wisdom that knows best how to use his own If he take our friends from us he taketh but his own If he deny his saving grace to our ungodly children a heavy judgement of which we must be sensible yet when we have devoted them to God and done our own part we must be silent as Aaron was when his sons were destroyed Lev. 10. 3. and confess that the Potter hath power over his own clay to make of the same lump ae vessel to honour and another to dishonour Rom. 9. 21. All his disposals shall work to that end which is the most universal perfect good and most denominateth all the means But those that are his own by consent and Covenant may be sure that all shall work to their own good Let us die with Christ and be buried to the world and know no Lord or Owner but our great Creatour and Redeemer except in a limited subservient sense and then we may boldly argue with him to the quiet of our souls from this Relation I am thine help me Psal. 35. 23. Stir up thy self and awake to my judgement even to my cause my Lord and my God when faith and love have first said as Thomas my Lord and my God Joh. 20. 28. CHAP. XIV 13. THE next Relation to be spoken of is Gods soveraignty both by Creation and Redemption he hath the Right of Governing us as our Soveraign King and we are obliged to be his willing subjects and as such to obey his holy laws He is the Lord or Owner of all the world even of Brutes as properly as of Man But he is the Soveraign King or Governour only of the Reasonable Creature because no other are capable of that proper Moral Government which now we speak of Vulgarly indeed his Physical motions and dispositions are called his Rule or Government and so God is said to Govern Brutes and inanimate creatures but that is but a Metaphorical expression as an Artificer Metaphorically Governeth his clock or engine or a Shepheard his sheep But we now speak of proper moral Government God having made man a Rational and free agent having an immortal soul and capable of everlasting happiness his very nature and the end of his creation required that he should be conducted to that end and happiness by means agreeable to his nature that is by the Revelation of the Reward before he seeth it that he may seek it and be fitted for it and by prescribed duties that are necessary to obtain it and to his living here according to his nature and by threatned penalties to quicken him to his duty so that he is naturally a creature to be Governed both as sociable and as one to be conducted to his end He therefore that created him having alone both sufficiency and Right doth by this very Creation become his Governour His Government hath two parts the world being thus constituted the Kingdom of God The first is by Legislation or making Laws and Officers for execution The second is by the procuring the execution of these Laws To which end he doth exhort and perswade the subjects to obedience and judge them according to their works and execute his judgement His first Law was to Adam the Law of Nature obliging him to adhere to his Creator and to love him trust him fear him honour him and obey him with all his might in order to the pleasing of his Creator and the attainment of everlasting life To which was added a positive Law against the eating of the tree of Knowledge and Death was the penalty due to the sinner This Law was quickly broken by man and God delayed not his judgement but sentenced the Tempter the Woman and the Man but not according to their merits but graciously providing a Redeemer he presently stopt the execution of the far greatest part of the penalty the Son of God undertaking as our surety to become a sacrifice and ransome for us Hereupon the Covenant of Grace was made and the Law of Grace enacted with mankind but more obscurely in the beginning being cleared up by degrees in the several Promises to the Fathers the types of the Law and the Prophecies of the Prophets of several ages the Law being interposed because of transgression In the fulness of time the Messiah was incarnate and the first promises concerning him fulfilled and after his holy life and preachings and conquests of the Tempter and the world he gave himself a Ransome for us and conquering Death he Rose again ascended into Heaven being possessed in his manhood of the fulness of his power and all things being delivered into his hands so that he was made the General Administrator and Lord of all And thus he more clearly revealing his Covenant of Grace and bringing life and immortality to light commissioned his Ministers to preach this Gospel to all the world And thus the Primitive Soveraign is God and the Soveraign by Derivation is Jesus the Mediator in his manhood united to the second person in the Godhead and the Laws that we are governed by are the Law of Nature with the superadded Covenant of Grace the subordinate officers are Angels Magistrates and Pastors of the Church having works distinct the society it self is called the Church and Kingdom of God the Reward is everlasting glory with the mercies of this life in order to it and the Punishment is everlasting misery with the preparatory judgements especially on the soul which are here inflicted Subjection is due upon our first being and is consented to or vowed in Baptisme and is to be manifested in holy obedience to the death This is the Soveraignty and Government of God And now let us see how God as our Soveraign must be known 1. The Princes and all the Rulers of the world must understand their Place and Duty They are first Gods subjects and then his officers and can have no power but from God Rom. 13. 3 4. nor hold any but in dependance on him and subordination to him Their power extendeth no further then the Heavenly Soveraign hath signified his pleasure and by commission to them or command to us conferred it on them As they have no strength or natural power but from the Omnipotent God so can they have no Authority or Governing Power or Right but from the Absolute King of all the world They can less pretend to a Right of Governing not derived from God then a Justice or Constable may to such Power not derived from the earthly soveraigns Princes and States also must hence understand their End and Work God who is the Beginning must be the End also of their Government Their Laws must be but by Laws subservient to his Laws to further mens obedience to them The Common Good which is their lower nearer End must be measured by his Interest in the Nations and mens Relations unto him The Common possession of his favour blessing and protection is the greatest Common Good His Interest in us
feel though they are such as were sanctified never so early before actual sin had time to breed those evil habits which therefore certainly were born with us And if the Image of God consisting in true holiness be not natural or born in every Infant in the world then Original sin must needs be born with them for that sin is either only or chiefly the Privation of that Image or Holiness He that will say that this Image is not requisite to Infants and so that the absence of it is a meer negation doth make them bruits and not of the race of man whom God created after his Image and leaves them uncapable of Heaven or Hell or any other life then beasts have And he that thinks so of Infants to day may think so of himself to morrow And he that will affirm that this Image or Holiness is born with every Infant into the world so wilfully contradicteth common evidence which appeareth in the contrary effects that he is not worthy to be further talkt with One thing more I will propound yet to the contrary-minded Can they say that any Infants are saved or not If not either they perish as bruits which is a bruitish opinion or they live in misery and then they had sin that did deserve it yea if they think that any of them perish in the wrath to come it must be for sin If they think that any of them are saved it is either by covenant or without there is some promise for it or there is none If none then no man can say that any of them are saved For who hath known the mind of the Lord without his Revelation It is arrogancy to tell the world of the saving of any that God did no way reveal that he will save But if they plead a Revelation or promise it is either the Covenant of Nature or of Grace a promise contained in Nature Law or Gospel The former cannot be affirmed not only because the dissenters themselves deny any such Covenant to have been in nature or any way made to Adam but because there is no such Covenant or promise in Nature to be found for the Salvation of all Infants and if not for all then for none and because it is contrary to abundance of plain passages in the Scriptures that assure us there is but One Covenant of Salvation now in force and that all the world shall become guilty before God and every mouth be stopped Rom. 3. 19. and that by the deeds of the Law no flesh shall be justified in his sight v. 20. Gal. 2. 16. And if righteousness come by the Law then Christ is dead in vain Gal. 2. 21. For as many as are of the works of the Law are under the Curse Gal. 3. 10. And that no man is Justified by the Law in the sight of God is evident for the just shall live by faith and the Law is not of faith but The man that doth them shall live in them And certainly the Law of nature requireth not less then Moses Law to a mans justification if not more And if there had been a Law given which could have given life verily Righteousness should have been by the Law But the Scripture hath concluded All under sin that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that belive Gal. 3. 21 22. By the fulness of this evidence it is easie to see that Infants and all mankind are sinners and therefore have need of the Redeemer 2. To know God as our Redeemer containeth the knowledge of the great ends of our Redemption and of the manifestation of God to man thereby Having treated of these in the Book forecited I shall now say but this in brief It is beyond dispute that God could have made man capable of Glory and kept him from falling by confirming grace and without a Redeemer setled him in felicity as he did the Angels He that foresaw mans fall and necessity of a Saviour could easily have prevented that sin and necessity But he would not he did not but chose rather to permit it and save man by the way of a Redeemer In which his Infinite wisdom is exceedingly manifested And in Christ who is the Power and Wisdom of God 1 Cor. 1. 24. among others these excellent effects are declared to us which the way of Redemption attaineth above what the saving us on the terms of Nature would have attained 1. God is now wonderfully admired and magnified in the person of the Redeemer Angels themselves desire to pry into this mysterie 1 Pet. 1. 12. As the frame of Nature is set us to see God in where we daily as in a glass behold him and admire him so the person of the Redeemer and work of Incarnation and Redemption is set the Angels for their contemplation and admiration as well as us Eph. 3. 10. To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God And in the glorious perfection and dignity of the Redeemer will God be everlastingly glorified For his greatest works do greatliest honour him And as the sun doth now to us more honour him then a star so the glorified person of the Redeemer doth more honour God then man or Angels 1 Pet. 3. 23. He is gone into heaven and is on the right hand of God Angels and Authorities and Powers being made subject to him Eph. 1. 20 21 22. Being raised from the dead God hath set him at his own right hand in heavenly places far above all principalities and powers and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come and hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the Head over all things to the Church which is his Body the fulness of him that filleth all in all Heb. 1. 3. Who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power when he had by himself purged our sins sate down on the right hand of the Majesty on high being made so much better then the Angels as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name then they And here a very great truth appeareth which very many overlook that the exaltation of the person of the Redeemer and the glory that God will have in him is a higher and more principal part of Gods intent in the sending of him to be Incarnate and Redeem us then the glorifying of man and of God by us Christ will be more glorious then men or Angels and therefore will more glorifie God and God will eternally take more complacency in him then in men or Angels And therefore though in several respects He is for us and the means of our felicity and we are for him and the means of his glory as the Head is for the Body and the Body
Nature hath its aptitude as Rational to be employed for its Maker so that he is not a New Creature in a Natural sense An actual or habitual willingness to this Holy employment a promptitude to it and a due understanding of it is the New Creature Morally so called which is given in our sanctification But the Natural aptitude that is in our faculties as Rational to this holy life is essential to us as men or as Rational even to have the Potentiam naturalem which must yet have further help or moral life to actuate it And Adam had both these The one he retained or else he had not continued a man The other he lost or else he had not had need of Renovation 6. If Adams Nature had not been Disposed to God as to his End and Soveraign then the Law of Nature to adhere to God and obey and serve him was not written in his heart And then it would not have been his duty to adhere to God and to obey and serve him which is so false that even in lapsed unrenewed Nature there is left so much aptitude hereto as will prove him to be still under the obligations of this Law of Nature even actually to adhere to God and to obey him which a dead man a mad man or an Infant is not immediately By all this you see that though the blindness and disease of Reason is contrary to faith and holiness yet Reason it self is so much for it as that Faith it self is but the act of elevated well informed Reason and supernatural Revelation is but the means to inform our Reason about things which have not a natural evidence discernable by us And sanctification actively taken is but the healing of our Reason and Rational appetite And Holiness is but the health or soundness of them The errour of Reason must be renounced by Believers but not the use of Reason The sufficiency of Reason and Natural Light without supernatural Light and Help we must all deny But to set Reason as Reason in opposition to Faith or Holiness or Divine Revelation is as gross a piece of foolery as to set the visive faculty in opposition to the Light of the Sun or to its objects It is the unreasonableness of sinners that is to be cured by Illuminating Grace They are wise to do evil but to do good they have no knowledge Their Reason is wounded depraved and corrupted about the matters of God They have Reason to serve the flesh but not to Master it God doth renew men by giving them wisdome and bringing them to a sound mind As Logick helpeth Reason in discourse and arguing so Theology informeth Reason about the matters of God and our salvation and the Spirit of God doth make his Doctrine and Revelation effectual Make Nature sound and Reason clear then we will consent that all men be perswaded to live according to their Nature and their Reason But if a Bedlam will rave and tear himself and others and say this is according to my Nature or my Reason it is fitter that chains and whips do cure that Nature and Reason than that he be allowed to live according to his madness If a Drunkard or Whoremonger will say My Nature and Reason incline mee to please my appetite and lust it is fit that the swinish Nature be corrected and the beast which rideth and ruleth the man be taken down and when indeed his Nature is the Nature of a man and fitted to the use and ends that it was made for then let him live according to it and spare not If a malicious man will abuse or kill his neighbours and say This is according to my Nature let that Nature be used as the Nature of Wolves and Foxes and other noxious creatures are But let humane Nature be cured of its blindness carnality and cortuption and then it will need no external testimony to convince it that no employment is so natural and suitable to man as to Walk with God in Love and Confidence and reverent Worship and chearful Obedience to his Will A worldly fleshly sensual life will then appear to be below the rational nature of a man as it is below us to go to grass with horses or to live as meer companions of brutes It will then appear to be as natural for us to Love and Live to our Creatour and Redeemer and to Walk with God as for a Child to love his Parents and to live with them and serve them When I say that this is Natural I mean not that it is Necessary by Natural Necessity or that Grace doth operate per modum naturae as the irrational motion is so called There is a Brutish or Inanimate Nature and there is a Rational Voluntary Nature Grace worketh not according to the way of Inanimate or Brutish Nature but according to the way of Rational Nature in free Agents I may well say that whatever is Rational is Natural to a Rational Creature as such so far as he discerneth it Yea and Habits though they effect not necessarily but freely in a Rational nature yet they Incline Necessarily per modum naturae They contain in their being a Natural aptitude and propensity to action Obj. But thus you confound Nature and Grace Natural and supernatural operations while you make Grace Natural Answ. No such matter Though walking with God be called Natural as it is most agreeable to Nature so far as it is sound and is the felicity and meetest employment of the rational nature as such Yet 1. Diseased nature doth abhor it as a diseased stomack the pleasantest and most wholesome food as I said before 2. And this disease of Nature cannot he cured without Divine supernatural Grace So that as to the efficient cause our Holinesse is supernatural But it is unsound doctrine of those that affirm that Adam in his pure Natural state of innocency had no Natural Holiness or aptitude and promptitude to Walk with God in order to everlasting happiness but say that all this was either wanting to him and was a state specifically distinct which he fell short off by his sin or that it was given him by superadded Grace and was not in his entire Nature And yet we deny not but as to Degrees Adams nature was to grow up to more perfection and that his Natural Holiness contained not a sufficient immediate aptitude and promptitude to every duty which might afterward be required of him but this was to be obtained in the exercise of that Holiness which he had Even as a Vine or other fruit tree though it be Natural to it to bear its proper fruit yet hath it not an immediate sufficient aptitude hereto whilst it is but appearing out of the seed before it be grown up to just maturity Or as it is Natural to a man to discourse and reason but yet his nature in infancy or untaught and unexercised hath not a sufficient immediate aptitude and promptitude hereunto Or
of Justice or Charity principally to please God and in true obedience to his Will and a desire to be conformed thereto doth that which is formally a Moral Good and Holy though there may be abhorred mixtures of worse respects So that there are but two states of life here One of those that walk after the flesh and the other of those that walk after the spirit However the flesh hath several materials and waies of pleasure And even the Rational actings that have a carnal end are carnal finally and morally though they are acts of Reason For they are but the errours of Reason and defectiveness of true Rationality and being but the acts of erroneous Reason as captivated by the flesh and subservient to the carnal Interest they are themselves to be denominated carnal And so even the Reasonable soul as byassed by sensuality and captivated thereto is included in the name of Flesh in Scripture How much Moral Good is in that course of Piety or Obedience to God which proceedeth only from the Fear of Gods Judgements without any Love to him I shall not now discuss because I have too far digrest already All that I have last said is to shew you the Reasonableness of Living unto God as being indeed the proper and just employment of the superiour faculties of the soul and their Government of the lower faculties For if any other called Moralists do seem to subject the Sensual life to the Rational either they do but seem to do so the sensual interest being indeed predominant and their rational operations subjected thereto or at the best it is but some poor and erroneous employment of the Rational faculties which they exercise or some weak approaches towards that high and holy life which is indeed the life which the Rational nature was created for and which is the right improvement of it 4. Moreover nothing is more beseeming the nature of man than to aspire after the highest and noblest improvement of it self and to live the most excellent life that it is capable of For every nature tendeth to its own perfection But it is most evident that to Walk with God in Holiness is a thing that humane nature is capable of and that is the highest life that we are capable of on earth And therefore it is the life most suitable to our natures 5. And what can be more Rational and beseeming a Created Nature than to live to those ends which our Creatour intended in the fabrication of our Natures It is His Ends that are principally to be served But the very composure of our faculties plainly prove that His End was that we should be fitted for His Service He gave us no powers or capacity in vain And therefore to serve him and walk with him is most suitable to our natures Obj. That is Natural which is first and born with us But our enmity to Holiness is first and not our Holiness Answ. It may be called Natural indeed because it is first and born with us And in that respect we confess that sin and not Holiness is Natural to us But Holiness is called Natural to us in a higher respect because it was the Primitive Natural constitution of man and was before sin and is the perfection or health of nature and the right employment and improvement of it and tends to its happiness An hereditary leprosie may be called Natural as it is first and before health in that person But health and soundness is Natural as being the well-being of Nature when the Leprosie is unnatural as being but its desease and tending to its destruction Obj. But Nature in its first constitution was not Holy but Innocent only and it was by a superadded gift of Grace that it became Holy as some Schoolmen think and as others think Adam had no Holiness till his restoration Answ. These are Popish improved fancies and contrary to Nature and the Word of God 1. They are nowhere written nor have no evidence in Nature and therefore are the groundless dreams of men 2. The work of our recovery to God is called in Scripture a Redemption Renovation Restoration which imply that Nature was once in that Holy estate before the fall And it is expresly said that the New man which we put on is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him Col. 3. 10. And after Gods Image Adam was created 3. If it belong to the soundness and integrity of Nature to be Holy that is disposed and addicted to live to God then it is an abusive temerity for men out of their own imagination to feign that God first made Nature defective and then mended it by superadded Grace But if it belong not to the soundness and integrity of humane Nature to be Holy then why did God give him Grace to make him so Nay then it would follow that when God sanctified Adam or any since he made him specifically another thing another creature of another nature and did not only cure the diseases of his nature 4. It is yet apparent in the very Nature of mans faculties that their very usefulness and tendency is to live to God and to enjoy him And that God should make a Nature apt for such a use and give it no disposedness to its proper use is an unnatural conceit We see to this day that it is but an unreasonable abuse of Reason when it is not used Holily for God and it is a very disease of nature to be otherwise disposed Therefore Primitive Nature had such a Holy inclination 5. The contrary opinion tendeth to Infidelity and to brutifie humane Nature For if no man can believe that he must be Holy and live to God and enjoy him hereafter in Heaven but he that also believeth that Primitive Nature was never disposed or qualified for such a life and that God must first make a man another creature in specie of another nature and consequently not a man this is not only so improbable but so contrary to Scripture and Reason that few considerate persons would believe it As if we must believe that God would turn brutes into men God healeth elevateth and perfecteth Nature but doth not specificially change it at least in this life Obj. But let it be granted that he giveth not man specifically another Nature yet he may give him such higher gifts as may be like another Nature to him so far Answ. No doubt he may and doth give him such gifts as actuate and perfect Nature but some Disposition to our ultimate end is essential to our Nature and therefore to assign man another ultimate end and to give a Disposition to it of which he had no seed or part or principle before is to make him another creature I confess that in lapsed man the Holy Disposition is so far dead as that the change maketh a man a New Creature in a Moral sense as be is a New Man that changeth his mind and manners But still