which it is called the Covenant of Grace God in and by it relaxing the rigour of the Law which required personal satisfaction to Divine Justice from the persons offending and a perfect performance of the whole Law and accepted the satisfaction given to Divine Justice by the nature offending hypostatically united to the person that was the Son of God and accepting from us sincerity instead of perfect obedience the sincerely willing mind instead of the perfect deed Such a Covenant we suppose and believe to have been made 2. We believe it not made for all but conformably to the purpose of Election if it had been made for all we could not understand but that all men must be saved 3. Nor can we think it was made for an uncertain number but as there are individual names written in the Book of Life so we believe the same concerning the rolls of this Covenant The Lord as the Apostle tells us knoweth who are his Christ was not Sponsor incerti foederis a surety of an incertain but of a certain Covenant Some would make Christs Covenant with his Father not to have been for these or those persons but indefinitely for those that should believe and so to have been conditional But certainly no considerate Christian can allow this who observeth that amongst men nothing but ignorance of future contingencies is the cause of incertain and conditional bargains the Parent that dieth and gives his Child a Portion conditionally that he or she marrieth so and so or be subject to such or such Governors would have left out that condition if he or she had certainly known what the Child would have done and it seems to us strangely to derogate from the eternal perfection of the Divine Being in point of Knowledge so much as to fancy that God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who both from eternity knew who would or would not repent and believe and needs must know it because they could do neither but by vertue of special grace infused by and derived from God should make a Covenant each with other that such or such persons who they knew would not repent nor believe if they believed and repented should have a share in the satisfaction and death of Christ 4. We do suppose and believe the blood of the Covenant that is the blood of Jesus Christ was intentionally poured forth according to the Covenant and for the persons concerned in it The blood of Christ is called the blood of the Covenant Zech. 9.11 Heb. 10.29 Heb. 13.20 and the Antitype to those ancient types of the blood of Beasts which was so called Exod. 24.8 So that we think it a very unreasonable assertion to extend the blood of the Covenant beyond the persons concerned in the Covenant But yet notwithstanding all this there is nothing more evident in the issues of Divine Providence than that this Covenant is held out to all indefinitely Mar. 16.15 Christs commission to his Apostles runs thus Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every Creature He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned Here both the benefit of the New Covenant eternal life and salvation is offered to all and the terms believing and being baptized are also propounded unto all and according to that direction and commission is all our Preaching Now hence ariseth the difficulty If there be not a possibility of salvation for all men if they all be not within the verge of the Covenant If Christ hath not died for all why is the Gospel preached to every creature how can it consist with the truth and honour of that God who cannot lie by his Ministers to tell men that if they will but repent and believe they shall be saved To what end is the Gospel preached unto them To which I answer 1. That the Gospel only asserteth the infallible connexion of faith and salvation What saith the Gospel He that believeth shall be saved and will any say that a believer shall be damned or did ever any penitent and believing soul perish if there had then indeed we might have quarrelled at the truth of God but God will be true though all men be found liars What though ten thousand be told and have it rung in their Ears That he who believeth shall be saved and but ten of those ten thousand should believe provided that they be saved God I hope is true and what he hath said is to a tittle made good But you will say why then are all told if they believe they shall be saved The Minister of the Gospel may go to every particular soul and say to him or her if thou repentest and believest thou shalt be saved I answer 2. God is pleased to hide from his Ministers his secret counsels concerning the salvation of individual souls They therefore may and must say whosoever believeth shall be saved and God will confirm in Heaven whatsoever they deliver on Earth and by vertue of this Commission they may say to every individual soul Believe and thou shalt be saved they know not who are ordained to life and shall have effectual grace bestowed upon them inabling them to believe but they know the general proposition of the Gospel is true But still you will say why hath God by his Providence so ordered it to what end should the Providence of God order the publication and tender of the Covenant of Grace to a greater number than are concerned in it 3. What if we should say It is O Father so because it pleaseth thee and be forced here to cry out with the great Apostle Rom. 9.33 O the depth of the ri hes both of the wisdom and know ledge of God how unsearchable are his judgements and his ways past finding out vers 34. For who hath known the mind of the Lord or who hath been his Counsellor Who is able to give a just account of Gods designs and intentions to what purpose he doth things It is enough for us to know that God doth them and that God may do them and there is no unrighteousness with him if he doth do it We ought to believe that God hath wise ends in what he doth though we are not able to find out what they be Yet it may not be amiss to tell you what Divines do say in the case though they cannot by searching find out God nor find out the Almighty unto perfection 1. There are those that say that Reprobates are only called to faith and repentance as they are mixed with the elect and the exhortations reach them only by way of concomitancy and possibly it may be doubted if there were any society or company of people in the world amongst whom there were not any ordained to everlasting life whether God would at all send his Gospel to them or direct any of the Messengers of his word to go and call them to repentance God incouraging Paul Act.
VERA EFFIGIES IOHANNIS COLLINGS S.T.P. ANNO DOM 1678. AETATIS 55. Man 's but a shadow and a Picture is That shadow's shadow yet don't judge amiss Though here you onely on the shadow look What followes read The Substance is i'th'book R. White ad Vâ—â—um delin et sculp 167â— SEVERAL DISCOURSES Concerning the Actual Providence OF GOD. DIVIDED INTO THREE PARTS The First Treating concerning the Notion of it establishing the Doctrine of it opening the principal ACTS of it Preservation and Government of created Beings With the particular Acts by which it so preserveth and governeth them The Second Concerning the Specialties of it the Vnsearchable things of it and several Observable things in its motions The Third concerning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or hard Chapters of it in which an attempt is made to solve several appearances of difficulty in the motions of Providence and to vindicate the Justice Wisdom and Holiness of God with the reasonableness of his dealing in such Motions By JOHN COLLINGES D.D. LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst and are to be sold by Edward Giles Bookseller in St. Andrews Parish in Norwich 1678. To the Right Honourable the Lady Frances Thompson MADAM I Beseech your Honour to believe me telling you that I have been these thirteen years ever since I had the happiness to know your Ladiship watching an opportunity as to let your Ladiship know the sense I have of the obligations you have been pleased to lay upon me so to let the world know the honour I have for your Ladiship growing up from my first observations of you which was in your Ladiships near approaches to and in your state of Widowhood I then observed Madam that your Ladiship like the child of so Honourable and pious Parents had very early entertained just noble and most honourable thoughts of the living God which had produced in you as early a choice of him as your God and of his ways as your ways with a zeal beyond the proportion which could be expected from your years Having therefore perfected the following Discourses I congratulated my self when I had thought of your Ladiship as a fit person to entitle to them and the rather because your Ladiship having not yet seen many years shall I hope have many days to observe the motions of Divine Providence both as to Polities and Persons and from thence both to conclude how true those few Observations are which I have made and to give some more eminent Divine many a subject more of this nature from your own observation Madam in the few years you have yet lived you have seen as many and as quick and inexpected rotations of Providence as the like number of years have at any time as yet produced or are like to produce and yet the wheel seems to run nimbly and a further multitude of years may add to your Ladiships wisdom in this thing I crave leave most humbly to recommend to your Honour as the observation of Issues so the confirmation of Divine Promises and Threatnings in the fulfilling of them I doubt not but your Ladiship will every day see that it is that God who cannot lye who hath commanded his Ministers at all times to say unto the righteous it shall be well with them for they shall eat of the fruit of their doings and to say Wo unto the wicked it shall be ill with them for the reward of their hands shall be given them If Madam the actual Providence of God at any time seemeth to look another way it is but keeping your patient foot a while at the Promise and Providence like the Bee will come home to the word of Promise or Threatning bringing along with it a body laden with honey to reward the godly and righteous man and a sting to smite and pierce those through who have wrought wickedness and provoked a jealous God Our blessed Lord Madam tells us Joh. 17.3 That it is life eternal for men to know God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent The promise or predication in the proposition of that Text makes it evident that by the knowledg of the Father and Jesus Christ is meant more than the bare comprehension of the nature and things of God in our understanding as indeed knowledg and most other terms of sense do ordinarily signifie in Scripture the Greek complying with its elder sister the Hebrew which hath a great penury of words so that to know God and Christ in the true sense of that text is not only in our understandings to comprehend what may be and is necessary to be known of God but to adore love fear him believe in him to chuse him for our God In short it comprehends all those acts of our minds which are either just consequents or may rationally be inferred as duties from a just understanding and due comprehension of him but in regard according to the workings of our reasonable natures those acts will not indeed cannot be exerted without a praevious apprehension of him proportionable to what he indeed is and so as to make him an adequate object for our affections a just comprehension of God in our understandings is necessary in order to those other acts of internal homage wherein the Creature standeth indebted to his great Creator So that Solomon Prov. 19.2 did but conclude rationally That the soul should be without knowledg is not good And the great Apostle of the Gentiles askt but a reasonable question Rom. 10. How shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard All Knowledg comes into the Soul either by the Exterior senses or by reasoning and discourse or thirdly by Divine impression and revelation The two former are the more ordinary the latter a rarer and more extraordinary means of knowledg in these latter days since God hath spoken to us by his Son I speak of Knowledg strictly taken for the comprehension of things in our understanding for if we take it in the large sense even now mentioned neither sense nor reason is a sufficient mean to it By sense we can directly comprehend nothing of God for who hath seen him at any time he is an Incorporeal immaterial substance and cometh not under the cognisance of any sense nor indeed can we so know any spiritual being but in regard the effects both of him who is the Father of Spirits and of spiritual beings that are creatures are sensible Our Senses afford us oft-times an auxiliary help from which our reason draweth just conclusions concerning God from Principles which it at first it establisheth by the help of sense For example That the World is and Man is are matters of sense Now Reason concludes Nothing unless a first being can be the cause of its own existence Hence it gathers there must be a God a first being and a first cause Again when Sense hath shewed us Man a reasonable creature Reason works and tells us He that made this noble Creature must needs be more noble
God is omniscient but he expounds it thus that he doth Omnia scibilia exactissime scire quo quidem modo ipsa scibilia sunt Vorstius de Deo in Not. ad Disp 5. p. 268. That God knows all that could be known in that manner that they were to be known so then it seems there were some things that could not be known by him who calleth the things that are not as if they were I wonder what these things should be he will tell you Those things which depend upon the liberty of mans will So then here is another first cause and mover set up and God knows nothing of the effects and motions of that till they discover themselves in action And I beseech you consider how great a part of the Divine Knowledg this takes away God according to this Doctrine could not from eternity certainly know any thing that depended upon the will of man so that it leaveth God no certain knowledg but of things in their own nature necessary which is a strange notion of God yet necessary to be held by all those who are the Advocates of free-will otherwise than as freedom is opposed to force and coaction for if man hath a power to believe or not to believe God could not from eternity certainly know that man should believe because he might not believe I cannot understand how this assertion of the necessity of events in regard of the Counsel of God concernig them should as they say take away the Providence of God for what do they mean by Providence but Gods continual inspection of created Beings his continual influence upon them to preserve and uphold their beings and faculties and to govern their actions Now supposing that God hath determined all Events why he should not yet inspect all Agents and uphold their powers and faculties to those actions which he hath willed to permit or effect in order to the production of such effects and ends and to govern all their motions and actions in order to that end I cannot tell Do they contend for a liberty for God to alter the series and course in which his will hath set all things This indeed were reasonable for foolish man whose second thoughts use to be best and whom succession of time teacheth knowledg but not for God whose will never moved but circumstanced with that infinite wisdom that required not a second thought and whose name is I am and his will as immutable as his essence But I hasten to something from this Doctrine which shall be more practical This notion of the certainty of events from an eternal purpose of God Vse 2 may be of great use for the quiet stay comfort and satisfaction of religious souls under the ingrateful contingencies of this life whether caused from the immediate hand of God or from the malice and wickedness of men There is nothing which cometh so to pass but there first passed upon it the Counsel of the Divine Will Then a working of Divine Providence either effecting or permitting it immediately influencing the Agent if it be good permitting the oblique motions of mans will to it and in it his lusts and passions in their boysterous motions if the thing be evil We are creatures who are full of passions exceedingly subject to the exorbitancies and over-boylings of them In reference to evil that is things that are not pleasing to our external senses there are two or three passions which give us most or all of the trouble of our lives Fear that torments us upon the prospect of some great evil probable or likely to fall upon us Grief that drowneth us upon the over-flowing of some Divine scourge upon our persons families or interests in the world Anger that corrodes and consumes us because we cannot be revenged upon such as have been the instruments of any evil to us In the operations of all these our corrupt nature is very prone to exorbitancy Now under all accidents apt to elicite irritate or inflame these passions and so to disorder and to spoil the quiet and composure of our minds it should mightily stay us that nothing is casual or contingent to God nothing cometh to pass in time but what he hath from all eternity determined and set in order man hath done can do no more than what God hath purposed nor suffer more than what he hath fixed by the eternal counsel of his will There are two necessary consequents of this eternal Predestination and Predestination of God which if duly weighed will wonderfully relieve and stay the hearts of Gods People under the troublesom accidents and contingencies of this life 1. That although the Will and Counsel of God putteth no force upon rational agents nor offers any violence to humane will yet it layeth a necessity upon the event This is what a Generation in the world will not understand but nothing can be plainer to any who have ears to hear or a mind to understand Gods Counsel as you heard predetermined the death of Jesus Christ the Scripture plainly saith That Herod Pontius Pilate and the Jews did no more than what the Counsel of God had determined to be done Act. 4.28 I would fain know now whether as to the event it had been possible that Pontius Pilate should not have condemned or the Jews should not have crucified Christ Who hath resisted his will at any time Yet certainly none will say but as to the action Judas was not forced to betray him nor Pilate to condemn him they acted freely as to their action although the event was necessary Gods Counsel influenced the event but not their wills to move them to the action But I say the necessity of the event though it doth not justifie the Agent nor authorize the Act yet it is of wonderful use to satisfie such as suffer under such events and that upon a double account 1. As it letteth us know That all our trouble and sollicitude all our fears griefs all our suspicions jealousies and condemnings of our selves for any omissions or neglects of means are in vain and to no purpose The thing must or will be it must or would have been God had determined it there was an eternal Counsel had passed upon it We are very prone upon sad events to torture our selves with such reflexions as these If this or that thing had not been done if this or that means had not been used this thing had not been such a friend had not dyed such a mischief had not befallen me Lord saith Martha John 11.21 if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed We are wonderfully mistaken in these things It is true that our knowledg that events are certain is no justification of us in the neglect of the use of any means in order to the obtaining any good we desire or preventing or removing of any evil upon us or imminent over us and the reason is plain 1. Because though the event be certain yet we are
more reasonable more excellent What we know then of God must needs be from Reason or Revelation Reason brings us in knowledg by raising Conclusions from Principles These Principles are of two sorts Philosophical or Scriptural I call those Philosophical Principles which reason as it now resideth in us justifieth and which without the help of the Word of God are allowed by all or the most of men especially if cultivated by any ingenuous education being either common natural principles or such as are established by studies upon deliberate thoughts with the help of sense and improvement of discourse and ratiocination Thus Reason will tell us that there is a God but one God That he must be the first being the first cause more excellent in the perfections of his being than any creature and an hundred things of a like evidence Or else it concludeth from revealed Principles having first a sufficient evidence That the holy Scriptures are the word of God who cannot speak falsly These Principles now are such propositions as without the surer word of Prophesie we could never have had any just evidence of Such now are the Doctrines of the Trinity The Incarnation of Christ The Personal union of the Divine and Humane Nature in him and many others In the discovery and justification of such Conclusions as Reason gathereth from the first sort of Principles lyeth the work of a Philosopher as a Philosopher In the discovery and proof of such Propositions as are partly evidenced from Reason but more fully from Scripture lies the work of a Christian Philosopher In the discovery proving and applying of such Propositions as have their Evidence partly from Reason and more fully from holy Writ or as cannot be at all concluded unless building upon Scriptural foundations but are founded in Scripture and may be illustrated imperfectly from reason and shewed not to be improbable nor unreasonable lyes the work of the Minister of the Gospel who is to convey the knowledg of God to his people And the true reason why some even of these silver Trumpets which belong to the Sanctuary give an incertain sound is because neither the Principles of natural Reason nor Revelation appear to all men in the same light We say The best Philosopher is not as yet born Our age tells us how generally Principles of Philosophy are exploded and it may be some of them justly too which we when we were boys thought to lye very near Demonstration and doubtless in the next age something now admitted will be judged as faulty It hath pleased God to subject our understandings to this vanity Now we having no way unless God would from Heaven speak to us to know any proposition of Truth but from the exercise of our Reason concluding either from Principles purely natural or from Propositions of Revelation in Scripture every one naturally judging himself obliged to believe according to the evidence he hath from his understanding there must and will be different apprehensions until which will never be men have all either the same degrees of Natural Reason or Scriptural knowledg which will be advantaged if there be any who think that all Propositions are to be weighed by the ballance of Natural Reason and that the holy Scripture as to the sense of it must come into that scale and make but in-weight giving only an auxiliary help to the Evidence of the most sublime Propositions of truth Nor is there any help for this The Church of Rome which your Ladiship knows pretends to wondrous Miracles hath indeed devised a palliating cure for this setting up an Infallible cheat to judg of all Controversies and by fire and faggots and all barbarous cruelties and inhumanities forcing men to acquiesce in the Decisions of that ridiculous Judg. But in the mean time mens Consciences apprehend themselves before one who is no Judg in the ease and the sore festreth and rotteth to the bone for the Pope can make none to alter his mind And a little reason might tell the Quacks of that Colledg that if it be not in the power of a man to believe what he hath a mind to believe it is much less in the power of a foreign power to compell him to it The Protestant cure is certainly more humane and reasonable yea and more Apostolical too They set forth sums of sound Doctrine to which they only annex that of the Apostle Phil. 3.15 Let us therefore as many as be perfect be thus minded and if any in any thing be otherwise minded God shall reveal even this unto you Only Protestants require as the same Apostle directs Rom. 14. That if any hath a particular faith different from that of the Church wherein he liveth he should have it to himself before God Thus the Knowledg of God is acquired from his word reading it being Catechised out of it hearing it opened and preached by the comparing of spiritual things with spiritual by the use of reason and discourse in the Velitation of Questions arising from the seeming contradictions in Holy Writ c. But there is also another mean of Divine Knowledg that is by his exterior works by which much of the Knowledg of God is gained improved and encreased These works are either of Creation or of Providence Creation was the work of the first six days from which God hath ceased long since but the things created remain and much of the Knowledg of God is to be gained from thence by the help of sense which sheweth us the things and reason which helpeth us to conclude that there being so many noble effects there must be a first and more noble cause there being so many excellent Beings there must be a first and most perfect and excellent Being Nothing created could give an Existence to it self Hence the Apostle telleth us That the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen from the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead Rom. 1.20 So that they are without excuse because that when they knew God they glorified him not as God For the Book of Scriptures we blessed be God! have it in our Vernacular Tongue we have means to teach us to read we have Catechisms and Confessions of Faith containing the Epitome and substance of them we have the various labours of holy and learned men to make us to understand them scarce any thing seemeth to be wanting to this age for the gaining of this excellent knowledg by this mean but persons giving themselves up to Reading Hearing Meditation Christian Conferences and Prayer For the Book of Creation methinks it is like a great Bible in some Religious Gentlemans Hall that lyes always open we cannot move a step in the world nor lift up an eye to Heaven but our eye is upon one page or another of it If men will not read the Wisdom of God in the sagacity and wisdom of some Creatures nor the power and greatness of God in the
greatness and power of others and so for other perfections it is not because they want means but because they want an heart to seek after God as to this there is no want of any thing but a wise contemplation of them and a rational concluding from the perfections of the effects to the greater excellency and perfection of the first cause and being The Book of Creation will learn us much of the nature and admirable perfections of the Divine Being The Book of Scripture will learn us more of it and instruct us in sublimer Mysteries than Reason could discover The Doctrine of the Trinity the two Natures united in the Person of the Mediator They will tell us of Gods Covenants of Christs performances of the Covenant of Redemption of the Will of God to be done by us and the Will of God to be done unto and upon us in his Promises and threatnings The Apostle sums up all when he tells us they are able to make the man of God wise to salvation throughly furnished to every good work But there is yet another Book which is less obvious to the eye of sense than the Book of Creation is and to the eye of Reason too and upon which fewer Commentaries have been wrote than upon the Books of holy Scripture that is the Book of Actual Providence A Book in which much of God is written and from which much of God may be learned but it is commonly taken for the Vision of a book that is sealed which is given to one who is learned with a command to read it but he saith I cannot for it is sealed Some more brutish than the Heathens deny any such Book dreaming of the old Pagan Fate or blind Fortune Others will allow it in part but will have much of it spurious dreaming that the World is like a Clock which once set in order and wound up goes alone without further use of the Workmans hand Others will allow Divine Providence a more universal influence but yet love not to hear of any Specialties of it Some again highly conceited of their own reason will subject the Providence of God to their rational Conclusions Few or none make any observations upon the motions of Divine Providence though certainly nothing more conduceth to true Spiritual wisdom Others stumbling at some difficulties relating to the motions of Providence either wholly deny it or form to themselves strange Ideas of God which no way agree to his most holy and perfect essence This Madam hath encouraged me to attempt something both to recover the Actual Providence of God from the Atheism of this age and the groundless prejudices which vain men have taken up against it and by it to recover for God that just Fear Faith Love Patience and other homage which both the excellency of his being and of his holy working calleth for And certainly Madam if learned men have thought it worth their while as some have done to give the World a rational account of Divine Offices of the Modes and circumstances of Ecclestastical constitutions in Rites and Garments Liturgies and Ceremonies c. It must needs be a noble work to undertake to give the world a Rational of Divine Operations Such especially which seem to be the hardest Chapters in the book of Providence and least easie to be understood and indeed this was my original design But while my thoughts were exercised in this my work grew upon my hand considering especially the Atheism of the age in which we live together with the circumstances of the Church and people of God in most European parts of the world and the particular temptations I have observed attending many and those very excellent persons I was further drawn on by the pleasantness and usefulness of the subject in all but especially in evil times and the apparent tendency of it to make men fear and love hope and trust in and with patience to wait upon God These things Madam made me resolve to open the Doctrine of Providence more fully though not in its full compass and latitude resolving always to carry along with me the capacity of those to whom I spake or wrote I was Madam the more encouraged in this from my observation that amongst the many excellent Books with which this age doth abound there are fewer of this Argument than any other Mr. Obadiah Sedgwick a great Divine treats in two or three Sermons about the Specialties of Providence and the late eminent Bishop Wilkins hath in a short Tract learnedly and piously discoursed the symmetry and beauty of it Another in a larger Discourse called an Introduction into the Doctrine of Providence hath made and a little enlarged upon several Observations upon the motions of it I projected and have at last finished a fuller Discourse than any of these though possibly much more imperfect so far as they did discourse this excellent argument and resolved to divide my discourse into three parts which accordingly I have done In the first Part Madam after two Preliminary Discourses the first concerning Gods Predeterminations where I had no mind to meddle with any present Controversies that was not a popular work the second concerning Creation Your Ldiship will find me plainly discoursing of the Nature of Providence in the notion in which alone I intended to speak to it There I have from Scripture and Reason proved That there is a constant care of God extended to the whole Creation That the Creature stands not in its own strength nor moveth meerly from a principle within it self nor is governed meerly by its fellow-creatures in a superior order much less acteth casually or under the necessity of any fate but is under the daily inspection government care and influence of the first cause its great Creator who both preserveth and governeth it There I have shortly shewed the particular acts by which God preserveth and governeth created Beings in their several capacities A point Madam of inexpressible use to possess us of a true notion of God of our daily dependencies upon him and consequently our duty toward him David saith he was fearfully and wonderfully made we are fearfully and wonderfully preserved In the second Part I have discoursed 1. Of the Specialties of Providence more especially to the Church and to every individual soul that loves and fears him shortly opening wherein they lye and shewing the reasonableness of it 2. Then I more shortly discourse the unsearchable things of it for Madam who dare pretend more than to shew a part of his ways Who can by searching find out God Who can find out the Almighty to Perfection This I have done to check curiosity and keep off good people from vain guesses and Prophetical conclusions without bottom 3. From that the discourse will lead your Ladiship to consider the duty of a good Christian in the observation of the motions of Providence and the advantage from it resulting to an observing soul To help my Reader in this
eternity could not have had a certain knowledg of them as things to be if there were a necessity of their being what could make it but the will and purpose of God For example God did from all eternity certainly know that his blessed Son our Lord and Saviour should be born of the Virgin Mary in the time of Augustus Caesar and here live some years and then be crucified he did certainly know that Herod should mock him Pilate judg and condemn him the Jews crucifie him Then I say from all eternity these things were certainly to be otherwise God could not have known them God indeed did not decree to put that malice into the heart of Pilate Herod or the Jews But he did decree that such persons should be and to suffer them to execute that malice of their hearts yea and to influence them to those actions so far as they were natural actions without that influence neither Herod could have opened his mouth to mock him nor Pilate to condemn him nor could the Jews have lifted up their hands to have either made a cross or driven a nail That indeed they used this their natural strength and power their tongues and hands thus wickedly and maliciously this was from the Devil and from their own lusts but God willed that it should be done though he did not will to do it in a way of efficiency This was that which gravelled Vorstius a man of a clear head and great Learning and Reason though corrupt having not learned to submit his Reason to the Word of God so that he confesseth it a very great difficulty to fix an immutable cause of the certain existence of future contingencies he reckons up all that is said and at last reckons this for one opinion The determination of the Divine will in which God beheld all things as certainly decreed which were to be effected as in the first efficient cause effectually decreeing them He saith That as this is the most received Vorstius de Deo Attr. Not. ad Disp 5. p. 260. V. etiam 267 268. so it is the truest opinion if it be not extended to all future things even to sins c. And again he tells us That whatsoever we fix as the cause either of Gods fore-knowledg or the future existence of things we shall everywhere find Labyrinthum inexplicabilem an inexplicable Labyrinth And indeed it is not to be determined How God should know all things from all eternity if he had not willed them to be either by his efficiency or permission And our adversaries you see in this point agree it the best way to fix it there only they are afraid If God willed sin to be he must needs be the author of it That we deny we say he did not will the infusion of any sinful habit nor the doing of any sinful act only that it should be done and you heard before the Scripture speaketh plainly enough in this case That the Counsel of God had determined that should be done which was done against Christ by Herod Pontius Pilate and the Jews 2. My second proof shall be from the actual Providence of God extending to all motions and actions The Scripture is full of expressions proving this In him we live move and have our being Acts 17. My Father worketh hitherto and I work John 5.17 My Text saith He worketh all things The actual Providence of God is a certain Servant to the Eternal Will Purpose and Counsel of God It doth but execute the eternal thoughts and decrees Look as every rational agent first thinketh deliberateth and determineth with himself what to do and then his hands are employed to execute his purposes and deliberations so God being the highest rational Agent doth nothing in time which did not meet with an eternal thought nothing but what he had from eternity resolved and determined should be done First the Counsel of his Will passed upon the thing that it should be then his Providence bringeth it about though in a different manner suited to the purity and holiness of God for God cannot be the author of sin The Providence of God therefore as to actions that are evil only permits the filth and obliquity of them though it further concurreth to the motion or action as it is natural for so it hath a goodness in it As the Writing-master guideth the childs-hand in the Writing of its Letters but guideth it not to make blots or any crooked or irregular strokes though it is true of him also that if he pleased he could hold the childs hand so steady and so far influence it that it should not make an irregular stroke The Jews spit upon our Saviours face they nailed him to the Cross if God by his Providence had not assisted their natural faculties to these actions so far as they were natural meerly natural they could not have spoke or spit nor moved an hand to lift up a crown of Thorns to his head nor to have driven a nail into his flesh God did concur to uphold their natural strength to their natural action but now That they spake bad words rather than good to and of our blessed Lord that they used their natural power to spit to the use of which God by his Providence concurred rather to spit upon Christs face than upon the ground and their strength rather to drive a nail into Christs flesh than into the bare wood and to work in their honest and lawful occupation this was from the lust of their own hearts Their sin was not in spitting or speaking or driving a nail but in spitting on Christs face in speaking evil and blasphemously of Christ in piercing his flesh with their nails This God had nothing further to do with than to permit for the just punishment of their former sin and for the further working out of his own Glory in the salvation of those for whom Christ dyed In the mean time the Providence of God had its place about their sinful actions though not causing or any way effecting them yet permitting and not hindering the doing of them in assisting to the actions so far as they were natural And this motion of Divine Providence which is but a servant to the Divine Counsel doth certainly conclude such a Divine Counsel according to the nature of the operation of Providence And this is enough to establish the Proposition This Proposition in the first place sheweth us the Vanity of those who dream of an incertainty in the effects of Divine Providence with reference to us there is a great incertainty Vse 1 we know not what a day will bring forth but in it self there is none there is nothing but hath met with an eternal thought The truth is a certainty of Divine knowledg doth necessarily infer a certainty of events for God could not have a certain knowledg from eternity of such things as in themselves were incertain whether they should be or no. Vorstius grants that
The infinite variety with the different qualities of created Beings yet all conspiring together for the good and order of the whole the order we see amongst them their subserviencies and subordinations each to other they all speak that there is a God that by his Providence ruleth the world Whoso lifteth up his eyes to the Heavens and considereth the constant unwearied motions of those great celestial bodies with the evenness of them so as they are reducible to a science of all other most certain liable to little more exceptions than an extraordinary command to the Sun to stand still in Gibeon and the Moon in the valley of Ajalon or to go backward some few degrees as in Hezekiah's time or considereth the vast bodies of water sometime in the Heavens coming upon us not as water from a pail but through a water-pot must needs conclude a Superiour hand directing and guiding the motions and holding the thin Cloud that it is not rent while the rain makes its orderly passage by drops through the thin and subtil parts of it Whoso standeth by the Sea-side and observeth that vast body of water driven by fierce winds sometimes and constantly by its natural motion invading the Earth as if it would presently swallow it up and observeth it after the ceasing of the wind or a six hours progressive motion gradually retreating and leaving it out of fear yea and further leaving a water-mark for the following flow unless at some certain times before and after the full of the Moon must needs acknowledg a Supreme Being setting bounds unto it which it hath no reason to prescribe to it self nor is it subject to the Command of the greatest Potentate on Earth Finally he that standeth upon the Earth and considers its annual productions the variety of Creatures of all orders in it their Sympathies and Antipathies their Successions the varieties of their Beings Motions and Qualities and yet their mutual subserviencies to one another and subjection to each other must be no less than a most absurd and bruitish Atheist if he will not acknowledg that no less than the daily and mighty influence of an Almighty God could compound their living together upon the same soil in any harmonious agreement each with other That every thing should know its seasons and keep its bounds and be in subjection to man weaker than many of them and not transgress its order or end but when armed by God as a part of his Host to revenge his quarrels upon sinners must be from a knowledg which God gives them and a Law he daily puts upon them but as the Psalmist saith Psal 107.23 They that go down to the Sea in Ships that do business in great waters these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy winds which lift up the waves thereof they mount up to the heavens they go down to the depths their soul is melted because of trouble the breaking of a wave would swallow them up Who is he that maintaineth the continuity of the parts of the water that the waves break not nor the water divideth under the mighty weight that is upon it who but the mighty God could do it In short he seemeth to have taken a very cursory slight and overly view of the Works of Creation that doth not see a plain necessity of a Divine Providence to uphold the various Beings within the compass of it and their various Qualities to compound the disagreements of their natures into an harmony proportioned to the preservation of the Universe Whoso is wise and hath observed these things he must understand both the Power and Wisdom of God in all these things and consequently the loving-kindness of the Lord. I shall shut up this with that Pious foot of the Psalmists Song of Providence Psal 107. O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness for his wonderful works to the children of men 2. If we consider the Nature of God we shall find that he who acknowledgeth a Divine Being and denieth a providential care of all created Beings hath but set up an idol in his heart and rather owneth a God with his tongue than in any truth and sincerity For what do we mean by that term God but an immense Being filling all places a first cause of all things Almighty in power of infinite activity wisdom and goodness We can hardly so much as fancy such a Being but by the same conception we must establish a Divine Providence 1. If we allow not God to be the first Cause we must grant a former cause of things and this were to deny God while we pretend to own him It is as much nonsense to assert one before the first as one higher than the highest But how is God the first cause if he hath no influence upon second causes nor they any dependance upon him If they say that second causes have a dependance on him and he an influence on them they establish what we contend for viz. a Divine Providence 2. If we allow God to be an immense and infinite being filling all places we must either allow him to fill all places as an oculate active being or as a sensless inanimate being A bulk of lead or stone filleth a place but takes no notice of any thing in it A man filleth a place which circumscribeth him but seeth and observeth all things It were an high blasphemy against God to affirm that he filleth all places only as a Log or a bulk of Lead filleth a particular place if he filleth all places as an animate being that hath eyes and ears he must needs see and hear and observe all things in all places which his Being filleth Whoso granteth this doth in a great measure own and acknowledg a Divine Providence 3. But this Doctrine is fully confirmed to us if we will but recognize God a being of infinite mercy and goodness God is not like the Ostrich of which Job saith 39.14 She leaves her eggs in the earth and warmeth them in the dust and forgetteth that the foot may crush them or the wild beast may break them she is hardned against her young ones It is our great vanity that labouring under a difficulty to conceive of any being above our own pitiful perfection and capacity we fancy to our selves strange Idea's of God We can hardly apprehend an immense being that should fill all places if we could we should easily conclude a Divine Omniscience If we can fancy any thing of that yet we are ready to conceive of him according to the lazy imperfections of our natures and think of God as of some great and mighty Prince that hath either through inactivity or for greater state mewed up himself in his Court and gives up himself instead of his business of Government to divertisements of pleasure leaving the care of Government upon his Counsellors or some principal Ministers of State Hence the mistake of
it ordering it and ruling it to his pleasure is to fancy that may be done casually in so vast a place as the whole world which we see cannot be in a little City or Family than which nothing is more unreasonable 3. Nor thirdly is any thing more contrary to the Scripture for there is no one proposition of truth that hath a more plentiful evidence of Scripture than this Doctrine of Providence hath I beseech you therefore to take heed of suffering any such suggestion any such thought or imagination to possess your hearts look upon it as a very great piece of Atheism to deny or to dispute it besides that as I shall shew you by and by There is no Doctrine of greater use to settle and compose our Spirits under all the varieties of the world nor to keep us in a more holy quiet patient temper and in a dependency upon God under all accidents which occur to us than this Doctrine of Providence Let this therefore be the first use and application of this excellent Doctrine to settle your hearts in this point so consequential to a just and due notion and a right apprehension of him who is the living and true God In the second place Vse 2 Let me apply this by way of caution You have heard that there is a Divine Influence upon all Beings Motions Actions Events c. But take heed of two things 1. Of thinking that the Providence of God necessitates all motions and actions of voluntary Agents Or 2. That it gives any supersedeas to our own endeavours with reference to Events Some Agents indeed act necessarily all but rational Agents do so they have no reason and consequently no counsel deliberation or election But reasonable creatures such as men and women are have a Will and act from it as from their principle these the Providence of God influenceth but doth not compel or necessitate The Providence of God influenceth a man to good actions suggesting them to him moving him and inclining him unto them but not enforcing him As to evil actions the influence of Divine Providence is otherwise God doth not suggest not move not incline the heart to them It upholdeth the creature to the meer natural action 2. It suffereth the sinner to vent the malice and wickedness of his heart in the action 3. It governeth the action when done to the wise end of Gods glory The influence of Providence neither necessitateth the child of God to do good nor the sinner to do that which is evil This is one thing you must warily understand Secondly Take heed of thinking that the influence of Providence as to all events supersedeth any thing of lawful endeavours in order either to the obtaining a good or preventing a bad event or issue The influence of Gods Providence doth by no means justifie mans improvidence There is a great deal of reason for this if we duly weigh it 1. Providence is not our rule We are to walk by the Precept and to depend upon Providence So that whatsoever the word of God maketh our duty to be done or used as a mean in order to the obtaining of any event remaineth still our duty without respect to the influence which Providence hath upon events 2. Again The Providence of God doth ordinarily bring about events by our endeavours as means It is an extraordinary working of Providence when it bringeth about an event without humane means it ordinarily brings them about in and by the use of means hence it is that we cannot regularly depend upon Divine Providence without the use of proper means So far is the influence of Providence from superseding the use of means Thus the Providence of God neither destroyeth nature nor discourageth industry In the third place Vse 3 I know no Doctrine of further use than this for the comfort and relief of the spirits of Gods people under any of the afflictions of this life The wheels of the world sometimes run very cross not only to the expectations of Gods people but to their sensible interests I say to their sensible and appearing interests for contrary to what is their true and real interest they cannot run All things shall work together for the good of them that love God All things must be theirs for their good profit and advantage But Gods dispensations to them in this life are sometimes very afflictive very ingrateful to their sense Now what a relief is this to a child of God to be assured of this to be rooted and confirmed in this That there is a Divine Providence extending it self to all the motions and actions of creatures To all the suspensions omissions and cessations of creatures action Hence follow divers things which may be of great relief to us under our disquietudes 1. That the omissions suspensions cessations of actions in means yea their workings contrary to our expectation are things ordered by Divine Providence It is wonderful how great an affliction this thing sometimes gives persons of more thoughtful and reflexive tempers We lose a friend and fancy if such or such means had been used or if such or such a thing had not been done our husband child wife had not died you know what Martha said to our Saviour Joh. 11 Lord if thou hadst been there my brother had not died But now suppose this that if such or such a thing had not been done in a natural course thy friend had lived for that is all thou canst say yet was not the hand of God in it had the Providence of God thinkest thou no influence upon the omission of such a means as was omitted or the use of such things as thou conceivest to have been pernicious Doth not a sparrow fall to the ground and is thy friend thinkest thou fallen to the ground without thy Father thy Father ordering the omission of such a mean as might have preserved his life or the use of such things as hastened their dissolution God often hides from us what shall be the proximate cause of our end and so as to our friends It is true if we have knowingly and wilfully omitted or neglected probable means we have cause of some reflection but yet even in that case the providence of God reaching to all events is some relief to us In this sense it is no blasphemy to say God often deceiveth the Physitian and the sollicitous friend that is suffereth them to err under false apprehension There is not an omission but Providence hath influenced not a suspension or cessation of an usual action in a natural agent nor a contrary operation of it but the Providence of God hath influenced it We our friends are of more worth than many sparrows and fall not to the ground but by the will of our heavenly Eather so as we do but torment and disquiet our selves in vain Secondly If the Providence of God influenceth all events and that too by effecting them if not sinful They must as to
of God that upholds these qualities that they neither waste nor abate from their continual motion The candle is fed from the tallow and wax the torch and taper from pitch wax rozin and other combustible matter when that fails it expireth Whence is the Sun Moon and Stars fed but from the immediate upholding power and hand of God Again these great bodies are not indeed so gross and heavy as mere sublunary and terrene bodies are but yet they must not be denied something of weight especially the Waters in the Heavens We know weight and heaviness is of the nature of Water yea of that Water which falleth from Heaven how come the Clouds which are a thin body to contain and restrain it and keep it as in bottles how come those vast bodies of Water to be contained in the thin body of the Clouds and to diffuse themselves so gradually upon the Earth 2. Let us look upon the Air from the agitation of which proceed the great and boisterous stormy winds The Air is cold and moist only heated and warmed from the Sun how comes it to pass that it is not in that continual agitation which we see it in sometimes sometimes we hardly discern it moved at all sometimes more violently and that sometimes from one quarter sometimes from another is this a natural a meer natural motion then it is necessary and would be uniform so we see it is not Who can give a reason sufficient to satisfie an inquisitive Philosopher of the heat and cold in the Air in several Countrys nay in our own Country or a sufficient reason of drought and moisture in the Air whence is it think you that it is not always dry nor always moist not always stormy nor always calm none of which would suit the conservation of the world but from Gods upholding those qualities in those bodies which influence it and by which these things are caused so that unless when the ordinary Providence of God is not withheld from the creatures in some particular places for the chastisement of the wickedness of them that dwell therein The Air keeps its motion and courses the winds their courses for the preservation of our bodies and the advantage of humane affairs God I say by a daily providence upholds these Beings to those motions and measures of motion which he at first set for them in order to keeping the World in joint The Air putrifieth not nor groweth infectious the Winds sometimes blow sometimes are still c. The Psalmist giveth God the great glory of his Providence in this particular very plentifully He raiseth the stormy winds Psalm 107. v. 25. He walketh upon the wings of the wind Psalm 104.3 He bringeth the winds out of his treasures Psalm 133.7 He causeth his winds to blow Psalm 147.18 The stormy winds fulfil his word Psalm 148.8 The Heathens had such a sense of the Necessity of a Divine Providence to rule this Creature that they devised a God on purpose whom they called Aeolus whom they feigned to have a care and dominion over them and the Poet saith That if he did not they would confound Heaven and Earth 3. From the Air let us come to the Earth a great and vast body Job saith It hangeth upon nothing Job 26.7 upon nothing but the Almighty power of divine Providence It hangeth in the midst of the Air and that upon nothing God did hang it there in the day of Creation the Seas are contiguous to it both of them make but one Globe or round body of a great weight We see it is of the nature of weighty Bodies to incline and press downward Suppose God did at first hang it there What is it keeps it there We should conclude it a great Miracle not to be effected by other than a divine Power to see but a great stone or Canon-bullet hang in the air how would a whole City come out and be astonished at so great a sight especially if it should hang there a month or a year or any considerable proportion of time But who sufficiently contemplateth this great sight Who thinks on the immense weight of the Earth and the Seas hanging in the midst of the thin body of the air Let the Atheists of this generation come near and see this great sight If there be no God or if this God exerciseth no Providence in the upholding and governing created Beings How cometh the Earth to hang upon nothing or how doth it abide one day in that station Let any of them in an open field climb up and hang up a Cannon-bullet so if they can I know the Philosophers tell us it is in its Center and every thing naturally rests there The Poet tells us That Ponderibus librata suis But this is all but an idle and an impertinent muffling us with unintelligible terms for what do they mean by the center of things the center of the Heavens or the center of the Earth or of the Waters unless they understand the place which God ordained for them or wherein God fixed them in Creation in that they abide and we say there Providence keepeth them Let them try if the art of all the men in the World can so poise a great weight in the air that it shall not fall but abide hanging there any considerable time 4. Lastly let us view the great body of the Waters in continual flux and reflux whether they be placed higher than the Earth is a little question But suppose they be not certain it is that the winds oft raise them much higher than the Earth they are of a fluid Nature of a great weight in continual motion whence is it that they do not drown the World or at least a great part of it It is a matter of demonstration that in many places they rise higher every side than the Earth next adjacent to them How comes it that the Sands check them that in many places they bring their bridle in their mouth an huge quantity of small stones or sands which make a bank on every side to protect the adjacent Earth against their rage certainly no reason can be given but what the holy servants of God have long since given Job 26.10 He hath compassed the waters with bounds until the day and night come to an end And Jer. 5.22 He hath placed the sand for a bound to the sea by a perpetual decree that it cannot pass Now suppose such a Decree these inanimate Creatures obey it not out of election and choice but being natural Agents they work and move necessarily according to the affections and inclinations which God hath created them with So as the water being fluid and heavy would from a necessity of natural working overflow and drown the Earth did not God by his Providence continually work establishing his Decree and seeing to the execution of it and to that end governing these inanimate Creatures contrary to their natural inclinations that the World may be
instances of Divine Providence of this nature we had in our own Nation especially in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and the beginning of King James his reign 1. Sometimes God setteth their own Consciences on work and they shall betray and discover themselves before they fall to their work God smiteth one of their Consciences and they come and discover their Complices and confess their own errours how often have we had this in our own story 2. Sometimes their Countenances shall betray them while they are just ready to strike the fatal stroke 3. Sometimes a terror shall seize them and their Daggers shall drop out of their hands 4. Sometimes their own Letters shall destroy them of which we had an eminent instance in the Powder-Treason hatched by Papists in this Nation sometimes the powder shall not take fire another time it shall miss the mark The Monsters are sometimes brought to the birth and the parents of them want a strength to bring forth How often was Queen Elizabeth in this Nation so preserved to fulfil the word of the Lord Job 5.12 He disappointeth the devices of the crafty so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise 5. A fifth thing I shall instance in is Gods defeatings of the counsels of Ahitophels All men are not alike in wisdom and counsel God fitteth some more eminently who are to have stations in the publick Government and Councils of a Nation Amongst these some are men of integrity and sincerity men of publick spirits and designs who use all their wits parts and abilities for the general good and prosperity of people Others are men of more private spirits driving selfish designs and these oft-times are men of great craft and subtilty whose counsels yet should they take effect would ruin the body politick which they pretend to serve whiles they serve but their own bellies or families or the lusts of some others in order to that end Here now the Providence of God is often seen in defeating their counsels and that various ways Sometimes by making them unacceptable as was in the case of Ahitophel his counsels ordinarily were taken and followed as Oracles but God makes the counsel of Hushai though as appeareth by the story a friend at first suspected by Absolom to be more accepted Sometime God doth it by some more extraordinary ways as in the case of Haman who had both given counsel and obtained a decree against the Jews The King shall not sleep but spend his waking times reading the book of the Chronicles there he shall fall upon the place where a record is of the good service Mordecai had done The King shall mistake Haman's Courtship to the Queen while he is making suit to the Queen for his life for an attempt to force her Thus Haman shall be defeated in his designs and it shall be his own lot to be hanged upon the Gallows which he had prepared for Mordecay nor are these the only instances There is no Kingdom no Age in which observing persons will not observe some instance or other of this nature for the preservation of the Political societies of men Sixthly The power of divine Providence in preserving Political societies is eminently seen in ballancing and diverting opposite powers It is wonderful to observe how God ballanceth one Nation against another sometimes by natural scituation sometimes by voluntary associations We in England are an instance of the former All the Kingdoms about us are larger and more mighty than we are France Spain c. far more populous God hath ballanced us with them by our scituation We are an Island we are powerful in Shipping they cannot march an army by land against us that keeps us at some proportion with them and from being a prey to them often gaping for us Others God hath scituated in Countries full of Rocks and Mountains and Waters by which natural Fortifications they are ballanced with the far greater fleshly power of their Enemies Thus God preserved his people in Epirus from the overflowing flood of the Turkish Power In Holland from the attempts of the Spaniard 40 years together a Nation far more great and mighty than they Thus he hath preserved his Church his little flock in the Valleys of Piedmont and Lucerne As Solomon saith because the Conies are a feeble people they have their habitation in the Rocks So where God hath had a little people a feeble people his Providence hath for their habitation allowed them the natural defences of mountains and the inaccessible paths of Rocks Others he ballanceth with the far greater power of their adversaries by voluntary confederacies and consociations were they singly to be encountred they would quickly be swallowed up but they join in league with others and so make a proportion to their Potent Adversaries Some he ballanceth by giving them a more extraordinary strength spirit courage that one will chase ten and ten an hundred and an hundred a thousand and a thousand shall put ten thousand of their Enemies in flight Some are stronger in Land-forces but weak as to Naval-forces others strong in Naval-forces but weaker in Land-forces till the period of a Nation comes for Nations have their periods he ballanceth all Political Societies one way or other according to the variety of his infinite wisdom 2. Another way is by Diversion you have many instances of this in Scripture How often hath God thus preserved us in Europe from the overflowing flood of the Turks by stirring up the Persians to invade him by suffering rebellions amongst thoâ—e that are his own Subjects But I shall contract this discourse much will fall into my following discourse of Governing Providence 7. The last thing which I shall instance in wherein the Providence of God is seen in the preserving of men in their Political Societies is in giving unto men wisdom and disposing of them to several Arts Trades Mysteries and Occupations by which they become mutually serviceable one to another and contribute to the upholding the societies in which they live Here are two things in both which the Providence of God is eminent to every eye which wistly observeth it There is nothing more evident than that there is a variety of Arts Mysteries Trades and Occupations useful for man by some of which he is supplied with things necessary for food and rayment by others of them with things for delight and ornament both the one and the other if not necessary for individuals yet are necessary for preserving a Polity consisting of multitudes Now 1. The wisdom by which men work in these several Arts Mysteries and Occupations and by which men follow these several Trades is from the Lord. The Prophet Isaiah tells us the discretion of the Plow-man and of the Thresher is from him God called by name Bezaliel the Son of Uri and he was filled with the Spirit of God in wisdom and in understanding and in knowledg and in all manner of workmanship and to devise curious works to work
and law of Nature the fire burneth the hungry Lions devour men God suspendeth both these Laws in the case of the three Children and of Daniel by an Ordinance of Nature the Sun keepeth its course and is in a continual progressive motion God suspendeth its motion in Joshuah's case altereth it and maketh it to come back in the case of Hezekiah 2 Kings 20.10 by the Ordinance of Nature the Earth brings forth her fruit so doth the womb ordinarily God suspends this Law in Judgment the Earth is made as Iron the Heaven as Brass men commit whoredom yet do not encrease they eat and have not enough Hos 4.10 This both demonstrates the governance of Divine Providence and also sheweth how God exerciseth it This is a third Particular 4. A fourth Particular wherein God sheweth his Dominion over all and exerciseth his Government over the whole Creation is his influencing all creatures to their natural actions either in a more ordinary or extraordinary manner Every living creature hath its natural motions and actions and powers and faculties in order to them which are the principles of those operations and in the upholding of those powers to those natural motions and actions God exerteth and putteth forth his preserving power of Providence but his extraordinary influencing of them to some motions and actions which are not in a natural course and order doth more eminently shew the Governing power of Divine Providence That Locusts and Caterpillers should feed upon grass and green herbs this is but their natural motion and action according to their nature and the kind of their being but that they should come in troops and rather feed upon one place than upon another till they had devoured all the grass and green herbs in Egypt this was extraordinary Psalm 105.24 He spake and the Caterpillers came and did eat up all the herbs in their land and devoured all the fruit of their ground And again Psalm 74.46 He gave their increase to the Caterpiller The same may be said for the Flies Lice Frogs and other creatures used as a plague upon Pharaoh but indeed this is rather a specialty of Providence than belonging to the ordinary Government of it though very demonstrative of the governing power of Providence 5. A fifth act by which the Providence of God exerciseth its governing power and influence is His daily raising up and influencing Governours for the Housholds and Societies of men and giving checks to them upon their miscarriages and mal-administrations The governing Providence of God exerteth it self either more immediately or mediately Other creatures God ordinarily governeth by men many of them I mean influencing man with Reason and Discretion by which he ruleth ordereth and governeth them though many of them be much more mighty and powerful than he the mouth of the horse and mule which have no understanding by the Providence of God so influencing man are held with the bit and bridle lest they come near unto us Psalm 32.9 The Whale is smitten with a spear wild bulls and boars are hunted down c. The Ox is tamed and brought to serve our uses who are much less in strength than he is Men also are governed by men the weaker by those that are more wise and powerful but whence have the Governours their wit and power their wisdom and understanding prompting them to make Laws acceptable to the greater part of Subjects so as conspiracies are of the lesser number and subdueâ—â—o the greater and keeps them in order Is it not from the Lord great in wisdom and wonderful in counsel Psalm 75.7 God is the Judg he pulleth down one and setteth up another and by him Kings reign God ruleth the World by Magistrates which if well considered would aw men to that duty of honour and obedience which they owe to those that are their Superiours and may make us to understand how we ought to be subject for conscience-sake and for Gods sake in things commanded which we cannot say are contrary to the Divine Law nor so appear to us and have any manifest appearance of good for the government and peace of the whole As on the other side it calls to Kings to be wise and the Judges of the Earth to be instructed to serve the Lord with fear and to rejoyce before him in their great capacities with trembling Psal 2.10 11 they are but the Lords Vice-Roys and as Jehosaphat told his Judges they judg not for themselves but for the Lord for him whose Throne is prepared in the Heavens and whose Kingdom is over all They ought therefore according to the command to the Kings of Israel to have the book of the law before them and to be reading therein all the days of their life and where that doth not give them particular direction to have the honour and glory of God yet in their Eye to measure all their laws and actions according to that Rule to remember God is the Judg and hath only exalted and dignified them to rule the World or this or that part of the World by them still the Government is the Lords 6. A sixth particular act by which God providentially governeth the World is By influencing the souls of some in it to such actions as more immediately tend to his honour and glory God hath an honour and glory from the natural complexion and constitution and motions of inanimate Beings Psal 148.6 8. Thus the Heavens and in them the Sun Moon Stars from them the snow rain hail meteors the lightning and thunder the cold and heat the vapours and stormy winds bring glory to God stormy winds fulfilling his word saith the Psalmist The heavens declare the glory of God the Earth sheweth his handy-work Psalm 19.1 God hath made in the Heavens a tabernacle for the Sun a course for the Moon and Stars the very complexions of them their natural and necessary motions bring God abundance of glory Now this ariseth from a necessary causation they cannot but do it The same may be said of brute creatures though animate not acting upon Election The Whale in the Sea the Lion and Tiger amongst the beasts the Eagle and others amongst the birds the Bee the Silk-worm and others amongst Insects several sorts of creeping things glorify God but it is necessarily Man only amongst earthly creatures glorifieth God voluntarily from a principle within himself and upon choice Take mankind in the general it is a noble piece of Gods Creation and necessarily glorifieth God Man is fearfully and wonderfully made his body is an admirable structure but the great glory which God hath is from his spiritual actions Man is not a mute Preacher of Gods glory as the Heavens and the Earth the Sun Moon and Stars are or brute creatures are He hath a Soul and understanding will affections from these God expects a great homage and glory But now take man in his depraved estate and he doth nothing less No creatures but the evil Angels so much
restrained by some superiour cause this is called in Scripture Gods Covenant with day and night heat and cold summer and winter Such a necessity all must acknowledg in the operation of all natural agents the power and pleasures of God only being reserved to countermand their operations which when he doth we call it a miraculous work of God thus day and night cold and heat seed-time and harvest summer and winter are under a fate they necessarily follow one another but as God was the first cause of this necessity by the Covenant he established so their event is in the power of God to hinder or suspend or alter as he pleaseth 4. But then Lastly There is a Theological or Christian fate which is nothing but a necessity of event imposed upon things by the most holy wise eternal free purpose and counsel of God executed by his Providence It is true the name of fate soundeth ill because of the Stoical and Mathematical vanities about it but if we take it for Quod Deus in animo suo fatus est apud se statuit ac decrevit what God hath said within himself purposed and decreed it is innocent enough Now whoso denieth a fate if they will call it so in this sense doth not so well as he should do understand the Divine Nature or the Scriptures We neither deny saith Augustine an order of causes which the will of God hath set neither do we call it fate In the mean time they are very ignorant that cannot see the difference betwixt this necessity of events and the Stoical fate 1. The Stoicks subjected God himself to fate this necessity dependeth upon the will of God as the cause of it 2. They made their fate pre-existent to God 3. They asserted a fate that took away all the liberty of mans will Now this is no consequent saith Augustine that if God hath set a certain order of all causes Non est autem consequens ut si Deo certus est omnium causarum ordo nihil sit in nostrae voluntatis arbitrio Aug. l. 5. De Civ dei then nothing is in the power of our wills The upshot of all is this We say there are a thousand things happen in respect of us casually and fortuitously that is we know not the causes of them and manner of their operations yet there is nothing so in respect of God And though all things happen necessarily as to the event with respect to the decree of God which hath set all things in an order and in respect of the universal power and influence of his Governing Providence yet for such things as are done by us they are not necessarily brought forth but freely our will is not forced but acteth as a free agent But I shall add no more to the first Branch of Instruction 2. Branch What you have heard may help to confirm your Faith as to the glorious nature of God and that in four or five Particulars 1. As to his Omniscience or knowledg of all things He must needs know all things who governeth all things He governs all the beings and existences of his creatures all their motions and actions all their errours obliquities and Omissions as I have shewed you which he could not do if they were not all naked in his sight all things must needs be open and naked in his sight with whom we have to do The Doctrine of Gods Omniscience is evident from the work of Creation He that made the Eye shall he not see He that made the Ear shall he not hear and it is evident from the work of Providence if his Kingdom ruleth over all 2. Secondly It as much confirmeth us in the Doctrine of Gods Omnipotence If his Kingdom ruleth over all 1. He must have a power to Rule and govern all 2. He must be in a capacity to exercise this power and there must be no power able to resist him So that you may see the Reasonableness of those titles given to God in Scripture viz. The Lord God Omnipotent The Almighty God The King of Kings The Lord of Lords The Lord of all the Hosts of Heaven and Earth If there were any thing too hard for God if he could be resisted he could not rule over all 3. Thirdly It may confirm you in the Activity of the Divine Essence The Schoolmen say That God is Totus Actus wholly an Act always moving working operating so it must be if he hath such a Rule as I have been describing to you He must fill all places not as a meer inactive moles and bulk of a thing filleth a place but so as at the same time he is in all places at work seeing observing governing effecting and directing or restraining and over-ruling We have no Similitude to express it by but cometh much short That of the Soul in man comes nearest it which is in all parts of the body animating actuating and governing of it 4. It confirms us in our belief of the Infinite wisdom of God He is called The only wise God 1 Tim. 1.17 and Jude v. 25. This Doctrine concludes it We see it requires a great deal of wisdom to govern a Family and keep it if it consists of many members in order but much more to govern the greater bodies of people in Towns Cities Kingdoms Empires c. Such a variety there is of motions humours passions and tempers of people Who is able to conceive what Wisdom it requires to govern all beings in the World all motions and actions of all creatures in the World and to keep them in any order or decorum at all In fine Next to the work of Creation there is nothing like the work of Providence well-studied to give a man the true notion of God and let us know what manner of Essence the Divine Essence necessarily must be Thus much by way of Instruction Secondly Vse 2 This Doctrine serveth for the unspeakable consolation of the people of God Psalm 97.1 The Lord reigneth let the Earth rejoyce let the multitude of Isles be glad thereof It is matter of rejoycing to all the World that the Lord reigneth and there is none so vile and wicked but experienceth much though many consider it not of the good effects of this universal Dominion which God exerciseth The Devils cannot do what they please in it the wills and passions of men cannot have their swing There is an Almighty One that holds the reins upon the brutish affections and passions of men the ill effects of which the greatest Atheists and contemners of God which live in the World would quickly experience but to the people of God as being the lesser number the most hated and maligned part of the World and the far weaker as to natural strength and power besides the restraint their Souls are under from putting out what natural power and strength they have beyond the Divine Law doth most eminently demonstrate to them the good effects of the Lords
which he doth chiefly design the dispatch of yet hath also other business here and there at this Town and that Town and therefore seldom or never keepeth a road long Providence is Gods great Minister of State upon the hand of which all the effects of his Counsels and Eternal purposes lie and it never driveth a single design The Promise was gone out for the seed of Abraham to inherit Canaan Providence is to bring this about but this cannot be done till the Nations be dispossessed and in order thereunto the iniquities of the Amorites must be full Gen. 15.16 and God giveth Abraham this very reason why his seed should not possess Canaan until the fourth Generation God had designed to get himself glory upon Pharaoh in order to this he must first oppress then pursue Israel to the Red-sea The Providence of God never carrieth on a single design but in the fulfilling some eminent Counsel of God referring to a person or a Nation effects an hundred other pieces of Divine Counsel although it may be to us not so remarkable as that which our Eye is so much upon and which we are so impatient for The Providence of God will bring David to the Kingdom but in order to it it must also execute Divine Vengeance upon Saul c. Secondly The seemingly oblique and contradictory motions of Divine Providence do often though we at first discern it not bear the notion and have the nature of proper means in order to the great End If Joseph had not been sold into Egypt if there he had not been thrown into a prison how should he have been of use to save much people and particularly his Father and his Brethren alive It was in prison that he had the opportunity to interpret first the Butlers dream who recommended him to the King and brought him before him to interpret his also which you know was his rise to his great capacity It was the Israelites affliction and oppression in the Land of Egypt which made them willing to leave the fleshpots and Onions and Garlick there to go toward Canaan We use to say The furthest way about is the nearest way home That man makes it so that doth a great deal of business in one journey riding only now and then a little out of the way which he must else have dispatched by new journeys but it is never truer than in the motions of Providence what seemeth to us in Gods working the furthest way about in order to the saving of a Soul or the preserving of his Church and making it to grow and flourish is indeed the nearest way to it They say the beating of a Walnut-tree is the way to make it fruitful the treading on the Palm-tree the way to make it more flourish We see in daily experience the treading down and trampling a piece of ground makes it the better in the Spring for grass or corn and much spareth other stercorations It is as trite an observation That the blood of the Martyrs hath always proved the seed of the Church David before he was afflicted went astray And this many times we can say when a day of Evil is over though we could not so easily read it in the hour of his afflictive Dispensations either to the Church or to particular persons 3. A third account of it may be Gods design to exercise the faith and patience of his people God hath determined the impenitent sinner to destruction and his people to salvation but both of them must come to their Eternity by means The Sinner by the pursuit of his lusts and a continuance in them the child of God by the exercise of his graces Amongst other habits of grace faith and patience are not the least The exercise of these is when sense faileth and the Providence of God moveth out of our sight in a time of adversity when it seemeth to move at a great distance from the Promise if not directly contrary to it Blessed are they who have not seen and have yet believed saith our Saviour God gave Abraham a Promise nay divers promises two more eminent the one of a Child the other of a numerous seed and their inheriting the land of Canaan Now if the Providence of God had presently moved in a direct line towards the fulfilling of these Promises where had been a room for Abrahams faith so much celebrated in Scripture the Apostle saith Rom. 4.18 That he against hope believed in hope and ver 19 Being not weak in faith he considered not his own body being now dead when he was about a hundred years old nor yet the deadness of Sarahs womb Ver. 20 He staggered not at the Promise through unbelief but was strong in faith giving glory to God and being fully perswaded that what he had promised he was also able to perform and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness The Providence of God delayeth the time suffereth Abraham first and his Wife to live to an age that they both were past any reasonable hope of children then it giveth him a child why doth Providence move thus slowly and obliquely how else should Abrahams faith have been tried how should it have been tried whether he would stagger at the Promise through unbelief Another branch of that Promise was That the child which God should give him of Sarah his Wife should be his heir Gen. 15.4 This that is this Eliezer of Damascus of whom thou speakest ver 2. shall not be thine heir but he that shall come forth of thine own bowels shall be thine heir Chap. 22. God by his Providence tempteth Abraham He bids him go and with his own hands sacrifice this his son his only son what an oblique yea contrary motion of Providence doth this seem to be to the promise of Isaac his being the heir In Isaac shall thy seed be called saith the Promise How shall that be when Isaac who as yet had no seed must be sacrificed But how else shall Abrahams faith and obedience be tried which standeth upon Record Heb. 11.17 By faith Abraham when he was tried offered up Isaac and he that had received the Promise offered up his only begotten son of whom it was said In Isaac shall thy seed be called accounting that God was able to raise him up from the â—ead from which he also received him in a figure Abraham had a promise of Canaan for his seed Providence went a great way about before it sensibly came home to this Promise if it had not how had Abrahams faith had its exercise mentioned Heb. 11.8 By faith Abraham when he was called to go out into a place which he should afterward receive obeyed and he went out not knowing whither he went By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange Country c. God gave him no inheritance in it saith St. Stephen Acts 7.5 no not so much as to set his foot on yet he promised that he would give it
is a divine stamp too though of a different nature what means are proper must be used how mean soever they appear in our eyes What proportion was there betwixt Jonathan and his Armour-bearer and the whole Garrison of the Philistines between Jeroboams Army and Abijahs This but four hundred the other eight hundred thousand between the Army of Asia and that of the Ethiopians and Lubims 2 Chron. 14. God often works yea he ordinarily worketh by small means and Providence brings forth its great work in the day of mans small things If we be sure that we are in Gods way and about his work let the means be what they will if lawful and rational it is our duty to use them God must be honoured in his own Institutions and sought in his own way though the means be small and our humane hopes small yet if we expect Gods blessing this mercy must be sought in the use of those means which the Providence of God layeth before us 2. But secondly The duty of a Christian will lye much in the exercise of his Faith in God beyond the probability of the means This is the great duty of a Christian and the very end which God aimeth at in cutting us short of means many times I think we may say Vbi media deficiunt ibi fides incipit where means begin to fail there faith begins to work Where we are out of sight as to means there 's a room for faith For it is saith the Apostle the evidence of things not seen By faith here I mean a trusting and relying upon God as a God able and faithful But to open this a little more clearly to you I will shew you 1. In what cases we may warrantably exercise a faith in God beyond the vertue and probability of means 2. What means we may use for the help of our faith in this case 3. What encouragements we may take to our selves in such a case to set our faith on work 1 Quest In what cases may a Christian exercise faith in God for the accomplishment beyond the vertue efficacy and probability of humane means to be used in order to it 1. To this I answer The object of faith must be a Promise It is ridiculous to talk of an exercise of faith in God for an accomplishment for which we have no word to warrant us in the expectation of it But now a Promise may be either particular or General of old many had particular persons and the Nation of the Jews had particular promises made to them by God immediately or mediately by his Prophets we have no such God hath left us unto his written Word There are many general promises which shall be made good still to particular Churches and persons Hence is our difficulty to conclude what it is we may exercise a faith in God for bringing to pass To direct you a little 1. Where you have a particular promise the case is plain Some such there are as for the destruction of Antichrist c. 2. In the want of a special particular Promise a general promise is a sufficient object for our faith General promises made to the Church and people of God are applicable to particular Churches and particular Saints 3. Every Precept doth imply a Promise God hath certainly promised a blessing upon the doing of that which he hath commanded us to do no man serveth God for nothing 4 Whatsoever issue certainly conduceth to the glory of God is under a Promise God hath resolved to glorifie himself and he ordereth all his actions in order to that end The substance of all this amounts to thus much We may exercise a faith in God and trust in him for accomplishing by his Providence whatsoever in his Word he hath either more particularly or generally promised or whatsoever he hath commanded us to act in tendency unto or whatsoever doth certainly tend to the glorifying of his great and holy Name Now if any thing of this nature be upon the wheel although we see the present visible means in order to the accomplishment of it be small and in all appearance disproportioned to the greatness of the event yet a Christian using what lawful means the Providence of God lays before him may warrantably trust in God for the exerting a further power for the accomplishment of it than is in the means which at present are apportioned to it But this is now an hard thing to us Let me therefore secondly direct you what you should do in a day of small things for the advantaging of your faith in this noble Exercise I shall offer but two things in the Case 1. Keep your Eye as much off the means and as much upon God as you can We have so much of sense and reason in us that we are very prone from one or other of them to take all our measures about future events If we would keep our hearts steady in a time of such exigencies as these we must shut the Eyes both of our sense and reason Faith credits a Proposition neither upon the demonstrations of the one of these nor the conclusions of the other but the meer authority of God Men count it wisdom when they are upon precipices never to look downward but upward if they look downward their weak heads are apt to be giddy Christians in such stresses of Providence as these are have nothing else to do if they look downward their sense their reason saith how can these things be If God would make windows in heaven saith that Nobleman these things could not be Our poring upon means in the day of our small things hindereth the exercise of our faith in God If the foundations be destroyed saith the Psalmist Psal 11.3 what can the righteous do Means are the foundations of our natural hopes now if these be destroyed if there be little or nothing of these what can we do Wicked men are indeed at their wits-ends they despond and despair but saith the Psalmist v. 4 The Lord is in his holy temple the Lords throne is in heaven his eyes see his eye-lids try the children of men God is still where he was and hath the same power the same knowledg of things the same rule and dominion Twice in Scripture Abraham is propounded to us as a noble Example and a father of the faithful in this thing Rom. 4. God had promised him a Son a Son of his Wife Sarah he grew to be an hundred years old his Wife many years past child bearing here was no means yet Abraham believeth for a Child and he was not weak in the faith saith the Apostle Rom. 4.18 19 20. How doth he behave himself The Apostle telleth you That he considered not his own body now dead when he was about an hundred years old nor yet the deadness of Sarahs womb he staggered not at the Promise but was strong in faith giving glory to God being fully perswaded that what he had promised
to a daily communion with God all the grace all the glory of God is theirs Think this reward enough for the cleansing of thy heart and the washing of thy hands and seeing the swearers and blasphemers and even the worst men of the world are Gods Creatures and some of them though they mean not so yet do God service sometimes do not judg it unreasonable that God should give them a portion in this life But I forbear knowing that it will fall in my way hereafter when I shall come to open the hard Chapters of Divine Providence to speak more fully to the reasonableness of this motion of Divine Providence 2. This calleth unto the People of God if at any time they be in a prosperous state to look for an hour of adversity The Circulations of Divine Providence admonish Gods People of this no man reasonably saith in the morning that the Sun shall set no more in his Horizon nor in the Summer that he shall never feel the cold or see the storms of another Winter he considers the Ordinances of nature and the Circulation of these natural motions It is as unreasonable to promise our selves stated and uninterrupted felicity in this life to say as David In our prosperity I shall never be moved Be rather thinking what you shall do if God should bring you into such a condition 3. Nor do you despond in adversity Say to the Enemies of Church and Gospel as the Church in Micah Mic. 7.8 Rejoyce not against me O mine enemy when I fall I shall rise when I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me It is as unreasonable for any to conclude at midnight that there shall never be a morning as in the morning to fancy there shall never be a midnight more you have not it may be in this life those full measures of the good things thereof which others have But saith David Psal 17. when I awake I shall be satisfied with thy likeness Some interpret it of an awaking at the resurrection that is sure enough Some of an awaking out of his afflicted state God in this life is not always smiting not always grieving the children of men The rod of the wicked shall not always lye upon the back of the righteous Do not build too much upon these hopes remember that God hath better things for his people than riches and honours and earthly power Heaven is their portion but yet even as to this life do not cast away your hope 4. But lastly Be patient under all the frowns of Divine Providence This is the method of Providence the sinner must have his hour and that hour to the People of God will be the very power of darkness The beasts that are nearest the slaughter usually have the fattest pastures God hath far better things reserved for them that love him and even in this life He will not leave you comfortless he will come unto you if not to the rescue of your bodies yet to the relief support and satisfaction of your souls Wherefore comfort your selves with these words SERMON XXVII Psal CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. WE take notice in the world that Wisdom is not so much the daughter of study as of experience It is a practical habit directing the ordering of mens conversations to their best advantage which is not so well acquired from our poring on books and making conclusions from connate principles or maxims of others as from the observation of what we see in the world Hence we observe what Job said Job 12.12 with the Auncients is wisdom Elihu said Job 32.7 Days shall speak and multitude of years shall teach wisdom There must indeed be supposed a foundation in nature and that is a good faculty of judgment and a foundation in art for wisdom dwelleth with knowledg but neither nature nor art and study will make a morally wise man Observation contributes more than either and this is the reason that wisdom is with the Auncients and that multitude of years teacheth it The reason of this is the inequal distribution of reason to reasonable creatures and the prevalence of passion above it in the most of men from this it is that we can better conclude what is like to be done in the world from what hath been done than from any rational principles which will tell us what one would think reasonable men should do Spiritual Wisdom likewise is much gained by observation this is that which we call experience by which we understand not always what our selves have felt but what we have seen with our eyes what we have remarked in Gods dealings And the reason of this is our imperfect understanding of what God hath revealed in his word which lets us see that we stand in need both of the Spirit and of the Providence of God to be our interpreters and the oneness and immutability of God gives us a far better advantage to gain wisdom from the issues of his Providence then the variable passions of men will allow us to gain from what we see in their actings whose methods oft-times vastly differ one from another so as the policies of one age have no cognation with those of another The reason also of which is because there is a wheel within these wheels though the fools and blind men of the world see it not governing these sensible wheels to the designs of his eternal counsels Hence it is that he who is wise will observe and he who would be wise must observe the motions of Divine Providence which though it hath many secret and unsearchable motions yet also hath many certain and uniform motions which will fall under the science and understanding of the soul that giveth up it self to the study and observation of them I have already offered to you twelve Observations upon the motions of Providence I yet proceed and shall at present offer you some further things chiefly relating to the motions of Divine Providence in the executing of Divine Justice and Judgment and that as well in the rewarding of the righteous as in the punishment of the sinner Two great works of Divine Providence about which indeed it is mostly taken up it goeth to and fro the world doing this work every day let us see how far we can track it or make any judgment from the prints of its feet where or what we are like to meet with from it meet it we must at every turn of our lives our business is to make up a judgment what we are like to meet with from it whether it be like to say unto us Hast thou met me O my friend or as Ahab to Elijah Hast thou met me O mine enemy The next Observation I shall commend to you is this Observ 13. The reward of the righteous man and also of the sinner is always certain and constant though not always sensible and
uniform This must be true Shall not the judg of all the earth do right Gen. 18.25 It is in the nature of God to do justly far sooner shall a good tree bring forth corrupt fruit than a righteous God do an unrighteous act It is written in the Will and Promises of God and in the threatnings which declare the Will of God against sinners Say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with them for they shall eat the fruit of their doings Wo unto the wicked it shall be ill with him for the reward of his hands shall be given him Isa 3.9 10. Though a sinner do evil an hundred times and his days be prolonged yet surely it shall be well with them that fear God that fear before him But it shall not be well with the wicked neither shall he prolong his days Eccles 8.12 But it may be better for your edification that I should open the Observation in the branches of it The subject of my discourse you see is the vindicative and remunerative Justice of God considered as in the hand of Actual Providence I say of both 1. That it is certain both the one and the other is certain for the sinner that swears and drinks and wallows in his beastly lusts that lies and cheats and oppresseth and breaks Sabbaths that murthereth and committeth adultery and lives in the violation of the Commandments of God his Judgment is certain his damnation sleepeth not the Providence of God shall most certainly meet him as a Bear robbed of her whelps to tear him in pieces and there shall be none to deliver On the contrary for him that worketh righteousness that herein exerciseth himself to keep a conscience void of offence both towards God and towards men that liveth an holy life and conversation his reward is certain The certainty of both these depends 1. Vpon the immutable nature of God The righteous God loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity he cannot clear the guilty he cannot but reward the righteous as soon shall God cease to be God as the persisting sinner go unpunished or the persevering Saint be unrewarded 2. It dependeth upon the irrevocable will of God God hath said it the Lord hath spoken it and it shall come to pass Heaven and Earth shall pass away before a word shall fail of all which the mouth of the Lord has spoken 3. It dependeth upon the faithfulness of Divine Providence in acting conformably to the Divine Nature in the execution of the Divine Counsels and in pursute of the Divine Will Providence is Gods action in time God cannot act contrary to himself nor contrary to his revealed Will. But this is what none without great impiety can so much as doubt But I added 2. That both the punishment of the sinner and the reward of the righteous man is constant This is not now a matter of so sensible demonstration but equally true with the other Psal 7.11 The holy Psalmist tells us He judgeth the righteous and is angry with the wicked every day Anger in God signifieth nothing of passion as it doth in us It only signifieth Gods just will to punish sinners and the execution of this his just will and pleasure Now I take that phrase God is angry with the wicked every day to be true in both senses not only that God hath an immutable will purpose and resolution to punish resolved and impenitent sinners but also that he is every day doing of it and so he is every day rewarding the righteous man But this will better appear in my Explication of the third thing where I told you 3. That neither the reward of the one nor the punishment of the other are uniform or always sensible And indeed the not-attending to this is all that gives the least advantage to the complaints of Job David Jeremiah and Habakkuk concerning the prosperity of the wicked God sometimes punisheth sinners by temporary afflictions and judgments these now are obvious to every eye and incur into all mens senses All men take notice of mens being afflicted in their persons crossed in their relations in their estates c. But thus God doth not always punish the worst of men 2. He hath another way of punishing and that more dreadful that is by spiritual judgments ubi poenalis nutritur impunitas a punishing them by suffering them to go unpunished God never more smartly threatned the ten Tribes than when he told them by the Prophet Hos 4.14 I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom nor your spouse when they commit adultery He never spake more severely than when he said Why should they be smitten any more they will revolt more and more Isa 1.5 Hence impenitency hardness of heart hence they bless themselves in their sinful courses this makes them shut their eyes and stop their ears This is indeed an insensible judgment but as it is with the wounds of the body the more secret they are and inward the worse they are so it is with judgments upon a man the more inward and insensible the more desperate and dangerous is the case The giving of sinners up to a blindness of mind as in the case of the Israelites Isa 6.9 to an hardness of heart as in the case of Pharaoh Exod. 4.21 to vile affections as in the case of the Heathen Rom. 1.26 to a reprobate mind c. These are of all other the greatest punishment one or other way God is angry with the wicked every day Although he is not every day plaguing them with sensible judgments yet when he is not doing this he is letting them alone as God spake concerning Ephraim Ephraim is joyned to idols let him alone suffering them to go on in their own ways by which means their hearts grow more hard and impenitent more blind and insensible and this is the reason that wicked men grow worse and worse more vile in their affections more sottish and reprobate in their minds and judgments more vile and abominable in their lives And as the punishment of the sinner so the reward of the righteous man though it be always certain and constant yet it is not uniform nor always sensible especially to others The certainty of their reward standeth upon the very same foundations that the certainty of the sinners punishment doth and so doth the constancy of it for as God is angry with the wicked every day so God is well-pleased with the righteous every day he can every day go to God and say unto him Thou art my father God is every day well-pleased with him and delighted in him But I say these rewards are not always uniform our heavenly Father hath more than one blessing sometimes he blesseth him that worketh righteousness after one manner sometimes after another but he always blesseth them Let me a little open to you the plenty of blessings which our heavenly Father hath and shew you how variously he rewardeth him that worketh righteousness
hath it like Sampson riseth up and says it will do as at other times though in doing it discerneth that God is departed from it and is not with it as at other times Vse 5. Again How should this encourage us all in the ways of God notwithstanding the discouragements we may meet with from the temptations of our grand adversary or the suggestions of our consciences founded upon the demonstrable truth of the imperfections of our best services We say Use maketh perfectness and the Scripture saith That the man of clean hands will grow stronger and stronger but in the mean time acceptation doth not depend upon gradual perfection but upon the perfection of sincerity when the design the purpose the intention is sincere when the heart is set right for God and aims truly at the glory of God and the fulfilling of his Will then it is accepted and indeed it is the most reasonable thing in the world that we should agree with this For that man or woman hath either a strange imperfect notion of the nature of God or of the law of God that can expect that his duties should be accepted for their gradual perfections or any intrinsecal value in them I say he that thus thinks neither knows God as he ought to know him nor yet his own measures But if God will accept of and reward a good intention a good purpose and design while we find our hearts right bent and inclined for God we have no reason to be discouraged from action Vse 6. I shall conclude with an Exhortation unto all In this thing to be like God You have heard that God sometimes allows not an action where yet he rewardeth the good intention designing the action what an example is this for us who may dissent from some of our Forefathers Our Forefathers might be mistaken in the Utensils and Ornaments and Rites of Gods house and worship as well as David was in his design for the building of God an house and while we think they were so we cannot tread in their steps it would be wickedness to us SERMON XXIX Psalm CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Am proceeding still in directing your Observation of the motions of Divine Providence especially in the distribution of rewards and punishments Two things I have already of this nature observed I now proceed to a third which will make a Fifteenth Observation Observ 15. It is a very ordinary thing for the Providence of God to distribute the afflictions and punishments of this life to the very best of his people and as to them sometimes to spare the very worst of men I must still mind you that there is no rule so general but it will admit exceptions as to particular cases though this hath as few as any The Apostle hath told us Heb. 12.6 Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth if you endure chastening God dealeth with us as with sons for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not but if you be without chastening whereof all are partakers then are you bastards and not sons Hence that so usually quoted passage of one of the ancients Vnicum Deus habuiâ—t filium sine peccato nullum sine flagello God had one and but one Son without sin but he never had any Son without a cross Hence some particular servants of God have been under some temptations at some times to question their state as to the favour of God because their life hath had so little of the cross in it but they have been rare examples to whom Satan hath had an advantage to suggest such a thought And as Divines determine it difficult to determine what sin a child of God may not fall into and justly too when-as David fell into murther and adultery Lot into drunkenness and incest and even Peter cursed and sware and denied his master so it is a matter more difficult to say what punishment of this life may not fall upon the best of men Indeed some Antinomians have made it a question Whether the afflictions of Gods People may or ought to be called punishments or judgments but it is a strife which they would raise about words if they by punishments or judgments intend such legal demands as God should make for satisfaction to his Justice none who understandeth what he saith will call the afflictions of good men punishments in this sense if they mean any thing else they much betray their ignorance for the Scripture expresly calls them by both God telleth his People that they should not be altogether unpunished and the Apostle telleth us That when we are chastened we are judged of the Lord 1 Cor. 11.32 Most certain it is that it is a very ordinary thing for God in the motions of his Providence to distribute all kinds of temporary afflictions to such as most fear his glorious Name and sometimes as to such to spare even the worst of men Job expostulates it with God Job 21.7 Wherefore do the wicked live become old yea are mighty in power their seed is established in their sight with them and their off-spring before their eyes their houses are safe from fear neither is the rod of God upon them David confessed that his feet were almost gone his steps had well-nigh slipt when he saw the prosperity of the wicked though v. 9. they set their mouths against heaven yet v. 4. their strength was firm and there were no bands in their death they are not in trouble as other men neither are they plagued like other men v. 7. Their eyes stand out with fatness they have more than heart could wish In the mean time v. 14. David was plagued all the day-long and chastned every morning This motion of Providence hath been evident in the experience of all ages and there is none who liveth but may observe it every day but this is accounted one of the Chapters of Divine Providence which are hard to be understood I shall therefore reserve my further discourse upon it till I come to the last part of my intended discourse where I shall make it my business to give you an account of it and at present pass on to some further Observations Observ 16. The next thing I shall commend to your remark is this That where to humane appearance Providence moveth most flowly either in the punishment of the sinner or the rewarding the righteous there at last it distributeth most plentifully I observed to you before that both the punishment of the wicked and the reward of the righteous is certain and constant though not always sensible nor uniform Now I desire you to observe that by how much the slower it is in the punishment of sinners or in bringing rewards to the righteous by so much the greater the rewards of the godly men and the punishment of sinners are when they come I mean
the justice or goodness of God To his justice who hath accepted a price and satisfaction for them at the hand of his Son concerning whom he hath said that in him as our Mediator he was well pleased How then can God punish mâ—n and women for those sins for which he hath accepted a price and satisfaction Or how is this reconcileable to the fulness of Gods pardoning grace How are those sins pardoned which God afterward punisheth But this Cavil proceedeth upon a double mistake or error 1. The first concerning the punishments of sin upon the Children of God 2. The second concerning the satisfaction of Christs death As to the first it supposeth that the afflictions and punishments of Gods people are all for satisfaction which if it were so they were of all men moâ—â— miseraâ—â—â— a their afflictions do ordinarily more abound than the afflictions of others It is true that the impenitent and irreconciled sinner hath no reason to look upon any affliction otherwise than as an arrest of divine vengeance upon every ague every feaver as Gods taking him by the throat and saying to him Pay me now what thou owest because they cannot apprehend any such thing as that Christ hath for them satisfied Divine Justice but the case is otherwise with a believer Supposing our afflictions and punishments of this nature these two things would follow from them 1. A Christian should never be able to see to the bottom of his bitter cup were satisfaction to be given by us when could we so much as hope to say All is finished We might burn but when could we hope to come out of the flames we might be paying and paying but when could we think to have paid the uttermost farthing Satisfaction in our persons must be an endless work the offended Justice being no less than infinite 2. We could never hope by our afflictions to be made gainers in grace If it were possible for us to apprehend that by our suffering we could make full payment to the Justice of God yet we could have no hope by affliction to grow more holy no man groweth richer by parting with money to pay his debts none could hope by afflictions to grow more holy that his affliction should purge away his dross or take away his tin or he by them be made more conformable to the Image of his blessed Saviour if our afflictions were for satisfaction But the holy Scripture giveth us quite another notion of afflictions so far as they concern the People of God it bottometh them in Divine Love it calleth them chastenings and calleth them fatherly corrections Heb. 12.6 7 8. We are bid not to despise the chastening of the Almighty we are told That they are blessed whom he chasteneth and teacheth out of his law we are told that he chasteneth whom he loveth and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth Now it is true satisfaction is not consistent with the satisfaction of Christ but corrections and fatherly chastisements are consistent enough with the price which Christ hath paid and the satisfaction which he hath given for us hanging the malefactor or otherwise putting him to death is not consistent with pardon but I hope whipping him branding sending him a while to Bridewel banishment of him when he deserved death is consistent enough with it The Papists indeed fancy that Christ hath only satisfied for the eternal punishment but still we are bound to satisfie by temporal punishments Hence are their penances and purgatory founded but that is a very uncomfortable notion and the more we look into it the more dreadful it will appear On the other side the Antinomians are as much almost on the other hand denying the afflictions of Gods People to be punishment of sins or judgments when the Scripture so calls them The truth lyes in the middle betwixt these two extreams they are judgments they are punishments of sin but they are no legal demands of satisfaction nor giving satisfaction Christ hath satisfied for the whole guilt of their sins for whom he died All of that nature as to them was finished upon the cross so that the afflictions of the People of God their punishments for sin have now both another name and notion than satisfactions 2. A second mistake upon which this objection is founded is That Christ by his death paid a price into the hands of his fathers justice for all temporal punishments due to man for sin so as to excuse those for whom he died from them Now as to this whatsoever we may fancy 1. It is manifest that our Lord Jesus never did purchase for his people any such thing as a freedom from temporal death and the smart of bodily afflictions He hath taken away the sting of death but not death he hath delivered us from the curse but not from the cross This is all which the Scripture saith Gal. 3.13 He hath redeemed us from the curse by being made a curse for us himself hath told us That if any one will be his disciple he must deny himself and take up the cross and follow him And we are told by the Apostle That all who will live godlily in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution And accordingly the servants of God have experienced it even Paul himself was in deaths often and had his thorn in the flesh 2. Nor was it any branch of that Covenant of Redemption and Grace in which Christ was a party with or a surety to the eternal father I put in those two terms Redemption and Grace I know some make two Covenants the one they call the Covenant of Redemption the other the Covenant of Grace and that there are very different notions of the Covenant of Grace For my own part I see no need of asserting more than one Covenant and that eternal Isa 42.6 This I take to be a paction from eternity made betwixt the Father the eternal Father on the one part and the Lord Jesus Christ on the other wherein Christ Covenanted with his Father that he would do his whole will for the redemption of his chosen ones Psal 40.7 Heb. 10.7 and that we by grace derived from him should do what the father requires of us in order to our salvation in respect of which he is said to be made the surety of a better Covenant Heb. 7.22 The Father mutually Covenanted with his Son that he would be well-pleased in him that he would give him the souls for whom he should dye that he might give them eternal life and all that grace and good which should be advantageous for them but neither did Christ ask of his Father neither did his Father promise him on their behalf an immunity from temporal punishments afflictions or chastisements for sin We cannot understand the terms of the Covenant of Grace but from the Exhibition of it in Scripture which was very various sometimes more clearly sometimes more darkly to Adam Noah Abraham David c. One of the fairest copies
youth and David saw reason to pray that the Lord would not remember the sins of his youth against him We stand therefore deeply concerned with bitterness to remember what God hath not so forgotten but he may deeply chastise us for O then my Brethren let us all look back upon our youth and mourn over that first and wanton time And 2. When the hand of God is upon us and it may be we cannot find wherefore he contendeth us then let us remember former sins and humble our souls before the Lord for them and glorifie God in the fires by acknowledging the righteousness of God in the punishment of the sins of our former years But possibly some will say to me What is to be done in this case is there no way to prevent this after-reckoning with us Truly I cannot promise you there is for as a people may be grown in sin to such an height that there is no speaking to God for them so it is possible that our former sins may have so provoked God as notwithstanding our repentance and conversion God may be resolved that we shall smart in the flesh though our souls be saved in the day of Christ but if there be any hope for such a mercy it is certainly to be obtained 1. By frequent humiliations for past sins much fasting and prayer thus Josiah obtained mercy as to his person when the sins of his predecessors were coming like a storm upon him David knew that if any thing would do this was the way and therefore while the child was sick he humbled himself and would eat no bread 2. By shewing your selves eminent in the exercise of those vertues and graces which are most opposed to your former sins This was Daniels counsel to the King he had sinned by unrighteousness cruelty and injustice oppressing his subjects griping the poor c. Daniel adviseth him to break off his sins by righteousness and his iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor if it might be a lengthning out of his tranquillity Dan. 4.27 He could not assure him this would be a lengthning out of his tranquillity but if it were a thing to be done this was the way to obtain it Paul had eminently sinned by blaspheming persecuting the Lord Christ in his members he preacheth up Christ and laboureth in the work of the Gospel more than all the rest of the Apostles 3. Walk humbly in the third place with thy God do not be too censorious too rash in thy judgement God resisteth the proud thou wert once as others are it is by Grace thou art otherwise Now it cannot be pleasing but highly provocative to God to see a great sinner whom he hath pardoned and received to mercy triumphing over judging censuring them and doubtless doth often provoke God to call their former sins to remembrance that they may learn to pity others It is seldom that God by smart judgements makes them sensible of their errors who have a daily sense of them and in the sense of them walk softly all the days of their lives If we would judg our selves saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 11.31 we should not be judged 4. Be much in secret prayer to God begging of him That if it be possible those bitter cups might pass from thee but remember to add what our Saviour addeth yet not my will but thy will be done For these punishments are not in themselves evil and therefore not absolutely to be deprecated but with submission to the will and wisdom of God SERMON XXXII Psalm CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Am still detained in a Discourse concerning the observable things of Divine Providence Actual Providence and more particularly I am recommending to your observation some things relating to its motions in the distributions of Rewards and Punishments I shall offer one thing more of this nature Observat 19. That it is a very ordinary motion of Divine Providence both to reward and punish Relations in their Correlations To visit the iniquities of the Fathers upon the Children of the Magistrates upon the people c. And so on the contrary to reward the good and righteous actions of Parents unto their posterity c. In the prosecution of this keeping my method 1. I shall justifie the observation by several instances 2. I shall shew you the Reasonableness of this motion of Providence and clear it from all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or appearances of injustice or contrariety to what God hath spoken in his word with reference to the distribution of punishments 3. Lastly I shall make some practical Application That the thing is true appeareth from so plentiful a testimony of Scripture-instances as hardly any thing is more clear and that both as to Rewards and Punishments I will begin with the first but shall be shorter in that Discourse because the difficulty lieth more as to the second thing viz. the distribution of punishments Now for Rewards besides many particular instances we have two that are more general those of Abraham the Father of the faithful and David the man according to Gods own heart They were both great and common Fathers Abraham was the Father of the Jewish Nation The father of many Nations and the father of the faithful I shall only consider him in the first capacity David was the father of the Kings of Judah Sauls family you know was extinguished presently Now how frequently in Scripture do you find God declaring his goodness and mercy to the Jewish Nation for his servant Abrahams sake or for the sake of Abraham Isaac and Jacob or for his servant Davids sake And God heard their groaning and God remembred his Covenant with Abraham and with Isaac and with Jacob Exod. 2.24 Lev. 26.42 Then will I remember my Covenant with Jacob and also my Covenant with Isaac and also my Covenant with Abraham will I remember and I will remember the Land Hence it was that the Jews gloried so much that They had Abraham to their Father and the faithful amongst them ordinarily used it as an argument to plead in prayer with God for them It is plain concerning David from a multitude of Scriptures 1 Kings 11.11 God threatning to rend away the Kingdom of Solomon tells him that for David his servants sake he will not do it in his days and v. 12. For David his servants sake he would give one tribe to his Son So again v. 32 34. and 2 Kings 8.19 Yet the Lord would not destroy Judah for Davids sake 2 Kings 19.34 I will defend this City save it for my own sake and for my servant Davids sake hence the Psalmist prayeth Psal 132.10 For thy servant Davids sake turn not away the face of thine Anointed and so in many other texts of Scripture The case as to punishments hath yet a far more plentiful evidence from holy Writ Exod. 17.8 9. Amalek smote Israel when they came out
life as they can I say which way soever men will consider themselves or whatsoever they will place their ultimate felicity in whether it be in the enjoyment and vision of God to eternity or in living long and happy Still it is their highest wisdom both in their personal capacities and in their relative capacities as they stand related to others in their political or oeconomical relations as Princes Subjects Husbands Wives Parents Children Masters or Servants to govern them according to the rules and by the square of the word of God Now the observation I say of these ordinary dispositions of Divine Providence must therefore be exceedingly conducive to the increase of spiritual wisdom in our souls 2. This Observation will also teach us to understand the loving kindness of the Lord. The glory of God is by all Christians confessedly the end of mans creation and ought to be made the end of his action but herein appeareth the transcendent goodness of God That no man can act for his glory but he must also by the same actions consult his own good and be wise for himself So that in truth there is no man serveth God for nothing but in the same action by and in which he obeyeth God he also consulteth his own life health riches success in business and whatsoever can contribute not only to his eternal felicity but to his felicity and happiness in this life Now how wonderfully doth this speak the love of God to the children of men Every mans reason will tell him that there is a duty of homage and honour which is due from man unto God God is our Creator we are his creatures In him we live move and have our being and equally depend upon him for our preservation and sustentation from his Providence as derive from him as our Creator and the first Author of beings to us Now as it is in the power of any man in the cause to prescribe the honour and homage which shall be grateful and acceptable to him so undoubtedly it was in the power of God and free to him to have prescribed us an homage and service that should have impeached and prejudiced or some way disadvantaged us as to our external felicity and the accommodations of this life which should make it sweet to us But in this see the great loving kindness of the Lord That no man can possibly at more advantage serve himself and the good of his Family or City or Country than by serving God and indeavouring to square his whole converse to the rule of Gods word governing himself by the Scriptures and the rules of life which it gives nor doth God require any thing of us that is ungrateful to that true Reason which is in every man All the commands of God do but pinch us in the exercise of our Lusts and Passions the exercise of which if they have their liberty and were not by a Divine Law restrained would have no better an effect from their natural tendency than the imbittering of our lives by aches and pains and grievous diseases by the rebellion crosness and undutifulness of our relations by a liberty to injustice fraud deceit and oppression This is a great demonstration of Gods loving kindness that in his rules for the government of us he hath twisted our interest with his own and made it necessary for those who most consult his honour and glory most to consult their own good and happiness and that not only as to a life to come but as to this life also Vse 2. We may learn from hence the true reason why the most of men are cursed with the want of temporal blessings I say the most of men for what I told you before must be remembred that from these general rules we must always except those particular causes where God either for the punishment of some sins in his people or for the trial of their faith and patience having reserved a better portion for them in the world to come doth think fit to exercise them with the denial of the sensible blessings of this life But setting aside those cases the general cause is their not living up to that conformity or square to the Divine rule to which they ought to live but either failing in the duties of piety and exercise of Religion to which the Divine law bindeth them or in the duties of probity and moral honesty justice temperance sobriety unity and amity which the same Law doth require of them What wonder is it to see the lazy sluggard poor Hath not God said to him Prov. 6.9 How long wilt thou sleep O sluggard when wilt thou arise out of sleep v. 11. So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth and thy want as an armed man Or to see Oppressors and Gripers of their neighbour-poor God hath told them Prov. 10.15 The destruction of the poor is their poverty Or to see the penurious man grow poor hath not God told us That to withhold more than is meet tendeth to poverty Prov. 11.24 What wonder is it to see Drunkards and Gluttons poor Hath not God said The Drunkard and Glutton shall come to poverty and drousiness shall cloth a man with rags Prov. 23.21 what wonder is it to see those that are companions of leud persons drunkards adulterers Gamesters c. grow poor Hath not God again said Prov. 28.19 That he who followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough O Israel saith God by the Prophet Hoseah Thou hast destroyed thy self but in me is thy help Hos 13.9 it is true as to mens eternal ruine but the Prophet there primarily speaks of mens destroying themselves by being the causes of punishments in this life to themselves men destroy their own lives healths bodys by drunkenness gluttony uncleanness their estates by sloth and luxury the comforts of their own lives by giving an unbridled liberty to their lusts and passions indulging the lustings of their flesh The righteous God is not to be accused for any of these things He hath given men a righteous law which to their reason approveth it self to be holy spiritual just and good but they are carnal sold unto sin slaves to their appetites to their sensual faculties and either ruine themselves by their irreligious or immoral behaviours and doing those things over which if God had not by his severe threatnings in his word hung a sword of Divine Vengeance yet in themselves and of their own nature they have a tendency to destroy life health to wast and consume estates and to deprive them of all those good things which may accommodate their lives and make them sweet and pleasant to them and in the day of their affliction they must lay the fault upon themselves and excuse God in the motions of his Providence acknowledging that it hath but fulfilled his word and brought to pass the just threatnings of his word nay not so only but that it hath only brought natural things to
designed Discourse In my first I asserted the Doctrine of Divine Providence against ancient and modern Atheists I opened it in the nature and principal Acts of it In the Second I 1. shewed you the specialties of it 2. Wherein you must stand still and admire it in the depths and unsearchable things of it 3. I directed you how to make some observations upon the more ordinary and intelligible motions of it I am now come to open some hard Chapters in this great and excellent book and to reconcile this great work of God to his most holy nuture and that infinite justice goodness wisdom and truth which are inseparable from it I take it to be a work worthy of a Divine to make a rationale divinorum operum to give a reasonable account of the Divine works humbly adoring God in them yet inquiring into them and that non tam ad mentis otium quam ad cordis usum as Nierembergius saith not so much for the exercise of our wits as for the use of our souls It advantageth the works of God to our souls when they appear no other than reasonable to us and I think the same Author speaketh well when he saith Nullum puto consilium Divinum cujus non aliqua ratio reddi potest nullum cujus omnis reddatur ita inscrutabilia sunt divina opera digna ut scrutemur facilia that is I do not think any Divine Counsel can be named of which we may not give some reasonable account though there be likewise none of which we can give a perfect account so as the Divine works are at the same time both unsearchable and also worthy and easie to be searched out I shall not so much as propound to my self or you to resolve all the seeming riddles and difficulties of Actual Providence I shall only discourse some of them which seem most obvious and readiest to stumble our thoughts and those which I shall speak to shall chiefly refer to these heads 1. The exhibition of the Covenant of works after the establishment of the Eternal Covenant of Redemption and Grace and the exhibition or tender of grace indefinitely to all after the decree of election and the fall of man 2. The permission of sin and so much sin in the world 3. The punitive Providence of God 4. The dispensation of the external or internal more effectual means of grace I shall speak to divers seeming difficulties that will fall under these four heads and at this time begin with the first of these It was one of the first acts of Divine Providence that we read of immediately succeeding the creation Gen. 2.15 And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it and the Lord God commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden thou maist freely eat but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye Under that threatning is a promise of life upon condition of obedience as to the Law of God written in Adams heart So to that positive Law given him for the trial of his obedience I shall not engage my self deeply in the question what death it is which God there threatneth to Adam I am aware of the varieties of opinions I take it for granted that whatsoever falleth under the notion of death in Scripture is all comprehended under that threatning In dying thou shalt dye saith the Hebrew phrase which we translate Thou shalt surely dye The threatning mentioneth neither one death nor another but is indefinite and of the same force as if universal and it is accordingly used in Scripture to signifie all kind of death as Ezek. 18. and in many other places and out of doubt there falleth under that threatning whatsoever was contrary to the felicity of Adam in that estate I do therefore agree with the ancient and modern Divines who understand death Corporal Spiritual and Eternal there threatned in case of disobedience and life Corporal Spiritual and Eternal there promised in case of obedience Now hence ariseth a great difficulty there were two great Acts of God with relation to man passed before this Act of Providence 1. The decree of Election by which God had not only stated the number of those that should be saved but chosen us in him before the foundation of the world Ephes 1.6 2. The eternal Covenant of Redemption and Grace By which the salvation of man was setled to be obtained not by working but by believing in him that justifieth the ungodly that is not to be obtained by the merits of our own works but by the merits of Christ imputed to us for righteousness and to be by faith apprehended and applied Now here ariseth the difficulty Quest How it could consist with the wisdom and truth of God having thus in his eternal counsels resolved that there should be no other name under heaven no other way or means of salvation but by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ to propound a way of salvation to be obtained by mens working and obedience to the Law of God especially when he did aforeknow that man would break this first Covenant and no man should be saved upon the terms of it That I might speak something to shew you the reasonableness of this motion I have made choice of this Text in which you have 1. An assertion The Scripture hath concluded all under wrath 2. The end or reason of the thing asserted That the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe A text much parallel to that Rom. 11.32 He hath concluded all in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all This Text saith the Scripture hath done it that text saith God hath done it there 's no contradiction in it the Scriptures are the word of God if the Scripture hath concluded all under wrath God hath done it Now how hath the Scripture done this or how hath God done it but by first making man in his own image writing his law in his heart then adding that positive law forbidding him to eat of the tree of forbidden fruit after this suffering him to eat by which not Adam only but all mankind then in him lost the Image of God and all were concluded under sin and to what purpose was all this The text telleth us That the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to all that believe If you please I shall make my whole discourse but a demonstration of this Proposition Prop. That God in infinite wisdom by his Providence gave out the Law or Covenant of works suffering the first man to fall and all in him by the fall to be concluded under wrath My business must be to shew you the exceeding reasonableness and wisdom of God in this dispensation I shall open this to you in five or six particulars 1. It neither was nor could be Gods
that they may hear and fear and do no more wickedly Let us therefore make it our business so to improve such Providences that God may have his end upon us by our hearing seeing fearing and avoiding those sins against which we see the wrath of God so remarkably revealed Thou seest in the world debauched drunkards filthy adulterers profane Sabbath-breakers prodigious blasphemers mischievous Nimrods great hunters and persecutors of such as fear God some of them it may be young men some with numerous families others of fair estates c. healthy bodies like enough to have lived in the world many days On a sudden with David Psal 73.18 Thou seest them cast into destruction brought into a destruction as in a moment utterly consumed with the Lords terrors thou seest them written childless or with Ananias and Saphira struck dead thou seest them as David Psal 37. saw the wicked in great power and spreading himself like a green bay-tree by and by he passed away and lo he was not thou soughtest him and he was not found thou seest them their families their estates consuming like the fat of lambs into smoke consumed away This age if you observed it hath afforded you many such sights how many young wretches have you seen cut off in the beginning and strength of their years Knots of Hectors as this age calls them in whose constitution nothing could be seen but that they might have out-lived hundreds of us and in a few years they are tumbled into their graves you seek for them and not one of the old brood found O let all of us hear and fear and take heed of those leud courses which God hath in our sight so revenged upon them It is one end of these severe punishments of God that others should learn righteousness Let us by these warnings be startled and take heed of those sins in which they lived and which we may reasonably judg brought this quick vengeance upon them Vse 4. Lastly Doth God sometimes punish sinners who he knoweth will but be worse not at all amended by his rod And is this consistent with his Holiness and Justice O let every one of us then that hath been afflicted or that shall fall under the afflicting hand of God in any kind make it our business to search what Gods end was in his afflicting us whether he aimed at our good or meerly his own glory and the good of others Let me tell you it will be a very sad reflexion for us to reflect upon Gods visiting us with some grievous sickness or punishing us in our estates and relations c. and not to be able to satisfy our selves that God aimed at more in his bitter Providences than the getting himself glory upon us or the bettering of others for there is none comes out of an affliction but he comes out better or worse more hardned or with a more softned and tender heart more holy or more profane and stupid But you will say to me How shall we be able to make up this Judgment who knows the aims and intendments of a man in action but the spirit of a man that is within him and who knows the aims and intendments of God save only God himself I answer God is never frustrated of his end man may as not being able to accomplish it God cannot 'T is easie therefore to know the Counsels of God concerning thee in this case by the effects Examine therefore what effects hath thy affliction had upon thee Wherein art thou more amended The amendment of a person upon the sad Providences of God lyes much in these two things Repentance and Mortification 2. Having a better heart for duty and being more diligent in the practice of it Search and examine thy soul then upon these two points Say to thy self 1. My soul thou hast drank of the waters of Marah God hath dealt bitterly with thee I have been at the very brink of the grave I have lost a fair estate God hath crost me in my dearest relations What sins have I the more reflected upon for these things wherein have I been more humbled for the mighty hand of God upon me or mine what sin more have I left am I grown less worldly and carnal what lust have I got a further victory over have I a better command of my passions am I grown meeker am I more humble is my spirit more broken do I see more of my own vileness than I did have I learned with Job to abhor my self and to repent in dust and ashes to lay mine hand upon my mouth Or 2. Enquire of thy soul wherein by this affliction either thy habits of the grace or practice of piety and godliness hath been advantaged whether thy faith or patience be improved thy meekness and humility improved or any of those habits of grace which use to grow under the rod. Enquire of thy self wherein thou art improved as to the practice of Piety whether thou hast since thy affliction learned to keep the Lords statutes to walk in thy house in a more perfect way Give me leave to mind you what you see every day It is the sign of a decaying plant not to shoot forth and look more green after a shower much more to wither and dwindle after it Afflictions are Gods showres almost all sorts of people in this Nation have had great plenty of them within the age we have lived in the face of Religion amongst us at this day gives little evidence that Gods aim in it was the amendment and reformation of the persons under those troubles and afflictions which they have met with it concerneth us to look to our selves If Gods end was only to try what we would be to vindicate his own glory his power justice and holiness upon us to deter others from the like practices whatever good may by our afflictions be occasioned to God in the vindication of his glory or to others in their learning righteousness it is but a sad symptom of ruin to our selves SERMON XL. 1 Kings XIV 1. At that time Abijah the Son of Jerobam fell sick Vers 17. The child dyed I Am opening to you the hard Chapters of Divine Providence Actual Providence justifying the Lords ways to be equal even where they appear less equal to our sense and reason I am at present discoursing the Equity of Punitive Providences I have here shewed you how consistent it is with the Justice Holiness and Goodness of God to be the Author of evil to though not in the Sons of men the Author of the Evil of punishment though not of the evil of sin I have shewed you how consistent it is with the Attributes and Perfections of the Divine Nature to punish and trouble his own people even such as he hath accepted of a satisfaction for their sins at the hand of his Son whose iniquities he hath pardoned c. How consistent it is with the Wisdom Justice Holiness and Goodness of
these are sufficient to evince that there is such a dreadful dispensation of God St. John reciting the afore-mentioned text of Isaiah Joh. 12.39 saith Therefore they could not believe because that Isaias said again that he hath blinded their eyes and hardned their hearts that they should not see with their eyes and understand with their hearts and be converted and I should heal them So as I say it is clear there is such a penal act of Divine Providence and now that we are upon this argument it will not be amiss for us to enquire what sins those are which provoke God to such a degree In the general they were sins against light sins against the light of nature The Apostle speaketh of such sinning Rom. 1. When they knew God they glorified him not as God they knew God by the light of nature and sinned against that light All the other texts speak of sinning against the light of Revelation God for mens bold and impudent sinning against natural light or against the light of his word doth many times deliver up men in this manner But the great question is Quest How is this reconcilable to the goodness purity and holiness of God God in Scripture doth frequently declare that he delights not in the blood of sinners his willingness that all should be saved c. He doth as plentifully declare that he is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity that he tempteth no man and cannot be the author of sin Now how can God give up men to blindness of mind to hardness of heart without willing it and if he willeth it how shall he be excused from being the author of it To which I answer 1. If we mean by the goodness of God his kindness unto sinners in order to their conversion and healing and being saved there is nothing of that nature to be expected from God under this dispensation It is the seal of reprobation and damnation those poor souls are left to the judgement and condemnation of the last day without any great hopes of mercy they have had their time their means their mercies the patience of God hath a long time waited upon them their glass is now run out Gods day of grace is come to an end as to them Lest saith God by the Prophet they should convert and be healed Gods frequent declarations that he desireth not the death of sinners do not oblige God for ever to strive with sinners shutting their eyes and stopping their ears and hardning their hearts It is enough that God hath a long time waited upon these sinners and hath had no fruit of his patience with them But now if by the goodness of God we understand his justice purity and holiness so I doubt not but to evidence to you that under such tremendous dispensations yet God is a just pure and holy God To this purpose 2. In the second place let us consider 1. What God doth under these dispensations 2. Vnder what circumstances those sinners are whom God brings under them Let us understand What God doth in these dispensations 1. Negatively We say God doth not infuse any malice into a sinners heart this indeed were to make God the author of sin God putteth no malice into the heart of sinners he excites no malice in their hearts and this both the Jesuits and Arminians who conspire together to reproach Calvin and other eminent servants of God with the odious reproach of making God the author of sin have been told by as many as have treated upon this argument but they have a mind to revile The Lord rebuke them This is the meaning of the Schoolmen when they say that God doth not harden any quantum ad rationem defectus but only quantum ad rationem ordinis Now how they should make God the author of sin who freely grant this they should do well to make us understand and I would fain have them shew me where either Calvin or Beza or Zuinglius or Pareus or P. Martyr or any other whom Bellarmine and Tilenus or any other so boldly traduce as making God the author of sin have said any thing of this nature they all agree with Augustine in saying that God hardneth none impertiendo malitiam but this only telleth you what God doth not 2. In the second place God doth undoubtedly withdraw those means which should effectually keep them from such sins and certainly this is not unrighteous with God for he may do with his own what pleaseth him Had not the Lord with-held this grace from the Angels and from our first Parents neither had the first fallen from their glorious state nor the second from the state of innocency by which it appeareth that this is no more than the Lord might have done if the sinner had not sinned to say the contrary were to make God a debtor to his creature but this is no more than Bellarmine himself and all the Arminians will grant 3. God doth undoubtedly leave this poor wretch whom he thus punisheth to act according to the impetus of his original lust and corruption according to that lust which is in his heart No man can deny but this is consistent with the justice purity and holiness of God If for God to leave or suffer men to walk in their own ways not to quench the original lust which is in their heart but to suffer them to put it forth in actual sin and wickedness would make God the author of sin God must be concluded the author of all that sin which is committed in the world But it is written He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy and his grace could not be grace if it were not free But thus far all are agreed that God doth harden negatively and permissively I hope there is none will doubt but that if a traytor deserved to dye and to starve to death though a Prince had it in his power to pardon him or supply him with bread to keep him from dying in that manner yet the Prince were just if he did neither of these but suffered him to perish according to his deserts but as I said before this is denied by none All the dispute is whether God doth any positive act in the hardning and blinding of sinners this is denied by Bellarmine and the Jesuits and by the Arminians also In opposition to which I say 4. Though God doth not positively harden nor blind any sinners yet he doth do some positive acts that relate to the hardning and blinding of them I say he positively hardneth none he doth not make their soft hearts hard nor positively blind any he doth not shut their eyes and of seeing make them blind Here now the difference lies betwixt Bellarmine with Arminius and those eminent Divines whom they would asperse with this imputation of making God the author of sin because these Divines cannot allow God to be a meer spectator an idle looker upon his works of Providence
fear God are rich honourable mighty in power men of good estates prospering in the world there was a rich Abraham a rich Joseph a great man in Egypt and a rich Joseph of Arimathea David the man according to Gods own heart was a great Prince so was Solomon nay as I said before were we not deceived by the odds in the number of Sinners and Saints I doubt whether we should not find that God with the good things of this life doth not more universally bless his own servants than he doth others 2. Suppose that some yea that many of the People of God in this world are tossed with tempests and afflicted yet surely there is none of them but hath sin enough to justifie God in their punishments of this nature I have in my former discourses proved to you that notwithstanding the satisfaction which Christ hath paid to the Justice of his Father and the Covenant of Grace made betwixt Christ and his Father on the behalf of his Elect and the pardoning of their sins yet it is consistent enough with Divine Justice to punish the sins of Gods own People with the afflictions and punishments of this life they may be chastened of the Lord that they may not be condemned with the world 1 Cor. 11.32 Now the most righteous man sinneth seven times a day nor doth any know how often he offendeth and why should a living man complain a man for the punishment of his iniquity Lam. 3. 3. If you could imagine any person to have lived so innocently as that he had not by his personal sins deserved those temporal afflictions with which God visiteth him yet as you have heard God may visit the sins of Parents of proparents upon Children and afflictions of this nature may come upon good people although not for their personal sins yet for the sins of their Parents and this is but righteousness with God as I have heretofore shewed you in a set discourse upon that Subject 4. But there is yet a fourth thing which I would speak to a little more fully in answer to this Question and that indeed takes away the Subject of the question upon the point As I said of the good things of this life they are not truly good so I may say of the evil things of this life they are not truly evil as the other are but larvata bona such things as have but a Vizard of goodness so these are but larvata mala such things as have but a shew and appearance of evil in them they are only sensible evils and our senses do but cheat our Souls in judging them evil This I will spend a little time to evince to you 1. In the first place These are not those things which desile the Soul It was a saying of Augustines There is a great deal of difference betwixt a mans being evil and suffering evil Many a Soul is made better by affliction none is made worse by it unless it be by accident Nothing but sin defileth a Soul a man may be poor in this world yet rich in grace he may have a sickly body yet an healthy Soul he may be ignoble in the world yet have the honour to be called the Child of God those things alone are evil which make the Soul filthy and unclean in the sight of God Afflictions tend to make the Soul white to purge it and to cleanse it they are therefore compared to fire and help to make our faith to appear more precious than Gold that perisheth they do not prejudice a Soul as to its grace nor yet as to its glory none was ever condemned by God because he was sickly or low in the world Afflictions are only ingrateful to our sense grievous to our flesh but as to our Soul and inward man they touch it not they do only sully the surface of a man they do no injury to all to his better part This Argument is plain what doth the Soul of a Christian no hurt is no evil Why should I call that evil which neither ever did me any hurt nor ever will 2. The Afflictions of this life are such things as the best of Gods people have chosen and preferred before the contrary supposed good This is a piece of that answer which Salvian long since gave to this difficulty of Providence Humiles sunt Religiosi hoc volunt pauperes sunt pauperie delectantur sine ambitione ambitum respuunt in honore sunt honorem respuunt lugent lugere gestiunt infirmi sunt infirmitate delectantur Salvian de Prov. Are good people saith he in a low condition they desire to be so Are they poor they are pleased with poverty they without ambition refuse the objects of ambition hunt not after great things Are they without honour they refuse the honours of this world Do they mourn they rejoyce to mourn Are they weak they triumph in their weakness Heb. 11.24 By faith Moses refused to be called the Son of Pharaoh's daughter chusing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt The Apostle refused Simon Magus his mony and that with a more than ordinary detestation Agur indeed prayeth against extreme poverty as a condition exposing him to temptation but he also upon the same account prayeth against Riches Lord saith he give me neither poverty nor riches Most glady saith the blessed Apostle 2 Cor. 12.10 will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me therefore I take pleasure in my infirmities in reproaches in necessities in persecutions in distresses for Christs sake for when I am weak then am I strong The Apostles sing in Prison and rejoice that they are counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ The primitive Christians suffered joyfully the spoiling of their goods No man chuseth what he apprehendeth evil but those things the world call evils have very ordinarily been the choice of the best and most judicious servants of God 3. How can those things be called evils which have a tendency to make the man better Afflictions both from Gods intention and their own nature have a tendency to the making of the Souls of Saints better God intends them for that purpose for they are his fatherly Providence for them all those twigs which make up the rods with which God lasheth his people grow out of the root and stock of Divine love The rods with which God scourgeth Sinners are gathered of a Tree that standeth upon the brink of the bottomless pit but those with which God chastiseth his people are gathered of a Tree that stands in the midst of the Paradise of God Nay afflictions have in themselves a tendency to better the Souls of Saints They are but like a warm wall to the fruit-Tree which makes the fruit fairer you observe that young Children shoot out in sickness you
another Where was the principle of this good was it to proceed from God then it little differeth from what we say at least in this case it doth not for still in the dispensations of his grace he moveth freely and from his own meer will only he willeth first to give grace then glory Will they say this foreseen good disposition as is pretended is from a mans self then there must be another fountain of good besides God all good acts proceed from some habits and powers as their principles I demand whence is that principle that power and habit in us which God should foresee and therefore will a Soul to life Will they say it is from man then say I every good gift cometh not from God man is thus made a fountain of good indeed of all good for he is thus made the fountain of that good upon the foresight of which it is according to this Doctrine that God willeth all his providential dispensations of grace and mercy and if this be not to set up man in the Throne of God and to take away from God the glory of that Attribute in which above all he delighteth I understand nothing 3. Again If acts of grace and mercy were not free and unaccountable only fountain'd in the good-will and pleasure of God grace could not be grace for what is grace but free love To him that worketh the reward saith the Apostle is reckoned not of grace but of debt Rom. 4.4 If by grace then it is no more of works otherwise works would be no more works Rom. 11.6 The very notion of grace importeth freeness grace not free is no grace if you take away liberty you take away grace I mean Original liberty I know when God hath promised he is just and righteous to forgive as the Apostle saith But God had an Original liberty to promise or not to promise In short they are no better than enemies to the grace of God who go about to found the reason of its acts any-where else than in the Divine Will God will have mercy because he will have mercy that 's all the account which we can give either of Gods purpose of grace or of any acts of grace pursuant to that purpose And so I pass to the Second part of the Proposition 2. Memb. That supposing this There is no unrighteousness with God This is consistent with the holiness justice and goodness of God and consonant to the Divine being and Nature It is exceedingly agreeing to the Nature of the Divine being to be the first cause of all that is upon any account good and in this sence it is true eminently true which our Lord telleth the Pharisee There is none good but one and that is God other things are derivatively good he is Originally good now I say it is but reasonable that he who is the first being should be owned the first cause of any good that is in the World all dispensations of Grace being effluxes of goodness he also must be the first cause of them and they could be originated in nothing but the Divine Will 2. Besides there is nothing more consonant to the Divine being than to be the Soveraign Lord and the sole cause of his own actions God every where in holy writ makes himself known to us under the notion of the Lord it is an impeachment of the Divine Soveraignty to assert God originally not at perfect liberty as to his own Acts to have mercy upon whom he will have mercy and extend compassion to whom he will extend compassion God in Scripture is set out under the notion of a Potter the Creature under the notion of Clay God shewed Jeremiah this when he carried him down to the Potters house Jer. 18. and shewed him the Potter at work making a Vessel of Clay and when it was marred in his hand making another Vessel as it seemed good unto him then telling him Ver. 6. O house of Israel Cannot I do with you as this Potter Behold as the Clay is in the Potters hand so are you in my hand O you house of Israel which also alluding to that Text confirmeth Rom. 9.21 Hath not the Potter power over the Clay of the same lump to make one Vessel of honour another of dishonour 2. Nor can this possibly be judged unrighteousness with God for for then would God be in a lower capacity than his Creature what man of us is there who doth not think he hath a free and absolute power over his own acts of goodness and mercy To shew them to whom he pleaseth and to withhold them from whom he pleaseth yet is there a vast difference betwixt the Creature and the Creator in this point for all Creatures are under the Law of their Creator they are things and persons under authority and are not soveraign Lords of their own actions yet which of us doth judg our selves accountable to our Neighbour for an act of mercy now if there be no unrighteousness with man in this case if a man doth not think himself bound to give any account to his Neighbour why he is more kind to one than to another Why gives he a gift to one which he giveth not to another How is God unrighteous in such a discrimination What if God willeth to shew mercy and the riches of Divine Grace to one not to another Though God in these motions be free and unaccountable yet he is also just and righteous and the reason is because he is neither bound nor a debtor unto any But this is enough to have spoken to the Explication and Confirmation of this Proposition For Application Vse 1. In the first place We may learn from hence what vain dreamers those are that go about to find out another Fountain for acts of Divine Grace and seek a cause in man for the Grace bestowed upon him They say the head of the great River Nilus could never yet be found It hath been sought for and many have travelled possibly some thousands of miles but yet it cannot be found But the head of Nilus will be found before men will find any cause of Divine Love out of the Divine Will It speaketh a wonderful arrogance in men to make God accountable for his acts of Divine Grace what greater arrogance and vanity can be imagined than this When a poor Creature will not himself be brought to an account why he gives one Begger mony and not another or why he giveth to one Child a greater Portion than another though they both be the acknowledged fruit of his Body that yet this Worm should dream that God must be accountable to his reason why he sheweth mercy to this man and not to another when they are both the work of his hands It is certainly enough to say He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy and extend compassion to whom he will extend compassion What Pride what Arrogance is this not to allow to God whom we
in Scripture I find three Answers to this Question The one is that of St. Peters Acts 2.31 Repent and be Baptized another is that of St. Paul Acts 16.31 Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved The other is that of our Saviour to the young Man asking him What good thing he should do that he might inherit Everlasting Life Saith our Saviour Keep the Commandments Those three Texts will give you compleat directions 1. Keep the Commandments You will reply but you tell us that no Man is able to keep the Commandments but because you cannot do all which God doth require can you do nothing Well but you will say Shall we be saved if we do all that we can to keep the Moral Law I Answer No What then 2. St. Peter tells you Acts 2.38 Repent and be Baptized you will reply but it is God who must give repentance unto life True we say God must change the heart the Blackamore cannot change his skin nor the Leopard his spots But cannot you consider your sins Cannot you turn from open sins Do what in you lieth in order to your Repentance Well but you will say If we do this Is this enough I Answer No What then 3. St. Paul telleth you Act. 16. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved Still you will say But is not Faith the gift of God Have we a power to believe We Answer No It must be given to men on the behalf of Christ to believe But cannot you read the Word of God Cannot you come and hear the Word preached When you have heard it Cannot you meditate therein Cannot you apply your souls to the Word though it be Gods work to apply the Word to your souls and make it to dwell in you Cannot you beg of God a power to believe God will not be wanting to that soul that is not first wanting to it self The difference betwixt us and the bold Patrons of free-will lies here They hold that a man hath a natural power and ability to actions formally and spiritually good This we deny but yet say That man hath a power to actions that are morally and materially good and if he would go about as far as his Natural power would help him though indeed he could merit nothing at the hand of God We do not believe that God would be wanting to him as to habits of spiritual and effectual grace Now this is that which I am pleading with you for that you might not destroy you selves 1. That you would not give your self a liberty and let your selves loose to do things contrary to the Law of God wherein you might restrain your selves 2. That you would not neglect to do those things which God requireth of you and which are in your power to do I shall conclude this but with Two very weighty considerations 1. No punishment is more justly and smartly inflicted than that which a man hath chosen and wilfully brought upon himself when a man hath chosen death rather than life and judged himself unworthy of everlasting life and despised his own mercy certainly every man must say he is justly punished and adjudged to that portion which he hath chosen to himself 2. Secondly As no punishment is so justly and smartly inflicted so none is more intolerable to be born There will be in Hell another fire which shall never go out but this will be the worm that shall never die I have done and shall shut up my Discourse with the words of Moses I have this day set before you life and death blessing and cursing I have told you which way you must go down into the pit of destruction if ever you come there you must of your selves go into it O let not your destruction be of your selves especially considering what God hath done and what he is daily doing to evidence that in him is your help if you will apply your selves unto him SERMON LI. Rom. 2.12 For as many as have sinned without the Law shall also perish without the Law and as many as have sinned in the Law shall be judged by the Law THE business I am upon as you know is the expounding some hard Chapters in the Book of Divine Providence I am upon the last head upon which I propounded to speak to some appearing difficulties viz. Gods unequal dispensations of Grace whether such as are more common or such as are more special and saving as a basis to this Discourse I have premised and handled Two preliminary Propositions 1. Prop. That God in the dispensations of his grace acteth by Prerogative in a way of Soveraignty freely and unaccountably 2. Prop. That in his paenal dispensations of this nature he never proceedeth but justly upon the previous demerits of sinners I now come to speak to some Questions relating to these dispensations of Divine Providence The Two first of this nature which I shall speak to relate to Gods unequal distributions of common grace but such as are spiritual means in order to the obtaining of special and effectual grace and his unequal distributions of special and effectual grace without which none can be saved I shall put both these together and for a short Discourse upon these I have made choice of this Text. The business of the Apostle in this excellent Epistle is to establish the great Doctrine of the Gospel concerning the Justification of the soul before God by the righteousness of Christ on Gods part imputed and reckoned to sinners and on mans part apprehended and applied by Faith in opposition to the Doctrine of the Doctors of the Jews who held the Justification of the Soul by the works of the Law In opposition to whom he had laid down his grand Proposition Rom. 1.17 That the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith That is That righteousness wherein a Soul another day must stand just and righteous before God is not a righteousness of our own arising from our performance of the Law but the righteousness of Christ revealed in the Gospel which is apprehended and made ours by Faith His first Argument by which he proveth this is obvious to any considerate Reader If any be justified by works they must either be the Gentiles or the Jews but neither are the works of the Gentiles such as will justifie them Nor are the works of the Jews such as will justifie them As to the Gentiles he proveth at large Chap. 1. That their works were such as were so far from Justifying them That the wrath of God was revealed against them for the wrath of God is revealed against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and as he at large sheweth the works of the Heathen were works of most notorious ungodliness and unrighteousness and therefore could not possibly justifie them So in this Chapter he proveth that the works of the Jews were not such as could justifie them before God for though they condemned
the meritorious cause If indeed God did either condemn any righteous person or were any way obliged to give out effectual grace to all and did not this indeed would argue unrighteousness with God but he doth neither of these his wrath will indeed one day be revealed against them to whom Christ and his Gospel were never revealed to whom grace sufficient to bring them to Heaven and Eternal life was never given but it shall never be revealed but as the Apostle saith against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men now certainly God cannot be unrighteous in punishing unrighteousness or ungodliness If God indeed were a debtor for his grace to his creature he might be charged with unrighteousness if he did not give it out but he doth not deal out death and destruction but as a wages nor Salvation and Eternal life but as free gift Who asketh a reason why August Caesar did not bestow gifts upon all his Courtiers in proportion with those bestowed on Maecenas We may say of God as to all his dispensations of grace Placuit hoc satis est ubi non aliud jus aut ratio ipsa voluntas jus ratio est that is It so pleased God that is enough where there is no other right or reason the very will of God is Law and reason enough Besides if the distributions of Divine grace were equal how should God to any shew forth the riches of his Grace Let me but acquaint you with a passage of Augustine upon this Argument Doest thou ask saith he why grace is not given to all according to desert I answer because God is merciful you will say Why is not God merciful to all I answer saith he because he is just In this saith he that grace is given freely he sheweth what grace doth and worketh in those to whom it is given Let us not therefore be unthankful to God that according to the good pleasure of his will and for the praise of the glory of his grace he hath delivered us from so great a death whereas if he should deliver none yet he would not be unjust Let him therefore who is delivered love grace let him who is not delivered acknowledg justice if Divine goodness be understood in remitting the debt Justice also may be understood in exacting of it no way is there any iniquity found with God But you will say then Why is there in the case of Infants yea of Twins such a difference Is it not saith he the like Question why in a diverse cause there is the same judgment and the Workmen in the Vineyard who wrought the whole day had but a Penny as they had who had wrought but one hour The Case was different the judgment the same they murmured what saith the Master of the Vineyard to them Volo I will make the last like unto the first Thus because bounty was shewed to some there was no iniquity toward others so far as respecteth Justice and Grace As to the guilty person that is saved God saith I will As to others he saith Take what is thy own and go thy way I will give unto this man that which I do ow unto him Is thine eye evil because mine is good If he shall say and why not unto me Here he shall hear Who art thou who disputest with God Whom thou findest as to one man a bountiful giver as to another a just exactor as to none at all unjust for whereas he should be just if he should punish both he that is saved hath indeed reason to give thanks he that is damned hath no cause to find fault I wish all those who so talk of Fathers would shew us that they were the Children of this ancient Father to whom that name is usefully given But I come to the Application of this discourse 1. Vse In the first place let this Caution you against an hasty listing your selves in the Number of those who so cry up Vniversal grace and a sufficiency of the means of grace for all both the means of purchase and of Application I must confess it is a plausible point and appears to us very pleasing as well as reasonable that God should not punish any nor condemn any to whom he hath not given a sufficiency of grace and assistances in order to their Salvation but as smooth and plausible as it appeareth take heed of too hasty imbracing it it leadeth to strange notions in Divinity as you may partly learn from this discourse the maintaining ordinatam sufficientiam an ordained sufficiency for we are not now speaking of the value of the merits of the blood of Christ in it self in the Death of Christ for all those who shall perish as well as for those who shall be saved it will lead you either to deny that Christ's death was any purchase at all or to affirm that Christ purchased a possibility for some to be saved but under an impossible condition let it be Natural or Moral the absurdity is the same for so it must be if there were an Eternal Election or except man hath a power of himself to repent and believe c. And the maintaining of a sufficiency of grace given to all for the Application of Salvation will lead you to maintain That there is a Salvation may be had without a Christ That the Heathens may be saved by the light of Nature And that any Christians may be saved without any special operation of the Spirit of grace indeed without any grace at all taken in a strict and proper sence Doctrines of that consequence that although it may be possible that those who hold such things may be saved as having some further work of God upon their hearts than they understand and will own yet I fear it will be found impossible that any who have tasted the grace of God no further should ever come in the Kingdom of God Let not therefore the smoothness and plausibility of such notions in the sound of them deceive any of you for it is but a sound and no more And if the consequences of those notions be throughly considered and examined they will be found at last to bottome in such strange notions and apprehensions of the Nature of God as do no way sute the perfect nature of the Divine and Supreme being and what the Scripture revealeth concerning God yea and the very light of Nature and natural reason will evince it to us upon the Hypothesis of Gods being the first and Supreme being and the Fountain of all good and the Lord Jesus Christ's being Eternal God and equal with the Father 2. Vse This discourse calleth once more aloud unto all To walk up to the light which they have Though we deny that God giveth unto all yea that he giveth to any unless such as are ordained unto life a sufficiency of grace and gracious assistances in order to their eternal Salvation yet we say God granteth to all though in very different degrees
that it may live and not dye God calleth into his Vineyard at several hours some he calleth at the Sixth some at the Nineth some at the Eleventh hour Happy thrice happy are they whom God findeth at the Sixth hour in their youth and persuadeth to go into his Vineyard they ordinarily find not so hard a labour of the new-birth they have the priviledg of a longer familiarity and acquaintance with God they have more opportunities of doing God service God often honoreth them to do him some more eminent service but if you have slipped that hour if it be the Ninth hour nay if it be in the wane of your life if it be towards Evening with you that you have nothing to do but to repent and dye singing the Song of old Simeon Now Lord let thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy Salvation yet thou hast no cause to discourage thy self God doth not work upon all Souls at one and the same period of time Great sinners have no reason to discourage themselves the gate to Heaven may appear something straiter to you than unto others you may have an harder work of it it is an hard thing for those that are accustomed to do evil to do well but yet if God will give you an heart to repent if the Lord shall change your hearts and incline you to turn unto him there is mercy with God even for you God can men make to bring forth fruit in their old age Vse 3. Lastly and with that I shall shut up this discourse This speaketh aloud unto all such as have the charge of others as Parents Masters Tutors and Governours to be daily labouring with them for the good of their Souls using all possible means to bring them unto God It is Solomons advice Ecc. 11.6 In the morning sow thy seed and in the evening let not thy hand be slack for thou knowest not which shall prosper this or that or whether both shall be alike good you that are Parents of Children Masters of Servants in any relation Governours of youth see what an ingagement lyeth upon you to bring up your Children to Reading the word Catechizing to bring them to hear faithful Preachers sow the seeds of Spiritual learning and instruction in them in the Morning of their lives hearken not to those who would perswade you that Catechizing in your families is useless and that a Notional knowledg signifieth nothing until God come to work in their hearts that is true but ill applyed when used as a discouragement to the use of the means of knowledg God doth his work by the use of means on our parts and Preaching is not the only means God sometimes in the conversion of sinners maketh his way to their hearts by their heads sanctifying notions of truth dropt into Souls of persons in their tender years and reflecting them many years after upon the conscience you know not which shall prosper this or that use them to read the Scriptures to be examined questioned and catechised out of the Scriptures to hear lively and powerful preaching you know not which shall prosper in order to the conversion of their Souls and turning them to God this or that whether reading or preaching or Family-instruction God that can work without means useth as you have heard a variety of means and doth not limit himself to this or that Or whether both may not prove alike good God may use one means to begin another to perfect one to plant another to water one for laying the foundation another for building thereon and laying the corner-stone and yet when the building is finished you shall see reason enough to cry Not unto us O Lord not unto us but to thy name be given the glory to cry Grace Grace unto it The Knowing person when converted hath usually if not guilty of notorious sins against his light the easiest new-birth and the most quiet and peaceable life Many more doubts and fears trouble those that are more imperfect in their knowledg of the things of God than trouble others O let it not be said of you as it was said of Herod upon occasion of the killing of his own Child amongst the rest of the Infants That it was better to be Herods Hog than his Child Let it not be said of any of you that it is better to be your Horse or Swine or other Beast than your Child or Servant or Scholar For your Beasts you provide all things sutable to their Natures and capacities O remember your Children have Spiritual beings and are born into the World with a capacity of Eternity nay under a certain ordination to a miserable or blessed Eternity SERMON LIII Isaiah 28.29 This also cometh from the Lord who is wonderful in Counsel and excellent in working THE Particle This in the front of my Text is relative to what went before where the Prophet had been speaking of some works of Divine Providence and those but of an inferiour Nature if compared with others the discretion by which men having divers sorts of Grain and Seeds are taught to get them out of their husks and ears by instruments not always the same but suted to the respective Grain or Seed they intend to get out Of this it is that the Text speaks This discretion and saith it cometh from the Lord who is wonderful in Counsel So that I desire you to observe that my following discourses which I shall bottom on this Text are not founded on the first words and the relative Particle This but upon the latter where Gods wonderfulness in Counsel and excellency in working are join'd together Gods excellency in the workings of Providence floweth from his wonderful Counsel and if such little instincts as the foregoing verses speak of be from the Lord the Lords workings and from a wonderful Counsel an easie argumentation will conclude that Gods dispensations of special grace by the hand of his Providence must needs be the effects of infinite wisdom and proceed from the Lord who is wonderful in Councel which is the point I have in hand and to vindicate Divine wisdom from our exceptions against it because of the variety which God useth in his dispensations of it and the inequal distributions of it to the Children of men I have spoken already to the varieties of Providence in the dispensations of the first grace by which a Soul is converted and turned from sin unto God in which work the Soul is meerly passive I come now to speak to those dispensations of Spiritual grace wherein the Soul is not meerly passive but active as to these also we shall observe a great variety in the motions of Divine Providence and a great inequality in the distributions of it of which I shall give you some account and then shut up the discourse To this inequality of distribution good Christians often find it an hard thing to reconcile their thoughts and although God must be allowed to have
not freely confessing them and humbly bewailing them before him who alone hath power to forgive them which alone is necessary in order to forgiveness This was Davids case Psal 32.3 When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long For day and night thine hand was heavy upon me my moisture was turned into the drought of Summer I acknowledged my sin unto thee and mine iniquity I have not hid I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sins There you have both the case and the cure But sometimes the concealing of some sins from men is a great cause of the long abiding of a temptation and this mostly happeneth in souls that are weak in knowledg and not able of themselves to find out and apply to themselves that relief which is in Scripture for them under such guilt and therefore had need of the help of some spiritual Interpreter But I say in every hour of temptation it is very proper to a tempted soul to search and see if he can find no Achan that troubles him or that provoketh God to punish him by setting Satan or by suffering Satan to stand at his right hand oftentimes by the way I have found sins which have been acts of unrighteousness towards men where restitution hath not been made or where restitution hath been unpossible have a long time given advantage to the tempters suggestions but where particular sins cannot be fixed upon as it happeneth in many cases souls fall under great and exceeding troublesome temptations whom God hath yet all their life kept and restrained from such erronious transgressions I say where this happeneth As Herod in great cruelty sent and killed all the children to two years old that he might be sure not to miss him who was born King of the Jews so it will be great policy and piety in a Christian to confess all his sins which he can remember and charge himself with 〈◊〉 to study the mortifying of every member that he may be sure to fall upon that which doth offend him and give the Adversary advantage against him hence it followeth that frequent humiliation and prayer frequent confessions of sin and prayer for the forgiveness of them through the blood of Christ are exceeding proper works for souls under temptation We may indeed concerning violent temptation say as Christ said of possession with the Devil it seldom cometh off without much fasting and prayer yea and holiness of life and watchfulness against sin is the singular duty of poor tempted souls the soul is at such a time in the spiritual fight It was Gods special command to the Israelites that when the host went forth to battel then they should take heed of every wicked thing By a parity of reason when the soul goeth out to the spiritual fight and especially when it is in the fight it standeth concerned to take heed of sinning against God sin weakens the hand and there is nothing more ordinary than for Christians in those circumstances to be de novo troubled for their slips while they have been in that condition 3. Hence Thirdly may easily be concluded the duty of Christians to take unto them the whole armour of God that they may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil in the evil day and having done all to stand Eph. 6.13 not to yeild but to resist Many arguments might be brought to perswade this spiritual resistance you have to do with a foiled Adversary you want not a spiritual assistance Christ was therefore tempted that he might be able to succour you when tempted he cannot conquer you but by your voluntary surrender The will of man is a Fort that is not to be storm'd many are the presidents of those that have resisted and come out of the field conquerors look unto Jesus the Captain of your salvation he resisted Mat. 4.11 The Devil leaveth him and behold Angels came and ministred to him After great temptations usually come great consolations great manifestations of God to the souls of his people But that which follows from this Discourse is because thus you shall fulfil the Lords end this is good acceptable and well-pleasing unto God God himself as I before shewed glorieth in Jobs conquest and checks the Devil upon it God therefore bringeth you into the Field that you might fight valiantly resist manfully and at last come out with a Garland of honour O therefore take heed of casting down your Arms of entertaining any thoughts of running away They observe in Battles that more are slain in a running away than where they manfully maintain the fight but in this fight none falleth but he who yieldeth and throweth down his Arms. They observe also in War that the presence of the Prince in the Field viewing his Souldiers who behave themselves more or less valiantly doth much animate Souldiers You may be assured of this That when you are in this Spiritual combate your great General is in the Field God is observing you particularly observing how you gird up your loins stand to your Arms how you behave your selves in the managery of the fight and that he therefore suffereth you to be tempted that he may see what faith what patience what love to God is in your hearts But thus much shall serve to have spoken to this particular to shew you the wisdom of God and the reasonableness of his motions of Providence in suffering Souls to be more under temptation than others SERMON LIV. Isaiah 28.29 This also cometh from the Lord who is wonderful in Counsel and excellent in working I Proceed now to the Second Question Quest 2 of those which I propounded whence it is that God doth not equally strengthen all the Souls of his People unto the performance of their duty toward him yea and that the same Persons do not at all times find the same mesures of Spiritual strength unto their Spiritual duty Answ There is nothing more demonstrable in matter of fact than that it is so nothing more certain than that God could make it otherwise the Question is whence it is and how the wisdom and the reasonableness of Divine Providence appeareth in this dispensation let me before I come to speak directly to the Question premise something 1. Concerning Spiritual duty 2. Concerning Strengthning grace Duty is a word of very large extent comprehensive of all the Acts both of Piety and Probity wherein the Law of Nature or the Law of God in Scripture maketh us debtors to our great Creator It is usually divided into our duty towards God which is that which we call Piety or our duty toward man which we call Probity both of them ly in the motions of our hearts tongues or more external actions Our duty towards man is much comprehended under the two generals of Justice and Charity Now for much of this duty God denieth unto no man a sufficient strength and
fear God have such different Apprehensions and wherein the motions of Divine Providence in permitting of them seem just and reasonable 1. It first must be laid down for a Principle That the providence of God never doth nor can suffer any elect Soul to embrace and die in any belief of any Proposition by the belief of which its Salvation may be endangered The Apostle telleth you of some that bring in damnable Heresies Every Deviation from any Doctrine of Truth is an Error but an Error is one thing a damnable Error is another thing There hath been a great deal of stir about Fundamentals what Truths and Errors are Fundamental I shall not engage my self in that Dispute but shall determine those Fundamental Truths the belief of or assent and agreement unto which is necessary in order to such exercises of Faith and Holiness without the exercise of which no man can be saved And those are Fundamental Errors which a man cannot hold and in the mean time exercise that Faith and Holiness without the exercise of which no man can be saved As now supposing that Faith in Jesus Christ is necessary to Salvation A denial of the God-head of Christ must needs be a fundamental Error for Cursed is he that trusteth in Man and maketh Flesh his Arm The true and living God alone can be the object of our Faith Now I do not say but a Child of God may fall in with and for a time embrace such Errors The Providence of God may permit him thus to fall but it cannot it doth not suffer any of the Elect of God to hold on and perish in the faith of any Propositions of this nature for then the elect of God might be deceived which our Saviour hath determined impossible then a Soul ordained to Life given to Christ might perish eternally which is not consistent with the certainty of Divine Purposes and infallibility of Divine Decrees Although therefore an elect Vessel may receive some such corrupt Liquor yet it shall not it cannot abide in it though it may be for a time taken in such a snare of the Devil yet the snare shall be broken and it shall be delivered before it comes to leave the Body The question onely must be concerning a mis belief of other Propositions a mis-belief of which is sinful but not damnable And for those Promises of the Spirit leading the People of God into all Truth and of the Annointing teaching them all things they must be interpreted of such Propositions as are necessary to be believed in order to the Salvation of the Soul else ignorance of other Propositions as well as Error relating to them would argue men and women to be destitute of the Spirit of God and not to have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them 2. Secondly As to Propositions of Truth that are not in this sense fundamental the reason of the difference is very obvious and that both upon a Natural and a Moral and Spiritual account Upon 1. A spiritual account Diverse Propositions of Truth of this nature are not so clearly written in Scripture that he who runneth may read them It was I think Augustines saying of the Holy Scriptures That there were divers parts of them in which a Lamb might wade others wherein an Elephant may swim It is the great mercy of God to us that those Propositions of Truth which are necessary to be agreed to in order to the exercises of our Faith and Holiness are left in Scripture so plain and so often repeated that if a man will not shut his eyes and suffer his lust to give law to his understanding he must agree to them but now divers other Propositions are not so but so delivered as that the truth of them is justly the subject of dispute and they are fit for a ventilation and possibly must be concluded from consequences 2. Upon a natural account Every one hath not the same quickness of Apprehension the same strength for ratiocination and ability for rational and logical deductions 3. Nor Thirdly which is that which I meant by a moral account Hath every one the same helps and means or capacity to use helps and means to discern Truth from Error and find out what indeed is the Truth as to a Proposition laid before him so that although they have all the same Spirit of Truth dwelling in them and the same Word of Truth to weigh and measure Propositions by yet the Holy Spirit being no more engaged to keep them from every error of the understanding than from every error of practice and they not having the same faculty to apprehend Truth nor the same means and advantages to understand the Mind and Will of God it is not at all to be wondered if they have not all the same Apprehension of every Proposition of Truth nor is it to be expected that all Christians should have so more than that they should have all the same Faces For Example Take but the Propositions concerning Infant Baptism I doubt not no more I think do you that hear me but that Infants are to be baptized But how do we gather it We have no express Scripture for that more than for Womens receiving the Lords Supper but we conclude it from the identity of the Covenant of Grace under the Old and New Testament from the Precept for Circumcision from the right of Infants to the Kingdom of God and many other such like Topicks But every one hath not the same ability of Reasoning nor the same Apprehensions of the force of Conclusions and therefore different Apprehensions in that and such like Propositions is not at all to be wondred at nor are any to be condemned as not belonging to God for their different Apprehensions concerning them 3. Thirdly As to the Act of Providence permitting these different apprehensions it cannot be denied to be an Act exceeding reasonable and the product of a Depth of Divine Wisdom 1. Reasonable That man may act freely according to his nature in the choice or refusal of Propositions 2. The Product of great Wisdom 1. For the further confirmation of the Souls of his People in the truth It is an usual saying That there are no Propositions which we more firmly believe than those about which we have sometimes doubted Nihil magis certum quam quod ex dubio certumest Truth receiveth a great confirmation by the shakings of some Velitations and Disputes about it It was the saying of an eminent person of our own Church That the itch of disputing was the scab of the Church and truly it hath proved so but it hath been by accident men coming to dispute bringing as Augustine said of his own coming sometimes to read the Scriptures Discutiendi acumen not Discendi pietatem a sharpness of wit to discuss Points not an humble pious defire to learn arguing indeed for masteries not for truth to get themselves not to get the truth and glory of God the Victory but where Disputes
the seventh part of our time which the Fourth Commandement hath consecrated so as those under a different perswasion in this thing are under a necessity of breaking Communion in solemn acts of Worship with all Churches and this is very sad and uncomfortable Study to be rooted and grounded in every Truth though every Proposition of Truth be not of that value as to break Unity and Peace for yet there is not any but is worth searching and inquiring after but if after all you cannot be reconciled to your Brethrens Opinions nor yet reconcile them to yours learn according to the Apostles Precept 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak to contend for to hold the Truth in love and to be charitable to those whom you may discern of different perswasions and apprehensions from you God as I have shewed you doth in great wisdom permit these different apprehensions in his people God may have received those that so differ do you receive them because God hath received them Thus I have shewed you how my fore-going Discourse may be useful to you for the improvement of your charity It may also be useful to you for the improvement of your piety and that divers wayes 1. Vse 2 To teach you to adore the divine wisdom in these different dispensations of his providence You cannot understand why God suffereth some of his people to be weak weak in faith weak as to their spiritual habits and exercises you think God might have more glory if they were stronger and their habits were more confirmed which is certainly true as to the actings of those particular persons the more strong any one is in faith the more confirmed he is in the habits of holiness the more undoubtedly that single person would glorifie God but the Government as of particular souls so of the whole Church is upon Christs Shoulders And in the government of his providence he so administreth the affairs of particular souls as he may have the most glory from the whole Besides God ordinarily governs his people not by miraculous operations but by ordinary reasonable means Which two things being supposed Gods infinite wisdom appears in the different sizes and statures of his people in their different states and complexions Every one hath that measure of grace and knowledge which best suiteth the good of the whole Body of his Church which as the body natural hath different members and those of different uses and must be so disposed as shall render them most serviceable one to another and the whole most serviceable to the great design of Gods glory Let us not therefore trouble our selves in disputing the equity and reasonableness of Divine Providence in its motions for though we cannot by searching find out the Almighty unto Perfection yet you see there is no such variety in Gods Dispensations of this nature but a reasonable account may be given of it And as to these Dispensations it will appear at the last that those who have least shares of this hidden manna will have no lack of enough to bring them to Heaven and those who have the greatest portions of it will find they have nothing over 2. But in the second place This Discourse affords a great argument to promote holiness in all our souls The subject of my Discourse hath been not the dispensations of the first grace but Gods further manifestations unto the souls of his people And you have heard it given as one reason of Gods variety in the Dispensations of them That some souls walk more closely with God are more afraid to offend him and more careful to please him than others are For though the soul as to the Reception of the first grace be meerly passive yet as to the receiving of these manifestations in the several degrees of them it is many ways Active All therefore that I have to do is to call upon you to perfect Holiness and to shew you what force there is in this Argument to ingage you to it Holiness is a great General comprehending whatsoever is the Duty of Man pursuant to the Will of God All Duties both to God and Man fall under the Motion of it as well Acts of Righteousness towards Men as Acts of Devotion towards God yea and not Acts onely but even secret Thoughts and those powers and habits of the Soul which are the Principles of such Acts. When I therefore upon this account call upon you to perfect Holiness my meaning is that you should study that perfection of Spirituality and Heavenly Duty which God requires of you but for the sake of those that are weaker and because there are some pieces of Holiness which do more properly and immediately trend towards the reception of these gradual manifestations and the omission of which may in a more peculiar and special manner hinder the reception of them and provoke God to deny them let me open this general in some few particulars 1. First Take heed of all wilful sinning for if we consider the with-drawings of these Divine Influences as punishments of sin as undoubtedly sometimes they are it is hard to say what wilful sinning God may not thus punish Davids sins of Murther and Adultery were acts of unright ousness towards men yet God punished them in this manner as we may gather from his penitential Psalms there is no sort of sin that I know but may for a time separate betwixt God and the Soul and make him to hide his Face from it That Christian therefore that would have these manifestations of God unto him these abidings of the Holy Spirit with him must be Holy in all manner of Conversation having a respect to all Gods Commandements as well those of the second Table as those of the first Conscience may check and reflect sourly upon the soul for any of them and where that doth so reflect and check there will be little Peace and Comfort little Life and Vigour unto duty little Growth and Progress in the Ways of God Herein therefore exercise your selves to keep a Conscience void of offence both towards God and towards men to keep your selves from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit 2. Secondly In a more particular manner take heed of all earthy mindedness 1 Joh. 2.15 Love not the World nor the things of the World if any man love the World the love of the Father is not in him v. 16. For all that is in the World the lust of the Eyes the lust of the Flesh and the pride of Life is not of the Father but is of the World Pleasure Profit Honour is all that the World can afford any man A man given up to the pursuit of pleasure or of worldly profits and advantages or worldly honours and preferments scarce can have any true love for God and the promise of manifestation is made to him that loves God and keeps his Commandments The Apostle telleth us That to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is
will be made worse by punishments 519. The reasonableness of such punishments 522 523. What use we should make of it 524 525 526 527 c. God is just and holy in punishing Children v. Children In punishing Relates in their Correlates v. Relates In the punishment of Sin with Sin 549 550 551. Gods holiness and justice in this cleared 554 555. Grace Varieties in the dispensation of the first Grace 663. ad p. 681. Of further Grace what 681. Strengthening Grace 694 695. Varieties in the dispensation of it 696 697. In what 697 698. How reasonable 698 699. Quickening Grace 605. Varieties in it 705. Whence 706. How reasonable Varieties as to it are 706 707. Consolatory Grace v. Comforts Growth in Grace what it is 713. How different from improvements in gifts 714. Mistakes about it 714. Reasons of different sizes in Christians 715 716 717. H Happiness of a Soul in what it truly lieth 591 592. Hearkening to the Gospel Call perswaded 472 473 474 475 476. I Intentions good oft rewarded where the action is not allowed 362 363. Indefinite proposal of the Gospel why 465 466 467. Justice of God in the punishment of Children v. Children In the punishment of Relates in their Correlates v. Relates In the punishment of his own people v. Afflictions In the punishment of incorrigible Sinners 519 520 521. In punishing Sin with Sin 549.550 551. In punishing sinners with everlasting Destruction 561 562 to p. 581. Improvement of means and habits of common Grace perswaded 474 475 476. Of Afflictions how 514 515. K Knowledge How it is or may be improved by the observation of the Motions of Actual Providence 167 168. 177. L The Law How it maketh Sin to abound 478 Limiting God What how Sinful 240. Lusts of men made use of to serve the good designs of Gods Providence relating to his Church 324 325. Several Lusts instanced in and the proof of the use God made of them 273 274 275 276. The reasonableness of it 280 281. The use we should make of it 332 333 M Magistrates Their relation to God as his Ordinance his Creatures his Vicegerents their usefulness to men 287 288 289. How under Special Providence 285 286. Means How little considerable in the effects of Providence 212 213 214. Means of Grace-how sufficient how not v. Sufficient Measures of sinful acts how to be taken 570 571 572. Methods of Providence when God intendeth his Churches tranquillity or trouble 266 267 268. Ministers faithful under special Providence how 312 313. Proved 314 315 316 317 318 319 320. Applyed 321 322. Miscarriages in a good cause in two cases what 253. Motions of Providence to be observed 173. Always in pursuance of some word of promise or threatning 188. Not always direct sometimes oblique 189 190. Sometimes in appearance contrary to the word of promise or threatning to the fulfilling of which they are levelled 191 192 193 194. A reasonable account of such motions 194 195 196 197. O Observation of Providence our duty 174. In what it lyeth 175. The advantages of it 175. Men exhorted to it 183. Some rules to direct it 183 184. Twenty observations upon the motions of Providence 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 c. The ordering of our lives advantaged by observation of Providence 175 176 177. Oblique motions of Providence why 193. Obedience How inferred our duty from Creation 30 31 32. P Passive patience How our duty upon the acknowledgment of an Actual Providence 57 58. Permission Of sin why 478 479. What attributes of God are by it Glorified 481 482 483 484. What exercises of Grace are occasioned by it 485 486. How holiness is advantaged by it 487. Why so many sinners 488 489 490. Why so much Sin is permitted 493 494 495. It ought to be no incouragement to Sin Why 496 497 498. What use to be made of it 499 500. What God doth in Permission of Sin 479 480. Philosophers Vain in their Notions of the Worlds Original 29. Praise Given to God from inanimate brute Creatures much more due from all reasonable beings 30. Otherwise they are the most ingrateful and self-condemned Creatures 31 32. Preservation Of the World how wonderful 62 63. The Nature of it 63 64 65. By what particular acts 66 67 68 69 c. Preservantion of men in political capacities opened in 7 particulars 87 88 Preservation of Saints in their Spiritual capacities by 5 acts 96 97 98 99 100. Polities How preserved by God 87 88. Powers In living creatures wholly by Providence v. Faculties Power In lapsed man to repent and believe whether rightly concluded from Gods universal call to both 486. Why else God calleth 487 488 489 490 c. Proportions of Punishment what the due measure of them is 570 571 572. Prosperity of Sinners v. Anger Envy c. Piety promoved from the Observation of Providence how 176 177 178. Piety and Policy of moral vertue and keeping close to God in his worship 269 270. Promises conducive to waiting 616 617. Predetermination of all things according to the Counsel of Gods will p. 3. Proved from foreknowledge 5. and the certainty of existence of things necessary to such prescience 6. Vorstius lost in fixing a cause of such certain existence out of the Divine will acknowledgeth it best to fix it there p. 7. Proved from actual Providence ib. It lays no necessity upon the Act but the Event 11. It s usefulness to quiet Souls under ingrateful contingencies 10 11 12 13 14. Yet we ought to be piously affected at sad Providences and for sin 15 16. Prayer and Praise Both ordinary and more solemn urged from the Consideration of the influence of Providence 59 60. Providence worketh all things according to the Counsel of the Divine will this proveth such a Counsel p. 9. It is not incertain in its effects 9. Whence the term Providence is derived 34 35. What actual Providence is 35. That there is an actual Providence 36 37. From the work of Creation 37 38. The nature of God 39 40 41. From events and effects in the world 42 43. From the acknowledgment of wiser Pagans 44 45. The objects and extent of it 45 46 47. Denyed Atheistically unreasonably 49. It necessitates not motions of rational agents 50. It supercedeth no indeavouers why 50 51. Faith Patience Prayer Praise inferred from the Doctrine of Providence 53 54 55 56. It preserveth the worlds 61. How it worketh in the preservation of all beings 63 64 65 66. Animate beings 67 68 69 70 71 72. The several faculties 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 c In persecuting men in political capacities Opened in 7 things 87 88 89 90 91. In preserving the Saints in their Spiritual capacity 96 97 98. Our duty from thence 99 100. Providence Governeth all things 103 104. The objects and acts of its Government Seven particulars instanced in 105 106 107 108 109. Faith Prayer Praise Love Patience under evils Vniversal obedience
same as of my former observation Because thus he gets himself most glory The Glory of God is the great end of all his actions he worketh for himself for the Honour and Glory of his own great Name Now God hath more Honour and Glory by these accomplishments than if he should bring them to pass by greater and more probable means The Apostle gives this very reason 1 Cor. 1.29 Why God chose weak things to confound those that are mighty c. That no flesh should glory in his presence 1. His power is thus more magnified He thus appears to be a great God a mighty God though it be true that the Power of God is equally exerted when he worketh by great means as by small had we spiritual eyes or did we look upon means as we ought to do as deriving all their efficacy from God yet de facto it is not so to us and therefore you shall in Scripture observe God often declaring that he would work this or that in this or that manner that his People might not say that they had done this by their own might or power The lesser appearance there is of second Causes the more the efficiency of the first Cause is evident so God getteth himself a great deal of Glory by working in the day of mans smallest things 2. As I also told you under the former head God getteth himself more Glory by the praises of his people he is more admired in his workings more praised and adored for his workings The Enemies are also hereby enforced to confess the works of the Lord and to acknowledg the greatness of his Power But having enlarged upon these things under the former observation I shall add no more here but come to the Application Vse 1. The first Use I shall make of this point shall be what the Prophet Zechariah hath made before me Zech. 4.10 Who hath despised the day of small things The Prophet propoundeth it by way of Interrogation but it contains a Precept in the bowels of it Learn not to despise the day of small things it is usually Gods day It may be a day of small things as to the Church the state of it may be very sad the case of it very low little humane means or probabilities may appear of the amendment of its state all things may seem to make against the interest of God and Religion Now I say let no man despise this day of small things It may be a day of small things with the particular soul the case of it may be very sad it may be full of dejections full of despondencies hurried with temptations it may have hope and but a little hope light shining in upon it at a poor crevice let none now despise this day of small things Two things I would press upon you 1. Not to despise this day 2. To perform what is your positive duty with reference to such a day 1. I say first Despise not such a day Persons or things may be despised two ways 1. Directly 2. Interpretatively Take heed of despising it directly Take heed of despising it interpretatively We despise a person or thing directly when in our hearts we contemn him or it and have a low and poor estimate of him or it and express it by any outward sign as words gestures c. Thus the Enemies of the Jews scorned the Jews employed in re-building the City and Temple when they said What will these feeble Jews do if a fox go up he will break down what they have builded It was it seems a day of small things with the Jews their Enemies despised them and mocked at them Thus Sennacherib despised Hezekiah when he offered his Commissioners two hundred horses if his master could set riders on them Take heed of this despising Thus the Popish party in Germany despised the day of small things in the beginning of the Reformation by Luther when they bid him go into his Cell and pray Lord have mercy upon me The issue in all three cases shewed that they had no reason as to any of them to have despised the day of small things Providence usually brings forth its greatest works in such a day But besides this despising 2. There is an interpretative despising of such a day Take heed of this also thus we may despise things 1. When we do not give that due regard to them which we ought Thus our Saviour telleth you A man cannot serve two masters but he will cleave to the one and despise the other that is not give that due regard which he ought to give to the other He that neglecteth what ought not to be neglected doth interpretatively despise when we have not that due value for a thing we ought to have we despise it Thus Esau despised his birth-right saith the Apostle we no where read that he spake contemptuously of it but he did not duly value it he sold it for a contemptible price a mess of pottage 2. When because of the smallness of means our hearts fail in the use of the means we have or as to the promise this is a despising of the day of small things Now I say take heed of despising such a day any of these ways it is usually Gods day Let your rule be this If a work or issue of a work be for Gods Glory if it be the matter of a Divine Promise though there may be but a small appearance of means for the accomplishment of it take heed of despising it either directly or interpretatively Who hath despised such a day saith the Prophet intimating that none ought to despise it none hath any just reason to despise it 2. But secondly Do what is your duty in such a day you will say What is that I will open it in three things 1. Vse the means you have 2. Exercise a faith in God beyond the probable effect of those means 3. Make up in prayer what you will want in action through a want of means Of each of these a word or two 1. Vse those means and grounds of hope which you have If David hath but a sling and a stone to go out against Goliah with yet he will use them Means that have a natural vertue in them or a divine institution have Gods stamp upon them and must be used leaving the event and success unto God we must neither idolize means by attributing the divine Efficiency to them nor yet tempt God by a neglect of them when God affords us them You shall observe God sometimes commanding the use of means which had no rational tendency to the production of the effect as what influence could the Israelites blowing with Rams-horns and the Army encompassing the City seven days have upon the walls of Jericho yet the Israelites were bound to use them because they had the stamp of a divine Institution upon them It is much the same case when they have a natural vertue or a rational tendency there