Terms of this Union were infinitely distant What greater distance can there be than between the Deity and Humanity between the Creator and a Creature Can you imagine the distance between Eternity and Time Infinite Power and Miserable Infirmity an Immortal Spirit and Dying Flesh the Highest Being and Nothing yet these are espous'd A God of unmixt Blessedness is linkt personally with a Man of perpetual Sorrows Life uncapable to Die joyn'd to a Body in that Oeconomy uncapable to live without dying first Infinite Purity and a reputed Sinner Eternal Blessedness with a Cursed Nature Almightiness and Weakness Omniscience and Ignorance Immutability and Changableness Incomprehensibleness and comprehensibility that which cannot be comprehended and that which can be comprehended that which is intirely Independent and that which is totally Dependant the Creator forming all things and the Creature made met together to a Personal Union the Word made flesh †John 1.14 the Eternal Son the Seed of Abraham ‖ Heb. 2.16 What more Miraculous than for God to become Man and Man to become God That a Person possessed of all the Perâ—ections of the Godhead should inherit all the Imperfections of the Manhood in one Person Sin only excepted A Holiness uncapable of sinning to be made Sin God blessed for ever taking the properties of Humane Nature and Humane Nature admitted to a Union with the Properties of the Creator The Fulness of the Deity and the Emptiness of Man united together * Colos 2.9 not by a shining of the Deity upon the Humanity as the light of the Sun upon the Earth but by an inhabitation or indwelling of the Deity in the Humanity Was there not need of an Infinite Power to bring together Terms so far asunder to elevate the Humanity to be capable of and disposed for a conjunction with the Deity If a clod of Earth should be advanced to and united with the Body of the Sun such an advance would evidence it self to be a work of Almighty Power The Clod hath nothing in its own nature to render it so glorious no power to climb up to so high a dignity How little would such a Union be to that we are speaking of Nothing less than an incomprehensible Power could effect what an Incomprehensible Wisdom did project in this affair 3. Especially since the Vnion is so strait 'T is not such a Vnion as is between a Man and his House he dwells in whence he goes out and to which he returns without any alteration of himself or his House nor such a Vnion as is betwen a Man and his Garment which both communicate and receive warmth from one another nor such as is between an Artificer and his Instrument wherewith he works nor such a Vnion as one Friend hath with another All these are distant things not one in Nature but have distinct subsistences Two Friends though united by love are distinct Persons a Man and his Cloaths an Artificer and his Instruments have distinct subsistences But the Humanity of Christ hath no subsistence but in the Person of Christ †Lessius de Perf. divin lib. 12. cap. 4. p. 104. The straitness of this Vnion is exprest and may be somewhat conceiv'd by the union of Fire with Iron Fire pierceth through all the parts of Iron it unites it self with every particle bestows a light heat purity upon all of it you cannot distinguish the Iron from the Fire or the Fire from the Iron yet they are distinct Natures So the Deity is united to to the whole Humanity seasons it and bestows an excellency upon it yet the Natures still remain distinct And as during that union of Fire with Iron the Iron is uncapable of rust or blackness so is the Humanity uncapable of Sin And as the operation of Fire is attributed to the red-hot Iron as the Iron may be said to heat burn and the Fire may be said to cut and pierce yet the imperfections of the Iron do not affect the Fire so in this Mystery those things which belong to the Divinity are ascribed to the Humanity and those things which belong to the Humanity are ascribed to the Divinity in regard of the Person in whom those Natures are united yet the Imperfections of the Humanity do not hurt the Divinity The Divinity of Christ is as really united with the Humanity as the Soul with the Body The Person was one though the Natures were two so united that the Sufferings of the Humane Nature were the Sufferings of that Person and the dignity of the Divine was imputed to the Humane by reason of that Unity of both in one Person Hence the Blood of the Humane Nature is said to be the Blood of God ‖ Acts 20.28 * Lessius p. 103 104. All things ascrib'd to the Son of God may be ascrib'd to this Man and the things ascrib'd to this Man may be ascrib'd to the Son of God as this Man is the Son of God Eternal Almighty And it may be said God suffered was Crucified c. for the Person of Christ is but one most simple the Person suffered that was God and Man united making One Person 4. And though the Union be so strait yet without confusion of the Natures or change of them into one another †Lessius ut antea p. 103 104. Amyrald Irenic p. 284. The two Natures of Christ are not mixed as Liquors that incorporate with one another when they are poured into a Vessel the Divine Nature is not turned into the Humane nor the Humane into the Divine one Nature doth not swallow up another and make a third Nature distinct from each of them The Deity is not turned into the Humanity as Air which is next to a Spirit may be thickned and turned into Water and Water may be rarifi'd into Air by the power of Heat boyling it The Deity cannot be chang'd because the Nature of it is to be unchangeable It would not be Deity if it were Mortal and capable of Suffering The Humanity is not chang'd into the Deity for then Christ could not have been a Sufferer If the Humanity had been swallowed up into the Deity it had lost its own distinct Nature and put on the Nature of the Deity and consequently been uncapable of Suffering Finite can never by any mixture be chang'd into Infinite nor Infinite into Finite This Union in this regard may be resembled to the Union of Light and Air which are strictly joyn'd for the Light passes through all parts of the Air but they are not confounded but remain in their distinct essences as before the union without the least confusion with one another * Amyrald Irenic p. 282. The Divine Nature remains as it was before the Union intire in it self only the Divine Person assumes another Nature to himself The Humane Nature remains as it would have done had it existed separately from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 except that then it would have had a
understanding So we are not able to conceive of spiritual Beings in the purity of their own nature without such a temperament and such shadows to usher them into our minds And therefore we find the Spirit of God accommodates himself to our contracted and teddered capacities and uses such expressions of God as are suted to us in this state of flesh wherein we are And therefore because we cannot apprehend God in the simplicity of his own Being and his undivided Essence he draws the representations of himself from several Creatures and several actions of those Creatures As sometimes he is said to be angry to walk to sit to fly not that we should rest in such conceptions of him but take our rise from this foundation and such perfections in the Creatures to mount up to a knowledge of Gods nature by those several steps and conceive of him by those divided Excellencies because we cannot conceive of him in the purity of his own Essence * Lessius We cannot possibly think or speak of God unless we transfer the names of created perfections to him yet we are to conceive of them in a higher manner when we apply them to the Divine Nature than when we consider them in the several Creatures formally exceeding those perfections and excellencies which are in the Creature and in a more excellent manner * Towerson on the Commandments P. 112. as one saith though we cannot comprehend God without the help of such resemblances yet we may without making an Image of him so that inability of ours excuseth those apprehensions of him from any way offending against his Divine Nature These are not notions so much suted to the nature of God as the weakness of man They are helps to our meditations but ought not to be formal conceptions of him We may assist our selves in our apprehensions of him by considering the subtilty and spirituality of Air and considering the members of a body without thinking him to be air or to have any corporeal member Our reason tells us that whatsoever is a body is limited and bounded and the notion of infiniteness and bodiliness cannot agree and consist together And therefore what is offered by our fancy should be purified by our reason 4. Therefore we are to elevate and refine all our notions of God and spiritualize our conceptions of him Every man is to have a conception of God therefore he ought to have one of the highest elevation Since we cannot have a full notion of him we should endeavour to make it as high and as pure as we can Though we cannot conceive of God but some corporeal representations or images in our minds will be conversant with us as motes in the Air when we look upon the Heavens yet our conceptions may and must rise higher As when we see the draught of the Heavens and Earth in a Globe or a Kingdom in a Map it helps our conceptions but doth not terminate them We conceive them to be of a vast extent far beyond that short description of them So we should endeavour to refine every representation of God to rise higher and higher and have our apprehensions still more purified separating the perfect from the imperfect casting away the one and greatning the other conceive him to be a Spirit diffused through all containing all perceiving all All the perfections of God are infinitely elevated above the excellencies of the Creatures above whatsoever can be conceived by the clearest and most piercing understanding The Nature of God as a Spirit is infinitely superior to whatsoever we can conceive perfect in the notion of a created Spirit Whatsoever God is he is infinitely so He is infinite Wisdom infinite Goodness infinite Knowledge infinite Power infinite Spirit infinitely distant from the weakness of Creatures infinitely mounted above the excellencies of Creatures As easie to be known that he is as impossible to be comprehended what he is Conceive of him as excellent without any imperfection A Spirit without parts great without quantity perfect without quality every where without place Powerful without members understanding without ignorance wise without reasoning light without darkness infinitely more excelling the beauty of all Creatures than the light in the Sun pure and unviolated exceeds the splendor of the Sun dispersed and divided through a cloudy and misty Air And when you have risen to the highest conceive him yet infinitely above all you can conceive of Spirit and acknowledge the infirmity of your own minds And whatsoever conception comes into your minds say this is not God God is more than this If I could conceive him he were not God for God is incomprehensibly above whatsoever I can say whatsoever I can think and conceive of him 4. Inference If God be a Spirit no corporeal thing can defile him Some bring an Argument against the Omnipresence of God that it is a disparagement to the Divine Essence to be every where in nasty Cottages as well as beautiful Palaces and garnisht Temples What place can defile a Spirit Is Light which approaches to the nature of Spirit polluted by shining upon a Dung-hill or a Sun-beam tainted by darting upon a Quag-mire Doth an Angel contract any soyl by stepping into a nasty Prison to deliver Peter What can steam from the most noysom body to pollute the spiritual nature of God As he is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity * Heb. 1.13 so he is of a more spiritual substance than to contract any physical pollution from the places where he doth diffuse himself Did our Saviour who had a true body derive any taint from the Lepers he touched the diseases he cured or the Devils he expell'd God is a pure Spirit plungeth himself into no filth is dasht with no spot by being present with all bodies Bodies only receive defilement from bodies 5. Inference If God be a Spirit he is active and communicative He is not clogg'd with heavy and sluggish matter which is cause of dulness and inactivity The more subtil thin and approaching neerer the Nature of a Spirit any thing is the more diffusive it is Air is a gliding substance spreads it self through all Regions peirceth into all bodies it fills the space between Heaven and Earth there is nothing but partakes of the vertue of it Light which is an emblem of Spirit insinuates it self into all places refresheth all things As Spirits are fuller so they are more overflowing more piercing more operative than bodies The Egyptian Horses were weak things because they were Flesh and not Spirit * Isay 31.3 The Soul being a Spirit conveys more to the Body than the Body can to it What cannot so great a Spirit do for us What cannot so great a Spirit work in us God being a Spirit above all Spirits can pierce into the Center of all Spirits make his way into the most secret recesses stamp what he pleases 'T is no more to him to turn our Spirits than to make
manner in the Fountain than in the Streams which distill and descend from it He that is the Original of all those distinct Powers must be the Seat of all Power without distinction In him is the Union of all without division what is in them as a quality is in him as his Essence Again if all the powers of several Creatures with all their principal qualities and vigors both of Beasts Plants and rational Creatures were united in one Subject As if one Lion had the strength of all the Lions that ever were or if one Elephant had the strength of all the Elephants that ever were nay if one Bee had all the power of motion and stinging that all Bees ever had it would have a vast strength but if the strength of all those thus gathered into one of every kind should be lodged in one sole Creature one Man would it not be a Strength too big for our conception Or suppose one Canon had all the force of all the Canons that ever were in the World what a battery would it make and as it were shake the whole frame of Heaven and Earth All this Strength must be much more incomprehensible in God all is united in him If it were in one individual Created Nature it would still be but a finite Power in a finite Nature But in God it is Infinite and Immense Reas 2. If there were not an incomprehensible Power in God he would not be infinitely perfect God is the First Being It can only be said of him Est he is All other things are nothing to him Less than nothing and vanity Isai 40.17 and reputed as nothing Dan. 4.35 All the Inhabitants of the Earth with all their Wit and Strength are counted as if they were not just in comparison with Him and his Being as a little Mote in the Sun-beams God therefore is a pure Being Any kind of Weakness whatsoever is a defect a degree of not Being so far as any thing wants this or that Power it may be said Not to be Were there any thing of Weakness in God any want of strength which belong'd to the perfection of a Nature it might be said of God He is not this or that he wants this or that perfection of Being and so he would not be a pure Being there would be something of not Being in him But God being the First Being the only Original Being He is infinitely distant from not Being and therefore infinitely distant from any thing of Weakness * Victorin in Petar Tom. 1. p. 333. Again If God can know whatsoever is possible to be done by him and cannot do it there would be something more in his Knowledge than in his Power What would then follow That the Essence of God would be in some regard greater than it self and less than it self because his Knowledge and his Power are his Essence his Power as much his Essence as his Knowledge And therefore in regard of his Knowledge his Essence would be greater in regard of his Power his Essence would be less which is a thing impossible to be conceived in a most perfect Being We must understand this of those things which are properly and in their own Nature subjected to the Divine Knowledge for otherwise God knows more than he can do for he knows Sin but he cannot act it because Sin belongs not to Power but Weakness and Sin comes under the Knowledge of God not in it self and its own Nature but as it is a defect from God and contrary to Good which is the proper Object of Divine Knowledge He knows it also not as possible to be done by himself but as possible to be done by the Creature †Victorin in Petar Tom. 1. p. 233. Again If God were not Omnipotent we might imagine something more perfect than God For if we bar God from any one thing which in its own nature is possible we may imagine a Being that can do that thing one that is able to effect it and so imagine an Agent greater than God a Being able to do more than God is able to do and consequently a Being more perfect than God But no Being more perfect than God can be imagin'd by any Creature Nothing can be called most Perfect if any thing of Activity be wanting to it Active Power follows the perfection of a thing and all things are counted more noble by how much more of Efficacy and Virtue they possess We count those the best and most perfect Plants that have the greatest Medicinal Virtue in them and power of working upon the Body for the cure of Distempers God is perfect of himself and therefore most powerful of himself If his Perfection in Wisdom and Goodness be unsearchable his Power which belongs to Perfection and without which all the other Excellencies of his Nature were insignificant and could not shew themselves as was before evidenc'd must be unsearchable also 'T is by the Title of Almighty he is denominated when declared to be Unsearchable to perfection Job 11.7 Canst thou by searching find out God canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection This would be limited and searched out if he were destitute of an active Ability to do whatsoever he pleased to do whatsoever was possible to be done As he hath not a perfect liberty of Will if he could not will what he pleased so he would not have a perfect Activity if he could not do what he willed Reason 3. The Simplicity of God manifests it Every Substance the more Spiritual it is the more Powerful it is All Perfections are more united in a simple than in a compounded Being Angels being Spirits are more powerful than Bodies Where there is the greatest Simplicity there is the greatest Unity and where there is the greatest Unity there is the greatest Power Where there is a composition of a Faculty and a Member the Member or Organ may be weaken'd and render'd unable to act though the Power doth still reside in the Faculty As a Man when his Arm or Hand is cut off or broke he hath the faculty of Motion still â—â—t he hath lost that Instrument that part whereby he did manifest and put forth that Motion But God being a pure Spiritual Nature hath no Members no Organs to be defac'd or impair'd All Impediments of Action arise either from the nature of the thing that acts or from something without it There can be no hindrance to God to do whatsoever he pleases not in himself because he is the Most Simple Being hath no contrariety in himself is not compos'd of divers things And it cannot be from any thing without himself because nothing is equal to him much less Superiour He is the Greatest the Supream All things were made by him depend upon him nothing can disappoint his Intentions Reas 4. The Miracles that have been in the World evidence the Power of God Extraordinary productions have awakened Men from their stupidity to the
of a Woman ‖ Gal. 4 4. That part of the Flesh of the Virgin whereof the Humane Nature of Christ was made was refin'd and purifi'd from Corruption by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost as a skilful Workman separates the Dross from the Gold Our Saviour is therefore called that Holy thing * Luke 1.35 though born of the Virgin He was necessarily some way to descend from Adam God indeed might have created his Body out of Nothing or have formed it as he did Adams out of the Dust of the Ground But had he been thus extraordinarily formed and not propagated from Adam though he had been a Man like one of us yet he would not have been of kin to us because it would not have been a Nature deriv'd from Adam the Common Parent of us all †Amyrald in Symbol p. 103 c. It was therefore necessary to an affinity with us not only that he should have the same Humane Nature but that it should slow from the same Principle and be propagated to him But now by this way of producing the Humanity of Christ of the Substance of the Virgin He was in Adam say some Corporally but not Seminally of the Substance of Adam or a Daughter of Adam but not of the Seed of Adam And so he is of the same Nature that had sinned so what he did and suffered may be imputed to us which had he been created as Adam could not be claim'd in a Legal and Judicial way 2. It was not convenient he should be born in the Common order of Nature of Father and Mother For whosoever is so born is polluted A Clean thing cannot be brought out of an unclean ‖ Job 14.4 And our Saviour had been uncapable of being a Redeemer had he been tainted with the least Spot of our Nature but would have stood in need of Redemption himself Besides it had been inconsistent with the Holiness of the Divine Nature to have assumed a tainted and defiled Body He that was the Fountain of Blessedness to all Nations was not to be subject to the Curse of the Law for himself which he would have been had he been conceiv'd in an ordinary way He that was to overturn the Devils Empire was not to be any way captive under the Devils Power as a Creature under the Curse nor could he be able to break the Serpents head had he been tainted with the Serpents breath Again supposing that Almighty God by his Divine Power had so order'd the matter and so perfectly sanctified an Earthly Father and Mother from all Original spot that the Humane Nature might have been transmitted Immaculate to him as well as the Holy Ghost did purge that part of the flesh of the Virgin of which the Body of Christ was made yet it was not convenient that that Person that was God blessed for ever as well as Man partaking of our Nature should have a Conception in the same manner as ours but different and in some measure conformable to the Infinite dignity of his Person which could not have been had not a supernatural Power and a Divine Person been concern'd as an active Principle in it Besides such a Birth had not been agreeable to the first Promise Gen. 1.15 which calls him The Seed of the woman not of the Man and so the Veracity of God had suffer'd some detriment The seed of the woman only is set in opposition to the seed of the Serpent 3. By this manner of Conception the Holiness of his Nature is secur'd and his fitness for his Office is assur'd to us 'T is now a pure and unpolluted Humanity that is the Temple and Tabernacle of the Divinity The Fulness of the Godhead dwells in him bodily and dwells in him Holily His Humanity is supernaturaliz'd and elevated by the activity of the Holy Ghost hatching the Flesh of the Virgin into Man as the Chaos into a World Though we read of some sanctified from the Womb it was not a pure and perfect Holiness it was like the Light of Fire mixed with Smoak an infus'd Holiness accompanied with a Natural tâ—int But the Holiness of the Redeemer by this Conception is like the Light of the Sun pure and without spot The Spirit of Holiness supplying the place of a Father in a way of Creation His Fitness for his Office is also assur'd to us for being born of the Virgin one of our Nature but conceived by the Spirit a Divine Person the guilt of our Sins may be imputed to him because of our Nature without the stain of Sin inherent in him because of his Supernatural Conception he is capable as one of Kin to us to bear our Curse without being toucht by our Taint By this means our sinful Nature is assum'd without Sin in that Nature which was assum'd by him Flesh he hath but not Sinful flesh Rom. 8.3 Real Flesh but not really Sinful only by way of Imputation Nothing but the Power of God is evident in this whole Work By the ordinary Laws and course of Nature a Virgin could not bear a Son nothing but a Supernatural and Almighty Grace could intervene to make so holy and perfect a Conjunction * Amyrant sâ—r â—imole p. 292. The generation of others in an ordinary way is by Male and Female But the Virgin is overshadow'd by the Spirit and Power of the Highest Man only is the product of Natural generation this which is born of the Virgin is the Holy thing the Son of God In other generations a Rational Soul is only united to a Material Body But in this the Divine Nature is united with the Humane in one Person by an indissoluble Union II. The Second Act of Power in the Person Redeeming is the Union of the two Natures the Divine and Humane The designing indeed of this was an act of Wisdom but the accomplishing it was an act of Power 1. There is in this Redeeming Person a Union of two Natures He is God and Man in one Person Heb. 1.8 9. Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever God even thy God hath anointed thee with the Oil of Gladness c. The Son is called God having a Throne for ever and ever and the Unction speaks him Man The Godhead cannot be Anointed nor hath any Fellows Humanity and Divinity are ascrib'd to him Rom. 1.3 4. He was of the Seed of David according to the Flesh and declared to be the Son of God by hiâ— Resurrection from the dead The Divinity and Humanity are both Prophetically joyn'd Zach. 12.10 I will pour out my Spirit the pouring forth the Spirit is an Act only of Divine Grace and Power And they shâ—ll look upon me whom they have pierced the same Person pours forth the Spirit as God and is pierced as Man The Word was made Flesh John 1.14 Word from Eternity was made Flesh in time Word and Flesh in one Person a great God and a little Infant 2. The
it self that it cannot be conceived to fall within the Compass of the Divine Nature †Deut. 32.4 who is a God without iniquity because a God of truth and sincerity just and right is he To bestow excellent Faculties upon Man in Creation and incline him by a suddain impulsion to things contrary to the true end of him and induce an inevitable ruin upon that Work which he had composed with so much Wisdom and Goodness and pronounced good with so much delight and Pleasure is inconsistent with that love which God bears to the Creature of his own framing To incline his Will to that which would render him the Object of his hatred the Fuel for his Justice and sink him into deplorable Misery 't is most absurd and unchristian-like to imagine 3. Nor can God necessitate man to sin Indeed sin cannot be committed by force there is no sin but is in some sort voluntary Voluntary in the root or voluntary in the branch voluntary by an immediate act of the Will or voluntary by a general or natural inclination of the Will That is not a Crime to which a man is violenc'd without any concurrence of the Faculties of the Soul to that act 't is indeed not an act but a passion a man that is forced is not an Agent but a Patient under the force But what necessity can there be upon Man from God since he hath implanted such a Principle in him that he cannot desire any thing but what is good either really or apparently and if a man mistakes the Object 't is his own fault for God hath endowed him with Reason to discern and liberty of Will to choose upon that Judgment And though 't is to be acknowledged that God hath an Absolute Soveraign Dominion over his Creature without any Limitation and may do what he pleases and dispose of it according to his own Will as a Potter doth with his Vessel Rom. 9.21 according as the Church speaks Isa 64.8 We are the Clay and thou our Potter and we all are the work of thy hand Yet he cannot pollute any undefiled Creature by virtue of that Soveraign Power which he hath to do what he will with it because such an act would be contrary to the Foundation and Right of his Dominion which consists in the excellency of his Nature his immense Wisdom and unspotted Purity If God should therefore do any such act he would expunge the right of his Dominion by blotting out that nature which renders him fit for that Dominion and the exercise of it * Amyrald disert pa 103 104. Any Dominion which is exercis'd without the Rules of goodness is not a true Soveraignty but an insupportable Tyranny God would cease to be a rightful Soveraign if he ceased to be good and he would cease to be good if he did command necessitate or by any positive operation incline inwardly the heart of a Creature directly to that which were morally evil and contrary to the eminency of his own Nature But that we may the better conceive of this let us trace Man in his first fall whereby he subjected himself and all his Posterity to the Curse of the Law and hatred of God we shall find no foot-steps either of Precept outward force or inward impulsion †Amyrald defens de Calvin p. 151. 152 The plain story of Man's Apostacy dischargeth God from any interest in the Crime as an incouragement and excuseth him from any appearance of suspicion when he shewed him the Tree he had reserved as a mark of his Soveraignty and forbad him to eat of the Fruit of it He backt the Prohibition with the threatning the greatest Evil viz. Death which could be understood to imply nothing less than the loss of all his happiness and in that couch'd an assurance of the perpetuity of his felicity if he did not rebelliously reach forth his hand to take and eat of the Fruit * Gen. 2.16 17 'T is true God had given that Fruit an excellency a goodness for food and a pleasantness to the eye †Gen. 3.6 He had given Man an appetite whereby he was capable of desiring so pleasant a Fruit but God had by Creation rang'd it under the Command of Reason if man would have kept it in its due Obedience he had fixed a severe Threatning to bar the unlawful Excursions of it He had allowed him a multitude of other Fruits in the Garden and given him liberty enough to satisfie his Curiosity in all except this only Could there be any thing more obliging to Man to let God have his reserve of that one Tree than the grant of all the rest and more deterring from any disobedient Attempt than so strict a Command spirited with so dreadful a Penalty God did not sollicite him to rebel against him A sollicitation to it and a command against it were inconsistent The Devil assaults him and God permitted it and stands as it were a Spectator of the issue of the Combat There could be no necessity upon Man to listen to and entertain the Suggestions of the Serpent He had a power to resist him and he had an answer ready for all the Devils Arguments had they been multiplied to more than they were the opposing the Order of God had been a sufficient Confutaion of all the Devils plausible reasonings That Creator who hath given me my being hath ordered me not to eat of it Though the pleasure of the Fruit might allure him yet the force of his Reason might have quell'd the liquorishness of his Sense The perpetual thinking of and sounding out the command of God had silenc'd both Satan and his own Appetite had disarm'd the Tempter and preserved his Sensitive part in its due subjection What inclination can we suppose there could be from the Creator when upon the very first offer of the Temptation Eve opposes to the Tempter the Prohibition and Threatning of God and strains it to a higher peg than we find God had delivered it in For in Gen. 2.17 't is you shall not eat of it but she adds Gen. 3.3 neither shall you touch it which was a Remark that might have had more influence to restrain her Had our first Parents kept this fixed upon their Understandings and Thoughts that God had forbidden any such act as the Eating of the Fruit and that he was true to execute the Threatning he had uttered of which Truth of God they could not but have a natural Notion with what ease might they have withstood the Devils attack'd and defeated his Design And it had been easie with them to have kept their Understandings by the force of such a thought from entertaining any contrary Imagination There is no ground for any jealousie of any Encouragements inward Impulsions or necessity from God in this Affair A discharge of God from this first sin will easily induce a freedom of him from all other sins which follow upon it God doth not then
such a return that he hath usually aggravated from the Benefits he hath bestow'd upon Men. Every thought of him should be attended with a Motion sutable to the Excellency of his Nature and Works Can we think those nobler Spirits the Angels look upon themselves or those Frames of things in the Heavens and Earth without starting some practical Affection to him for them Their knowledge of his Excellency and Works cannot be a lazy Contemplation 'T is impossible their Wills and Affections should be a thousand Miles distant from their Understandings in their Operations 'T is not the least part of his condescending Goodness to Court in such Methods the Affections of us Worms and manifest his desire to be beloved by us Let us give him then that Affection he deserves as well as demands and which cannot be with-held from him without horrible Sacriledge There is nothing worthy of love besides him Let no Fire be kindled in our hearts but what may ascend directly to him 7. The seventh Instruction is this This renders God a fit Object of trust and confidence Since none is good but God none can be a full and satisfactory Ground or Object of confidence but God As all things derive their beings so they derive their helpfulness to us from God they are not therefore the principal Objects of trust but that Goodness alone that renders them fit Instruments of our support They can no more challenge from us a stable Confidence than they can a Supream Affection 'T is by this the Psalmist allures Men to a trust in him * Psal 34.8 Taste and see how good the Lord is What is the consequence Blessed is the Man that trusts in thee The Voice of Divine Goodness sounds nothing more intelligibly and a taste of it produceth nothing more effectually than this As the Vials of his Justice are to make us fear him so the Streams of his Goodness are to make us rely on him As his Patience is design'd to broach our Repentance so his Goodness is most proper to strengthen our assurance in him That Goodness which surmounted so many difficulties and conquer'd so many motions that might be made against any repeated Exercise of it after it had been abus'd by the first Rebellion of Man That Goodness that after so much contempt of it appeared in such a Majestick tenderness and threw aside those impediments which Men had cast in the way of Divine Inclinations This Goodness is the foundation of all reliance upon God Who is better than God And therefore Who more to be trusted than God As his Power cannot act any thing weakly so his Goodness cannot act any thing unbecomingly and unworthy of his Infinite Majesty And here consider 1. Goodness is the first motive of trust Nothing but this could be the encouragement to Man had he stood in a State of Innocence to present himself before God The Majesty of God would have constrain'd him to keep his due distance but the Goodness of God could only hearten his Confidence 'T is nothing else now that can preserve the same temper in us in our lapsed Condition To regard him only as the Judge of our Crimes will drive us from him but only the regard of him as the Donor of our Blessings will allure us to him The principal Foundation of Faith is not the Word of God but God himself and God as consider'd in this Perfection As the Goodness of God in his Invitations and Providential Blessings leads us to Repentance * Rom. 2.4 so by the same reason the Goodness of God by his Promises leads us to Reliance If God be not first believed to be good he would not be believed at all in any thing that he speaks or swears If you were not satisfied in the goodness of a Man though he should swear a thousand times you would value neither his Word nor Oath as any security Many times where we are certain of the goodness of a Man we are willing to trust him without his promise This Divine Perfection gives Credit to the Divine Promises they of themselves would not be a sufficient ground of trust without an apprehension of his truth nor would his truth be very comfortable without a belief of his good will whereby we are assured that what he promises to give he gives liberally free and without regret The truth of the Promiser makes the Promise Credible but the goodness of the Promiser makes it chearfully relied on In Psal 73. Asaphs Penitential Psalm for his distrust of God he begins the first Verse with an assertion of this Attribute v. 1. Truly God is good to Israel and ends with this fruit of it Verse 28. I will put my trust in the Lord God 'T is a mighty ill Nature that receives not with assurance the Dictates of Infinite Goodness that cannot deceive or frustrate the hopes we conceive of him that is unconceivably more abundant in the breast and inclinations of the Promiser than expressible in the words of his Promise All true faith works by love * Gal. 5.6 and therefore necessarily includes a particular eying of this Excellency in the Divine Nature which renders him amiable and is the Motive and Encouragement of a love to him His Power indeed is a foundation of trust but his Goodness is the principal Motive of it His Power without good Will would be dangerous and could not allure Affection and his good Will without Power would be useless and though it might merit a love yet could not create a Confidence both in conjunction are strong grounds of hope Especially since his Goodness is of the same infinity with his Wisdom and Power and that he can be no more wanting in the effusions of this upon them that seek him than in his Wisdom to contrive or his Power to effect his Designs and Works 2. This goodness is more the foundation and motive of trust under the Gospel than under the Law They under the Law had more evidences of Divine Power and their trust eyed that much though there was an eminency of goodness in the frequent deliverances they had yet the Power of God had a more glorious dress than his Goodness because of the extraordinary and miraculous ways whereby he brought those deliverances about Therefore in the Catalogue of Believers in Heb. 11. you shall find the Power of God to be the Center of their Rest and Trust and their Faith was built upon the extraordinary Marks of Divine Power which were frequently visible to them But under the Gospel goodness and love was intended by God to be the chief Object of trust suitable to the Excellency of that Dispensation he would have an Exercise of more ingenuity in the Creatures Therefore 't is said Hosea 3.5 A promise of Gospel-times They shall fear God and his goodness in the later days when they shall return to seek the Lord and David their King 'T is not said they shall fear God and his Power but
cap. 1. § 4. Who can behold the Sun rising in the morning the Moon shining in the night increasing and decreasing in its due spaces the Stars in their regular motions night after night for all ages and yet deny a President over them And this motion of the Heavenly bodies being contrary to the nature of other Creatures who move in order to rest must be from some higher cause But those ever since the setling in their places have been perpetually rounding the world * Whether it be the Sun or the Earth that moves it is all one Whence have either of them this constant and uniform motion What nature but one powerful and intelligent could give that perpetual motion to the Sun which being bigger than the Earth a hundred sixty six times runs many thousand miles with a mighty swiftness in the space of an hour with an unwearied diligence performing its dayly task and as a strong man rejoycing to run its race for above five thousand years together without intermission but in the time of Joshuah * Josh 10.13 T is not natures Sun but Gods Sun which he makes to rise upon the just and unjust * Mat. 5.45 So a Plant receives its nourishment from the Earth sends forth its juyce to every branch forms a bud which spreads it into a blossom and flower the leaves of this drop off and leave a fruit of the same colour and tast every year which being ripened by the Sun leaves seeds behind it for the propagation of its like which contains in the nature of it the same kind of buds blossoms fruit which were before and being nourished in the Womb of the Earth and quickened by the power of the Sun discovers it self at length in all the progresses and motions which its predecessor did Thus in all ages in all places every year it performs the same task spinns out fruit of the same colour tast vertue to refresh the several Creatures for which they are provided This setled state of things comes from that God who laid the foundations of the Earth that it should not be removed for ever * Psal 104.5 and set ordinances for them to act by a stated law * Job 38.33 according to which they move as if they understood themselves to have made a Covenant with their Creator * Jer. 33.20 3. Add to this union of contrary qualities and the subserviency of one thing to another the admirable variety and diversity of things in the World What variety of Metals living Creatures Plants what variety and distinction in the shape of their leaves flowers smell resulting from them Who can number up the several sorts of Beasts on the Earth Birds in the Air Fish in the Sea How various are their motions Some Creep some Go some Fly some Swim And in all this variety each Creature hath Organs or members fitted for their peculiar motion If you consider the multitude of Stars which shine like Jewels in the Heavens their different magnitudes Or the variety of colours in the Flowers and Tapestry of the Earth you could no more conclude they made themselves or were made by chance than you can imagine a peice of Arras with a diversity of figures and colours either wove it self or were knit together by hazzard How delicious is the sap of the Vine when turned into Wine above that of a Crab Both have the same Womb of Earth to conceive them both agree in the nature of Wood and Twigs as Channels to convay it into fruit What is that which makes the one so sweet the other so sower or makes that sweet which was a few weeks before unpleasantly sharp Is it the Earth No They both have the same soil the Branches may touch each other the strings of their Roots may under ground entwine about one another Is it the Sun both have the same beams Why is not the tast and colour of the one as gratifying as the other Is it the root The tast of that is far different from that of the fruit it bears Why do they not when they have the same Soil the same Sun and stand near one another borrow something from one anothers natures No reason can be rendred but that there is a God of infinite Wisdom hath determin'd this variety and bound up the nature of each Creature within it self * Amirald de Trinitate pa. 21. Everything follows the Law of its Creation and it is worthy observation that the Creator of them hath not given that power to Animals which arise from different species to propagate the like to themselves As Mules that arise from different species No reason can be rendred of this but the fixt determination of the Creator that those species which were Created by him should not be lost in those mixtures which are contrary to the Law of the Creation This cannot possibly be ascribed to that which is commonly called nature but unto the God of nature who will not have his Creatures exceed their bounds or come short of them Now since among those varieties there are somethings better than other yet all are good in their kind and partake of Goodness * Gen. 1.31 there must be something better and more execellent than all those from whom they derive that goodness which inheres in their nature and is communicated by them to others And this excellent Being must inherit in an eminent way in his own nature the goodness of all those varieties since they made not themselves but were made by another All that goodness which is scattered in those varieties must be infinitely concentred in that nature which distributed those various perfections to them Psal 94.9 He that Planted the Ear shall not he hear he that formed the Eye shall not he see he that teacheth Man knowledge shall not he know The Creator is greater than the Creature and whatsoever is in his effects is but an Impression of some excellency in himself There is therefore some cheif fountain of goodness whence all those various goodnesses in the world do flow From all this it follows if there be an Order and Harmony there must be an Orderer one that made the Earth by his Power established the world by his Wisdom and stretched out the Heavens by his Discretion Jer. 10.12 Order being the effect cannot be the cause of it self Order is the disposition of things to an end and is not intelligent but implies an intelligent Orderer And therefore it is as certain that there is a God as it is certain there is order in the world Order is an effect of Reason and Counsel this reason and Counsel must have its residence in some being before this order was fixed The things ordered are always distinct from that Reason and Counsel whereby they are ordered and also after it as the effect is after the cause No Man begins a peice of work but he hath the Model of it in his own mind No Man
understand what storms it is to contest with or why it shoots up its branches towards Heaven Doth it know it needs the droppings of the clouds to preserve it self and make it fruitful These are acts of understanding The root is downward to preserve its own standing the branches upward to preserve other Creatures This understanding is not in the Creature it self but originally in another Thunders and Tempests know not why they are sent yet by the direction of a mighty hand they are instruments of Justice upon a wicked world * Coccei sum Theolog. cap. 8. § 67. c. Rational Creatures that act for some end and know the end they aim at yet know not the manner of the natural motion of the members to it When we intend to look upon a thing we take no counsel about the natural motion of our eyes we know not all the principles of their operations or how that dull matter whereof our bodies are composed is subject to the order of our minds * Peirson on the Creed p. 35. We are not of Counsel with our stomacks about the concoction of our meat or the distribution of the nourishing juyce to the several parts of the body Neither the Mother nor the Foetus sit in Council how the formation should be made in the Womb. We know no more than a plant knows what Stature it is of and what medicinal vertue its fruit hath for the good of man yet all those natural operations are perfectly directed to their proper end by an higher wisdom than any human understanding is able to conceive since they exceed the ability of an inanimate or fleshly nature yea and the wisdom of a man Do we not often see reasonable Creatures acting for one end and perfecting a higher than what they aimed at or could suspect When Josephs Brethren sold him for a Slave their end was to be rid of an Informer * Gen. 37.2 But the action issued in preparing him to be the preserver of them and their families Cyrus his end was to be a Conqueror but the action ended in being the Jews deliverer Prov. 16.9 A mans heart deviseth his way but the Lord directs his steps 3. Therefore there is some superior understanding and nature which so acts them That which acts for an end unknown to it self depends upon some over-ruling wisdom that knows that end Who should direct them in all those ends but he that bestowed a being upon them for those ends * Lessius de providen lib. 1. pag. 652. who knows what is convenient for their life security and propagation of their natures An exact knowledge is necessary both of what is agreeable to them and the means whereby they must attain it which since it is not inherent in them is in that wise God who puts those instincts into them and governs them in the exercise of them to such ends Any man that sees a dart flung knows it cannot hit the mark without the skil and strength of an Archer Or he that sees the hand of a Dial pointing to the hours successively knows that the Dial is ignorant of its own end and is disposed and directed in that motion by an other All Creatures ignorant of their own natures could not universally in the whole kind and in every Climate and Country without any difference in the whole world tend to a certain end if some over-ruling wisdom did not preside over the world and guide them and if the Creatures have a Conductor they have a Creator All things are turned round about by his Council that they may do whatsoever he Commands them upon the face of the world in the earth * Job 37.12 So that in this respect the folly of Atheism appears Without the owning a God no account can be given of those actions of Creatures that are an imitation of Reason To say the Bees c. are rational is to equal them to man nay make them his superiors since they do more by nature than the wisest man can do by art T is their own Counsel whereby they act or anothers If it be their own they are reasonable Creatures If by anothers t is not meer nature that is necessary Then other Creatures would not be without the same skill There would be no difference among them If nature be restrained by another it hath a superior if not t is a free agent T is an understanding being that directs them And then it is something superior to all Creatures in the world and by this therefore we may ascend to the acknowledgment of the necessity of a God Fourthly IV. Add to the production and order of the world and the Creatures acting for their end the preservation of them Nothing can depend upon it self in its preservation no more than it could in its being If the order of the world was not fixed by it self the preservation of that order cannot be continued by it self Tho the matter of the world after Creation cannot return to that nothing whence it was fetched without the power of God that made it because the same power is as requisite to reduce a thing to nothing as to raise a thing from nothing yet without the actual exerting of a power that made the Creatures they would fall into confusion Those contesting qualities which are in every part of it could not have preserved but would have consumed and extinguisht one another and reduced the world to that confused Chaos wherin it was before the Spirit moved upon the waters As contrary parts could not have met together in one form unless there had been one that had conjoyned them So they could not have kept together after their conjunction unless the same hand had preserved them Natural contrarieties cannot be reconciled T is as great power to keep discords knit as at first to link them Who would doubt but that an Army made up of several Nations and humors would fall into a Civil War and sheath their Swords in one anothers bowels if they were not under the management of some wise General or a Ship dash against the Rocks without the skill of a Pilot * Gassend Phy. sect 6. lib. 4. cap. 2. pa. 101. As the body hath neither life nor motion without the active presence of the Soul which distributes to every part the vertue of acting sets every one in the exercise of its proper function and resides in every part So there is some powerful cause which doth the like in the world that rules and tempers it There is need of the same power and action to preserve a thing as there was at first to make it When we consider that we are preserved and know that we could not preserve our selves we must necessarily run to some first cause which doth preserve us All works of art depend upon nature and are preserved while they are kept by the force of nature As a Statue depends upon the matter whereof it is
of its capacity The understanding can conceive the whole world and paint in it self the invisible Pictures of all things T is capable of apprehending and discoursing of things superior to its own nature * Culverwel T is suted to all objects as the Eye to all Colours or the Ear to all sounds How great is the Memory to retain such varieties such diversities The Will also can accomodate other things to it self It invents Arts for the use of Man prescribes rules for the Government of States ransacks the bowels of nature makes endless conclusions and steps in reasoning from one thing to another for the knowledge of Truth It can contemplate and form notions of things higher than the world 2. The quickness of its motion * Theodoret. Nothing is more quick in the whole course o◠nature the Sun runs through the World in a day this can do it in a moment It can with one flight of fancy ascend to the battlements of Heaven The mists of the Air that hinder the sight of the Eye cannot hinder the flights of the Soul it can pass in a moment from one end of the World to the other and think of things a thousand miles distant It can think of some mean thing in the world and presently by one cast in the twinkling of an Eye mount up as high as Heaven As its desires are not bounded by sensual objects so neither are the motions of it restrained by them It will break forth with the greatest vigour and conceive things infinitely above it Though it be in the body it acts as if it were ashamed to be Cloystered in it This could not be the result of any material cause Whoever knew meer matter understand think will And what it hath not it cannot give That which is destitute of Reason and Will could never confer Reason and Will * Coccei sum The dog cap. 8. § 51.52 T is not the effect of the Body for the Body is fitted with members to be subject to it T is in part ruled by the activity of the Soul and in part by the Counsel of the Soul T is used by the Soul and knows not how it is used Nor could it be from the Parents since the Souls of the Children often transcend those of the Parents in vivacity acuteness and comprehensiveness One man is stupid and begets a Son with a capacious understanding one is debauched and beastly in morals and begets a Son who from his Infancy testifies some vertuous inclinations which sprout forth in delightful fruit with the ripeness of his age I do not dispute whether the Soul were generated or no Suppose the substance of it was generated by the Parents yet those more excellent qualities were not the result of them Whence should this difference arise a fool begat the wise man and a debauched the vertuous man The wisdom of the one could not descend from the foolish Soul of the other nor the vertues of the Son from the deformed and polluted Soul of the Parent it lies not in the Organs of the Body For if the folly of the Parent proceeded not from their Souls but the ill disposition of the Organs of their bodies how comes it to pass that the bodies of the Children are better Organiz'd beyond the goodness of their immediate cause We must recur to some invisible hand that makes the difference who bestows upon one at his pleasure richer qualities than upon another You can see nothing in the World endowed with some excellent quality but you must imagine some bountiful hand did inrich it with that dowry None can be so foolish as to think that a vessel ever inricht it self with that spritely Liquor wherewith it is filled or that any thing worse than the Soul should indow it with that knowledge and activity which sparkles in it Nature could not produce it That nature is intelligent or not if it be not then it produceth an effect more excellent than it self in as much as an understanding being surmounts a being that hath no understanding If the supream cause of the Soul be intelligent why do we not call it God as well as nature We must arise from hence to the notion of a God a Spiritual nature cannot proceed but from a Spirit higher than it self and of a transcendent perfection above it self If we beleive we have Souls and understand the state of our own faculties we must be assured that there was some invisible hand which bestowed those faculties and the riches of them upon us A man must be ignorant of himself before he can be ignorant of the Existence of God By considering the nature of our Souls we may as well be assured that there is a God as that there is a Sun by the shining of the beams in at our Windows And indeed the Soul is a Statue and representation of God as the Land-Skip of a Country or Map represents all the parts of it but in a far less proportion than the Country it self is The Soul fills the body and God the world the Soul sustains the body and God the World the Soul sees but is not seen God sees all things but is himself invisible How base are they then that prostitute their Souls an image of God to base things unexpressibly below their own nature 3. I might add the union of Soul and Body Man is a kind of compound of Angel and Beast of Soul and body if he were only a Soul he were a kind of Angel if only a body he were another kind of brute Now that a body as vile and dull as earth and a Soul that can mount up to Heaven and rove about the world with so quick a motion should be linkt in so strait an acquaintance that so noble a being as the Soul should be an inhabitant in such a Tabernacle of Clay must be owned to some infinite power that hath so chained it 3. Man witnesseth to a God in the operations and reflections of Conscience Rom. 2.15 Their thoughts are accusing or excusing An inward comfort attends good actions and an inward torment follows bad ones for there is in every mans Conscience fear of punishment and hope of reward There is therefore a sense of some superior Judge which hath the power both of rewarding and punishing If man were his supream rule what need he fear punishment since no man would inflict any evil or torment on himself nor can any man be said to reward himself for all rewards refer to another to whom the action is pleasing and is a conferring some good a man had not before If an action be done by a Subject or Servant with hopes of reward it can not be imagined that he expects a reward from himself but from the Prince or person whom he eyes in that action and for whose sake he doth it 1. There is a Law in the minds of men which is a rule of good and evil There is a Notion
31.3 the Egyptians are Flesh and not Spirit And our Saviour gives us the notion of a Spirit to be something above the nature of a Body Luke 24.39 not having flesh and bones extended parts loads of gross matter 'T is also taken for those things which are active and efficacious because activity is of the nature of a Spirit Caleb had another Spirit Num. 14.24 an active affection The vehement motions of sin are called Spirit Hos 4.12 the Spirit of Whoredoms in that sense that Pro. 29.11 a Fool utters all his mind all his Spirit he knows not how to restrain the vehement motions of his mind So that the notion of a Spirit is that it is a fine immaterial substance an active being that acts it self and other things A meer Body cannot act it self as the Body of Man cannot move without the Soul no more than a Ship can move it self without Wind and Waves So God is called a Spirit as being not a Body not having the greatness figure thickness or length of a Body wholly separate from any thing of flesh and matter We find a Principle within us nobler than that of our Bodies and therefore we conceive the Nature of God according to that which is more worthy in us and not according to that which is the vilest part of our Natures God is a most spiritual Spirit more spiritual than all Angels all Souls * Gerhard 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As he exceeds all in the nature of Being so he exceeds all in the nature of Spirit He hath nothing gross heavy material in his Essence 2. When we say God is a Spirit 't is to be understood by way of Negation There are two ways of knowing or describing God By way of affirmation affirming that of him in a way of eminency which is excellent in the Creature as when we say God is wise good The other by way of negation when we remove from God in our conceptions what is tainted with imperfection in the Creature * Gamacheus Tom. 1. q. 3. Cap. 1. P. 42. The first ascribes to him whatsoever is excellent the other separates from him whatsoever is imperfect The first is like a Limning which adds one Colour to another to make a comely Picture the other is like a Carving which pares and cuts away whatsoever is superfluous to make a compleat Statue This way of negation is more easie we better understand what God is not than what he is and most of our knowledge of God is by this way As when we say God is infinite immense immutable they are negatives He hath no limits is confined to no place admits of no change * Coccei sum Theol. Cap. 8. When we remove from him what is inconsistent with his Being we do more strongly assert his Being and know more of him when we elevate him above all and above our own capacity And when we say God is a Spirit 't is a negation he is not a Body he consists not of various parts extended one without and beyond another He is not a Spirit so as our Souls are to be the form of any Body A Spirit not as Angels and Souls are but infinitely higher we call him so because in regard of our weakness we have not any other term of excellency to express or conceive of him by We transfer it to God in honour because Spirit is the highest excellency in our nature Yet we must apprehend God above any Spirit since his Nature is so great that he cannot be declared by human speech perceived by human sense or conceived by human understanding The second thing That God is a Spirit * Thes Sedan Part. 2. P. 1â—â—â— Some among the Heathens imagined God to have a Body some thought him to have a Body of Air some a Heavenly Body some a human Body * Vossius Idolol lib. 2. cap. 1. Forbes Instrument l. 1. c. 36. And many of them ascribed bodies to their Gods but bodies without blood without corruption bodies made up of the finest and thinnest Atomes such bodies which if compared with ours were as no bodies The Saddures also who denied all Spirits and yet acknowledged a God must conclude him to be a Body and no Spirit Some among Christians have been of that opinion Tertullian is charged by some and excused by others And some Monks of Egypt were so fierce for this Error that they attempted to kill one Theophilus a Bishop for not being of that Judgment * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the wiser Heathens were of another mind and esteemed it an unholy thing to have such imaginations of God * Plutarch incorporalis ratio divinus spiritus Seneca And some Christians have thought God only to be free from any thing of body because he is omnipresent immutable he is only incorporeal and spiritual all things else even the Angels are clothed with bodies though of a neater matter and a more active frame than ours a pure spiritual Nature they allowed to no Being but God Scripture and Reason meet together to assert the spirituality of God Had God had the Lineaments of a Body the Gentiles had not fallen under that accusation of changing his Glory into that of a Corruptible Man * Rom. 1.23 This is signified by the name God gives himself Exod. 3.14 I am that I am a simple pure uncompounded Being without any created mixture as infinitely above the being of Creatures as above the conceptions of Creatures Job 37.23 Touching the Almighty we cannot find him out He is so much a Spirit that he is the Father of Spirits Heb. 12.9 The Almighty Father is not of a Nature inferior to his Children The Soul is a Spirit it could not else exert actions without the assistance of the body as the act of Understanding it self and its own nature the act of willing and willing things against the incitements and interest of the Body It could not else conceive of God Angels and immaterial substances It could not else be so active as with one glance to fetch a compass from Earth to Heaven and by a sudden motion to elevate the understanding from an earthly thought to the thinking of things as high as the highest Heavens If we have this opinion of our Souls which in the nobleness of their acts surmount the Body without which the Body is but a dull unactive piece of clay we must needs have a higher conception of God than to clogg him with any matter though of a finer temper than ours We must conceive of him by the perfections of our Souls without the vileness of our Bodies If God made Man according to his Image we must raise our thoughts of God according to the noblest part of that Image and imagine the Exemplar or Copy not to come short but to exceed the thing copyed by it God were not the most excellent substance if he were not a Spirit Spiritual substances are more excellent than bodily
Essence as in his Veracity and Faithfulness They are perfections belonging to his Nature But if he were not a pure Spirit he could not be immutable by Nature 7. If God were not a pure Spirit He could not be omnipresent He is in Heaven above and the Earth below * Deut. 4.39 He fills Heaven and Earth * Jer. 23.24 The Divine Essence is at once in Heaven and Earth but it is impossible a Body can be in two places at one and the same time Since God is every where he must be spiritual Had he a Body he could not penetrate all things he would be circumscribed in place He could not be every where but in parts not in the whole one member in one place and another in another for to be confined to a particlar place is the property of a Body But since he is diffused through the whole World higher than Heaven deeper than Hell longer than the Earth broader than the Sea * Job 11.8 he hath not any corporeal matter If he had a Body wherewith to fill Heaven and Earth there could be no Body besides his own 'T is the Nature of Bodies to bound one another and hinder the extending of one another Two Bodies cannot be in the same place in the same point of Earth one excludes the other And it will follow hence that we are nothing no substances meer illusions there could be no place for any Body else * Gamacheus Theol. Tom. 1. Quos 3. C. 1. If his Body were as bigg as the World as it must be if with that he filled Heaven and Earth there would not be room for him to move a hand or a foot or extend a finger for there would be no place remaining for the motion 8. If God were not a Spirit he could not be the most perfect Being The more perfect any thing is in the rank of Creatures the more spiritual and simple it is as Gold is the more pure and perfect that hath least mixture of other Metals If God were not a Spirit there would be Creatures of a more excellent Nature than God as Angels and Souls which the Scripture calls Spirits in opposition to Bodies There is more of perfection in the first notion of a Spirit than in the notion of a Body God cannot be less perfect than his Creatures and contribute an excellency of being to them which he wants himself If Angels and Souls possess such an excellency and God want that excellency he would be less than his Creatures and the excellency of the Effect would exceed the excellency of the Cause But every Creature even the highest Creature is infinitely short of the perfection of God for whatsoever excellency they have is finite and limited 't is but a spark from the Sun a drop from the Ocean but God is unboundedly perfect in the highest manner without any limitation and therefore above Spirits Angels the highest Creatures that were made by him An infinite sublimity a pure act to which nothing can be added from which nothing can be taken In him there is light and no darkness * 1 John 1.5 spirituality without any matter perfection without any shadow or taint of imperfection Light pierceth into all things preserves its own purity and admits of no mixture of any thing else with it Question It may be said If God be a Spirit and it is impossible he can be otherwise than a Spirit how comes God so often to have such Members as we have in our Bodies ascribed to him not only a Soul but particular bodily parts as heart arms hands eyes ears face and back-parts And how is it that he is never called a Spirit in plain words but in this Text by our Saviour Answ 'T is true many parts of the Body and natural affections of the human nature are reported of God in Scripture Head * Dan. 7.9 Eyes and Eye-lids * Psal 11.4 Apple of the Eye Mouth c. our Affections also Grief Joy Anger c. But it is to be considered 1. That this is in condescension to our weakness God being desirous to make himself known to Man * Loquitur lex secund ling. filiorum hominum was the H. saying whom he created for his Glory humbles as it were his own Nature to such representations as may sute and assists the capacity of the Creature Since by the condition of our nature nothing erects a notion of it self in our understanding but as it is conducted in by our sence God hath served himself of those things which are most exposed to our sence most obvious to our understandings to give us some acquaintance with his own Nature and those things which otherwise we were not capable of having any notion of As our Souls are linkt with our Bodies so our knowledge is linkt with our sence that we can scarce imagin any thing at first but under a corporeal form and figure till we come by great attention to the Object to make by the help of reason a separation of the spiritual substance from the corporeal fancy and consider it in its own nature We are not able to conceive a Spirit without some kind of resemblance to something below it nor understand the actions of a Spirit without considering the operations of a human Body in its several Members As the Glories of another Life are signified to us by the pleasures of this so the Nature of God by a gracious condescension to our capacities is signified to us by a likeness to our own The more familiar the things are to us which God uses to this purpose the more proper they are to teach us what he intends by them Answ 2. All such representations are to signifie the acts of God as they hear some likeness to those which we perform by those members he ascribes to himself So that those members ascribed to him rather note his visible operations to us than his invisible Nature and signifie that God doth some works like to those which men do by the assistance of those Organs of their Bodies * Amyral de Trin. p. 218. 219. So the wisdom of God is called his Eye because he knows that with his mind which we see with our eyes The efficiency of God is called his Hand and Arm because as we act with our hands so doth God with his Power The divine Efficacies are signified By his eyes and ears we understand his Omniscience by his face the manifestation of his Favour by his mouth the revelation of his Will by his nostrils the acceptation of our Prayers by his bowels the tenderness of his Compassion by his heart the sincerity of his Affections by his hand the strength of his Power by his feet the ubiquity of his Presence And in this he intends instruction and comfort By his eyes he signifies his watchfulness over us By his ears his readiness to hear the crys of the oppressed * Psal 34.15 By his Arm his
Power an Arm to destroy his Enemies and an Arm to relieve his People * Isa 51.9 All those are attributed to God to signifie divine actions which he doth without bodily organs as we do with them 3. Consider also that only those members which are the instruments of the noblest actions and under that consideration are used by him to represent a notion of him to our minds Whatsoever is perfect and excellent is ascribed to him but nothing that savours of imperfection * Episcop institu l. 4. § 3. c. 3 The heart is ascribed to him it being the principle of vital actions to signifie the Life that he hath in himself Watchful and discerning eys not sleepy and lazy ones A mouth to reveal his Will not to take in food To eat and sleep are never ascribed to him nor those parts that belong to the preparing or transmitting nourishment to the several parts of the body as stomach liver reins nor bowels under that consideration but as they are significant of compassion but only those parts are ascribed to him whereby we acquire knowledge as eyes and ears the Organs of learning and wisdom Or to Communicate it to others as the mouth lips tongue as they are the Instrmments of speaking not of tasting Or those parts which signifie strength and power or whereby we perform the actions of Charity for the relief of others Tast and touch senses that extend no further than to Corporeal things and are the grossest of all the senses are never ascribed to him * T is Zanchieâ— observation Tom. 2. de natura Dei lib. 1. cap. 4. Thes 9. It were worth consideration whither this describing God by the Members of an human body were so much figuratively to be understood as with respect to the incarnation of our Saviour who was to assume the human nature and all the Members of a human body Asaph speaking in the person of God Psal 78.1 I will open my mouth in Parables In regard of God it is to be understood figuratively but in regard of Christ literally to whom it is applied Matt. 13.34.35 And that Apparition Isa 6. which was the appearance of Jehovah is applied to Christ John 12.40.41 * Amiraut Meral Tâ—m 1. pa. 293. 294. After the report of the Creation and the forming of man we read of Gods speaking to him but not of Gods appearing to him in any visible shape A voice might be formed in the air to give man notice of his duty some way of infoâ—â—aâ—iâ—n he must have what positive Laws he was to observe besides that Law wâ—â—ch wâ—â—â—â—graven in his nature which we call the Law of nature And without a voice the knowledge of the Divine Will could not be so conveniently communicated to man Tho God was heard in a voice he was not seen in a shape But after the fall we several times read of his appearing in such a form Tho we read of his speaking before mans committing of sin yet not of his walking which is more Corporeal till afterwards * Gen. 3.8 Tho God would not have man believe him to be Corporeal yet he judged it expedient to give some prenotices of that Divine incarnation which he had promised * Amirald 5. Therefore we must not conceive of the visible Deity according to the letter of such expressions but the true intent of them Tho the Scripture speaks of his eyes and arm yet it denies them to be arms of flesh * Job 10.4 2 Chron. 32.8 We must not conceive of God according to the Letter but the design of the Metaphor When we hear things described by Metaphorical expressions for the clearing them up to our fancy we conceive not of them under that garb but remove the vail by an act of our reason When Christ is called a Sun a Vine Bread is any so stupid as as to conceive him to be a Vine with material branches and Clusters or be of the same nature with a Loaf But the things designed by such Metaphors are obvious to the conception of a mean understanding If we would conceive God to have a body like a man because he describes himself so we may conceit him to be like a Bird because he is mentioned with wings * Psal 36.7 or like a Lyon or Leopard because he likens himself to them in the Acts of his strength and fury * Hos 13.7.8 He is called a rock a horn fire to note his strength and wrath If any be so stupid as to think God to be really such they would make him not only a man but worse than a Monster * Maimon More Nevoc par 1. cap. 27. Onkelos the Chalde Paraphrast upon parts of the Scripture was so tender of expressing the Notion of any Corporeity in God that when he meets with any expressions of that nature he translates them according to the true intent of them as when God is said to descend Gen. 11.5 which implies a local motion a motion from one place to another he translates it and God revealed himself We should conceive of God according to the design of the expressions When we read of his eyes we should conceive his Omniscience of his hand his power of his sitting his immutability of his Throne his Majesty and conceive of him as surmounting not only the grossness of bodies but the Spiritual excellency of the most dignified Creatures something so perfect great spiritual as nothing can be conceived higher and purer * Mores conjectura cabalistica pa. 122. Christ saith one is truly Deus figuratus and for his sake was it more easily permitted to the Jews to think of God in the shape of a man Use If God be a pure Spiritual being then 1. Man is not the image of God according to his external bodily form and figure The image of God in man consisted not in what is seen but in what is not seen not in the conformation of the members but rather in the Spiritual faculties of the Soul or most of all in the holy endowments of those faculties Eph. 4.24 That ye put on the new man which after God is Created in righteousness and true holiness * Col. 3 1â— The image which is restored by redeeming grace was the image of God by Original nature The image of God cannot be in that part which is common to us with beasts but rather in that wherein we excell all living Creatures in reason understanding and an immortal Spirit God expresly saith that none saw a similitude of him Deut. 4.15 16. which had not been true if man in regard of his body had been the image and similitude of God for then a figure of God had been seen every day as often as we saw a man or beheld our selves Nor would the Apostles argument stand good Acts 17.29 That the Godhead is not like to stone graven by art if we were not the off-spring of God and bore the stamp of
of our Natures in the practice of the Israelites a People chosen out of the whole world to bear up Gods name and preserve his glory And in that the Images of God were so soon set up in the Christian Church and to this day the picture of God in the shape of an old man is visible in the Temples of the Romanists 'T is prone to the Nature of Man 4. To represent God by a corporeal Image and to worship him in and by that Image is Idolatry Though the Israelites did not acknowledge the Calf to be God nor intended a worship to any of the Egyptian Deities by it but worshipped that God in it who had so lately and miraculously delivered them from a cruel Servitude and could not in natural reason judge him to be clothed with a bodily shape much less to be like an Ox that eateth grass yet the Apostle brings no less a charge against them than that of Idolatry 1 Cor. 10.7 he calls them Idolaters who before that Calf kept a Feast to Jehovah citing Exod. 32.5 Suppose we could make such an Image of God as might perfectly represent him yet since God hath prohibited it shall we be wiser than God He hath sufficiently manifested himself in his Works without Images He is seen in the Creatures more particularly in the Heavens which declare his Glory His Works are more excellent representations of him as being the works of his own hands than any thing that is the Product of the Art of Man His Glory sparkles in the Heavens Sun Moon and Stars as being magnificent pieces of his Wisdom and Power yet the kissing the hand to the Sun or the Heavens as representatives of the Excellency and Majesty of God is Idolatry in Scripture account and a denial of God * Job 31.26 27 28. Chin. Predict Part. 2. P. 252. a prostituting the glory of God to a Creature * Lawson Body Divin P. 161 Either the worship is terminated on the Image it self and then it is confessed by all to be Idolatry because it is a giving that worship to a Creature which is the sole right of God or not terminated in the Image but in the Object represented by it 't is then a foolish thing we may as well terminate our worship on the true Object without as with an Image An erected Statue is no sign or symbol of Gods special presence as the Ark Tabernacle Temple were It is no part of divine institution has no Authority of a Command to support it no Cordial of a promise to encourage it and the Image being infinitely distant from and below the Majesty and Spirituality of God cannot constitute one object of worship with him To put a Religious Character upon any Image formed by the corrupt imagination of Man as a representation of the invisible and spiritual Deity is to think the Godhead to be like silver and gold or stone graven by art and mans device * Acts 17.29 3. This Doctrine will direct us in our conceptions of God as a pure perfect Spirit than which nothing can be imagined more perfect more pure more spiritual 1. We cannot have an adequate or sutable conception of God He dwells in inaccessible light inaccessible to the acuteness of our fancy as well as the weakness of our sense If we could have thoughts of him as high and excellent as his Nature our conceptions must be as infinite as his Nature All our imaginations of him cannot represent him because every created species is finite it cannot therefore represent to us a full and substantial notion of an infinite Being We cannot speak or think worthily enough of him who is greater than our words vaster than our understandings Whatsoever we speak or think of God is handed first to us by the notice we have of some perfection in the Creature and explains to us some particular excellency of God rather than the fulness of his Essence No Creature nor all Creatures together can furnish us with such a magnificent notion of God as can give us a clear view of him Yet God in his word is pleased to step below his own excellency and point us to those excellencies in his works whereby we may ascend to the knowledge of those excellencies which are in his Nature But the Creatures whence we draw our lessons being finite and our understandings being finite 't is utterly impossile to have a notion of God commensurate to the immensity and spirituality of his Being * Amyraut Moral Tom. 1. P. 289. God is not like to visible Creatures nor is there any proportion between him and the most spiritual We cannot have a full notion of a spiritual Nature much less can we have of God who is a Spirit above Spirits No Spirit can clearly represent him The Angels that are great Spirits are bounded in their extent finite in their being and of a mutable Nature Yet though we cannot have a sutable conception of God we must not content our selves without any conception of him 'T is our sin not to endeavour after a true notion of him 'T is our sin to rest in a mean and low notion of him when our reason tells us we are capable of having higher But if we ascend as high as we can though we shall then come short of a sutable notion of him this is not our sin but our weakness God is infinitely superior to the choicest conceptions not only of a sinner but of a Creature If all conceptions of God below the true nature of God were sin there is not a holy Angel in Heaven free from sin because tho they are the most capacious Creatures yet they cannot have such a Notion of an infinite being as is fully sutable to his nature unless they were infinite as he himself is 2. But however we must by no means conceive of God under a human or Corporeal shape Since we cannot have conceptions honourable enough for his nature we must take heed we entertain not any which may debase his nature Tho we cannot comprehend him as he is we must be careful not to fancy him to be what he is not 'T is a vain thing to conceive him with human lineaments We must think higher of him than to ascribe to him so mean a shape We deny his Spirituality when we fancy him under such a form He is Spiritual and between that which is Spiritual and that which is Corporeal there is no resemblance * Episco institu li. 4. § 2. c. 10. Indeed Daniel saw God in a human form Daniel 7.9 The Ancient of days did sit whose garment was white as snow and the hairs of his head like pure Wool he is described as coming to Judgment t is not meant of Christ probably because Christ ver 13. is called the Son of Man coming near to the Ancient of days This is not the proper shape of God for no man hath seen his shape It was a vision wherein such
representations were made as were accomodated to the inward sense of Daniel Daniel saw him in a rapture or extasy wherein outward senses are of no use God is described not as he is in himself of a human form but in regard of his fitness to Judge White notes the purity and simplicity of the Divine nature Ancient of days in regard of his eternity white hair in regard of his prudence and wisdom which is more eminent in age than youth and more fit to discern causes and to distinguish between right and wrong Visions are riddles and must not be understood in a litteral sense We are to watch against such determinate conceptions of God Vain imaginations do easily infest us Tinder will not sooner take fire than our natures kindle into wrong Notions of the Divine Majesty We are very apt to fashion a God like our selves We must therefore look upon such representations of God as accommodated to our weakness And no more think them to be literal descriptions of God as he is in himself than we will think the image of the Sun in the water to be the true Sun in the Heavens We may indeed conceive of Christ as man who hath in Heaven the vestment of our nature and is Deus figuratus tho we cannot conceive the God-head under a human shape 1. To have such a fancy is to disparage and wrong God A Corporeal fancy of God is as ridiculous in it self and as injurious to God as a wooden Statue The capricios of our imagination are often more monstrous than the images which are the works of art T is as irreligious to measure Gods essence by our line his perfections by our imperfections as to measure his thoughts and actings by the weakness and unworthiness of our own This is to limit an infinite essence and pull him down to our scanty measures and render that which is unconceivably above us equal with us T is impossible we can conceive God after the manner of we a body but must bring him down to the proportion of a body which is to diminish his glory and stoop him below the dignity of his nature God is a pure Spirit he hath nothing of the nature and tincture of a body whosoever therefore conceives of him as having a bodily form tho he fancy the most beautiful and comely body instead of owning his dignity detracts from the supereminent excellency of his nature and blessedness When men fancy God like themselves in their Corporeal nature they will soon make a progress and ascribe to him their corrupt nature and while they clothe him with their bodies invest him also in the infirmities of them God is a jealous God very sensible of any disgrace and will be as much incensed against an inward Idolatry as an outward That * Exod. 20.4 Command which forbad Corporeal images would not indulge carnal imaginations since the nature of God is as much wronged by unworthy images erected in the fancy as by statues carved out of stone or metals One as well as the other is a deserting of our true spouse and committing Adultery one with a material image and the other with a carnal Notion of God Since God humbles himself to our apprehensions we should not debase him in thinking him to be that in his nature which he makes only a resemblance of himself to us 2. To have such fancies of God will obstruct and pollute our worship of him How is it possible to give him a right worship of whom we have so debasing a Notion We shall never think a corporeal Deity worthy of a dedication of our Spirits The hating Instruction and casting Gods word behind the back is charged upon the imagination they had that God was such a one as themselves Psal 50.17.21 Many of the wiser Heathens did not judge their Statues to be their Gods or their Gods to be like their Statues but suted them to their politick designs and judged them a good invention to keep people within the bounds of Obedience and Devotion by such visible figures of them which might imprint a reverence and fear of those Gods upon them But these were false measures A despised and undervalued God is not an Object of Petition or Affection Who would address seriously to a God he has low apprehensions of The more raised thoughts we have of him the viler sense we shall have of our selves They would make us humble and self abhorrent in our supplications to him Job 42.6 wherefore I abhorr my self c. 3. Though we must not conceive of God as of a human or Corporeal shape yet we cannot think of God without some reflection upon our own being We cannot conceive him to be an intelligent being but we must make some comparison between him and our own understanding nature to come to a knowledge of him Since we are inclosed in bodies we apprehend nothing but what comes in by sense and what we in some sort measure by sensible Objects And in the consideration of those things which we desire to abstract from sense we are fain to make use of the assistances of sense and visible things And therefore when we frame the highest notion there will be some similitude of some corporeal thing in our fancy and though we would spiritualize our thoughts and aim at a more abstracted and raised understanding yet there will be some dreggs of matter sticking to our conceptions yet we still judge by argument and reasoning what the thing is we think of under those material Images * Nazianzen A corporeal Image will follow us as the shadow doth the body While we are in the body and surrounded with fleshly matter we cannot think of things without some help from corporeal representations Something of sense will interpose it self in our purest conceptions of spiritual things * Amiraut Morale Tom. 1. P. 180 c. for the faculties which serve for contemplation are either corporeal as the sense and fancy or so allyed to them that nothing passes into them but by the Organs of the body so that there is a natural inclination to figure nothing but under a corporeal notion till by an attentive application of the mind and reason to the object thought upon we separate that which is bodily from that which is spiritual and by degrees ascend to that true notion of that we think upon and would have a due conception of in our mind Therefore God tempers the declaration of himself to our weakness and the condition of our Natures He condescends to our littleness and narrowness when he declares himself by the similitude of bodily members As the light of the Sun is tempered and diffuseth it self to our sense through the air and vapours that our weak eyes may not be too much dazled with it Without it we could not know or judge of the Sun because we could have no use of our sense which we must have before we can judge of it in our
question what time is I know well enough what it is But if any ask me what it is I know not how to explain it So may I say of Eternity 't is easie in the word pronounced but hardly understood and more hardly exprest 't is better exprest by negative than positive words Though we cannot comprehend Eternity yet we may comprehend that there is an Eternity as though we cannot comprehend the Essence of God what he is yet we may comprehend that he is we may understand the notion of his Existence though we cannot understand the infiniteness of his Nature Yet we may better understand Eternity than Infiniteness we can better conceive a time with the addition of numberless days and years than imagin a Being without bounds whence the Apostle joyns his Eternity with his Power * Rom. 1.20 His eternal Power and God-head Because next to the Power of God apprehended in the Creature we come necessarily by reasoning to acknowledge the Eternity of God He that hath an incomprehensible Power must needs have an Eternity of Nature His Power is most sensible in the Creatures to the eye of Man and his Eternity easily from thence deducible by the reason of Man Eternity is a perpetual duration which hath neither beginning nor end Time hath both Those things we say are in time that have beginning grow up by degrees have succession of parts Eternity is contrary to Time and is therefore a permanent and immutable state a perfect possession of life without any variation It comprehends in it self all years all ages all periods of ages It never begins it endures after every duration of time and never ceaseth it doth as much out-run time as it went before the beginning of it Time supposeth something before it but there can be nothing before Eternity it were not then Eternity Time hath a continual succession the former time passeth away and another succeeds the last year is not this year nor this year the next We must conceive of Eternity contrary to the notion of time As the nature of time consists in the succession of parts so the Nature of Eternity in an infinite immutable duration * Moulin Cod. 1. Ser. 2. P. 52. Eternity and Time differ as the Sea and Rivers the Sea never changes place and is always one water but the Rivers glide along and are swallowed up in the Sea so is time by eternity A thing is said to be eternal or everlasting rather in Scripture 1. When it is of a long duration though it will have an end When it hath no measures of time determined to it so Circumcision is said to be in the Flesh for an everlasting Covenant * Gen. 17.13 not purely everlasting but so long as that administration of the Covenant should endure And so when a Servant would not leave his Master but would have his ear boared 't is said he should be a Servant for ever * Deut. 15.17 i. e. till the Jubilee which was every fiftieth year So the Meat-offering they were to offer is said to be Perpetual * Levit. 6.20 Canaan is said to be given to Abraham for an everlasting possession * Gen. 17.8 When as the Jews are expelled from Canaan which is given a Prey to the barbarous Nations Indeed Circumcision was not everlasting yet the substance of the Covenant whereof this was a sign viz. that God would be the God of Believers endures for ever and that Circumcision of the heart which was signified by Circumcision of the flesh shall remain for ever in the Kingdom of Glory It was not so much the lasting of the sign as of the thing signified by it and the Covenant sealed by it The sign had its abolition so that the Apostle is so peremptory in it that he asserts that if any went about to establish it he excluded himself from a participiation of Christ * Gal. 5.2 The Sacrifices were to be perpetual in regard of the thing signified by them viz. the death of Christ which was to endure in the efficacy of it And the Passover was to be for ever * Exod. 12.24 in regard of the Redemption signified by it which was to be of everlasting remembrance Canaan was to be an everlasting possession in regard of the glory of Heaven typified to be for ever conferr'd upon the spiritual Seed of Abraham 2. When a thing hath no end though it hath a beginning So Angels and Souls are everlasting though their being shall never cease yet there was a time when their being began they were nothing before they were something though they shall never be nothing again but shall live in endless happiness or misery But that properly is eternal that hath neither beginning nor end and thus Eternity is a Property of God In this Doctrin I shall shew 1. How God is eternal or in what respects Eternity is his Property 2. That he is eternal and must needs be so 3. That Eternity is only proper to God and not common to him with any Creature 4. The Vse 1. How God is eternal or in what respects he is so Eternity is a Negative Attribute and is a denying of God any measures of time as Immensity is a denying of him any bounds of place As Immensity is the diffusion of his Essence so Eternity is the duration of his Essence And when we say God is eternal we exclude from him all possibility of beginning and ending all flux and change As the Essence of God cannot be bounded by any place so it is not to be limited by any time as it is his Immensity to be every where so it is his Eternity to be alway * Gasseâ—d As created things are said to be somewhere in regard of place and to be present past or future in regard of time so the Creator in regard of place is everywhere in regard of time is semper * Câ—â—llius de Deo cap 18. p. 41. His duration is as endless as his Essence is boundless He always was and always will be and will no more have an End than he had a Begininng and this is an excellency belonging to the Supream Being * Lingend Tom. 2. p 496. As his Essence comprehends all beings and exceeds them and his Immensity surmounts all places so his Eternity comprehends all times all durations and infinitely excels them 1. God is without beginning In the beginning God created the World God was then before the beginning of it * Gen. 1.1 and what point can be set wherein God began if he were before the beginning of created things God was without beginning though all other things had time and beginning from him As Unity is before all Numbers so is God before all his Creatures Abraham called upon the name of the everlasting God * Gen. 21.33 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The eternal God 'T is opposed to the Heathen Gods which were but of Yesterday new coyn'd and
he knows at once what is has been and will be All things are past present and to come in regard of their Existence but there is not past present and to come in regard of Gods Knowledge of them * Parsiensis because he sees and knows not by any other but by himself He is his own Light by which he sees his own Glass wherein he sees beholding himself he beholds all things 2. There is no succession in the Decrees of God He doth not decree this now which he decreed not before for as his works were known from the beginning of the world so his works were decreed from the beginning of the world as they are known at once so they are decreed at once there is a succession in the execution of them first grace then glory but the purpose of God for the bestowing of both was in one and the same moment of Eternity * Eph. 1.4 He chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy The choice of Christ and the choice of some in him to be holy and to be happy were before the foundation of the world 'T is by the eternal Counsel of God all things appear in time they appear in their order according to the Counsel and Will of God from Eternity The Redemption of the world is after the Creation of the world but the Decree whereby the world was created and whereby it was redeemed was from Eternity 4. God is his own Eternity He is not eternal by grant and the disposal of any other but by Nature and Essence * Calov Socinian The Eternity of God is nothing else but the Duration of God and the Duration of God is nothing else but his Existence enduring Existentia durans If Eternity were any thing distinct from God and not of the Essence of God then there would be something which was not God necessary to perfect God As Immortality is the great perfection of a rational Creature so Eternity is the choice perfection of God yea the gloss and lustre of all others Every perfection would be imperfect if it were not always a perfection God is essentially whatsoever he is and there is nothing in God but his Essence Duration or Continuance in being in Creatures differs from their being for they might exist but for one instant in which case they may be said to have being but not duration because all duration includes prius et posterius All Creatures may cease from being if it be the pleasure of God they are not therefore durable by their Essence and therefore are not their own duration no more than they are their own Existence And though some Creatures as Angels and Souls may be called everlasting as a perpetual life is communicated to them by God yet they can never be called their own Eternity because such a Duration is not simply necessary nor essential to them but accidental depending upon the pleasure of another there is nothing in their nature that can hinder them from loosing it if God from whom they received it should design to take it away But as God is his own necessity of existing so he is his own duration in existing * Gassend As he doth necessarily exist by himself so he will always necessarily exist by himself 5. Hence all the perfections of God are eternal In regard of the Divine Eternity all things in God are eternal his Power Mercy Wisdom Justice Knowledge God himself were not eternal if any of his perfections which are essential to him were not eternal also He had not else been a perfect God from all eternity and so his whole self had not been eternal If any thing belonging to the nature of a thing be wanting it cannot be said to be that thing which it ought to be If any thing requisite to the Nature of God had been wanting one moment he could not have been said to be an eternal God The second Thing God is Eternal The Spirit of God in Scripture condescends to our Capacities in signifying the Eternity of God by days and years which are terms belonging to time whereby we measure it * Psal 102.27 But we must no more conceive that God is bounded or measured by time and hath succession of days because of those expressions than we can conclude him to have a Body because Members are ascribed to him in Scripture to help our conceptions of his glorious nature and operations Though years are ascribed to him yet they are such as cannot be numbred cannot be finished since there is no proportion between the duration of God and the years of Men. The number of his years cannot be searched out for he makes small the drops of water they pour down Rain according to the vapor thereof * Job 36.26 27 The numbers of the drops of Rain which have fallen in all parts of the Earth since the Creation of the world if substracted from the number of the years of God would be found a small quantity a meer nothing to the years of God As all the Nations in the world compared with God are but as the drop of a Bucket worse than nothing than vanity * Isa 40.15 So all the Ages of the world if compared with God amount not to so much as the One hundred thousandth part of a Minute The Minutes from the Creation may be numbred but the years of the duration of God being infinite are without measure As one day is to the Life of Man so are a Thousand years to the Life of God * Psal 90.5 Amyrald Trin. p. 44. The Holy-Ghost expresseth himself to the capacity of Man to give us some Notion of an infinite Duration by a resemblance suted to the capacity of Man If a Thousand years be but as a day to the Life of God then as a year is to the Life of Man so are Three hundred sixty five thousand years to the Life of God And as Seventy years are to the Life of Man so are twenty five Millions four Hundred and fifty Thousand years to the Life of God Yet still since there is no proportion between Time and Eternity we must dart our thoughts beyond all those * Daille Vent Sermons Ser. 1. sur 102. Psal 27. p. 21. For years and days measure only the duration of created things and of those only that are material and corporeal subject to the motion of the Heavens which makes days and years Sometimes this Eternity is exprest by parts as looking backward and forward by the differences of time past present and to come * Revel 1.8 Revel 4.8 Crellius weakens this argument De Deo cap. 18. p. 42. which was and is and is to come Though this might be spoken of any thing in being though but for an hour it was the last minute it is now and it will be the next minute yet the Holy-Ghost would declare something proper to God as
that Gods acting by means doth rather strengthen his Essential Presence than weaken it since there is a necessary dependance of the Creatures upon the Creator in their Being and Acting and what they are they are by the Power of God what they act they act in the Power of God concurring with them they have their Motion in him as well as their Being and where the Power of God is his Essence is because they are inseparable and so this Omnipresence ariseth from the simplicity of the Nature of God the more vast any thing is the less confin'd All that will acknowledg God so great as to be able to work all things by his Will without an Essential Presence cannot imagine him upon the same reason so little as to be contain'd in and bounded by any place 3. Reason Because of his Supream Perfection No Perfection is wanting to God but an unbounded Essence is a Perfection a limited one is an Imperfection Tho' it be a Perfection in a man to be Wise yet it is an Imperfection that his Wisdom cannot rule all the things that concern him tho' it be a Perfection to be present in a place where his affairs lye yet is it his Imperfection that he cannot be present every where in the midst of all his Concerns if any man could be so it would be universally own'd as a prime Perfection in him above others Is that which would be a Perfection in man to be deny'd to God * Amyrald de Trinitat p. 74. 75. as that which hath life is more perfect than that which hath not life and that which hath sense is more perfect than that which hath only life as the Plants have and what hath reason is more perfect than that which hath only life and sense as the Beasts have so what is every where is more perfect than that which is bounded in some narrow confines if a Power of motion be more excellent than to be Bed-rid and swiftness in a Creature be a more excellent endowment than to be slow and Snail like Then to be every where without motion is unconceivably a greater excellency than to be every where successively by motion God sets forth his readiness to help his People and punish his Enemies or his Omnipresence by swiftness or flying upon the Wings of the Wind Psal 18.10 the Wind is in every part of the Air where it blows it cannot be said that it is in this or that Point of the Air where you feel it so as to exclude it from another part of the Air where you are not it seems to possess all at once If the Divine Essence had any bounds of place it would be imperfect as well as if it had bounds of time where any thing hath limitation it hath some defect in Being and therefore if God were confined or concluded he would be as good as nothing in regard of Infiniteness Whence should this restraint arise there is no Power above him to restrain him to a certain space if so then he would not be God but that power which restrained him would be God Not from his own nature for the being every where implies no contradiction to his nature if his own Nature determin'd him to a certain place then if he removed from that place he would act against his Nature to conceive any such thing of God is highly absurd It cannot be thought God should voluntarily impose any such restraint or confinement upon himself this would be to deny himself a Perfection he might have if God have not this Perfection it is either because it is inconsistent with his nature or because he cannot have it or because he will not The former cannot be for if he hath imprest upon Air and Light a resemblance of his Excellency to diffuse themselves and fill so vast a space Is such an Excellency inconsistent with the Creator more than the Creature whatsoever Perfection the Creature hath is eminently in God * Psal 94.8 9. Vnderstand O ye brutish among the people and ye fools when will you be wise He that planted the ear shall he not hear he that formed the eye shall he not see he that teacheth man knowledge shall not he know By the same reason he that hath given such a Power to those Creatures Air and Light shall not he be much more filling all spaces of the World 'T is so clear a Rule that the Psalmist fixes a folly and brutishness upon those that deny it 't is not therefore inconsistent with his Nature it were not then a Perfection but an Imperfection but whatsoever is an Excellency in Creatures cannot in a way of eminency be an Imperfection in God if it be then a Perfection and God want it 't is because he cannot have it Where then is his Power How can he be then the Fountain of his own Being If he will not where is his love to his own Nature and Glory since no Creature would deny that to it self which it can have and is an Excellency to it God therefore hath not only a Power or fitness to be every where but he is actually every where 4. Reason Because of his Immutability If God did not fill all the spaces of Heaven and Earth but only possess one yet it must be acknowledg'd that God hath a Power to move himself to another It were absurd to fix God in a part of the Heavens like a Star in an Orb without a power of motion to another place If he be therefore Essentially in Heaven may he not be upon the Earth if he please and transfer his Substance from one place to another to say he cannot is to deny him a Perfection which he hath bestow'd upon his Creatures the Angels his Messengers are sometimes in Heaven sometimes on the Earth the Eagles meaner Creatures are sometimes in the Air out of Sight sometimes upon the Earth If he doth move therefore and recede from one place and settle in another doth he not declare himself mutable by changing places by being where he was not before and in not being where he was before He would not fill Heaven and Earth at once but successively no man can be said to fill a Room that moves frome one part of a Room to another if therefore any in their imaginations stake God to the Heavens they render him less than his Creatures If they allow him a power of motion from one place to another they conceive him changeable and in either of them they own him no greater than a finite and limited Being limited to Heaven if they fix him there limited to that space to which they imagine him to move 5. Reason Because of his Omnipotency The Almightiness of God is a Notion setled in the minds of all That God can do whatsoever he pleases every thing that is not against the purity of his Nature and doth not imply a contradiction in its self he can therefore create Millions of Worlds greater
present and past but knew those certainly and the others doubtfully and conjecturally he would suffer some Change and acquire some Perfection in his Knowledg when those future things should cease to be future and become present for he would know it more perfectly when it were present than he did when it was future and so there would be a Change from Imperfection to a Perfection But God is every way immutable Besides that Perfection would not arise from the Nature of God but from the Existence and Presence of the thing but who will affirm that God acquires any Perfection of Knowledg from his Creatures any more than he doth of Being he would not then have had that Knowledg and consequently that Perfection from Eternity as he had when he Created the World and will not have a full Perfection of the Knowledg of his Creature till the end of the World nor of Immortal Souls which will certainly act as well as live to Eternity and so God never was nor ever will be perfect in Knowledg for vvhen you have conceived millions of years vvherein Angels and Souls live and act there is still more coming than you can conceive vvherein they vvill act And if God be alvvays changing to Eternity from Ignorance to Knovvledg as those acts come to be exerted by his Creatures he vvill not be perfect in Knovvledg no not to Eternity but vvill alvvays be changing from one degree of Knovvledg to another a very unvvorthy Conceit to entertain of the most Blessed Perfect and Infinite God! Hence then it follovvs that 1. God foreknows all his Creatures All kinds vvhich he determin'd to make all particulars that should spring out of every species the time vvhen they should come forth of the Womb the manner hovv In thy Book all my Members were written Psal 139.16 Members is not in the Heb. vvhence some refer all to all living Creatures vvhatsoever and all the parts of them vvhich God did foresee he knevv the numbers of Creatures vvith all their parts they vvere vvritten in the Book of his fore-knovvledg the duration of them hovv long they shall remain in Being and act upon the Stage he knows their strength the links of one cause with another and what will follow in all their Circumstances and the series and combination of effects with their causes The duration of every thing is foreknown because determin'd Job 14.5 seeing his days are determin'd the number of his months are with thee thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass bounds are fixed beyond which none shall reach he speaks of days and months not of years to give us notice of Gods particular foreknovvledg of every thing of every day month year hour of a mans life 2. All the acts of his Creatures are foreknown by him All natural acts because he knows their causes voluntary acts I shall speak of afterwards 3. This foreknowledg was certain For it is an unworthy notion of God to ascribe to him a conjectural Knowledg if there were only a conjectural knowledg he could but conjecturally foretel any thing and then it is possible the events of things might be contrary to his Predictions It would appear then that God were deceived and mistaken and then there could be no rule of trying things whether they were from God or no for the Rule God sets down to discern his Words from the Words of false Prophets is the event and certain accomplishment of what is Predicted Deut. 18.21 to that question How shall we know whether God hath spoken or no he answers That if the thing doth not come to pass the Lord hath not spoken If his Knowledg of future things were not certain there were no stability in this Rule it would fall to the ground We never yet find God deceiv'd in any Prediction but the event did answer his fore-Revelation his foreknowledg therefore is certain and infallible We cannot make God uncertain in his Knowledg but we must conceive him fluctuating and wavering in his Will but if his Will be not Yea and Nay but Yea his Knowledg is certain because he doth certainly Will and Resolve 4. This foreknowledg was from Eternity Seeing he knows things possible in his Power and things future in his Will if his Power and Resolves were from Eternity his Knowledg must be so too or else we must make him ignorant of his own Power and ignorant of his own Will from Eternity and consequently not from Eternity Blessed and Perfect His knowledg of possible things must run Parallel with his Power and his Knowledg of future things run Parallel with his Will If he Willed from Eternity he knew from Eternity what he Willed but that he did Will from Eternity we must grant unless we would render him changeable and conceive him to be made in time of not Willing Willing The Knowledg God hath in time was alway one and the same because his Understanding is his proper Essence as perfect as his Essence and of an immutable nature Gamach in Aquin Part 1. q. 14. c. 3. p. 124. And indeed the actual existence of a thing is not simply necessary to its being perfectly known we may see a thing that is past out of Being when it doth not actually exist and a Carpenter may know the House he is to Build before it be built by the model of it in his own mind much more we may conceive the same of God whose Decrees were before the Foundâ—tion of the World Eph. 1.5 and in other places and to be before time was and to be from Eternity hath no difference As God in his Being exceeds all beginning of time so doth his Knowledg all motions of time 5. God foreknows all things as present with him from Eternity Gerhard Exeges ch 8. de Deo sect 13. p. 303. As he knows mutable things with an immutable and firm Knowledg so he knows future things with a present Knowledg not that the things which are produced in time were actually and really present with him in their own Beings from Eternity for then they could not be produced in time had they a real existence then they would not be Creatures but God and had they actual Being then they could not be future for future speaks a thing to come that is not yet If things had been actually present with him and yet future they had been made before they were made and had a Being before they had a Being but they were all present to his Knowledg as if they were in actual Being because the reason of all things that were to be made was present with him Bradward l. 3. c. 14. The reason of the Will of God that they shall be was equally Eternal with him wherein he saw what and when and how he would Create things how he would govern them to what ends he would direct them Thus all things are present to Gods Knowledg tho' in their own nature they may be past or
crucis Lib. 3 cap. 7. p. 211. It is not like the Union of Stones in a Building or of two pieces of Timber fastned together which touch one anotâ—er only in their Superficies and outside without any intimacy with one another By such a kind of Union God would not be man The Word could â—ot so be made Flesh Nor is it a Union of Parts to the whole as the Members and the Body the Members are Parts the Body is the whole for the whole results from the Parts and depends upon the Parts But Christ being God is independent upon any thing The parts are in order of Nature before the whole but nothing can be in order of Nature before God Nor is it as the Union of two Liquors as when Wine and Water are mixed together for they are so Incorporated as not to be distinguish'd from one another no man can tell which Particle is Wine and which is Water But the Properties of the Divine Nature are distinguishable from the Properties of the Humane Nor is it as the Union of the Soul and Body so as that the Deity is the form of the Humanity as the Soul is the form of the Body For as the Soul is but a part of the Man so the Divinity would be then but a part of the Humanity as a Form or the Soul is in a state of Imperfection without that which it is to inform so the Divinity of Christ would have been Imperfect till it had assumed the Humanity And so the perfection of an Eternal Deity would have depended on a Creature of Time This Union of two Natures in Christ is incomprehensible And it is a mystery we cannot arrive to the top of How the Divine Nature which is the same with that of the Father and the Holy Ghost should be united to the Human Nature without its being said that the Father and the Holy Ghost were united to the Flesh but the Scripture doth not encourage any such Notion It speaks only of the Word the Person of the Word being made Flesh And in his being made Flesh distinguisheth him from the Father as the only begotten of the Father Joh. 1.14 The Person of the Son was the term of this Union 1. This Vnion doth not confound the Properties of the Deity and those of the Humanity They remain distinct and entire in each other The Deity is not changed into Flesh nor the Flesh transform'd into God They are distinct and yet united They are conjoined and yet unmixt The Dues of either Nature are preserved 'T is impossible that the Majesty of the Divinity can receive an alteration 'T is as impossible that the meaness of the Humanity can receive the Impressions of the Deity so as to be changed into it and a creature be metamorphos'd into the Creator and Temporary Flesh become Eternal and Finite mount up into Infinity As the Soul and Body are united and make one Person yet the Soul is not changed into the perfections of the Body nor the Body into the perfections of the Soul There is a change made in the Humanity by being advanced to a more Excellent Union but not in the Diety as a change is made in the Air when it is enlightned by the Sun not in the Sun which communicates that brightness to the Air. Athanasius makes the burning Bush to be a type of Christs Incarnation Exod. 3.2 The Fire signifying the Divine Nature and the Bush the human The Bush is a branch springing up from the Earth and the Fire descends from Heaven as the Bush was united to the Fire yet was not hurt by the slame nor converted into Fire there remained a difference between the Bush and the Fire yet the properties of the Fire shined in the Bush so that the whole Bush seemed to be on Fire So in the Incarnation of Christ the Human Nature is not swallowed up by the Divine nor changed into it nor confounded with it But so united that the properties of both remain firme Two are so become one that they remain two still One person in Two Natures containing the glorious perfections of the Divine and the weaknesses of the Humane The fulness of the Deity dwels bodily in Christ Col. 2.9 2. The Divine Nature is vnited to every part of the Humanity The whole Divinity to the whole Humanity so that no part but may be said to be the Member of God as well as the Blood is said to be the Blood of God Acts 20.28 By the same reason it may be said the Hand of God the Eye of God the Arm of God As God is infinitely present every where so as to be excluded from no place so is the Deity hypostatically every where in the Humanity not excluded from any part of it As the light of the Sun in every part of the Air as a sparkling splendor in every part of the Diamond Therefore it is concluded by all that acknowledge the Deity of Christ that when his Soul was separated from the Body the Deity remained united both to Soul and Body as light doth in every part of a broken Christal 3. Therefore perpetually united Coloss 2.9 The fulness of the Godhead dwells in him bodily It Dwels in him not lodges in him as a Traveller in an Inn It resides in him as a fixed habitation As God describes the perpetuity of his presence in the Ark by his habitation or dwelling in it Exod. 29.44 so doth the Apostle the inseparable duration of the Deity in the Humanity and the indissoluble Union of the Humanity with the Deity It was united on Earth it remains united in Heaven It was not an Image or an Apparition as the Tongues wherein the Spirit came upon the Apostles were a Temporary Representation not a thing united perpetually to the person of the Holy Ghost 4. It was a personal Vnion It was not an union of persons though it was a personal union So Davenant expounds Col. 2.9 Christ did not take the Person of Man but the Nature of Man into subsistence with himself The Body and Soul of Christ were not united in themselves had no subsistence in themselves till they were united to the Person of the Son of God If the Person of a Man were united to him the Human Nature would have been the Nature of the Person so united to him and not the Nature of the Son of God Heb. 2.14 16. Forasmuch then as the Children are partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part of the same that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil For verily he took not on him the nature of Angels but he took on him the seed of Abraham He took flesh and blood to be his own Nature perpetually to subsist in the Person of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which must be by a Personal Union or no way The Deity united to the Humanity and both Natures to be one Person This
The Power of God is seen in those Commotions in the Air and Earth by Thunders Lightnings Storms Earth-quakes which rack the Air and make the Mountains and Hills tremble as Servants before a frowning and rebuking Master And as he makes motions in the Earth and Air so is his Power seen in their Influences upon the Sea He judges the Sea with his power and by his understanding he smites through the proud †Verse 12. At the Creation he put the Waters into several Channels and caused the dry Land to appear barefac'd for a Habitation for Man and Beasts or rather he splits the Sea by Storms as though he would make the bottom of the Deep visible and rakes up the Sands to the Surface of the Waters and marshals the Waves into Mountains and Valleys After that he smites through the proud that is humbles the proud Waves and by allaying the Storm reduceth them to their former Level The Power of God is visible as well in rebuking as in awakning the winds he makes them sensible of his Voice and according to his Pleasure exasperates or calms them The striking through the proud here is not probably meant of the destruction of the Egyptian Army for some guess that Job died that year †Drusius in loc or about the time of the Israelites coming out of Egypt So that this Discourse here being in the time of his Affliction could not point at that which was done after his restoration to his temporal Prosperity And now at last he sums up the Power of God in the chiefest of his Works above and the greatest wonder of his Works below Verse 13. By his Spirit he hath garnisht the Heavens his hand hath formed the crooked Serpent c. The greater and lesser Lights Sun Moon and Stars the Ornaments and Furniture of Heaven and the Whale a prodigious Monument of Gods Power often mention'd in Scripture to this purpose and in particular in this Book of Job ‖ Job 41. and called by the same name of Crooked Serpent Isa 27.1 where it is applied by way of Metaphor to the King of Assyria or Egypt or all Oppressors of the Church Various Interpretations there are of this crooked Serpent Some understanding that Constellation in Heaven which Astronomers call the Dragon some that Combination of weaker Stars which they call the Galaxia which winds about the Heavens But it is most probable that Job drawing near to a conclusion of his Discourse joyns the two greatest Testimonies of Gods Power in the World the highest Heavens and the lowest Leviathan which is here called a bar Serpent * As the word signifies in the Hebrew in regard of his strength and hardness as mighty Men are called bars in Scripture Jer. 51.30 Her bars are broken things And in regard of this Power of God in the Creation of this Creature 't is particularly mention'd in the Catalogue of Gods Works Gen. 1.21 And God created great Whales all the other Creatures being put into one sum and not particularly exprest And now he makes the use of this Lecture in the Text Loe these are parts of his ways but how little a portion is heard of him but the thunder of his Power who can understand This is but a small Landskip of some of his Works of Power the outsides and extremities of it more glorious things are within his Palaces Though those things argue a stupendous Power of the Creator in his Works of Creation and Providence yet they are nothing to what may be declared of his Power And what may be declared is nothing to what may be conceived and what may be conceived is nothing to what is above the conceptions of any Creature These are but little Crumbs and Fragments of that infinite Power which is in his Nature like a drop in comparison of the mighty Ocean a hiss or whisper in comparison of a mighty Voice of Thunder †Oecolamp This which I have spoken is but like a Spark to the fiery Region a few lines by the by a drop of speech The thunder of his Power Some understand it of Thunder literally for material Thunder in the Air The Thunder of his Power that is according to the Hebrew Dialect his powerful Thunder This is not the sense the nature of Thunder in the Air doth not so much exceed the capacity of human understanding 't is therefore rather to be understood Metaphorically The Thunder of his Power that is the greatness and immensity of his Power manifested in the magnificent Miracles of Nature in the consideration whereof men are astonished as if they had heard an unusual Clap of Thunder So Thunder is used Job 39.25 The Thunder of the Captains that is strength and force of the Captains of an Army And verse 19. God speaking to Job of a Horse saith Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder that is strength And Thunder being a mark of the Power of God some of the Heathen have called God by the name of a Thunderer The ancient Gawl◠worshipped him under the name of Taranis The Greeks called Jupiter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Thor whence our Thursday is derived signifieth Thunderer a title the Germans gave their God And Toran in the British Language signifies Thunder Voss Idolo lib. 2. cap. 33. Camb. Britan. p. 17. As Thunder pierceth the lowest places and alters the state of things so doth the Power of God penetrate into all things whatsoever the Thunder of his Power that is the Greatness of his Power as the strength of Salvation Psal 20.6 that is a mighty Salvation Who can understand Who is able to count all the Monuments of his Power How doth this little which I have spoken of exceed the capacity of our Understanding and is rather the matter of our astonishment than the object of our comprehensive knowledge The Power of the greatest Potentate or the mightiest Creature is but of small extent None but have their limits It may be understood how far they can act in what sphere their activity is bounded But when I have spoken all of Divine Power that I can when you have thought all that you can think of it your Souls will prompt you to conceive something more beyond what I have spoken and what you have thought His Power shines in every thing and is beyond every thing There is infinitely more Power lodged in his Nature not exprest to the World The understanding of Men and Angels centred in one Creature would fall short of the perception of the Infiniteness of it All that can be comprehended of it are but little Fringes of it a small Portion No man ever discours'd or can of Gods Power according to the magnificence of it No Creature can conceive it God himself only comprehends it God himself is only able to express it Mans power being limited his Line is too short to measure the incomprehensible Omnipotence of God The thunder of his Power who can understand
that is none can The Text is a lofty declaration of the Divine Power with a particular note of Attention Loe. 1. In the expressions of it in the works of Creation and Providence Loe these are his ways Ways and Works excelling any created strength referring to the little summary of them he had made before 2. In the Insufficiency of these ways to measure his Power but how little a portion is heard of him 3. In the Incomprehensibleness of it The thunder of his Power who can understand Doct. Infinite and Incomprehensible Power pertains to the Nature of God and is exprest in part in his Works or Though there be a mighty expression of Divine Power in his Works yet an Incomprehensible Power pertains to his Nature The thunder of his Power who can understand His Power glitters in all his Works as well as his Wisdom Psal 62.11 Twice have I heard this that Power belongs unto God In the Law and in the Prophets say some But why Power twice and not Mercy which he speaks of in the following Verse He had heard of Power twice from the voice of Creation and from the voice of Government Mercy was heard in Government after Man's Fall not in Creation Innocent man was an object of Gods goodness not of his Mercy till he made himself miserable Power was exprest in both or Twice have I heard that Power belongs to God that is it is a certain and undoubted Truth that Power is essential to the Divine Nature 'T is true Mercy is essential Justice is essential but Power more apparently essential because no acts of Mercy or Justice or Wisdom can be exercised by him without Power The repetition of a thing confirms the certainty of it Some observe that God is called Almighty Seventy times in Scripture * Lessius de perfect Divin lib. 5. cap. 1. Though his Power be evident in all his Works yet he hath a Power beyond the expression of it in his Works which as it is the glory of his Nature so it is the comfort of a Believer To which purpose the Apostle expresseth it by an excellent Periphrasis for the honour of the Divine Nature Eph. 3.20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think unto him be glory in the Churches We have reason to acknowledge him Almighty who hath a Power of acting above our power of understanding Who could have imagin'd such a powerful operation in the propagation of the Gospel and the Conversion of the Gentiles which the Apostle seems to hint at in that place His Power is exprest by Horns in his hands Hab. 3.4 because all the Works of his hands are wrought with Almighty strength Power is also used as a Name of God Mark 14.62 The Son of Man sitting on the right hand of Power that is at the right hand of God God and Power are so inseparable that they are reciprocated As his Essence is Immense not to be confin'd in Place as it is Eternal not to be measur'd by Time so it is Almighty not to be limited in regard of Action 1. 'T is Ingeniously illustrated by some by a Vnit †Fotherby Atheomastic p. 306 307. all Numbers depend upon it it makes Numbers by Addition Multiplies them unexpressibly when one Unit is removed from a Number how vastly doth it diminish it It gives perfection to all other Numbers it receives perfection from none If you add a Unit before 100 how doth it multiply it to 1100 If you set a Unit before twenty Millions it presently makes the Number swell up to an hundred and twenty Millions and so powerful is a Unit by adding it to Numbers that it will infinitely inlarge them to such a vastness that shall transcend the capacity of the best Arithmetician to count them By such a Meditation as this you may have some prospect of the Power of that God who is only Unity the Beginning of all things as a Unit is the beginning of all Numbers and can perform as many things really as a Unit can numerically that is can do as much in the making of Creatutes as a Unit can do in the multiplying of Numbers The Omnipotence of God was scarce denied by any Heathen that did not deny the Being of a God and that was Pliny and that upon weak Arguments 2. Indeed we cannot have a conception of God if we conceive him not most Powerful as well as most Wise He is not a God that cannot do what he will and perform all his pleasure If we imagine him restrain'd in his Power we imagine him limited in his Essence As he hath an infinite Knowledge to know what is possible he cannot be without an infinite Power to do what is possible As he hath a Will to resolve what he sees good so he cannot want a Power to effect what he sees good to decree As the Essence of a Creature cannot be conceiv'd without that activity that belongs to his nature as when you conceive Fire you cannot conceive it without a power of burning and warming and when you conceive Water you cannot conceive it without a power of moistning and cleansing So you cannot conceive an Infinite Essence without an Infinite Power of activity And therefore a Heathen could say If you know God you know he can do all things and therefore saith Austin Give me not only a Christian but a Jew not only a Jew but a Heathen that will deny God to be Almighty A Jew a Heathen may deny Christ to be Omnipotent but no Heathen will deny God to be Omnipotent and no Devil will deny either to be so God cannot be conceiv'd without some Power for then he must be conceiv'd without Action Whos 's then are those products and effects of Power which are visible to us in the World to whom do they belong who is the Father of them God cannot be conceiv'd without a Power suitable to his Nature and Essence if we imagine him to be of an Infinite Essence we must imagine him to be of an Infinite Power and Strength In particular I shall shew 1. The Nature of God's Power 2. Reasons to prove that God must needs be Powerful 3. How his Power appears in Creation in Government in Redemption 4. The Vse I. What this Power is or the Nature of it 1. Power sometimes signifies Authority And a Man is said to be Mighty and Powerful in regard of his Dominion and the right he hath to Command multitudes of other persons to take his part but Power taken for Strength and Power taken for Authority are distinct things and may be separated from one another Power may be without Authority as in successful Invasions that have no just foundation Authority may be without Power as in a Just Prince expell'd by an unjust Rebellion the Authority resides in him though he be over-power'd and is destitute of Strength to support and exercise that Authority The Power
follow That this Omnipotence is incommunicable to any Creature no Creature can inherit it because it is a contradiction for any Creature to have the Essence of God This Omnipotence is a peculiar Right of God wherein no Creature can share with him To be Omnipotent is to be Essentially God And for a Creature to be Omnipotent is for a Creature to be its own Creator It being therefore the same with the Essence of the Godhead it cannot be communicated to the Humanity of Christ as the Lutherans say it is wâ—thout the communication of the Essence of the Godhead * for then the Humanity of Christ would not be Humanity but Deity If Omnipotence were communicated to the Humanity of Christ the Essence of God were also communicated to his Humanity and then Eternity would be communicated His Humanity then was not given him in Time his Humanity would be uncompounded that is his Body would be no Body his Soul no Soul Omnipotence is Essentially in God 't is not distinct from the Essence of God 't is his Essence Omnipotent able to do all things 7. Hence it follows That this Power is infinite Eph. 1.19 What is the exceeding greatness of his power c. According to the working of his mighty power God were not Omnipotent unless his Power were Infinite for a Finite Power is a limited Power and a limited Power cannot effect every thing that is possible Nothing can be too difficult for the Divine Power to effect He hath a Fulness of Power an Exceeding Strength above all Humane Capacities 't is a Mighty power †Eph. 1.19 able to do above all that we can ask or think ‖ Eph. 3.20 That which he acts is above the power of any Creature to act Infinite Power consists in the bringing things forth from nothing No Creature can imitate God in this Prerogative of Power Man indeed can carve various Forms and erect various pieces of Art but from preexistent Matter Every Artificer hath the Matter brought to his hand he only brings it forth in a new Figure Chimists separate one thing from another but create nothing but sever those things which were before compacted and crudled together But when God speaks a powerful Word Nothing begins to be Something Things stand forth from the Womb of Nothing and obey his mighty Command and take what Forms he is pleased to give them The Creating one thing though never so small and minute as the least Fly cannot be but by an Infinite Power much less can the producing of such Variety we see in the World His Power is Infinite in regard it cannot be resisted by any thing that he hath made nor can it be confin'd by any thing he can will to make His Greatness is unsearchable * 'T is a Greatness not of quantity but quality Psal 145.3 The Greatness of his Power hath no end 'T is a vanity to imagine any limits can be affixed to it or that any Creature can say Hitherto it can go and no further 'T is above all Conception all Inquisition of any Created Understanding No Creature ever had nor ever can have that strength of Wit and Understanding to conceive the extent of his Power and how Magnificently he can work 1. His Essence is Infinite As in a Finite Subject there is a Finite Vertue so in an Infinite Subject there must be an Infinite Vertue Where the Essence is limited the Power is so †Operationes sequuntur essentiam Where the Essence is unlimited the Power knows no bounds ‖ Aqâ—in par 1. Qu. 25. Artic. 2. Among Creatures the more excellency of Being and Form any thing hath the more activity vigour and power it hath to work according to its Nature The Sun hath a mighty power to warm enlighten and fructifie above what the Stars have because it hath a vaster Body more intense degrees of light heat and vigour Now if you conceive the Sun made much greater than it is it would proportionably have greater degrees of power to heat and enlighten than it hath now And were it possible to have an Infinite Heat and Light it would infinitely heat and enlighten other things for every thing is able to act according to the Measures of its Being Therefore since the Essence of God is unquestionably Infinite his power of Acting must be so also His Power as was said before is one and the same with his Essence And though the Knowledge of God extends to more Objects than his Power because he knows all Evils of Sin which because of his Holiness he cannot commit yet it is as Infinite as his Knowledge because it is as much one with his Essence as his Knowledge and Wisdom is For as the Wisdom or Knowledge of God is nothing but the Essence of God Knowing so the Power of God is nothing but the Essence of God Able 2. The Objects of Divine Power are innumerable The Objects of Divine Power are not Essentially Infinite and therefore we must not measure the Infiniteness of Divine Power by an Ability to make an Infinite Being because there is an Incapacity in any created thing to be Infinite for to be a Creature and to be Infinite to be Infinite and yet Made is a contradiction To be Infinite and to be God is one and the same thing Nothing can be Infinite but God nothing but God is Infinite But the Power of God is Infinite because it can produce Infinite effects or Innumerable things such as surpass the Arithmetick of a Creature nor yet doth the Infiniteness consist simply in producing innumerable Effects for that a Finite Cause can produce Fire can by its finite and limit d Heat burn numberless combustible things and parcels and the Understanding of Man hath an infinite number of thoughts and acts of Intellection and Thoughts different from one another Who can number the Imaginations of his Fancy and Thoughts of his Mind the space of one Month or Year much less of Forty or an Hundred years yet all these Thoughts are about things that are in Being or have a foundation in things that are in Being But the Infiniteness of Gods Power consists in an ability to produce Infinite Effects formally distinct and diverse from one another such as never had Being such as the Mind of Man cannot conceive Eph. 3.20 Able to do above what we can think Eph. 3.20 And whatsoever God hath made or is able to make he is able to make in an Infinite manner by calling them to stand forth from nothing To produce innumerable Effects of distinct Natures and from so distant a term as Nothing is an argument of Infinite Power Now that the Objects of Divine Power are Innumerable appears because God can do Infinitely more thâ—n he hath done or will do Nothing that God hath done can enfeeble or dull his Power there still resides in him an Ability beyond all the setled Contrivances of his Understanding and Resolves of his
acknowledgment of the Immensity of Divine Power Miracles are such effects as have been wrought without the assistance and cooperation of Natural Causes yea contrary and besides the ordinary course of Nature above the reach of any Created Power Miracles have been and saith Bradwardine * Lib. 1. cap. 1. p. 38. To deny that ever such things were is uncivil 'T is inhuman to deny all the Histories of Jews and Christians whosoever denies Miracles must deny all possibility of Miracles and so must imagine himself fully skill'd in the extent of Divine Power How was the Sun suspended from its Motion for some hours Josh 10.13 The Dead raised from the Grave Those reduc'd from the brink of it that had been brought near to it by prevailing Diseases and this by a word speaking How were the famisht Lions bridled from exercising their rage upon Daniel Dan. 6.22 expos'd to them for a Prey The activity of the Fire curb'd for the preservation of the Three Children Dan. 3.15 Which proves a Deity more powerful than all Creatures No power upon Earth can hinder the operation of the Fire upon combustible Matter when they are united unless by quenching the Fire or removing the Matter But no created Power can restrain the Fire so long as it remains so from acting according to its Nature Exod. 3.2 This was done by God in the case of the Three Children and that of the Burning Bush It was as much miraculous that the Bush should not consume as it was natural that it should burn by the efficacy of the Fire upon it No Element is so obstinate and deaf but it hears and obeys his Voice and performs his Orders though contrary to its own Nature All the violence of the Creature is suspended as soon as it receives his Command †Damianus in Petar He that gave the original to Nature can take away the necessity of Nature He presides over Creatures but is not confin'd to those Laws he hath prescrib'd to Creatures He framed Nature and can turn the Channels of Nature according to his own pleasure Men dig into the bowels of Nature search into all the Treasures of it to find Medicines to cure a Disease and after all their Attempts it may prove Labour in vain But God by one Act of his Will one Word of his Mouth overturns the Victory of Death and rescues from the most desperate Diseases * Fauch in Acts Vol. 2. §. 56. All the Miracles which were wrought by the Apostles either speaking some Words or Touching with the Hand were not effected by any virtue inherent in their Words or in their Touches For such Virtue inherent in any created finite Subject would be created and finite it self and consequently were incapable to produce effects which required an infinite Virtue as Miracles do which are above the power of Nature So when our Saviour wrought Miracles it was not by any quality resident in his humane Nature but by the sole Power of his Divinity The Flesh could only do what was proper to the Flesh but the Deity did what was proper to the Deity God alone doth wonders Psal 136.4 Excluding every other cause from producing such things He only doth those things which are above the power of Nature and cannot be wrought by any Natural causes whatsoever He doth not hereby put his Omnipotence to any stress 'T is as easie with him to turn Nature out of its setled course as it was to place it in that station it holds and appoint it that course it runs All the Works of Nature are indeed Miracles and Testimonies of the Power of God producing them and sustaining them But Works above the Power of Nature being Novelties and unusual strike Men with a greater admiration upon their appearance because they are not the products of Nature but the convulsions of it I might also add as an Argument The Power of the Mind of Man to conceive more than hath been wrought by God in the World And God can work whatsoever Perfection the Mind of man can conceive Otherwise the reaches of a created Imagination and Fancy would be more extensive than the Power of God His Power therefore is far greater than the conception of any Intellectual Creature else the Creature would be of a greater capacity to conceive than God is to effect The Creature would have a power of Conception above Gods Power of Activity and consequently a Creature in some respect greater than himself Now whatsoever a Creature can conceive possible to be done is but finite in its own nature and if God could not produce what Being a created Understanding can conceive possible to be done he would be less than Infinite in Power nay he could not go to the extent of what is Finite But I have touched this before That God can create more than he hath created and in a more perfect way of Being as considered simply in themselves III. The Third general thing is to declare How the Power of God appears in Creation in Government in Redemption 1. In Creation With what Majestick Lines doth God set forth his Power in the giving Being and Endowments to all the Creatures in the World Job 38. All that is in Heaven and Earth is his and shews the greatness of his Power Glory Victory 1 Chro. 29.11 and Majesty The Heaven being so Magnificent a piece of work is called emphatically The Firmament of his Power * Psal 150.1 his Power being more conspicuous and unvail'd in that glorious Arch of the World Indeed God exalts by his Power †Job 36.22 that is exalts himself by his Power in all the Works of his hands in the smallest Shrub as well as the most glorious Sun All his Works of Nature are truly Miracles though we consider them not being blinded with too frequent and customary a sight of them yet in the neglect of all the rest the view of the Heavens doth more affect us with astonishment at the Might of Gods Arm These declare his Glory and the Firmament shews his handy work Psal 19.1 Psal 8.3 And the Psalmist peculiarly calls them His Heavens and the work of his Fingers These were immediately created by God whereas many other things in the World were brought into Being by the Power of God yet by the means of the influence of the Heavens 1. His Power is the first thing evident in the story of the Creation In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth Gen. 1.1 There 's no appearance of any thing in this declaratory Preface but of Power The Characters of Wisdom march after in the distinct formation of things and animating them with suitable qualities for an Universal good By Heaven and Earth is meant the whole mass of the Creatures By Heaven all the Aery Region with all the Host of it by the Earth is meant all that which makes the intire inferior Globe The Jews observe that in the
make them march in the same order to their Confusion as they did in their Creation Who can jumble the whole Frame together and by a Word dissolve the Pillars of the World and make the Fabrick lie in a ruinous heap 2. In effecting his Purposes by small Means In making use of the Meanest Creatures As the Power of God is seen in the creation of the smallest Creatures and assembling so many perfections in the little body of an Insect as an Ant or Spider So his Power is not less magnified in the use he makes of them As he magnifies his Wisdom by using ignorant Instruments so he exalts his Power by employing weak Instruments in his service The Meaness and Imperfection of the matter sets off the Excellency of the Workman so the weakness of the Instrument is a foyl to the Power of the principal Agent When God hath effected things by Means in the Scripture he hath usually brought about his Purposes by weak Instruments Moses a Fugitive from Egypt and Aaron a Captive in it are the Instruments of the Israelites Deliverance By the motion of Moses his Rod he works Wonders in the Court of Pharaoh and summons up his Judgments against him He brought down Pharaohs stomack for a while by a squadron of Lice and Locusts wherein Divine Power was more seen than if Moses had brought him to his own Articles by a multitude of Warlike Troops The fall of the Walls of Jericho by the sound of Rams horns was a more glorious Character of Gods Power than if Joshuah had batter'd it down with an hundred of Warlike Engines Josh 6.20 Thus the great Army of the Midianites which lay as Grasshoppers upon the ground were routed by Gideon in the head of Three hundred Men and Goliah a Giant laid level with the ground by David a Stripling by the force of a Sling A Thousand Philistines dispatcht out of the World by the Jaw Bone of an Ass in the hand of Sampson He can master a stout Nation by an Army of Locusts and render the Teeth of those little Insects as destructive as the Teeth yea the strongest Teeth the Cheek Teeth of a great Lion * Joel 1.6 7. The Thunderbolt which produceth sometimes dreadful effects is compacted of little Atoms which fly in the Air small Vapors drawn up by the Sun and mixt with other Sulphurous matter and petrifying Juice Nothing is so weak but his Strength can make victorious nothing so small but by his Power he can accomplish his great ends by it nothing so vile but his Mâ—ght can conduct to his glory and no Nation so mighty but he can waste and enfeeble by the Meanest Creatures God is great in Power in the greatest things and not little in the smallest his Power in the minutest Creatures which he uses for his service surmounts the force of our Understanding III. The Power of God appears in Redemption As our Saviour is called the Wisdom of God 1 Cor. 1.24 so he is called the Power of God The Arm of Power was lifted up as high as the designs of Wisdom were laid deep As this way of Redemption could not be contriv'd but by an Infinite Wisdom so it could not be accomplish'd but by an Infinite Power None but God could shape such a design and none but God could effect it The Divine Power in Temporal deliverances and freedom from the slavery of humane Oppressors vails to that which glitters in Redemption whereby the Devil is defeated in his designs stript of his spoils and yok'd in his strength The Power of God in Creation requires not those degrees of Admiration as in Redemption In Creation the World was erected from Nothing as there was Nothing to act so there was Nothing to oppose no victorious Devil was in that to be subdued no thundring Law to be silenced no Death to be conquer'd no Transgression to be pardoned and rooted out no Hell to be shut no Ignominious death upon the Cross to be suffered It had been in the nature of the thing an easier thing to Divine Power to have created a new World than repair'd a broken and purified a polluted one This is the most admirable Work that ever God brought forth in the World greater than all the Marks of his Power in the first Creation And this will appear 1. In the Person Redeeming 2. In the publication and propagation of the Doctrine of Redemption 3. In the application of Redemption I. In the Person Redeeming First In his Conception 1. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost in the Womb of the Virgin Luke 1.35 The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee Which act is exprest to be the effect of the Infinite Power of God and it expresses the supernatural manner of the forming the Humanity of our Saviour and signifies not the Divine Nature of Christ infusing it self into the Womb of the Virgin for the Angel refers it to the manner of the operation of the Holy Ghost in the producing the Humane Nature of Christ and not to the Nature assuming that Humanity into union with it self The Holy Ghost or the Third Person in the Trinity overshadowed the Virgin and by a Creative act fram'd the Humanity of Christ and united it to the Divinity It is therefore exprest by a word of the same import with that used Gen. 1.2 The Spirit moved upon the face of the face of the Waters which signifies as it were a Brooding upon the Chaos shadowing it with his Wings as Hens sit upon their Eggs to form them and hatch them into Animals or else it is an allusion to the Cloud which covered the Tent of the Congregation when the Glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle * Exod. 40 34 It was not such a Creative Act as we call Immediate which is a production out of Nothing but a Mediate Creatâ—on such as Gods bringing things into form out of the first Matter which had nothing but an Obediential or Passive disposition to whatsoever stamp the Powerful Wisdom of God should imprint upon it So the substance of the Virgin had no active but only a passive disposition to this work The Matter of the Body was Earthy the substance of the Virgin the forming of it was Heavenly the Holy Ghost working upon that Matter And therefore when it is said Mat. 1.18 that she was found with Child of the Holy Ghost 't is to be understood of the Efficacy of the Holy Ghost not of the Substance of the Holy Ghost The matter was Natural but the manner of Conceiving was in a Supernatural way above the methods of Nature In reference to the Active Principle the Redeemer is called in the Prophecy †Isai 4.2 The Branch of the Lord in regard of the Divine hand that planted him In respect to the Passive Principle The Fruit of the Earth in regard of the Womb that bare him and therefore said to be made
together be too hard for his Invincible Power and Strength the uniting all those parts into a Body with new dispositions to receive their several Souls be too big and bulky for that Power which never yet was acquainted with any bar Was not the Miracle of our Saviours multiplying the Loaves suppose it had not been by a new Creation but a collection of Grain from several parts very near as stupendous as this Had any one of us been the only Creatures made just before the matter of the World and beheld that inform Chaos covered with a thick darkness mentioned Gen. 1.2 would not the Report that from this dark deep next to nothing should be rais'd such a multitude of comely Creatures with such innumerable varieties of Members Voices Colours Motions and such Numbers of shining Stars a bright Sun one uniform Body of Light from this Darkness that should like a Giant rejoyce to run a race for many thousands of years together without stop or weariness Would not all these have seemed as incredible as the Collection of scattered Dust What was it that erected the innumerable Host of Heaven the glorious Angels and glittering Stars for ought we know more numerous than the Bodies of Men but an act of the Divine Will and shall the Power that wrought this sink under the Charge of gathering some dispers'd Atoms and compacting them into a Human Body †Lingend Tom. 3. p. 779 780. Can you tell how the Dust of the ground was kneaded by God into the Body of Man and changed into Flesh Skin Hair Bones Sinews Veins Arteries and Blood and fitted for so many several Activities when a Human Soul was breath'd into it Can you imagine how a Rib taken from Adam's side a lifeless Bone was formed into Head Hands Feet Eyes Why may not the matter of men which have been be restor'd as well as that which was not be first erected Is it harder to repair those things which were than to create those things which were not Is there not the same Artificer Hath any Disease or Sickliness abated his Power Is the Ancient of days grown feeble or shall the Elements and other Creatures that alway yet obeyed his Command russle against his raising Voice and refuse to disgorge those remains of Human Bodies they have swallowed up in their several Bowels Did the whole World and all the parts of it rise at his word and shall not some parts of the World the Dust of the dead stand up out of the Graves at a word of the same mighty Efficacy Do we not annually see those Marks of Power which may stun our Incredulity in this Concern Do you see in a small Acorn or little Seed any such sights as a Tree with Body Bark Branches Leaves Flowers Fruit where can you find them Do you know the invisible Corners where they lurk in that little Body And yet these you afterwards view rising up from this little Body when sown in the Ground that you could not possibly have any prospect of when you rould it in your hand or opened its Bowels And why may not all the particulars of our Bodies however dispos'd as to their distinct Natures invisibly to us remain distinct as well as if you mingle a thousand Seeds together they will come up in their distinct kinds and preserve their distinct Vertues Again Is not the Making Heaven and Earth the Union of the Divine and Human Nature Eternity and Infirmity to make a Virgin conceive a Son bear the Creator and bring forth the Redeemer to form the Blood of God of the Flesh of a Virgin a greater Work than the Calling together and Uniting the scattered parts of our Bodies which are all of one Nature and Matter And since the Power of God is manifested in pardoning innumerable sins is not the scattering our Transgressions as far as the East is from the West as the expression is Psal 103.12 and casting such numbers into the Depths of the Sea which is Gods Power over himself a greater Argument of Might than the recalling and repairing the Atoms of our Bodies from their various receptacles 'T is not hard for them to believe this of the Resurrection that have been sensible of the weight and force of their Sins and the Power of God in pardoning and vanquishing that mighty resistance which was made in their Hearts against the power of his renewing and sanctifying Grace The consideration of the Infinite Power of God is a good ground of the belief of the Resurrection 8. Since the Power of God is so great and Incomprehensible How strange is it that it should be contemned and abused by the Creatures as it is The Power of God is beaten down by some outraged by others blasphemed by many under their Sufferings The stripping God of the honour of his Creation and the glory of his Preservation of the World falls under this charge Thus do they that deny his framing the World alone or thought the first matter was not of Gods creation and such as fancied an Evil Principle the Author of all Evil as God is the Author of all good and so exempt from the Power of God that it could not be vanquisht by him These things have formerly sound Defenders in the World but they are in themselves ridiculous and vain and have no sooting in common Reason and are not worthy of debate in a Christian Auditory In General All Idolatry in the World did arise from the want of a due Notion of this Infinite Power The Heathen thought one God was was not sufficient for the managing all things in the World and therefore they feign'd several gods that had several charges As Ceres presided over the Fruits of the Earth Esculapius over the Cure of Distempers Mercury for Merchandize and Trade Mars for War and Battles Apollo and Minerva for Learning and Ingenious Arts and Fortune for Casual things Whence doth the other sort of Idolatry the adoring our Bags and Gold our dependencies on and trusting in Creatures for help arise but from Ignorance of God's Power or mean and slender Apprehensions of it First There is a Contempt of it Secondly An Abuse of it 1. 'T is contemn'd in every sin especially in obstinacy in Sin All Sin whatsoever is built upon some false Notion or monstrous Conception of one or other of Gods Perfections and in particular of this It includes a secret and lurking Imagination that we are able to grapple with Omnipotence and enter the lists with Almightiness what else can be judged of the Apostles expression 1 Cor. 10.22 Do we provoke the Lord to jealousie are we stronger than he Do we think we have an Arm too powerful for that Justice we provoke and can repel that Vengeance we exasperate Do we think we are an even match for God and are able to despoil him of his Divinity To despise his Will violate his Order practise what he forbids with a severe Threatning and pawns his Power
Hosannas because without some such conceit it was not probable they should so soon change their note and vote him to the Cross in so short a time after they had applauded him as if he had been upon a Throne but their being defeated of strong Expectations usually ended in a more ardent Fury This turbulent and seditious humour God directs in another Chanel suppresseth all Occurrences that might excite them to a Rebellion against the Romans which if he had given way to the crucifying Christ which was God's design to bring about at that time had not probably been effected and the Salvation of Mankind been hindred or stood at a stay for a time God therefore orders such Objects and Occasions that might direct this seditious Humour to another Chanel which would else have run out in other Actions which had not been conducing to the great Design he had then in the World Is it not the right of God and without any blemish to his Holiness to use those Corruptions which he finds sown in the Nature of his Creature by the hand of Satan and to propose such Objects as may excite the exercise of them for his own service Sure God hath as much right to serve himself of the Creature of his own framing and what Natures soever they are possessed with and to present Objects to that purpose as a Faulconer hath to offer this or that Bird to his Hawk to exercise his courage and excite his ravenousness without being termed the Author of that ravenousness in the Creature God planted not those Corruptions in the Jews but finds them in those Persons over whom he hath an absolute Soveraignty in the right of a Creator and that of a Judge for their sins And by the right of that Soveraignty may offer such Objects and Occasions which though innocent in themselves he knows they will make use of to ill purposes but which by the same decree that he resolves to present such Occasions to them he also resolves to make use of them for his own glory * This I have spoken of before but it is necessary now 'T is not conceivable by us what way that Death of Christ which was necessary for the Satisfaction of Divine Justice could be brought about without ordering the evil of some mens hearts by special Occasions to effect his purpose we cannot suppose that Christ can be guilty of any Crime that deserved Death by the Jewish Law had he been so a Criminal he could not have been a Redeemer A perfect Innocence was necessary to the design of his coming Had God himself put him to that Death without using Instruments of Wickedness in it by some remarkable hand from Heaven the Innocence of his Nature had been for ever eclipsed and the voluntariness of his Sacrifice had been obscur'd The strangeness of such a Judgment would have made his innocence incredible he could not reasonably have been propos'd as an Object of Faith What to believe in one that was struck dead by a hand from Heaven The propagation of the Doctrine of Redemption had wanted a Foundation and though God might have raised him again the certainty of his Death had been as questionable as his Innocence in dying had he not been raised But God orders every thing so as to answer his own most wise and holy ends and maintain his Truth and the fulfilling the Predictions of the minutest Concerns about them and all this by presenting Occasions innocent in themselves which the Corruptions of the Jews took hold of and whereby God unknown to them brought about his own Decrees And may not this be conceived without any taint upon God's Holiness for when there are Seeds of all sin in mans Nature why may not God hinder the sprouting up of this or that kind of Seed and leave liberty to the growth of the other and shut up other ways of sinning and restrain men from them and let them loose to that Temptation which he intends to serve himself of hiding from them those Objects which were not so serviceable to his purpose wherein they would have sinned and offer others which he knew their Corruption would use ill and were serviceable to his ends since the depravation of their Natures would necessarily hurry them to evil without restraining Grace as a Scale will necessarily rise up when the weight in it which kept it down is taken away 7. Proposition The Holiness of God is not blemisht by withdrawing his Grace from a sinful Creature whereby he falls into more sin That God withdraws his Grace from men and gives them up sometimes to the fury of their Lusts is as clear in Scripture as any thing Deut. 29.4 Yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear c. Judas was delivered to Satan after the Sop and put into his power for despising former Admonitions He often leaves the Rains to the Devil that he may use what efficacy he can in those that have offended the Majesty of God he withholds further influences of Grace or withdraws what before he had granted them Thus he withheld that Grace from the Sons of Eli that might have made their Fathers pious Admonitions effectual to them 1 Sam. 2.25 They hearkned not to the voice of their Father because the Lord would slay them He gave Grace to Eli to reprove them and withheld that Grace from them which might have enabled them against their natural Corruption and obstinacy to receive that Reproof But the Holiness of God is not blemisht by this 1. Because the act of God in this is only negative †Testard d◠natur grat Thes 150 151. Amy. on divers Texts p. 311. Thus God is said to harden men Not by positive hardning or working any thing in the Creature but by not working not softening leaving a man to the hardness of his own heart whereby it is unavoidable by the depravation of mans Nature and the fury of his Passions but that he should be further hardned and increase unto more ungodliness as the Expression is 2 Tim. 2.16 As a man is said to give another his life when he doth not take it away when it lay at his mercy so God is said to harden a man when he doth not mollifie him when it was in his power and inwardly quicken him with that Grace whereby he might infallibly avoid any further provoking of him God is said to harden men when he removes not from them the Incentives to sin curbs not those Principles which are ready to comply with those Incentives withdraws the common assistances of his Grace concurs not with counsels and admonitions to make them effectual flasheth not in the convincing light which he darted upon them before If hardness follows upon God's withholding his softening Grace 't is not by any positive act of God but from the natural hardness of Man If you put Fire near to Wax or Rosin both will melt but
Immutable propension of his Nature 't is not so free an act of his Will as the Creation of Man and Angels which he might have forborn as well as effected As the detestation of Sin results from the universal rectitude of his Nature so the punishment of Sin follows upon that as he is the Righteous Governour of the World 'T is as much against his Nature not to punish it as it is against his Nature not to loath it He would cease to be Holy if he ceas'd to hate it and he would cease to hate it if he ceas'd to punish it Neither the Obedience of our Saviours Life nor the strength of his Cries could put a bar to the Cup of his Passion God so hated Sin that when it was but imputed to his Son without any commission of it he would bring a Hell upon his Soul Certainly if God could have hated Sin without punishing it his Son had never felt the smart of his Wrath His love to his Son had been strong enough to have caused him to forbear had not the Holiness of his Nature been stronger to move him to inflict a Punishment according to the demerit of the Sin God cannot but be Holy and therefore cannot but be Just because Injustice is a part of Unholiness 3. Therefore there can be no Communion between God and Vnholy spirits How is it conceivable that God should hate the Sin and cherish the Sinner with all his filth in his bosom that he should Eternally detest the Crime and Eternally fold the Sâ—nner in his Arms Can less be expected from the Purity of his Nature than to separate an impure Soul as long as it remains so Can there be any delightful Communion between those whose Natures are contrary Darkness and Light may as soon kiss each other and become one Nature God and the Devil may as soon enter into an Eternal League and Covenant together For God to have pleasure in wickedness and to admit Evil to dwell with him are things equally impossible to his Nature * Psal â— 4 while he hates Impurity he cannot have Communion with an impure Person It may as soon be expected that God should hate himself offer Violence to his own Nature lay aside his Purity as an Abominable thing and blot his own Glory as love an Impure Person entertain him as his delight and set him in the same Heaven and Happiness with himself and his holy Angels He must needs loath him he must needs banish him from his Presence which is the greatest Punishment Gods Holiness and Hatred of Sin necessarily infer the Punishment of it 5. Information There is therefore a necessity of the satisfaction of the Holiness of God by some sufficient Mediator The Divine Purity could not meet with any acquiescence in all Mankind after the Fall Sin was hated the Sinner would be ruin'd unless some way were found out to repair the Wrongs done to the Holiness of God either the Sinner must be condemned for ever or some Satisfaction must be made that the Holiness of the Divine Nature might Eternally appear in its full lustre That it is Essential to the Nature of God to hate all Unrighteousness as that which is absolutely repugnant to his Nature none do question That the Justice of God is so Essential to him as that Sin could not be pardon'd without Satisfaction some do question though this latter seems rationally to follow upon the former †Turretin de Satiâ—fac p. 8. That Holiness is Essential to the Nature of God is evident because else God may as much be conceived without Purity as he might be conceived without the creating the Sun or Stars No Man can in his right Wits frame a right Notion of a Deity without Purity It would be a less Blasphemy against the Excellency of God to conceit him not Knowing than to imagine him not Holy And for the Essentialness of his Justice Joshua joyns both his Holiness and his Jealousie as going hand in hand together Josh 24.19 He is a Holy God he is a Jealous God he will not forgive your sin But consider only the Purity of God since it is contrary to Sin and consequently hating the Sinner the guilty Person cannot be reduc'd to God nor can the Holiness of God have any complacency in a filthy Person but as Fire hath in Stubble to consume it How the Holy God should be brought to delight in Man without a Salvo for the Rights of his Holiness is not to be conceiv'd without an impeachment of the Nature of God The Law could not be abolish'd that would reflect indeed upon the Righteousness of the Law-giver to abolish it because of Sin would imply a change of the Rectitude of his Nature Must be change his Holiness for the sake of that which was against his Holiness in a compliance with a prophane and unrighteous Creature This should engage him rather to maintain his Law than to null it And to abrogate his Law as soon as he had enacted it since Sin stept into the World presently after it would be no credit to his Wisdom There must be a reparation made of the Honour of Gods Holiness by our selves it could not be without Condemnation by another it could not be without a sufficiency in the Person No Creature could do it All the Creatures being of a finite Nature could not make a compensation for the disparagements of Infinite Holiness He must have despicable and vile Thoughts of this Excellent Perfection that imagines that a few Tears and the glavering Fawnings at the death of a Creature can be sufficient to repair the Wrongs and restore the Rights of this Attribute It must therefore be such a compensation as might be commensurate to the Holiness of the Divine Nature and the Divine Law which could not be wrought by any but him that was possessed of a Godhead to give efficacy and exact congruity to it The Person design'd and appointed by God for so great an affair was one in the form of God one equal with God Phil. 2.6 who could not be term'd by such a Title of Dignity if he had not been equal to God in the universal rectitude of the Divine Nature and therefore in his Holiness The Punishment due to Sin is translated to that Person for the righting Divine Holiness and the Righteousness of that Person is communicated to the Sinner for the Pardon of the Offending Creature If the Sinner had been Eternally damn'd Gods hatred of Sin had been evidenc'd by the strokes of his Justice but his Mercy to a Sinner had lain in obscurity If the Sinner had been Pardoned and Saved without such a reparation Mercy had been evident but his Holiness had hid its head for ever in his own bosom There was therefore a necessity of such a way to manifest his Purity and yet to bring forth his Mercy That Mercy might not alway sigh for the destruction of the Creature and that Holiness might not mourn
he might be a Rewarder and Threatens that he might not be a Punisher the one is to elevate our hope and the other to excite our fear the two Passions whereby the Nature of Man is manag'd in the World He imprints upon Man Sentiments of a Misery by Sin in his thundring Commination that he might engage him the more to embrace and be guided by the Motives of Sweetness in his gracious Promises The design of them was to preserve Man in his due bounds that God might not have occasion to blow upon him the Flames of his Justice to suppress those irregular Passions which the Nature of Man though Created without any disorder was capable of entertaining upon the appearance of suitable Objects and to keep the Waves from swelling upon any turning Wind that so Man being modest in the use of the Goodness God had allowed him might still be capable of fresh streams of Divine Bounty without ever falling under his Righteous Wrath for any Transgression What a prospect of Goodness is in this proceeding to disclose Mans Happiness to be as durable as his Innocence and set before a Rational Creature the extreamest Misery due to his Crime to affright him from neglecting his Creator and making unworthy Returns to his Goodness What could be done more by Goodness to suit that passion of fear which was implanted in the Nature of Man than to assure him he should not degenerate from the Righteousness of his Nature and violate the Authority of his Creator without falling from his own Happiness and sinking into the most deplorable Calamity 3. The Reward he promised manifests yet further his Goodness to Man It was his Goodness to intend a Reward to Man No necessity could oblige God to Reward Man had he continued obedient in his Created State For in all Rewards which are truly Merited besides some kind of equality to be consider'd between the Person doing Service and the Person Rewarding and also between the Act performed and the Reward bestow'd there must also be consider'd the condition of the Person doing the Service that he is not oblig'd to do it as a Duty but is at his own choice whether to offer it or no But Man being wholly dependent on God in his Being and Preservation having nothing of his own but what he had receiv'd from the hands of Divine Bounty †1 Cor. 4.7 his Service was due by the strongest Obligation to God But there was no natural Engagement on God to return a Reward to him for Man could return nothing of his own but that only which he had received from his Creator It must be pure Goodness that gives a gracious Reward for a due Debt to receive his own from Man and return more than he had received A Divine Reward doth far surmount the value of a Rational Service It was therefore a mighty Goodness to stipulate with Man that upon his Obedience he should enjoy an Immortality in that Nature * Amyral Dissertat p. 637 638. The Article on Mans part was Obedience which was necessarily just and founded in the Nature of Man He had been unjust ungrateful and violated all Laws of Righteousness had he committed any act unworthy of one that had been so great a Subject of Divine Liberality But the Article on Gods part of giving a perpetual Blessedness to Innocent Man was not founded upon Rules of strict Justice and Righteousness for that would have argu'd God to be a Debtor to Man but that God cannot be to the Work of his hands that had receiv'd the Materials of his Being and Acting from him as the Vessel doth from the Potter But this was founded only on the Goodness of the Divine Nature whereby he cannot but be kind to an innocent and holy Creature The Nature of God enclin'd him to it by the Rules of Goodness but the Service of Man could not claim it by the Rules of Justice without a Stipulation So that the Covenant whereby God oblig'd himself to continue the Happiness of Man upon the continuance of his Obedience in the Original of it springs from pure Goodness though the performance of it upon the fulfilling Condition requir'd in the Creature was founded upon the Rules of Righteousness and Truth after Divine Goodness had brought it forth God did Create Man for a Reward and Happiness Now Gods implanting in the Nature of Man a desire after Happiness and some higher Happiness than he had in Creation invested him in doth evidence that God did not Create Man only for his own Service but for his attaining a greater Happiness All Rational Creatures are possessed with a Principle of seeking after Good the highest Good and God did not plant in Man this Principle in vain It had not been Goodness to put this Principle in Man if he had design'd never to bestow a Happiness on Man for his Obedience This had been Repugnant to the Goodness and Wisdom of God And the Scripture doth very Emphatically express the Felicity of Man to be the design of God in the first forming him and moulding him a Creature as well as working him a new Creature †2 Cor. 5.1 2. He that hath wrought us for the self same thing is God He framed this Earthly Tabernacle for a Residence in an Eternal Habitation and a better Habitation than an Earthly Paradise What we expect in the Resurrection that very same thing God did in Creation intend us for but since the Corruption of our Natures we must undergo a dissolution of our Bodies and may have just reason of a despondency since Sin hath seem'd to change the course of Gods Bounty and brought us under a Curse He hath given us the Earnest of his Spirit as an assurance that he will perform that very self same thing the conferring that Happiness upon renewed Creatures for which he first form'd Man in Creation when he compacted his Earthly Tabernacle of the dust of the Ground and rear'd it up before him 4. It was a mighty Goodness that God should give Man an Eternal Reward That an Eternity of Reward was promised is implied in the Death that was threatned upon Transgression Whatsoever you conceive the threatned Death to be either for Nature or duration upon Transgression of the same Nature and duration you must suppose the life to be which is implied upon his constancy in his Integrity As Sin would render him an Eternal Object of Gods hatred so his Obedience would render him an Eternally amiable Object to his Creator as the standing Angels are preserved and confirmed in an intire Felicity and Glory Though the threatning be only exprest by God * Gen. 2.17 yet the other is implied and might easily be concluded from it by Adam And one reason why God only exprest the Threatning and not the Promise was because man might collect some hopes and expectations of a perpetual Happiness from that Image of God which he beheld in himself and from the large
Himself By giving his Son he hath given himself and in both Gifts he hath given all things to us The Creator of all things is eminently all things He hath given all things into the hands of his Son * Joh. 3.35 and by consequence given all things into the hands of his Redeem'd Creatures by giving them him to whom he gave all things Whatsoever we were invested in by Creation whatsoever we were depriv'd of by Corruption and more he hath deposited in safe hands for our enjoyment And what can Divine Goodness do more for us What further can it give unto us than what it hath given and in that Gift design'd for us 3. This Goodness is enhanc'd by considering the State of Man in the first Transgression and since 1. Mans first Transgression If we should rip up every Vein of that first Sin should we find any want of Wickedness to excite a just Indignation What was there but ingratitude to Divine Bounty and Rebellion against Divine Soveraignty The Royalty of God was attempted the Supremacy of Divine knowledge above Mans own knowledge envied the Riches of Goodness whereby he lived and breathed slighted There is a discontent with God upon an unreasonable Sentiment that God had denied a knowledge to him which was his right and due when there should have been an humble acknowledgment of that unmerited Goodness which had not only given him a Being above other Creatures but placed him the Governor and Lord of those that were inferior to him What alienation of his understanding was there from knowing God and of his will from loving him A Debauch of all his Faculties A Spiritual Adultery in preferring not only one of Gods Creatures but one of his desperate Enemies before him thinking him a wiser Counsellor than Infinite Wisdom and imagining him possessed with kinder affections to him than that God who had newly Created him Thus he joyns in League with Hell against Heaven with a Fallen Spirit against his Bountiful Benefactor and enters into Society with Rebels that just before commenc'd a War against his and their common Soveraign He did not only falter in but cast off the Obedience due to his Creator endeavoured to purloin his Glory and actually murder'd all those that were vertually in his Loyns * Rom. 5.12 Sin enter'd into the World by him and Death by Sin and passed upon all Men taking them off from their Subjection to God to be Slaves to the damn'd Spirits and Heirs of their Misery And after all this he adds a foul imputation on God taxing him as the Author of his Sin and thereby stains the Beauty of his Holiness But notwithstanding all this God stops not up the Floodgates of his Goodness nor doth he entertain Fiery Resolutions against Man but brings forth a healing Promise and sends not an Angel upon Commission to Reveal it to him but Preaches it himself to this Forlorn and Rebellious Creature †Gen. 3.15 2. Could there be any thing in this Fallen Creature to allure God to the Expression of his Goodness Was there any good action in all his Carriage that could plead for a readmission of him to his former State Was there one good quality left that could be an Orator to perswade Divine Goodness to such a gracious Procedure Was there any Moral Goodness in Man after this Debauch that might be an Object of Divine Love What was there in him that was not rather a provocation than an allurement Could you expect that any Perfection in God should find a Motive in this ungrateful Apostate to open a Mouth for him and be an Advocate to support him and bring him off from a just Tribunal Or after Divine Goodness had begun to pity and plead for Man is it not wonderful that it should not discontinue the Plea after it found Mans Excuse to be as black as his Crime * Gen. 3.12 and his Carriage upon his Examination to be as disobliging as his first Revolt It might well be expected that all the Perfections in the Divine Nature would have entered into an association eternally to treat this Rebel according to his deserts What attractives were there in a silly Worm much less in such compleat Wickedness inexcusable Enmity infamous Rebellion to design a Redeemer for him and such a Person as the Son of God to a Fleshy Body an Eclipse of Glory and an ignominious Cross The meaness of Man was further from alluring God to it than the dignity of Angels 3. Was there not a World of demerit in Man to animate Grace as well as Wrath against him We were so far from deserving the opening any Streams of Goodness that we had merited Floods of devouring Wrath. What were all Men but Enemies to God in a high manner Every offence was infinite as being committed against a Being of Infinite Dignity it was a stroke at the very Being of God A resistance of all his Attributes it would degrade him from the height and Perfection of his Nature it would not by its good will suffer God to be God If he that hates his Brother is a Murderer of his Brother he that hates his Creator is a Murderer of the Deity * Joh. 1.3.15 and every Carnal mind is Enmity to God †Rom. 8.7 Every Sin envies him his Authority by breaking his Precept and envies him his Goodness by defacing the Marks of it Every Sin comprehends in it more than Men or Angels can conceive That God who only hath the clear apprehensions of his own Dignity hath the sole clear apprehensions of Sins Malignity All Men were thus by Nature those that Sinned before the coming of the Redeemer had been in a State of Sin those that were to come after him would be in a State of Sin by their Birth and be Criminals as soon as ever they were Creatures All Men as well the Glorifi'd as those in the Flesh at the coming of the Redeemer and those that were to be born after were consider'd in a State of Sin by God when he bruis'd the Redeemer for them All were filthy and unworthy of the Eye of God All had employ'd the Faculties of their Souls and the Members of their Bodies which they enjoyed by his Goodness against the interest of his Glory Every Rational Creature had made himself a Slave to those Creatures over whom he had been appointed a Lord subjected himself as a Servant to his Inferior and strutted as a Superior against his Liberal Soveraign and by every Sin rendred himself more a Child of Satan and Enemy of God and more worthy of the Curses of the Law and the Torments of Hell Was it not now a mighty Goodness that would surmount those high Mountains of Demerit and elevate such Creatures by the Depression of his Son Had we been possessed of the highest Holiness a Reward had been the natural effect of Goodness It was not possible that God should be unkind to a Righteous and Innocent Creature
neither one nor other can be denied him without a sordid and disingenuous ingratitude God therefore aggravates the Rebellion of the Jews from the cares he had in the bringing them up * Isaiah 2.2 and the miraculous deliverance from Egypt †Jer. 11.7 8. implying that those Benefits were strong Obligations to an ingenuous observance of him 2. It is Establisht upon this That God can enjoin the observance of nothing but what is good He may by the Right of his Soveraign Dominion command that which is indifferent in its own Nature As in positive Laws The not eating the Fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil which had not been evil in it self set aside the Command of God to the contrary and likewise in those Ceremonial Laws he gave the Jews But in regard of the transcendent Goodness and Righteousness of his Nature he will not he cannot Command any thing that is evil in it self or repugnant to the true interest of his Creature And God never oblig'd the Creature to any thing but what was so free from damaging it that it highly conduced to its good and welfare and therefore it is said * 1 Joh. 5.3 That his Commands are not grievous Not grievous in their own Nature nor grievous to one possest with a true Reason The Command given to Adam in Paradise was not grievous in it self nor could he ever have thought it so but upon a false supposition instill'd into him by the Tempter There is a pleasure results from the Law of God to a holy Rational Nature a sweetness tasted both by the Understanding and by the Will for they both rejoice the heart and enlighten the Eyes of the Mind * Psal 19.8 God being Essentially Wisdom and Goodness cannot deviate from that Goodness in any Orders he gives the Creature whatsoever he Enacts must be agreeable to that Rule and therefore he can Will nothing but what is good and excellent and what is good for the Creature As a Heathen Maximus Tyrius Dissert 22. p. 220. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For since he hath put Originally into Man a Natural Instinct to desire that which is good He would never Enact any thing for the Creatures observance that might controul that desire imprinted by himself but what might countenance that Impression of his own hand for if God did otherwise he would contradict his own Natural Law and be a Deluder of his Creatures if he imprest upon them desires one way and order'd directions another The truth is all his Moral Precepts are Comely in themselves and they receive not their goodness from Gods positive Command but that Command supposeth their goodness If every thing were good because God loves it or because God wills it i. e. That Gods loving it or willing it made that good which was not good before then as Camero well argues somewhere Gods goodness would depend upon his loving himself He was good because he loved himself and was not good till he loved himself whereas indeed Gods loving himself doth not make him good but supposeth him good He was good in the Order of Nature before he loved himself and his being good was the ground of his loving himself because as was said before if there were any thing better than God God would love that For it is inconsistent with the Nature of God and Infinite Goodness not to love that which is good and not to love that supreamly which is the Supream Good Further to understand it you may consider If the Question be askt Why God loves himself You would think it a reasonable Answer to say Because he is good But if the Question be askt Why God is good You would think that Answer because he loves himself would be destitute of Reason but the true Answer would be Because his Nature is so and he could not be God if he were not good Therefore Gods goodness is in order of our conception before his self-love and not his self-love before his goodness So the Moral things God Commands are good in themselves before God Commands them and such that if God should Command the contrary it would openly speak him evil and unrighteous Abstract from Scripture and weigh things in your own Reason Could you conceive God good if he should Command a Creature not to love him Could you preserve the Notion of a good Nature in him if he did Command Murder Adultery Tyranny and Cutting of Throats You would wonder to what purpose he made the World and fram'd it for Society if such things were order'd that should deface all Comeliness of Society The Moral Commands given in the Word appeared of themselves very beautiful to meer Reason that had no knowledge of the Written Law they are good and because they are so his goodness had moved his Soveraign Authority strictly to enjoyn them Now this goodness whereby he cannot oblige a Creature to any thing that is evil speaks him highly worthy of our Observance and our Disobedience to his Law to be full of unconceivable Malignity That is the last thing 2. Use is a Use of Comfort He is a Good without mixture Good without weariness none good but God none good purely none good inexhaustibly but God because he is good we may upon our speaking expect his instruction * Psal 25.8 Good is the Lord therefore will he teach Sinners in his way His goodness makes him stoop to be the Tutor to those Worms that lie prostrate before him and though they are Sinners full of filth he drives them not from his School nor denies them his Medicines if they apply themselves to him as a Physician He is good in removing the Punishment due to our Crimes and good in bestowing Benefits not due to our Merits because he is good Penitent Believers may expect forgiveness * Psal 86.5 Thou Lord art good and ready to forgive He acts not according to the rigor of the Law but willingly grants his Pardon to those that flie into the Arms of the Mediator His goodness makes him more ready to forgive than our necessities make us desirous to enjoy He charged not upon Job his impatient Expressions in Cursing the day of his Birth his goodness passed that over in silence and extolls him for speaking the thing that is right right in the main * Job 42.7 when he charges his Friends for not speaking of him the thing that is right as his Servant Job had done He is so good that if we offer the least thing sincerely he will graciously receive it If we have not a Lamb to offer a Pigeon or Turtle shall be accepted upon his Altar He stands not upon Costly presents but sincerely tender'd Services All Conditions are sweeten'd by it whatsoever any in the World enjoy is from a redundancy of this goodness but whatsoever a good Man enjoys is from a propriety in this goodness 1. Here is Comfort in our Addresses to him If
proper subsistence by it self which now it borrows from its union with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word but that doth not belong to the Constitution of its Nature Now let us Consider what a wonder of Power is all this The knitting a Noble Soul to a Body of Clay was not so great an exploit of Almightiness as the espousing Infinite and Finite together Man is further distant from God than Man from Nothing What a wonder is it that two Natures infinitely distant should be more intimately united than any thing in the World and yet without any confusion That the same Person should have both a Glory and a Grief an infinite Joy in the Deity and an unexpressible Sorrow in the Humanity That a God upon a Throne should be an Infant in a Cradle the Thundering Creator be a weeping Babe and a suffering Man are such expressions of mighty Power as well as condescending Love that they astonish Men upon Earth and Angels in Heaven 3. Power was evident in the progress of his life In the Miracles he wrought How often did he expel malicious and powerful Devils from their habitations hurl them from their Thrones and make them fall from Heaven like Lightning How many Wonders were wrought by his bare Word or a single Touch Sight restored to the Blind and Hearing to the Deaf Palsie Members restored to the exercise of their functions a dismiss given to many deplorable Maladies impure Leprosies chas'd from the Persons they had infected and Bodies beginning to putrifie rais'd from the Grave But the mightiest Argument of Power was his Patience That he who was in his Divine Nature elevated above the World should so long continue upon a Dung-hill endure the contradiction of Sinners against himself be patiently subject to the Reproaches and Indignities of Men without displaying that Justice which was essential to the Deity and in especial manner daily merited by their provoking Crimes The Patience of Man under great Affronts is a greater Argument of power than the Brawnyness of his Arm A Strength employ'd in the revenge of every Injury signifies a greater infirmity in the Soul than there can be ability in the Body 4. Divine Power was apparent in his Resurrection The unlocking the belly of the Whale for the deliverance of Jonas the rescue of Daniel from the Den of Lions and the restraining the Fire from burning the Three Children were signal declarations of his Power and types of the Resurrection of our Saviour But what are those to that which was represented by them That was a power over Natural causes a curbing of Beasts and restraining of Elements But in the Resurrection of Christ God exercis'd a power over himself and quencht the flames of his own Wrath hotter than Millions of Nebuchadnezzars Furnaces unlockt the Prison doors wherein the Curses of the Law had lodg'd our Saviour stronger than the Belly and Ribbs of a Leviathan In the rescue of Daniel and Jonas God overpowered Beasts and in this tore up the strength of the Old Serpent and pluckt the Scepter from the hand of the Enemy of Mankind The Work of Resurrection indeed considered in it self requires the efficacy of an Almighty Power Neither Man nor Angel can create new dispositions in a Dead Body to render it capable of lodging a Spiritual Soul nor can they restore a dislodged Soul by their own power to such a Body The restoring a Dead Body to life requires an Infinite Power as well as the Creation of the World But there was in the Resurrection of Christ something more difficult than this while he lay in the Grave he was under the Curse of the Law under the execution of that dreadful Sentence Thou shalt die the death His Resurrection was not only the re-tying â—he Marriage knot between his Soul and Body or the rouling the Stone from the Grave but a taking off an infinite weight the Sin of Mankind which lay upon him So vast a weight could not be removed without the strength of an Almighty Arm. 'T is therefore ascrib'd not to an ordinary operation but an operation with Power †Rom. 1.4 and such a Power wherein the Glory of the Father did appear Rom. 6.4 Rais'd up from the dead by the glory of the Father that is the glorious Power of God As the Eternal Generation is stupendous so is his Resurrection which is called a new begetting of him Acts 13.33 'T is a wonder of Power that the Divine and Humane Nature should be joyn'd and no less wonder that his Person should surmount and rise up from the Curse of God under which he lay The Apostle therefore adds one expression to another and heaps up a variety signifying thereby that one was not enough to represent it Eph. 1.19 Exceeding greatness of power and working of mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead It was an hyperbole of Power the excellency of the Mightiness of his Strength the loftiness of the expressions seems to come short of the apprehension he had of it in his Soul Secondly This Power appears in the Publication and Propagation of the Doctrine of Redemption The Divine Power will appear if you consider 1. The Nature of the Doctrine 2. The Instruments employed in it 3. The Means they us'd to propagate it 4. The Success they had I. The Nature of the Doctrine 1. It was contrary to the common received reason of the World The Philosophers the Masters of Knowledge among the Gentiles had Maxims of a different stamp from it Though they agreed in the Being of a God yet their Notions of his Nature were confus'd and embroil'd with many Errors the Unity of God was not commonly assented unto They had multiplied Deities acâ—ording to the Fancies they had received from some of a more elevated Wit and refin'd Brain than others Though they had some notion of Mediators yet they placed in those Seats their publick Benefactors Men that had been useful to the World or their particular Countries in imparting to them some profitable Invention To discard those was to charge themselves with Ingratitude to them from whom they had received signal benefits and to whose Mediation Conduct or Protection they ascrib'd all the Success they had been blessed with in their several Provinces and to charge themselves with Folly for rendring an Honour and Worship to them so long Could the Doctrine of a Crucified Mediator whom they had never seen that had conquer'd no Country for them never enlarg'd their Territories brought to light no new profitable Invention for the increase of their Earthly welfare as the rest had done be thought sufficient to balance so many of their reputed Heroes How ignorant were they in the foundations of the True Religion The belief of a Providence was staggering nor had they a true prospect of the nature of Vertue and Vice Yet they had a fond Opinion of the strength of their own Reason and the Maxims that had