and saves good men by the Ministry of those who intended their Ruin These I say and such like Events of which there are numerous Instances both in Sacred and Prophane Story and which our own observation may furnish us with fresh Examples of justly give us great and admiring thoughts of the Divine Wisdom a Wisdom which is to be reverenced and feared as well as praised for who would not fear that God who is wise in heart as well as mighty in strength Who hath resisted his will and prospered 2dly The uncertain Events of Providence That good and evil is promiscuously dispenced That God does not always visibly reward the good nor punish the wicked tho he signally rewards some good men and as remarkably punishes some wicked men is the Wisest Method of Governing Mankind That some good men are visibly rewarded in this world is a just Encouragement to good men to expect the Protection and the Blessing of God in doing good That some bad men are made Examples of a Just and Terrible Vengeance is a Warning to all bad men to reverence the Judgments of God and to stand in awe of him and that some bad men are spared nay are externally happy is a good reason for men to repent and to hope for Pardon and Forgiveness from so Patient and Merciful a God The essential difference between good and evil the Hopes and Fears of Natural Conscience the Promises and Threatnings of Scripture and the Scripture-Examples of those Miraculous Deliverances which God has wrought for his People and the Miraculous Destruction he has brought upon their Enemies are a plain proof That even the external Prosperity of good men is a Mark of God's Favour to them and the external Sufferings and Calamities of bad men the effects of his Anger and Vengeance And then tho all good men are not so visibly rewarded in this world nor all bad men punished yet since no good men are excepted from God's Promises nor any bad men from his Threatnings the rewards of some good men is a reason for all good men to hope and the Judgments executed upon some bad men is a reason for all bad men to fear And this is better accommodated to the Nature of Man who is a Free Agent than if God should visibly punish all bad men and reward all good men in this world because it offers less Force and Violence to men and leaves them more to the government of their own free choice Should God make such a visible difference between all good and bad men in this world that all good men should be prosperous and happy and all bad men miserable there would be no more choice left to men Whether they would be good or bad than Whether they would spend their lives in Health or Sickness in Riches or Poverty in Honour or Disgrace but where the Event is not certain there is room left for wise Consideration for Hopes and Fears which are the Natural Springs of a Free Choice And besides this That all good men are not rewarded nor all bad men punished in this world gives us a truer understanding of the nature of present things and reasonable expectations of greater Rewards and Punishments hereafter We should be too apt to think that the enjoyments of this life were the best and greatest things and the peculiar Marks of God's Favour did none but good men share in them and were they the portion of all good men we should grow very fond of this world and little think of another or of exercising such Divine Vertues as are fitted to that state Nay we should want the best Moral Argument for another Life That all good men are not rewarded nor all bad men punished in this world which gives a reasonable expectation of another life But when we see bad men prosperous as well as the good and good men suffer as hard things as any bad men do this convinces us That neither the Blessings nor the Sufferings of this life are the Final Rewards or Punishments of good or bad men That God has greater Blessings reserved for good men and greater Miseries for the wicked which is a greater Incitement to a Divine and Heavenly Vertue and a greater Restraint to Wickedness than any present Rewards or Punishments can be So that this Uncertainty of Events which some men complain of and which we can seldom give a reasonable account of when we come to particular cases and particular persons is so far from being a Defect in Providence that it is the wisest Method of Governing Mankind both considered as a Free Agent and as an Immortal Creature who must live in another world when he removes out of this 3dly This Uncertainty of all Events is the trial and exercise of many admirable Graces and Vertues which there would be no place for with respect to this world were the Events and Reasons of Providence known and certain Such as Faith and Hope and Trust and Dependance on God which there would be little use of in this world were all good men immediately rewarded for they all respect absent unseen unknown Events Difficulties and Sufferings which in Scripture are called Temptations are the trials of Vertue When we serve God without any prospect of a present reward and trust in him and depend on him when we are forsaken of all other hopes when we say with Iob Tho he slay me yet will I trust in him or with the Prophet Habakkuk 3. 17 18. Altho the fig-tree shall not blossom neither shall fruit be in the vines the labour of the olive shall fail and the field shall yield no meat the flock shall be cut off from the fold and there shall be no herd in the stalls yet I will rejoice in the Lord I will joy in the God of my salvation And yet if we knew in all cases the particular Reasons of Providence and what the end and conclusion of them would be they would be no trials of our Faith and Submission to God The Faith and Patience of Iob was wonderful but the greatest difficulty in all he suffered was that he could not possibly understand what God meant and intended in bringing all those Calamities on him but had he known that this was only a trial of his Patience and Vertue and that God would reward these sufferings with a very long and prosperous Life with a new increase of Children and new additions of Riches and Honour this had been no difficulty no trial any more than the smart of his present sufferings but Iob knew nothing of all this and therefore did great Glory to God and made himself an admirable Example of Faith and Patience to the world and God made him as great an Example of the Rewards of Faith and Patience Were the Events of Providence as constant regular and certain and the Reasons of all Events as known and visible as some men would have them and complain that they are not there would be no
confess that they cannot tell by their own sense and feeling that they are thus moved and inclined by God but only charge their Sins on God to excuse themselves Every man feels what it is that tempts him his love of Riches of Pleasures or Honours and that the temptation and impulse is weaker or stronger in proportion to his fondness and passion for these tempting Objects but yet he feels himself at liberty to chuse and determine himself and finds a Principle within him which resists and opposes his compliance with the temptation as contrary to the Will and Law of God and the dictates of right Reason and that for which God will Punish him And is there any reason for men to charge their Sins upon God when the only thing that gives check to them and makes Sin uneasy is the conviction of their own Consciences that it is what God has forbid and what he will punish This I think is no evidence of God's tempting and inclining men to Sin that he has imprinted on our minds such a natural sense of his abhorrence of all Evil and such a natural awe and dread of his Justice that while we preserve this sense strong and vigorous no temptation can fasten on us If we appeal to Reason the Reason of all Mankind proves That God does not and cannot tempt incline and over-rule men to chuse or to act any Wickedness for this is a direct contradiction to the Holiness and Purity of his Nature and the Justice of his Providence All mankind believe God to be perfect Holiness which is essential to the very notion of a God and Reason tells us that such a Pure and Holy Being cannot be the Author of Sin nor were it possible to vindicate the Justice of Providence in the punishment of sin did men sin by Divine Impulses or by Necessity and Fate And the Scripture teaches this in express words Let no man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God For God cannot be tempted with evil neither tempteth he any man 1. James 13. And all the Laws and Promises and Threatnings Exhortations Reproofs and passionate Expostulations which we meet with in Scripture if they mean any thing sincere do necessarily suppose that men sin freely and that God is so far from inclining and tempting men to sin that he does all that becomes a Wise and Holy Being to restrain and deter them from it Now when we have such direct and positive Proofs that God is not and cannot be the Author of Sin it is certain that we can have no direct and positive Proof that he is nor is any such Proof pretended and then some remote and uncertain Consequences which are owing to our Ignorance or confused and imperfect notions of things or to some obscure Expressions of Scripture are not and ought not to be thought sufficient to disprove a direct and positive Evidence no more than the difficulties about the nature of motion are a just reason to deny that there is any motion when we daily see and feel our selves and the whole world move And yet such kind of Difficulties as these is all that is pretended to charge the Providence of God with the Sins of men the most material of which I intend at this time to examine 1. One and that the most plausible pretence to destroy the Liberty of Human Actions and to charge the Sins of men upon God is his Praescience and Foreknowledge of all Future Events That God does foreknow things to come is generally acknowledged by Heathens Jews and Christians and Prophesy is a plain demonstration of it for he that can foretell things to come must fore-know them Now from hence they thus argue What is certainly fore-known must certainly be and what is thus certain is necessary and therefore if all future Events are certain as being certainly foreknown then all things even all the Sins of men are owing to Necessity and Fate And then God who is the Author of this Necessity and Fate must be the Cause and Author of mens Sins too Now in answer to this I readily grant That nothing can be certainly fore-known but what will certainly be but then I deny that nothing will certainly be but what has a necessary Cause For we see ten thousand effects of free or contingent Causes which certainly are though they might never have been for whatever is certainly is and whatever certainly is now was certainly though not necessarily future a thousand years ago That man understands very little who knows not the difference between the necessity and the certainty of an Event No Event is necessary but that which has a necessary Cause as the rising and sitting of the Sun but every Event is certain which will certainly be though it be produced by a Cause which acts freely and might do otherwise if it pleased as all the free Actions of men are some of which though done with the greatest freedom may be as certain and as certainly known as the rising of the Sun Now if that which is done freely may be certain and that which is certain may be certainly known then the certainty of God's Fore-knowledge only proves the certainty but not the necessity of the Event And then God may fore-know all Events and yet lay no necessity on mankind to do any thing that is wicked In the nature of the thing fore-knowledge lays no greater necessity upon that which is fore-known than knowledge does upon that which is known for fore-knowledge is nothing but knowledge and knowledge is not the cause of the thing which is known much less the necessary cause of it We certainly know at what time the Sun will rise and sit every day in the year but our knowledge is not the cause of the Sun 's rising or sitting Nay in many cases in proportion to our knowledg of men we may with great certainty foretel what they will do and how they will behave themselves in such or such circumstances and did we perfectly know them we should rarely if ever mistake for though men act freely they do not act arbitrarily but there is always some byass upon their minds which inclines and draws them and the more confirmed habits men have of Vertue or Vice the more certainly and steadily they act and the more certainly we may know them without making them either vertuous or vicious Now could we certainly know what all men would do before they do it yet it is evident that this would neither make nor prove them to be necessary Agents And therefore though the perfection of the Divine Knowledge is such as to know our thoughts afar off before we think them yet this does not make us think such Thoughts nor do such Actions How God can foreknow things to come even such Events as depend upon the most free and contingent Causes we cannot tell but it is not incredible that Infinite Knowledge should do this when Wise men whose Knowledge is so very
and he spoke the Language of Human Nature in it That the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made 1. Rom. 20. For if that which is made must have a Cause if there be no visible Cause there must be an invisible Maker And therefore this World which has no visible must have an invisible Cause And as it is natural to the Reason of Mankind to conclude the Cause from the Effect so is it to learn the Nature of the Cause from the Nature of the Effect for whatever is in the Effect must be either specifically or virtually in the Cause for whatever is in the Effect which is not in the Cause that has no Cause for nothing can be a cause of that which it is not it self And therefore whatever has life and understanding must be made by a living and understanding Cause whatever has art and skill and wise contrivance in its frame as every Worm and Fly has must have a wise designing Cause for its Maker And then it is certain that this whole World was not made by chance or the fortuitous concourse of Atoms but by an infinitely wise Mind This way of reasoning is easy and natural to our minds all men understand it all men feel it Atheists themselves allow of this kind of proof in all other cases excepting the proof of a God or a Providence and therefore it is no absurd foolish way of reasoning for then it must not be allowed of in any case and they have no reason to reject it in this case but that they are resolved not to believe a God and a Providence And yet this way of reasoning from Effects to Causes must be good in all Cases or in none For the Principle is universal That nothing can be made without a Cause and if any thing can be made made without a Cause this Principle is false and can prove nothing And I challenge the wisest and subtilest Atheist of them all to prove from any Principle of Reason that the most beautiful and regular House that ever he saw which he did not see built for that is a proof from Sense not from Reason was built by men and is a work of Art and that it did not either grow out of the Earth nor was made by the accidental meeting of the several Materials which without knowledge art or design fell into a regular and uniform Building Had these men never seen a House built I would desire to know how they would prove that it is a work of Art built by a skilful Workman and not made by chance and by what medium soever they will prove this I will undertake to prove that God made the World though we did not see him make it But the present Enquiry is only this Whether this be Human Reason the natural Reason of Human Minds If it be then men who will be contented to reason like men must acknowledge and assent to this Argument from Effects to Causes which unavoidably proves a God and a Providence and this is all I desire to be granted That those who will follow the Notices and Principles of Human Reason must believe that God made and governs the World for I know not how to reason beyond Human Reason those who do may please themselves with it Those who have found out a Reason which contradicts the natural Principles of Reason must reason by themselves for Mankind cannot reason with them But let us consider how Atheists reason when they have laid aside this Principle of Reason from Effects to Causes They tell us That a most Artificial World may be made without Art or any wise Maker by blind Chance without any designing Efficient Cause That Life and Sense and Reason may result from dead stupid sensless Atoms Well! we hear this and bear it as patiently as we can but how do they prove this why they say it may be and they can go no farther But how do they know this may be Have they any such notion in their minds have they any natural sensation that answers these words does Nature teach them that any thing can be without a Cause adequate to the Effect that any thing can be wisely made without a wise Cause that one contrary can produce the other that sensless stupid Matter can produce Life Sensation and Understanding Can they then tell me what it is that can't be I desire to know by what Rule they judge what may be and what can't be And if they can find any can't be more absurd and contradictious than their may be I will renounce Sense and Reason for ever If nothing can be without a Cause according to the Reason of Mankind this can't be and therefore all that their may be 's can signify is this That if the Reason of Mankind deceive us such things may be as the most unquestionable Principles of Reason tells us can't be And this is the glorious triumph of Atheistical Reason it can get no farther than a may be and such a may be as is absolutely impossible if the Reason of Mankind be true Set aside the relation between Causes and Effects and all the Arguments from Causes to Effects and from Effects to Causes and there is an end of all Knowledge and set aside all those first Principles and Maxims of Reason which all men assent to at the first Proposal the truth of which they see and feel and there is an end of all Reason For there can be no reasoning without the acknowledgment of some first Principles which the mind has a clear distinct and vigorous perception of And if men will distrust their own minds in such things as they have an easy natural perception of and prefer some Arbitrary Notions which seem absurd Contradictions and impossible to the rest of Mankind and which they can have no Idea of beyond the sound of words they may be Atheists if they please at the expence of their Reason and Understanding that is they may be Atheists if they will not judge and reason like Men But if we are as certain of the Being of a God and of a Providence as we are that nothing can be without a Cause we have all the certainty that Human Nature is capable of CHAP. II. The general Notion of Providence and particularly concerning a Preserving Providence HAving proved as largely as my present Design required That the same God who made the World is the Supream Lord and Governour of it I proceed to consider the Nature of Providence The general Notion of Providence is God's care of all the Creatures he has made which must consist in preserving and upholding their Beings and Natures and in such Acts of Government as the good Order of the World and the Happiness of Mankind require which divides Providence into Preservation and Government which must be carefully distinguished in order to answer some great Difficulties in Providence I
begin with Preserving Providence which commences from the first instant of the Creation for as soon as Creatures are made they need a Divine Power to preserve them For this is the strict Notion of Preservation as distinguished from a Governing Providence That God upholds all things in being from falling back into their first Nothing and preserves their natural Vertues Powers and Faculties and enables them to act and to attain the ends of their several Natures Which distinguishes this Preserving Providence from those many Acts of Preservation which belong to Government Such as preserving the Lives of men from unseen Accidents and visible Dangers nay of Beasts and of Birds too as our Saviour assures us That not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father in which sense the Psalmist tells us That God preserves both man and beasts supplies them with Food and all other things necessary to life and preserves their Lives from violence or accident as long as he sees fit This Preservation as distinguish'd from Government St. Paul expresly teaches 17. Acts 28. For in him we live and move and have our being We were not only made by him but we live and move and have our being in Him as the Apostle to the Hebrews tells us of Christ That he upholds all things by the word of his power 1. Hebr. 3. The Schools have divided this into two distinct Acts. 1. God's upholding and preserving the Being and Natures of all things 2. His Co-operating with all Creatures and by a perpetual influx and concourse actuating their natural Powers to perform their natural Actions that is That we have our being in him that we live and move and act in him or by a new influx of power from him As for the first The preservation of all things in being besides those Texts of Scripture which expresly attribute this to God the Schools urge several Arguments for the proof of it which I think may be resolved into this one That whatever does not necessarily exist by the internal Principles of its own Nature must depend on its Cause not only for its Being but for its Continuance and Preservation For there is no medium between necessary Existence and dependance on its Cause The very notion of a Creature does not only include in it its being made but its dependance on its Maker for its continuance in being For whatever does not necessarily exist must not only be made at first but must be upheld and preserved in being for it can no more preserve than it can make it self It was nothing once and what was once nothing may be nothing again and therefore cannot subsist of it self but in dependance on its Maker It is not with the Being and Natures of things as it is with the Works of Art which though they cannot make themselves yet when they are made can subsist without the Artist that made them As a House cannot build it self but when it is built it continues of it self as long as the Materials and Workmanship last when the Workman has left it for the Workman does not give being to the Materials but only to the Form which subsists in the Matter and that in its first Cause but whatever receives its Being from another as all Creatures do has nothing to support its Being but the Cause that made it This is so certain that I should make no scruple to say That God can no more make an Independent Creature which can subsist without him than he can make an Eternal Creature which shall have no beginning which is not want of Power in God but a repugnancy and contradiction in the Nature of Creatures That which once was not can never be so made as to have no beginning that which has not a necessary existence as nothing has which once was not cannot be made to exist necessarily without dependance on its Cause because necessary existence is not in its Nature for then it would always have been Suarez has another Argument to prove the dependence of Creatures on the perpetual influx of Power from the first Cause which possibly some may think only a School-subtily but seems to me to have great weight in it and it proceeds upon this Supposition which all men must grant That if God made the World out of nothing he could annihilate all things and reduce them into nothing again if he so pleased Now he says That Annihilation is not an Act of Power for all positive Acts of Power must have some real and positive effect whereas to annihilate is to make nothing and therefore to do nothing Now if to annihilate be no Act of Power then it can be nothing else but a withdrawing that Power which supported all things in being and that proves That all things are upheld in being by the Divine Power if they cannot subsist but fall into nothing again when that Upholding and Preserving Power is withdrawn This is a very sensible Argument if we distinguish between what we call destroying and annihilating which is apt to confound us in this matter To destroy is only to change the present form and compages of things while the matter and substance continues the same thus God destroyed the Old World by Water and will destroy this World by Fire again which is like pulling down a House without destroying the Materials and this is an Act of Power and has a positive effect but to annihilate is to reduce something to nothing which is to do nothing and therefore is no Act of Power but only a Cessation of Power And if not to uphold is to annihilate then all things subsist as well as are made by the Power of God I shall only add That God cannot make a Creature independent on himself without bestowing on it a self-subsisting Nature or necessary existence for whatever does not necessarily exist by the internal Principles of its Nature must depend on something else to uphold it in being Now besides what I observed before That whatever necessarily exists can't be made but must be eternal For that which exists necessarily must always exist without a Cause and without a Beginning for nothing can begin to have a necessarily self-subsisting Nature I now add That whatever necessarily is can't be changed destroyed annihilated for whatever necessarily is necessarily is what it is which proves That if God can annihilate whatever he has made then all things subsist by the Will and Pleasure and Power of God not by the internal Principles of their Natures for whatever necessarily exists can never be annihilated for that is a contradiction How God upholds all things in being we no more know than how at first he made all things when there was nothing and therefore it is a vain Inquiry of the Schools which no man can resolve and which serves no End in Religion Whether Creation and Preservation be the same or two different Acts Whether Preservation be a continued Creation or whether they be
most acquainted with without any certain and periodical returns prove that it is not all Mechanism for Mechanical Motions are fixt and certain and either always the same or regular or uniform in their Changes It is of great use to us to understand this which teaches us what we may expect from God and what we must attribute to him in the government of Nature We must not expect in ordinary Cases that God should reverse the Laws of Nature for us that if we leap into the fire it shall not burn us or into the water it shall not drown us and by the same reason the Providence of God is not concerned to preserve us when we destroy our selves by Intemperance and Lust for God does not work Miracles to deliver men from the evil Effects of their own Wickedness and Folly But all the kind Influences of Heaven which supply our wants and fill our hearts with food and gladness are owing to that good Providence which commands Nature to yield her encrease and those disorders of Nature which afflict the world with Famines and Pestilence and Earthquakes are the effects of God's Anger and Displeasure and are ordered by him for the punishment of a wicked world We must all believe this or confess that we mock God when we bless him for a healthful Air and fruitful Seasons or deprecate his Anger when we see the visible Tokens of his Vengeance in the disorders of Nature For did not God immediately interpose in the government of Nature there would be no reason to beg his Favour or to deprecate his Anger upon these Accounts 2dly Let us consider God's Government of Accidental Causes or what we call Chance and Accident which has a large Empire over human Affairs not that Chance and Accident can do any thing properly speaking for whatever is done has some proper and Natural Causes which does it but what we call Accidental Causes is rather such an Accidental Concurrence of different Causes as produces unexpected and undesigned Effects as when one Man by Accident loses a purse of Gold and another Man walking in the Fields without any such expectation by as great an Accident finds it And how much of the Good or Evil that happens to us in this World is owing to such Undesigned Surprizing Accidental Events every man must know who has made any Observations on his own or other mens Lives and Fortunes The Wise Man observed this long since 9. Eccl. 11. I returned and saw under the Sun that the race is not to the swift nor the battel to the strong neither yet bread to the wise nor yet riches to men of understanding nor yet favour to men of skill but time and chance happeneth to them all Some unusual and casual Events change the fortunes of men and disappoint the most proper and natural means of Success What should conquer in a Race but Swiftness or win the Battel but strength What should supply mens wants and increase Riches but Wisdom and Understanding in Human affairs What more likely way to gain the Favour of Princes and People than a dextrous and skilful Application and Address And yet the Preacher observed in his days and the observation holds good still that it is not always thus Time and chance some favourable Junctures and unseen Accidents are more Powerfull than all Human Strength or Art or Skill Now what an ill state were Mankind in did not a Wise and Merciful Hand Govern what we call Chance and Fortune How can God Govern the World or Dispose of mens Lives and Fortunes without Governing Chance all unseen unknown and surprizing Events which disappoint the Counsels of the Wise and in a moment unavoidably change the whole scene of Human Affairs Upon what little unexpected things do the Fortunes of Men of Families of whole Kingdoms turn And unless these little unexpected things are Governed by God some of the greatest Changes in the World are exempted from his Care and Providence This is reason enough to believe That if God Governs the World he Governs Chance and Fortune that the most unexpected Events how Casual soever they appear to us are foreseen and ordered by God Such Events as these are the properest Objects of God's Care and Government because they are very great instruments of Providence many times the greatest things are done by them and they are the most visible demonstration of a Superiour Wisdom and Power which Governs the World By these means God disappoints the Wisdom of the Wise and defeats the Power of the Mighty Frustrateth the tokens of the liars and maketh diviners mad turneth wise men backward and maketh their knowledge foolish 44. Isai. 25. Did Strength and Wisdom always prevail as in a great measure they would were it not for such unseen disappointments Mankind would take less notice of Providence and would have less reason to do it since they would be the more absolute Masters of their own Fortunes a powerful combination of Sinners managed by some crafty Politicians would govern the World But the uncertain turnings and changes of Fortune keep Mankind in awe make the most prosperous and powerful Sinners fear an unseen Vengeance and give security to Good men against unseen Evils which cannot befall them without the order and appointment of God That there are a great many accidental and casual Events which happen to us all and which are of great consequence to the Happiness or Miseries of our Lives all men see and feel that we cannot defend our selves from such unseen Events which we know nothing of till we feel them is as manifest as that there are such Events and what so properly belongs to the Divine Care as that which we our selves can take no care of The Heathens made Fortune a Goddess and attributed the government of all things to Her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whereby they only signified the government of Providence in all casual and fortuitous Events and if Providence governs any thing it must govern Chance which governs almost all things else and which none but God can govern As far as Human Prudence and Foresight reaches God expects we should take care of our selves and if we will not he suffers us to reap the fruits of our own Folly but when we cannot take care of our selves we have reason to expect and hope that God will take care of us in other Cases Human Prudence and Industry must concur with the Divine Providence in Matters of Chance and Accident Providence must act alone and do all it self for we know nothing of it so that all the Arguments for Providence do most strongly conclude for God's government of all Casual Events And the Scripture does as expresly attribute all such Events to God as any other Acts of Providence and Government In the Law of Moses when a man killed his Neighbour by accident God is said to deliver him into his hands 21. Exod. 12 13. He that smiteth a man so that he die shall
Perfect and Absolute Power to do It is thought a reproach for a Great and Powerful Man to oppress much less then will the All-Powerful God do so 4. For to observe but one thing more it is the Glory of Power to do good not to do hurt and if this be the Natural Glory of Power it is its Natural Perfection too and the most Natural Exercise of it and therefore it is that which Perfect Power will do It s Nature is to do good but never to do hurt that if to punish were not to do good Perfect and Absolute Power could not punish If we rightly consider things we must confess That it is a much greater Power to do good than to do hurt to save than to destroy to make so excellent a Creature as man is and to maintain and preserve him in being than to kill him In most cases it requires very little Power to do hurt every man how weak and inconsiderable soever he is has a great deal of Power to do hurt but there are very few who can do much good and therefore it is plain that to do good is the greater Power and therefore to do good must be essential to the greatest Power It is certain that to do good is the most glorious Power because good is in it self a beautiful lovely and glorious thing but evil is very inglorious All Creatures love to receive good they feel it they rejoice in it they adore and praise their Maker and great Benefactor they live in him they depend on him they fly to him to supply their wants they take Refuge and Sanctuary in his Power and think themselves safe under his Wings And can there possibly be a more lovely Idea and Representation of Power than this A Power which makes a World and all the Creatures in it which contrives their Natures with all variety of Art and Wisdom and with very different capacities of Happiness according to the different Excellencies and Perfections of their Natures and provides for them all with a bounteous Hand this is great and excellent Power indeed which gives Being and preserves it and provides daily for such infinite numbers and variety of Creatures as are in the world this is the lovely and charming Idea of a God but an Arbitrary Lawless Power which tyranizeth over Creatures which can do what mischief it pleases and delights to do it is a very terrible thing indeed but not glorious it is what all Creatures must fear and hate and fly from not praise and adore So that if we will allow the most Perfect and Absolute Power to be the most Glorious as we must do if we acknowledge Power to be Glorious then the most Absolute Power must be the most kind and beneficent thing in the world for this is the Glory of Power to do good Thus we see in what sense Absolute Will and Power can do no wrong because the Will and Power of God which is the only Absolute Will and Power is Absolute Rectitude and Justice and Absolute Goodness too Absolute Power can do no wrong because it can never will nor chuse to do any wrong not because Power can make that just and right which without such Absolute Power would have been wrong for no Power can make right to be wrong nor wrong to be right Good and evil just and unjust are of an eternal and unchangeable nature not made so by Power but in their Notion antecedent to Power and the natural rule and measure of it The Will of God is Eternal Justice and Goodness and therefore his Will is the Eternal Rule of Justice and Goodness and therefore in propriety of speech when we speak of God we can neither say that God wills any thing because it is just and good or that it is just and good because God wills it both which imply a distinction between the Will of God and Justice and Goodness which in the Divine Nature are the same but since the imperfection of our understandings cannot admit one simple Notion and Idea of an Infinite Mind but must apprehend every thing by distinct Conceptions in God as we do in Creatures it is more agreeable to the nature of things to make good and evil antecedent to the Will of God and the Rule of his Will and Choice because this asserts the Eternal and Unchangeable Nature of Good and Evil and the inflexible Justice and Holiness of the Divine Will that God never can will any thing but what is Just and Good and never wills any thing for any other reason but because it is Just and Good Whereas to make Justice and Goodness to depend wholly upon the Will of God that therefore any thing is Just and Good because God wills it supposes that Justice and Goodness has no stable Nature of its own but may at any time change its Nature with the Will of God and it is impossible to prove that the Will of God can't change as the Wills of men do if it have no Eternal and Unchangeable Rule or be not Eternal and Unchangeable Justice and Goodness it self When we speak of God after the manner of men our words must be expounded to the same sense excepting Metaphorical and Figurative Expressions as when they are used of men Now we all know what a vast difference there is between these two expressions when used of men Such a man always wills and chuses what is good and just and he makes every thing good and just by willing it the first supposes a certain and invariable Rule of good and evil the second resolves the nature of good and just into Arbitrary Will and Pleasure And it is the very same case when we speak of God's Power which is nothing else but the execution of his Will God's Absolute Power can do nothing but what is just and good but we must not therefore say That Absolute Power makes every thing it does just and good as if Power were not regulated by Justice and Goodness but were the Rule of it There is great reason curiously to distinguish in this matter because there are a sort of Christians who attribute such things to God as are irreconcilable with all the Notions we have of Justice and Goodness and think to silence all Objections and to justify all by the Sovereign Dominion and Absolute Power of God which can do no wrong but if it be a wrong to Creatures to be eternally miserable for no other reason but the Will and Pleasure of God I cannot but think the Absolute Decrees of Reprobation to be very unjust and the Execution of such Decrees to be doing wrong how Absolute soever the Power be that does it And I confess I cannot but wonder that men who make the Glory of God the End of all his actions as certainly it is when rightly understood should attribute such things to God as all the rest of mankind think very inglorious That when the truest and greatest Glory of
kind of Wickedness is called Folly and Sinners Fools and to learn Wisdom is prescribed as the only remedy against Vice The fear of the Lord that is wisdom and to depart from evil that is understanding And the reason and nature of things proves it must be so for all men who do wickedly must either mistake their Rule or mistake their Interest must either call Vice Vertue and Vertue Vice or think to make themselves happy by being wicked which is a stupid ignorance of the nature and the natural effects and consequences of things Now if all Wickedness be Ignorance and Folly Infinite and Perfect Wisdom must be perfect Rectitude Justice and Goodness it can never do any wrong because it can never be ignorant of what is right And what greater security can creatures possibly have That in the last issue of things they shall suffer no wrong than to know that they are under the Care and Government of Infinite Wisdom that can do no wrong Infinite Wisdom indeed is incomprehensible to a finite mind the methods of it may seem intricate and perplext to us full of Mystery and surprizing Events and thus it must be while Infinite Wisdom governs the world which is so much above the reach of our most improved and elevated thoughts But would not any wise man rather chuse to be governed by such a perfect and excellent Wisdom as can never mistake tho it vastly exceeds his understanding than to be governed by a Being no wiser or not much wiser than himself all whose Counsels he can fathom and see to the end of The more perfect and excellent the Wisdom is the less we can understand it but the more safe we are under its conduct So absurd is it to complain that we cannot understand all the depths and secrets of Providence that we may as reasonably complain That an Excellent and Incomprehensible Wisdom takes care of the world and of all the creatures that are in it While we know our selves safe in the hands of Infinite Wisdom let us be contented that God should do such things as we cannot understand the reasons of Are we ever the less perfect and happy creatures because we know not how God made us how he formed and fashioned us in the womb and breathed into us the breath of life And what hurt is it to us if God preserve and govern the world and take care of all the creatures in it by as unknown and incomprehensible a Wisdom as that which at first gave being to us We find our selves wisely made tho we know not how God made us and in the conclusion of all we shall find and feel our selves very happy if we follow God and adhere to him tho we may not understand the reasons of all intermediate Events nor the several steps and advances of Providence to make us happy It is great Pride and as contemptible Folly to think that if there be a God who is infinitely wise he should not be able to do things above our understanding and to do them very wisely too tho we do not understand them Let men value their understandings never so highly and think scorn that any thing should be above their knowledg yet it is certain that there are Ten thousand things both in the Works of Nature and Providence which no man fully understands and yet which bear the marks and signatures of a most Divine and Admirable Art and Wisdom and since whether we will or no we must confess our own ignorance why should we not be as well contented to allow that God can do such things as are above our understanding as that there should be such things done we know not how nor by whom Is it not a greater Reproach to our understandings that blind Chance should do such things as all our Wit and Philosophy cannot comprehend than to attribute such Events to the Art and Government of Infinite Wisdom Which is most reasonable to attribute such works as are above our understandings to the Infinite Wisdom of God or to deny that they had any wise Cause because we cannot find out the Causes of them tho we can discern such Wisdom in them as no Human Art or Wisdom can imitate Indeed the Passion of Admiration which is implanted in all men if it be not utterly vain is a plain natural indication that there is something above our natural understandings which we must admire but cannot comprehend for the proper object of Admiration is Art and Wisdom a Wisdom vastly greater than our own and therefore if this natural passion have a natural object it is certain there is a Wisdom greater than our own which no human understanding can comprehend such a Wisdom as doth great and wondrous things and things past finding out The Sum is this Infinite Wisdom is and must be unacconntable her ways are unsearchable and past finding out and therefore we must be contented in many cases to be ignorant of the Reasons of Providence and we have great reason to be so since we are so secure that Infinite Wisdom will always act wisely and consult the general good of the world and the happiness of particular creatures tho by methods secret and incomprehensible to us which teaches us not to deny or censure Providence when we do not understand the Reasons of it but in an entire belief of the Wisdom of God quietly to submit to all Events and to adore and reverence his Judgments with an implicite Faith 2. The better to satisfy us in a profound Veneration of the Wisdom of Providence even with respect to the most unaccountable Passages of it we must consider That it is impossible we should be able to comprehend it That we cannot know more of God's Governing the World than we do of his Making it That the unsearchable Wisdom of God's Works makes the Wisdom of Providence unsearchable also This is supposed in God's Answer to Iob when to make him sensible how little he understood of the Wise Ends and Designs of Providence he convinced him how ignorant he was of the Works of Nature 38 39 40 41. Chapters Who is this that darkneth counsel by words without knowledge Gird up now thy loins like a man for I will demand of thee and answer thou me Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth declare if thou hast understanding who hath laid the measure thereof if thou knowest or who hath stretched the line upon it whereupon are the foundations thereof fastned or who hath laid the corner stone thereof who shut up the sea with doors when it brake forth as if it had issued out of the womb Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days and caused the day-spring to know his place Where is the way where light dwelleth and as for darkness where is the plaee thereof Hast thou entred into the treasures of the snow or hast thou known the treasures of the hail hath the rain a father and who hath
the Will is moved how it is determined or determines it self whether by the Constitution of its Nature it always necessarily chuses what it chuses or might have not chose or have chosen any thing else Now whatever other men may do I 'm sure I know nothing of the Philosophy of these matters and therefore they don't concern me Others make God himself to be nothing else but Necessity and Fate who by Eternal and Irreversible Decrees as necessary and essential to him as his own Being has determined whatever shall come to pass but no man can pretend to know this without an Immediate Vision if I may so speak of the Naked Essence of God His Attributes and Moral Perfections give us no notice of such Fatal Decrees his Wisdom Holiness Justice Goodness contain nothing of Fate and Necessity and those who can see the very Essence of God to be Fate must be able to contemplate his Pure Essence and to know God after another manner than he ever yet manifested himself to Creatures or it may be than it is possible for God to show himself to Creatures Others conclude the Fatal Necessity of all Events from God's Prescience for they say that God can foreknow things only in his own Decrees and therefore if God foreknows all things all things are decreed or however what God foreknows will come to pass will certainly and necessarily come to pass and therefore all Events are certain and necessary if they are all foreknown by God But these are Conclusions which no man can be certain of without pretending perfectly to understand the Nature of Prescience or how God foreknows things to come for if God can foreknow what he has not decreed and can foreknow what does not come to pass necessarily then the Prescience of God does not infer a Fatality of all Events And yet this may be for ought we know unless we perfectly understand the Nature of Prescience and how God foreknows things to come and then we may foreknow things our selves The like may be said of God's concourse with his Creatures in all their actions from whence they conclude That the Will of man in all its elections is determined by God without whose concourse it cannot act nor determine it self These are all Nice Philosophical Speculations which creatures who are so ignorant of the Natures of things can know nothing of and therefore they are not fit to be made Arguments for or against any thing The Sum is this That since we must confess our selves so very ignorant of the Works of Nature without the knowledg of which in Ten thousand Instances it is impossible to understand the Wisdom of Providence it is unreasonable and absured for us to demand an account of God's Providences but we ought to be satisfied to leave God to Govern the World with the same Sovereign and Unaccountable Wisdom which at first gave Being to all things Thirdly That the Wise Government of the World requires secret and hidden Methods of Providence and therefore at least in this state we ought not to expect or desire a particular Account or Reason of all Events The Wise-man tells us It is the glory of God to conceal a thing 25. Prov. 2. It is the Glory of the Divine Nature that it is Incomprehensible by us and it is the Glory of the Divine Providence to be Unsearchable and therefore many of the Ancient Philosophers and Poets forbid too curious an Enquiry into the Nature or Providence of God and Sophronius gives a wise Reason for it Because we are all born of Mortal Parents and therefore the perfect knowledge of an Infinite Immortal Being must be above us Which is much the same Reason that Zophar gives Vain man would be wise tho man be born like a wild asses colt 11. Job 12. This is a knowledge too great for our birth if our Natural Capacities bear proportion to it for God must be a very little Being himself could he be comprehended by such mean Creatures But that which I at present intend is only to shew you That the Wise Government of the World requires that the Divine Counses that the Events and Reasons of Providence should in a great measure be concealed from us and I hope that is a satisfactory reason why God should conceal them if he can't so wisely govern the world without it I would desire those persons who are so apt to quarrel at Providence and to take it so very ill that God does any thing which they don 't presently understand to sit down and agree among themselves How they would have God govern the world What it is that they would be pleased with But let them consider well of it before-hand that upon second thoughts they don 't find more reason to quarrel at their own ways and methods of governing the world than they now have to quarrel with Providence or that the rest of mankind do not find more reason to quarrel with them than they have now to quarrel with God As to give an Instance or two of this by way of Essay Some seem to be very much discontented at the Uneveness and Uncertainty of all Events that all things are in a perpetual Flux and Motion that no man knoweth what a day or an hour will bring forth The instability of Fortune which gives and takes away and every day shews a new face and opens new and surprizing Scenes has been an old Complaint Well then Would they have this rectified Would they have all the Events of Providence as constant and regular and unchangeable as the Motions of the Heavens as the Returns of Day and Night of Winter and Summer And when they see all things happen thus evenly and regularly will they then promise to believe a Providence I mightily suspect that they will be farther from believing a Providence then than they are now We see that the Regular Motions of the Heavens and the Uniform Productions of Nature which so seldom vary that it is thought Portentous and Ominous if they do cannot convince them That God governs the Heavens and the Earth and all the Works of Nature as far as all their Vertues and Powers move and act uniformly by constant and unerring Laws and if the regular uniformity of Nature is not thought by these men a sufficient Proof of a Providence I doubt a constant and uniform round of all Events would be thought much less so Those who now resolve all the uncertain Changes and Revolutions that happen into Necessity and Fate would have more reason to do so did Providence always shew the same face and appearances as the Heavens do But can they tell what kind of Uniformity and Stability of Providence it is would please them Would they have all mens Fortunes equal That there should be no distinction between Rich and Poor High and Low Princes and Subjects the Honourable and the Vile I believe few of them would like such a Levelling Providence which as the state of
exercise of some of the greatest Vertues of the Christian Life which do most Honour to God and are the greatest Ornaments and Perfections of Human Nature Which evidently proves That the Uncertainty and Obscurity of the Events of Providence that we know not what shall be nor in many cases the Reasons of what we see is necessary to the Wise Government of Mankind and therefore is no Defect but the Beauty and Perfection of Providence Fourthly We are necessarily ignorant of a great many things without the knowledge of which it is impossible for us to understand the Reasons of Providence and therefore we ought no more to complain that we are ignorant of the Reasons of Providence than we do of our ignorance of other matters without the knowledge of which the Reasons of Providence cannot be known as to name some few of them 1. We are very ignorant of Men as I observed before We know not their hearts and thoughts and counsels we see little of their private Conversation we cannot look into their Closets and secret Retirements and unless we knew better what men are it is impossible we should understand the Reasons of God's Providence towards them Now tho as to external appearances there is some truth in this Objection That bad men are oftentimes very prosperous and good men afflicted in this world yet I doubt not but when this Objection is applied to the Prosperity or Affliction of particular men where it is once applied right it is a hundred times applied wrong especially as to the sufferings of good men For we very often take those for good men who are not so and who many times pluck off their disguise themselves and convince the world that they are not so and yet if any misfortune or adversity befal such men before they are known we are apt to wonder that God should afflict such good men as they are and think it a great difficulty in Providence when they themselves know that they deserve all that they suffer and a great deal more Nay I believe there is not a good man in the world who knows himself and impartially observes his own thoughts and passions and actions but knows a reason why God at any time afflicts him knows how he has deserved it and how he wants it and can justify the greatest severities of Providence towards himself I am sure all the good men in Scripture do so excepting Iob they frequently confess and bewail their sins and acknowledge the Justice and Mercy of God in what they suffer and as for Iob all that he insists on is to justify his own Uprightness and Integrity that he was no secret Hypocrite as his Friends uncharitably accused him that he knew nothing so bad of himself as to deserve such amazing Sufferings as God had brought on him And indeed Iob's Case was very peculiar and it appeared in the conclusion that God did not punish him for some unknown wickedness but to exercise his Faith and Patience and to make him a Glorious and Triumphant Example of a firm adherence to God under the severest Trials Now when there is no good man in the world who upon his own account can charge God with afflicting him beyond what his sins deserve or the state of his Soul requires we have reason to think that there is very little truth in this Objection that did we know other good men as well as we know our selves we should as well understand the reason why God afflicts them as why he afflicts us and if there be a wise and just reason for the sufferings of good men whatever their sufferings are they can be no Objection against Providence And it is very often seen that some men are thought wicked as wrongfully and ignorantly as others are thought good It is a very little matter that will give men a bad Character in a Censorious World a different Opinion in Religion or some external Modes of Worship nay different Interests and State-Factions nay some private Quarrels and Animosities will make some men paint each other as black as Hell can make them and then quarrel with Heaven if it does not revenge their Quarrels and execute that Vengeance which they doom each other to And as for others who with more reason are thought bad men as guilty of known Immoralities yet they may have a great deal of good in them many Generous Qualities and Social Vertues which may make them very useful men in a Commonwealth and they may do so much good as in the opinion of mankind may deserve some Temporal Rewards as may deserve Publick Trusts and Publick Honours and it is very hard to reproach Providence with the Prosperity of such men which we our selves think well bestowed notwithstanding their other Vices And other bad men may have some secret and latent Principles of Vertue which deserve to be cherished and when this is God alone knows but if we knew it we should have no reason to quarrel with the Kindness and Patience of God to such men which is intended to lead them to Repentance And as for profligate sinners who are at open defiance with God it is seldom seen but that some remarkable Vengeance at one time or other overtakes them and vindicates the Justice of Providence in their Confusion So easy were it to justify the Providence of God both towards good and bad men did we sufficiently know men And our ignorance of men makes it a very foolish and absurd Objection for if instead of answering it we should deny the truth of the Objection they have no way to prove it Should we assert That all good men are rewarded and all bad men punished who deserve to be rewarded or punished in this world they have no way to disprove this but by plain matter of Fact by shewing some good men afflicted who deserve a reward and some bad men prosperous who deserve to be punished Now this they can never do without pretending to know what is in man to see their Inside to be acquainted with all their Secrets in a word to know Men as God knows them For tho some men are afflicted whom we think good men and it may be are so and some bad men are prosperous yet there may be such a mixture of evil and good in these good and bad men which we cannot see as may make it very wise and just in God to afflict these good men and to prosper the wicked and since we cannot possibly know these things it becomes us to be very modest in censuring Providence 2dly We are in most cases very ignorant also of the Counsels and Designs of Providence We seldom know in any measure what God is a doing in the world and then it is impossible for us to understand the admirable Wisdom of all those intermediate Events which tend to unknown ends In the best-contrived Plot there will always be some Scenes full of nothing but Mystery and Confusion till the
Works of Nature prove that the World was at first made by a wise and powerful Being the continuance and preservation of all things the regular motions of the Heavens the uniform productions of Nature prove the World is upheld directed and governed by the same Omnipotent Wisdom and Counsel As St. Paul tells us The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead 1 Rom. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Dominion and Soveraignty or his governing Providence this visible World does not only prove an Eternal Power which made it but a Soveraign Lord who administers all the Affairs of it And 14. Acts 17. He proves the Being of God from his Providence Nevertheless he left not himself without witness in that he did good and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons filling our hearts with food and gladness And 17. Acts 28. He proves that God governs the World and takes care of all the Creatures that are in it because he made it For in him we live move and have our being as certain of your own Poets have said for we are also his off-spring which is very improperly alledged by St. Paul if we may be the Off-spring of God and yet not live and move and have our Being in him that is if God's making the World does not necessarily prove his constant care and governmet of it But the Apostle knew in those days that no man who confessed that God made the World questioned his Providence and therefore makes no scruple to prove that we live and subsist in God because he made us This is a noble Argument to prove both the Being and Providence of God which cannot be separated from the Works of Nature and the Wise Government of the World It would give us a very delightful entertainment to view all the Curiosities and suprizing Wonders of Nature with what beauty art and contrivance particular Creatures are made and how the several parts of this great Machine are fitted to each other and make a regular and uniform World How all particular Creatures are fitted to the use and purposes of their several Natures and yet are made serviceable to one another and have as mutual a connexion and dependance as the Wheels of a Clock What an equal and steady Hand governs the World when its motions seem most excentrick and exorbitant and brings Good out of Evil and Order out of Confusion when things are so perplext that it is impossible for any one but a God to disentangle them There is no need of the subtilty of Reason and Argument in this Cause would but men attentively study the Works of God and dwell in the contemplation of Nature and Providence for God is as visible in his Works as the Sun is by its Light when all the Wonders of Nature are unfolded and exposed particularly to our view it so over-powers the mind with such infinite varieties of that most Divine Art and Wisdom that modest men are ashamed to ascribe such things to a blind Chance which has no Design or Counsel Indeed to say that a World full of Infinite Marks and Characters of the most admirable Art a World so made that no Art could make it better was not made by a wise Mind but by Chance by a fortuitous concourse of Atoms which without any Design after infinite fruitless Trials happened into this exact useful beautiful Order that now they are in know when they are well and in despight of Chance move as constantly regularly artificially in all new Productions as the divinest and most uniform Wisdom could direct I say to affirm this is to put an end to all Disputes by leaving no Principles of Reason and Argumentation to dispute with An Atheist is the most vain Pretender to Reason in the World The whole strength of Atheism consists in contradicting the universal Reason of Mankind They have no Principles nor can have any and therefore they can never reason but only confidently deny or affirm They can assign no Principles of Reason which the rest of Mankind allow to be Principles from whence they can prove that there is no God and no Providence but they only reject those Principles which all other men agree in and from whence it must necessarily follow that there is a God and a Providence It will be of great use briefly to explain this which will teach you to reject Atheism and Atheists without troubling your selves to dispute with them for they have no common Principles with the rest of Mankind to reason upon nor indeed any Principles of Reason at all A few words will suffice for this purpose Mankind who have been used to thinking and reasoning have universally agreed That there must be something that had no beginning and no cause for nothing can produce nothing that had there ever been a time when there was nothing there never could have been any thing unless there can be an effect without a cause which is too absurd for Atheists themselves to say in express words who do not boggle much at Absurdities and therefore they make their Atoms and their Vacuum to be eternal It is agreed also That whatever had a beginning had a cause and the most easy and natural progress of Human Understandings is to reason from one cause to another till we ascend to and center in a first Cause For it is as easy and natural to believe one first Eternal Cause as to believe an Eternal Being but though it is natural to believe something Eternal it is as unnatural to believe all things to be so we have no notion of all things being Eternal though we have of an Eternal Cause for the very reason why we are forced to confess something Eternal is because there must be an Eternal Cause of all other things that is because all things are not eternal But if any thing which has not an eternal and unchangeable Nature but is capable of being made and unmade changed and altered as all the things of this World are might be without a Cause then every thing may be without a Cause and if the Eternity of all things be a natural Notion it cannot be a natural Notion that there is a first Cause For that very Notion supposes that something had a beginning and was originally made when it was not before and therefore that all things are not eternal For to be made in this Axiom primarily relates to the being of things and is so understood by all men And how can such a notion of the making and giving being to any thing be natural if it be a natural notion that all things are eternal and that nothing was made Hence it is that seen and visible Effects which have no visible Cause adequate to the producing such Effects are allowed by all Mankind to be a sufficient proof of some Invisible Cause as St. Paul tells us
two distinct and different Acts of Power to Make and to Preserve For how can any man know this who neither knows how God creates nor how he preserves Thus much is certain That to Create is to give being to that which was not before to Preserve is to continue that in being which was made before and when any thing is once created it can never be new created till it fall into nothing again for to create is to make out of nothing not to make a thing which already is but by what Acts of Power either of these is done we cannot tell nor are we concerned to know for what way soever this is done we equally depend on God we live and subsist in him But there is one thing fit to be observed That this Act of Preservation which consists in upholding all things in being is fixt by a perpetual and unchangeable Decree That though God will dissolve this present frame of things and it may be cast the World into a new Mould yet nothing that is made neither Matter nor Spirit shall be annihilated or reduced into nothing again This I think we may safely conclude from the Promises and Threatnings of Eternal Rewards and Punishments which supposes that both Good and Bad men shall live for ever the one to be happy the other to be miserable to Eternity and then we may reasonably conclude That the World whatever Changes it may suffer will continue as long the Inhabitants of it do This is the first Act of what we call Preserving Providence to uphold all things in being in distinction as I observed before from those several Acts of Preservation which concern a Governing Providence A Second Act of Preserving Providence is what the Schools call God's Co-operation and Concourse with Creatures in all their Actions that we not only live and have our being but that we move in God that whatever we do we do by a natural Power received from God and this is as certain as that we have our being in him for if we live we must move in him But then whether God's Co operation and Concourse be a different Act from his preserving the natural Vertues and Powers of Action is a nicer and more intricate Speculation and neither the thing nor the reason of it is easy to be conceived Natural Powers are Internal Principles of Action when a Creature acts from an inward Principle of Nature but if these Natural Powers while they are preserved in their full force and vigour by God can do nothing themselves without a new extrinsick determining motion from God then they seem to be no Natural Powers for they cannot act by Nature if this be true the Fire don't burn by nature for though God preserves its nature it cannot burn without some new co-operating Power which is not in its nature A man don't reason and judge chuse and refuse by Nature for though God preserve his Natural Powers and Faculties of Understanding and Will yet he can neither understand nor will unless he be moved acted determined by God This seems to make the whole World a meer Apparition and empty Scene which has nothing real Whatever we see done in the World is not done by Creatures who seem to do it for they are only acted like Machines not from the Internal Principles and Powers of Nature but from External Motion But God does every thing himself by an immediate Power even all the Contradictions and Contrarieties we see in the World This is a very great difficulty which I will not undertake to determine one way or other but thus much I think we may safely say That if we will attribute any thing to Creatures if we will allow that they ever act from a Principle of Nature we must confess that God co-operates only to the natural Power of Action that is That he only enables them to act according to their Natures without changing influencing determining their Natures otherwise than these Natural Powers would naturally act For this is all that is necessary to Action when God has created the Natural Powers and this is all the co-operation that can belong to God as the Maker and Preserver of all things Whatever is more than this as I acknowledge there is a great deal more that God does it belongs to a Governing not to a Preserving Providence God does a great deal more than merely co-operate with our Natural Powers to perform Natural Actions but this he does as a Governour not merely as a Preserver The not distinguishing of which has occasioned great mistakes in the Doctrine of Providence as to show this briefly God has endowed all Creatures with such Natural Powers and Vertues as may answer the End for which they were made He has made the Sun to shine to enlighten and refresh the World the Fire to burn the Earth to bring forth all sorts of Herbs and Grass and Corn and Fruit the Vapours to ascend out of the Earth to purge and fan the Air with Winds and to fall down again in fruitful Showers every Herb and Flower and Tree has its peculiar Seeds to propagate its Kind as all living Creatures have Now as it had been to little purpose for God to have made a World without upholding it in being for Creatures can no more preserve than they can make themselves so it had been to as little purpose to have endowed all Creatures with such Vertues and Powers as belong to their several Natures without such a natural Co-operation whatever that be as shall enable their Natural Powers to act and to attain the ends of their Natures and therefore God established this Natural Concourse and Co-operation to actuate all the Powers of Nature by a perpetual Law which is that Blessing God bestowed upon all Creatures at the time of the Creation For though this Blessing to Encrease and Multiply and to replenish the Sea and Air and Earth which preserves and invigorates the Powers of Nature be expressed only of living Creatures the Fish and Fowls and Beasts and Men yet it equally belongs to the whole Creation as will be easily granted and makes Nature regular and constant in all its Motions and Productions But there are other Acts belong to God's Government even of the Material World as I shall shew you more hereafter As to direct the Vertues and Influences of Nature or to suspend and restrain them To make the Earth fruitful or barren the Air wholsome or Pestilential to withhold the Dews and Showers of Heaven or to give the former and latter Rain in its Season to cause it to Rain upon one City and not upon another and so to temper the Influences of Nature as to punish the Wickedness or to reward the Obedience of Mankind these are Acts of Government and of a quite different kind from actuating the Powers of Nature to attain their Ends and to do what they were made for Thus to consider the Rational World God has endowed Man
mens Sins the Charge lies equally against a creating and co-operating Power if it does not God is no more chargeable with Sin for co-operating with mens natural Powers in every Action than he would be for creating such natural Powers as could act of themselves God's Government of the World must be fitted to the natures of the Creatures which he has made without denying them the natural Powers of Action and therefore while he co-operates with Creatures only to act according to the liberty of their own Natures this is no fault in this Government nor contributes any thing more to the Sins of Creatures than preserving their Natures which as much becomes God as it did to make them Thus some think it a great blemish to Providence that Adulterous Mixtures prove fruitful when encrease and multiply is an established Decree from the first Creation and the setled Course and Order of Nature must not be reversed by the Sins of men They may as well object against Providence That a man who steals his Neighbour's Grain and sows it in his own Land should have a plentiful Crop the next year from his stolen Seed And whatever Opinion men have concerning the origination of the Soul Whether it be propagated ex traduce or did praeexist or be immediately created by God and infused into prepared Matter it makes no difference in the case for when the Order of Nature is setled and the Blessing pronounced and established by the Divine Decree it does not unbecome God to preserve the powers of Nature to produce their natural Effects I am sure there want not wise Reasons in God's Government of the World why it should be so to restrain some mens Lusts and to shame and punish others Nay I believe whoever considers this matter well will acknowledge that it goes a great way in answering the greatest Difficulty of all viz. The Eternal Punishments of Wicked Men in the next World The Objection is not against God's punishing Wicked Men in the next World for no body pretends that this is unjust for God to punish the Wicked whether in this World or in the next Nor is the Objection against the nature of these Punishments for indeed we do not distinctly know what they are no more than we know what the Happiness of Heaven is Those Descriptions our Saviour gives of them of lakes of fire and brimstome blackness of darkness the worm that never dieth and the fire that never goeth out prove that they are very great because these Descriptions are intended to present to us very frightful and terrible images of the Miseries of the Damned But this is not the Complaint neither for it is confessed that Wicked Men deserve to be very miserable But the Objection is against that vast disproportion between Time and Eternity How it is reconcilable with the Divine Justice to punish Temporal Sins with Eternal Miseries that when men can sin but for a very few years they must suffer for it for ever Now the difficulty of this seems in part to be owing to a mistating the case There is no proportion indeed between Time and Eternity and it is therefore difficult to conceive that every momentary sin should in its own nature deserve eternal punishments but there is no difficulty to conceive that an immortal sinner may by some short and momentary sins sink himself into an irrecoverable state of misery and then he must be miserable as long as he continues to be and if he can never die he must be always miserable and may be so without any Injustice in God We do not here consider the proportion between the continuance of the sin and the punishment between a short transient act and eternal punishments for it is not the sin but the sinner that is punished for his sin and therefore we must not ask How long punishment a short sin deserves but How long the sinner deserves to be punished and the answer to that is easy As long as he is a sinner And therefore an immortal sinner who can never die and will never cease to be wicked which is the hopeless and irrecoverable state of Devils and damned Spirits must always be miserable and it is just it should be so if it be just to punish sinners and there is nothing to quarrel with God for as to the Eternity of Punishments unless it be that he does not annihilate Immortal Spirits when they are become incurably wicked and miserable The Justice of God is only concerned to punish sinners that their punishents are eternal is a necessary consequence of their Immortality and this can't be charged on God unless it be a fault to make immortal creatures and to preserve and uphold immortal creatures in being or to punish sinners while they deserve punishment that is while they are sinners It may give some light to this matter to remove the Scene into this world We see the punishment of sin in this world bears no proportion to the time of committing it but to the lasting effects of the sin One short single act of Lust may not only leave a lasting Reproach on mens Names but destroy the health and ease of their bodies and the pleasure of their lives for their ever in this world and had Man continued immortal after the fall these miserable effects must have continued for ever and then there had been a visible Eternal Punishment for a very short transient sin and yet no man would have blamed the Justice of God for it which shews That a sin which is quickly committed may be eternally punished and that very justly too when the effects of it are incurable and the person immortal And thus it is in a great many other cases in this world where the effects of sin last as long as the Men last and if this be the case of the other world and of the miseries and punishments of the damned as we certainly know in a great measure it is that their punishments are the natural effects and consequents of their sins there can be no objection against the Eternity of their Punishments but that God does not annihilate them And how hard soever any man may think it to be that a sinner should be eternally miserable I believe no man will venture to say that God ought in Justice to annihilate creatures whom he has made immortal when by their own fault they must be eternally miserable if they live for ever To preserve and uphold creatures in being is in it self considered what becomes the Wise Maker of all things and I am sure there can be no reason given to prove that God ought to annihilate sinners to prevent their being miserable for ever but what will much more prove that God ought to have withdrawn his natural concourse from his creatures or to have annihilated them to prevent their sinning or which is the last result of all as I have already observed and the only fault if there be one That he ought
and to arbitrate the Differences of Princes and the Fate of Men and Kingdoms And if God govern men by Nature he must govern Nature too for necessary Causes cannot be fitted to the government of free Agents without the direction and management of a Divine Providence which guides exerts or suspends the Influences of Nature with as great freedom as men act Men do not always deserve well or ill and if the kind or malign Influences of Nature must be tempered to mens deserts to punish them when they do ill and to reward them when they do well Natural Causes which of themselves act necessarily without Wisdom or Counsel must be guided by a Wise Hand Thus reason tells us it must be if God govern the world and God challenges to himself this Absolute and Sovereign Empire over Nature God has bestowed different Vertues and Powers on Natural Causes and in ordinary cases makes use of the Powers of Nature and neither acts without them nor against the Laws of Nature which makes some unthinking men resolve all into Nature without a God or a Providence because excepting the case of Miracles which they are not willing to believe they see every thing else done by the Powers of Nature and if it were not so God had made a World and made Nature to no purpose to do every thing himself by an immediate Power without making use of the Powers of Nature But the ordinary government of Nature does not signifie to act without it or to over-rule its Powers but to steer and guide its motions to serve the Wise Ends of his Providence in the government of Mankind For as God does not usually act without Nature nor against its Laws so neither does Nature act by steady and uniform motions without the direction of God But while every thing in the material world acts necessarily and exerts its Natural Powers God can temper suspend direct its Influences without reversing the Laws of Nature As for instance Fire and Water Wind and Rain Thunder and Lightning have their Natutral Vertues and Powers and Natural Causes and God produces such effects as they are made to produce by their Natural Powers he warms us with Fire invigorates the earth by the benign Influences of the Sun and Moon and other Stars and Planets refreshes and moistens it with Springs and Fountains and Rain from Heaven fans the Air with Winds and purges it with Thunders and Lightnings and the like but then when and where the Rains shall fall and the Winds shall blow in what measure and proportion times and seasons Natural Causes shall give or withhold their Influences this God keeps in his own Power and can govern without altering the standing Laws of Nature and this is his government of Natural Causes in order to reward or punish men as they shall deserve Thus God reasons with Iob concerning his Power and Providence 38. Job 31 32 c. Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons knowest thou the ordinances of heaven or canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds that abundance of waters may cover thee canst thou send lightnings that they may go and say unto thee here we are This is above Human Power but belongs to the Government and Providence of God Fire and hail snow and vapour and stormy winds fulfil his word 148. Psal. 8. Sometimes God restrains the influences of Nature shuts up heaven that it shall not rain 2 Chr. 7. 13. At other times he calls to the clouds that abundance of water may cover the earth He gives the former and the latter rain in its season and preserveth to us the appointed weeks of harvest 5. Jer. 24 as he promised to Israel 11 Deut 14 15. I will give you the rain of your land in his due season the first rain and the latter rain that thou mayst gather in thy corn and thy wine and thy oyl and I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle that thou mayst eat and be full He prescribes in what proportions it shall rain 2. Joel 23 24. Be glad ye children of Sion and rejoyce in the Lord your God for he hath given you the former rain moderately and he will cause to come down for you the former rain and the latter rain in the first month Nay God appoints on what place it shall rain 34. Ezek. 26. And I will make thee and the places round about my hill a blessing and I will cause the shower to come down in his season there shall be showers of blessing 4. Amos 7 8. And also I have withholden the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest and I caused it to rain upon one city and caused it not to rain upon another city One piece was rained upon and the piece whereupon it rained not withered So two or three cities wandered to one city to drink water but they were not satisfied It is impossible to give any tolerable account of such Texts as these without confessing That God keeps the Direction and Government of all Natural Causes in his own hands for particular Effects and all the Changes of Nature can never be attributed to God unless the Divine Wisdom and Counsel determines Natural Causes to the producing such particular Effects Great part of the Happiness or Miseries of this Life is owing to the good or bad Influences of Natural Causes that if God take care of Mankind he must govern Nature and when he promises Health and Plenty or threatens Pestilence and Famine how can he make good either if he have not reserved to himself a Soveraign Power over Nature The sum is this That all Natural Causes are under the immediate and absolute Government of Providence that God keeps the Springs of Nature in his own hand and turns them as he pleases For meer Matter though it be endowed with all Natural Vertues and Powers which necessarily produce their Natural Effects yet it having no wisdom and counsel of its own cannot serve the Ends of a Free Agent without being guided by a Wise Hand and we see in a thousand Instances what an Empire Human Art has over Nature not by changing the nature of things which Human Art can never do but by such a skilful application of Causes as will produce such Effects as unguided and if I may so speak untaught Nature could never have produced and if God have subjected material Nature to Human Art surely he has not exempted it from his own Guidance and Power This shews how necessary it is that God by an immediate Providence should govern Nature for Natural Causes are excellent Instruments but to make them useful they must be directed by a Skilful Hand and those various Changes which are in Nature especially in this Sublunary World which we are
be surely put to death And if a man lie not in wait but God deliver him into his hands then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee Where God's delivering him into his hands is opposed to him that smiteth a man so that he die and to him that comes presumptuously upon his neighbour to slay him 15. verse and therefore signifies one who kills his Neighbour by meer Accident As it is explained in 19. Deut. 4 5. And this is the case of the slayer that shall flee thither i. e. to the City of Refuge Whoso killeth his neighbour ignorantly whom he hated not in time past As when a man goeth into the wood with his neighbour to hew wood and his hand fetcheth a stroke with the axe to cut down the tree and the head slippeth from the helve and lighteth upon his neighbour that he die he shall flee unto one of these cities and live What can be more accidental than this And yet we are assured that this is appointed by the Divine Providence that God delivers the man who is killed into the hands of him that killed him Is any thing more casual than a Lot and yet Solomon tells us The lot is cast into the lap but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord 16. Prov. 33. Which is not confined to the Case of Lots but to signify to us That nothing is so casual and uncertain as to be exempted from the disposal of Providence For what seems accidental to us is not Chance but Providence is ordered and appointed by God to bring to pass what his own Wisdom and Counsel has decreed As is very evident from some remarkable Instances of Providence which are recorded in Scripture By how many seeming Accidents and casual Events was Ioseph advanced to Pharoah's Throne His Dreams whereby God foretold his Advancement made his Brethren envious at him and watch some convenient opportunity to get rid of him and so confute his Dreams Iacob sends Ioseph to visit his Brethren in the Fields where they were keeping their Sheep this gave them an opportunity to execute their Revenge and at first they intended to murther him but the Ishmaelites accidentally passing by they sold Ioseph to them and they carried him into Egypt and sold him to Potiphar Potiphar's Wife tempts him to Uncleanness and being denied by Ioseph she accuses him to his Lord who cast him into the King's Prison Whilst he was there the King's Butler and Baker were cast into the same Prison and dreamed their several Dreams which Ioseph expounded to them and the Event verified his Interpretation The Butler who was restored to his Office forgat Ioseph till two years after Pharaoh dreamed a Dream which none of the Wise-men could interpret and then Ioseph was sent for and advanced to the highest place of Dignity and Power next to Pharaoh The years of Famine brought Ioseph's Brethren into Egypt to buy Corn where they bowed before him according to his Dream this occasioned the removal of Iacob and his whole Family into Egypt where Ioseph placed them in the Land of Goshen by which means God fulfilled what he had told Abraham Know of a surety That thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs and shall serve them and they shall afflict them four hundred years 15. Genes 13 How casual does all this appear to us but no man will think that Prophesies are fulfilled by Chance and therefore we must confess that what seems Chance to us was appointed by God Thus God intended to deliver Israel out of Egypt by the hands of Moses Moses was born at a time when the King of Egypt had commanded That every Son that was born to the Israelites should be cast into the River His Mother hid him three months and being not able to conceal him any longer exposed him in an Ark of Bulrushes among the Flags by the River-side Pharaoh's Daughter came down to wash her self in the River and finds the Ark with the Child in it puts him to his own Mother to nurse whereby he came to know his own Kindred and Relations and to be instructed in the Knowledge and Worship of the God of Israel Afterwards Pharaoh's Daughter takes him home and breeds him up as her own Son whereby he was instructed in all the Learning of Egypt and in all the Policies of Pharaoh's Court which qualified him for government When he was forty years old he had lived long enough in Pharaoh's Court and God thought fit to remove him into better Company and to accustom him to a more severe life and this was done by as strange an Accident He slew an Egyptian in defence of an oppressed Iew and was betrayed by his own Brethren and forced to flie from Pharaoh to save his own Life till the time was come for the Deliverance of Israel and then God sent him back into Egypt to bring his people out from thence with Signs and Wonders and a Mighty Hand Thus God had foretold Ahab by the Prophet Micaiah that if he went up against Ramoth-Gilead he should perish there and this was accomplished by a very great Chance For a certain man drew a bow at a venture and smote the king between the joynts of the harness of which he died 1 Kings 22. 34. The Blood which came from his Wound ran into the Chariot and one washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria and the dogs licked up his blood which was a very Casual thing and little thought of by him who did it and yet fulfilled God's threatning against Ahab In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood even thine 21. ch 29. v. I shall add but one example more of this nature and it is a very remarkable one God's deliverance of the Iews in the days of Esther from the wicked Conspiracy of Haman This Haman being advanced to great Power and Authority by King Ahasuerus took great offence at Mordecai the Iew who refused to reverence him as others did and for his sake obtained a Decree from the King to destroy all the Iews in the Provinces of his Dominions Mordecai sends to Queen Esther to go to the King and to petition him about this matter This was a very hazardous Attempt it being Death by the Law for any Person Man or Woman to go to the King without being called unless the King held out his Golden Scepter to them But the Queen at last after three days fasting ventured her own Life to save her People and obtained Favour in the King's sight who held out the Golden Scepter to her All that she requested at that time was That the King and Haman would come to the Banquet which she had prepared and being then asked What her Petition was with an assurance that it should be granted she begged That the King and Haman would come the next day also to her Banquet and then she would declare it Haman was much
and in annexing such rewards and punishments to the observation or to the breach of these Laws as may reasonably invite him to obedience and deter him from sin and as this degenerate state requires in laying such external restraints on him and affording him such internal assistances of Grace as the Divine Wisdom sees proportioned to the weakness and corruption of Human Nature and when this is done it becomes God to leave him to his own choice and to reward or punish him as he deserves for a forced Vertue deserves no Reward and a necessity of sinning will reasonably excuse from Punishment The nature of a reasonable Creature of Vertue and Vice of Rewards and Punishments represent it as very becoming the Wisdom and Justice of God to leave every man to the freedom of his own choice to do good or evil to deserve Rewards or Punishments as far as he himself is only concerned in it But when we consider man in Society the case is altered for when the good or evil of their actions extend beyond themselves to do good or hurt to other men the Providence of God becomes concerned either to hinder or to permit and order it as may best serve the Wise Ends of Government as those other men who are like to be the better or the worse for it have deserved well or ill of God Tho God has made man a free Agent yet we must not think that he has made such a Creature as he himself can't govern No man doubts but that God can when he pleases by an Irresistible Power turn mens hearts and chain up their Passions and alter their Counsels the only Question is When it is fit for God to do this And no man can question the fitness of it when the good Government of the world requires it God makes no man good or bad vertuous or vicious by a perpetual and irresistible force for this contradicts the nature of Vertue and Vice which requires a Freedom and Liberty of Choice but God may by a secret and irresistible influence upon mens minds even force them to do that good which they have no inclination to do and restrain them from doing that evil which otherwise they would have done which does not make them Good men but makes them the Instruments of Providence in doing good to men and God who is the Soveraign Lord of all Creatures may when he sees fit press those men if I may so speak to his Service who would not do good upon choice This shows the difference between the Government of Grace and Providence the first has relation to Vertue and Vice to make men good to change their Natures and sinful Inclinations into habits of Vertue and therefore admits of no greater force than what is consistent with the freedom of Choice and the nature of Virtue and Vice but the Government of Providence respects the external Happiness or Misery Rewards or Punishments of Men or Nations and to this purpose God may use what Instruments he pleases and exercise such Authority over Nature or Men as is necessary to accomplish his own Wise Counsels of Mercy or Judgment And it was necessary to premise this distinction because the confounding these two has occasioned great difficulties and mistakes both in the Doctrine of Grace and Providence Let us then now more particularly consider How God governs Mankind so as to make them the Instruments and Ministers of his Providence in the world The Methods of the Divine Wisdom are Infinite and Unsearchable and we must not expectfully to comprehend all the Secrets and Mysteries of God's Government but something we may know of this enough to teach us to reverence God and to trust in him and to vindicate his Providence from the Cavils of Ignorance and Infidelity which is as much as is useful for us to know And I shall reduce what I have to say to Two General Heads 1. The Government of mens Minds of their Wills their Passions and Counsels 2. The Government of their Actions 1. God's Government of the Minds of Men their Wills and Passions and Counsels for these are the great Springs of Action and as free a Principle as the Mind of man is it is not ungovernable it may be governed and that without an Omnipotent Power against its own Byas and without changing its inclinations and what may be done certainly God can do and when it is necessary to the Ends of Providence we may conclude he will do it Let a man be never so much bent upon any Project yet hope or fear some present great advantage or great inconvenience the powerful intercession of Friends a sudden change of circumstances the improbability of success the irreparable mischief of a defeat and a thousand other considerations will divert him from it and how easie is it for God to imprint such thoughts upon mens minds with an irresistible Vigor and Brightness that it shall be no more in their power to do what they had a mind to than to resist all the Charms of Riches and Honours than to leap into the Fire and to chuse Misery and Ruin That thus it is the Scripture assures us 21. Prov. 1. The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of waters he turneth it whither soever he will And if the King's heart be in the hand of the Lord we cannot doubt but he hath all other mens hearts in his hand also and can turn and change them as he pleases Thus the Wise man tells us A man's heart deviseth his ways but the Lord directeth his steps 16. Prov. 9. Men consult and advise what to do but after all God steers and directs them which way he pleases for tho there are many devices in a man's heart nevertheless the counsel of the Lord that shall stand 19. Prov. 21. Which made the Wise man conclude Mans goings are of the Lord how then shall a man understand his own ways 20. Prov. 24. That is God has such an Absolute Government of the hearts and actions of men when his Providence is concerned in the Event that no man can certainly know what he himself shall chuse and do for God can in an instant alter his mind and make him steer a very different course from what he intended as the Prophet Ieremiah assures us I know that the way of man is not in himself it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps 10. Jer 23. And Solomon tells us something more strange than this The preparation of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue is of the Lord. 16. Prov. 1. or as the Hebrew seems to signifie the preparation of the heart is from man a man premeditates and resolves what he will say but notwithstanding that the answer of the tongue is of the Lord. When he comes to speak he shall say nothing but what God pleases Which sayings must not be expounded to an universal sense that it is always thus but that
upon mount Zion and on Ierusalem I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the King of Assyria and the glory of his proud looks 10. Isai. 5 6 7 12. A great many Examples might be given of this nature but these are sufficient to show what different Intentions God and Men have in the same actions and how easily God can defeat what men intend and accomplish by them his own Wise Counsels which they never thought of When God has no particular Ends of Providence to serve by the Lusts and Passions and evil Designs of men he commonly disappoints them that when they intend evil and imagine a mischievous device they are not able to perform it 21. Psal. 11. Or he turns the evil upon their own heads The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made in the net which they hid is their own foot taken the Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands 9 Psal. 15 16. Or he doubly disappoints their malice not only by defeating the evil they intended but by turning it to the great advantage of those it was intended against which was visible in the case of Haman whose malice against Mordecai and all the Iews for his sake did not only prove his own ruin but the great advancement of Mordecai and the Glory and Triumph of the Iewish Nation Having thus briefly shewn what Government God has both of the Hearts and the Actions of men how easily he can alter their Counsels and manage their Passions make them do what good they never intended and disappoint the evil which they did intend or turn it into good this is a sufficient Demonstration how Absolute the Divine Providence is for he who has such an Absolute Government of Nature of what we call Chance and Fortune and of the Wills and Actions of men can do whatsoever pleaseth him But that we may have the clearer and more distinct apprehension of God's government of mankind to make them the Instruments of his Providence I shall more particularly but very briefly state this matter both with respect to good and to bad men 1. As for Good men there is no difficulty in their case for they are the Ministers of a good and beneficent Providence they do good out of Temper and Inclination and a Habit and Principle of Vertue and out of Reverence to the Divine Laws and are ready to obey every extraordinary impression to excite and determine them to such particular good offices as God thinks fit to employ them in And this is nothing but what is very honourable for God and what becomes good men for to do good is the Glory of Human Nature as well as of the Divine Providence and good men will observe the Laws of Vertue in doing good and while good is done by honest and vertuous means there can be no Objection against Providence 2dly But as Bad men are most difficulty governed so the greatest difficulty is in vindicating Providence in making use of the Ministries of Bad men for it is commonly thought a great blemish to Providence when Glorious and Admirable Designs are brought to pass by the Sins of men Now the Foundation of this Objection is a great mistake as if God could not serve his own Providence by the Sins of men without being the Cause of mens sins for there is no colour nor reasonable pretence of an Objection against God's making the Sins of men serve wise and good ends if he can do this without having any hand in mens sins It is the great Glory of Providence to bring good out of evil and while all the Events of Providence are Just and Righteous and Holy and Wise and such as become a God it is much more admirable to consider that all this should be while there is so much wickedness and disorder in the world The true state of this matter in short is this God never suggests any evil designs to men that is owing to their own wicked hearts or to the Temptations of other wicked men or of wicked Spirits but when men have formed any wicked Designs he sometimes as you have heard changes their purposes or deters them from putting them in execution and when he suffers them to proceed to action he either shamefully disappoints them or serves some wise and good end by what they wickedly do And if Providence consists in the Care and Government of mankind how can God govern mankind better than to permit bad men to do no more hurt than what he can turn to good God does not govern the world by an immediate and miraculous Power but governs men by men and makes them help and defend reward and punish one another and therefore there is no other ordinary way of punishing bad men excepting the Civil Sword which reaches but a few Criminals but to punish them by the Wickedness of other bad men and what can more become the Wisdom and Justice of Providence than to make bad men the Ministers and Executioners of a Divine Vengeance upon each other which is one great End God serves by the Sins of men I 'm sure it is for the great good of the world that God has the government of bad men that they cannot do so much hurt as they would and that the mischief God permits them to do is directed to fall on such persons as either want Correction or deserve Punishment For this is another thing very observable in God's government both of the good and bad actions of men that as in the government of Natural Causes God directs where and when and in what proportion Nature shall exert its Influences that it shall rain upon one City and not upon another so God does not only excite men to do good but directs and determines them where to do it chuses out such persons as they shall do good to and appoints what good they shall do and in what measures and proportions they shall do it And he not only sets bounds to the Lusts and Passions of bad men but when he sees fit to permit their wickedness he directs where the hurt and mischief of it shall light We need no other proof of this but the very Notion of Providence which is God's Care of his Creatures for that requires a particular Application of the good or evil which men do to such particular persons as God thinks fit to do good to or to afflict and punish which is the most material and most necessary exercise both of the Wisdom and Justice and Goodness of Providence For if God suffered men to do good or evil at random without directing them to fit and proper Objects the Fortunes of particular men would depend upon as great a Chance as the mutable Lusts and Passions and Fancies of men The only Use I shall make of this at present is to convince you how perfectly we are in God's hands and how secure we are in his
Absolute Power as you have already heard is to do the greatest good they should think it sufficient to justifie such actions as they have no other way to prove good and just merely by Absolute Power The Glory of Absolute Power is to do what all the world acknowledges to be good and just and therefore Absolute Power cannot prove those actions to be good and just nor make it self Glorious by doing such actions as mankind think very infamous and unjust Let us then lay down this as the Foundation of all That how Unaccountable soever Sovereign and Absolute Will and Power is it neither can nor will do any wrong for it is nothing else but Absolute and Sovereign Justice and Goodness We have no reason to be afraid of the Absolute Power of God no more than we have to be afraid of his Absolute Goodness Absolute Power is the only security we have against suffering wrong for it will do no wrong it self but will rectify all the wrongs which are done by Inferior Powers which none but a Sovereign and Absolute Power can do The firm belief of this will give great relief and satisfaction to our minds under all the unaccountable Passages of Providence for tho Absolute Power be always just and good yet its ways are sometimes past finding out Secondly Let us now consider How unsearchable the Wisdom of Providence is which doth great things past finding out yea and wonders without number 9. Job 10. Which may satisfy us how impossible it is for such ignorant creatures as we are to comprehend all the Wise Reasons of Providence and how impious it is to reproach and censure what we do not and cannot understand We all know the History of Iob and the Dispute betwixt him and his three Friends God exercised Iob with very severe and amazing Sufferings for the Trial of his Vertue his Friends conclude from his great Sufferings That tho his life were visibly very innocent and vertuous yet he had been a secret Hypocrite because God did not use to punish good men but only the wicked in such a manner On the other hand Iob justifies his own Innocence and asserts more truly That bad men were many times very prosperous and good men great sufferers in this world He complains very tragically of his sufferings and that he could not understand the reason why God dealt thus with him and this seems to be Iob's fault that he insisted too much on his own Justification and instead of vindicating the Divine Providence seems to accuse God of a causeless and unaccountable Severity for which Elihu so severely reproved him At last God answers Iob himself as he had often desired he would but instead of a particular Justification of his Providence or of giving Iob the Reasons for which he had thus afflicted him he gives him some sensible Proofs of his own Great and Admirable Wisdom and Power in the Works of Nature which Iob was so far from being able to imitate that he could not understand how they were done The Force of which Argument is this That so weak and ignorant a Creature as Man is ought not to censure the Divine Providence how mysterious and unaccountable soever it be when the very Works of Nature convince us That God is infinitely Wiser and more Powerful than we are This should teach us great Modesty and Humility to adore the Divine Judgments not to censure what we cannot understand for the Power and Wisdom of God can do great and excellent things above our understandings Vain man would be wise tho man be born like a wild asses colt They are impatient to think that God should do any thing which they cannot understand and yet there is not any one thing in Nature which they do understand And if we cannot understand the Mysteries of Nature why should we expect to understand all the unsearchable Depths and Mysteries of Providence If the Wisdom of God be unsearchable why should we not allow his Wisdom in Governing the World to be as unsearchable as his Wisdom in Making it For an Incomprehensible Wisdom will do Incomprehensible Things whatever it employs its self about and when we know that if the world be governed at all it is governed by an Infinite and Incomprehensible Wisdom there is no reason to wonder that there are many Events of Providence which we cannot fathom and much less reason to deny a Providence because we cannot comprehend the Reasons of all Events But this is a matter of such vast consequence to silence the Sceptical Humour of the Age and to shame those trifling and ridiculous Pretences to Wit and Philosophy in Censuring the Wisdom and Justice of Providence that it deserves a more particular Discourse For could we make men confess what all modest considering men must blush to deny That the Wisdom of God is unsearchable this would put an end to all the Disputes about Providence and teach us humbly to Adore and Reverence that Wisdom which we cannot comprehend And to prepare my way to give such full satisfaction in this matter as you may securely acquiesce in without Disputing the Reasons of Providence or being tempted to Deny a Providence when you meet with any Difficulties too hard for you I shall show you how impossible it is that is should be otherwise both from the Infinite Wisdom of God and our own great Ignorance of things which makes the Providence of God in many cases so much above our understandings that we are not capable of such knowledge And 1. I shall show you What reason we have securely to acquiesce in the unsearchable Wisdom of Providence and to trust God beyond our own knowledge because we are certain that Infinite Wisdom can never err or mistake or do wrong 2. That the Wisdom of Providence must be as unsearchable and unaccountable to us as the Wisdom of the Creation 3. That the wise Government of the world requires secret and hidden Methods of Providence and therefore at least in this present state we ought not to expect or desire a particular account or reason of all events 4. That our ignorance of other matters the knowledge of which is absolutely necessary to understand the reasons of Providence makes us utterly uncapable of such knowledge in this state 5. I shall enquire in what cases this is a reasonable answer to all Difficulties That the judgments of God are unsearchable and his ways past finding out 1. That Infinite Wisdom how unsearchable and unaccountable soever its ways are can do no wrong As I observed before that God's Absolute Power is Absolute Rectitude and Justice so all men must grant that Infinite and Perfect Wisdom is always in the right for to be in the wrong is Ignorance and Mistake If Infinite Wisdom will always judge and chuse and act wisely it is then impossible that Infinite Wisdom should ever do wrong for to do wrong is either not to judge or not to chuse wisely In Scripture all
begotten the drops of the dew out of whose womb came the ice and the hoary frost of heaven who hath gendred it By these and such like Questions expressed in unimitable words God convinces Iob how ignorant he was of the most common and familiar Works of Nature which made it great Presumption in so ignorant a Creature to censure the Wisdom of Providence And the Force of the Argument does not only consist in this That the very Works of Nature convince us that God is infinitely wiser than we are and can do great and excellent things which are above our understanding and therefore that we never ought to censure any thing that God does because he is so much wiser than we are that we are not competent Judges of what he does which is an unanswerable Argument to teach us the most profound Reverence and the most absolute Resignation of our selves to God But the Force of this Argument reaches farther That our ignorance of the Works of Nature is both the Cause and the Proof of our great Ignorance of the Works of Providence For no Being can know how to govern a world who does not know how to make it and he who does not know how to govern the world himself is a very unfit Judge of the Wisdom of Providence for he can never know when the world is well and wisely governed because he does not know what belongs to the government of the world The wise government of all creatures must be proportioned to their natures and therefore without understanding the Philosophy of Nature the Springs of Motion the mutual dependance of Causes and Effects what end things are made for and what uses they serve we can never know what is fit to be done nor what can be done or by what means it is to be done and then can never tell when any thing is done as it should be We know not what the Rules nor what the Ends of God's Government are which makes it impossible to judge of the Wisdom of Government Without understanding the Natures of things we must of necessity make as wild Conjectures about Providence as a blind man does of Light and Colours As for instance how is it possible to talk a wise word about God's Government of Mankind in what manner and by what means he turns their hearts directs and influences their counsels suggests thoughts to them and foresees their thoughts and how they will determine themselves when we know so little of the Make and Frame of our own minds where the spring of thoughts is and how we connect Propositions and draw consequences what the power of the Will is how we determine our selves in indifferent matters where the balance is equal for tho we feel all these Powers in our selves yet we know not whence they are nor how they act And yet how many intricate questions are there relating to the Disputes of Providence which are wholly owing to such Nice Philosophical Speculations which we know nothing of and yet which some men perplex themselves with and undertake very gravely to determine Such are the Disputes about Necessity and Fate Prescience and Predetermination and the liberty of Human Actions which as they are differently determined make very different and contrary Hypotheses of Providence and either charge God with the Sins of men or acquit him from any Partnership in Wickedness For all these questions at last resolve themselves into this How the Mind of man acts and determines it self Whether it be determined from abroad from a necessary Train and Series of Fatal Events or from the Decrees and Predetermination or Foreknowledg of God Or whether it be a self-moving Being and determines it self from the Principles of its own Nature and its own free Choice Now unless we understood the Philosophy or the Natural Frame and Composition of our own Minds it is impossible to say any thing to the purpose in this cause any farther than our own sense and feeling goes and that is on the side of liberty for unless we are strangely imposed on we feel our selves free But this may satisfy us that as to all the Difficulties of Providence which can be no other way resolved but by a knowledge of Nature we must of necessity be as ignorant of them as we are of the nature of things and therefore our confessed ignorance of Nature is a good Argument in all such cases to make us very modest in Censuring Providence We know enough both of the works of Nature and of the works of Providence to serve all the wise ends and purposes of living which is all that is useful for us to know and all that God intended we should know but the Reasons and Causes of things belong only to that Wisdom which can make and govern a world We know as much of Providence as we do of Nature and would men set bounds to their Enquiries here which is as far as Human Understandings can reach we should hear very few Objections against Providence Our ignorance of Nature and Natural Causes and the Natural Springs of Motion how things were made and how they act and for what ends they were made which in many cases we do but very imperfectly guess at is a plain demonstration That we never ought to admit any Difficulties in Nature as a sufficient Objection against the Being or the Providence of God in bar to all the Moral Evidence and Assurance we have of both We have all the Moral Evidence we can have for any thing That God governs the world by a Wise and Holy and Free Providence That he is not the Author of Sin That our Wills at least as far as Vertue and Vice is concerned are under no Foreign Force and Constraint but chuse and refuse and determine themselves with a Natural Liberty I say we have undeniable evidence of this from the Wisdom Justice and Holiness of the Divine Nature from the difference between Vertue and Vice and the nature of Rewards and Punishments these things are plain and such as we can understand and such as we cannot deny with any fair appearance of Reason but now all the Arguments against Providence and for Necessity and Fate are mere Philosophical Speculations which men vainly pretend to when it is demonstrable they can know nothing of them As for instance Some tell us That it is not a Wise and Free Providence that governs the world but that all things come to pass by a Necessary Chain of Causes which fatally determine the Will to Chuse and Act as these Causes move it Now whether there be such a necessary Chain of Causes or not it is certain no man can know it who does not as perfectly understand this great Machine of the World and all its Motions as an Artist does all the Wheels in a Watch or Clock nor can any man know how such a Chain of Causes should move and determine the Mind of Man without understanding the Philosophy of Human Souls how
must be punished then they must allow that God may spare a sinner a great while and then very great sinners may be prosperous a great while and if they repent at last may finally escape the Judgments of God and then the Prosperity of Sinners can never be an Argument against Providence unless they can prescribe to God just how long and no longer he may justly spare sinners It is an easy matter to complain of any thing and to start Difficulties and Objections but it is impossible for the Wit of man to reduce Providence to such a Certainty as these men desire Tho God govern the world by never such fixed and steady Laws we can never see it in external Events so as to be able to assign a reason of all that good and evil which happens to particular men For would they have God reward every good man and punish every wicked man or reward and punish every man for the good and evil that he does There is a great mixture of good or bad in most men that for different reasons they may deserve both Rewards and Punishments and tho God knows when it is fit to reward or punish such men yet it is impossible we should and therefore whether they be rewarded or punished we can give no account of it There is also a great mixture of good and bad in most actions some very bad actions may not deserve Punishment as being the effect of Ignorance or Surprize or such invincible Temptations as Human Nature without an extraordinary measure of Grace cannot conquer and there are a great many good actions which deserve no Reward as being done by Chance besides the intention of the doer or done from a very bad Principle or for very bad ends now we only see the good or evil that is in the action and Human Laws can punish or reward nothing but what is seen but I suppose you will not say that God ought to regard nothing else but the material and visible action and then it may be very Wise and Just in God neither to punish men for very bad actions nor to reward them for very good actions and this is another Uncertainty of Events which men ignorantly complain of Thus some men are guilty of a great many secret sins or do a great many good actions which no man knows of but only God and their own Consciences and when God visibly rewards or punishes men for the secret good or evil they have done the reasons of such rewards or punishments must be unknown to us because the good or evil for which they are rewarded or punished is unknown All these things make the Reasons and Events of Providence very uncertain and unaccountable to us and yet we see there may be very wise Reasons for them which we cannot understand and which no man in his Wits would desire should be understood For would you desire that every sin you commit should be immediately punished without any time to repent without any hope of Mercy Would you have God reward and punish as Human Laws do to consider only what is done without making any allowances for ignorance and surprize or without taking any notice of the Principles or Ends of our actions Would you have a Casement into every man's breast or have all their secret Sins or Vertues written upon their Foreheads that every man may be as perfectly known to all the world as he is to himself If you do not desire this you must be contented to be ignorant of the Reasons of Providence of those good and evil Events which happen to men why God punishes one man and spares or rewards another why he does not punish those whom we judge to deserve Punishment nor reward those whom we think worthy of a Reward God has wise Reasons for all this but we cannot understand them and it is happy for us all that they are not understood This shews how absurd it is for us to demand a Reason and to complain that we cannot give a Reason of all the Events of Providence And I shall only observe this by the way That if men would in other cases take the same course that I have done in this they would quickly perceive how vain and senseless all their Objections against Providence are That is Whatever they object against Providence let them turn the other side of it and try whether that would be better Let them consider how they would have what they call the Defects and Blemishes of Providence rectified and whether it would be more for the wise and happy Government of the World if it were so I dare challenge the greatest Pretenders to Wit and Reason to give any one Instance of this nature to name any one thing which they quarrel at which they know how to mend And if the world be so wisely ordered already that those who complain most can't tell how any thing could be better done it is Ridiculous and Impudent to find fault which are no hard words in such a Cause as this But this is not all I intend merely to shew That this is an Unreasonable Objection against Providence That the Events of it are many times very uncertain hidden and mysterious and such as we cannot give the particular Reasons of but likewise to satisfy you That the Wise Government of Mankind requires it should be so and to represent to you The great and excellent Advantages of it Now I suppose you will all grant That what is most for the Glory of God for the advancement of true Piety and the Restraints of Wickedness is the Wisest way of Governing the World And if you will grant this I doubt not but I shall presently satisfy you That the Wise Government of the World requires secret and hidden Methods of Providence such uncertain and surprizing Events as at least we can give no account of till it comes to its last and concluding Issue 1. For what is there that excites in us a greater Admiration of God than to see great and glorious things brought to pass by a long and winding Labyrinth of surprizing and perplex'd Events which we know nothing of nor whither they tend till we see where they end Mankind never greatly admire what is plain and obvious and every man's thought because there is nothing in it which shews any extraordinary Contrivance But when unexpected Events are brought to pass by unsuspected means and yet designed and directed by a steady and unerring Counsel When great things are done by such means as have no Natural Causality to produce such Effects and therefore can give no notice nor the least suspicion of what is a-doing When our very Fears are turned into Triumphs and that which seemed to threaten us with some great evils is made the Instrument of some great and surprizing Blessings When bad men are ensnared in their own Counsels and fall into the Pit which they have digged for others When God turns their Curses into Blessings
we see such things done in the world which for ought we know Infinite Wisdom can give very wise Reasons for but we can't Thus to come to the business in hand It is not enough to prove That there are such Difficulties in Providence as we can give no account of if there be no other life after this but they must positively prove That there are such Difficulties as the next world can give no account of All men must acknowledge this to be very reasonable for if there be another life after this it is evident that the Reasons of Providence must in many cases be wholly fetched from the other world If we must live in another world when we remove out of this then this life is but one short Scene of Providence and the government of Mankind in this world is chiefly in order to the next and then the Reasons of God's government also must relate to the next world And if we must judge of the Providence of God by its relation to the next world it will give a general Answer to all the Difficulties of Providence and give us a satisfactory Reason why we must not expect to understand all the particular Passages of Providence in this world The general Answer is this That all the seeming Irregularities of Providence in this world will be rectified in the next and when we see this done we shall then see the Wisdom of what we now call the Irregular and Eccentrick Motions of Providence It is certain this may be so and no man can prove it can't be so and if we had no other Evidence for it the reason and nature of things upon the supposition of the other world makes it highly probable that it will be so All men who believe another world believe also that good men shall be greatly rewarded and the wicked punished in the next life and we Christians are assured that it shall be so by the express Revelations of Scripture that good men shall be eternally rewarded in Heaven and bad men eternally punished in Hell-fire And it is wonderful to me that any Christians who profess to believe this should puzzle themselves about the Difficulties of Providence for what Difficulties are there which Eternal Happiness and Eternal Miseries will not answer The great Prosperity of bad men especially when they openly defy God and Religion and oppress all within their power and persecute the true Disciples of Christ and do all the mischief they can in the world and the Poverty and Disgrace Persecutions and Sufferings of good men are thought great Difficulties in Providence but could these Objectors but look into the next world and see Dives tormented in Flames and hear him beg only for a Drop of Water to cool his Tongue could they see Lazarus in Abraham's Bosom no longer begging an Alms but entertain'd with all the Delights of Paradise Could they see the Punishments of Tyrants Persecutors and Oppressors and the Glorious Crowns of Martyrs would they then any longer complain of Providence Would they think God too kind to bad men or too hard and severe to the good If the final Rewards and Punishments of good and bad men are reserved for the next world there is no difficulty at all in the Prosperity of some bad men and the Afflictions of the good in this world for they are not intended so much for Rewards and Punishments as for Methods of Discipline and Government that the Justice of God is not so much concerned in it as the Wisdom of Providence which we who know not what belongs to the government of the world are very unfit judges of This leaves room for God as his own Infinite Wisdom shall direct to exercise great Patience and Long-suffering towards bad men to make them the Ministers and Executioners of his Vengeance upon a wicked world or to lead them to Repentance and to correct the sins and follies of good men to rectify the temper of their minds to govern their passions to exercise and improve their Graces and Vertues in a word to make bad men good and to make good men better and to serve the wise ends of his Government and Providence by both So that the belief of another world gives a general Answer to all the Difficulties of Providence and it does not become a Christian to call any thing a Difficulty in Providence which the other world will answer That there are such Difficulties as we can give no account of without another life we all acknowledge and know that it must be so for if this life have a relation to the next the Reasons of Providence in many cases must of necessity be fetched from the next world and therefore when an Atheist disputes with a Christian against Providence if he will say any thing to the purpose he must dispute against Providence upon the supposition of another life and prove that the Eternal Rewards and Punishments of the next world cannot vindicate the Wisdom and Justice of Providence in this This is the true state of the Controversy and bring them to this Issue and they will find little to say which will give any trouble to a wise man to answer But after all we must confess That we know so little of the other world that it is impossible for us to give a particular reason of every passage of Providence which relates to the next world I say which relate to the next world which are the greatest difficulties of all to good men The belief of another life will answer all the Difficulties of Providence which concern this life but those Difficulties which concern the state of the other world it cannot answer but then there is a plain reason why we cannot answer such Difficulties viz. Because we do not know enough of the state of the other world to say any thing to them and therefore we ought not to trouble our selves about them here but to stay till we come into the next world and then it is very probable they will be no Difficulties I shall instance in one very great one and that is the state of Religion in this world which is no Objection against Providence with respect to this life but the whole Difficulty of it relates to the next life That since all men have Immortal Souls and must be happy or miserable for ever God should for so many Ages suffer the whole World excepting the Iews to live in Ignorance and in Pagan Idolatry and Superstition That Christ came so late into the world to reveal the True God and to publish the Gospel to them and that so great a part of the World still are Pagans and Mahometans nay that so little a part of the Christian World retain the True Faith and Worship of Christ This is Ten thousand times a greater Difficulty than any present evils and calamities because the consequences of it reach to Eternity But then the whole Difficulty is no more than this That we know not
as we can give no satisfactory account of does him little service because the Unsearchable Wisdom of God answers such Difficulties but if we will grant him That God acts by such Rules as all men who judge impartially according to the natural notions and the natural sense which we have of Justice must think unjust this is what he would have and he will give us leave to talk as much as we please of the Arbitrary and Sovereign Will of God but he will believe no such God for this is not the Natural Notion of a God to be Arbitrary but to be Good and Just And to say that God is Good and Just but not Good and Just as men understand Goodness and Justice is to say that we have no Natural Notion of the Goodness and Justice of God and then we can have no Natural Notion of a God For if the Natural Notion of a God is That he is Just and Good it seems hard to think that we should have a Natural Notion of a Good and Just God without having any Natural Notion what his Justice and Goodness is but instead of that should have such Natural Notions of Justice and Goodness as if we believe what some men say of God can never be reconciled with his being Just and Good This then must be laid down as a standing Rule That we must never attribute any thing to God which contradicts the Natural Notions which we have of Justice and Goodness under a pretence That God is unaccountable and his ways and judgments unsearchable for it is not the Will of God which is always directed by Goodness and Justice that is unaccountable but his Wisdom not the standing Rules of his Providence which are nothing else but perfect and unerring Justice and Goodness but the application of particular Events to these Rules And having premised this by way of Caution I come now more particularly to consider in what Cases this is a reasonable Answer to all the Difficulties of Providence 1. Now in the first place I observe in general That the Unsearchableness of the Divine Wisdom in governing the world is a reasonable Answer to all difficulties which have no intrinsick or essential evil in them Whatever we see done in the world if it be possible to imagine any Cases or Circumstances wherein such a thing may be wisely and justly done we have reason to believe that the Infinite Wisdom of God had wise and just reasons for doing it tho we know not what they are For is it not great perverseness to charge God with doing such things unjustly as it is possible might be done for wise and just Reasons And yet I challenge all the Atheists in the world to name me any one thing which ever God did that could not possibly in no Cases or Circumstances whatsoever be wisely and justly done The Difficulties of Providence do not consist merely in external Events for all external Events may be good or evil just or unjust with respect to their different Circumstances of Time or Place or Person and the like And therefore when we see any thing happen which as far as we apprehend the case seems a difficulty in Providence if altering the Case would answer the difficulty it is only supposing that God sees the Case to be otherwise than we apprehend it to be and the Difficulty vanishes and is not this very easy and natural to suppose that God may know the Case better than we do And is it not much more reasonable to suppose that we mistake the Case than to charge the Divine Providence with doing any thing hard or unjust But to make you sensible of this I shall explain it a little more particularly Most of the Objections against Providence relate to the good or evil that happens to private Men or to Publick Societies to Kingdoms and Common-wealths such as the Length or Shortness of our Lives Health or Sickness Poverty or Riches Honour or Disgrace Famine Sword and Pestilence or the contrary Blessings of Plenty Peace and a wholsome Air the Changes and Revolutions of States and Empires the removing Kings and setting up Kings Now what of all this is there that God can never wisely and justly do May not God have very wise and just Reasons for lengthening some mens Lives and for shortening others For making men Rich or Poor Honourable or Vile For translating Kingdoms and Empires For sending Peace or War Plenty or Famine And if all these things can be wisely and justly done how can the doing of any of these things be an Objection against Providence Yes you 'l say such good or evil Events may be wrong applied to persons who do not deserve them and then they become unjust and so you apprehend they many times are and this is the Difficulty of Providence But now if there be no iniquity in the Events themselves when there are wise and just reasons for them why should we not rather conclude That there are wise Reasons for them when they are ordered and appointed by God Are not the Natural Notions we have of the Divine Justice a sufficient reason to believe that God never does any thing but what is just And is not his unsearchable Wisdom which sees such things as we cannot see a sufficient reason to confess That God may have wise and just Reasons for what he does tho we know them not This is enough to satisfy all the Friends of Providence and to silence its Enemies For if all those Events which they think hard or unjust may be very wise and just as the Natural Justice of God is reason to believe they are and as the unsearchable Wisdom of God proves they may be tho we do not see the Wisdom and Justice of them then it is certain That what may be wise and just can be no Argument against the Wisdom and Justice of Providence And when we have so many Reasons to believe a Providence such a may be is a reasonable answer to all such Difficulties as are themselves no more than may bees 2dly The unsearchable Wisdom of God is a reasonable satisfaction as to all Prerogative Acts which we must seek for no other reason of but the good Will and Pleasure of God I call those Prerogative Acts which are the exercise of a Free and Sovereign Will within the bounds of Just and Good The Divine Nature as Infinite as it is confines it self within the bounds of Justice and Goodness and the Prerogative of God as the Absolute and Sovereign Lord cannot transgress these bounds but there are a great many acts of Sovereignty relating to the free exercise of Justice and Goodness which are under the necessary direction of no Law but are only the free and unaccountable Choice of a Sovereign Will As in Scripture God is sometimes said to do such things according to his Will according to the good Pleasure of his Will according to his good Pleasure which always relates to such
reason much more ought we to be satisfied with what God does when we know that he executes Judgment and restrains and punishes Wickedness and governs bad men with unsearchable Wisdom 3dly That the ways of God are unsearchable is a reasonable Answer to all Difficulties which concern such matters as we must confess to be above our understanding I have already given you a great many Instances of this nature which I need not repeat and indeed he must be a very ignorant man who is not sensible that there is a Knowledge which is too wonderful for him which the Light of Nature cannot discover and which God has not thought fit to reveal And is it not reasonable in all such cases to say That the Ways and Judgments of God are above our knowledge and to be contented to be ignorant of what we cannot know This I am sure is the only Remedy that is left us and the only way to rid our minds of such perplexing Difficulties as are owing to our own unavoidable Ignorance of things This is sufficient to shew you That the Providence of God not only as our Absolute Lord but as the Infinitely Wise Governor of the World is and must be Unaccountable and that this is a very reasonable answer to the Difficulties of Providence and the true use of all is not to strive with God not to quarrel at his Providence but to reverence his Unsearchable Judgments to bear whatever he lays on us with Patience and Submission and to compose our minds to a firm Trust and Dependance on him in the most cross and threatning Events It is thought a great piece of Wit to be able to start some New Objections against Providence and to find a great many Faults in God's Government of the world But besides the great Irreverence to God did such men believe a God it is a certain proof of the most despicable Ignorance That they are ignorant to such a degree as not to know they are ignorant for if they did they would not dare to Judge and Censure Infinite Wisdom CHAP. V. The Justice and Righteousness of Providence THE next Enquiry is Concerning the Justice of the Divine Providence Justice and Righteousness is essential to the Notion of a God and therefore if God govern the world he must govern it righteously and this is the great and formidable Objection against Providence That the world is not governed with Justice and Righteousness And could this be evidently and convincingly proved I would allow the Conclusion That then God does not govern the world But I challenge any man who understands what the Justice of God's Government is to charge the Divine Providence with any one plain and notorious Act of Injustice for the truth is the ground of all these Objections is an ignorance of the Nature of God's Government and of the Justice of Providence and when this is truly stated all such Objections will need no Answer Justice is commonly divided into Commutative and Distributive Justice the first respects mens Rights and Properties the second their Deserts the first consists in giving every man what is his own by some Natural or Acquired Rights the second consists in rewarding or punishing men as the nature and quality of their actions deserve And upon both these accounts some men impeach the Divine Providence 1. Because it is too manifest that there is a great deal of Injustice done in the world that a great many men are deprived of their Rights and Properties by Fraud Injustice or open Violence and therefore the world is not justly and righteously governed which they think in the last issue must reflect upon the Justice and Righteousness of Providence if God be the Supreme and Sovereign Lord of the world 2dly That Rewards and Punishments are not justly and equally distributed that some bad men are greatly rewarded and some good men greatly punished which is not reconcilable with the Distributive Justice of Providenc Now the plainest and shortest way of answering these and all such like Objections is to consider Wherein the Justice of Providence consists and what Justice requires of God in the government of this lower world For if God may govern the world very righteously without doing what some men think Justice requires him to do and without hindring what they think Justice requires him to hinder this is a sufficient Vindication of the Justice of Providence whatever other Objections they may make against it And I shall state this as plainly and briefly as I can 1. First then I suppose I may take it for granted That the Justice of Providence does not consist in hindring all Acts of Injustice and Violence There may be great Violence and Injustice committed in the world and yet God may govern the world with great Righteousness Which is no more than to say That men may be very wicked and unjust and yet God be very Just. As for God's permitting so much evil to be committed that is a greater Objection against the Holiness than against the Justice of Providence and shall be particularly considered under that Head but the Justice of Providence does not consist in hindring men from sinning but in punishing them when they do Were it unjust in God to suffer men to do any Injustice it would be but a very imperfect kind of Justice to punish them for it for upon this supposition the Justice of punishing sin would be founded in the Injustice of permitting it and God must be first Unjust in permitting Injustice before he can be Just in punishing it Which shews how absurd it would be to charge the Providence of God with Injustice because there are so many unjust men who do many unjust things 2. For God may do that very justly which men cannot do without great injustice and therefore men may be very unjust and God very just As for instance God may very justly take away any man's Estate when no man can do it without Injustce and the Case is the same with respect to Honour and Power and Life it self for God is the Supreme Lord and Proprietor of the World we are all his and all that we have is his We may have a Right to our Lives and Liberties Estates Honours and Power against all Human Claims but we have no Right against God He may give Riches and Honours and Power to whom he pleases and take them away again when he sees fit without being chargeable with any Injustice for what he gives and what he takes away is his own and may not he do what he will with his own There can be no Commutative Iustice in a strict and proper sense where there is no Right but on one side for he who has no Right can suffer no Wrong and he in whom the whole Right is can do no Wrong in giving or taking away what is his own And therefore Legal Rights and Properties which are the Foundation of Commutative Justice can be no Objection against
than to command every thing that is Holy and to forbid all kinds and degrees of Wickedness and to encourage the practice of Vertue and to discourage all Wicked practices as much as the Wisdom of Government and the freedom of human Actions will allow That God does all this wherein the Holiness of Government consists I know no man that denies As wicked as Mankind is it is not for want of holy and just and good Laws The law of the Lord is an undefiled law converting the soul the testimony of the Lord is sure and giveth wisdom unto the simple the statutes of the Lord are right and rejoyce the heart the commandment of the Lord is pure and giveth light unto the eyes The fear of the Lord is clean and endureth for ever the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether 19. Psal. 7 8 9. The great complaint is That the Laws of God are too Holy for the Corrupt state of this World and most men think to excuse their Wickedness by the degeneracy of human Nature and the too great Purity and Perfection of the Divine Laws which they have no Ability to perform Now the Holiness of God's Laws are an undeniable Argument of the Holiness of his Providence and Government whether we consider these Laws as a copy of his Nature or a declaration of his Will much more if we consider them both as his Nature and his Will as all Moral Laws which have an eternal and necessary Goodness in them are for the Divine Nature and Will must be the rule and measure of his Providence and Government unless he Govern the World contrary to his own Nature and Will Nay Laws themselves are not only the Rule of Obdience to Subjects but of Government to the Prince and it is universally acknowledged to be as great a miscarriage in a Prince not to Govern by his own Laws as it is in Subjects not to obey them Princes may be guilty of such miscarriages but God can't and therefore the Laws he gives to us are the Rules of his own Providence and then the Holiness of his Laws prove that his Government and Providence must be very Holy And indeed we have very visible and sensible proofs of this in that care he takes to encourage the Practice of Vertue and to discourage Wickedness This he has done by those great Promises which he has made to the Observation of his Laws and by those terrible Threatnings which he has denounc'd against the breach of them both in this World and in the World to come But this is not what I mean for men can despise both Promises and Threatnings if they do not see the Execution of them and the Promises and Threatnings of the other World which are much the most considerable are out of sight and do not so much affect Bad men and that which is most proper for us to consider here is how the external Administrations of Providence encourage Vertue and discourage Wickedness and Vice Now those who believe that all the Miseries that are in the World are the effects or rewards of Sin as all men must do who believe the Scripture nay as all men must do who believe that a Just and Good God governs the World must confess that the Divine Providence has done abundantly enough to discourage Wickedness For it is visible enough how many Miserie 's there are in the World So many and so great as are commonly thought a reproach to Providence but if they be the just recompence of Sin they are only an Argument of the Justice and Holiness of Providence If we believe the Scripture Mortality and Death and consequently all those Infirmities and Decays of Nature all those Pains and Sicknesses and Diseases which are not the effect of our own Sins or which we do not inherit from our more immediate Parents as an entail of their Sins are owing to the Sin of Adam which brought Death upon himself and all his Posterity and such a curse upon the earth as has entail'd Labour and Sorrow on us As for many other Miseries and Calamities of life they are visibly owing to our own or to other mens Sins Such as Want and Poverty Infamy and Reproach Seditions and Tumults violent Changes and Revolutions of Government and all the Miseries and Desolations of War Take a survey in your thoughts of all the several sorts of Miseries which are in the World and tell me what place they could find here by what possible means they could enter into the World were Sin banished out of it What Miseries could disturb Human life were all men Just and Honest and Charitable did they love one another as themselves Perfect Vertue is not only an innocent and harmless but a very beneficial thing it does no hurt but all the good it can both to it self and others and when there is nothing to hurt us neither within nor without we can suffer no hurt And is not this a sufficient proof of the Holiness of Providence that God has so ordered the nature of things and the circumstances of our life in this World that if men will be Wicked they shall be Miserable Can any thing in this World more discourage men from Sin or make them more zealous to reform themselves and the rest of Mankind than so many daily and sensible proofs that there is no expectation of a secure state of rest and happiness while either they themselves or other men with whom they must of necessity converse or have something to do are Wicked For you must remember that I am not now a vindicating the Justice but the Holiness of Providence and therefore it is no Objection against what I have now said That many times vertuous and innocent men suffer very greatly by the Violence and Injustice of the wicked Tho this may be an Objection against the Justice of Providence which I have already accounted for yet it is no Objection against the Holiness of Providence but a great justification of it for the more effectual care God has taken to give all mankind an abhorrence of all Wickedness both in themselves and others the more undeniable proof it is of the Holiness of God's Government and this is more effectually done by the evils which we suffer from other mens wickedness than from our own Men who are very favourable to their own Vices when they feel the Pleasures and Advantages of them learn to hate to condemn to punish them by feeling what they suffer from other mens sins When they lose their own Estates by Injustice and Violence or their Good Names by Reproaches and Defamations or are injur'd in the Chastity of their Wives and Daughters by other mens Lusts this gives them a truer sense of the evil of Injustice Defamation and Lust and makes them condemn these Vices in themselves how well soever they love them This is the foundation of Human Government which keeps Mankind in order and lays great Restraints upon
heart He who intends and resolves it and wants nothing but an opportunity to commit adultery is an Adulterer If God then must not permit sin he must not suffer men to will and to chuse any thing that is wicked for this is the sin herein the immorality of the Act consists Consider then what the meaning of this is that God must not leave men to the liberty of their own choice but must always over-rule their minds by an irresistible Power to chuse that which is good and to refuse the evil But will any one say that this is to govern men like men Is this the natural government of free Agents to take away their liberty and freedom of choice Does government signify destroying the nature of those Creatures which are to be governed does this become God to make a free Agent and to govern him by necessity and force This I confess is a certain way to keep Sin out of the world but it thrusts Holiness out of the world too for where there is no liberty of choice there can be neither moral good nor evil and this would be a more reasonable objection against the Holiness of Providence that it banishes Holiness out of the world I grant that God governs the minds of men as well as their external Actions directs and influences their Counsels suggests wise thoughts to them excites good men to great and vertuous Actions and lays invisible restraints upon the Lusts and Passions of Bad men turns their Hearts changes their Counsels and diverts them from ill-laid Designs especially when they have no external restraints on them and the pursuing such Counsels would be very hurtful to the world or to the Church of God nay I deny not but in such cases God may by an irresistible power and influence govern the minds of men not to make them good but to make them the instruments of Providence in doing such good as they have no inclination to do and to chain up their Passions that they may not do that hurt which they intended to do as I have shewn at large above And I see nothing in this which unbecomes the Wise and Soveraign Lord of the world sometimes by an immediate power to govern the minds as well as the bodies of men that they shall no more be able to will and chuse than they are to do what they themselves please For though God has made man a reasonable Creature and free Agent he has not wholly put him out of his own power but that when he sees fit he can lay invisible restraints upon him or clap a counter byass upon his mind which shall lead him contrary to the natural tendency of his own Will and Lusts Thus it is in the natural World though God has endowed all Creatures with natural Vertues and Qualities and in the ordinary course of his Providence suffers them to produce their natural effects yet he has reserved to himself a Sovereign Authority over Nature to reverse its Laws or suspend its influences by an immediate and supernatural Power and I see no reason why God may not do this in the moral as well as in the natural world when the good government of the world requires it But though God may thus sometimes by a Supernatural Power influence the minds of men and chain up their Lusts and Passions yet this is not the natural government of mankind consider'd as free Agents and it would no more become God always to over-rule mens Wills in this manner than it would always to over-power Nature and to govern the natural world not by its natural Vertues and Powers but by constant Miracles And if the ordinary and natural government of mankind considered as reasonable and free Agents requires that God should leave men to the liberty and freedom of their own choice which is the only thing that can be judged and that is capable of Rewards and Punishments then it is no reasonable objection against the Holiness of Providence that God permits men to chuse wickedly that he does not always by an Irresistible and Sovereign Power hinder the internal acts of Sin Especially when we consider that God gives men all those internal assistances of his Grace and lays all those internal restraints upon their Lusts and Passions which are consistent with the liberty of Human Actions Though we know not in what manner the Holy Spirit works upon the minds of men yet this we know if we believe the Gospel of our Saviour That God worketh in us both to will and to do of his own good pleasure That he gives his holy spirit to those who ask him to be a principle of a spiritual life in them And Bad men themselves if they will but confess what they feel must tell you what strugglings they find in their own minds before they can yield to the temptations of sin How in some cases especially at their first entrance upon a sinful course of life natural modesty in others natural pity and compassion in others a natural greatness and generosity of mind gives check to them how at first they blush at the thoughts of any wickedness and are reproached by their own Consciences for it how they tremble at the thoughts of a future Judgment or some present Vengeance to overtake them and can never sin securely till they have laughed away the thoughts of God and of another world Such care God has taken to make Sin uneasy to the minds of men and to reconcile them to the love of Vertue and if after all they will be wicked as free Agents may be if they will this can be no blemish to the Holiness of Providence because it is no fault of Providence to leave free Agents to the freedom of their own choice 2dly As for the external Acts of Sin it must be confessed that God permits a great deal of wickedness to be actually committed such as Thefts Murders Adulteries Perjuries and the like Now this requires a different consideration for in Human Governments this is thought a great miscarriage to suffer any wickedness to be actually committed which we can hinder the commission of No man would be thought innocent much less a Prince who should see a man murthered a Virgin deflowered a Robbery or any other Villanies committed without interposing to hinder the commission of such wickedness when it was in his power to do it and how then can we vindicate the Holiness of Providence which sees and observes and could easily hinder the commission of such wickedness as it daily permits Now rightly to understand this matter we must consider 1. That God cannot always by an immediate Power hinder the actual commission of sin without a perpetual violation of the order of Nature and therefore this does not properly belong to an ordinary Providence which is the government of all Creatures according to their Natures We know indeed That when Ieroboam in great anger stretched out his hand against the Prophet
imperfect can with such great probability almost to the degree of certainty foresee many Events which depend also upon free and contingent Causes And if we will allow that God's Praescience is owing to the perfection of his Knowledge then it is certain that it neither makes nor proves any fatal necessity of Events If we say indeed as some men do that God foreknows all things because he has absolutely decreed whatever shall come to pass this I grant does infer a fatal necessity and yet in this case it is not God's Fore-knowledge but his Decree which creates the necessity All things upon this Supposition are necessary not because God foreknows them but because by his unalterable Decrees he has made them necessary he foreknows because they are necessary but does not make them necessary by foreknowing them but if this were the truth of the case God's Praescience considered only as fore-knowing would be no greater perfection of knowledge than men have who can certainly fore-know what they certainly intend to do and it seems God can do no more But thus much we learn from these mens Confession That Foreknowledge in its own nature lays no necessity upon Human Actions that if God can fore-know what he has not absolutely and peremptorily decreed how certain soever such Events may be his Fore-knowledge does not make them necessary And therefore we cannot prove the necessity of all Events from God's Fore-knowledge till we have first proved that God can foreknow nothing but what is necessary That is in truth That there is no such Perfection as Praescience belonging to the Divine Nature for to foreknow things in a Decree or only in necessary Causes is no more that perfection of Knowledge which we call Praescience than it is Praescience in us to know what we intend to do to morrow or that the Sun will rise to morrow But that God's Fore-knowledge is not owing to a necessity of the Event and therefore cannot prove any such necessity is evident from hence That the Scripture which attributes this Fore-knowledge to God does also assert the liberty of Human Actions charges mens Sins and final Ruin on themselves sets before them Life and Death Blessing and Cursing as I observed before Now how difficult soever it may be to reconcile Praescience and Liberty it is certain that Necessity and Liberty can never be reconciled and therefore if men act freely they do not act necessarily and if God does foreknow what men will do and yet men act freely then it is certain that God foreknows what men will freely do That is That Foreknowledge is not owing to the necessity but to the perfection of Knowledge And this is enough to satisfy all Christians who cannot reason nicely about these matters that this Argument from Praescience to prove the necessity of Human Actions and consequently to charge mens Sins upon God must be fallacious and deceitful because the Scripture teaches the Fore-knowledge of God and yet charges the guilt of mens Sins upon themselves And if we believe the Scripture we must believe both these and then we must confess that Praescience does not destroy Liberty 2dly Another Objection against the Holiness of Providence is this That God does not only foreknow but decrees such Events as are brought to pass by the Sins of men and therefore at least in such Cases he must decree mens Sins too We have a famous Example of this in the Crucifixion of our Saviour Never was there a more wicked Action committed and yet St. Peter tells the Iews that this was the effect of God's Counsel and Decrees Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain 2. Acts 23. But if we consider the words carefully this very Text will answer the Objection For what does St. Peter say was done by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God Did they take him and by wicked hands crucify and slay him by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God This is not said but he was delivered that is put into their power by the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God and then they took him and with wicked hands slew him And then we must observe that here are two distinct Acts of God relating to this Event The determinate counsel and the fore-knowledge of God The Will or Counsel of God which he had fore-ordain'd and praedetermined the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was that Christ should die an Expiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the world which was a work of such stupendious Wisdom Goodness Holiness and Justice that nothing could more become God than such Counsels and Decrees But then by his Infinite Praescience and Foreknowledge he saw by what means this would be done if he thought fit to permit it viz. by the Treachery of Iudas by the Malice of the Scribes and Pharisees and by the Compliance of the Roman Powers and this he determined to permit and to deliver him up into their hands the certain effect of which would be that they would take him and with wicked hands crucify him and slay him So that though God did decree that Christ should die yet he did not decree that Judas should betray him or that the Scribes and Pharises and Pontius Pilate should condemn and crucify him but this he foresaw and this he decreed to permit and to accomplish his own Wise Counsels for the Salvation of mankind by such Wicked Instruments and there is nothing in all this unworthy of God or unbecoming the Holiness of his Providence And thus it is with reference to all other Events which are decreed by God He never decrees any thing but what is holy and good and though he many times accomplishes his Wise Decrees by the Wickedness and Sins of men yet he never decrees their Sins but by his foresight and wonderful Wisdom so disposes and orders things as to make their Sins which they freely and resolvedly commit and which nothing but an irresistible Power could hinder them from committing serve the Wise and Gracious ends of his Providence This is Wisdom too wonderful for us but thus we know it may be and thus the Scripture assure us it is 3dly Another pretence for charging God with the Sins of men is from some obscure expressions of Scripture which when expounded to a strict literal sense as some men expound them seem to attribute to God some kind of Causality and Efficiency in the Sins of men But unless we will make the Scripture contradict it self it is certain that those few Texts which seem to make God the Author of Sin are misunderstood Because not only some few particular Texts but all the natural Notions we have of God the very nature and design of Religion and three parts of the Bible either directly or by necessary consequence prove the contrary And supposing then that we could give no tolerable account of such Texts is it not more reasonable
Miracles yet separated from this it was no moral evil not to part with Israel who had now been the Subjects of Egypt for above Two hundred years And therefore when the Dispute was not about believing and obeying God and Moses which Pharaoh had no regard to but only whether he should let Israel go to avoid these Plagues which he suffered for their sake though God did not harden him in his infidelity and disobedience yet he did harden him against parting with Israel that is he hardened him not in sin for the infidelity and disobedience which was the only sinfulness of it was wholly his own but he hardened him in the most Ruinous Counsel he could possibly have taken which would bring new Plagues on Egypt and end in his own final Ruin This was the case of Ahab God did resolve to send him to Ramoth Gilead to fall there and suffered a lying Spirit to enter into the Mouths of his Prophets and to harden him in that expedition against the Prophetick Threatnings of Micaiah that all things considered it may be said that God perswaded and that God hardened Ahab to go to Ramoth Gilead Now suppose this yet it is not to harden him in Sin for it was no Sin to go to Fight against Ramoth Gilead but it was only to harden him in a dangerous attempt and which God intended should be fatal to him A great many Instances of this nature may be given where God hardens men in such courses as shall and are intended by God to prove either a very sore punishment to them or their utter Ruin but there is no one instance can be given of Gods persuading or tempting or hardening men in any thing which is in its own nature evil And were this well considered it would answer and shame a great many ignorant Objections against Providence 3dly But we must farther observe That when God does thus harden men in Ruinous Counsels on purpose to punish or destroy them he does nothing which has either any natural or moral efficacy to harden them but by their own wickedness they abuse the Providence of God to harden themselves This I have particularly shewn in the Case of Pharaoh Those Signs and Wonders which God wrought in Egypt and that undeniable Proof that they were sent by God in that they were inflicted and removed at the word of Moses and the Goodness of God in removing one Judgment after another at his request would have convinced and softned other men but hardened him St. Paul tell us That the natural end and use of God's Patience and Long-suffering is to lead us to repentance and therefore when it hardens some men in sinful and destructive Courses as we too often see it does there is no reason to charge this on the Patience of God but on the Wickedness of men God permitted a lying Spirit to enter into Ahab's Prophets to persuade him to go against Ramoth-Gilead and though God might very justly have left him in the hands of those False Prophets of his own making and chusing yet he sends his own Prophet Micaiah whom all Israel knew to be the Lord's Prophet to assure him That if he went against Ramoth-Gilead he should perish there And therefore God did not deceive Ahab but he deceived himself by preferring the Prophets of Baal before the Lord's Prophet which was owing to his own wicked Idolatrous heart God never deceives or hardens any men by the external Events and Appearances of Providence but those whose own lusts and wicked hearts deceive and harden them There is always enough even in those Providences which men abuse to harden themselves to have reclaimed and softened them if they would have made a wise use of it And when men have sinned themselves into such a hardened state as to forfeit the protection of Providence God may do what is wise and just and holy though he knows that they will abuse it to their own ruin and intends to bring ruin on them by it And it is a glorious vindication of the Wisdom and Goodness and Holiness of God when all the world shall see that such mens ruin is wholly owing to themselves to their wicked abuse of all those wise and gracious Methods which would have reclaimed and saved them if they would have been reclaimed and saved 4thly To understand the full and comprehensive notion of God's hardening men we must observe farther That when God has been so far provoked as to resolve the final destruction of any Person or People he many times inflicts on them a judicial blindness and infatuation which betrays them to such foolish Counsels as must inevitably prove their ruin That God many times does this the Scripture witnesseth He leadeth counsellors away spoiled and maketh the judges fools He removeth away the speech of the trusty in whose Counsel men used to confide and taketh away the understanding of the aged He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way That is entangles and perplexes their Counsels They grope in the dark without light and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man To reel from one Resolution to another in great uncertainty what to do 12. Iob 17 20 24 25. Thus 19. Isaiah 11 12 13 14. Surely the princes of Zoan are fools the counsel of the wise counsellors of Pharaoh is become bruitish How say ye unto Pharaoh I am the son of the wise the son of ancient kings Where are they where are thy wise men and let them tell thee now and let them know what the Lord of Host hath purposed upon Egypt The princes of Zoan are become fools the princes of Noph are deceived they have also seduced Egypt even they that are the stay of the tribes thereof The Lord hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit We have a plain Example of this in Absalom whom God resolved to punish for his Rebellion against David his King and Father David had prayed that God would turn the counsel of Ahitophel into foolishness and accordingly God so ordered it as to defeat the good Counsel of Ahitophel by the Advice of Hushai And the reason of it is given For the Lord had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahitophel to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom 2 Sam. 17. 14. This makes men as hard as they are blind they mistake their true interest flatter themselves with vain hopes run themselves into the most apparent and inevitable dangers without seeing them themselves though every body else sees them And something of this nature we must own in Pharaoh's Case For without such an infatuation it is impossible to conceive that he should have persisted so long in his Resolution not to part with Israel though it were to the utter ruin
good may come This St. Paul rejects with the greatest abhorrence and tells us that such mens Damnation is just 3. Rom. 8. for it is the greatest contradiction in the World to do evil in order to do good for how can a Man who can for any reason be persuaded to do evil be a hearty and zealous lover of Goodness It is certain that he who does any evil does not heartily love that goodness to which the evil he does is opposed and he who does not heartily love all goodness is a hearty lover of none There is no reconciling good and evil no more than you can reconcile contradictions a good man will love and do that which is good and an evil man will do that which is evil and though the Divine Wisdom can bring good out of evil yet evil is not and cannot be the natural cause of good no more than Darkness can be the cause of Light and therefore a Good Design can never justify a Bad Action For that Bad Actions should do good is contrary to the nature of Bad Actions and whatever men may intend I 'm sure no man can alter the nature of things and therefore can never justify himself in doing evil that good may come It is certain a Wise and Holy God requires no such thing of us and though he very often brings about great and admirable Designs by mens Sins yet no man knows how to do it nor knows when God will do it nor did ever any man who ventured upon sin in order to do some greater good ever do the good he intended though many times he runs himself into more and greater sins than ever he intended Nay I dare boldly say That no man ever deliberately ventured upon a known sin to do some greater good by it but there was always some base worldly Interest at the bottom coloured over with a pretence of doing good either to deceive the world or sometimes to deceive their own Consciences The Church of Rome among whom there are those who teach and practise this Doctrine are an undeniable Example of it and we have had too many sad Examples of it nearer home This seems to me one reason why those Prophesies which concern future Ages are generally so obscure that no man knows when nor how they shall be fulfilled that no man may be tempted to any sin to serve Providence and to fulfil Prophesies As obscure as these Prophesies are yet we see some heated Enthusiasts very forward to venture on any thing to fulfil Prophesies to pull down Antichrist to set up the Kingdom of Christ especially when they hope to set up themselves with him But God conceals Times and Seasons from us and though he many times fulfils Prophesies by the Sins of men yet he allows no man to sin to fulfil Prophesies And therefore never lets us know when nor by what means Prohesies shall be fulfilled Let us lay down this as a certain Principle That God needs not our Sins and that we can never please him by doing evil whatever the Event be He makes use of the Sins of men to serve his Providence but he will punish them for their Sins CHAP. VII The Goodness of Providence 3. THE next Inquiry is concerning the Goodness of Providence Though methinks it is a more proper Subject for our devout Meditations than for our Inquiries for we need not look far to seek for proofs and demonstrations of the Divine Goodness The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord We see and feel and taste it every day we owe our being our preservation and all the comforts of our lives to it There is not so mean nor so miserable a Creature in this world but can bear its testimony to the Divine Goodness Nay if you would pardon the harshness of the expression I would venture to say That the Goodness of God is one of the greatest Plagues and Torments of Hell I mean the remembrance of God's Goodness and their wicked and ungrateful abuse of it This is that Worm that never dieth those sharp Reflections men make on their Ingratitude and Folly in making themselves miserable by affronting that Goodness which would have made them happy Whatever other Objections fome wanton and sporting Wits make against Providence one would think it impossible that any man who lives in this world and feels what he enjoys himself and sees what a bountiful provision is made for all Creatures should question the Goodness of Providence by which he lives moves and has his being We should think him an extraordinary Benefactor who did the thousandth part for us of what God does and should not challenge his goodness though he did some things which we did not like or did not understand but Atheism is founded in Ingratitude and unless God humour them as well as do them good he is no God for them Nay I cannot but observe here the perverse as well as the ungrateful Temper of Atheists when they dispute against the Justice of Providence then God is much too good for them though he give us Examples enow of his Severity against Sin yet his Patience and Long-suffering to some few Prosperous Sinners is thought a sufficient Argument that God is not just or that he does not govern the world When they dispute against the Goodness of Providence then God is not good enough for them Though they see innumerable Instances of Goodness in the government of the world yet this is not owing to a Good God but to Good Fortune because they think they see some of the careless and irregular Strokes of Chance and Fortune intermixt with it in the many Evils and Calamities of life Now it is impossible for God himself to answer these two Objections to the satisfaction of these men and that I think is a sufficient answer to them both For should God vindicate his Justice to the satisfaction of these men by punishing in this world every sin that is committed according to its desert there would be very little room for the exercise of Goodness If every man must suffer as much as he sins the very best men will be great Sufferers much greater Sufferers than any of them now are tho their Sufferings are made another Objection against Providence and there will be as many formidable Examples of Misery as there are Atheists and Profligate Sinners and this would be an unanswerable Objection against the Goodness of Providence for how good soever God might be if he must punish every sin he has no opportunity to shew his Goodness And on the other hand should God be as good as these men would have him that is that to prove himself good he should not inflict any Evils or Calamities on men whatever their Sins or Provocations are that whereas God planted Paradise only for man in innocence the whole world should be now a Paradise though there is not an innocent man in it this would be as unanswerable an Objection
good of Nature and therefore whatever is the Happiness or any part of the Happiness of Man is the good of Nature the good of the End is that which is good to make men happy and the more effectual it is to promote our Happiness the greater Good it is tho it may be a great Natural Evil and whatever will hinder or destroy our Happiness is a great Evil though it may be a great Natural Good In all such Cases things are good or evil with respect to their End or to their Natural or Moral Consequences When we are in health that is good Food which is pleasant and wholsome and will preserve health but the same Diet may be very hurtful and fatal when we are sick Indulgence or Severity to Children is either good or evil in proportion to their Tempers and Inclinations as it is apt either to corrupt their Manners or to train them up to Piety and Vertue And therefore when we speak of Discipline and Government which is the true notion of God's Providence in this World we must not consider so much what is naturally good and evil as what the state of those is who are the Subjects of Discipline and what is good for them in such a State for how many Natural Evils soever there are in the World the Evils of Afflictions and Judgments of Plague and Famine and Sword if such Severities be good for Mankind it is as great an argument of the Goodness of Providence to inflict them as it is for a Parent or a Prince to reclaim and reform his Children or his Subjects by great Severities And an easy and prosperous State when the Wickedness of Mankind require severe Restraints is no more an Act of Kindness and Goodness than the fond Indulgence of Parents is to disobedient Children So that this takes away the very foundation of this Objection against the Goodness of Providence The principal Objection is That there are a great many Evils and Miseries in the World we grant it but then we say That God is very good in it and that these Natural Evils tho they are grievous are not Evils to us because they are and are intended for our good We can neither prove nor disprove the Goodness of Providence merely by external Events especially with respect to particular men For Prosperity is not always good for us nor is Affliction always for our hurt God may make some men prosperous in his Anger and chastise others in great love and goodness and this I take to be the meaning of the Wise-man 9. Eccl. 1 2. No man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them For all things come alike to all there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked to the good and to the clean and to the unclean to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not as is the good so is the sinner and he that sweareth as he that feareth an oath Which does not signify that the Divine Providence makes no difference between Good and Bad men for God does love Good men and hate the Wicked and his Providence makes a great difference between them though this difference is not always visible in external Events For when the same Event happens to both whether it be a Natural Good or Evil it may be an Act of Favour to Good men and of Judgment to the Wicked For external Prosperity and Adversity in a State of Discipline may either be good or evil and may be good for one when at the same time it is evil to another and therefore the Providence of God may make a difference when the external Event makes none The Wise-man confesses This is an evil among all things that are done under the Sun that there is one event unto all Bad men who look no farther than external Events make a very bad use of it and conclude that God makes no difference when they see none made And thus the heart of the sons of men is full of evil and madness is in their heart while they live and after that they go to the dead 3. v. But those who consider wisely see no reason from external Events from such a promiscuous distribution of good and evil either to deny a Providence or the Goodness and Justice of Providence since good and evil in this State are not in the things themselves but in the End for which they are intended and which they serve It is of great consequence rightly to understand this matter to give us a firm persuasion of the Goodness of God even when he corrects and punishes and to cure our discontent at the Prosperity of the Wicked and therefore I shall briefly represent to you the State of Mankind in this World and what is good in such a State Man has sinned and Man must die but God has in infinite goodness to Mankind sent his own Son into the World to save Sinners who by death hath destroyed him who had the power of Death that is the Devil and hath brought Life and Immortality to light by the Gospel This removes the Scene of Happiness from this World to the next and makes this present Life only a State of Probation for Eternity If we obey the Laws of our Saviour and imitate his Example he has promised to raise us again when our dead Bodies are putrified in the Grave into Immortal Life but has threatned all the Miseries of an Eternal Death against Incorrigible Sinners so that the greatest good that God or Man can do for us in this World is by all the wise methods of Discipline and Government to prepare us for the Happiness of the next and to preserve us from those Eternal Miseries which will be the portion of Sinners Tho there are thousands of foolish Sinners who never consider this yet all Mankind agree that that is best for us in this World which will make us eternally happy in the next and that is a very great Evil which will betray us to Eternal Miseries There are a great many Infidels who believe neither a Heaven nor a Hell but yet these very Infidels are not so void of common Sense as to deny supposing there were a Heaven and a Hell that to be the best Condition for us in this World whatever it be upon other accounts which will carry us to Heaven and keep us out of Hell Now if this be the Case there cannot be so great Evils in this World but what may be good for us and therefore may be an expression of God's Goodness to us For if Pain and Sickness Poverty and Disgrace wean us from this World subdue our Lusts make us Good men and qualify us for Eternal Rewards though they are great Afflictions yet they are very good as the way though a rough and difficult way to Happiness That prosperity does oftentimes corrupt mens Lives and Manners make them proud and sensual regardless of God and of Religion and so fond of
Barbarous Countreys that the general State of the World was much the better for it and Mankind the better disposed to receive the Gospel which then began to be preached by Christ and his Apostles But this is enough to satisfy us what little reason there is to impeach the Goodness of Providence upon account of those many Evils which Mankind suffer If we consider what the Goodness of God requires of him and what is good for us in a State of Discipline and what is necessary to the good government of the World neither our own nor other mens Sufferings will tempt us to question the Goodness of Providence I proceed now particularly to examine those Objections which are made against the Goodness of Providence Which are reduced to these two 1. The many Miseries which are in the World 2 God's Unequal Care of his Creatures or the unequal distribution of Good and Evil both as to particular Men and publick Societies What I have already said contains a sufficient Answer to all this but it will not be amiss for our more abundant Satisfaction to consider some things more largely and particularly 1. I shall begin with the many Miseries of Human Life Now this Objection relates either to the being of any Miseries in the World or to the number nature and quality of them 1. As for the first Some will not allow God to be good while there are any Miseries in the World For say they a good God should not suffer any Miseries to enter into the World This I observed and answered before That the Goodness of Providence must bear proportion to the Nature Qualities and Deserts of Creatures and since Man who was created innocent and happy forfeited his original Happiness by Sin we must now consider not what Absolute Unconfined Goodness would do but what becomes a State of Discipline what is good for Sinners and for a Corrupt and Degenerate World and this will abundantly justify the Goodness of Providence in all the Evils which Mankind suffer as you have already heard But this will not satisfy some men for their great quarrel is That God made such a Creature as could sin and be miserable that is That God created Angels and Men that he endowed them with Reason and Understanding and a liberty of Choice for such Creatures as can chuse may chuse wrong But this is not an Objection against the Goodness of Providence but against the goodness of the Creation and if it proves any thing it proves that God ought not to have made the World for if Goodness would not allow him to make a Reasonable Creature who might make himself miserable Wisdom would not allow him to make a World without any Reasonable Creatures in it I confess I am at a great loss to know how they would lay their Objection so as to bear upon the Goodness of God and what they intend by it when they have done For let us consider wherein Creating Goodness consists Does the goodness of a Maker require any more of him than to make all things according to perfect and excellent Ideas and to make them as perfect as their Ideas are What is it then they find fault with in God's making Angels and Men Is not the Idea of a Reasonable Being and a Free Agent the Idea of an Excellent and Happy Creature Are there any greater Perfections than Knowledge and Wisdom and Understanding and Liberty of Choice Is there any Happiness like the Happiness of a Reasonable Nature Nay is there any thing that deserves the name of Happiness besides this Will you call Senseless Matter nay will you call Beasts happy And is the only Idea of a Happy Nature in the World a reasonable Objection against Creating Goodness If then there be no fault to be found in the Idea of a Reasonable Creature was there any defect in the Workmanship Did not God make Men and Angels as perfect as their Ideas and give them all the happiness which belonged to their Natures If he did not this would have been a great fault in their Creation if he did Creating Goodness has done all that belonged to it to do But I would gladly know whence they have this Notion of Creating Goodness that it must make no Creature which can make it self miserable Justice is as essential to the notion of a God as Goodness and yet it is impossible that Justice should belong to the Idea of God if it were irreconcilable with the Divine Goodness to make such Creatures who may deserve well or ill For Justice respects Merit and consists in Rewards and Punishments and if the Goodness of God will not suffer him to make a Creature which shall deserve either to be rewarded or punished Goodness and Justice cannot both of them belong to the Idea of a God But what pretence is there for any man to say That because the Devil and his Angels fell from their first happy State therefore God was not good in creating the Angelical Nature or because so many men sin and make themselves miserable therefore God is not good in creating Man when there are so many myriads of Blessed Angels and Saints eternally happy in the vision and fruition of God and those who are not so are miserable only by their own fault Not to have made a Happy Nature had been a just blemish to the Divine Goodness to make Happy Creatures though they make themselves miserable is none no more than it is to make a Free Agent who alone is capable of Happiness and who alone can make himself miserable None but a Reasonable Nature is capable of any great Happiness and to make a Reasonable Creature without liberty of Choice and consequently without a possibility of sinning and being miserable is a contradiction For what does Reason serve for but to direct our Choice And indeed all the Pleasures of Vertue which are the greatest Pleasures of Human Nature result from this Liberty that we chuse well when we might have chose ill and if it becomes a Good God to make a Happy Nature it becomes him to make a Reasonable and Free Agent though many such Creatures may make themselves miserable But suppose we could not answer this Objection That God has made such Creatures as both could and do make themselves miserable what is it they intend by it Would they prove that God did not make the World because he made Angels and Men some of whom have made themselves Devils those who are Saints and Angels still shall answer this Objection when any man has confidence enough seriously to make it Or would they prove That God does not govern the World with Goodness and Justice because he has made such Creatures as by the good or ill use of their Liberty make themselves the Subjects of both There is no other Answer necessary to that but only to ask What place there could be for a Governing Providence were there no Creatures who could deserve well or ill But
are in the World either the Disorders of Nature or the Wickedness of Men By the Disorders of Nature I mean unseasonable Weather Earthquakes excessive Heat or Cold great Droughts or immoderate Rains Thunders Lightnings Storms and Tempests which occasion Famines and Plagues great Sickness or a great Mortality these may very reasonably be attributed to the more immediate Hand of God who directs and governs Nature but besides that in such Cases the visible Corruption of Mankind justifies such Severities how rarely do these happen and how few suffer by them in comparison with those many and constant Evils which the wickedness of men every day bring upon themselves and others For most of the other Evils and Calamities of life are visibly owing to mens Sins Bodily Sickness sharp and painful Distempers which shorten mens lives or make them miserable are the common effects of Intemperance Luxury or Wantonness Children inherit the Diseases of their Parents and come into the World only to cry and die or to struggle some few years in the very Kingdom and Territories of Death and to languish under those mortal Wounds which they received with the first beginnings of life Another great evil is Poverty which many men bring upon themselves by Idleness or Prodigality and some expensive Vices It is not in every man's power by the greatest Prudence and Industry to make himself rich for time and chance happeneth to them all but in ordinary Cases Prudence and Industry joined with a religious regard for God and his Providence will preserve a man from the pressing Wants and Necessities of Poverty Others who do not make themselves poor by their own Sins are many times reduced to great poverty by the Sins of other men by Injustice and Oppression and Violence by the Miseries and Calamities of War which brings a thousand Evils with it which makes many helpless Widows and Orphans deprives men of their Patrons and Benefactors drives others from their plentiful Fortunes to seek their Bread in a strange Land plunders Poor and Rich lays a flourishing Countrey desolate puts a stop to Trade makes Provisions dear and leaves no work for the Poor Some others are reduced to Poverty more immediately by the Providence of God without their own fault Those who have no other support but their daily labour are quickly pinched by a long and Expensive Sickness or by the Infirmities of Age or by the loss of their Eyes or Hands or Legs others are undone by Fire or Shipwrecks or the various Accidents of Trade which the most wary and cautious men cannot escape but besides that there are few of these in comparison with the throngs and crowds of Idle Prodigal Self-made Poor God has made provision for all such Cases that no man shall suffer extreme want by commanding the Rich especially to supply the want of such Poor who are properly God's Poor or the Poor of God's making and commanding this under the penalty of their Eternal Salvation and the forfeiture of their own Estates if they prove unjust and unfaithful Stewards So that though God makes some men poor it is the fault of other men if they suffer want The poverty they suffer is owing to the Providence of God the wants and miseries they suffer are owing to the Sins to the Uncharitableness of Men For though the World be unequally divided of which more presently yet there is enough to supply the wants of all the Creatures that are in it and God never intended that any of his Creatures should want necessaries that one man's plenty and abundance should cause another man to starve And thus it is in most of the other miseries of life it is the sin and the folly of Mankind which makes them miserable which is so obvious to every one who will consider it that I need not expatiate on every particular I believe there is no man but will confess that were all men good and vertuous this World would be a very happy place and if the practice of moral and sociable Vertues would make Mankind happy it is no hard matter to guess what it is that disturbs the Peace and Happiness of the World 2dly Let us now consider how unreasonable it is to reproach the Divine Providence with those Evils and Miseries which Mankind bring upon themselves And laying down this as a Principle that most men make themselves miserable it is very easy to defend and justify the Goodness of Providence For these Evils which men complain of are not justly chargeable upon Providence and therefore are un unreasonable Objection against Providence God does not bring these Evils upon Mankind but men bring them upon themselves Supposing the nature of things and the nature of man to be what they now are and that men lived just as they now do there must be the same Miseries in the World that there now are though there were no Providence Though God did not interpose in the government of the World yet Intemperance Luxury and Lust would destroy mens health Sloth and Prodigality and expensive Vices would make men poor Pride Ambition and Revenge would make Quarrels raise Wars and bring all the Calamities of War upon the World if there were no Providence thus it must be for excessive eating and drinking will oppress Nature and those who will take no honest pains to get Money or will spend what they have upon their lusts must be poor and those who will quarrel and fight must take what follows these evils are not owing to Providence because Providence does not bring them no more than Providence makes men wicked Men make themselves wicked and wickedness makes them miserable and we may as well charge the Providence of God with all the wickedness of men as with those miseries which their own wickedness brings upon them Now since most of those evils which are in the World are not justly chargeable upon Providence the Goodness of God is very visible in those very Evils and Calamities which Mankind suffer For 1. God has in ordinary Cases put it into every man's power to preserve himself from most of the greatest evils and miseries of life even from all those which men bring upon themselves by their own sins What could be done more than this for a reasonable Creature to make it his own choice and to put it into his own power whether he will be happy or miserable God has not only in his Laws but in the nature of things set before us life and death happiness and misery All men see what the visible and natural punishments of Sin are and have a natural aversion to those evils and may avoid them if they will this is a plain proof not only of the Holiness of Providence as I observed before in deterring men from sin by those natural evils which attend it but also of the Goodness of Providence by shewing men a plain and natural method how to avoid the miseries of life and to make themselves easy and
cannot subsist without it 2dly And yet it is a very great mistake to think that the Happiness of men differ as much as their Fortunes do that a Prince is as much happier as he is greater than his Subjects for all the World knows that Happiness is not entailed on Riches and Power and Secular Honours as they have their advantages so they have very troublesome and sowre allays and it may be upon a true estimate of things as different a show and appearance as men make in the World they are pretty equal as to true Enjoyments There is very little difference in eating and drinking while we have wherewithal to satisfy Nature for Appetite makes every thing delicious and the hard Labour of a Poor man is much more tolerable than Gout and Stone and those sharp or languishing Diseases which so commonly attend the Softness and Luxury of the Rich and as for Opinion and Fancy it self which creates the greatest difference every Rank of men make a Scene among themselves and every man finds something to value himself upon That it may be there is nothing wherein all Mankind are so equal as in Self-love and Self-flattery and a value for themselves that though there are many men who would change Fortunes with others there are few that would change themselves and the difference of Fortunes is very inconsiderable while every man is so well satisfied with himself 3dly This inequality of Fortunes is for the great good of all Ranks of men and serves a great many wise Ends of Providence It makes some men industrious to provide for themselves and Families it inspires others with emulation to raise their Fortunes it gives life and spirit to the World and makes it a busy Scene of Action to keep what they have and to make new acquisitions to excel their Equals and rival those above them And though through the folly and wickedness of men this occasions a great deal of mischief yet the World would be a very dull place without it there would be no encouragement no reward for Vertue Providence it self would have very little to do for the visible Rewards of Vertue and Punishment of Wickedness is in the change of mens Fortunes when Industry Prudence and Vertue advance men of a low Condition to the greatest Places of Trust and Honour or at least to a plentiful and splendid Station and Prodigality Luxury and Impiety bring Misery Poverty and Contempt upon Rich and Noble Families Such Revolutions as these are great Examples of the Wisdom and Justice of Providence and therefore the inequality of mens Fortunes is so far from being an Objection against Providence that there could be little visible Exercise either of the Goodness or Justice of Providence without it I cannot without some indignation reflect upon the baseness and ingratitude of Mankind who live and move and have their being in God who know how little they deserve of him and feel every day how many blessings they receive from him and yet seem never better pleased than when they can find or ignorantly invent some plausible Pretence to reproach his Goodness the Sense of all Mankind confutes such Objections and I should not have thought it worth the while to answer them were it not a great satisfaction and of great use to contemplate the Divine Goodness even on the darkest side of Providence Which will teach us a patient and thankful submission to God under all our Sufferings inable us to bear them and direct us how to prevent or remove them and give us a more transporting admiration of the Divine Goodness when we see it like the Sun break through the blackest Clouds If the Goodness of God conquer the Sins the Perverseness of Mankind and shines through all those Miseries which foolish Sinners every day bring upon themselves how good is God when his Goodness flows with an undisturbed uninterrupted Current CHAP. VIII The Wisdom of Providence THE Unsearchableness of the Divine Wisdom as I observed above is a very good reason why we should not judge or censure such mysterious Passages of Providence as we cannot comprehend but yet it becomes us to take notice of and to admire that wonderful Wisdom which is visible in the government of Mankind We cannot by searching find out God we cannot find out the Almighty to perfection it is as high as heaven what canst thou do deeper than hell what canst thou know the measure thereof is longer than the earth and broader than the sea 11. Job 7 8 9. But though we cannot discover all the Wisdom of Providence no more than we can the Wisdom of the Creation yet we may discover enough to satisfy us that the World is governed as well as made with Infinite Wisdom When we contemplate God it is like losing our selves in a boundless prospect where we see a great many Glories and Beauties but cannot see to the end of it We may discover admirable and surprizing Wisdom in that little we see of Providence as I have already briefly observed upon several Occasions but we know so little of what has been done in the World and by what means it was done and what ends it served that it is no wonder if we have as imperfect a view of the Wisdom of Providence as we have of the History of the World But yet whoever diligently applies his mind to the study of Providence will see reason to admire a great many Events which careless Observers make objections against Providence which will be of such great use to confirm us in the belief of a Providence and to give us a profound veneration of the Divine Wisdom that I shall venture to make some little Essay of this nature which though I am sensible must fall infinitely short of the dignity of the Subject yet will suggest some very useful thoughts and shew us the most delightful and profitable way of studying Histories and Providence And to do this in the best manner I can I shall 1. Consider some great Events recorded in Scripture which are as it it were the Hinges of Providence whereon the various Scenes of Providence turned 2. I shall take notice of some other visible Marks and Characters of Wisdom in the more common Events of Providence especially such as are made objections against Providence 1. Some great Events recorded in Scripture which gave a new face of things to the World and opened new Scenes of Providence The state of Innocence wherein man was created was a state of perfect Happiness There was no death no sickness no labour or sorrow but the fall of man made a very great change in this visible Creation Man himself became mortal and was condemned to an industrious and laborious life according to that Sentence Cursed is the ground for thy sake in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee and thou shalt eat the herb of the field In
because Moses has recorded it in his Writings who we know was Divinely inspired And we know also that there has been no satisfactory account given yet from the Principles of Nature and Philosophy how the whole World could be drowned at least none that will agree with the Mosaical History either of the Creation or of the Deluge and it is better to have no Account than such an Account as confutes Moses could any such be given for this confutes or at least discredits the Story it self for which we have no Authentick Authority when the Authority of Moses is lost But indeed it is no service to Religion to seek after Natural Causes for the destruction of the World any more than it is to resolve the making of the World into Natural Causes for it is great good nature in men to own a God if they can make and destroy a World without him there can be no such thing as natural Causes till the World is made and every thing endowed with its Natural Vertues and Powers and united into a regular frame with a mutual dependance and connexion and therefore it is a vain thing to talk of making the World by Natural Causes when it is demonstrable that there can be no Natural Causes till the World is made And it is as certain that Nature must move unnaturally and be put into an universal disorder before the World can be destroyed for while Natural Causes keep their Natural Course they will preserve not destroy the World and therefore the destruction of the World is not owing to Natural Causes but to praeternatural Disorders and what Philosophy can give an account of that What can put Nature into such an universal disorder but the same Divine Power which put it into order and gave Laws to it And this is what God intended in the destruction of the Old World to give a visible and lasting proof of his Being and Providence to the New by such a Miraculous Deluge as could be attributed to no other Cause but a Divine Vengeance That universal Corruption of Mankind would persuade us that the very belief and notion of a God was lost among them or if it be hard to conceive how that should be when the World by computation was not Seventeen hundred years old and Lamech Noah's Father lived fifty years with Adam himself that it seems impossible that the Tradition of God's creating the World should have been lost in so short a time yet at least they could have no sense of God's Justice and Providence they could not believe that God took any notice of their Actions or would execute such a terrible Vengeance on them for their sins We do not read of any one Act of Judgment which God exercised before the Flood and it is not improbable that his sparing Cain when he had killed his Brother Abel might encourage them with hopes of impunity whatever wickedness they committed and therefore the Divine Wisdom saw it necessary to put an end to the Old and to begin the New World with a visible demonstration of his Power and Justice to teach men the fear and reverence and worship of that God who not only made the World but has once destroyed it and therefore can destroy it again with all its wicked Inhabitants whenever he pleases Now to make this a lasting proof of God's Power and Justice it must be evident beyond all contradiction that it was God's doing and therefore it was necessary that God should destroy the world in so miraculous a manner as could be attributed to no other Cause for it is the true Spirit of Atheism and Infidelity to attribute nothing to God which they can ascribe to any visible Cause Had all Mankind excepting Noah and his Sons been destroyed by Plague or Famine or Wild Beasts though such a general destruction would have convinced Wise and Reasonable men that the Hand and the Vengeance of God was in it yet if we may judge of the rest of Mankind by the wonderful improvements in Wit and Philosophy which our Modern Atheists have made they would think scorn to attribute Plague or Famine or such like evil Accidents to God though all Mankind were destroyed by them But when they hear of a World drowned and know not where to find water to drown it without a miraculous dissolution of Nature they must either laugh at the Story which men in their wits can't well do or they must believe a God and a Providence But whatever shift the Infidels of our Age may make to disbelieve the Universal Deluge it must be confessed that it was a very wise and most effectual means to convince that new Generation of men while the uncorrupted Tradition of the Deluge was preserved 2dly The Wisdom of the Divine Providence was seen in destroying that wicked Generation of men without destroying the Earth God did not intend to put a final end to the Race of Mankind but the Earth was to be again inhabited by a new Generation and a Deluge of Waters was best fitted to this purpose which did no hurt to the Earth when it was dried up again but rather moistened and impregnated it with new Seeds and Principles of life There are but two ways we know of to destroy this Earth either by Water or Fire it has already been destroyed by Water and will be destroyed by Fire and it is enough to satisfy any man that this is not Accident but a Wise Design to consider that a Deluge of Water was made use of to purge and reform the World but Fire is reserved for the final destruction of it Whereas had this Order been inverted as it might have been had it been mere Chance it is evident that the Earth could neither have been preserved from Fire nor utterly destroyed by Water without a perpetual Deluge A Deluge of Water does not destroy the Earth nor make it uninhabitable after the Deluge ceases but Fire destroys the Frame and Constitution of it and melts all into one confused mass there is some defence against a Deluge Noah and his Sons were preserved in the Ark to people the New World but there is no defence against Flames the whole Earth and all the wicked Inhabitants of it must burn together And this is one wise Reason why God chose to drown the World not to burn it because the end of all things was not yet come 3dly There is great variety of Wisdom to be observed in God's preserving Noah and his Sons in the Ark from perishing by Water For first as I observed before this was very necessary to preserve the Race of Mankind to new-people the World which much more became the Divine Wisdom than to have created man a-new When all flesh had corrupted his ways it became God to try new Methods of reforming the World for this opens new and surprizing Scenes of Providence and displays such a multifarious Wisdom in the government of Mankind as is much more wonderful
than the Creation of a New World would be But had God destroyed the whole Race of men and created a new Man to inhabit the New World this would have argued some defect in the first Creation for there can be no pretence for destroying Man to make him again but a design to make him better to correct that in a second trial which Experience had discovered to be faulty in the first But though the wisdom of Government will admit of various Trials and Experiments the Wisdom of Creation wont The Government of free Agents must be accommodated to their Natures and Dispositions not only to what God made them but to what they make themselves and therefore the Methods of Government must change as men change themselves but the Natures of all things are made only by God and if there be any fault in them it is chargeable upon the Divine Wisdom and to make Man and destroy him and make him again would argue a great fault somewhere 2dly I observed also before That to make the destruction of the Old World of any use to propagate Religion and Piety in the New it was necessary that some Inhabitants of the Old World should survive the Deluge to be Witnesses of that Terrible Destruction Had no man survived though God should have created man a-new that new Generation of men could have known nothing of the Deluge but by Revelation whereas God intended a sensible proof of his Power and Providence which Mankind wanted Besides that Revelation which we may suppose God made to Adam of the Creation of the World and his own sense that he himself was but just then made and was the first and the only man upon Earth there are such visible Marks of a Divine Wisdom and Power in the frame of the World as one would think should be sufficient to convince men that the World was made and is preserved and governed by God and yet because no man saw the World made neither Reason nor Revelation can persuade some men that God made the World And is it reasonable then to think that when there are no remaining signs of a Deluge left the belief of a Deluge should for any long time have prevailed in the world without any living Witnesses who saw the Deluge though we should suppose God to have revealed it to new-created man No man could see the Creation of the world because the world must be made before man was made to live in it but though no man saw the world made there were some who saw the destruction which the Deluge made which was as visible a proof of the Divine Power and a much greater proof of a Just and Righteous Providence No man who believes that God destroyed the Old World with a Deluge of Water can doubt whether God made the world and governs it and for this the New World had the testimony of Eye-witnesses which is as sensible a proof of a God and a Providence as we can possibly have 3dly The preservation of Noah and his Sons in the Ark was an evident proof that this Deluge was sent by God God fore-warned Noah of it an hundred years before it came and commanded him to prepare an Ark and gave him directions how to make it Thus much is certain That Noah did know of it before-hand and prepared an Ark which remained as a visible Testimony of the Flood to future Generations Now there being no Natural Causes of the Flood there could be no Natural Prognosticks of it Our Saviour himself observes That there were not the least Symptoms of any such thing till Noah entred into the Ark and therefore Noah had no other way of knowing this but by Revelation and it was so incredible a thing in it self that the rest of Mankind would not believe him though he warned them of it and they saw that he believed it himself by his preparing an Ark for his own safety And if we believe the Account that Moses gives of it that some of all sorts of Living Creatures both the Beasts of the Field and the Fowls of the Air were preserved with Noah in the Ark as we must believe if we believe the Universal Deluge unless we will say that God new-made all Living Creatures after the Flood what account can be given of this that some of all sorts in such numbers as God had appointed and had prepared reception for should come of their own accord to Noah when he was ready to enter into the Ark had they not been led thither by a Divine Hand 4thly The preservation of Noah and his Sons in the Ark did not only prove that the Deluge was sent by God but was a plain Evidence for what reason God sent such a Terrible Judgment viz. To put an end to that wicked Generation of men and to new-people the world with a Righteous Seed This Reason God gave to Noah and the nature of the thing speaks it For when all the wicked Inhabitants of the world were destroyed and not one escaped the Deluge but only that one Righteous Family which had escaped the Corruptions of the Age too and that preserved by the peculiar Order and Direction of God this is a visible Judgment upon all the wicked of the Earth and makes a visible distinction between Good and Bad men When such Evils and Calamities befall the world as may be resolved into Natural or Moral Causes as Plagues and Famines and Wars Fires and Earthquakes and it may be Good and Bad men share pretty equally in the publick Misfortunes Atheists and Infidels will not allow these Evils to be inflicted by God much less to be the punishment of Sin when they make no visible distinction between the good and the bad but the Universal Deluge was both a Supernatural and a distinguishing Judgment none but God could thus destroy the Earth and none but the wicked were destroyed and therefore this is an undiable demonstration of the Justice and Righteousness of God that he hates wickedness and will punish wicked men There are some other Marks of Excellent Wisdom in the Universal Deluge which I shall only name because tho they are worth observing yet they are of less moment as to my present Design As the Deluge was to be a lasting proof of a Just Providence to the New World and as you have heard was upon all accounts admirably fitted to that purpose so we may reasonably suppose that when it came it convinced that wicked Generation of men and brought them to repentance which it gave them some time for and though it could not save them in this world who knows but that a sudden repentance upon such a sudden conviction might obtain mercy for them in the next Noah was a Preacher of Righteousness he had often reproved them for their sins and threatned them with a Deluge but they would not believe him though they saw him preparing the Ark but when they saw the Flood come they knew then the
Providence will and can have no effect upon us The Psalmist complains of those wicked men who regard not the works of the Lord nor the operation of his hands 28. Psal. 5. And a great many such there are who have a general notion and belief of a Providence but take no notice of what God does or take no notice of God in what is done Most men are too apt to attribute all Events to the immediate and visible Causes and though at other times they will own a God and a Providence yet as to particular Events take as little notice of God as if he had nothing to do in it Such a belief of Providence as this is of no use at all in Religion it neither gives glory to God nor has any influence upon the government of our lives But if we will own Providence to the true ends and purposes of Religion we must not content our selves with a general belief of God's governing the world but whatever our state and condition be or whatever extraordinary good or evil happens to us we must receive all as from the Hand of God If we are poor we must own this to be God's will and appointment that we should be poor if we be rich we must consider that it is God's Blessing which maketh rich if we lose our Estates by Injustice and Oppression we must acknowledge as Iob did The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away And whatever Evils and Miseries befall us we must say with good old Eli It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good Or with David I was dumb and opened not my mouth because it is thy doings Without believing God's government of all Events we deny a particular Providence and unless at the very time when any good or evil befals us we see and acknowledge God's hand in it we can have no present affecting sense of his Providence All such Acts of Providence are lost as far as our taking no notice of them can lose them God loses the glory of his Goodness Mercy Patience or Justice and we lose those Divine Comforts and Supports or those Spiritual Instructions and Admonitions which a due sense and acknowledgment of Providence would have furnished us with And therefore let us accustom our selves in all Events in the first place to take notice of God and his Providence which will teach us how to behave our selves in all Circumstances and how to make the best and wisest use of whatever happens and it was necessary to premise this for it is in vain to teach men their duty to Providence till they have learnt to attribute all particular Events to the Providence of God and to live under a constant sense and regard of it 2dly When we have thus affected our minds with a just sense of the Divine Providence in every thing that befalls us we must in the next place take care to compose our Souls to a quiet and humble submission to the Sovereign Will and Pleasure of God in all things All men confess that it is our duty to submit to the Will of God and if all the Events of Providence are God's doings and what God does is his Will as the Scripture assures us it is and Reason tells us it must be unless God does any thing against his own Will then we must submit to the Providential Will of God in all Events as well as to the Commanding Will of God in obeying his Laws The Soveraign Authority and Dominion of God requires this of us for we are his and he may dispose of our Condition and Fortune in the world as he pleases The Absolute Power of God makes it both prudent and necessary For who hath hardened himself against him and prospered that is against his Providential Will for that whole Dispute is about Providence And the Wisdom and Goodness of God makes it both reasonable and our interest to submit to him for all his Providences how severe soever they may appear are ordered for the good of those who do submit to him So that it is our duty to submit because he is our Soveraign Lord whether we will submit or no we must suffer his Will because we cannot resist his Power and there is no danger in submitting to God for he will consult our present and future Happiness and do better for us than we could chuse for our selves This is plain enough but that which I principally intend is to consider the nature and various acts of that Submission which we owe to Providence or to the Providential Will of God and I shall distinctly inquire what submission we owe to Providence under all the Evils Afflictions and Calamities of life and in those several states conditions and relations of life which the Providence of God placeth us in 1. What submission we owe to Providence under all the Sufferings and Afflictions which we meet with in this world I do not mention a happy and prosperous Fortune for it requires no great submission to be prosperous this is what all men desire and chuse but to submit is to make our own Wills and Desires and Fears and Aversions and natural Passions and Affections stoop and yield to the Will of God which there is no occasion for but in a suffering and afflicted state Now when we suffer such things as are very grievous to flesh and blood submission to the Will of God does not require that we should not feel our Sufferings that we should not be afflicted with them that we should not complain of them for to submit to God is not to put off the sense and passions of human Nature it does not alter the nature of things nor our opinions about them Afflictions are afflictions still and will be felt and though we must bear them in submission to God yet we must bear them as Afflictions can be born and as human Nature can bear them with pain and grief and reluctancy with sighs and groans and complaints with vehement and importunate desires and Prayers to God and man to help and deliver us We have frequent examples of this in Scripture The Psalms of David as they abound with all dutifull Expressions of Reverence and Submission to the Will of God so they are very full of complaints and of the most passionate sense of Sufferings represented so as to be felt in such a strain of moving Eloquence as not Art but Afflicted Nature teaches But we have one Example above all others and that is the Example of our Saviour Christ who suffered with Fear and Reluctancy and with earnest Prayers to his Father If it be possible let this cup pass from me The truth is the greater our fears and sorrows and aversions are the greater is our submission to God it may be thought a great weakness of Nature to be so much afraid of our Sufferings but it argues the greater strength of Faith and is a more glorious Victory over self to make our very
Employment or Profession be shall serve Kings This is impossible in the nature of the thing and therefore cannot be the meaning of these Promises And yet such kind of Promises as these signify a great deal for the encouragement of Wisdom and Industry and Vertue not that every wise and prudent and diligent man shall be rich and honourable but that every man shall find the rewards of Religion and Vertue proportioned to his capacities and state of life and that this is God's way of promoting men when he advances them in favour and good-will to them and therefore this is the only way wherein we must expect the blessing and protection of God But then there are some Promises which are equally made to all good men and they are a sure foundation of our hope and trust if we be truly good men in all conditions As that God will never leave them nor forsake them 13. Hebr. 5. That he will always take care of them as a Father takes care of his Children That tho he may not think fit to advance them in the world yet he will provide Food and Raiment for them as our Saviour proves by many Arguments 6. Matth. 25 34. Take no thought for your life what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink nor yet for your bodies what ye shall put on is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment and will not that God who has given us our Lives and our Bodies give us what is absolutely necessary for their support Behold the fowls of the air they sow not neither do they reap nor gather into barns yet your heavenly father feedeth them are ye not much better than they Therefore take no thought saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewith shall we be cloathed for after all these things do the Gentiles seek for your heavenly father knoweth ye have need of all these things But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you This is an absolute Promise and gives absolute security to good men that if they take care to serve God God will take care to feed and cloath them either by blessing their ordinary prudence and industry or when that fails by extraordinary Providences by providing for them without their care or labour as he feeds the Fowls of the Air who neither sow nor reap And to name but one Promise more which is our security in all conditions St. Paul assures us That all things work together for good to them that love God 8. Rom. 28. which is such a general security as is a foundation for an universal hope in God That though we cannot know in every particular case what God will do for us yet we certainly know that he will order all things for our good Thus far we have the Promises of God to trust to That God will always take care of us and in particular that he will provide Food and Raiment for us which is all that he has absolutely promised to good men and is all that our Saviour allows us absolutely to pray for Give us this day our daily bread And this good men whose faith does not fail but against all discouragements trust securely in God's provision may ordinarily expect from God even in an afflicted and persecuted state where Famine it self is not the persecution for I dare not extend this so far as to say that no good man shall ever die of want for some extraordinary Cases are always excepted out of the most general and absolute Promises relating to this life and reserved to the government of the Divine Wisdom But good men may have Food and Raiment and yet be exposed to many inconveniences and sufferings and therefore for our farther security we are assured That all things shall work together for good to them that love God 2. And this brings me to consider what it is to trust in God in particular cases when we have no particular promises what God will do for us in such cases but only a general assurance of God's care of us and of the Wisdom Justice and Goodness of his Providence We must particularly trust in God for our daily Provisions for our preservation from any present evils which threaten us for the success of our undertakings in all the particular Actions and Concernments of our lives but what can such a particular trust mean or what foundation is there for it when we have no particular promises that God will protect or succeed us in such particular cases and notwithstanding God's care of us and the Justice and Goodness of his Providence he may not answer our expectations in such cases but may order things quite otherwise than we desire Now this I confess were an unanswerable difficulty did a particular trust in God signify a firm belief and persuasion that God will do that particular thing which I rely and depend on him for for no man can have any reason to believe this or in this sense to trust in God without an express Promise or some private Revelation Now it is certain there are no such particular Promises which we can with any reason apply to our selves contained in Scripture and private Enthusiasms are a dangerous pretence the dreams of Self-love and the Visions of an heated Imagination I grant that under the Law there were such particular Promises and particular Revelations made to good men which were a sure foundation for a particular faith and trust in God as to some particular Events especially as to the Events of War which were commonly undertaken by God's express Command managed by his Direction with a certain promise of success as is evident in the Wars of Moses and Ioshua and the Iudges and in After-ages God did the same thing either by his Oracle of Vrim and Thummim or by his Prophets But there is no such thing among us now and therefore such a faith and trust in God we cannot have nor does God expect it from us we have nothing to depend on as to the certainty of Events but must trust to that assurance we have of God's care of us and of the Wisdom and Goodness of his Providence and therefore must consider what trust and dependence that is which we owe to Providence Now to trust Providence is not to trust in God that he will do that particular thing for us which we desire but to trust our selves and all our concernments with God to do for us in every particular case which we recommend to his care what he sees best and fittest for us in such cases The difference between these two is very plain and I think every one will confess that such a general trust and affiance in God is a much more excellent vertue and does much more honour to the Divine Nature than merely to trust his Promise which secures us of the Event To rely on God for the performance of
he shall deliver them from the ungodly and shall save them because they put their trust in him The whole 91 st Psalm is so plain and full a proof of this that I need name no more To trust in God is called dwelling in the secret place of the most high or under the defence and protection of the most high that is such a man puts himself under God's protection and he that does so shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty that is he shall defend thee under his wings and thou shalt be safe under his feathers his faithfulness and truth shall be thy shield and buckler And the Psalmist particularly reckons up most of the evils which are incident to human life and promises security against them all Because thou hast made the Lord which is my refuge even the most high thy habitation there shall no evil befall thee neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling This Psalm indeed is a Prophecy of our Saviour and in the height and latitude of the expressions is applicable only to him but yet it gives a general security to all who trust in God of Protection from all evil This no man can promise himself who does not trust in God for how is Providence concerned for them who expect nothing from it Nay this is a reason why such men should be disappointed and fall into misery to convince them that God does govern the world and that no human Strength or Policy can save them But Trust in God makes us the Subjects and the Care of Providence for if God does govern the world none so much deserve his Protection as those who commit themselves to his Care A Good Man will not deceive or forsake those who depend on him much less will a Good God Thirdly Another Duty we own to Providence is Prayer to ask of God all those Blessings and Mercies which we need The universal practice of all Nations who owned a God and that Natural Impulse all men find to seek to God in their distress shews what the sense of Nature is but yet some of the Ancient Philosophers were much puzzled how to reconcile Prayer with their Notions of Necessity and Fate and indeed were Providence nothing else but a Necessary Chain of Causes or Fixt and Immutable Decrees there would be no great Encouragement to Pray to God who upon this supposition cannot help us no more than he can alter Destiny and Fate but if God governs the world with as great Liberty and Freedom as a wise and good man governs his Family or a Prince governs his Kingdoms there is as much reason to pray to God as to offer up our Petitions to our Parents or to our Prince for if we must receive all from God what imaginable reason is there that we should not ask every thing of him But it will be necessary to discourse this matter more particularly for we live in an Age wherein men are very apt to reason themselves out of all Religion and to form such Notions of God and his Providence as make it needless nay absurd to worship him The Apostle tells us That he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him 11. Heb. 6. No man can be a devout Worshipper of God who does not believe that there is a God to worship and that this God does take care of mankind and that he has a peculiar Favour for those who worship him that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him For if God neither take any care of us or take no more care of those who worship him than of those who do not there is no just reason can be given why any man should worship him But the Apostle in this supposes That to believe there is a God and that he governs the world and that we shall be the better for worshipping is a reasonable Foundation for Religious Worship and therefore such Notions of God and his Providence as allow no peculiar Rewards and Benefits to Worshippers are certainly False how Philosophical soever they may appear and Impious too because they shut all Religious Worship out of the world And yet some men can by no means understand for what reason they should pray to God they comply with the Superstitious Customs of the Countrey to avoid Scandal and Publick Censure but think they might as well let it alone as for any advantage they hope for by their Prayers And I am very much of their mind that they had as good not be present at Prayers as not to pray for no man can pray to any advantage who despises Prayer It will therefore be highly necessary plainly to state this matter and to shew you That the belief of the Divine Providence lays the strongest Obligation on us to pray to God The Scripture-Proofs of this are so plain that they cannot be avoided and so well known that I need not at large repeat them There is no Duty we are more frequently commanded none we are more earnestly exhorted to than to pray to God we have the Examples of all good men for it and of Christ himself who spent whole nights in Prayer and we have the encouragement of as express Promises as any in Scripture That if we pray to God he will hear and answer us which is all the Encouragement we can desire for our Prayers As the Psalmist speaks O thou that hearest prayers unto thee shall all flesh come 65. Psal. 2. To thee they shall pray because thou hearest Prayers For thou Lord art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee In the day of my trouble will I call upon thee for thou wilt answer me 86. Psal. 5 7. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him to all that call upon him in truth He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him he also will hear their cry and will save them 145. Psal. 18 19. But nothing can be more express than our Saviour's Promise Ask and it shall be given unto you seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you For every one that asketh receiveth and he that seeketh findeth and to him that knocketh it shall be opened 7. Matt. 7 8. And what great things are attributed in Scripture to the Power of Prayer St. Iames assures us That the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much and proves it from the Example of Elias who was a man subject to like passions as we are and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months and he prayed again and the heavens gave rain and the earth brought forth fruit 5. James 17 18. And all those Wonders which the Apostle to the Hebrews attributes to Faith belong to this Prayer of Faith 11. Heb. 32 33 34. For this
reason Iacob's Name was changed into Israel when he wrestled all night with the Angel and would not let him go till he had blessed him Thy name shall be called no more Iacob but Israel for as a prince hast thou power with God and men and hast prevailed 32. Gen. 28. One would think that this were abundantly sufficient to convince all men of the Duty Necessity and Advantages of Prayer for if God govern the world and we must expect his Blessing and Protection only in answer to our Prayers if he himself makes Prayer the necessary Condition of our receiving it is in vain to dispute the Philosophy of it for we must ask if we will receive We can receive of none but God and he has promised to give to none but those who ask and therefore tho we may receive many good things without asking as God does good both to the evil and to the good yet we can never be secure that we shall receive and the good things we do receive without asking seldom prove Blessings to us and as seldom lasting But to satisfy these men if it be possible in the Reasonableness and Necessity of this Duty and to give them a true Notion of Prayer let us briefly consider their Objections against it And the sum of all is this That they cannot conceive how our Prayers should signify any thing with God or obtain any Blessings for us which he would not have bestowed on us without our asking To be good and vertuous they will allow is necessary to entitle us to the Favour and Protection of Providence and there is reason to believe that God will do good to good men whether they ask or not but they cannot see for what wise ends Prayer serves or how it should be any reason for God to give Does not God know our wants before we ask Or does he need to be informed by our Prayers what we would have him do for us Are not our Wants and his own Essential Goodness a sufficient Motive for him to give Or does he want to be intreated and importuned Which would argue a want of Goodness In short Can God be moved and changed by our Prayers to alter his Counsels to do that good for us which otherwise he would not have done or to divert those evils which he intended to have brought on us Which represents God as changeable as man and derogates from the Immutability of his Nature and Counsels Now in answer to this let us consider in the first place Whether these Objections do not prove too much That is Whether they do not equally destroy the Reasonableness of making any Prayers or Petitions to Men as well as to God There is a great difference indeed upon this account that good men may be ignorant of our wants and may need to be informed but is this the only reason of asking to inform men of our wants Does any good man think himself bound tho he know our wants to supply them without our asking Do we think it any diminution to any man's goodness that he will not give unless he be asked Good men indeed do a great many good offices without being asked and so does a good God but in most cases they think it very reasonable to be asked and that it is Pride and Stomach not to ask and that is reason enough not to give It does not become some men to ask when it may become others to give for it requires some Interest and some pretence to Favour and Kindness to have a right to ask but all men expect that those who depend on them and know that they may have for asking should ask for what they want Parents expect this from their Children and a Prince from his Subjects and will see their wants and let them want on till they think fit to ask And if wise and good men expect this from their dependants a Wise and Good God may as reasonably expect this from his Creatures who have their whole dependance on him For let any man shew me the difference if it be consistent with Wisdom and Goodness to expect to be asked why may not a Wise and Good God expect this as well as a Wise and Good Man Thus as changeable as men are in their Wills and Counsels and Passions Do we use to charge any man with fickleness and inconstancy only because he gives when he is ask'd and will not give when he is not asked That is does it prove any man to be mutable to change only as a Wise and Immutable Rule requires him to change Such uniform and regular changes as these prove an Immutability of Counsels and if this be the standing Rule of Providence it argues no more change in God to give when we ask and not to give when we do not ask than it is to punish a man when he is wicked and to reward him when he is good The Passions and Affections of Human Nature are the most fickle and inconstant things and when they move mechanically by external and sensible impressions either against Reason or at least without it they betray men to that uneveness and uncertainty in all their actions as disparages both their Wisdom and Goodness for when they do good by such blind Impulses and strong and heady Passions they do good by Chance and another Torrent of different Passions may do as much hurt But yet it is no disparagement to the Immutability of Wisdom and Goodness to be moved by Passions when Reason and not mere sense moves them for Reason is an even and steddy Mover To say that a man's Passions and Affections are moved by Reason to do that which he never intended to have done without that Reason does not unbecome the wisest and best man in the world and therefore to say that a good man is moved by Prayers and Intreaties and Complaints to pity and compassion and to do good contrary to his former intentions and inclinations is no Reproach to him Nor is it any Reproach to the Divine Nature and Providence to say That God is moved by our Prayers and Intreaties to do that for us which otherwise he would not have done for it neither unbecomes God nor men to be moved by Reason We live in a Critical Age which will not allow us to speak intelligibly of God because we want words sufficiently to distinguish between the Motions and Actings of the Divine Mind and the Passions of Creatures Our Conceptions of the Divine Nature are very imperfect and so must our words necessarily be and therefore unless you will venture the Censure of some men who conceal their Atheism under a Religious Silence and Veneration and will not allow any thing to be said or thought of God for fear of thinking and speaking dishonourably of him you must not say that God hears or sees because he has no bodily ears or eyes or that there are any such Affections in God as Love or Hatred Joy
or need these or such kind of Punishments or Corrections and such vast numbers of bad men who are ready every day to commit such outrages did not God restrain them is it not very visible how easily God can order and appoint such sufferings for men without ordering or appointing any man's sins It requires no more than to bring those whom God appoints for suffering into the reach of such men and to put them into their power and their own malice and wickedness will do the rest It is like exposing Condemn'd Malefactors to Wild Beasts whose nature and inclination is to devour and if God chains up bad men as we do wild beasts that they cannot touch any one but whom God delivers up to them and lets them loose only to execute his own Just and Righteous Judgment can any thing be more Honourable to Providence or a greater Security to Mankind To form an Idea of this in our minds let us suppose this to be the case of an Earthly Prince That he perfectly understood all the Deserts and all the Inclinations of his Subjects and had such an invisible and insensible Authority over them that without giving them any directions or letting them know any thing of his Intentions or offering any violence to their own Inclinations he could determine them to do that hurt which they had a mind to do to those and to those only whom he intended to punish and to do the good they are desirous to do to those and to those only whom he intends to reward in case such a Prince took care that no man should suffer more from the wickedness of others than what he deserved and the Reasons of Government required would any man charge such a Prince with all the Wickedness that is committed in his Kingdom only because he so wisely orders it that some bad men shall execute his Vengeance upon other bad men and serve instead of Judge and Jury and Executioners Nay would not every man say That this is the most Perfect and Absolute Form of Government in the world Earthly Princes indeed cannot do this but this is the Government of God who accomplishes his own Wise Counsels by the Ministries of Men. And this may satisfie us in what sense all the good and all the evil that happens either to private Men or to Kingdoms and Nations is said to be God's will and God's doing and what pleaseth him because no Man or Nation is rewarded or punished but by God's order and appointment That as many good men as there are in the world who are ready to do good to all they can and as many bad men as there are who are ready to do all the mischief they can none of them can do either good or hurt to any but to those whom God has appointed for either which makes God the Absolute Lord and Sovereign of the world since whatever men intend all mens Fortunes and Conditions depend upon his Will And since God absolutely orders and appoints nothing but the Event if the Event be holy just and good that is if men be rewarded and punished according to their works as far as the Justice and Goodness of Providence is concerned in this world there can be no reasonable Objection against Providence for by what wicked means soever men be rewarded or punished if the Reward or Punishment by holy just and good this vindicates the Holiness and Justice and Goodness of Providence of which more hereafter Let mens Wickedness be to themselves for that is their own but that the Wickedness of men is over-ruled by an Invisible Hand to accomplish Wise and Just Decrees that is the Glory of Providence And this suggests another evident Reason why all the good or evil that befals men is called God's will and God's doings because in a strict and proper sense it is not man's Will nor man's Doings What is done is either what those who did it never intended to do or else serves such ends and is ordered by God for such ends as those who did it never thought of which proves men to be only Instruments but God the Supreme Disposer of all Events If we must attribute all things that are done either to God or Men then what is not done by Men must be done by God and Men can't be properly said to do what they never intended and therefore whatever is either beyond or contrary to what Men intended must either be attributed to Chance or to a Divine Providence I observed before what different Intentions God and men have in the same actions what is intended by men is their doing what is intended by God is his doing and wholly his doing when what God intended was not intended by men For this reason Ioseph tells his Brethren that it was not they but God that sent him into Egypt 45. Gen. 4 5 6 7 8. for they thought nothing of sending him into Egypt but this was what God intended when he permitted them to sell him to the Ishmaelites This was their sin as he adds 50. Gen. 20. But as for you ye thought evil against me but the good that was done was wholly God's doings but God meant it unto good And thus it is in other cases which shows us what the Scripture calls God's doings The punishment of sinners and those evils he brings on them is God's doings but not the sins whereby they are punished The Punishment of David's Adultery by the Incest of Absalom was God's doing but not Absalom's Incest The sending Ioseph into Egypt and advancing him into Pharaoh's Throne was God's doing but not the Sin of his Brethren in selling him for a Slave And thus it is throughout the Scripture nothing is called God's Will or God's doing which has any Moral Evil in it all wicked actions are mens own will and own doings which God permits for wise ends but never orders or appoints but the good or evil which is done by mens sins that is God's doing and I hope by this time you all know how to distinguish between God's government of mens Actions and his government of Events and then we may safely attribute all Events to God's order and appointment without danger of charging God with the sins of men whereby such Events are brought to pass 3dly Let us now consider What difference there is between God's Absolute Government of all Events and Necessity and Fate for many men are very apt to confound these two If no good or evil befals any men but what God orders and appoints for them this they think sounds like Fate and Destiny that every man's Fortune is writ upon his Forehead and that it is impossible for any man by all his Care and Industry and Prudence to make his Condition better than what God has decreed it to be in the Irreversible Rolls of Fate And yet an Unrelenting Immutable Fate is so irreconcilable with the liberty of human actions with the nature of good and evil of rewards and
punishments that if we admit of it there is an end of all Religion of all Vertuous Endeavours of all Great and Generous Attempts it is to no purpose to pray to God or to trust in him or to resist temptations or to be diligent in our business or prudent and circumspect in our actions for what will be will be Or if any means be to be used that is no matter of our choice or care but we shall do it as necessarily and mechanically as a Watch moves and points to the Hour of the Day for Fate has by the same Necessity determined the Means and the End and we can do no more nor less than Fate has determined I shall not now trouble you with an account of the various Opinions of the Ancient Philosophers about Fate none of whom ever dreamt of such a terrible Fate as some Christians have fancied which reaches not only to this world but to all Eternity What I have already discoursed is sufficient to vindicate the Doctrine of Providence from the least imputation of Necessity and Fate For 1. Though God over-rules the actions of men to do what he himself thinks fit to be done yet he lays no Necessity upon human actions men will and chuse freely pursue their own interests and inclinations just as they would do if there were no Providence to govern them and while men act freely it is certain there can be no Absolute Fate God indeed as you have already heard sometimes hinders them from executing their wicked purposes and permits them to do no more hurt than what he can direct to Wise Ends but no man is wicked or does wickedly by Necessity and Fate Tho he may be restrained from doing so much wickedness as he would yet all the wickedness he commits is his own free Choice even when it serves such ends as he never thought of and therefore he is and acts like a free Agent notwithstanding the Government of Providence 2dly Tho God determines all Events all the good and evil that shall happen to Men or Nations yet it is no more nor no other than what they themselves have deserved and therefore they are under no other Fate than what they themselves bring upon themselves by the good or bad use of their own liberty that is they are under no other Fate than to be rewarded when they do well and to be punished when they do ill but this is the Justice of Providence not the Necessity of Fate Those who do ill and deserve ill and suffer ill might have done well and have made themselves the Favourites of Providence and therefore are under no greater Necessity of Suffering ill than they were of Doing ill The reason why God keeps all Events in his own hands is not because he has absolutely determined the Fates of all men but that he may govern the world wisely and justly and reward and punish men according to their deserts as far as the Reasons of Providence require in this world Now while the liberty of human actions is secured and the Events of Providence are not the execution of Fatal Absolute and Unconditional Decrees but acts of Government in the Wise Administration of Justice and dispensing Rewards and Punishments how Absolute soever God's Govenment be of all Events it is not Necessity and Fate but a Wise and Just and Absolute Government This indeed is what some of the Wisest Heathens called Fate and all that they meant by the Name of Fate That God had fixed it by an irreversible Decree that Good men should be rewarded and the Wicked punished and thus far we must all allow Fate and Providence is only the Minister and Executioner of these Fatal Decrees and to that end God keeps the Government of all Events in his own hands Now whether we say That God determines what good or evil shall befal men at the very time when they deserve it or That foreseeing what good or evil they will do and what they will deserve did beforehand determine what good or evil should befal them according to their deserts this makes no alteration at all in the state of the Question for if all the good or evil that befalls men have respect to their deserts this is not Fate but a Just and Righteous Judgment In a word God's Government of all Events is indeed so Absolute and Uncontroulable that no good or evil can befal any man but what God pleases what he orders and appoints for him and this is necessary to the good Government of the World and the Care of all his Creatures but then God orders no good or evil to befal any men but what they deserve and what the Wise Ends of his Providence require and this is not Fate but a Wise and Just Government of the World 4. That the Exercise of a Particular Providence consists in the Government of all Events I have often wondred at those Philosophers who acknowledg'd a Providence but would not acknowledge God's particular Care of all his Creatures Some confined his Providence to the Heavens but would not extend it to this lower world and yet this world needs a Providence as much and a great deal more as being a Scene of Change and Corruption of furious Lusts and Passions which need the Restraints and Government of Providence No Creatures need God's Care more than the Inhabitants of this Earth and if he take Care of any of his Creatures one would think he should take most Care of them who need it most Others who would allow That the Providence of God reached this lower world yet confined God's care to the several Kinds and Species of Beings but would not extend it to every Individual as if God took care of Logical Terms of Genus and Species but took no care of his own Creatures which are all Individuals or as if God could take care of all his creatures without taking care of any particular creature i.e. That he could take care of all his creatures without taking care of any one of them Thus they would allow God to take care of the great Affairs of Kingdoms and Commonwealths but to have no regard to particular Men or Families unless they made a great Figure in the world as if Kingdoms and Commonwealths were not made up of particular Men and particular Families or that God could take care of the whole without taking care of every part or as if there were any other reason for taking care of the whole but to take care of those particulars who make the whole To talk of a General Providence without God's Care and Government of every Particular Creature is manifestly unreasonable and absurd for whatever Reasons oblige us to own a Providence oblige us to own a Particular Providence If Creation be a Reason why God should preserve and take care of what he has made this is a Reason why he should take care of every creature because there is no creature but what he made and
this World that they never care to think of another and that Afflictions and Adversity has many times a quite contrary effect to make men serious and considerate to possess them with an awe and reverence of God to correct and reform Bad men and to exercise the Graces and Vertues of the Good both the Reason of things and the Experience of Mankind may satisfy us That this is what God designs in those Afflictions and Sufferings he brings on Mankind the Scripture every where assures us and the natural conclusion from hence is That Afflictions are not evil nor any Objection against the Goodness of Providence If they prove evil to us it is our own fault for God designs them for good As the Apostle expresly tells us That all things work together for good to them that love God And whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth if ye endure chastening God dealeth with you as with sons for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not but if ye be without chastisement whereof all are partakers then are ye bastards and not sons 21. Hebr. 6 7 8. This then must be our great care to rectify our Notions of Good and Evil to withdraw our minds from Sense and not to call every thing good that is pleasant nor every thing evil that is afflicting this distinction the Heathen Poet long since observed and gives it as a Reason and a very wise and good Reason it is why we should entirely give up our selves to God and leave him to chuse our Condition for us Nam pro jucundis aptissima quaeque dabunt Dii That though God will not always give us those things which are most pleasant he will give us what is most profitable for us And if we judge of Good and Evil not by Sense nor by external Appearances but by that spiritual good they do or are intended to do us in making us Good men here and happy hereafter men may if they so please as reasonably quarrel with the great Ease and Prosperity which so many enjoy as with the Afflictions which others suffer for Prosperity does oftner corrupt mens Manners and betray them to Sin and Folly than Afflictions do Good men themselves can hardly bear a prosperous State nor resist the Temptations and Flatteries of Ease and Pleasure whereas Afflictions many times reform Bad men and make Good men better as the Psalmist himself owns It is good for me that I have been afflicted for before I was afflicted I went astray but since I have learned to keep thy laws And if both Prosperity and Adversity may be either for our good or hurt and when they are so we cannot always tell we must leave this to God and commit our selves to his Care and Discipline who knows us better than we know our selves and knows what is best for us But this may seem to start a new and more difficult Objection That if we must not judge of Good and Evil by external and sensible Events we can have no sensible Proofs of the Goodness or Justice of Providence As we cannot object the external Evils and Calamities that are in the World against the Goodness of Providence so neither can we prove the Goodness of Providence from those external and sensible Blessings which God bestows upon Mankind So that Religion gains nothing by this it silences indeed the Objections against Providence but it also destroys the Proofs of a Good and Just Providence The Answer to this Objection will give us a truer notion and understanding of the Goodness of Providence For though we cannot know love or hatred merely by external Events yet this does not destroy the natural good or evil of things nor the Justice or Goodness of Providence in doing good or in sending his Plagues and Judgments on the World Natural Good and Evil are the Instruments and Methods of Discipline Good men are encouraged and rewarded in this World by some external and natural Blessings and Bad men are restrained and governed by some natural Evils and the Goodness and Justice of God in doing good and in punishing make these external Blessings and Punishments the Methods of Discipline which could have no efficacy in them either to encourage Good men or to reform the Wicked but as they are the visible significations of God's Favour or displeasure and therefore such external Blessings and Punishments are evident Proofs of the Goodness and Justice of Providence or else they could not be the Methods of Discipline nor have any moral efficacy upon Mankind But yet when these Acts of Goodness or Justice are made the Methods of Discipline and not intended as the proper Rewards or Punishments of Vertue or Vice they are not always confined to Good or Bad men and therefore are not certain and visible Marks of God's Love or Hatred It is an Act of Goodness in God to do good to the Evil and to the Good To the Good it is a mark of his Favour and an incitement to a more perfect Vertue to the Evil an expression of his Patience and an invitation to Repentance but when he is good both to the Evil and to the Good the mere external Event can make no difference The external Good may be the same and God is good to both and intends good to both but yet has not equal favour to both It is an Act of Justice in God to punish and to correct Sin and both Good and Bad men many times feel the same Severities to correct and chastise the Follies and to quicken and inflame the Devotions of Good men and to over-awe and terrify Bad men with the sense of God's Anger and the fears of Vengeance This is to be just and to be good to both as great Goodness and Justice as it is to reform Bad men and to make Good men better tho the external Events of Providence in such Cases make little distinction between them We see in all these Instances manifest Proofs both of the Justice and Goodness of God though Prosperity is not always a Blessing nor Afflictions always evil They are always indeed in themselves Natural Goods and Evils and therefore are the proper Exercise of a Natural Goodness and Justice but with respect to Moral Ends to that influence they have upon the direction and government of our Lives what is naturally good may prove a great evil to us and what is naturally evil may do us the greatest good and then we must confess That the Goodness of Providence must not be measured merely by the natural good or evil of external Events but by such a mixture and temperament of good and evil as is best fitted to govern men in this World and to make them happy in the next 3dly There is another Mistake about the Nature of Government and what Goodness is required in the Government of the World Now the Universal Lord and Sovereign of the World must not only take care
of particular Creatures but of the good of the whole And this in some Cases may make the greatest and most terrible Acts of Severity such as are enough to afright and astonish the World Acts of the greatest Goodness and Mercy too which will vindicate the Goodness of Providence when God seems to be most severe and to have forgot all Goodness and Compassion As to explain this in some particular Cases The good government of the World requires the defence and protection of Mankind from violent and unjust Oppressions and the most exemplary Vengeance executed upon such private or publick Oppressors is a great Act of Goodness and a great deliverance to the Oppressed 136. Psalm the Psalmist exhorts us To give thanks to the Lord for he is good for his mercy endureth for ever And among other Expressions of the Divine Goodness and Mercy he mentions the Plagues of Egypt and the Deliverance of Israel by the overthrow of Pharaoh in the Red-Sea To him that smote Egypt in their first-born for his mercy endureth for ever And brought out Israel from among them for his mercy endureth for ever With a strong hand and with a stretched-out arm for his mercy endureth for ever To him which divided the Red-sea into parts for his mercy c. and made Israel to pass through the midst of it but over-threw Pharaoh and his host in the Red-sea for his mercy c. To him who smote great kings and slew famous kings Sihon king of the Amorites and Og the king of Bashan and gave their land for an heritage even for an heritage to Israel his servant for his mercy endureth for ever This ought to be well considered before we object the Evils and Calamities which befall Bad men against the Goodness of Providence For there are few Bad men who suffer any Remarkable Vengeance but that their Sufferings are a great kindness and deliverance to others and it may be to the Publick in breaking their Power or taking them out of the World And in all such Cases the Psalmist has taught us a very proper Hymn I will sing of mercy and judgment unto thee O Lord will I sing 101. Psal. 1. Thus the good government of the World requires some great and lasting Examples of God's Justice and Vengeance against Sin And as terrible as such Examples are they are a great publick Good to the World Some few such Examples as these will serve to warn an Age nay many succeeding Ages and Generations of men which prevents the more frequent Executions of Vengeance and justifies the Patience and Long-suffering of God to Sinners If such Examples in any measure reform the World as God intends they should it makes this World a much happier place for the better men are the less hurt and the more good they will do and the less evil there is committed in the World the less Mankind will suffer and the greater Blessings God will bestow on them And though there be a great deal of Wickedness committed in the World after such Terrible Warnings as these God may exercise great Patience and Forbearance towards Sinners without the least blemish to his Holiness or Justice For such Frightful Executions convince the World of God's Justice and when God has publickly vindicated the Honour of his Justice he may try gentler Methods and glorify his Mercy and Patience towards Sinners And thus God punishes that he may spare is sometimes very terrible in his Judgments to prevent the necessity of striking often that Sinners may have sufficient warning and that he may be good to Sinners without encouraging them in sin Thus the destruction of the Old World by a Deluge of Water when they were past being reformed is a warning to all Sinners as long as this World lasts and is a publick and standing Confutation of Atheism of such Scoffers as say where is the promise of his coming for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation The constant and regular course of Nature without any Supernatural Changes and Revolutions tempts men to think that there is no God in the World who changes Times and Seasons but this St. Peter tells us is visibly confuted by the destruction of the Old World for this they are willingly ignorant of that by the word of God the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished And this is reason enough to fear and expect what God has threatned That this present World shall be burnt by fire But the heavens and the earth which are now by the same word are kept in store reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men 2 Peter 3. 5 6 7. Such Destructions as these can be attributed to no Natural Causes but the same Word which made the World destroyed the Old World by Water and will destroy this by Fire which makes it a visible Demonstration of the Power and Justice of God The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by Fire from Heaven is not only a general Warning to Sinners but an Example of a Divine Vengeance against all Uncleanness and Unnatural Lusts. As St. Iude tells us Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh are set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire v. 7. Thus the Destruction of Ierusalem by the Romans which was attended with the most terrible Circumstances that we ever meet with in Story is a lasting Confutation of Infidelity and a glorious Testimony to Christ and his Religion So that most of the terrible Examples of God's Vengeance how terrible soever they were to those who suffered are Acts of great Goodness to the World and therefore belong to the Goodness of Government by some severe Executions to protect and defend the Innocent and reclaim other Offenders without the necessity of terrifying the World in every Age with such repeated Severities Nay we may observe farther That when the World is grown very corrupt and degenerate and such Sinners if they be suffered to continue in it will certainly propagate their Atheism Infidelity and Lewdness to all Posterity it is great Goodness to all succeeding Generations to cleanse the World of its impure Inhabitants by some great Destruction by Sword or Plague or Famine to lessen the number of Sinners and to possess those who escape with a greater awe and reverence of God's Judgments Nay to observe but one thing more Many times these terrible Shakings and Convulsions of the World are intended by God to open some new and more glorious Scene of Providence Thus it was in the Four Empires which preyed upon each other and were at last swallowed up by the Roman Powers though they made great Destructions in the World yet they carried Learning and Civility into