These are all plain and easie Deductions and seem as naturally to follow from one another as the most immediate Consequences do from First Principles This therefore being supposed which you see is very reasonable that God is infinitely Powerful and Wise and Happy and that because he is so he loves himself infinitely I doubt not but from each of these it will naturally follow that he is also infinitely good and benevolent 1. He is infinitely powerful and therefore he is good For Power is nothing but an Ability to act and Action is the End of all Ability for Action So that the greater any Power is the farther it must necessarily be removed from Inactivity and consequently infinite Power must be so infinitely removed from it that it cannot be supposed to exist without Exercise or if it could yet it cannot be imagined that any Being in whom infinite Power exists should determine with it self that the best Use it could make of that Power were to make no Use of it at all because such a Being can with as much Ease to it self act as not act And therefore since every Being doth necessarily delight in the Exercise of its own Perfections it cannot be supposed but a Being infinitely powerful should necessarily delight in the Exercise of its Power when it can as easily exercise it as suffer it to sleep on in eternal Inactivity and consequently when it can exercise its Power more vigorously as easily as less and can do more Things as easily as fewer it must necessarily chuse to do it because as the having of Power inclines the Agent to act so the having of more Power inclines it to act more vigorously Wherefore if the doing of Good to others be a much greater Exercise of Power than the doing of Evil it will hence necessarily follow that God being infinitely powerful must be infinitely prone to do Good because he cannot but be delighted in that whereby this great Perfection of his Nature is most vigorously Exercised But now for God to chuse to imploy his Power in doing Mischief to others rather than Good would be to chuse to do less rather than to do more when both are equally easy to him and consequently to lay a needless Restriction upon the Exercise of his Power and so far to render it useless and in vain For in doing Mischief to others he must be supposed either wholly to annihilate them or to make them miserable and continue them so but by doing Good to others he must be supposed either to uphold them in those Beings he gave them or to perfect those Beings and thereby to render them as happy as their Capacities will bear And certainly to do either of the later is a much more vigorous Exercise of Power than to do either of the former For for God to annihilate Beings or reduce them to Nothing is rather to withdraw his Power from them than to exercise it upon them because that which is not of it self cannot continue to be of it self it being in the Nature of the Thing as possible for a Thing to be of it self in the first Moment of its Existence as to be of it self in any Moment of its Duration So that the Continuance of our Being and the Original of it must necessarily be owing to the same Power and consequently as our Continuance in Not-Being must necessarily have followed upon the Non-exercise of this Power so our Relapse into Not-being must as necessarily follow from the Discontinuance of the Exercise of this Power So that to our Annihilation there needs no more than the bare Suspension of the Exercise of Almighty Power upon us or a ceasing to uphold us in Being for to the upholding us in Being there is required a continued Exertion of that creative Power that first brought us into Being for if we can exist of our selves this one Moment we might as well have done so the Moment before and may as well do so the Moment after and so backward and forward to all Eternity So that unless we had such an exuberant Fulness of Essence in us as to exist of our selves from all Eternity past to all Eternity to come we cannot exist so much as one Moment without new Supplies of Being from that infinite Fountain whence we were originally derived and that we are this Moment is as much the Effect of God's Power as that we were that Moment when we first came into Being So that whereas by annihilating us God would chuse to exercise no Power at all that is to render his own Omnipotence useless by giving it a Quietus from Action by upholding us in Being his Power is still as vigorously exercised about us as it was in the first Moment of our Creation and therefore by how much more suitable it is to infinite Power to act than to be idle by so much more suitable to it it must necessarily be to uphold us in our Beings than to annihilate and destroy us And then for making us miserable and continuing us so it is a much less vigorous Exercise of Power than to perfect our Beings and thereby to render us happy And verily should God turn the whole World into one intire Globe of unquenchable Fire and continue its wretched Inhabitants for ever weltring in its Flames I should not look upon this as so great an Act of Omnipotence as it is to perfect our rational Nature so as to render it immutably and eternally happy For to the making of any Being perfect and happy there is required many more Causes and many more Acts than there is to the making them miserable For the greatest Part of Misery consists in the Privation of Happiness and for God to deprive his Creatures of Happiness is not so much the Exercise as Non-exercise of his Power for then he deprives us of it when he ceases to do any Thing for us and refuses to produce or to contribute to the producing of what tends to our Happiness So that this Part of Misery consisting in a mere Privation is not so properly the Effect of the Exercise of Power as of the Suspension of the Exercise of Power So that unless we can suppose that the Omnipotent Creator of the World chuses rather not to act than to act we must necessarily suppose that he chuses rather to bestow Happiness on his Creatures than to deprive them of it And as for the positive Part of Misery which consists in Pain and Torment I dare appeal to any Man whether it be not much more easie to vex and torment any Being than it is to render it happy For even a Child can put a Man yea an Elephant to Pain but to make a sick Man well a poor Man prosperous a mad Man sober or a Fool wise are such mighty Things as do most commonly transcend all humane Power whatsoever But then to retrieve such imperfect Beings as we from the Bondage of Sense and Sensuality and from being almost
and easie in themselves II. That Christ by what he hath done hath rendred them much more facile than they are in themselves I. That the Commands of God are facile and easie in themselves And this will evidently appear if we consider 1. That whatsoever they enjoyn hath some natural Good appendent to it 2. That every Thing which they enjoyn is highly agreeable to our reasonable Natures 3. That They are all perfective of our Natures and conducive to our Happiness 4. That in themselves they are plain and simple and direct and have no Intricacies or Labyrinths in them 5. That they are all so inseparably connected to one another that they mutually promote and help forwards each other 1. That whatsoever they enjoyn hath some natural Good inseparably appendent to it to sweeten and endear it The great and wise First-Mover hath so ordered Things in the Course of Motion which he hath established that such and such Actions should be ordinarily attended with such and such Effects and Consequents and this is one great Way by which he hath signified to the World his Dislike or Approbation of humane Actions by the Effects and Consequents which he hath chained and annexed to them If in the Course of Things which he hath established such an Action be ordinarily attended with a good Effect he thereby signifies his Approbation of it and declares that it is his Will and Pleasure that we should do and persevere in doing it But if the Consequents which in the Course of Nature are ordinarily linked to such an Action are evil and hurtful he thereby declares his Dislike and Abhorrence of it and that it is his Will and Pleasure that we should carefully and constantly avoid it For the great Author of our Beings hath so framed our Natures and placed us in such Circumstances and Relations that there is nothing vicious but is also injurious to us nothing virtuous but is advantagious and in this the Good and Evil of all humane Virtues and Vices do consist and 't is purely for this Reason why he forbids the one and commands the other because he is our Friend and would not have us neglect any Thing that tends to our Good nor do any Thing that is hurtful and injurious to us and because he knows that while we are thus framed and do continue in these Circumstances and Relations it is impossible but Virtue should be an Advantage and Vice a Mischief to our Natures And indeed the great Sanction of the Law of Nature is nothing else but that natural Good and Evil which is ordinarily consequent to the Actions which it commands and forbids For when God had no otherwise revealed himself to the World than only by the established Course and Nature of Things that was the only Bible whereby Mankind could be instructed in his Will and Pleasure and there being no Threats or Promises antecedently annexed unto bad and good Actions his Will and Pleasure concerning our doing or avoiding them was only visible in those good or bad Effects and Consequences which in the Course of Nature he had made necessary to them And indeed the Moral Good and Evil of all Actions is finally to be resolved into the natural Good and Evil that is appendent to them for therefore our Actions are morally good because they are naturally beneficial to us and therefore are they morally evil because they are naturally prejudicial and hurtful and those that are neither of these are indifferent Actions and stand in the middle between Good and Evil. And indeed this Distinction of Actions by their Effects and Consequents is in most Particulars so plain and sensible that all the World hath taken Notice of it For whereas all good Actions have an apparent Tendency either to the Publick Good wherein our own Private is involved or to our own animal and sensitive Good our Quiet and Health and Reputation and Prosperity or to the Perfection of our rational Natures and the sovereign Pleasure and Happiness of our Minds all bad Actions tend directly contrary either to the Damage and Ruine of the Publick-Weal or to the Hurt and Prejudice of our animal and sensitive Felicity to the diseasing of our Bodies the staining our Names or the impoverishing our Estates or to the defacing and blemishing the Beauty of our rational Natures and the Interruption and Disturbance of all the Pleasures and Felicities of our Minds And this Distinction of good and evil Actions is so immutably fixed in the Nature of Things that it can never be obliterated until God wholly alters the Course of his Creation and impresses quite contrary Laws of Motion on it For so long as we continue what we are in the same Nature and Circumstances and Relations to God and one another Righteousness and Godliness Humility and universal Love must necessarily be good for us and their Contraries bad and destructive to our Happiness Now this wise and excellent Constitution of Things doth very much tend to the facilitating of Virtue and Goodness to us For when Things are so constituted that it is become our Interest as well as our Duty to pursue Virtue and eschew Vice when that which distinguishes our Duty from our Sin is the good that it doth us and the apparent Tendency it hath to our Happiness this if we love our selves must needs very much endear and recommend it to us For now we serve our selves in serving our Maker the substance of all whose Injunctions is no more than this that we should pursue our own Happiness by doing all those Things which are necessary thereunto I confess had he made those Actions which are our Sins to be our Duty we had then some Reason to complain for then we should have been bound in pure Obedience to God to damnify our selves and like the wretched Priests of Baal to cut and slash our own Bodies and Souls meerly to humour and gratify the Divinity whom we adore then in obeying him we must have acted our own Tragedy and made our selves miserable in pure Loyalty to our Maker For there is such an inseparable Bane clings to all vicious Actions as necessarily renders them destructive and venomous and we may as soon clip off the Sun-beams with a Pair of Scissers as separate Vice from its mischievous Consequences But now when the Sum of all that God requires of us is to be good to our selves and Friends to our own Happiness to do what is beneficial and avoid what is hurtful to us when every Command of his is an Instance of his Love to us and exacts nothing of us but what we would have done of our own Accord had we but known what is good for us as well as he and loved our selves as well as he loves us In a word when at the End of every good Action there stands some natural Good beckning and inviting us to it and at the End of every bad One some natural Evil to warn and affright us from coming
Psal. lxxxiv 11 Who would not then be tempted to Righteousness upon the Prospect of being a Favourite of God and of the infinite Glory and Advantage which redounds from thence 4 thly And lastly From hence I infer how inexcusable we are if we persist in Sin after the many Discoveries which God hath made to us of his Love of Righteousness Had we any Reason to suppose that God is indifferently affected towards Righteousness and Sin it would be a fair Excuse for unrighteous Persons for what great Matter would it be which of the two Contraries we chose if both were indifferent to God who best understands the Worth and Value of Things But now when God hath discovered such a zealous Concern for Righteousness and such an Abhorrence of its contrary by so many clear Indications both natural and supernatural there is no Ground or Colour for any such Excuse For now no Man can be excusably ignorant which way God's Heart is inclined and we must wilfully shut our Eyes if we do not discern which of the two Contraries he would have us pursue and therefore if notwithstanding this we still persist in unrighteousness we do in Effect declare that we regard not God and that we will do what we list let him will what he pleases that in the Conduct of our Actions we will have the sole Disposal of our selves and are resolved that God shall have nothing to do with us and that we will not concern our selves in any of our Choices or Actions whether he be pleased or displeased with them this is the plain Sense of our Perseverance in Unrighteousness under all those clear Discoveries which God hath made of his Aversion to it Now how incusable is this for a Creature to behave it self so insolently towards the Author and Owner of its Being to make him stand for a Cypher in his own Creation and to take no more Notice of him than if he were the most impertinent and insignificant Being in the World For now it 's plain that our unrighteous Doings proceed from our rude Contempt and Regardlesness of his heavenly Will we know well enough what he would have us do but either we do not think him worth the minding or if we do we are resolv'd to behave our selves as if we did not 'T is true he hath not made as full a Discovery of his Will to some as he hath to others but yet it is plain he hath so sufficiently discovered it to all that none can pretend to the Excuse of Ignorance For as for the Heathens though they have no revealed Discoveries of it without them yet they have a Bible within them the large and legible Bible of Nature which lies continually open before them and proposes to their View in fair and distinct Characters the Notion of God the Distinctions of Good and Evil and the eternal Laws of Righteousness and therefore if notwithstanding this they will be so regardless of its great and blessed Author as either not to attend to or not comply with these natural Discoveries of his Will what Excuse can they make why they should not perish in their own Obstinacy For as the Apostle tells us though they have not the Law i. e. the revealed Law yet they did or at least might have done by nature the things contained in the Law and therefore as many of them as have sinned without this revealed Law shall also perish without it that is by the Sentence of the Law of Nature Rom. 2.12 14. And then as for the Jews besides those natural Indications of God's Love of Righteousness which they had in common with the Heathen they had sundry supernatural ones they had sundry great and notorious Examples of God's rewarding righteous and punishing wicked Men and the outward Revelation of the Law of Moses the moral Part of which was a new Edition of the Law of Nature and did contain within the Rine and Letter of it the most sublime and spiritual Precepts of Righteousness and the Ceremonial Part of which was though an obscure yet intelligible Representation of all those spiritual Motives to Righteousness which Christianity contains So that would they but have attended either to the spiritual Sense of their Law or to the Sermons of their Prophets which very much cleared and explained it they could not have been ignorant either of any Part of their Duty or of any considerable Motive that was needful to press and ingage them to it If therefore notwithstanding this they were so regardless of God as to take no Notice of those many sensible Distinctions which his Providence had made between righteous and unrighteous Men in blessing the one and punishing the other of which he gave them so many signal Examples if they had so little Reverence for his Authority as neither to mind his Law within nor his Law without them or if they minding the later were so extreamly heedless as to rest in a mere Conformity to the Letter of it without ever attending to its spiritual Sense and Meaning upon what reasonable Pretence can their Stupidity be excused But then lastly as for us Christians we have not only all those natural Indications of God's Love of Righteousness which the Heathens had and all those supernatural ones which the Jews had but we have all these later with much greater Advantage than the Jews for they are all set before us in a clearer Light and presented much more naked to our View For as they are proposed to us they are neither wrapt up in mystical Senses nor clouded over with typical Representations but laid before us in the most plain and easie Propositions The literal Sense of our Precepts of Righteousness and of all our Promises and Threats is the mystical Sense of theirs and all those Christian Motives to Righteousness which were delivered to them in dark Riddles and obscure and typical Adumbrations are brought forth to us from behind the Curtain and proposed in plain and popular Articles of Faith So that if we still continue in Unrighteousness we are of all Men in the World the most inexcusable The Heathens may plead against the Jews that their Law of Nature was not so clear in its Precepts nor yet so cogent in its Motives as the Law of Moses was The Jews may plead against us Christians that their Law of Moses was neither so express in its Precepts nor yet so intelligible in its best and most powerful Motives but as for us Christians we have nothing at all to plead but by our own Obstinacy against the clearest Discoveries both of our Dury and the Motives which oblige us to it are condemned to everlasting Silence So that when at the last Tribunal it shall appear that we have persisted in Unrighteousness we must expect the Reproaches of all the reasonable World to be exploded and hissed at not only by the universal Choir of Saints and Angels but by Jews and Gentiles and by the Devils themselves who will all conspire with our own Consciences to second that dreadful Sentence which shall then pass upon us with the general Acclamation of just and righteous art thou O Lord in all thy Ways Wherefore as we would not perish for ever without Pity or Excuse let us be persuaded to abandon all Vnrighteousness and worldly Lusts and to live soberly and righteously and godly in this present World and then we may assure our selves that the righteous Lord who loves Righteousness will love us also for the sake of it and express his Love to us in blessing and preserving us here and crowning us with Glory and Happiness hereafter And this we beseech thee to grant O thou immutable Lover of Righteousness even for Jesus Christ his sake To whom with thy self and thy eternal Spirit be ascribed by us and all the World all Honour and Glory and Power from this time forth and for evermore Amen FINIS Abstin l. 4
express it self in endeavouring to resemble him For every Man esteems what he loves to be lovely and we naturally wish that that were in our selves which we esteem to be lovely in another that so being like him we may appear as lovely in his Eyes as he doth in ours And so if we love God we must necessarily esteem him exceeding lovely and amiable and that which we esteem and love as lovely in him we cannot but wish for and desire in our selves out of a natural Affectation of Loveliness And that he may have the same Reason to love us as we have to love him we must needs desire to resemble him in all those amiable Things that do endear him to us But now those Beauties in God being all of them only moral which are the immediate Objects of our Love to him are capable of being transcribed by Imitation and made ours by copying and writing after them in our Actions so that if we heartily desire to partake of them our Desire will necessarily engage us to imitate them for how can we be said heartily to desire that Good which we may have but will take no Care to acquire I confess did we love him for his Eternity or his Power or his Immensity we might wish to be like him but all in vain because in these Perfections we are not capable of imitating him But the Beauties for which we love him are his Goodness and Wisdom and Righteousness and Mercy and the like all which being imitable by us we may if we please derive into our selves and transcribe into our own Natures So that if we love God we must necessarily desire to resemble him in those Things for which we love him and those things being all of an imitable nature our Desire of resembling him will oblige and excite us to a careful and constant Imitation of him But now to obey God and to imitate him in those Moral Perfections for which we love him are one and the same thing Thus when I obey God in being universally just and righteous towards himself and all his Creation I imitate him in that essential Justice and Equity of his Nature which is the eternal Rule of all his Actions When I obey him in doing good to all that are within the Reach of my Charity I imitate him in the overflowing Bounty and unlimited Goodness of his Nature In a word when I obey him in forgiving those that injure me I imitate him in his boundless Mercy and Readiness to forgive Offenders And in fine all our Obedience is comprehended in being pure as he is pure and holy as he is holy in being good as he is good just as he is just merciful as he is merciful For though the Acts and Expressions of these Moral Perfections in us are in many Instances different from what they are in God by reason of that Difference of Natures Relations and Circumstances that there is between him and us yet the Perfections in general are of the same kind in him and us though the particular Expressions of them are various by reason of those accidental Differences For though he doth not do all those particular Actions which he requires of us and consequently we in doing those Actions cannot be said to imitate the same Actions in God yet we imitate God in the general in doing those Actions which he himself would have done had he had our Natures and been in our Relations and Circumstances Thus God doth not pray because he hath none superior to him nor humble himself because he is infinitely great and perfect nor practise Chastity and Temperance because he is a pure Spirit and hath no Commerce with bodily Affections and consequently we in doing of these Actions cannot be said to imitate the same Actions in God because he doth not the same But he constantly doth whatsoever is reasonable for him to do as God and as Governour of the World and never varies in the least Punctilio from the eternal Rules of Equity and Goodness by which he gives a glorious Example unto all his Reasonable Creatures to excite both Angels and Men to do what is fit and reasonable for them in their several States and Relations And what is reasonable for us Men to do he hath declared to us in his Laws so that by obeying his Laws we imitate God in the general by doing what is reasonable for us though what is reasonable for God and us whose Natures and Relations are so different be not the same in all particular Instances So that in general you see to obey and imitate God is but the same Thing in other Words Wherefore since the Love of God doth necessarily include a Desire of resembling him and that Desire necessarily produces a constant and vigorous Imitation of him and that Imitation is all one with obeying him it hence necessarily follows that if our Love of him be sincere it must finally resolve into Obedience For how can I love God and not think him lovely How can I think him lovely and not desire to be like him How can I desire to be like him and not take Care to imitate him And how else can I imitate him but by obeying him 2. If we love God our Love will conform our Wills Designs and Intentions to the Will Designs and Intentions of God For Love always unites the Will of the Lover to the Will of the Beloved and if it be mutual it twists them together into one Will and confounds all their Discords into a perfect Harmony because Love doth necessarily conclude in it Benevolence which consists in an unfeigned Will that all may go well with him whom we love that he may enjoy every Good that he wills and accomplish every Desire Design and Intention so far as it is good and reasonable for him So that supposing that the Beloved be but his own Friend that he wills and designs and pursues nothing but what is really good and grateful to him the Lover as such ought necessarily to conspire with him in the same Will and Designs and Pursuits If therefore we heartily love God we cannot but will what he wills and design and intend what he intends and designs every Motion of that first great Mover will be an effectual Law to govern all our Motions and our Wills and Desires and Designs and Intentions like the lesser Wheels of an Automaton will presently run at the first Impulse of that great Master-Wheel without the least Rub or Hesitation and in despite of all the Contentions of a rebellious Flesh and all the Counter-strivings of a perverse ungovernable Heart our Love will so captivate our Wills to God's that between him and us there will be but one Will and End and Interest And our Wills being thus subjected to him by the invincible Necessity of Love all our inferior Powers like smaller Garrisons when the Master-Fort is taken will presently surrender of their own accord For no Man can be a
Service into Wages and pays her self with the Pleasures of pleasing she counts all Commands Favours and is highly satisfied with the Honour of obeying and if she can but accomplish the Pleasure of her Beloved she thinks her self wholly recompensed for all her tedious Toils and Labours And certainly if our Souls were but inspired with any considerable Degrees of this Heavenly Passion we should find such Pleasure in pleasing God as would for ever engage us to serve him for then every Service that we rendred him would be a free Sally of an enamoured Will and so our Hearts would be wrapp'd up in every Duty and our Souls would still be ascending Heavenwards like the Angel that appeared to Manoah in the Flames of all our Sacrifices So that this Excellency also Love hath above all other Principles of Obedience that it renders our Obedience most free most chearful and voluntary 4. And lastly Love renders our Obedience constant and steady When a Man's Religion is only animated with Fear as it is weak and languid while it lives so it generally hastens to an untimely Period For Fear is a Passion so burthensom to humane Nature that we cannot but desire to quit and discharge our selves of it as soon as possible may be and accordingly the Apostle tells us that there is torment in Fear 1 Joh. 4.18 for it separates the Soul from the Enjoyment of her self and gives such an ungrateful Tang to all her Pleasures that she can find no Rest or Satisfaction in any Thing so long as she is haunted with it Now when that which is the Principle of our Religion is a Burthen to us we cannot but endeavour if possible to ease our selves of it which we cannot otherwise do but either by going forwards to Love or by returning back again to sinful Presumption For as for Fear it is like the Wilderness through which Israel passed a Place where there is no abiding with Content and Satisfaction so that we must go back again into Egypt or forwards to Canaan or be content to sit down in Misery and Disquiet For we can never be at Rest till our Fear is either sweetned with an Intermixture of Love or stifled with vain Hopes and ungrounded Presumptions And there being so many Arts of Self-deceiving in the World and skinning over the Wounds of Conscience if Men do not speedily cure their Fear by Love they will soon find some other Way to extinguish it either they will promise their Consciences a future Amendment or else they will presently amend by Halves or else they will take Sanctuary in some false Notions in Religion that tend to secure them in their Sins and render them quietly wicked These or some other Ways they will find to quit themselves of this troublesome Passion and then when the Weights of their Fear are down the Wheels of their Religion will stand still immediately So that you plainly see that bare Fear can never be a lasting and steady Principle of Religion and that because it is so troublesome that Men will not long have the Patience to endure it But as for Love that is naturally a most sweet and grateful Passion it sooths and ravishes the Heart and puts the Spirits into a brisk and generous Motion and so long as it continues pure Love is always attended with Joy and Pleasure And being so in it self it is much more so when it is terminated upon God For all the Disquietudes of Love arise from the Imperfections of its Object either the Person beloved is coy and cruel which imbitters the Love with Sorrow and Regret or else he is fickle and inconstant which inflames it with Rage and Jealousy But when our Love fixes upon God it hath neither of these Causes of Disturbance for he is infinitely loving unto all that love him and he never changes the Objects of his Love unless they change and prove fickle and unconstant in their Affection to him For whilst he hath the same Reason to love his Love is always the same and is as constant and immutable as his Being So that in the Love of God there is no Reason for any of those Griefs and Jealousies that are so commonly intermingled with carnal Loves and Affections for it being fixed upon an Object that doth so well deserve and will so amply requite it it can find nothing there but infinite Causes of Pleasure and Complacency For the Object of our Love being infinitely lovely and infinitely loving the Affection must needs be unspeakably pleasing and grateful So that the Love of God you see must needs be sweet and serene and productive of the most delightful and ravishing Emotions there being nothing in him but what tends to its greatest Content and Satisfaction and being so it must necessarily prove a most lasting Principle of Obedience to him because wheresoever it is it is always attended with such substantial Pleasures and Delights that there can be no Temptation to extinguish it for so long as we feel nothing in it but what is highly grateful to our Natures we shall be so far from using Arts to quit our selves of it that we shall think it our greatest Interest to promote and increase it For still the more we love him the better we shall be pleased and the better we are pleased the more we shall endeavour to love him And so our Pleasure and our Love will mutually provoke and augment one another till both are arrived to the utmost Height of their Perfection Thus the Love of God you see is a lasting Principle 't is a Fire that can live upon the Fuel which it self creates and maintain it self for ever in Strength and Vigour by feeding upon the Joys and Pleasures which it produces So that if this be the Principle upon which we do obey our Religion must needs be lasting and steady because it is acted and animated by a Principle that is so Having thus demonstrated the Proposition in the Text That wheresoever the Love of God is it will express it self in Obedience to his Will I shall now conclude the whole with some practical Inferences 1. From hence I infer how necessary it is to the very Being of Religion to keep up good Thoughts of God in the World because without such Men will never be able to love him and without Love they will never be reduced to a through Submission to his heavenly Will For it is by Love alone that God reigns in our Hearts and doth both acquire and preserve the Empire of our Souls We may be awed into a forced and fawning Submission meerly by the Dread and Terror of his Power and be obliged to serve him as the Indians do the Devil for fear he should do us a Mischief and tear us in pieces but this is meerly the Religion of Slaves who are forced to undergo one Evil for fear of another and to do what they hate for fear of suffering what they cannot endure And as Slaves do
at it so that we cannot run from any Duty into any Sin without leaving a Benefit for a Mischief and leaping out of some Degree of Happiness into some Degree of Misery When things I say are thus as it is apparent they are with what Conscience can we complain that our Duty is burthensome and uneasie This therefore is one great Reason why God's Commands cannot be grievous because they require nothing but what is beneficial and forbid nothing but what is hurtful and injurious to us And sure no Man can have Reason to complain that is forbid Poyson and commanded to eat nothing but what is wholsome and nourishing 2 ly Another Thing that facilitates the Commands of God is this That they are highly agreeable to our reasonable Natures And hence the Apostle calls the whole of our Religion a reasonable Service Rom. xii 1 And for the Truth of this I dare appeal to any considering Man in the World whether those Virtues which God hath enjoyned be not in their own Nature far more reasonable than any of the Contrary Vices whether supposing there be a God that made and governs the World and from whom we derive our Beings and all the Blessings we enjoy or expect it be not much more reasonable in the Nature of the Thing that we should worship and revere and love and honour and obey him than that we should neglect and despise blaspheme and rebel against him or whether we can behave our selves so unworthily to One that hath deserved so well at our hands without doing the greatest Violence to our own Reason whether since we are all of us reasonable Beings and our Reason is the noblest Ingredient of our Natures it doth not much better become us to subject our blind Passions and Appetites to those eternal Rules of Temperance which Right Reason prescribes than to let loose the Reins to them and suffer them to run headlong into all Excesses and Riots whether since we are incorporated into the great Society of Mankind it be not much more conducive to the Good of the Whole to behave our selves justly and honestly charitably and obliging one towards another than to defraud and oppress malign and persecute one another I dare appeal to any Man that hath ever thought twice of these Matters whether in point of Reasonableness the Advantage is not wholly on the side of Virtue yea and whether the opposite Vices compared with these Virtues seem not as extravagant as the wildest Freaks of a Mad-man compared with the wise Managements of a Minister of State But I need not appeal to particular Men in this Matter since all the reasonable World is agreed in the point and the Men of all Ages and Nations and Religions how much soever in other points they have dissented from one another yet in this have still been unanimous That Virtue is the wisest and most reasonable Thing in the World and Vice the most absurd and irrational and this not only in the general but in all those particular Instances of Virtue and Vice which Christianity commands and forbids For excepting the two Sacraments and believing in Jesus Christ and the Observation of the Lord's Day which are the instituted Means of our Religion there is nothing made Matter of Duty to us but what all the wise World had long before pronounced most highly fit and reasonable This therefore must needs render the Commands of God very easie to us that they do so perfectly agree with our reasonable Natures and require nothing of us either to be done or avoided but what the Reason of every wise Man would have obliged him to whether God had commanded it or no. So that now to facilitate our Duty we have the full Concurrence of our Reason which upon due and impartial Consideration cannot but approve and recommend it to us as the most reasonable Thing in the World and if it be so how is it possible that it should be in its own Nature grievous Is it so hard a Matter for Men to act like Men and not to live their own Reverse and Antipodes Is it such a mighty Burthen to comply with the most genuine Inclinations of our Nature and to swim with the full Tide and Current of our Reason in obeying those Commands which are so far from offering any Violence to our Faculties that they have their full Consent and Approbation Let Men say and teach what they please 't is as apparent as the Sun that the Difficulties of Religion commence not so much upon the Stock of Nature as of Education and evil Habits and Customs for in all other Instances that which is natural is always facile and easie and if Reason be the Nature of a Man Religion must be either natural or unreasonable So that Religion disagrees with us upon no other Account but only because we disagree with our selves and it just so far crosses us as we do the Current of our own rational Natures We have sophisticated our Natures with the Intermixtures of sensual and devilish Habits and they are these that the Commands of God do agrieve and so 't is not the Man that is so burthened with Religion but 't is either the Beast or the Devil that is in him 3 ly Another Thing that facilitates God's Commands is this That they are mightily furthered and promoted by all the natural Instincts and Passions of human Nature There are certain Propensions in human Nature antecedent to all Reason and Discourse that seem to be implanted in us by the wise Author of our Beings for no other End but only to minister to Virtue and Religion such in particular are Self-Love the Love of Truth and of Pleasure Commiseration and Gratitude and Affectation of Praise all which do discover themselves in us in our early Infancy before we are capable of discoursing our selves into them For even in young Infants you may observe a great Inclination to defend themselves and to repel Injuries which proceeds from the Principle of Self-love that is in them a vehement Desire of what seems good to them and a great Displeasure when they perceive themselves deceived the later of which must proceed from their Love of Truth as the former from their Love of Goodness Again when they see a miserable Object or one whom they think so they presently bemoan it and express by their Actions a very earnest Desire to defend and relieve it which proceeds from that natural Commiseration that is in them Again as soon as they are able to distinguish Faces and Persons we see they express the greatest Love and Fondness to those that tend and feed them and do them most good which is a plain Expression of their natural Gratitude And as soon as they understand the Meaning of Words or Actions they shew themselves highly pleased when they are commended and applauded and much grieved and ashamed when they are derided and exposed which plainly discovers their natural Affectation of Praise These
rendring of God's Commands easie he hath also contributed the Influence of his own most holy Example For by his own most perfect Obedience to the Commands of his Father he hath not only set us a Copy to write after but he hath also given us most convincing Evidence that our Obedience is both possible and honourable That it is possible we see by what he hath done and it is certain that what hath been done may be done that it is honourable we see by his doing of it for certainly so great a Person as the Son of God would never have stooped to an inglorious Obedience So that the Example of our Saviour not only encourages our Obedience but crowns and dignifies it and renders it a fit Object both of our Endeavour and Ambition For by doing himself what he requires of us he hath plainly demonstrated not only that it may be done but also that it highly becomes us to do it Thus the glorious Example of our Saviour whilst it directs our Obedience doth at the same Time excite and encourage it For he conversed among Men with a modest Virtue such as was suitable to an ordinary Course of life His Piety was even constant and unblamable complying with civil Society and a secular Conversation It broke not forth into high Transports and Seraphic Expressions but was such as was both fit and easie for Mortals to imitate His Virtue consisted not in prodigious Fastings or high Abstractions from Sense but in a life of Justice and Temperance Humility and Charity and Patience that is in such a Life as was not only proper but possible for us to lead And by this Means he hath transmitted to us the more of an imitable Virtue for he did not out-run the Capacities of Men in prodigious Expressions of Sanctity and Virtue but complied with our Weakness and kept pace with our Strength that so he might entertain us all along with the Comforts of his Company and the Influences of a perpetual Guide And as that Rule of Faith which he hath propounded to us is fitted to our Understandings being very short easie and intelligible so the Copy of Manners which he hath set before us is not only fitted with Excellencies worthy but also with Complyances possible to be imitated And therefore how efficaciously must such a glorious Example contribute to the facilitating the Commands of God to us since it doth not only point us to our Duty but also excite us to perform it and that both by its Condescension to our Strength and Capacity and by the plain Demonstration it gives that our Duty is both possible and honourable 3 dly To the rendring of God's Commands easie to us our Saviour hath also contributed the merciful Indulgence and Condescention of his Gospel to the Weakness and Imperfection of our Natures For in his Gospel he hath mercifully considered our State that we are but frail imperfect Creatures that are very prone to act inconsiderately and to be ever and anon surprised in this great Hurry of Temptations and therefore in his holy Gospel he hath made Provision for us accordingly that is he hath proportioned our Burthen to our Strength and taken the Measure of our Duty by our Capacities For all that he hath required of us as the Condition of our eternal Salvation is only this that we should honestly endeavour to understand what he commands and forbids us and that we should not live in the wilful Neglect of any known Duty or in the wilful Commission of any known Sin and if we do this he hath engaged himself to make such a merciful Abatement for our Infirmities and Inadvertencies and Follies and Surprises that they shall never rise in Judgment against us so as to exclude us from eternal Happiness So that now there can be nothing our Duty that is naturally impossible nothing necessary to our eternal Happiness that is morally impossible that is that cannot reasonably be expected from us considering our State and Circumstances and what is neither of these cannot be supposed to be very grievous and burthensome For unless we account it hard that we are not left at Liberty to be obstinate Rebels to our God and Saviour and with an audacious Forehead to reject what they command and pursue what they forbid it is certain there can be no such Thing as a Burthen or Grievance in all our Religion 4 thly And lastly To the rendring of God's Commands easie to us our Saviour hath contributed the Promise of a glorious Reward upon Condition of our sincere Obedience And this is such a vast Contribution to the Ease of our Duty as is sufficient to turn it all into Jubilee and Recreation For when I seriously consider that after I have spent a few Moments here in the noble Exercises of a sincere Piety and Virtue I shall be translated into a Region of immortal Pleasures where in the Society of my God and Saviour of Angels and of blessed Spirits I shall spend an Eternity in one continued uninterrupted Act of rapturous Love and Joy and Pleasure where in a perfect Freedom from all the Arrogancies of Flesh and Blood and from all the Vexations of an ill-natured World I shall live as happily for ever as all the Joys of an everlasting Heaven can make me in a word where I shall have nothing else to do but to converse with the most happy Lovers and to bear a part in that ravishing Consort of Praises and Halelujahs wherewith they laud and celebrate the Fountain of all their Happiness I say when I consider these Things methinks I am enabled by those glorious Hopes and Expectations to scorn and despise all Difficulties and if need require even to embrace the Flames of Martyrdom But as for those gentle Toils of watching and praying of keeping a constant Guard upon my self and contending against the Stream of my own depraved Inclinations Lord how inconsiderable they appear to me And how heartily do I pity those miserable crest-fallen Souls that tamely suffer themselves to be frighted out of Heaven by such harmless Scare-crows Thus while I stand on the Tiptoes of my Hope and see Heaven at my Journeys End I over-look all Rubs and Hardships in my Way and pass on triumphantly without minding them And indeed when the Reward of our Obedience is so great so infinitely transcending the Desert of it I am astonished to think that ever any reasonable Being should be so shameless and immodest as to take any Notice of those trifling Difficulties that are in it For with what Conscience can we account any Thing hard the Reward whereof is a Crown of immortal Glory How can our Voyage be troublesome when our Port is the Indies of Pleasure No no the Work can never be hard that hath Heaven for its Wages the very Prospect whereof is enough to reconcile us to all the Difficulties in the Way to it and to carry us through them not only with Ease but with Triumph
For he that hath Heaven for his Haven must be infinitely peevish if he quarrels at a rough Sea and doth nor bless the Storms and Winds that are driving him thither And thus I have proved to you at large that the Commands of God are not grievous and that both because they are easie in their own Nature and are made much more easie by our Blessed Lord and Saviour But after all that hath been said I do foresee a material Objection that will be made against this Discourse and that is this That it contradicts the universal Experience of Mankind For do not the Generality of those Men that have attempted a religious Life find by Experience a great deal of difficulty Are they not forced to strive and wrastle with themselves and to do the greatest Violence to their own Inclinations Are they not forced to keep themselves under a severe Discipline to pray earnestly and watch diligently to prevent the Surprises and Incursions of those Temptations that continually way-lay them wheresoever they are and whatsoever they are about And do they not many times find the difficulties so great as that they are quite beaten off and utterly disheartned by them All this I confess is very true and may very well be so without any Prejudice to the Argument in hand for we have not been discoursing of what Religion may accidentally be but of what it really is in it self The Light in it self is pleasant to the Eye but yet it may accidentally be grievous if the Eye be sore or weak and not able to endure its Splendor And so Religion though in its self extremely easie yet it may and often doth become accidentally difficult to us by Reason of those sinful Prejudices against it which we do too often contract in the Course of a sinful Life But 't is an unreasonable Thing for Men to measure the Easiness of God's Laws not by their own intrinsick Nature but by the Reluctancy and Opposition which they find in their own Hearts against them For to a Man in a Fever every Thing is bitter but yet the Bitterness is not in the Honey he tasts but in the Gall that overflows his own Palate And so to a vicious Man every Virtue is a Burthen but the Burthensomness is not so much in the Virtue as in his own Repugnancy to bear it For I have already proved at large that Religion is every way agreeable to humane Nature and therefore there can be no other Reason why it should not agree with us unless it be that we disagree with our selves We spoil our own Natures and do degenerate from the humane Nature into the brutal or diabolical and what wonder is it that the Religion of a Man should be a Burthen to the Nature of a Beast or a Devil But if we would take but a little Pains to retrieve our selves and weed out those unnatural Habits with which our Nature is over-grown we should find that our Religion and That would very well accord and then that which is our Burthen would become our Recreation I confess before this can be accomplished we must take a great deal of Pains with our selves we must watch and pray and strive and contend and undergo the severe Discipline of a sorrowful Repentance if ever we mean to recover our Natures again But for God's sake consider Sirs there is now no Remedy for this and you may thank your selves for it for you must undergo great Difficulties take which side you please If you resolve to continue as you are you must be most wretched Slaves to your own Lusts you must tamely submit to all their tyrannical Commands and run and go on every Errand they send you and though they countermand each other and one sends you this Way and another the quite contrary though Sloth pulls you back and Ambition thrusts you forwards and Covetousness bids you save and Sensuality bids you spend though Pride bids you strut and Flattery bids you cringe and there is as great a Confusion in their Wills and Commands as there was in the Language of the Brick-layers of Babel and though in such a Huddle of Inconsistencies you are frequently at your Wits end and know not what to do yet you must be contented to endure the Hurry and if you cannot do all at once you must do what you can and when you have done so 't is a thousand to one but there will be as many of your Lusts dissatisfied as satisfied And in the mean time while you are thus hurried about in the Crowd of your own sinful Desires your wretched Conscience will ever and anon be alarming you with its ill-boding Horrors and griping and twinging you with many an uneasie Reflection Thus like miserable Gally-Slaves you must tug at the Oar work against Wind and Tyde and row through the Storms and Tempests of your own Conscience and all this to run your selves upon a Rock and invade your own Damnation So that considering all I dare say the Toil of being wicked is much more insupportable than that of a holy Life and which is sad to consider it hath no other Issue but eternal Ruin for the wages of Sin saith the Apostle is death Rom. vi 23 And methinks it should be very uncomfortable for a Man to work so hard for nothing but Misery and even to earn his Damnation with the sweat of his Brows especially considering that the Toil and Drudgery of a sinful Life hath no End For though Custom and Habit renders all other Things easie yet by accustoming our selves to do Evil we add to our Toil and render those cruel Taskmasters our Lusts more tyrannical and imposing for still the more we gratify them the more craving they will be and the more impatient of denyal and so by working for them we shall but increase our own Toil and still acquire new Degrees of Labour and Drudgery But as for the main Difficulty of Religion it chiefly lies in the Entry to it for there we must shake hands with all our darling Lusts and bid them adieu for ever and to persuade our selves throughly to this is the main Difficulty of all for then to be sure they will cling fastest about us and use their utmost Oratory to stagger our Resolution and the old Love we have born them and the dear Remembrance of the Pleasures which they have administred to us will make our Hearts relent and our Bowels yearn towards them But if with all those mighty Arguments wherewith our Religion and our Reason furnishes us and all those divine Assistances which we are encouraged to ask and if we do are assured to obtain we can but conquer our Reluctancies and heartily persuade our selves to part with them this is the sharpest Brunt in all our spiritual Warfare for now if we do but keep the ground that we have gotten and maintain our Resolution against the Temptations that assault it our Lusts will every day grow weaker and
Beasts to raise us up by Degrees to an equal Height with Angels to fill and thereby inlarge the narrow Capacities of our Natures till by filling they are widened almost to Infinity and yet still to supply them with new Degrees of Happiness proportionable to their vast enlargements is a Work that highly deserves to be the eternal Exercise of Omnipotence it self Since therefore the End of Power to act is Action and every Thing naturally inclines to its End and consequently the greater the Power of any Being is the greater is its Inclination to Activity and since the doing of Good to others is a much greater Exercise of Power than the doing of Mischief it hence necessarily follows that God being Omnipotent must thereby be infinitely inclined to do Good and that because doing Good is infinitely the largest Sphere of Activity So that if when 't is equally possible and easie for him to do Good as not he should chuse not to do it he would chuse directly contrary to the necessary Inclination of an Omnipotent Being which is to do that which is the greatest Exercise of Power 2 ly God is infinitely Wise and therefore he is Good For the greatest Wisdom consists in proposing the worthiest Ends and chusing the properest Means to obtain them Wherefore if doing Good to others be the worthiest End that God can propose to himself it will necessarily follow that by the Infinity of his Wisdom he is inclined to do Good For as his Power inclines him to act so his Wisdom inclines him to act for the worthiest End but doing Good to others is evidently the worthiest End that God can be supposed to aim at for it cannot be imagined that he can design any further Good to himself any new Addition to the vast Treasure of his Happiness which is so infinitely full that it can admit of no Increase So that whatsoever he doth besides the enjoying of himself he cannot be supposed to do for any Self-end because he hath all that Good already within himself that he can possibly either desire or aim at So that all those Actions of God which are terminated without himself must have either no End at all which cannot be supposed of the Actions of an All-wise Agent or else they must have for their End either the Happiness or the Misery of others but to make the Misery of others their End is by no Means consistent with his infinite Wisdom For to make pure abstracted Evil the End of Action is so far from being infinitely wise that 't is impossible because the very Notion of an End necessarily includes Good in it either real or apparent but God can reap no Good from the Misery of others because he is infinitely happy already and to be sure others can reap no Good from that which God intends to be their Misery that that therefore should be God's End which is no End which hath nothing of the Nature of an End in it implies a plain Contradiction So that to say that the End of God's Actions is the Misery of others is all one as to say he acts for no End at all and how an infinitely wise Agent can be said to act at Rovers to do Things without any Level or Aim I cannot apprehend But supposing it were possible that pure Evil might be an End yet it is as evident as the Sun that it cannot be the End of infinite Wisdom for infinite Wisdom necessarily inclines to do that which is wisest but if it were in it self indifferent to the Almighty whether he did Good or Evil to others yet his infinite Wisdom would incline him to do Good because in the doing of Good there is much more Wisdom exercised than in the doing of Evil. For what great Skill doth it require in an Almighty Agent to make others miserable If it hath a mind to turn them out of Being 't is but withdrawing that Almighty Arm that upholds them and they will presently sink into Nothing of their own Accord but what great Wisdom is there in it thus to unravel his own Workmanship to weave a Penelope's Web and to do and undo eternally And if he hath a Mind to make them miserable and continue them so it is but suspending his own Almighty Influence and refusing to concur to their Happiness and they will soon be as miserable as Misery can make them I confess to invent an acute Torture requires some Skill but yet we plainly see that a very little Wit joyned with a great deal of Malice and Cruelty is sufficient to make an exquisite Tormentor since even Men of very ordinary Understanding have invented as sharp Torments as Men are able to bear So that for God to do Evil requires very little Contrivance and consequently is so far from being an Exercise worthy of his infinite Wisdom that not only a finite but a very shallow Understanding armed with sufficient Power and Malice can invent and inflict as exquisite Tortures as is possible for any Being to bear But to the perfecting of Beings and rendring them happy especially of free and rational Beings there is required a long series of rare and admirable Contrivance for to the effecting of this noble End there are so many Impediments to be removed so many concurrent Means to be employed such an incomparable Skill required in the Choice of such as are most fit and effectual and methodizing them into such a regular Connexion with and Dependence upon one another as that they may all successively second and promote each other that even the Wisdom of God how infinite so ever it be may here find Scope and Matter enough to employ and exercise it self for ever And I dare appeal to any reasonable Man whether in that Method of saving Souls which God hath revealed to us in his Gospel though yet we cannot see all because we are not able to discern the admirable Connexion it hath with the whole series of divine Providence there be not infinitely more Wisdom and rare Contrivance than an Omnipotent Being need to imploy in effecting the greatest Mischief imaginable whether in the contriving of Laws so suitable to and perfective of our Nature and in the composing such unanswerable Reasons and Motives to press and engage us to the Observance of them and in all that admirable Series of Providences by which he seconds and forces those Reasons he hath not exercised incomparably more Wisdom than he could have done in effecting the greatest Evil in Nature As for Example suppose he should have designed to kindle some mighty unquenchable Flame in some dark and dismal Recess of the World with a Resolution to hurl all reasonable Beings into it without any Respect or Consideration this doubtless would have been as great a Mischief as can well be imagined but what Contrivance doth it ask for an Almighty Being to accomplish such a direful End Could not he have roasted a little World of Worms and tortured a Company of Beings
that are not able to resist him without imploying infinite Wisdom in the Management and Contrivance of it Or Which will as well serve my Argument could there have needed as much Wisdom to design and effect this as there did to contrive and manage the great Methods of our Salvation Sure no man can be so senseless as to imagine it Well then if God be infinitely Wise and Doing the greatest Good to others be a much higher Exercise of Wisdom than doing the greatest Evil it will hence necessarily follow that even his infinite Wisdom must needs incline him to do Good For as the End of Power is to act so the End of Wisdom is to act wisely and every Thing as I told you inclines to its End and consequently the more Wisdom it hath the more wisely it is inclined to act Wherefore since doing Good is the greatest Act of Wisdom God who is infinitely wise must needs be infinitely inclined there unto 3 ly God is infinitely happy and therefore he is good for God's infinite Happiness doth necessarily exclude all Want all Desire and all Prospect of any Degree of Happiness beyond what he enjoys and where all these are excluded there can be no Self-end For a Self-end is some Good desired and aimed at which yet we are not possessed of and if God hath no Self-end he can have no End at all but only to do Good to others But perhaps you will object how can you say that God hath no Self-end when the Scripture so plainly tells us that his own Glory is his End and this End he doth as well obtain by doing Hurt as by doing Good to others by damning of some as well as by saving of others To which I answer that if by the Glory of God you mean any Thing else but the free Communication of his Goodness to others it is false to say that his Glory is his End and if this be his Glory then what I said is infallibly true that the only End of God is to do Good But if you think that his Glory consists in being praised and commended admired and applauded by his poor impotent Creatures you have very mean Conceptions of him if you think that this is his last End For what Advantage is it to God that we applaud and commend him Can the Praises and Panegyricks of a small Handful of Breath either make him more glorious than he is or more glorious in his own Esteem Alas No He is an infinite Stage and Theater to himself his Prospect being every way adequate to his Glory and his Glory as unbounded as Eternity it self So that if all his Creation should joyn Hearts and Voices to extol and laud him yet they could not add either one Spark to his Glory or one Degree to that infinite Satisfaction he takes in it So that when we have praised him as much as we are able he is still but as glorious as he was before and he still knows that he deserves infinitely more Praises than we are able to render him And how can it be imagined that he who is so infinitely satisfied with himself and hath such infinite Reason for it should find any need of our poor Praises and Commendations And if he finds no Need of it how can he propose it to himself as the End of his Actions since the End of Action is always some Good which yet we have not but do desire to enjoy 'T is true he doth command us to praise and laud and acknowledge him but he commands us this as he doth all other Things not for his own Good but for ours He bids us extol and admire his Perfections that by that he might engage us to transcribe and imitate them and so by glorifying him to glorify our selves So that still the Glory that he designs and aims at consists not in receiving any Good from us but in doing and communicating of Good to us And therefore though it is true that God doth obtain this great End of his Glory as well in damning of some as in saving of others it is not because he reaps any Good from it but because he doth Good by it For if he should damn and punish any Being without any good Reason he could not expect so much as to be praised and commended for it but if he doth it for good Reason it is because it is good either for himself or others For himself it cannot be for how can an infitely happy Being reap any Degree of Good from anothers Misery and Punishment And therefore it must be for the Good of others that they by the Example of those whom he punishes may be warned from incurring those Sins for which he punishes them and from running away from their own Duty and Happiness So that even the End of Punishment is to do Good and this is the great Glory that God aims at in doing it And indeed considering that God is infinitely happy there is no other Glory but this that he can propose as the great and ultimate End of his Actions For all the Inclination that is in any Being either not to do Good or to do Hurt to others arises from Indigence and Insufficiency either we envy or we covet the Good which another enjoys the former of which restrains us from adding any more Good to him as the latter excites us to deprive him of that which he is already possessed of both which do apparently arise from the Want and Indigence of Good in our selves But now in God there being no Want of Good it is impossible there should be either Envy or Avarice in him and both these being excluded there can be no Temptation at all in his Nature either not to do Good or to do Hurt to others For we see among Men the more perfect and happy they are the less good still they desire for themselves and the more for others Since therefore the great God is infinitely perfect and infinitely happy it is impossible he should desire any Good for himself and therefore if he act for any Good at all as he cannot but do it must be for ours For 4 thly And lastly God loves himself infinitely and therefore cannot but be good For whatsoever Being loves it self must necessarily love its own Resemblance and Likeness for that which is lovely in us is lovely in another and if there be any Reason why we should love our selves there is the same Reason why we should love another that resembles us in those Things for which we love our selves 'T is true we poor imperfect Creatures do many times love our selves without Reason out of a meer blind Impetus and necessary Instinct of Nature But God being infinitely wise governs all his Motions by the wisest Rules and doth every Thing for the best and most excellent Reasons and consequently doth not love himself he cannot tell why out of any blind unaccountable Instinct in his Nature but he loves himself so
far only as he hath Reason to do it and 't is because he hath infinite Reason for it that he loves himself infinitely And the Reason why he loves himself to that infinite Degree that he doth is because he is infinitely perfect and so hath infinite Reason to be delighted and satisfied with himself and this being the Reason he cannot but love others that resemble him in that for which he loves himself For though others cannot be infinitely happy as he is yet they are happy in such a Degree as there Capacities will bear and when they are so he hath the same Reason though not so much to love them as he hath to love himself And he that loves Happiness in another as well as in himself will not only love it where it is already but be very much inclined to propagate it where it is not So that this I think is a most plain Case that if Perfection and Happiness be the Reason of God's love he cannot but love it in another as well as in himself and if he love it in another he cannot but be inclined to contribute to the producing it And therefore unless we suppose God contrary to the Genius of all other Beings not to love his own Resemblance nor to be at all concerned to propagate it we must necessarily suppose him to be Good or which is all one inclined to make others happy And to say that God loves Happiness in himself but yet that he affects to make others miserable without any Prospect of Advantage to himself is to say that he loves Contraries in different Objects that is Happiness in himself and Misery in others which is to make his Love to be guided by the extravagant Impulses of a mutable Fancy and not by the steady Rules of Wisdom But since it is impossible for any Being to love that which is contrary to himself we may be sure that God cannot love Misery whose Nature is so infinitely happy and since I am sure that every Being must love its own Resemblance if it love it self I am as sure that God loves that others should be happy as I can be that he is so himself And thus I have endeavoured from the very Nature of God to demonstrate this great Truth to you That he is good and plainly proved to you that by all those infinite Perfections which are the necessary Results of his Self-existence he is most strongly and vehemently inclined to do good to others And now to conclude all we will briefly consider what Use may be made of this Discourse for the Guidance and Conduct of our Lives and Actions 1. Then if God be good this may serve to support us under all the sad Events that befall us in this World For what greater Satisfaction than this can any reasonable Man desire to be under the Government of and to have all his Affairs disposed by a God that cannot but be good For now all Events and Accidents that befall us must be what God intends and designs them because he hath the Management and Disposal of them all and to be sure a good God can never have an ill Design upon his Creatures 'T is true when his Creatures prove Malefactors he may and doth chastise and punish them but even in doing thus he hath a most gracious and merciful Design namely to reform the Offender himself or to make him a publick Example to all the rational World that they may take warning by his Ruin and not run upon the Rock that dashed him in pieces And to punish Offenders is as great an act of Mercy to the Publick as it is to reward the Loyal and Obedient for if out of a fond Indulgence to insolent Rebels he should let them go on in a State of Impunity the Publick would suffer a great deal more by it than those Rebels can do by a just and deserved Punishment for their Impunity would embolden others to take the same Courses and so the Contagion would run on without any stop from one to another till the Whole were infected and the Plague of Wickedness became Epidemical to all the reasonable Creation and so by sparing a few he would destroy a great many and his Mercy to Particulars would be Cruelty to the Whole But so long as we are honest and sincere in our Obedience to God we may be sure that whatsoever befalls us in particular is intended for our good for he cannot intend Hurt to an honest Soul without doing open Violence to his own Goodness because the Hurt of such an one is a pure Mischief it can serve no good End but is likely to prove a greater Prejudice to the Publick than it can be to the Person that endures it For as the Impunity of great Offenders will imbolden others to offend so the ruining of obedient Subjects will discourage others from obeying So that to design Hurt or Damage to a sincerely good Man is to do Mischief for its own sake and this can proceed from nothing but pure abstracted Malice which is the very Quintessence of a Devil but I am sure can have no Room in the Breast of our good God and merciful Father I confess in this Life all Things do fall out so alike to all that 't is impossible for us to judge of God's particular Design and Intention towards us by the Nature of the Things that we suffer and therefore in this Case the only infallible Course we can take is throughly and impartially to examine our selves and if upon a serious Review of our own Hearts and Ways we can truly say that we have been honest and sincere to God and our Duty we may be as sure that he designs good to us in all those Afflictions that he lays upon us as we can be that there is such a Being as God in the World And if for the Time past we should find that we have been bad and false and hypocritical yet since God still continues us in this Life of Tryal and permits us the Priviledge of being Candidates and Probationers for the Heavenly Preferments we may safely conclude from the Goodness of his Nature that whatsoever he doth to us he designs as no Harm for how can it be imagined that the good God should design our Misery at that very time while he continues us in a Probation for Happiness Wherefore let us chearfully undergo whatsoever he lays upon us concluding that there is nothing but Good can come from a good God that even his Punishments are cordial and all his Rods dip'd in Love and though they may smart severely and fetch Blood from our very Hearts yet let us determine with our selves that they must be good or bad according as God intends them and that the good God must needs intend them for good 2 ly Is God thus naturally and essentially good Then this may serve for an excellent Standard whereby to judge of our Opinions in Religion For most Opinions
in Religion have either a near or remote Tendency to the Honour and Dishonour of God's Goodness and though I will not say that every Opinion is true that seems to extol and advance the Goodness of God yet I am sure that every Opinion must be false that doth either directly or by true Consequence deny or disgrace it For let our Opinions be true or false yet this I am sure is eternally true that God is good and while I am sure of this I can never believe any Doctrin true that thwarts and contradicts it because I am sure that from Truth there is nothing but Truth can be inferred throughout the longest Train of Deductions This therefore we ought to be infinitely cautious of how we entertain any Opinion whatsoever that seems but to clash with the Goodness of God for if it but seem to do so we are bound by all the Zeal we owe to the divine Goodness to suspect it of Fashood or at least not to be over-confident of its Truth till we see it fairly acquitted of that foul Imputation For to preserve in our Minds consistent Opinions of the Goodness of God is a thing that we ought to be as careful of as of the Apple of our own Eyes because an ill Opinon of God is a Flaw in the very Foundation of our Religion and our Comfort and it will be impossible for us to serve him long either with Sincerity or with Pleasure if we do not firmly believe him to be a good Master 3 dly Is God thus naturally and essentially good Then this may serve to hearten and encourage us in his Service For to be sure so good a Master will never prove unkind to any faithful Servant that he will not burthen us above our strength but most freely contribute to us all the Assistance that is necessary to inable us to our Duty that he will not be angry with us for Trifles and Punctilio's but consider our Weakness and pity our Follies and make the most candid Interpretation of our Actions and finally judge us by the Measures of a Friend that when we wilfully miscarry he will not presently cast us off for ever but will be intreated by our Repentance and appeased by our Amendment and graciously receive us again into his Mercy and Favour that he will not be narrow and stingy in the Recompence of our Duty to him but reward us a Thousand-fold with such immense Glories and Beatitudes as shall make us for ever bless the Moment we entred into his Service All these things we may confidently conclude and build upon from the transcending Goodness of his Nature And what greater Encouragement can we expect or desire Why then are we afraid O foolish Souls that we are Why are we afraid to engage in his Service Where can we hope to find a more gracious compassionate and bountiful Master one that will be more ready to help and to pity to pardon and reward us If there be any equal Rival to God in all the World any in whose Service you can ingage your selves with equal Hopes and Incouragements go on and prosper in the Service of that great Rival But if God be infinitely the best Master in the World as doubtless he is Why do we stand Debating the Case any longer Why do we not run at least as chearfully to his Service as we would to the greatest Advancement that any Mortal Prince can tender us In the name of God Sirs be once so Wise as to consult your own Interest and do not stand any longer in your own Light Behold the great and good God stands ready to entertain you and condescends to invite you to the most glorious Service that ever was a Service that is most easie and reasonable that is intermixt with infinite Pleasure and Sweetness and crowned with the Reward of all that an everlasting Heaven means Wherefore as you love your selves and value your own Welfare resolve once for all with those in the Prophet Other Lords besides thee have had dominion over us but thee only Our good God will we now serve 4 thly And lastly From hence I infer that it is an unreasonable Thing for Men to suspect the Goodness of God because of some uncertain Appearances in the World to the contrary For from the very Principles of God's Nature we are certainly assured that he must be good which is the highest Demonstration that Things are capable of and therefore to suspect his Goodness upon the Account of some little Appearances to the contrary is to confront Demonstrations with slender Probabilities and over-rule a Certainty with a doubtful Guess And yet how common is it for Men to arraign the Goodness of God meerly upon the Account of some visible Effects of his Power which to their narrow Apprehensions seem hurtful and mischievous as if we had such an intire Prospect of all the Relations and Tendencies of God's Actions as that none could possibly appear either good or evil to us but what is really so Whereas God knows we are a company of miserable short-sighted Creatures and are not able to see from the Beginning to the End of any one Action in all the Train of God's Providence so that though this or that Action may appear evil to us considered singly and in the present Effects of it yet in it self it may be highly good considering what a Dependence it hath upon what went before and what a Tendency it hath to what is to follow after For God by his infinite Comprehension having all Things present and before him hath so ranked and disposed them that from first to last they are all but one complicated and orderly united Means to bring about those great Ends which he first designed and intended and consequently all the Passages in the World in his providential Dominion over them have a strict and mutual Dependence on each other and so cannot be judged of singly and apart from one another there being no one Action but relates to Millions of others yea to all others from the first to the last Link of Action in the whole Chain of Providence And therefore for us to measure the Goodness of God's Providence in general by those particular Parts of it that lie before us is just as if a Man should judge of a whole Consort of Musick only by hearing three or four Notes of a well-composed Lesson whereas the whole Harmony consists in a well-composed Mixture of a thousand Notes and Discords wherein all the particulars are so interwoven as that the several Notes united in one Lesson have a most excellent Symetry and Proportion to one another For in the whole Consort of the divine Providence there are a thousand Discords which to us who hear them singly and apart from the rest do many times yield a very ungrateful Sound whereas could we discern but the whole Composure and hear how elegantly all thole Discords are mingled into one entire Harmony we should
Table with an infinite variety not only of Necessaries but of Delicacies to treat and entertain all his sensitive Creation Who can suspect his Goodness when the Heavens and all the Elements do so loudly proclaim it by their being so contrived and ordered by his Wisdom as to do the utmost Good they are able to those Things that have any Capacity of Happiness 2 ly Another Instance of his doing good in this great Work of his Creation is his giving actual Existence to such innumerable Kinds of Being that are capable of Happiness Were we but able to survey the whole Scale of Beings from the lowest of sensitive to the highest of rational we should doubtless find in it such an innumerable Company of Rounds as all our Arithmetick could never be able to compute For we see that even this Earth which is but a very little Spot of the World contains in it such a prodigious Army of distinct Kinds of sensitive Beings as all the Histories of Animals were never able to muster and could we but reckon down from Man to the lowest Mite of animated Matter that the Earth and Sea contains we should find that even here there are so many Kinds of Beings as are capable at least of some Degrees of Happiness as would give us Cause enough to admire and adore the infinite Fecundity of the divine Goodness And is it likely that this Earth which is but the Sink of the World should be the only inhabitable Part of it That since the Almighty hath so well stocked this little Inclosure he should for ever leave desolate of Inhabitants all those immense Tracts of pure Aether in which the Planets and Fixed Stars do swim That when he hath so thronged this dark Cellar with living Creatures he should make no Use at all of those vast and glorious Rooms but let them stand empty for ever as if he had erected them only for Pomp and Shew without any Design to people them with such noble Inhabitants as they are capable to receive Well then let us but suppose as we may very fairly do that the other Parts of the World are stock'd with living Creatures but in the same proportion with this and then what an innumerable Drove of distinct kinds of Bings will the Whole consist of And indeed considering what infinite Degrees of Being are within the Sphere of God's Omnipotence and how suitable it is to his Goodness in his Productions to reach the utmost Limits of Possibility it seems no way unreasonable to believe that he hath given actual Existence to all possible Kinds of Beings that are capable of Life and Happiness and can without any Prejudice either to themselves or Neighbours be contained within the Compass and immensity of the World and consequently that he hath not only filled with living Creatures the Earth and Air and Sea but if it be possible all the Capacities of an immense and infinite Space But whether this be so or no it is an abundant Evidence of the Goodness of God that he hath created such innumerable Kinds of living Creatures the meanest of which are capable of some Degree of Happiness For unless we will assert one of the greatest Absurdities in our modern Philosophy That all sensitive Animals are nothing but meer Machins and consequently have no Sense or Perception in them we must allow them all even to the smallest Insect a Capacity of some Degree of Happiness For whatsoever hath Sense is sensible of Pleasure and whatsoever is sensible of Pleasure is capable of Happiness and he that made so many Beings capable of Happiness to be sure never intended that their Capacities should be in vain Behold then the vast Design and Project of the divine Goodness that would let nothing lie buried in the Abyss of Non-entity whose Idea included but a Possibility of being happy and hath given actual Existence unto all kinds of Beings even the most inconsiderable Animals for which it was better to be than not to be that at least hath raised up an innumerable Company of Beings into a Capacity of being happy and made such ample Provision to supply their Natures with all the Degrees of Happiness that they are capable of For 3 dly Another Instance of his doing good in this great Work of Creation is his furnishing all these Beings with sufficient Means and Abilities to obtain the utmost Happiness that they are capable of For I have already shewn you that God hath so made and ordered the inanimate World that it administers sufficient Matter of Happiness unto all sensitive Beings that the Heavens and the Elements by the Ordination of God do all conspire together to contribute to our Happiness to warm and refresh us to feed and cloath us and to render our Lives not only supportable but pleasant and delightful And of this vast Contribution every Animal even the most minute hath its Share so that now they can want nothing that is necessary to their Happiness but only an Ability to use and apply the liberal Provisions that God hath made for them and this he hath also most graciously furnished them with For in all Brute Creatures God hath implanted a natural Instinct by which they are strongly inclined to that which is good for them and as strongly averse to what is hurtful and injurious so that by their very Natures he hath impelled them to make Use of those Provisions which he hath made for their Happiness and he hath also furnished them with a natural Sagacity to provide against Want and with fitting Instruments of Sense to relish and enjoy the several Pleasures which he hath prepared to entertain them All which he hath done to that vast Advantage that 't is impossible for humane Wisdom to say how any one Kind of Animals could have been more exactly framed for the enjoyment of such a Happiness as is proper to its Nature But then for us Men that are capable of much more than a meer sensitive Happiness he hath not only prepared such a Happiness as is proportionable to our Capacities but hath also implanted in our Natures a full Ability to obtain it For as for our sensitive Happiness there is sufficient Provision made for it in the common Store-house of Nature and by the Industry and the good Use of our Reason we may ordinarily secure our selves if we please from the Want of whatsoever is necessary thereunto for a very little of these sensitive Enjoyments is enough to make a wise Man happy and we want no bodily Organs or Sensories to relish any of those Pleasures of which our sensitive Happiness is composed And then for our supreme Happiness as we are reasonable Beings God by giving us Reason and Vnderstanding and Freedom of Choice hath furnished us with sufficient Ability to obtain it For our Happiness as we are reasonable Creatures consists in the most perfect Exercise of our noblest Faculties viz. our Vnderstanding and our Will and there is no Object in
Nature about which these Faculties can be perfectly exercised but only God who is the Fountain of all Truth and Goodness and consequently our Happiness as Men must consist in the Enjoyment of God that is in knowing and loving and resembling him for ever And in order to our obtaining of this God hath furnished us with Vnderstanding by the good Improvement of which we may easily arrive to the Knowledge of him for he hath placed us so advantagiously in Being that as from a convenient Station in a noble Theater we are able to contemplate the admirable Schemes of those magnificent Works which God hath set round about us and from the Vastness of the whole Structure the Variety of its Parts and the beautiful Order which appears in their admirable Connection we can easily infer that such a noble Production must needs be owing to an Almighty Skill and Goodness And then such is the Frame of our Natures that we easily love that which we know to be lovely and consequently if we are not prejudiced by preternatural Lusts that which we behold of God in his Works will imprint such an amiable Notion of him in our Minds as will almost necessarily engage us to love him and then our Love will provoke us to imitate those Beauties for which we love him we being naturally ambitious of transcribing those Perfections into our selves which we love and admire in another and then by imitating him we shall by Degrees be moulded into his Likeness and Resemblance for Acts will beget Inclinations Inclinations will grow into Habits and Habits will become our Nature So that you see God hath implanted an Ability of knowing and loving and resembling himself in the very Frame and Structure of our Natures these Things we are as capable of as of any Thing whatsoever that is rational and manly we are as capable of knowing God as of knowing any Thing that is knowable as capable of loving him as of loving any Thing that is amiable as capable of resembling him as of imitating any Thing that is imitable and these are the noblest and most essential Parts of the Happiness of a rational Nature Now what an undeniable Instance is this of the Goodness of God that he hath not only made so many Kinds of Beings capable of so many different Degrees of Happiness but that he hath furnished them all with such abundant Means and Abilities to obtain it O blessed God what Heart can be so stupid and insensible as not to admire and adore thy exuberant Goodness which hath thus extended it self to the utmost Borders of Entity and blessed with its overflowing Streams such an infinite Number of Beings What Tongue is able sufficiently to praise and extol thy Benignity that out of thine own immense Fulness hast supplied such a vast Creation with such Capacities and such Means and such Abilities of being happy 4 thly And Lastly Another Instance of his doing good in this great Work of Creation is his implanting a natural Inclination of doing good to others in all those Beings that are capable of Happiness For it being his Design to propagate this Sort of Beings by way of Generation to the End of the World he hath implanted in all Parents as well sensitive as rational a natural Love and Good-will to their Off-spring and that to such a Degree as we see the most timorous and helpless Creatures are not only very industrious to nurse and cherish them but very couragious in their Defence and Preservation which is a great Instance of the indulgent Care which the great Father of Beings hath of all his Children that he hath commited them in their Infancy to such tender Nurses that will be sure to take Care to make Provision for them when they are not able to provide for themselves that he hath not trusted them to the Compassion and good Nature of other Beings to be maintained by the Alms and free Benevolence of their fellow Creatures but hath taken Security for their liberal Nurture and Education from the very Nature and inmost Bowels of their Parents who were so framed that they cannot choose but make Provision for them if they are able without doing the greatest Outrage to themselves and stifling one of the strongest Inclinations of their Natures which inclination of natural Parents doth therefore loudly proclaim the infinite Goodness of the great Parent of all Things to his Children because there can be no other Reason assigned why he should implant this Inclination in our Natures but because he loved us and was therefore resolved to take the most effectual Course that Care might be taken of us when we were not capable to take Care for our selves And can we think that the supreme Father who hath implanted in all natural Parents such a necessary Inclination to do good to their Children should be forgetful and regardless of his own Off-spring He that planted the Eye shall not he see And he that gave the Ear shall not he hear And by the same Reason he that hath so strongly inclined our Natures to the Love of our Off-spring shall not he love his own Shall not his Nature be as strongly inclined to do good to them For the whole Creation being nothing else but the Expansion or Spreading forth of the divine Simplicity and Perfection all Creatures do more properly belong to God than Families or Actions do to the Principles from whence they flow so that we are as it were Flesh of his Flesh and Bone of his Bone and no Man saith the Apostle hateth his own Flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it And if Man doth not can we imagin that God doth For as for Man we see the more perfect he is and the more suitable to his Nature he acts the more he is inclined to do good and that not only to his own but to all others that are within the Sphere of his Beneficence He finds in himself such a diffusive and all-spreading Principle of Love as renders him an universal Friend and Benefactor to the World and makes him sympathize in the Happiness and Misery of all Beings and this brave Temper of Mind is doubtless one of the highest Perfections that the Soul of Man is capable of Since therefore originally we came no otherwise to the Knowledge of God's Perfections than as we found them copyed out and transcribed into our own Natures how can we imagin that God should not be inclined to universal Love and Beneficence when we acknowledge it a Perfection in our selves to be so Can there be any Perfection in us that is not in God in the utmost Degree of Possibility And therefore if the Inclination to do good be a Perfection in us it must needs be in God in all the possible Degrees that an infinite Nature is capable of and since he hath so framed all reasonable Natures that universal Love and Proneness to do good is one of their greatest Perfections and Accomplishments we
may be sure that his own which is the great Standard and Pattern of all reasonable Natures is infinitely loving and prone to do good And thus you see what mighty unanswerable Instances there are of the Goodness of God in the Works of his Creation Wherefore to conclude this Argument From hence we see what mighty Obligations we are under to serve and obey so far as we are able the great and good Author of our Beings who hath not only created us but created us in a vast Capacity of Happiness and furnished us with sufficient Means and Abilities to attain it Wherefore since all our Powers and Abilities are from him we are bound in Justice to imploy them in his Service and since by giving us those Abilities he hath done us so much good and rendred us capable of such immense degrees of Happiness we are obliged in Gratitude not to imploy them in doing any Thing that is any ways displeasing or dishonourable to him For what can be more just or reasonable than that God should have the Use of those Powers which he gave us and in which he still retains an unalienable Right and Property That the Temples which he hath built should be forever dedicated to his Service and not turned into Dens of Thievs or made Stables of Filth and Vncleanness So that for us to withdraw our selves from his Service or to imploy our Powers to any wicked Purposes is to commit a Robbery upon the Author of our Beings and most unjustly to desseise him of his own Goods wherein he hath a far more absolute Propriety than we pretend to have in the Cloths on our Backs And in every bad Action we do steal Gods own Powers and Faculties from him and with extreme Injustice imploy them against himself Now what a monstrous Thing is it that we who think our selves so highly affronted when any one charges us with Robbery and Injustice should make no more Conscience of robbing God and alienating from him those Faculties and Powers of Action in which he hath a far more undoubted Propriety than any Creature can have in any Good it enjoys but when he hath been so good a Creator to us as to create in us such an ample Capacity of being happy and furnished us with such abundant Means and Abilities of attaining thereunto then to eloigne our selves from his Service and to pervert those Powers of Action to sinful Purposes by which he hath enabled us to be happy is not only unjust but barbarously ungrateful For now in sinning against God we fight against him with his own Mercies and arm the Effects of his Bounty against his Sovereignty and as if we were resolved to revenge our selves upon him for making us so good and raising us up into such an excellent State of Nature we shamefully dishonour him with his own Blessings and take all Advantages we can to grieve and offend him from the very Means and Abilities which he hath given us to be happy He gave us Reason and Vnderstanding to discern what is good for our selves and Liberty of Will to choose and imbrace it and we like ungrateful Wretches imploy that Reason and Liberty in contriving and choosing the highest Treason against him He gave us Powers and Abilities of Action that so we might not only discern and choose what is best for us but might also pursue and obtain it but we like base Caitiffs exert those Abilities in grieving and offending our most gracious Benefactor Wherefore be astonished O ye Heavens and be horribly affraid O all ye Works of God! For whilst you are all obedient to the Laws of your Maker and never swerve from those Lines of Motion he hath prescribed you we whom he hath advanced into the highest Class of Beings and endowed with the largest Capacities and Abilities of being happy are become so base and so shameless as to injure him with his own Gifts and to convert his very Blessings into Weapons of Rebellion against him Wherefore unless we are ambitious of rendring our selves the most absolute Monsters both of Injustice and Ingratitude unless we have a Fancy to aspire to a Perfection in Baseness and to rival the Devils themselves in the most infamous and ignominious Degrees of Wickedness let us imploy all our Faculties and Abilities for Action in the Service of him from whom we received them and exercise his Gifts in a perpetual Acknowledgment of his Goodness PSALM CXIX 68 Thou art good and thou dost good I Have already handled two of those four Topicks from whence I intended to demonstrate the Goodness of God viz. his Nature and the Works of his Creation of the First of which I discoursed upon the former Part of the Words Thou art good Of the Second upon the later Thou dost good But now because the Doings or Operations of God include his Providence as well as his Creation and God doth good in that as well as in this no doubt but the Psalmist in these Words had a respect to the one as well as the other I proceed therefore to the Third Topick from whence it doth most evidently appear and that is his Providence Thou dost good i. e. thou dost good in the great Works of thy Providence and thereby thou dost manifest the Goodness of thy Nature in that as thou didst create a World to great and good Purposes so thou dost still continue to do good to it in upholding and governing it by a most gracious Providence Now in the Managment of this Argument I shall do these two things 1. Give you some general and comprehensive Instances of Gods doing good in the Works of his Providence 2. That though there may be some Things in the World that to us seem to be very ill and hurtful yet it is infinitely unreasonable for us to suspect the Goodness and Beneficence of the divine Providence First I shall give you some general and comprehensive Instances of Gods doing good in the Works of his Providence and they are these Four 1. His upholding Things in that good Course and Order wherein he first created them excepting only when the publick Good of his Creatures requires him to interpose 2. His continuing Mankind under an awful sense of Religion notwithstanding the great Degeneracies of human Nature 3. His supporting of Government in the World notwithstanding the violent Tendency of our corrupt Nature to Anarchy and Confusion 4. His contributing to the Invention and Improvement of all those useful Arts and Sciences that are in the World 1. His upholding Things in that good Course and Order wherein he first created them excepting only when the publick Good of his Creatures requires him to interpose That that Order and Course of Things which God first established in his Creation was exceeding good and beneficial to it I have proved at large in my former Discourse and that God still continues the same good Will to us is apparent since he still continues things in the same
beneficial Course and Order wherein he first created them For we see the Heaven and the Elements still as kind to us as ever the Sun Moon and Stars do still run the same Courses and still they cherish and refresh us with the same benign Influences and though for six Thousand years together they have been perpetually visiting us and spending the liberal Alms of their great Creator upon us yet to this Day they are neither wearied nor exhausted but still continue to do us good with the same Freedom and Vigour as when they first danced round the World and sang together for Joy The Fire and Air and Earth and Water are still as liberal to us as ever and do supply us with the same Necessaries of Life as they did from the first Moment of their Being and though for so many Ages we and innumerable other Animals have been liberally maintained out of these vast Store-houses of Nature yet still we find them replenished with an inexhaustible Fulness So that still not only the Earth but all the other Elements are full of the Goodness of the Lord yea and though in their Qualities they are quite contrary to one another yet are their Animosities so tempered by the gracious Providence of Heaven that they all live together like Brethren in unity and the Dryness of this drinks not up the Moisture of that nor doth the Cold of the one quench the Heat of the other The Fire invades not the Air nor the Water the Earth but every one keeps within its proper Bounds and though in sundry Places the Water be above the Earth yet contrary to its own Nature which is to flow and expatiate it self it doth only overlook its Banks but doth not overflow them being bounded by that merciful Providence which in mere Pity to the Inhabitants of the Earth says to its proud Waves hitherto shall ye go and no further So that in short the Continuation of the regular Motions of the Heavens of the Vicissitudes of Seasons and alternate Mutation of Bodies of the safety of the whole Vniverse notwithstanding the rude Clashings of turbulent Matter and of the exact Symmetry of all the Parts of it in Despite of the frequent Rencounters of so many contrary Principles shews not only the Power and Presence of some great Mind but is also a plain Evidence of the Continuation of his Care and good Will to the World And as he hath continued the inanimate World in that most excellent Course and Order wherein he first created it so he hath still preserved all those innumerable Species of Animals which he first gave Being to so that in so many Ages and among so many Chances there is not one Kind of them hath either failed or perished or become less capable of Happiness or less furnished with Means and Abilities of obtaining it So that his Providence is nothing else but a constant Repetition of the Goodness of his Creation and all the Difference between them is only this that in the one he made all Things Good in the other he continues them so 'T is true God hath left himself at Liberty when Occasion requires immediately to interpose in the Course of Nature and to vary from the Order of his Creation And indeed unless he had done so he would in a great Measure have tyed up his own Hands and incapacitated himself from Governing the World but yet he never makes Use of this Liberty but for very good Reason to serve some very great and excellent End of his Government either to punish some notorious Sinner or some very sinful People that so by their Example others may be warned from treading in their Footsteps or to deliver or preserve some eminently virtuous Person or Nation that thereby others may be incouraged to imitate and transcribe their Virtues or lastly to confirm and ratify by some miraculous Effects some necessary Revelations of his Will to the World Unless I say it be to serve some such excellent Ends as these he never interposes by his absolute Power to make the least Interruption in the established Course and Order of the Vniverse And as soon as ever he hath obtained the good Ends that he aims at he withdraws his Hand and immediately remits Things to their primitive Course and Order So that if Gods Creation be good as I have largely proved it is his Providence must needs be so too because it continues the Course and Order of the Creation and never interrupts or varies it unless it be to do some great Good to the World Thus God in his Providence doth continually spread forth the mighty Wings of his Goodness over all his Creation and thereby reaches out Perseverance to the Being and the Happiness of every Creature 2. Another Instance of his doing good in this great Work of his Providence is his continuing Mankind under an awful Sense of Religion notwithstanding the great Degeneracies of human Nature It is very strange to consider how this heavenly Spark hath been kept alive in the midst of such a vast Ocean of Impiety as hath over-spread the World for considering into what monstrous Barbarism Mankind have immersed themselves how miserably they have defaced their own Nature and blotted out their Reason insomuch that in several Ages and several Parts of the World they have had scarce any other Remains of Humanity in them but only their Language and their Shape I say considering these Things it is impossible but all Sense of Religion must long e're now have been extinguished in us had not the divine Providence from Time to Time been exceeding careful to cherish and revive it And this it hath done by very strange and extraordinary Methods sometimes by inflicting strange and amazing Judgments upon great and notorious Offenders sometimes by showering down miraculous Blessings and Deliverances upon virtuous and good Men sometimes by raising up eminent Examples and Preachers of Righteousness such as the Patriarchs among the Jews and the Philosophers among the Gentiles sometimes by making immediate Revelations from Heaven and confirming the Truth of them by miraculous Effects and sometimes by permitting evil Spirits to appear to possess the Bodies of their Enthusiasts and to deliver Oracles by them which though it sometimes tended to promote false Religions among Mankind yet did always prove instrumental to cherish and enliven the Sense and Belief of a Divinity By these and such like powerful Methods hath the good Providence of Heaven from time to time revived in us the dying Sense of Religion and in Despite of our selves continually kept us under its Aw and Restraints which if it had not done we should have immediately run headlong into the most deplorable Confusions and Disorders For not only our eternal but our temporal Interest too is bound up in Religion for this is the Foundation of all human Society and of all the Blessings that redound from it 't is this that gives Life and Security to all those Pacts
and Covenants by which Men are linked to one another and incorporated into regular Societies For if once Men were abandoned of all Sense of Religion they would own no other Law but that of their own Interest and esteem themselves no longer obliged by their Oaths and Covenants than 't is their Interest to keep them and he that thinks himself bound to be honest no longer than he needs must will by the same Principle be obliged to be a Knave as soon as he can So that if once Men could disingage themselves from the Sense of Religion and the Tyes of Conscience all those Pacts and Covenants which are the Cement of Society would presently be dissolved and rendred insignificant for what will it signify for Men to take Oaths and Covenants of Fidelity to any Society since whether they take them or no they will be faithful so long and no longer than 't is their Interest to be so And this vital Cement that unites us being dissolved our Society will soon disband of its own Accord and we like the Parts of a dead Body having lost the Soul that united and hold us together shall immediately disperse our selves and fly abroad into Atoms and out of an eternal Distrust and Diffidence of one another having no Religion or Conscience to secure each others Honesty shall be forced to withdraw like other Beasts of Prey into Dens and secret Retirements and there live poor and solitary as Bats and Owls and subsist like Vermin by robbing and filching from one another And in this deplorable Condition we should be forced to wander about the World naked and destitute both of all the mutual Aids and Assistances of each other and of all the blessed Hopes and supports of Religion which are the only Comforts and Refreshments that in such a calamitous State our wretched Natures would be capable of So that without the Sense of Religion we should be of all Creatures the most wretched and miserable And this the good God foresaw very well which made him so careful to inspire us with an awful Sense of Religion and when through the Degeneracy of our Nature it was in so much Danger of being utterly extinguished to awaken and revive it again from Time to Time by the wise and gracious Methods of his Providence that so we might live happily here as well as hereafter by enjoying the Blessings of each others Society and the continual Supports and Comforts of Religion For it is to him that we owe our Sense of Religion and 't is to our Sense of Religion that we owe all the Conveniencies and Comforts of our Lives How much Reason therefore have we to admire and adore the good Providence of God that hath taken so much Care of us that would not suffer us to make our selves the most wretched and miserable of all Beings that hath been so vigilant to rouze and awake us when we were nodding into a lethargick Stupidity and sleeping away all the Happiness and Comfort of our Lives in a word that hath kept Religion alive in us in Despight of all our Attempts to extinguish it and would not suffer us to destroy the Foundation of our own Happiness 3 dly Another Instance of the Goodness of God's Providence to us is his supporting of Government in the World notwithstanding the violent Tendency of our corrupt Natures to Anarchy and Confusion If we reflect but a little upon the depraved Natures of Men what ungovernable Passions they carry about with them how sick they are of every Yoak and how impatient of every Restraint how greedily they covet an unbounded Liberty and how much the greatest Part of Men are of this violent Temper it will afford us matter of sufficient Astonishment to think how Government and good Order could be so long preserved as it hath been among such a sort of wild and extravagant Creatures especially considering how much more numerous the governed Party is than the Governing and how apt the Government it self is to be rendred odious by ill Management by the Tyranny and Oppression of those that sit at the Stern and the perpetual Factions and cross Humours and Interests of the inferior Ministers of State I say considering all these Things 't is a Wonder how the Ship of Government should live so long as it hath sayled in the midst of such Tempests and Hurricanes and doubtless long ere now it must have been swallowed up in Anarchy and Confusion had it not been guarded by the Providence of that God who as the Psalmist tells us stills the noise of the Seas and the noise of their Waves and the tumult of the People Psalm lxv 5 And how much his Providence hath been concerned in securing of Government in the World is evident from the Care it hath taken to keep Men under an awful sense of Religion which is the main Foundation upon which Government leans and without which it must necessarily sink into Ruin and Confusion for together with Religion away go all Principles of Loyalty and when these are all gone their Obedience to Government will wholly depend upon their Interest and consequently whensoever it is their Interest to rebel they have no Obligation at all to restrain them And as Providence hath been very careful to secure the main Foundations of Government so it hath been no less careful to infatuate the Councels and bring to light the dark Contrivances and baffle the open Attempts of those that have sought to undermine it and this in such a remarkable manner that all the World hath taken peculiar Notice and all Histories abound with innumerous Instances of it And in all the Rises and Falls of the Empires of the World there hath ever been observed a most astonishing Concurrence either of such happy or unhappy Accidents as have very much furthered their approaching Fates which is a notorious Evidence how much God is concerned in the securing of the Governments of the World in that he doth so immediatly interpose in their Rises and Falls and whensoever in his just Displeasure he pulls down one he always takes Care to establish another in the Room of it lest through too long Interregnums the Nations of the Earth should insensibly crumble into Anarchy and Confusion and finally involve themselves in all the consequent Mischiefs of it For the Subversion of Government like the opening of Pandora's Box must necessarily let loose a swarm of Miseries into the World for without Government wronged Innocence can never be righted invaded Property can never be retrieved but every Man will be exposed to every Man's Lust which must immediately involve us into a State of War in which like so many Dogs we should try all our Right by our Teeth Into such a miserable State would Mankind be reduced if God did not uphold the Governments of the World So that whatsoever Benefits we receive from the Governments under which we live we owe it all to the divine Providence by whose Procurement
doth not metamorphose free Agents into necessary ones that is because he doth not unmake what he hath made and subvert the Laws of his own Creation or is it reasonable that we who are the only Authors of Sin should blame the Providence of God for suffering us to be so For if Sin be an Evil it is an Evil to us and consequently we are much more concerned to prevent it than the Providence of God and if when we may we will not do it it is unreasonable that we should blame God for not forcing us to prevent it whether we will or no. So that all the Quarrel we can have against God's Providence is only this that it doth not tie our Hands and fetter our Liberty in the Chains of an Adamantine Necessity that is that he doth not undo his own Workmanship and thereby confess himself overseen in his Creation of us when there is no kind of Reason for it For I beseech you what hurt is it for Men to be made free Agents and left to their own Choice whether they will be happy or miserable And if it was no Fault at all for God to make us so what Reason have we to blame him for continuing us what he made us If therefore while he continues us free Agents we will needs chuse what is evil and misimploy the Talent of our natural Liberty the Fault is ours and not God's and we may thank our selves for all the bad Consequents of it and since not only Sin but most of the other Evils that are in the World proceed from our ill Use of our own Liberty we ought in all Reason to charge them upon our selves and not upon the good Providence of God 2 ly That many Things seem evil to us in the Course of God's Providence that are not so in themselves by Reason that we commonly take false Measures of Good and Evil. We think it a very great Evil for Instance that good Men are not blessed with great Plenty and Abundance and that bad Men are because we imagin Plenty and Abundance to be a very great Good and the contrary a very formidable Evil And this makes us blame the Providence of God because we see the good Things of this World so promiscuously distributed without any Discrimination of Persons whereas in reality Plenty and Abundance approaches nearer to the Nature of an indifferent Thing than of a very great and desirable Good For if we consult our own Experience we shall find that all worldly Goods are just what we make them and that they do as commonly prove Plagues as Blessings to the Owners of them that they intangle their Affections insnare their Innocence disturb their Peace provoke and pamper their extravagant Lusts and betray them first into Luxuries then into Gouts or Dropsies Catarrhs or Consumptions and these most commonly prove the Effects of outward Abundance So that in it self 't is almost of an indifferent Nature and doth good or Hurt to us according as we use and improve it and threfore though God sometimes suffers good Men to want and bad Men to enjoy it we have no Cause to quarrel at it for he understands the just Value of things though we do not he knows that the best of worldly Things are bad enough to be thrown away upon the worst of Men and so expresses his scorn of the admired Vanities of this World by scattering them with such a careless Hand and indulging the Enjoyment of them to the most despicable Persons So that we ought to conclude that he sets no great Value upon them since he concerns himself no more in their Distribution for why should he partake in the Errors of vulgar Opinion by expressing himself so regardful of these Trifles as to put them in golden Scales and weigh them out to Mankind by Grains and Scruples 3 ly That many other Things seem evil to us in the Course of God's Providence that are not so merely because we often mistake bad Men for good and good Men for bad For I dare say that that Observation upon which we ground our Quarrel against the Providence of God viz that it fares worst with the best and best with the worst of Men is not half so general as we make it for it is to be considered that generally we pity the miserable and envy the prosperous and these Passions of ours do commonly bribe our Judgments and make us think worse of the one and better of the other than either of them do deserve For those whom we pity we are inclined to love and those whom we love we are inclined to think well of and if we think well of them whether we have Reason for it or no we conclude that God ought to be as fond of them as we As on the contrary those whom we envy we always hate and those whom we hate we are inclined to think ill of and if we think ill of them we think that God is obliged to think so too And because we are so unreasonably inclined by our Passions to pass such false Judgments upon Men is it fit that we should quarrel at God because he doth not judge as unreasonably as our selves or because he doth not reward and punish Men according to the sentence that our blind Pity or Envy passes upon them If we could but strip our selves of all Passion and were but able to judge of Men not by what they appear but by what they really are I doubt not but we should find that even in this Life it fares best with the best and worst with the worst of Men but since we are not competent Judges of this Matter we should have a Care of reproaching the Providence of God with a Maxim that hath no other Foundation in the Nature of things but our own fallacious Observation 4 thly That many Things seem evil to us in the Course of Gods Providence that are not so because we are acquainted but with a small Part of the World and do judge of what is good or evil for the Whole by what we find is good and evil for this small Part. We are never able to comprehend how far the Dominions of the divine Providence extend nor how many Orders of Beings as well above as below us are concerned in its Empire and Government but unless we could do this we cannot be capable Judges of what is good or bad in the general Course of its Actions For that is good or bad in the Providence of God that is good or bad for its whole Empire and Dominion and though this or that may be an Inconvenience to this or that Part of it yet these particular Inconveniencies may be a great Convenience to the Whole As for Instance suppose a Man should come into the Country of Syberia which is a great Part of the Empire of Russia whither that Emperor is wont to banish all great Malefactors he would there find the Inhabitants in a most
miserable Condition they being there exposed to Hunger and Cold and perpetual Slavery So that if a Man should judge of the whole Empire by this Part of it he would conclude that Emperor to be a most savage Tyrant and his Country to be the most miserable Place in the World whereas in Reality all the other Parts of that Empire are rendred more happy by the Miseries of this Place which serve to strike an Aw into all the other Subjects of it and to restrain them within the Bounds of their Loyalty and Duty And so unless we had as full a Prospect of the whole Dominion of Gods Providence as we have of this little Spot of it we ought not to censure his Government of the Whole by the little Inconveniencies that occur in his Government of a Part for in such a vast Dominion as God's is there may be a thousand good Reasons that we know not of why some Parts of it should be more unhappy than others and if in some particulars he incommodes this Part for the publick Commodity of the Whole we are so far from having any Reason to complain that we ought in all Justice to praise and adore his Goodness for it It is enough for us that we understand so much of Gods Nature as we do and have such apparent Instances of his Goodness in the Works of his Creation and Providence and therefore if we in this little Part of Gods Empire suffer some small Inconveniencies we ought to bless and adore his Goodness for those greater Goods we enjoy and to rest satisfied with this that our particular Inconveniencies may for all we know be great Conveniencies to the Publick 5 thly That many other Things seem evil to us in the Course of Gods Providence because we judge of them by their present sensible Effects and are not able to comprehend the universal Drift and Connexion and Dependence of them For as I have already shewn you in the former Discourse on this Argument there is a continued Juncture and Dependence from first to last between all the Actions and Contrivances of divine Providence and every one hath a Relation to every one from the Beginning to the End of all that mighty Chain of Causes whereof it consists So that 't is impossible to judge rightly of one Part of Providence separately from the rest because we see not the Relation it hath either to what went before or to what is to follow after and though singly considered it may be hurtful yet in Conjunction with all the rest it may be exceedingly advantagious He that looks only on the first Links of that curious Chain of Providence in the History of Joseph will be apt to entertain a very bad Opinion of the Whole first he is thrown into a desolate Pit then sold a Slave then falsely accused then cast into Prison Lord what a tragical Prologue is here But then take all those Things in Conjunction with what follows and you shall presently see that Scene clear up and all those sad Preparations ending in a joyful Conclusion And if we consider that most glorious Part that ever Gods Providence acted on the Stage of the World viz. the History of our blessed Saviour how dark and gloomy doth the former Part of it look if we view it separately from the Antecedents and Consequents of it Surely if any Thing would justify our hard Censures of God's Providence it would be the beholding of such a rare and excellent Person exposed to so many Miseries and Calamities to see him cast forth to the wide World as a helpless Prey to the Rage of his Enemies to behold him hanging upon the Cross deserted of his Friends mock'd and tormented by his barbarous Murderers and in the most bitter Agonies breathing out his white and innocent Soul O good Lord What a dismal Prospect of thy Providence is here But stay a little let us but see the glorious Light that in Conclusion broke out of this dismal Darkness first he is raised from the Dead then he ascends up to Heaven where at the right Hand of his Father he reigns an eternal King in full Power and Authority to give Gifts unto Men and bestow those immortal Rewards on them which he purchased for them with his Blood So that though singly and apart the first Scenes of this great Providence were very dismal and affrighting yet considered altogether how beautiful and harmonious doth it appear So true is that of the Preacher Eccles. 3.11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time Also he hath set the world in their heart so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end And therefore because we are not able to see from the Beginning to the End of God's Providence it is an unreasonable Thing for us to censure the Whole because of some seeming Inconveniencies that we see in those Parts of it that lie before us Let us stay but till the winding up of the Bottom till all is finished and Present it one intire Piece to our View and then we shall have leave to censure if we can find any Reason for it 6 thly And lastly many other Things seem evil to us in the Course of God's Providence which are not so merely because we understand very little of the other World It seems to us a mighty Evil in Providence that so great a Part of the World is left in Darkness and Ignorance and in so great a Measure deprived of the vast Advantages of true Religion but how do we know how God will dispose of them in the other World what Abatements he will make them and by what Measures he will judge them whether he will not allow them some farther Time of Tryal and so make good to them there whatsoever hath been wanting to them here But whatsoever he doth or will do this we may be sure of that he will damn none but those that are first self-condemned but those that knowingly and willingly miscarry and if so then he will exact of them but in Proportion to their Abilities and will not require Brick where he hath given no Straw But which way soever he deals with them to be sure first or last he will not be wanting in any Degrees of Kindness to them that are fit either for a wise Sovereign to grant or a reasonable Subject to demand and if he will do so as undoubtedly he will how unreasonably do we complain of his Providence towards us And though in this Life we see many good Men reduced to a very calamitous Condition yet how do we know how necessary this may be to the securing of their Happiness in the World to come For since our main State and Interest is in that other World there is no doubt but the Providence of God over us doth chiefly Respect that and if so how unreasonably do we censure it upon the Score of the present Evils it exposes us
should not perish but have everlasting life I. I begin with the first of these viz. the Greatness of the Gift by which the Greatness of his Love to us is measured God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he gave him that is he delivered him up from out of his own Bosom and everlasting Embraces for so Eph. v. 2 it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he gave himself for us or delivered up himself for us for so we render the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who was delivered for our offences Rom. iv 25 Now what a stupendous Expression of God's Love this was will appear by considering these six Things which are all of them expressed or implied in the Text 1. That he gave him up who was not only the greatest but the dearest Person to him in the whole World 2. That he gave him up for Sinners 3. That he gave him up for a whole World of Sinners 4. That he gave him up to become a Man for Sinners 5. That he gave him up to be a miserable Man for Sinners 6. That he gave him to be a Sacrifice for the Sins of Sinners that so he might not only with more Effect but with more Security to us interceed for our Pardon 1. The Greatness of God's Love and Goodness towards us appears in this that he gave up for our sakes not only the greatest but the dearest Person to him in the whole World for as the Text tells you it was his only begotten Son Which Phrase doubtless imports a much higher signification than his being begotten in the Virgins Womb by the Overshadowing of the Holy Ghost For though it cannot be denied but in Scripture he is called the Son of God sometimes upon the Account of this his divine Generation in the Virgins Womb and sometimes upon the Score of his being ordained by God to the Messiaship sometimes because he was raised by God from the Dead and sometimes because he was installed by him into his Mediatorial Kingdom Yet upon neither of these Accounts can he be properly called the only begotten Son for upon the three last Accounts sundry others have been as properly begotten by God as our Saviour some having been installed by him into great and eminent Offices others raised from the Dead others truly ordained by him his Messiah's or anointed Ones so that upon neither of these Accounts can he be stiled the only begotten Son others having been thus begotten as well as himself And as for the first his being conceived by the Holy Ghost in the Virgins Womb this was not sufficient neither to intitle him the only begotten because though it was indeed a miraculous Production yet was it not so much above the Production of the first Man as to place him in that singular Eminence For the forming of Adam out of the Substance of the Earth was altogether as miraculous a Production as the forming of Christ out of the substance of the Woman and therefore since Adam is called the Son of God Luk. 3.38 because God immediately formed him of the substance of the Earth he had thereby as good a Right to the Title of God's only begotten Son as Christ himself had because God immediately formed him of the substance of a Woman Wherefore his peculiar Right above all others to this glorious Title of God's only begotten Son must necessarily be founded upon some higher Reason than this that is upon some such Reason as is wholly peculiar to himself For if he be really and truly God's only begotten Son all other Persons whatsoever must necessarily be excluded from that Claim and consequently he must be so begotten of God as no other Person is or ever was And to be so begotten of God is to be begotten by him by a proper and natural Generation which is nothing else but a vital Production of another in the same Nature with him from whom it is produced even as a Man begets a Man and every Animal begets another of the same Kind and Nature with it self And thus to be begotten of God is to be begotten into the same divine Nature with himself to derive or communicate from him the infinitely perfect Nature and Essence of a God And in this Sense only our blessed Saviour is the only begotten Son of the Father as being generated by him from all Eternity into the same Nature and communicating from him his own infinite Essence and Perfections in which sense he is truly the only begotten Son because in this Sense and in this only none is or was or ever shall be begotten of the Father but himself When therefore it is said that he gave his only begotten Son the Meaning is this he gave up that infinitely great and dear Son of his that is his natural Image and Resemblance that only Son to whom from all Eternity he hath communicated his own most perfect Essence and Nature If then it was so great an Instance of Abraham's Faith and ardent Love of God at his Command to offer up his only Son Isaac a Son who though how hopeful soever yet who fell infinitely shorter of the Perfection of our Saviour than the Light of the Glow-worm doth of the Light of the Sun what an astonishing Miracle of Love was it in the great Father of the World to give up his only begotten Son a Son whom he had begotten in his own divine Nature and to whom he had communicated all the infinite Perfections of his own Being a Son who was the most perfect Image of himself who was infinitely powerful and wise and good and differed from him in nothing but only in being his Son who had the Fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him and whom being infinitely perfect as himself he loved as infinitely as his own Person and consequently could as easily have given up himself for us as he did that dearly Beloved in whom his Soul was so well pleased Who but a God of infinite Love and immeasurable Inclination to do good to his Creatures would have given them such an inestimable Jewel out of his Bosom a Jewel wherein all the Brightness of the Divinity did sparkle and which upon that Account was as dear and precious to him as his own Life And hence we find the Apostle valuing the Greatness of God's Love to us by the Greatness and Dearness of the Person whom he gave up for our sakes in this was manifested the love of God towards us because that God sent his only begotten Son into the World that we might live through him 1 Joh. iv 9 And indeed without this Consideration of his being the only begotten Son of God by eternal Generation and Communion of Nature with him God's Love in giving him up for us would not be comparably so considerable as it is For if according to the Doctrin of the Socinians he should only have caused a Man to be born for us after another manner than
that by the grace of God he tasted death for every Man So that the Scripture hath as emphatically declared the universal Extent of this great Gift of God's Love as it was possible for it to do in any human Words and methinks 't is strange that any Men should presume to restrain it when they have no other Defence for so doing but only an odd Distinction that makes the whole World to signify the smallest Part of it the Body of Christ to import a few particular Atoms of it and every Man to denote one Man of Ten Thousand Behold then the immense Goodness of God that hath not only given up his Son for Sinners but for a whole World of Sinners and excluded none but those who exclude themselves from the Benefits of this mighty Donation That hath planted this heavenly Tree of Life in the midst of a sick and sinful World and hath not confined or inclosed it for the Use of a few selected Patients but laid it open for all Comers that whosoever would might take of its Fruit and eat and live for ever O good God! How vast is thy Love that hath thus impartially diffused it self over such a wide World of Sinners that in this stupendous Gift of thy Son had so kind a Respect to every Individual and made no Exception of any how sinful and unworthy soever that will but comply with the merciful Terms and Conditions of it 4 thly The Greatness of God's Love and Goodness towards us appears also in this that he hath given up his only begotten Son to become a Man for Sinners For whatsoever he was upon God's giving him up he was what God gave him up to be and therefore since upon God's giving him up he became a Man it necessarily follows that he gave him up to become so And indeed since God had such a merciful Design as to send his Son into the World to reform and save it it was highly convenient for us though not for him that he should come to us in our own Natures not only that he might consecrate human Nature that had been so miserably desecrated and prophaned but also that he might endear himself to us by the great Honour he did us in assuming our Natures and that having our Passions and being in our Circumstances he might by his own Practice give us an Example how to govern the one and how to behave our selves in the other Had he come down from the Heavens inrobed with Splendor and Light and preached his Gospel to us in the midst of a Choir of Angels from some bright Throne in the Clouds this indeed would have been more convenient for him as being more suitable to the natural Dignity and Majesty of his Person But the All-merciful Father in the Disposal of his Son consulted not so much his Convenience as ours he knew well enough that should he have sent his Son to us in such an illustrious Equipage his Appearance amongst us would have been more apt to astonish than to instruct us and to have fixed our Thoughts in a profound Admiration of his Glory than to have directed our Steps in the Paths of Virtue and true Happiness and that it would be much more for our Interest that he should conduct us by his Example than amaze us by his Appearance and therefore that he might do so he sent him to us in our own Natures that so going before us as a Man he might shew us by his Example what became Men to do and direct us by the Print of his own Footsteps Since therefore he assumed our Nature purely for our sakes what a stupendous Instance of God's Goodness was this that for the sake of a World of miserable Sinners he should be content that his own most dear and most glorious Son should condescend to become a Man and to empty himself into our Nature that he who by the Divinity of his Nature was exalted more above that of the highest Angel than that is above the lowest Animal should personally unite himself to a Handful of Dust and marry his Divinity to the Infirmities of our Nature that he whose Throne was in the Heavens and before whose sacred Feet the whole Choir of heavenly Angels lie prostrate should abase himself so low as to come down among Mortals and associate himself with Companions so unworthy of him O good God! When thou hast condescended so low what is there thou wilt not condescend to to do good to thy Creatures But this is not all you shall see him stoop lower yet For 5 thly The Greatness of God's Love and Goodness towards us appears also in this that he gave up his only begotten Son to become a miserable Man for Sinners It would have been some Abatement to his mighty Condescention if when he sent him down among us in our Nature he had made him supream visible Monarch of the World if he had crowned him with all the Splendors of an earthly Condition if he had ushered him into the World in a triumphal Chariot with all the Kings of the Earth either prostrate before him or chained at his Chariot-Wheels This though a vast Condescention in the eternal Son yet would not have been so low as it was to be born of a poor Mother to be educated as a Carpenters Son to be exposed to Want and Penury to the Contempt of every sordid Wretch and the perpetual Persecutions of a borish and ill-natured Rable and yet this was the wretched State to which God humbled his own dear Son for our sakes For the Design of his Humiliation being to raise us the most merciful Father consulted not so much what was for his Ease as what was for our Benefit for he knew well enough that should he have introduced him into the World in earthly Pomp and Magnificence it would not have been so well for us that we were too Ambitious already of the Vanities of this World and that that had been the great Snare that had intangled and ruined us and that therefore it was necessary when his Son came among us he should take us off from our over-eager Pursuit of them disgrace and expose them to us by his own voluntary Refusal of them that by seeing him trample on them when they lay all at his Feet we might learn to despise them and be at length convinced what foolish Bargains we make when we sell our Innocence and our Happiness for such insignificant Trifles He thought it much more necessary for us that his Son should exercise his Virtue than display his Greatness among us and therefore he placed him in such Circumstances of human Life wherein by his own Example he might copy out to us the noblest Pattern of holy living For of all States that of Affliction affords the largest Sphere to exercise human Virtue in and therefore in this State out of his good Will to us he placed his own Son that herein he might set us a Patten of
Obedience to Superiors and Contempt of the World of Patience and Courage and Meekness and Resignation to the Will of God that so by his Example we might be excited to the Exercise of all those passive Virtues which are not only most glorious but most difficult to human Nature and that by beholding how mean and yet how good he was we might all become more ambitious of being good than great in the World Now what an amazing Instance of God's Goodness is this that meerly for our sakes and to promote our Happiness he should depress his own Son into such a miserable Condition that he who was in the Form of God who thought it no Robbery to be equal with God should by the Appointment of his own Father to whom he was so infinitely dear make himself of no Reputation take on him the Form of a Servant become a Man of sorrows and acquaint himself with Griefs and all this to put himself into a better Capacity of doing good to the World Good God! When I consider with my self that once there was a Time when thou didst send thy blessed Son from Heaven to assume my Nature that therein he dwelt upon this Earth and conversed with such poor Mortals as my self that he suffered himself to be despised and persecuted and by thy own Appointment wandred about like a poor Wretch naked and destitute of all those Comforts which I abundantly enjoy and all this that he might the more effectually do good to a World of ill-natured Sinners methinks this wonderous Prodigy of Love not only puzles my Conceit but outreaches my Wonder and Admiration And though it be a Love that exceeds my largest Thoughts such as I have infinite Cause to rejoyce in but could never have had the Impudence to expect yet while I stand gazing on it methinks I am like one that is looking down from a stupendous Precipice whose Height fills me with a trembling Horror and even oversets my Reason 6 thly And lastly The Greatness of God's Love and Goodness towards us appears also in this that he gave his only begotten Son to be a Sacrifice for the Sins of miserable Sinners and this is plainly implied in that Expression he gave his only begotten Son For in the two Verses foregoing the Text our Saviour foretells his own Death for as Moses saith he lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness even so must the Son of Man be lifted up That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal Life and then it immediately follows for God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that is he gave him to be lifted up upon the Cross even as the Serpent was lifted up by Moses in the Wilderness that so by his precious Death and Sacrifice he might make an Atonement for the Sins of the World And accordingly he is said to be delivered up for our offences Rom. iv 25 even as the Sacrifice was delivered up at the Door of the Tabernacle to propitiate God for the Sins of the Offerer For to compleat the propitiatory Sacrifices under the Law three Things were requisite first the offering of it at the Door of the Tabernacle the slaying of it and the presenting of its Blood either within the Holy of Holies or elsewhere all which were found in the Sacrifice of our blessed Saviour First he offered himself to God as a willing Victim for the Sins of the World Hence Joh. xvii 19 for this cause saith he do I sanctify my self that is offer up my self as a Sacrifice to thee for so in Levit. xxii 2 3. and sundry other places to hallow or sanctify any Thing to the Lord denotes the offering it to him in Sacrifice And accordingly we find that that Prayer by which Christ consecrated himself to the Lord Joh. xvii was much like that by which the High Priest did consecrate his Victims before the Altar on the great day of Expiation for as he before he slew the Sacrifice did first commend himself and his own Family then the Family of Aaron and the whole Congregation to the Lord so our Saviour in this excellent Prayer whereby he sanctified himself to his Father a Sacrifice for the Sins of the World first commended himself to him then his Apostles then all those who should afterwards believe in his Name which having done he went forth presently to the Place where he was apprehended and carried to Judgment and condemned to Death Then as a propitiatory Sacrifice he was slain for our sins for so St. Peter tells us Ephes. ii 24 he bore our Sins in his own Body on the Tree that is that natural Evil of a most shameful and painful Death was inflicted on him for our Sins that so he might make an Expiation for them and free us from the Guilt and Punishment that was due to them Hence in that Prophecy of him Isa. liii we often meet with such Expressions as these surely he hath born our Griefs and carried our Sorrows he was Wounded for our Transgressions he was Bruised for our Iniquities The chastisement of our Peace was upon him and with his Stripes we are Healed The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all For the transgression of my people was he stricken Thou shalt make his Soul an offering for Sin and he shall bear their Iniquities He was numbered with the Transgressors and he bare the sin of Many and made intercession for the Transgressors All which Expressions do plainly imply that what he suffered he suffered for our Sins as a Sacrifice substituted in the Room of us who were the Offenders that so he might make Expiation for us and obtain our Pardon from his Father And accordingly in the New Testament he is said to be made a Curse for us to be our Ransom and Propitiation to redeem and reconcile us and obtain the Remission of our Sins by his Blood to die for us and for our Sins and to be our Propitiation all which Expressions being applyed to the Sacrifices of Atonement under the Law and from them derived upon our Saviour do plainly denote him to be a Sacrifice of Atonement for the Sins of the World And then lastly there is the presenting of his Blood for us in Heaven and in the Virtue thereof his interceeding for us with his Father And hence the Blood of Christ as it is now presented in Heaven is called the blood of Sprinkling which speaketh better things than that of Abel Heb. xii 24 In which he plainly alludes to the High Priest's sprinkling of the Blood of the Sacrifice in the Holy of Holies which was a Type of Christs presenting his Blood for us in Heaven as you may see Heb. ix 7 compared with the 11th and 12th Verses Verse 7th he tells us that the High Priest entered not into the Holy of Holies without blood But then Verse 12th it is said that Christ with his own blood entred in once into the holy
the most dismal Place into a Paradise and to create a Heaven in the darkest Dungeon of Hell yet such hath been the Goodness of God that he hath prepared a Place proportionably glorious to that blessed State which according to the Sciripture Account is the highest Heaven or the upper and purer Tracts of the Aether For so our Saviour tells the penitent Thief to day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Luk. xxiii 43 and where this Paradise is St. Paul informs us 2 Cor. xii for Vers. 2. he tells us of his being caught up to the third Heaven which in the 4th Vers. he calls Paradise where he heard unspeakable Words Now that by the Third Heaven he means the uppermost viz. that Heaven of Heavens which is the Throne of God's most glorious Residence where Jesus sits at his right Hand among the holy Miriads of Angels and glorious Spirits is evident from this because according to the Jewish Philosophy to which he here alludes Heaven was divided into three Regions viz. the Cloud-bearing Star-bearing and Angel-bearing Region the last of which they called the Third Heaven in which they placed the Throne of the Divine Majesty And that by Paradise he means the same Place is as evident because by this Name the Jews in whose Language he speaks were wont to call it the Third Heaven or Angel-bearing Region And hence Rab. Menachem on Leviticus tells us it is apparent that the Reward of our Obedience is not to be enjoyed in this Life Verum post dissolutionem Justus adipiscitur Regnum quod dicitur Paradisus fruiturque conspectu divino i. e. but after Death the Just shall obtain that Kingdom which is called Paradise and there enjoy the beatifical Vision And 't is very usual for them to express the Blessings of the future Life by enjoying the Delights of Paradise and therefore is this heavenly Region of Angels called by the Name of Paradise in Allusion to the earthly Paradise of Eden denoting to us that as that was the Garden of this lower World which of all other Places did most abound with Pleasures and Delights so this is the Paradise of the whole Creation the most fruitful and delightful Region within all this boundless Space of the World Nor indeed can it be imagined to be otherwise it being the Imperial Court which the great Monarch of the World hath chosen for his special Residence and which he hath prepared to receive and lodge the glorified humane Nature of his own eternal Son and to entertain his Friends and Favourites for ever For if these Out-Rooms of the World are so royal and magnificent how infinitely splendid must we needs imagin the Presence-Chamber of the great King to be the Glory of whose Presence will render it more lightsome and illustrious than the united Beams of ten thousand Suns And therefore though the Scripture hath nowhere given us an exact Description of this glorious Place because indeed no humane Language can describe it yet since God hath chosen it for the everlasting Theater of Bliss and Happiness we may reasonably conclude that he hath most exquisitely furnished it with all Accomodations requisite for a most happy and blisful Life and that the House is every way suitable to the Entertainment Whensoever therefore a pure and vertuous Soul gets free from this Cage of Flesh away it flies under the Conduct and Protection of Angels through the Air and Aether beyond the Firmament of Stars and never stops till it is arrived to those blessed Abodes where God and Jesus Saints and Angels dwell where being come with what unspeakable Delight will it contemplate that Scene of Things When all of a suddain it shall see it self surrounded with an infinite Splendor and Brightness so that which way soever it casts its Eyes it is entertained with new Objects of Wonder and Delight then shall it say as the Queen of Sheba did of Solomon's Court alas How faint and dim how short and imperfect were all humane Conceits and Descriptions of this blessed Place For though I have heard great and mighty Things of it yet now I find that not one Half of its real Glory and Magnificence hath ever been reported to me 6 thly And lastly Everlasting Life includes the endless Duration of this most blessed and happy State Thus Joh. vi 27 he calls his Doctrine the meat which endureth unto everlasting Life which the Son of Man shall give unto you and Vers. 40. he tells them that this was the will of his Father that every one that believeth on him might have everlasting Life and Vers. 47. Verily verily I say unto you he that believeth on me hath everlasting Life and Vers. 51 54 58. he promises them that upon their believing in him they should live for ever But because Everlasting Life and For ever doth in Scripture sometimes signify a long but not an endless Duration therefore he hath taken Care to express this Article in such Words as must necessarily denote an endless Duration of Bliss for he not only tells them Chap. vi 50 that they who believed his Doctrine should not die but that whosoever liveth and believeth in him shall never die Joh. xi 26 yea and not only so but that they should never see death Joh. viii 51 that is should never come within Ken or Prospect of it Nay and Luk. xx 36 he tells them neither can they die any more for they are equal to the Angels If then our future Life be so everlasting as that it neither can nor shall be terminated by Death it must necessarily be a Life without End whose Duration is parallel to Eternity Now what a mighty Addition must this needs make to the Joys of the Blessed to consider that they are such as shall never expire when the Soul shall reflect upon her happy State and think thus with her self O blessed for ever be a good God! I am as happy now as ever my Heart can hold every Part of me is so thronged with Joy that I have no room for any more and that which compleats and crowns them all is that they shall be renewed to all Eternity and Millions of Millions of Ages hence be as far from a period as they were the first moment wherein I enjoyed them For our Lives and our Happiness shall be co-eternal to one another our God shall live for ever and we shall live for ever to enjoy him and in the Enjoyment of such an infinite Good we need not doubt to find Variety enough still to renew our Joys and to keep them fresh and flourishing for ever For as we shall always know God so we shall always know him more and more and every new Beauty that infinite Object discovers to us will kindle a new Flame of Love and that a new Rapture of Joy and that a new Desire of knowing and discovering more and so for ever round again there will be knowing and loving and rejoycing more and more to all
blessed Master that with vast Wages he hires his Servants to a Work that is a noble Reward to it self and courts them with the Promise of Heaven to be kind and merciful to themselves O thou boundless and bottomless Love What Tongue is able to express thy Beneficence that hast prepared and promised a Heaven of endless and ravishing Joys and Pleasures only to tempt and bribe thy Creatures to do what is good for themselves and without any Prospect of Self-advantage hast obliged us to be our own Benefactors by promising to reward us for being so with a most glorious and blisful Immortality 3 dly The Condition is small and easie to be performed but the Reward is immense and boundless For what doth the Lord our God require of us bot only to act like Men and follow the Prescriptions of Right Reason Which if there had never been any Law given to the World nor any Reward annexed to the keeping it would have prescribed to us to live soberly righteously and godly in this present World for prescinding from all Obligations of Law and Conscience to do thus becomes all reasonable Natures and is much more for their Interest and Happiness than the contrary And is this so hard a Restraint to be confined to do nothing but what becomes us and with-hold from nothing but counter-mining our own Happiness But then if we consider how our Duty is sweetned over with Pleasure encouraged with the Smiles of God and backt with the Approbations of our own Consciences with what gentle Mitigations it is required with what puissant Motives it is inforced and with what powerful Grace it is assisted and promoted we must needs acknowledge it to be a most gracious easie and gentle Yoke But if we measure it by the Vastness of the Reward I confess it looks like some great and mighty Thing For if we value God's Bounty by our own we cannot but conclude that sure he would never have made such vast Preparations for our Happiness nor planted such a Paradise of Pleasures to entertain us but upon some mighty Condition to be performed on our Part. And indeed had he imposed the hardest Condition in the World sent us to row in the Gallies or dig in the Mines for a thousand Years together such a vast Reward would have been sufficient to have rendred it not only tollerable but easie and delightful But that he should promise us such a mighty Recompence as the Joys of an everlasting Heaven includes a Recompence as large as our utmost Capacities and as lasting as our longest Duration and this upon no other Condition but our sincere Belief of and Obedience to his Gospel whose Precepts are all natural and easie and pregnant with unspeakable Pleasure and Delight is such a Prodigy of Goodness as we can never sufficiently admire and adore That meerly for believing a Revelation of whose Truth we have such convincing Evidence and practising suitably to our Belief we should from wretched mortal Worms be advanced to an equal Pitch of Bliss and Glory with immortal Angels and live as happily for ever as all the Joys of Heaven can make us is doubtless such an Instance of Love and Bounty as could only proceed from infinite Goodness 4 thly In performing the Condition God operates more than we but in receiving the Reward we only are concerned For to our sincere Belief and Obedience of the Gospel it is plain that God contributes much more than we for besides that he is the Author of all those Faculties by which we do believe and obey him of all those Evidences by which we are convinced of the Truth of his Gospel and of all those Motives by which we are animated in our Obedience to it besides all which I say he is also the Author of all that inward Grace and Assistance by which our pious Endeavours are excited and crowned with a blessed Success And considering how much all these Things do operate upon our Performance of the Gospel-Condition it is not only true that without God's Grace we should never have performed it but also that in our Performance of it that is the main and principle Agent and no Man ever yet became a hearty Believer and Disciple of Jesus but was much more beholding to the Grace of God than to his own Activity and Endeavour And hence we are said to be created in Christ Jesus unto good works Eph. ii 10 not but that God exacts the Concurrence of our Endeavours with his Grace and that in the Performance of the Gospel-condition as well as in any other Affair of our Lives For it is the Blessing of the Lord that makes Men rich as well as Good and we may as well expect that he should make us rich without Industry as good without Diligence and Endeavour But when we have done our utmost 't is to the Grace of God as to the principal Cause that all our good is to be attributed But yet though 't is he that works this Condition in us that is the Author and Finisher of our Faith yet the Reward doth wholly redound to ourselves as if we had been the Authors and Finishers of all and though he hath the greatest Share in the Work yet he substracts nothing at all from the Wages but pays us infinitely more than the utmost Merit of the Work amounts to He gives us Faith and then he crowns his own Gift with Glory and Honour and Immortality He sows and cultivates our Nature that we may reap the Crop and Harvest So infinitely liberal is our blessed Master as to reward his Servants for his own Work to undergo the greatest Part of their Labour and when 't is done to pay them Ten Thousand Fold for it 5 thly The Condition is momentary and temporal but the Reward is eternal It is but a little little while that the Labour of our Duty lasts for Constancy and Perseverance will soon render it natural and easie and if it did not yet Death will quickly put an end to all and within these very few Days or Years we shall see an everlasting Period of all the Pains of our Watchfulness of all the Severities of Mortification and of all the Sorrows of Repentance but then the Reward abides to all Eternity and lasts out to a never-ending Duration So that though we shall soon see an End of our Work yet the Wages is so vast that we shall be spending on it for ever and Myriads of Myriads of Ages hence shall be rejoycing in the Fruits of our present Labour and reaping the blisful Effects of our Faith and Obedience to the latest Moment of Eternity O thou liberal Rewarder of Men Who can sufficiently admire thy Goodness that remuneratest our short Pains with endless Pleasures and exchangest with us an Eternity of Happiness for the Labour and Service of a Moment For when we are arrived into that vast Eternity of Bliss all the Pains we have taken in our Voyage thither will
love one another and so there would be no Need of the Apostles Counsel and then the Words will be wholly impertinent to the Argument which as I have shewed is to excite us to the Love of God and thereby to engage us to love one another but what need he excite us to do that which he himself confesses we did already If therefore we render the Word subjunctively as it seems most reasonable we should this will be the Sense of the Text We are bound in duty to love God because he first loved us according to which Sense here is First a Duty We ought to love God Secondly a Reason of it because he first loved us I. I begin with the Duty We ought to love him In handling of which I shall do these two Things 1. Shew you what it is to love God 2. In what Degrees and Measures we are bound to love him And in explaining what this Love of God is I shall shew you First Wherein the Being and Essence of it consists Secondly What are its essential Chararacters and Properties 1. Wherein the Being and Essence of our Love of God consists To which I answer in general that this Love of God consists in a rational fixed affecting Delight and Complacency in the divine Goodness and Perfections But that we may the better understand the Nature of this heavenly Virtue and more exactly distinguish it from those wretched Counterfeits that commonly usurp its Name and are too to often mistaken for it it will be necessary to explain the several Terms whereof its Definition is composed 1. Therefore I say 't is a Delight and Complacency 2. It is a rational one 3. A fixed 4. An affecting one 5. 'T is terminated on the divine Goodness and Perfections 1. The Love of God consists in Delight and Complacency And indeed this is the proper Act of Love as it is distinguished from all other Passions For we find by experience that the first Act of our Minds upon the Apprehension of a lovely Object is Delight and Complacency in the View or Contemplation of it and when any amiable Object presents it self to our Sense or to our Minds or Fancies it causes our Thoughts to pause and stay themselves a while upon it till we have viewed it round about and drawn its Picture in our Minds and when we have done the very first Expression of our Love to it is to be well pleased with the Contemplation of it and while we review it over and over to be sweetly ravished and delighted with the charming Prospect of its Beauty And from this prime and essential Act of Love arises all those consequent Affections of Hope Benevolence and Desire of Fruition For the reason why we wish well to hope for or desire to enjoy any Object is because we are well-pleased with it and do find a sweet Content and Satisfaction in that Picture or Idea of it which we have drawn upon our own Minds So that the very Essence of Love you see consists in a Well-pleasedness arising from the apprehended Goodness and Congruity of the Thing beloved and 't is meerly by Accident that there is any other Emotion intermingled with this grateful Affection For if it were not for the Want of what we love if there were no Distance between us and the Objects of our Affection our Love would be all but one pure continued Act of Complacency and Delight for if all our Needs were fully satisfied we should love without either Desire or Hope both which imply Want and Absence from the Objects of our Love which is a plain Evidence that Complacency is the very Essence of Love since there may be Love without Hope or Desire or any other Passion mingled with it but without Complacency there can be none 'T is true the Degrees of Love's Complacencies are much greater in the Fruition of its Objects than they are in the Pursuit of them but still 't is of the same Kind for 't is the Delight we take in an Object that makes us desire to enjoy it but in the Enjoyment our Desire expires into an higher Degree of Delight and Satisfaction For Desire and Delight are only the Wings and Arms of Love those for Pursuits and these for Embraces but 't is the Arms that give the Wings both Motion and Rest the Delight we take in the Objects of our Love that both inflames and quenches our Desire So that though in this indigent State Hope and Desire are inseparable to our Love yet that is by Accident but as for its Essence and Definition it wholly consists of Delight and Complacency And therefore if our Love of God hath the common Notion of Love in it as questionless it hath it must necessarily consist in our being well-pleased and delighted in the Beauty and Goodness and Perfection of his Nature And accordingly we find in Scripture that our Love to God and God's Love to us is expressed by delighting in one another so Prov. iii. 12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth even as a Father the Son in whom he delighteth i. e. whom he loves So also our Love to God is expressed by delighting in him Psal. xxxvii 4 Delight thy self also in the Lord and he shall give thee the desires of thine Heart 2 ly The Love of God is a rational Delight and Complacency in him by which it is distinguished from those sensible Emotions of bodily Passion which many times are nothing else put the natural Effects of an over-heated Fancy For I make no doubt but a Man may be wrapt even into an Extasy of sensible Delight and Complacency in God that is upon an amiable Representation of God his Spirits may be made to flow in a sweet and placid Torrent to his Heart and by their nimble Motions about it to sooth and tickle it into a most sensible Pleasure till it opens and dilates its Orifices and the grateful Flood breaks in and drowns it in Delight and Ravishment And yet in all this mighty Storm and Commotion of Passion there may not be the least Spark of sincere Love to God For all this not only may be but many times is nothing else but the mere Mechanism and Natural Effect of a warm and vigorous Fancy which being flushed with such brisk and active Spirits as are most apt to be figured into amorous Phantasms and Ideas can with these without any Assistance from Reason raise great Commotions of Joy in the Heart especially where the Temper is soft and the Passions easie to be wrought upon And of the Truth of this the Histories of the Devotos of all Religions will furnish us with sufficient Experiments For even among the Turkish and Heathen Saints there are as notorious Instances of these sweet Incomes and Manifestations as among our own and the same sensitive Complacencies which ours too often mistake for the Sealings and Witness of the Spirit they frequently experience in their Communion with Mahomet Bacchus and
thly 'T is an affecting Delight and Complacency in God by which I distinguish it from a mere Liking and naked Approbation For God is a Being so infinitely amiable and benevolent that 't is impossible almost for any reasonable Creature to know him and not like and approve of him But though in all Approbation there is some Degree of Complacency yet there is no Doubt but a Man may approve of what he doth not Love and there is no Doubt but there are many Men that do approve of God as the most glorious and excellent of Beings and the most worthy of Love and Veneration who yet have not one Spark of real Love towards him For thus St. Paul we find when he was a Jew in Religion approved of the Law as holy and just and good Rom. vii 12 and that in this Approbation of his there was some Degree of Complacency and Delight for saith he I delight in the Law of God according to the inward Man Vers. 22. but all this while he was very far from having any real Love and Affection for it for in the next Verse he tells us that he had a Law in his Members warring against the Law of his Mind that is he had an inward Repugnancy and Aversation against this excellent Law which his Reason did approve of as holy and just and good and no Degree of true Love could consist with such an Aversation And there is no doubt but most Men who have right Conceptions of God do in their Mind and Reason as much approve of and delight in the Perfection of his Nature as St. Paul did in the Perfection of his Law and yet their Wills are as repugnant and averse to the Holiness and Purity of the one as St. Pauls then was to the Justice and Goodness of the other Wherefore to constitute us true Lovers of God it is necessary that our Approbation of and Delight and Complacency in him should be such as doth powerfully affect our Wills and reconcile them to the Nature of God For whilst our Wills are averse to that immaculate Purity and Goodness which is so inseparable to his Nature it is impossible we should heartily love him and though in our Minds we may approve of him as a most glorious and excellent Being yet in our Hearts we shall still retain a secret Antipathy against him And I doubt not but the Devils themselves do so far approve of God as to acknowledge him altogether amiable and lovely for if they do not I am sure they are very shallow Spectators but yet we see this Approbation of theirs accompanied with an inveterate Rancour and Enmity against him And till our Wills are so affected by our Reason as to consent and eccho to its Approbations to take Complacency in that divine Purity which our Reason acknowledges to be the Crown and Ornament of God whilst we reverence him in our Minds we hate and despise him in our Affections So that he only is a Lover of God whose Will is reconciled to true Goodness 5 thly And lastly This Love must be terminated on the proper Goodness and Perfections of God and hereby I distinguish it from that Love which we too commonly terminate upon a God of our own making For it is very ordinary with Men to set up Idols and false Representations of God in their Minds and then fall down and worship them And it is no great Wonder if they are extreamly fond of these Idol-Divinities of their own making since commonly they are nothing else but the Pictures and Images of themselves Thou thoughtst saith God to those profligate Persons that I was such a one as thy self Psal. l. 21 Men have always been prone to cast all their Ideas of God in the Mould of their own Tempers and to fashion the Divinity whom they Worship according to the Model of their own Inclinations Thus Men of ungovernable and imperious Tempers are apt to represent God in their own Likeness a Being that governs himself and others by a meer blind omnipotent Self-will that wills Things merely because he wills them and is no way concerned to regulate his own Motions by any antecedent Rules of Justice Wisdom or Goodness So also Men of wrathful and revengeful Tempers are apt to look upon God as a froward furious and implacable Being that is to be pleased or displeased with Trifles that frowns or smiles as the Humour takes him that when the froward Fit is upon him Breaths nothing but Revenge and Fury and whose Love and Hatred is fickle and mutable and never constant to the same Reasons And to name no more thus Men of fond and indulgent Natures are apt to represent God to themselves as one that dotes invincibly on those who have once the Luck to be his Favourites and in Christ at least will hug their very Deformities and connive at their greatest Treasons and Rebellions And since these false Representations that Men make of God are nothing but the Reflections of their own Images in loving him they only love themselves and 't is no wonder that they are more devoutly affected towards such an imaginary Divinity than towards the true God himself clothed with his own Attributes and circled about with his own Rays of unstained and immaculate Glory since the former is nothing but their own Shadow which Narcissus-like they gaze upon and fall in love with But whatsoever Love we may bestow upon these false Representations it is not terminated upon God but on the Spectres and Images of our Fancies which have nothing of God about them but the Name Wherefore to constitute our Love truly divine it is necessary that it should respect God as he is in himself and not as he seems to be in these disfigured Idols of our own Fancies We must blot out of our Minds all these false Conceptions which like the Aethiopian Idols are nothing but our own Resemblance and portrait him in all those fair Ideas wherein he hath represented himself unto us and when we have righted him in our own Opinions and formed such Notions of him as are agreeable to his native Perfections then we must love him for what we see in him even for the Mercy and Goodness the Righteousness and Purity of his Nature For unless we love these his moral Perfections which are indeed the only Objects of Love in him all our kind Pretences are base Flatteries and in stead of him we only Love a Mock-God of our own making And thus I have shewed you at large wherein the Essence of this heavenly Virtue our Love of God consists But because Things are better understood by their essential Characters and Properties than by their naked Essences and we may much more easily discern whether we truly love God or no by the former than by the latter 2. I proceed in the next Place to shew you what are the essential Properties and Characters of our Love of God And these are to be fetched from
all other natural Motions being swiftest when 't is nearest it's Center For so Plato hath observ'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When Men are near Death or suppose themselves near it there arises in them great Fear and Thoughtfulness of a future State which before they never thought of And that this springs not from Superstition but from Nature is evident by this that Atheists themselves who are most remote from Superstition when they come to die are rarely able to suppress this ominous Dread and Fear of another World but in despight of themselves are forced into those dismal Expectations which before they laughed at A clear Demonstration that these ill Abodings spring from something within them that they cannot conquer and that what their Minds now speak is not so much the Sense of their Opinion as their Nature And this Language of Nature is a clear Expression of God's Love of Righteousness for the Voice of Nature is only the Voice of the God of Nature ecchoed and rebounded and to be sure whatever he imprints upon our Natures is the Sense and Meaning of his own Heart since his Veracity will not permit him to print any Falshood there And since by these our natural Abodings the God of Nature proposes to us a future Reward if we are righteous and a future Punishment if we are wicked he hath hereby as certainly declared to us how much he loves Righteousness and hates the Contrary as he can possibly do by the most express Promise which he hath made to reward the one or Threatning to punish the other And thus you see what natural Indications and Discoveries God hath made of his unfeigned Love of Righteousness which are such as without any additional Revelation are sufficient to convince considering Men that God is a most sincere and affectionate Lover of Righteousness and righteous Men and that if we will but unfeignedly submit our selves to the eternal Laws of Goodness we shall thereby make our selves the best Friend who is a never-failing Fountain of Goodness and who will do us more good than all the Beings in the World should they conspire to be our Benefactors and that on the Contrary if we persist in Sin and Unrighteousness we shall most certainly provoke him to be our mortal Enemy and render our selves eternally odious and hateful in his Eyes that his incensed Wrath will sooner or later break forth upon us and prosecute us with eternal Vengeance and that we can expect nothing but black and dismal Issues while we are hated by him who is the Fountain of all Love and Goodness All this we may be sufficiently convinced of by seriously attending to those natural Discoveries which God hath made of his Love of Righteousness But yet because he saw Mankind so unattentive to the Voice of their Natures so unobservant of it's Language and Meaning as to run headlong on notwithstanding all it's Countermands into the greatest Impiety and Wickedness he hath been graciously pleased to add to these natural Discoveries of his Love of Righteousness sundry great and eminent supernatural ones such as one would think were sufficient to rouze and awake the most stupid and insensible Creatures into a serious Attention to them all which are reducible to these following Heads 1. His conferring such great and miraculous Favours upon righteous Persons and inflicting such severe Judgments on the Wicked 2. His making so many Revelations to the World for the promoting of Righteousness and discountenancing of Sin 3. His sending his own Son into the World to transact such mighty Things for the Incouragement of Righteousness and discouragement of Sin 4. His promising such vast Rewards to us upon Condition of our being righteous and denouncing such fearful Punishments against us in Case we do neglect it 5. His grantaing his blessed Spirit to us to excite us to and assist us in our Endeavours after Righteousness 1. One supernatural Expression of God's Love of Righteousness is his conferring great and miraculous Favours upon righteous Persons and inflicting severe Judgments upon the Wicked And of this we have infinite Instances in the several Ages of the World there being scarce any History either sacred or prophane which abounds not with them several of which both Blessings and Judgments do as plainly evince themselves to be intended for Rewards and Punishments as if they had been attended with a Voice from Heaven declaring the Reasons for which they were bestowed and inflicted For how many famous Instances have we of the miraculous Deliverances of Righteous Persons who by an invisible Hand have been rescued from the greatest Dangers when in all outward Appearance their Condition was hopeless and desperate and of wonderful Blessings that have happened to them not only without but contrary to all secondary Causes Of some that have been so eminently rewarded in Kind as that the Good which they received was a most visible token of the Good which they did of others that have received the Blessings they ask'd whilst they were praying for them and obtained the Grant of them with such distinguishing Circumstances as did plainly signify them to be the Answers and Returns of their devout Desires And so on the contrary how many notable Examples are there of such miraculous Judgments inflicted upon unrighteous Persons as have either exceeded the Power of all secondary Causes or else have been caused by them contrary to their natural Tendency of Men that have been punished in the very Act of their Sin and sometimes in the very Part by which they have offended that have had the Evil of their Sin retaliated upon them in a correspondent Evil of Suffering and been punished with those very Judgments which they have imprecated on themselves in Justification of a Falshood Now though in the ordinary Course of Things that of the Wise Man is most true that we know neither love nor hatred by any thing that is before us because ordinarily all things come alike to all and there is one Event to the Righteous and the Wicked Eccles. ix 1 2. yet when the Providence of God so visibly steps out of it's ordinary Course to bless the Righteous and punish the Wicked it is a plain Indication of his Love to the one and his Hatred to the other For these irregular Providences have plain and visible Tokens of God's Love and Anger imprinted on their Foreheads and it would be Stupidity to attribute them either to a blind Chance or the necessary Revolutions of secondary Causes when they are stamp'd with such legible Characters of their being designed and intended for Rewards and Punishments For if these were either casual or necessary why should they not happen alike to all as well as ordinary Providences Why should not there be as many Examples of the miraculous Blessings and Deliverances of the Vnrighteous as there are of the Righteous Why should not as many Men have suffered as remarkably the Evils which they have imprinted on themselves in attesting the
you are not blind because you hear well or that you are not deaf because you taste well or that you have all your Senses because you have one as that you are righteous in the general because you are so in this or that particular and you may as reasonably conclude your self in a State of Health because you have a fresh Colour as that you are in a State of Grace because you have this or that particular Sign of it Well but then how shall we resolve our selves in this most material Enquiry Why do but consider what it is to be righteous and then reflect upon your own Motions and you will quickly feel whether you are righteous or no. Now to be righteous is in the general to intend righteously and to act accordingly If you ask again how you shall know whether you so intend and act I shall only answer that 't is an unreasonable Question and that you might as well ask me whether you are hungry or thirsty for you do as naturally feel the Motions of your Souls as you do the Motions of your Bodies and for you to ask another Man what your own Intentions are is to make him a Conjurer instead of a Casuist Would it not look extreamly ridiculous for a Man to ask his Creditor or Customer good Sir how shall I know whether I intend to pay my Debts or am sincerely resolved not to over-reach you Should any Man ask me such a Question I should only bid him consult himself and if then he suspected his own Honesty I should shrewdly suspect he had too much Reason for it If you intend righteously you intend it knowingly and if you knowingly intend it you cannot but know that you intend it If you cannot know whether you intend and act righteously you cannot know how to do it and if you cannot know how to do it you are not Subjects capable of Morality but must of Necessity live and act at Random and blunder on like Travellers in the dark without being able to determin whether you go backward or forward If therefore you would know whether you are righteous Men or no do not go about to perplex and intangle your selves in the Wilderness of Signs and Tokens for if you had a thousand Signs of Grace you can never safely conclude you are righteous till upon an impartial Review of your selves you do feel that you intend and act righteously and then and not till then you may build upon it that God loves you For God's Love is a constant and immutable Thing and in this the Constancy of it consists not that it is always fixt upon the same Person but that 't is unchangeably determined to the same Motive and this Motive is Righteousness So that if he find this Motive in us he will be sure to love us so long as it continues but if from Righteous we become Vnrighteous he must either change in his Affection or else cease to love us For should he still love on when the Reason is ceased for which he loved us he must either love us for no Reason or for a Reason that is directly contrary to that for which he loved us first and consequently his Love must either be a blind Fondness or else a fickle and inconstant Passion If therefore Righteousness be the Reason that moves the righteous Lord to love we grossly flatter and abuse our selves if we presume that he loves us while we are unrighteous Wherefore as we would not ruin our selves with relying upon vain Hopes Hopes that will sink underneath us and leave us eternally desperate and miserable let us never conclude that we are beloved of God till upon an impartial Tryal of our selves we can conclude that we are sincerely righteous 3 dly From hence I infer what grand Encouragement we have to be righteous for that God loves Righteousness is a plain Demonstration that 't is the most amiable thing in the World and that it best deserves the Affections of all rational Beings since it hath won his who never loves but upon the best Reason And what a most glorious thing is it to be adorned with the best of Beauties which by such an invincible Charm endears the Heart of the most glorious Being in the World If there be so much Honour paid to a Beauty that can smite and inslave an earthly Potentate what is there due to that that can constrain the God of Heaven and Earth to fall in love with us For what higher Mark can our Ambition aim at than that of being beloved by the greatest and most lovely Being Doubtless to be God's Favourite and Image is the highest Advancement that any Creature can aspire to and were I born King of all the Kings of the Earth and had all their Crowns and Scepters at my Feet I am sure my Reason would tell me that to be beloved of God would be a greater Glory to me than to be obeyed from Pole to Pole and should I entertain a Thought of exchanging the Honour of being a God-like Creature and the Favourite of Heaven for the Crown and Empire of the World my Conscience would tell me that I degraded my self and prostituted my own Glory for next to that of being a God my self the highest Glory I can think of is to be a Friend to God and this I am sure to be as soon as ever I commence a righteous Man And shall I stand so much in my own Light O foolish Creature that I am as to refuse his Friendship when I may have it on such reasonable Terms and shall need no other Endearment to introduce me into his Favour but only that of Righteousness O thou most excellent Beauty with whose Charms the God of Heaven is inflamed What shall I do to make thee mine How shall I obtain to be adorned with thy heavenly Luster I will go to the blessed Fountain from whence thou art derived and with a Heart hungring and thirsting after thee beseech him to infuse thy Streams into my Soul I 'll shun whatsoever is contrary to thee and do whatsoever thou commandest me and never cease Writing after thy fair Copies till I have transcribed thee into my Nature And who would not that sets any Value upon the Glory of being dear to God For besides the Honour of being his Favourites what an infinite Advantage may we expect to reap from it For what may we not promise our selves from the Grace and Favour of the great Sovereign of Beings who doth whatsoever pleases him in both Worlds and hath the absolute Disposal of all the Blessings that either Heaven or Earth affords Doubtless we may safely promise our selves every Thing both from below and above that can either do us good here or contribute to our Happiness hereafter For so the Psalmist tells us that such is his Love of Righteousness that he will give both Grace and Glory and that no good Thing will he with-hold from them that walk uprightly
their Testimony by laying down their Lives for it which was as high a Confirmation as could possibly have been given of the Truth of it But lest after all the World should suspect them God also furnished them with the Gift of Miracles and continued that Gift as an Heirlome to their Successors for Three Hundred Years together that so as the Testimony of the first Eye-witnesses was confirmed not only by their Martyrdoms but by their Miracles also so it might still be handed down from them through the successive Generations in the same infallible manner till it was spread over all the World and needed no farther Martyrdoms or Miracles to confirm it O blessed God! What care hast thou taken first to provide and then to secure the Evidences of our holy Religion that all Generations might have sufficient Motives of Credibility and that Mankind might still have abundant Reason to believe in thy Son to the End of the World when they shall see him come down from Heaven to Judgment How easie therefore hath God rendred the Condition of our Salvation to us when he hath not only rendred the Performance of it so necessarily consequent to our believing in Jesus but also to beget this Belief in us hath given us such abundant Evidence How can we sufficiently admire and adore his Goodness that hath been so infinitely solicitous to secure our Happiness and hath so contrived Things that we cannot heartily believe his Gospel and not be persuaded by it to comply with the Terms of our Salvation nor yet impartially consider the Evidence of his Gospel and not heartily believe it And yet as if all this were not enough 5 thly And lastly to render this Belief operative and effectual he hath engaged himself to assist actuate and enliven it by his own immediate Concurrence Provided we use our own honest Endeavour he hath assured us again and again that he will give his Holy Spirit to every one that asks that he will work in us to will and to do if we will but take care to work out our own Salvation with fear and trembling and that to him that hath i. e. makes an honest Improvement of that Strength that he hath it shall be given and he shall have more abundantly So that though one would have thought he had done sufficiently for us before in giving us such abundant Evidence to beget in us an hearty Belief of his Gospel and such prevalent Motives to persuade us to submit to it and comply with his gracious Proposals yet such was his Goodness to us such his importunate Care of our Welfare that he could not stop here nor think that yet he had done enough for us till by an irrepealable Promise he had obliged himself to us to co-operate with us and by the immediate Influences of his Grace to bless and succeed our honest Endeavours So that we can no sooner attempt our own Restauration no sooner set our selves in the way to our Happiness but the good God is immediately present with us exciting our Fath fixing our Consideration animating and encouraging our poor Endeavours and supplying us with all manner of Grace and Assistance that our State and Necessities require Nay and many and many a Time while we are Sleeping on in our wretched sinful Security he comes in Pity to visit us and ever and anon suggests good Thoughts to our Minds to rouse and awake us out of those fatal Slumbers to enliven our Faith and call up our Consideration nay and oftentimes he doth so urge and second and repeat those Thoughts to us that by being so haunted with their Importunities we are forced to fix our Minds on them whether we will or no. And though we like ungrateful Wretches do many times stifle his good Motions and turn a deaf Ear to his Calls and gracious Invitations to Happiness yet doth he not presently give over but whilst we are running away from him we hear a Voice behind us calling after us to return and though we still run on yet still he follows us with his Importunities through the whole Course of our sinful Life till either he hath brought us back or we have run our selves past all Hope of Recovery These are Things I dare say that every Man in the World one Time or other hath had sensible Experience of And is not this a strange Condescention of Goodness to see the God of Heaven and Earth thus courting and wooing a Company of impotent Rebels to lay down their Arms and accept his Grace and his everlasting Preferments And though they reject his Motions and stop their Ears to those still Whispers of his that secretly invade their Souls yet to consider how he still solicits and importunes them as if he would take no Denyal and were resolved not to let them alone till he had persuaded them to be happy O good God! what prodigious Stories of Love are these What strange amazing Condescentions to thy wretched undeserving Creatures And now after all this what can the Lord our God do more for us that is consistent either with his own Wisdom or with the Freedom of our Natures He hath done all that can be done to draw us to Heaven and if that will not do it is by no Means fit that he should drag us thither since it would be a most mean unreasonable Condescention in him to force us to be happy when we are unwilling to accept it and to prostitute the Reward of Piety and Virtue to those that scorn and reject it And now to conclude this Argument from hence I infer how monstrously ungrateful those Persons are who complain of the Difficulty and Burthensomeness of this gentle and merciful Condition of our Salvation When in so many Instances it is apparent how merciful God hath been in imposing such a Condition upon us In the Name of God what would you have Sirs would you have Heaven drop into your Mouths while you lie still and do nothing Or can you think it is fit that so vast a Reward should be prostituted to the lazy Wishes of such Drones and Sluggards as do not think it worth the labouring for That those golden Fruits should hang down from Heaven to us on an overladen Bow to be cropt by every idle Wanton Hand that will stretch forth it self to take and eat it Surely no reasonable Creature can be so senseless as to entertain such a wild and fond Conceit Well then would you have God admit of such a Condition of Salvation as includes in it a Licence to enjoy your Lusts and gives you Liberty to be as wicked as you please But alas if God should be so fond of your Salvation as to offer Violence to his own Nature and Government by yielding to your Sins and granting you a free Dispensation to enjoy them yet it is impossible in the Nature of the Thing because your Salvation will not consist with it For to be saved from Misery whilst we
are let alone to enjoy our Sins is a Contradiction and so not the Object of any Power no not of Omnipotence it self For Sin it self is the greatest Misery that human Nature is liable to 't is this that convulses all its Faculties that racks and stretches them out of Joint and distorts them into an unnatural Figure and Position 't is this that makes us our own Reverse transposes our Head with our Feet and makes our Reason truckle to our Sense our intellectual Faculties that were made to govern to serve those brutish Passions and Appetites which Nature designed to be their Vassals which is such a barbarous Violence to the very Frame and Constitution of our Nature as will whensoever we recover out of our lethargick Stupidity be as sensibly dolorous to our Souls as Racks or Wheels or Catasta's to our Bodies So that for God to save us from Misery whilst he suffers us to continue in our Sins is altogether as impossible as it is to save us from burning whilst he suffers us to continue weltring in the Flames of Fire and to make us well in Sickness or easie in Diseases are not more repugnant to the Nature of Things than 't is to make us happy in our Sins and yet this is the only Matter we complain of that God will not allow us a free Dispensation to be wicked in that which is the Condition of our Salvation O blessed God! How is it possible thou shouldst ever please such froward peevish and ungrateful Creatures who will never be satisfied unless thou performest Impossibilities and makest Contradictions to be true for their sakes For shame therefore let us no longer complain that the Condition of our Salvation is too hard and rigorous but since God hath been pleased to condescend so low to us as to indulge us whatsoever is consistent with our Salvation let us admire and adore his Goodness and with our Souls inflamed with Love and Gratitude to him chearfully undertake what he hath so mercifully enjoyned us JOHN III. 16 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life I Am now upon the latter Part of this Text that whosoever believeth in him c. In which there are two great Instances of God's Goodness to us First his imposing upon us such a gentle and merciful Condition that whosoever believeth in him Secondly his proposing to us so vast a Reward upon the Performance of it should not perish but have everlasting Life The first of these I have handled already and now I proceed to the second viz. the vast Reward he hath proposed to us upon the Performance of this merciful Condition And in this you have First the negative Part of it that whosoever believeth in him might not perish Secondly the positive One but have everlasting Life I. I begin with the first of these that whosoever believeth in him might not perish In prosecution of which Argument I shall do these three Things 1. Shew you what is meant by perishing here 2. By what Right we were concerned in and obliged to it 3. What unspeakable Goodness God hath discovered to us in freeing and absolving us from this Obligation 1. What is meant by perishing here or not perishing That whosoever believeth in him should not perish that is that whosoever believes in him might be pardoned or absolved from the obligation of perishing for ever to which his Sins have rendred him justly liable For that by this Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he should not perish or be destroyed is not meant the Annihilation or Destruction of our Beings as the Socinians and some others imagin is evident by its being opposed to everlasting Life which as I shall shew you hereafter doth not denote our mere Continuance in Life and Being for ever but our Continuance in a most blissful and happy Life for ever and consequently the Destruction that is here opposed to it must not denote our eternal Discontinuance to be and live but our living most wretchedly and miserably for ever And indeed wheresoever Death or Destruction is spoken of in Opposition to eternal Life this is apparently the Sense of it So Rom. vi 23 The wages of Sin is death but the Gift of God is eternal Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now that by Death here is understood a State of endless Misery and Suffering in Opposition to that State of endless Happiness which eternal Life implies is evident because he cannot mean the first Death which consists in the Separation of the Soul from the Body for though this were originally the Wages of Sin yet in it self it is not so now but the necessary Condition of our Nature for whether we Sin or no we must undergo it being obliged to it by the irreversible Decree of our Maker But the Death here spoken of is the Effect of our own personal Sin without which we are not liable to it as you may plainly see v. 21. What fruit had ye then in those things i. e. those Sins whereof ye are now ashamed For the end of those things or Sins is Death Wherefore since it cannot be meant of the first it must be meant of the second Death which St. John makes mention of Rev. 2.11 He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second Death And what that is the same Author tells you Rev. 20.14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire This is the second Death that is this Lake of Fire or the Torments and Miseries which condemned Sinners endure in it is the second Death for so he explains himself v. 10. And the Devil that deceived them was cast into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone where the Beast and the false Prophet are and shall be tormented Day and Night for ever and ever And this is that Death which is opposed to the immortal Rewards of the Blessed as you may see Rev. 21.7 8. He that overcometh shall inherit all things that is all those immortal Recompences which God has prepared for virtuous Souls But the fearful and unbelieving c. shall have their part in the Lake which burneth with Fire and Brimstrone Which is the second Death And as Death when opposed to eternal Life denotes a State of endless and continued Misery so doth Destruction also So Mat. 7.13 14. Broad is the way that leadeth to Destruction Narrow is the way which leadeth unto Life By the later of which it is granted on all hands he means Life eternal and that by Destruction he means a State of endless Misery is evident from Matth. 10.28 but fear him which is able to destroy both Soul and Body in Hell which according to St. John's Exposition Rev. 20.10 is to torment them Day and Night for ever and ever And this destroying in Hell our Saviour elsewhere expresses by casting into Hell into the fire that never shall be quenched where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched which is as plain