alone concern'd them Isa 9.6 For unto us men the Child is born and unto us the Son is given Heb. 2.16 Who took not upon him the nature of Angells but the seed of Abraham So Noble and so dis-interess'd doth Divin◠Love make ours that there is nothing besides the Object of that Love tha◠we love more then our Concurrents i◠it perhaps out of a Gratitude to their assisting us to pay a Debt of Love and Praise for which alas we find ou◠single selves but too Insolvent Perhaps I need not mind you § 17 Lindamor that divers Passages of the fore going Discourse suppose the truth o◠Their Doctrine who ascribe to God i◠relation to every man an Eternall unchangeable and Inconditionate Decre◠of Election or Reprobation Yet concerning the Controversies betwixt th◠Calvinists and the Remonstrants abou◠Praedestination and the cohaerent Doctrines it were Improper to give you here my sense The Godly of both Parties are perhaps otherwise look't on b◠God then by one another as contending which of Gods Attributes should be most Respected the one seeming t◠Affirm irrespective Decrees to magnifi◠his Goodnesse and the other to Den◠them but to Secure the credit of hi◠Justice And ev'n in Honouring the sam◠attribute his Goodnesse these Advensaries seem Rivalls the one party supposing it best Celebrated by believing it so Irresistible that to whom soever 't is intended he Cannot but be happy and the other thinking it most Extoll'd by being believ'd so Universul that it will make Every man happy if he pleases the one party electing to honour Free-grace by assigning it as to men an unlimitedly-vast Extent as the other does by ascribing it an infallibly-victorious Degree But though my haste and the nature of my Theme make me decline the Controversies about Praedestination yet since the Doctrine that maintaines it is not onely by almost all the rest of Mankind but by the rest of the Protestant Churches themselves the Lutherans and divers learned Divines of the Church of England not onely Rejected but Detested as little less than Blasphemous as indeed they that judg it an Error cannot but be tempted to think it a Dangerous one and of very pernicious Consequence so far forth as its Sequels are permitted to have Influence on mens Practice I think it not amisse to advertise you that the Doctrin of Praedestination is not Necessary to Justifie the Freenesse and the Greatnesse of Gods Love For so conspicuous and Refulgent a Truth is that o◠God's being the Author of mans Felicity that the dispute betwixt the Calvinists and Arminians is not so much concerning the Thing as concerning the Manner of its being proffer'd the former affirming Grace to be Irresistibly presented the latter though they deny it to be Irrejectable yet granting not only that it is altogether Free and Undeserv'd but also that the proffer is made both with a Power enabling those to whom 't is tender'd to accep◠it and with such engaging Invitations that man at his first Conversion need contribute nothing to his Faelicity but the not-wilfully Refusing it and may more properly be said to owe it unto God then the Begger to owe his Almes to his Reliever though he open his hand to receive it which he might have declin'd to do if he would have wilfully courted his owne Prejudice Christ paid a ransome to redeem us 't is true and he is therefore call'd The Lord that bought us 2 Pet. 2.1 but it was God's free Goodnesse both to provide us That Christ and to accept of That Ransome neither of which he was Oblig'd to do and therefore the Scripture ascribes it not to the Justice but to the love of God to the world John 3.16 that He sent His only begotten Son to redeem it and St. Paul in the same Text tells us both Rom. 3.24 that we are Justify'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 freely by his Grace and yet that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 through the Redemption purchas'd for a Ransome the Original word english'd Redemption relating to the Price pay'd for the Redeeming of Captives that is in Jesus Christ. 'T is confest on all hands that Merit must be disclaim'd and those that seem to expect some thing from God as a Due acknowledge that if his Promise did not their Actions could not make it so and that 't is to his Mercy they owe the right they have to confide in his Justice St. Paul who 2 Tim. 4. v. 7 8. having fought the good fight finisht his Course and kept the Faith expected a Crown of Righteousnesse from the Lord under the Notion of the Righteous Judge yet tells us that by grace we are sav'd through faith Ephes 2.8 and that not of our selves it is the Gift of God Whose Promises now they are made us allow us indeed to expect Heaven from his Justice 〈…〉 but the making us those great and precious promises as St. Peter justly styles them must be acknowledg'd the pure Effect of his free and undeserved Goodnesse which to believe Infinite we need but consider the Disproportion betwixt such a Recompence as Eternall Glory and the least Imperfect Performances of ours which though they Needed not Pardon could not at least Challenge any Reward from Him who as our Creatour has such a Right to exact of us what services he pleases without proposing us any Recompence that our exactest obedience to all his Commands would yet leave us to confesse our selves unprofitable Servants Luk. 17.10 who have done but what it was our Duty to do and what if we had not done we had given God who had the Power the Right and provocation to punish us And indeed so conscious are men Generally if not Naturally to their being beholding to God for their Felicity that even those that mistake or oppose his way of doing them good will yet be sure to find out some Notion or other under which they may conceive themselves God's Debtours for his Blessings That the more sober sort of Romish Catholicks themselves ascribe not so much to Merit properly so call'd nor so little to Gods Grace as the more Quarrelsome Writers of their Party have given the more eager Disputants of ours occasion to reproach them were perhaps no difficult task to manifest if my haste would give me leave That the Arminians own the Freenesse and Unmeritednesse of Gods grace The Remonstrants * especially Chap. 17. Num 5 6 Confession and Apology are very carefull to satisfie the World And ev'n the Socinians how prosperously I determine not are not a little nor un-industriously sollicitous to free their Erroneous Doctrine of Justification from the objected guilt of its tendency to draw the Imbracers of it to Sacrifice to their own Nets and thank themselves for their Faelicity Which brings into my mind a passage that I lately read in one of the chief modern Up-holders of that Sect Schlichtingius Who is wont in
Lucretius himselfe ev'n in that impious passage where he denies divine Providence and in a seeming but injurious Complement would under the pretence of Easing God Deprive Him of the Government of the World does yet confesse that the Divine nature must necessarily enjoy a supream and endlesse Tranquillity adding to bring this to our present purpose that 't is Privata dolore omni privata periclis Ipsa suis pollens opibus nihil indiga nostrî Whereby he acknowledges That from all griefs and dangers of them freed Rich in it selfe it has of us no need Or if you will have him speak of the gods in the Plurall like a heathen Poet that Far above griefs and danger those blest Powers Rich in their Native Goods need none of ours A much Nobler Poet tells us That the Earth is the Lord's Psal 24.1 and the fullnesse thereof the World and they that dwel therein Agreeably whereunto Prov. 26.10 that Great God that formed all things as in our Translation the Scripture calls him sayes in one of the Psalms If I were hungry Ps 50.12 I would not tell thee for the World is mine and the fullnesse thereof His Ubiquity excludes all wishes of Remoove by making his Essence uncapable of Exclusion For Whither should he desire to Transport himselfe that is Every where and can wish himselfe in no place where he is not already His Sufficiency is such that he can see no goods but what he Gives or Hath or rather both bestowes and possesses his Plenty being so unexhausted a spring of goods that his liberality does lesse impoverish God than the Suns light does him or imparted knowledg impairs the Teacher's stock And therefore though St. James do very justly call God That Father of Lights Jam. 1.17 who is the bestower of every good and every perfect Gift Jam. 2.23 yet the Friend of God as the Scripture calls Abraham and that Royall Priest Heb. 7. per totum whom the Writer to the Hebrewes teaches us to have been so illustrious a Type of Him whom he calls The high Priest of our profession do both of them in the same Chapter style him the Possessour of Heaven and Earth Heb. 3.1 Gen. 14.18 22. No no God needs not beg From or covet In the Creatures shallow streams those goods of which he not onely Hath but Is the Source Our greatest Services to our Creator must be to Discharge our selves not to Advantage him nor as thinking to adde any thing to a Felicity which were not Infinite could it admit Encrease Our highest Performances though they be Dues amount not unto Tributes but are rather like those pepper Corns of Rent which Free-holders pay not with hope or with intent to enrich their Land-lord but to acknowledge that they hold all from him When we admire the Sun our Seeing of his light doth not Increase it it makes it not Greater but only it makes it Ours and when we turn away or shut our eyes that glorious Planet suffers no Eclipse and is not at all darkn'd or impair'd nor doth He thereby lose his light but We The Easiness of the application requires and excuses its Omission If thou sinnest sayes Elihu in Job what doest thou against him if thou be righteous Job 35.6 7 8. what givest thou him or what receiveth he of thine hand Thy wickednesse may hurt a man as thou art and thy righteousnesse may profit the Son of man In effect the wicked's spite against God is but like a mad mans running his head against a wall that leaves the Wall unshaken but dashes his own Brains out God inhabits a Felicity as well as Light inaccessible to all inferiour attempts His soveraign Tranquillity is so sublimely plac'd that 't is above the reach of all Disquieting Impressions and like the Stars that feel not the diseases their inauspicious Influence produces He doth not Resent the Torments he Inflicts Gods justice is no less Essentiall to him then his Mercy Witnesse that the numbers of the Saints and the Reprobates consider'd thousands fall Sacrifices to the severer Attribute for one that proves Capable of the milder He said Exod. 14.17 18. he would get himselfe honour upon Pharaoh and all his Host when he design'd their ruine in the Red Sea and Moses said Ex. 15.1 He hath Triumphed gloriously in effecting it And in Ezekiel he sayes Behold I am against thee Ezek. 28.22 O Sidon and I will be glorify'd in the midst of thee and they shall know that I am the Lord when I shall have executed my judgments in her and shall be sanctify'd in her Thus when a Flash of Gods Indignation kindled by that strange fire they presum'd to offer before him had blasted the two presumptuous Sons of Aaron God is said To have been sanctify'd in them Levit. 10.3 that come nigh him and to have been glorify'd before all the people such eminent and exemplary Instances of Severity manifesting him to be so Holy in his Laws and so Concern'd for them That ev'n the Ministers of his Altars shall not violate them with Impunity Heb. 12.29 but find Him what the Writer to the Hebrewes calls him A consuming fire Who will be Glorify'd before all his people either by the Obedience of those that approach him or by their Destruction So to evidence that God can derive Satisfaction as well from the Exercise of his provoked Justice as from that of his for ward Mercy The sacred Orator uses this remarkable Antanaclasis Deut. 18.63 And it shal come to passe that as the Lord rejoyced over you to do you good and multiply you so will the Lord rejoyce over you to destroy you and bring you to nought Thus though it be truly said of God by the Prophet Jeremiah that he doth not afflict willingly Lam. 3.33 nor grieve the children of men And therefore the determined Consumption of the whole Land which our Bibles English God's work Isa 28.21 his strange work other Translators render Opus alienum saum Yet when the Sins of incorrigible offenders are grown to that provoking Heighth that his Mercy intercedes no more to avert or suspend the inflictions of his Justice then how much he can satisfie himself in destroying those that would not be preserved may be guess'd at by that formidable Expression in Ezekiel where having foretold what havock the Sword the Famine and the Pestilence should make amongst the intractable and dispersed Israelites he adds as a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus shall mine anger be accomplished Ezek. 13.5 and I will cause my fury to rest upon them and I will be comforted The Houlings of the Damned as wel sound forth his praises as do the Hallelujahs of the Saints they both do sing to him an everlasting Canticle of praise onely in this great Consort of his whos◠Intelligent Creation the designlesl◠conspiring Voices are as Differing a◠the Conditions of the respective
Singers Hell's darknesse doth as well contribute to God's Glory as Heaven's Eternall Splendour As Shadows judiciously plac'd do no lesse praise the Painter than do the livelier and brighter Colours And as when the Earth doth send black noisome and sulphureous Exhalations up toward the Sky alas they reach not Heaven nor discompose the Spheres but all the Storms and Thunders they produce fall on that Globe they came from and there do all their mischief So the wicked may Wrong God indeed yet do they really Harm but themselves by all their greatest sins which trouble him chiefly but because they necessitate Him to punish them for the transgressions that do most Provoke God do him not the least harm An impious person may as Elihu lately inform'd us hurt a man as himself is not that supreamly blessed Deity the Result of whose Infinite Perfections is a resembling Happinesse which is as inseparable from Him as his Essence Our offences may derogate from his Accessionall Glory not from his Essentiall Faelicity or rather the most desperate Sinners by their greatest Crimes can but Change the Attribute they should bring honour to and but oppose the glorifying of his Goodnesse to occasion the glorifying of his Justice Since he will be infallibly glorify'd soon or late either by mens actions or their sufferings by their Practice of Duties or Punishment for Sinne. Thus you see how little God is beholden to you for your declining Hell Nor will the score be very much increas'd by your addresses and attempts for Heaven Can a man Job 22.2 3. sayes Eliphaz be profitable unto God as he that is wise may be profitable unto himselfe Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that thou art righteous or is it gain unto him that thou makest thy wayes perfect Congruously to which sense the Psalmist sayes Ps 16.2 My Goodnesse extendeth not to Thee The fire that we kindle on God's altars heats and enlightens Us but warms not Heaven at so distant a remove nor is wanted in the Sun's residence We have all the Redolence of the Perfumes and Incense we burn upon his Altars the Smoak doth Vanish ere it can reach the Sky and whilst t is undisperst but cloud 's and but Obscures it Alas our Best Performances are as uselesse Services to God as the Heir 's bringing Wax to his departing Father is to him which addes not any thing to the rich mans store and is by him desir'd and accepted onely to Sea◠away a Fortune to his Sonne Though therefore it be true that God is Pleas'd with our performances yet is that Welcome he vouchsafes to give them so far from enabling us by them to Requite his Love that it encreases the Unrequitednesse of it Since he is delighted with them as they afford him just Rises to reward them How far from Mercenary is then Gods Bounty since he accepts our Acknowledgments of his former blessings chiefly to make them Opportunities of conferring fresh ones as good old Isaac desir'd his Sons venison that from the rellishing of that savory meat he might take an opportunity to blesse him And § 15 to discover how disinteress'd God's Favours are let us further consider how little they are requitable for we can give Him nothing but his owne nor Heaven knows all that neither and both the Will and Power to serve Him are his upon so just and many Scores that we are unable to Retribute unlesse we do Restore and all the Duties we can pay our Maker are lesse properly Requitals than Restitutions When David and his Officers had offer'd towards the Structure of that Magnificent Temple which they seem'd Ambitious to make a Mansion inferiour to Heaven onely the King himself gave three thousand Talents of Gold and seven of refin'd Silver and the Heads of the People five Thousand Talents besides Ten Thousand Drachms of Gold ten Thousand Talents of Silver eighteen thousand of Brasse and a hundred thousand of Iron a Treasure of which I scarce remember to have read the like in any History besides a number of all manner of pretious Stones capable of impoverishing the very Indies They perfum'd this noble and unequal'd Offering with a solemn Confession which perhaps in God's esteem was much more pretious than It Thine O Lord saies the Royall Prophet in the name of all is the greatnesse and the power 1 Chro 29.11 1 13 14 1 16 and the glory and the victory and the majesty for all that is in heaven and in earth is thine Thine is the Kingdom O Lord and thou art exalted as head above all Both riches and honour come of thee and thou reignest over all And in thine hand is power and might and in thine hand it is to make great and to give strength unto all Now therefore our God we thank thee and praise thy glorious Name But who am I and what is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort For all things come of thee and of thine own have we given thee For we are strangers before thee and soiourners as were all our fathers Our daies on earth are as a shadow and there is none abiding O Lord our God all this store that we have prepared to build thee an house for thy holy name commeth of thine hand and is all thine own Rom. 11.35 36. Who saies the Apostle in a Question that imports its own Negative hath first given to him and it shall be recompenced to him again For of him and through him and to him are all things Nay even our Love it self that poor-man's Surety and Exchequer that doth pay all his Debts by supplying him with the Prerogative to Coyne his Desires and Wishes of an Arbitrary value is here unable to discharge our Debts our Love is too much the Effect to be capable of being the Recompence of God's And surely 1 Joh. 4.10 the Divine Amorist had cause to say that herein is love not that we loved God but that he loved us And as the same Apostle elsewhere speaks We love him because he first loved us If 1 Joh. 4.19 in effect we look upon the unworthy Contest betwixt God's Mercies and most men's Ingratitude and but reflect upon the small Return of Love that the greatest Disbursments of His do usually bring home we cannot but acknowledge as David in the lately mentioned Scripture did that our loving God for his Favours is one of the greatest Favours that we love him for so Unrequitable is God's love and so Insolvent are we that that love vastly improves the Benefit by which alone we might have pretended to some ability of Retribution And so unlimited is this Impotence of ours to recompence or repay God's Dilection that it extends to and fetters our very Wishes For God enjoys an Affluence of Felicity so perfect and entire that even our Wishes can aime at nothing for him Worthy of him unlesse instructed by what he already actually Possesses And
the Sense of this same very Impotence to some of the greatest Proficients in Seraphick Love appears not the least uneasie Property of it It grieves us sensibly to see our selves reduc'd to be onely Passive and Receivers in this Commerce We would fain contribute Something and cannot alwaies refrain from devoting our Wishes to encrease His Happinesse to whom we owe all Ours And some Holy Persons particularly St. Austind have by the Exuberance of their Gratitude and Devotion been transported to make Wishes and use Expressions wherein their Affections had a greater share than their Reason and which argued them much better to apprehend How much God deserv'd of them than How little he needed them But upon second thoughts we shall find that the cause of our Grief ought to turn it into our Joy since the Desires we would frame aiming at God's being infinitely happy are all Fulfilled before they are Conceived and that in the most Advantagious and Noblest way For could God's happinesse admit Accession by our accomplisht Wishes there were then a possibility of his Wanting something to render it Compleat And sure 'T is a more Supream felicity to be by Nature transcendently above All encrease of Blessednesse than to receive the Greatest that men can wish To proceed now to the Constancy of Gods Love § 16 we cannot entertaine of God any Apprehensions not altogether unworthy of Him and criminally Injurious to him without believing That to think that he can be Inconstant is as great a Crime as 't were a Misery to find him so his Love is like his Essence immutably Eternall reaching from Everlasting to Everlasting it preceded the Nativity of Time and will survive its utmost Period and obsequies Having loved his own which were in the World Joh. 13.1 he loved them unto the end sayes the Evangelist and when St. James had told us That every good gift and every perfect gift is from above Jam. 1.17 and commeth down from the Father of Lights he adds to compleat our Consolation with whom is no variablenesse neither shadow of turning Of his own Will begat he us of the word of Truth and in effect since God takes the Motives of his Love to us from Himself not from Us the unchangablenesse of his Nature seems stroâ—gly to inferre that of his Charity and our Happinesse in it For I am the Lord I change not Mal. 3.6 therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed sayes God by the last of his prophets And in Jerem ah he tells his people I have lov'd thee with an everlasting Love And what God once said to the generous Josuah Josh 1.5 I will never leave thee nor forsake thee is by the Writer to the Hebrews applyed to believers in generall Heb 13.5 for the gifts and calling of God sayes the same Author elsewhere are without repentance Rom. 11.29 Nor do those Crosses that seem due to his Anger destroy the Immutability of his Love since ev'n that Anger is an Effect of it proceeding from a Fatherly Impatience of seeing a Spot unwip'd off in the Face he loves too well to suffer a blemish in it and from a Desire to see his Child an Object fit for a larger Measure of his Kindnesse as when we beat the dust out of a Suite we fancie we strike not out of Anger but onely to remove that which doth sully it and hinder us to take that delight in it which our fondnesse would be pleas'd with a just Cause to find As many as I love Rev. 3.19 I rebuke and chasten sayes our Saviour And I know Psal 119.75 O Lord sayes the Psalmist that thy Judgments are right and that thou in faithfulnesse hath afflicted me The Furnace of Affliction being meant but to Refine us from our earthly drossinesse and Soften us for the Impression of Gods own Stamp and Image The great and mercifull Architect of his Church whom not onely the Philosophers have styl'd but the Scripture it self calls Heb. 11.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an artist or Artificer imploys not on us the Hammer and the Chizzell with an intent to Wound or Mangle us but onely to Square and fashion our hard and stubborn Hearts into such living Stones 1 Pet. 2.5 as may both Grace and Strengthen his heavenly Structure Nor is God only thus Constant to his Love but to his Lovelinesse Our female Beauties are usually as fickle in their Faces as their Minds and more certainly in the former because though Casualties should spare them Age brings in a necessity of a Change nay a Decay leaving our doters upon Red and White incessantly perplext by the incertainty both of the Continuance of their Mistrisse's Kindnesse and of the lasting of her Beauty both which are necessary to the Amorist's Joys and quiet for sometimes when the Mistresse's humour doth not change so much as to prove guilty of the fault of Inconstancy her face alters enough to make her Lovers wish Inconstancy no fault Or that she had committed it that her Ficklenesse might afford them the Excuse of Imitation or Revenge But in Devotion we are equally secure from both these Dangers Since God nor doth desist from blessing us with his Love nor ceases ever from deserving the Heighth of ours Nor is he onely constant in making us the Objects of His Love but also in bending and inclining us to make him the Object of Ours so that he not only persists in continuing to us both the Offer and the Value of his Love but perseveres to give us a receptive Disposition to Welcome it to us and reflect it up to Him The want of this last mercy lost Adam Paradise and Satan Heaven there being to the Objects that must Secure our love such a Nature requisite in reference to our Affections as Philosophers are pleas'd to ascribe to the world's Center in relation to Heavy bodyes which they teach us that Magnetick poynt has the double Faculty not only to Draw thither but to Keep there for so Untoward and Crossegrain'd are we in poynt of our own Good and so unfit to procure and ready to desert our own Felicity that neither its Excellencie is a sufficient Motive to carry our addresses to it nor its possession a competent Tye to intercept in us all designs of Revolts and Divorces but we must be used as peevish Children are who on the one side when their mouths are out of taste and they refuse to take what is necessary for them must have it not only Offer'd them but Forc'd upon them and be as it were Made to receive it and who on the other side must be restrain'd from gadding when the Beauty of the Mansions they live in cannot invite their stay but they would gladly leave the proudest Pallaces Architecture can boast to Runne into the Street and Dabble in the Kennel All these three properties of Divine Constancy are not ill shadow'd in the operations of the Load-stone a Minerall