presumption for we shall so apprehend his wisdom and justice as not to be superstitiously afraid and so apprehend his goodness and mercy as not to be presumptuously secure and as on the one hand his Justice will protect his Mercy from being abused by our wanton security so on the other hand his goodness will protect his wisdom from being misrepresented by our anxious suspition For while we consider his mercy thus tempered with his justice and his wisdom with his goodness we can neither expect impunity from the one if we continue wicked nor yet suspect any ill design against us in the other if we return from our evil ways and persevere in well doing SECT III. Of the causes of our mis-apprehensions of God I Now proceed to the last thing I proposed which was to assign and remove the causes of mens misapprehensions of God many of which are so secret and obscure so peculiar to the frame and temper of mens brains so interwoven with the infinite varieties of humane Constitutions that it is very difficult if not impossible to trace them so as to make an exact enumeration of them all and therefore I shall only assign the most common and visible causes by which the generality of men are mislead in their Apprehensions of the divine Nature whinh are reducible to these six Heads First Ignorance of what is the true perfection of our own Nature Secondly Framing our Notions of God according to the model of our own humour and temper Thirdly Obstinate partiality to our own sinful lusts and affections Fourthly Measuring Gods Nature by particular Providences Fifthly Taking up our Notions of God from obscure and particular passages and not from the plain and general current of Scripture Sixthly Indevotion I. ONE great cause of our misapprehensions of God is Ignorance of what is the true perfection of our own Natures For as I shewed before in conceiving of the perfections of God we must take our rise from those perfections we behold in his Creatures and particularly in our own Natures wherein there is a composition of all created perfections so that while we are ignorant of what is the true perfection of our own Natures our thoughts can have no rule or aim whereby to judg of God's That he hath all those perfections in himself which he hath derived to us is the Fundamental Maxim upon which we are to erect our Notions of him and therefore unless we know what those perfections are which he hath derived to us and wherein they consist our mind hath no footing or foundation whereon to raise any certain Idea of him For since we have no other way to conceive of his perfections but by our own how is it possible that while we are ignorant of our own we should ever conceive aright of his This therefore is one great reason why men do so grosly misconceive of God because they have no true Notion of their own perfection by which they are to form their conceptions of his FOR whereas the true perfection of humane nature consists In Moral goodness or an universal compliance of
its Will Affections and Actions with those everlasting Laws of righteousness which right reason prescribes how many are there that look upon this as a very mean and carnal accomplishment and place all their perfection in things of a quite different nature viz. in the Ebbs and Flows of their sensitive passion and the extraordinary Fermentations of their bloud and spirits that is to say in unaccountable dejections and exaltations of mind in vehement impressions of fancy and Mechanical movements of affection in Raptures and Ecstacies and Hypocondriacal incomes and manifestations that have nothing of substantial Vertue or Piety in them nor commonly any other effect but to cause men to renounce that Righteousness which they never had and rely upon that which they have no Title to and to sooth and tickle their fancies and blow them up into glorious opinions of themselves and Triumphant assurances of their being the Darlings and Favourites of God whilst poor Moral men that make conscience of regulating their affections and actions by the eternal Laws of Righteousness are look'd upon by them with a scornful compassion and placed in the lowermost form of sinners at the greatest distance from the Kingdom of God Now when men take such false measures of their own perfection how is it possible they should conceive aright of the perfections of God which they have no other way to conceive of but only by arguing from their own Wherefore in order to the forming our Ideas of Gods perfections it is necessary we should first fix the true Notion of our own which is no hard matter for us to do For our Nature being reasonable to be sure its perfection must consist in willing affecting and acting reasonably or which is the same thing in Governing it self in all its relations and circumstances by those immutable Laws of goodness which right reason prescribes and which are exemplified to us in the holy Scripture and when we have fixt in our minds this Notion of our own perfection it will naturally conduct our thoughts to God's and let us see that his perfection consists not in a lawless and boundless Will that decrees without foresight resolves without reason and Wills because it will and then executes its own blind and unaccountable purposes by dint of irresistible power without any regard to right or wrong For if we rightly understand our own perfection we cannot but discern that such a Will as this is one of the most monstrous deformities in nature because it is the most Diametrically opposite to the true Idea of our own Perfection which while we attentively fix our eyes on we cannot but infer from it that the true perfection of God consists in the unvariable determination of his Will by the all-comprehending reason of his Mind or in chusing and refusing decreeing and executing upon such reasons as best becomes a God to will and act on i. e. upon such as are infinitely wise and good and just and merciful For if to Will and Act upon such reasons as these be the perfection of our nature we cannot but conclude that it is the perfection of Gods too but if we are ignorant of our own perfection we must necessarily think of God at Rovers without any certain aim or rule to square and direct our apprehensions II. ANOTHER cause of our misapprehension of God is our framing our Notions of him according to the Model of our own particular humour and temper For self-love being the most vehement affection of Humane Nature and that upon which all it s other affections are founded there is no one Vice to which we are more universally obnoxious than that of excessive fondness and partiality to our selves which makes us too often dote upon the deformities and even Idolize the Vices of our own temper So that whether our nature be stern sour and imperious or fond easie and indulgent we are apt to admire it as a great perfection merely because it is Ours without measuring it by those eternal reasons which are the Rules of Good and Evil Perfection and Imperfection and then whatever we look upon as a perfection in our selves we naturally attribute to God who is the cause and fountain of all perfection And hence it comes to pass that mens minds have been always tinctured with such false and repugnant opinions of God because they frame their judgments of him not so much by their reason as by their temper and humour and so their different humours being not only unreasonable in themselves but repugnant and contrary to one another produce in them not only false and unreasonable but contrary and repugnant opinions of God Thus for instance the Epicureans who were a soft and voluptuous Sect intirely addicted to ease and pleasure fancied God to be such a one as themselves a Being that was wholly sequestred from action and confined to an Extra-mundane Paradise where he lived in perfect ease and was entertained with infinite Luxuries without ever concerning his thoughts with any thing abroad for this they thought was the top of all perfection and therefore thus they would have chosen to live had they been Gods themselves Thus the Stoicks who were a sort of very morose and inflexible people copied their Notions of God from their own complexion supposing him to be an inflexible Being that was utterly incapable of being moved and affected by the reasons of things but was wholly governed by a stern and inexorable Fate And accordingly the Scythians and Thracians the Gaules and Carthaginians who were a people of a bloudy and Barbarous nature Pictured their Gods from their own temper imagining them to be of a bloud-thirsty nature that delighted to feed their hungry Nostrils with the Nidorous reeks and steams of humane gore Whereas on the contrary the Platonists who were generally of a very soft and amorous nature took their measure of God thereby and so framed an Idea of him that was as soft and amorous as their own complexion composed altogether of loves and smiles and indearments without the least intermixture of vengeance and severity how just soever in it self or necessary to the well-government of the World Thus as the Ethiopians pictured their Gods black because they were black themselves so generally men have been always prone to represent God in the colour of their own complexions which is the cause that they many times represent him so utterly unlike to himself because out of an unreasonable partiality to themselves they first mistake the deformities of their own natures for perfections and then Deifie them them into Divine Attributes Thou thoughtest saith God that I was altogether such a one as thy self Psal. 50.21 that is thou didst frame thy conceptions of me according to the Pattern of thy own ill-nature and so thoughtest basely and unworthily of me And hence I doubt not spring most of those misapprehensions of God which have been received among Christians For how is it possible for any man that is not of