way and live He would have all his Creatures know that he is no way accessary to their destruction Hos xiii 9. O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but in me is thy help And when he sees what froward and untoward Creatures we are that readily forsake what he loves and run after that which his soul delighteth not in making such unhappy choices for our selves as if we studied how to be our own Executioners then he begins to reason with us O my people what have I done unto thee Mich. vi 3. or wherein have I wearied thee Testifie against me Jer. ii 5 31. What evil have ye found in me Have I been a barren Wilderness unto you or a Land of darkness and if any shall yet be so presumptuous as to cast the blame of their wretchedness and misery upon so benign a Father he stands ready to acquit himself and calls heaven and earth to record against them that he hath set before them Life and Death Deut. xiii 19. Blessing and Cursing and requested them to chuse that which may make them for ever happy Joh. v. 40. But they will not come unto him that they may have life Nay further that God might take away all manner of excuse from the Sons of men and mannage his cause in a way of Reason and Equity he hath not onely shewed his Righteousness to the Heathen and declared his Salvation to the Ends of the Earth but asserted it possible for men to perform his Will so that his yoke is in it self easie and his burthen is really light and his service is reasonable * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is agreeable to the dictates and sentiments of our rational Nature Rom. xii 1. For the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise the Word is very nigh thee Rom. x. 6 8. in thy mouth and in thy heart that thou mayest do it No man can complain of any hard usage that God commands impossibilities and injoyns things that are above his reach For the Spirit of God that mighty principle of Life and Vigour which pervades the whole World of intellectual agents is ready to assist the generous and hearty attempts of all sincere persons after the Divine Life and Nature for so he who gave that gift to his Apostles and assured mankind of the continuance of it till the end of the World hath long since made known to us that if Earthly Parents know how to give good gifts to their Children Luk. xi 13. God our heavenly Father should much more give his Holy Spirit to all that ask it of him He would have all the Creation take notice that it is not for any ends of his own that he is at such pains with us My people sayes God have forsaken me the fountain of living waters Jer. ii 13. and have hewn out to themselves broken Cisterns which can hold no water Methinks the words signifie thus much as if God should thus bespeak us O my people if you could mend your selves by forsaking me the fountain of living Waters then I could be content and reason would that I should bear with you but that you should betake your selves to broken Cisterns which can hold no water and are then dryed up when ye most stand in need of them this argues your lightness and folly Isai xxx 18. God waits to be gracious and with infinite patience and long-sufferance expects our Repentance and suffers that tempestuous whirlwind of enraged Vengeance which Sin and Vice have fed and congested to roll long within the Orbe of Mercy before it burst forth and bear down the sinner into the horrors and agonies of Eternal ages And this is sufficiently evidenced by those Pathetical expressions of his unwillingness to punish his Creatures till at last being compelled to it he sets about it with a kind of reluctancy of spirit and is as it were grieved to the heart that he must use such rigorous means to reduce them to himself Hos xi 8 9. How shall I give thee up Ephraim how shall I deliver thee Israel How shall I make thee as Admah how shall I set thee as Zeboim Mine heart is turned within me my repentings are kindled together This is Gods gracious Expostulation with himself as if he should have thus said What shall I do unto thee O my people or how should I behave my self toward thee Should I make thee an example of my judgment as Admah Or should I consume thee in a moment like Zeboim No surely my heart is quite averse from such harsh proceedings they are even extorted from me therefore my heart yerns after thee O Ephraim my bowels are turned and melted within me an expression of the dearest love and affection that possibly can be Jer. xxxi 20. I am even overcome with those deep-fetcht breathings of affectionate Love which I bear unto thee therefore I will not execute the fierceness of my anger for I am God and not Man I bear no malice against any of the Creation but had rather my kindness then my displeasure should endear men to the consideration of their own happiness And at last he appeals to our own Reasons and Consciences and is content to submit himself and his Dispensations to our own thoughts whether we can imagine any better course then that he hath taken to reform us Isai v. 4. Judge I pray you between me and my Vineyard what could I have done more to my Vineyard then I have not done So that it is only when all means prove ineffectual that the God of Love turns to a consuming fire and makes us the proper objects of his direful Vengeance To take yet a more direct view of that fair Perfection the very root and centre of the Deity I mean Goodness or Love let us behold God manifest in the flesh and look upon him who being the brightness of his Fathers Glory the express Image and Character of his Person encircled with the loving armes of Heaven and folded up in the bosome of Blessedness yet left those sacred Mansions of Happiness out of pure good will to the race of Mankind and put off the robes of Glory that he might be capacitated to dwell in a body of flesh to the intent that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life That pure soul which shone with an Ethereal brightness farr surpassing the glory of the Sun being vitally united with the Eternal Logos and full of the Divine Life did inwardly pity and commiserate the lapsed posterity of Adam wherefore that he might more abundantly demonstrate the riches of his grace he declared himself the Saviour not of some few only but of the whole World that the design of his appearing was to scatter an healing influence upon the broken and distracted Sons of men and that the effects of it should be good tidings of great joy to all people assuring guilty
their order wait upon him and he scatters his bounty in the midst of them and by a provident care looks down from Heaven and tends all his charge so that not a Sparrow closeth it's wings on Earth but that watchful eye observes it's fall And 't is very strange that those armes which fold and embrace every thing that exerts any faculty and degree of life should be employed in plunging humane souls while innocent and undefiled into woe and misery * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Porphyr l. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that to Eternal ages Where is that love and pity which all Creatures proclaim to be in their Soveraign Lord and Maker And if it were an Almighty Goodness that brought them into being surely the same Goodness being never disjoyned from an All-comprehensive Wisdom which beheld the Natures mutual relations and dependences of all Creatures would have judged it fitter never to have brought them into being then that they should be made perpetually unhappy so soon as ever they were created To conclude this Argument Our Religion being in all the parts of it highly reasonable as being propounded to rational natures in whom there are manifest Idea's and notions of Eternal verity and they being so deeply sealed upon them that it is neither in their power to obliterate nor without great reluctancy receive any thing repugnant to them it will appear from the nature of the thing it self that there can be no such absolute Decree of Reprobation as some pretend CHAP. III. The third Argument taken from the Consideration of the Moral Nature of God from whence are deduced such legitimate Inferences and Conclusions as diametrally oppose the Doctrine of Inconditionate Reprobation TO speak worthily and becomingly of that adorable Being to whom we and all creatures else owe not only our Existence but our present subsistence and conservation in the several states of life wherein we are and to have right apprehensions of his Nature * This is made by Epictetus â—…p 38. a Prolepsis of Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is a great piece of our duty so it spirits and invigorates our minds to manly and generous attempts and leads us to the knowledge of the most considerable Theories in Nature and Providence For whether we consider the exuberant plenitude and fecundity of the Divine Goodness which cannot but communicate it self to the utmost capacities of things or the fathomless depth of that Wisdom which hath framed the whole world with such curious and exquisite Artifice that the most perspicacious wit cannot find the least flaw in that beautious structure and yet was able to produce it after another manner beyond our conceptions if he had so pleased or whether we weigh the infinity of the Divine Power which is able to effect any thing that implies no contradiction in Naturals or deformity in Morals Or lastly whether we contemplate the vast fetches and circuits of Providence which though to the low and contracted spirit seem to clash and interfeer yet to the noble and capacious soul are all concentrick and harmonious and make that still and sweet Musick in his ears which the mistaken vulgar thought Pythagoras heard from the motion of the Sphears whereas it was nothing in reality but that admirable and enravishing consent of Providence which God the great Harmostes orders in such tunable and methodical proportions whether I say we attend to any of these things the contemplation of them cannot but widen and enlarge that which is the flower and summity of our souls I mean their Intellectual Natures and fill them with such raised and sublime Notions and Idea's that it will be almost impossible for us to miss of finding out some material Truth which shall be worthy the Author of all things and gratifie and reward our diligent inquisition Now that we may have a true and genuin conception of the Nature of God it is altogether necessary that we free our minds from all prejudice and anticipation of judgment and purge them throughout from the gross and impure steams of the Corporeal life lest when we think we have an Idea of him it be only an Image of our unclean fancies and imaginations but as that Holy One is altogether Spiritual and immaterial so must our apprehensions of him be spiritualiz'd and removed as far from the vile commerce with matter as possibly we can that our eyes being freed from the dust and soil of the earth we may behold him as he is that is as a Being absolutely perfect For he that thus judges of that ever-blessed Being not only removes from him all imbecility and imperfection but invests him in the most infinite manner with whatever the mind of Man doth rationally repute to be an excellency and perfection And whatever the prophane Atheist may object who under pretence of honoring God with the title of Incomprehensible removes him so far that he professes he can have no certain conception of him at all and therefore concludes that he is not and perversely laughs all incorporeal substances out of the World as if there were a contradiction in the very terms yet he that will discard the perplext dictates of Fancy and Imagination and keep close to the sure Deductions of free and solid Reason will I doubt not ingenuously confess that the Idea of God is as easie and natural as of any thing else in the World But it is no wonder if he whose mind is perpetually enveloped with a cloud of vice and sin cannot behold the Eternal Existence of that glorious Being which we call God or acknowledging of him yet deciphers him to the World by such strange Characters as no reasonable man can believe to be a true copy of his Nature It is an indubitable Truth that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every thing is best known by that which is most analogical to it and as the eye cannot behold the Sun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless it have some picture and resemblance of the Sun drawn in it no more can any Man have a true notion of the Deity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless he be made God-like and partake of his image and similitude There is a certain congruity and harmony between Truth and the Soul of Man and however that ancient league by our unhappy lapse came to be violated and broken yet still there are some strokes and impresses in our minds which claim a cognation and affinity where-ever they meet with it And those few sparks which yet remain after the extinction of that great fire of Divine life whose harmless and innoxious flame burnt bright within us and by it we saw our selves and beheld the Natures and proprieties of things till we suffocated and choaked it by casting an heap of dust and rubbish upon it these I say though faint and glimmering yet retain their alliance with heaven and God owns them as the projections and rayes of his own good life and whoever sincerely
can no way doubt but that the blessed Author of our Beings is infinitely Veracious this most pretious Attribute of his will be sufficient security to us that we are not made perpetually and inevitably fallible but that there is a due proportion and harmony between our faculties and those objects whereof we have a cleer and distinct apprehension And there is no reason or plausible pretence we should think otherwise 〈…〉 arising from impotency and weakne 〈…〉 in us is nothing but the sickness of our minds it is wholly repugnant to the most perfect Being so to work a deceit in the intimate frame of our Natures that we should alwayes be deluded in what we imagine we have the clearest evidence of Wherefore we being assured of the Truth of our Faculties from the Veracity of God we have a sure guide to lead us in the contemplation of his Nature and Perfections and may give a rational account of them from what we find in our selves From these foregoing Considerations we may by an easie and natural deduction inferr that God never destinated any of mankind to Destruction but that all the calamity and misery they undergo either in this World or the next is the proper issue and product of their wilful Apostacy and defection from him For God being Infinite Love and this Love the most pretious Attribute of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the cause of all things else it must necessarily follow that whatever designs or projections were intended in reference to mankind they must spring and derive from Goodness which as it is Best so it cannot but act that which is Best and most behoofeful to the things for which it acts I confess though this way of Argumentation from the Nature and Attributes of God appear to me as convictive as any Mathematical Demonstration and I feel a more irresistible and captivating force in it than in any other way of arguing whatever yet because there is required a peculiar Crasts of soul to be convinced by it I do not wonder that so many look upon it as weak and invalid For my own part I fully believe that should God by his Absolute Will and Pleasure place any such conceptions of himself within my mind as that he hates the greatest part of Mankind for no other reason but because he Will it is impossible I should ever credit those stranger guests to be sent from him whose Name is Love and glories most of all in that fair and noble title for those apprehensions having no affinity or alliance with the ancient and first inscriptions of heaven upon my soul would grow there but as strange Plants in a forced and unnatural soil being destitute of that proper and radicating moisture which should dispread them in a flourishing and kindly growth There are some indeed who by reason of the penury and straitness of this Noble and Heroick qualification of Universal Goodness and Love within their own breasts and confining themselves to particular Interests and Engagements shape the Idea of God as suitable to and resembling their contracted Spirits as they can and therefore attribute Love to him only secundum effectum not affectum whereby they would make us believe that there is no such real propriety or affection as Love existing and living in the Deity but only a bare indication of it by certain effects which because our short and steril understandings know not how to express otherwise we give them the denomination of Love or Goodness Now although the Deity be not subject to those variable passions which in our selves we style Love and Hatred and which are seldom grounded but upon Humour and Fancy yet to deny that there is any such thing really and formally in God as Love and Goodness such a principle as carries him out to the production of all possible Beings and whereby he takes an Eternal Complacency and Delight in whatever acts regularly within it's sphear is in it self but a groundless fancy For that beloved Disciple of the blessed Jesus St. John who leaned on a breast never void of Love and Pity to the Sons of Men and had a very potent and vigorous sense of this Divine passion within him when he would set out and express the Nature of God to us in the most significant and yet Evangelical and attractive manner tels us that he is Love which doubtless denotes something real and certain not a bare notion or airy Idea and fantastick dream known only by some effects being something only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. Conclusion That the Divine estimate of things and persons is according to the truth and reality of their respective Natures and that when God makes judgment of Intellectual Creatures he does it by viewing their moral frame and constitution and accordingly stands more or less affected towards them We fond Mortals being prone to Love and Hate at our pleasure beholding things through the vitiated and corrupt Medium of our lusts and passions are very apt to make to our selves false representations of them by dressing them up in the filthy shape of our own distorted fancies like Icterical persons who imagine all the approximate objects of sight tinctured with yellow when as the colour is all the while in their own eyes and made only by the motion or striking of certain vapours upon the Optick Nerves thus many contaminating and defiling their reasons by a familiar converse with sin and wickedness and setting their own Self-will in the Throne and transacting the whole business of their Religion upon the stage of Fancy never looking higher then to the gratification and satisfaction of the Animal powers and by that means making Vice connatural to them and losing the true distinction between Good and Evil Calling Good Evil and Evil Good putting Darkness for Light and Light for Darkness Bitter for Sweet and Sweet for Bitter they frame an Image of the Deity by an Idolum of their own and think that God hath the same good apprehensions of their persons and the same conceptions of all things else as they themselves have But that immutable Goodness which gave being to the Heavens and the Earth and every thing contained in them and is not subject to humours and partialities but pervades the Essences of all created Beings and feels all the intrigues and mysteries of each of them by a stable and Omnipresent Knowledge judges of them according to their present state and capacities As suppose this man righteous and holy at present should afterward apostate from that perfect state albeit his future lapse be an object of the Divine Knowledg yet is he not denominated from that but from the exigency and import of his present condition and from hence is approved of God and under the decree of life and happiness but when he actually prevaricates and commits iniquity he fals under the decree of death and damnation notwithstanding all his former righteousness There are some
theirs by an unchangeable Decree before the World began How deeply will the whole Creation of Rational beings resent such an act as this and what small reason can any man have to cast his care and erect a foundation of his hope upon that God who notwithstanding the greatest expressions of love and kindness to them the most pathetical invitations of them to accept the gracious overtures of his Goodness the highest sense of aversion to their misery accompanied with Oaths and Protestations against it and the fairest promises of Rewards and Blessings to them if they will obey shall yet underhand lay an inevitable train of causes to entrap and foil them I find that my dear spirit affectionately breathes after a freer participation of the Divine Life and Nature and makes many little sallies and attempts to arise beyond the strait and narrow laws of corporeal life into a state of true freedome and liberty and I cannot but heartily complain of the charming and alluring Magick of the Earthly and Brutish life in me that I am too much awake and alive to the effluxes and emissions of the material World whereby the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Divinity that is enwrapped and as it were incarnate within me becomes weak and unactive but my hope is that through the mighty Power of that Divine Love which upholds the Creation with extended armes the heavenly part within me shall prevail and gain a compleat Conquest and Victory and that when this mortal life shall perish I shall become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An immortal God no more depressed with the weight of Terrestrial encumbrance But alass according to your Doctrine if this be all it is but like the Prelude to a fatal Tragedy or the sudden blaze of a dying Lamp and I may for all this fall short and be deceived for if you attribute a Power to your God of Simulation and Fraud he may evacuate all my expectations notwithstanding the pretended Declarations of his Will and Veracity to the contrary To say no more then this Can he punish those effects or operations in me which his own immediate and energetical concourse was the cause of Am I become guilty because I acted under the irresistible impulses and motions of his will If this therefore be a true description of the Nature of God there is no reasonable man but would judge him to be rather some flaming Erynnis with curled Snakes and knotted whips to chastise the World then an Almighty Good and Wise Numen We see then what little hope there is of ingratiating and recommending Christianity to those that are without while we either positively maintain or consequentially introduce such Doctrines as Christian which in their very frame and complexion are repugnant to Right Reason and inconsistent with the Oeconomy of Providence in the World And while the Preachers of the Gospel impose upon men such crude notions they not only do them the most uncharitable piece of service that lightly can be imagined but likewise block up the way and passage of truth to others who may be in very forward degrees of preparation to receive it 2. They were very much mistaken in the Order and Method of propounding the Articles and Doctrines of Christianity to their Auditors and by that means supposing the truth of those Notions they desired to implant in them rendred them farr less acceptable then otherwise they might have been The ever-blessed Son of God the eternal mind and wisdome of his Father when he descended from his glory and became a Man that he might teach the World that salutary Knowledge which should instate them in their pristine Blessedness did not communicate to them that recondite Mystery all at once but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they were able to hear it that is according to their Measure and Proportion Every mans Criterion and discriminative faculty is not in a due and fit disposition for the reception of high and raised Speculations no more then every ear is fitly qualified for the judging of Harmony As in all Arts and Sciences there are some Rudiments and Principles to be learned before we can arrive to a considerable measure of perfection in them so in Religion there are some Catechetical Instructions and Cognate Preparations to be used before we enter upon the Sublime and Theoretical Doctrines contained in it For considering the great degeneracy and Apostacy of mankind from their true Happiness and with what exorbitant and unlimited desires and passions they come into the World toward the things of this present life and how hardly they are wrought of to the entertainment of what is truly good and holy the propounding of intricate Mysteries to them while their distinguishing sense of good and evil is so monstrously depraved and out of order is but to use our Saviours similitude to put new Wine into old Bottles offensive to the hearers and corruptive of the Truth it self and we may with as great reason expect a Substantial and stately Edifice without any foundation or full eared-Corn so soon as the bare Grain is cast into the ground as look for the perfect and compleat Image of Christ in him who does not yet understand the Principles and Rudiments of Religion For what specimen doth that man give of the pure and undefiled Nature of God living in him who can knowingly injure his Brother or pass by with an unconcerned look the calamitous objects of Pity and Compassion Or what proof can he bring that he is acted by that Almighty Spirit of Holiness and Righteousness and renewed into the blameless Image of the blessed Jesus who omits no opportunities of Injustice and Oppression These things therefore which are the very ground-work and foundation of that Evangelical Building which Christ came to erect in the souls of men ought with all dure care and diligence and with great earnestness and seriousnese to be pressed upon men by the Preachers of the Gospel that the People may be convinced their Teachers are real and sincere in the business and that what they so inculcate upon them is for the future and unspeakable benefit of their immortal souls And by the frequent use of these Monitory Cautions and Exhortations it is to be hoped that men will grow more holy and practice with greater circumspection the plain duties of Morality by which means they will be more apt to conceive and judge of the other more Speculative Doctrines and Articles of Christianity which ought to be let alone till their proper-time come wherein they may with some advantage be propounded to the hearers they being by the constant exercise of the Precepts of Justice Equity and Goodness prepared and competently well fitted for the reception of the Mysterious and Recondite part of Religion It cannot therefore but be acknowledged a piece of great inadvertency and opinionative Curiosity in the generality of Preachers in these late times to make it their business in the first place to instruct their
Hearers in the most difficult and many times disputable points of the Christian Religion and fill their heads with unprofitable opinions while they neglected the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the more serious and weighty matters of Justice Mercy and Compassion From hence came it that in their Catechisms and Confessions of Faith they crowded so many unnecessary and fruitless Doctrines under the name and notion of Indubitable Articles of the Christian Faith and which were necessary to be believed in order to Salvation such as are the Positions concerning Gods Decree of Election and Reprobation c. And here I cannot but with all due regard and honour commend the great Prudence of the Compilers as of the whole Liturgie and Service so particularly of the Catechisme of the Church of England for the Instructing of the younger sort in the Rudiments and Principles of Christianity wherein as there is nothing propounded as indispensably necessary to be believed but what is undoubtedly so in like manner they modestly contented themselves in inserting only such things as were by all the reformed part of Christendome looked upon as unquestionably true and the contrary condemned as false and adulterate so that I may say of it as David of Goliahs Sword There is none like it Thus Reader I have given thee a full Account and Reason of the following Discourse and of the Necessity of some such way and method of Instructing the People as I have here described which certainly is not to fill their brains with puffie Opinions and jejune Disputations but a zealous cautioning them against all Vice and Immorality whatever and a serious exhorting them to the practice of Holyness Justice and Equity Obedience to their Lawful Prince and to all inferior Magistrates to do good and communicate to the Necessities of the Indigent and Calamitous and when the case requires a further instruction in the Mysteries of Religion such a full and easie Explication of the several Articles and Doctrines contained in it as may best suit with their Capacities and the plain Texts of Holy Scripture which as it is recommended as most useful for the promotion of Piety by our Mother the Church of England so it is most agreeable with the Nature of the thing it self GODS GOODNESS VINDICATED Against Absolute Reprobation CHAP. I. Inconditionate Reprobation inconsistent with the Declarations of God in Holy Scripture THERE is scarce any Doctrine or Opinion maintain'd in the World be it never so Monstrous and Irrational but pleads Scripture to countenance and authorize it and though Truth be but one yet every Sect and Faction claims an Interest in it and that Error may pass more freely disguised and undiscerned amongst men it is now-become a fashion to alledge the Divinely-inspired Writings as an unquestionable Evidence for the reasonableness and Truth of whatever strange and uncouth conceits men please to divulge in the World Such is the Hypothesis of Absolute Reprobation we have in hand And he that shall peruse the Writings of those who desire to maintain it and consider with what wonderful confidence they assert it and how thick-set the Margins of their Treatises are with citations of Scripture to patronize and defend it and yet how little or nothing there is in that Sacred Volume that in good earnest looks that way will be soon perswaded that it is an inveterate prejudice rather then any probability of Truth which makes them such pertinacious Adherents to so ill-framed a Doctrine And that I may make good what I have affirmed I shall begin with Divine Revelation wherein God declares his gratious Oeconomy and Dispensation with mankind and Vindicates the glory and honour of his Nature and Attributes from the aspersions and imputations of cruelty and injustice asserting his Rule and Dominion in the World to be Righteous and Equal and perfectly agreeable to the highest Wisdome and Goodness so that none of his Creatures unless it be such who are desperately forlorn and wicked can possibly wish his Not-being in the World This is his Name whereby he proclaims himself to Moses The Lord the Lord God Exod. xxxiv 6. merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth and this Name God hath verified in the whole Oeconomy of his Providence to the lapsed World Deut. v. 29. Oh that my people had such an heart in them sayes he that they would fear me and keep my Commandements But why doth God wish this not for any self design or particular interest for our goodness extendeth not unto him nor can our sins detract any thing from the sedate and composed happiness of his everblessed Nature but that it might go well with them and their Children for ever Behold here the flagrant love and intense affection of the God of Israel to a stiff-necked and disobedient people Do not these passionate streins proceed from his whole heart and are they not Arguments of the greatest seriousness How then can he unfeignedly desire that they should walk in the wayes of life when his own good Pleasure from the out-goings of Eternity hath irresistibly determined their motion into the pathes of destruction Can a tender Mother expose her innocent Babe to be devoured by wilde Beasts or sawn asunder before her eyes Isai xlix 15. Can she forget her sucking Child that she should not have compassion upon the Son of her womb Suppose there may be some so obdurate and unrelenting that their bowels will not yern over such a dismal spectacle yet they are but few that have degenerated so deeply into this more then brutish stupidity and can we think the compassionate Father of Spirits who is infinitely more pitiful in all the degrees of intension and extension then the best of the Sons of Men will betray his own dear off-spring or prove so unnatural to design them to the most acute torments the wit and subtilty of Men or Devils can invent and that to eternal ages before ever their Existence gave them the least opportunity of offending him 1 Joh. iv 16. God is Love it self whose nature is ever to be diffusive and communicative to all the possibilities of beings and therefore glories not in this that he is powerful to slay to damne and excruciate in unheard and perpetual torments Isa lxiii 1. but that he speaks in righteousness and is mighty to save And that he might fully convince the World of this gracious property of his he hath pronounced Judgment to be his Strange work and his Strange act which mens Impenitencies only force him to for he will not that any perish but that every Creature should be happy in it's measure and capacity And lest we Sons of Darkness should entertain any such thought of the God of Light as if he pleased himself in our ruin he hath joyned an Oath to it Ezek. xxxiii 11. and hath sworn As he liveth he hath no pleasure in the death of the Wicked but that the Wicked turn from his
sinners of the love of their offended God and that yet they had not sinned out of the reach of Mercy but that now while 't is called to day if they would hear the God of love speaking to their consciences and gently mollifying their obdurate hearts they should run unto him by a speedy repentance and he would melt and thaw their frozen spirits into a plyable ductility by the warm gleams of his Eternal Love loosen the wings of their entangled Souls and secure their flight into the quiet regions of Peace and Joy When this Son of Love who was alwayes going about doing good saw the Multitude scattered abroad like Sheep that have no Shepherd it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. ix 36. He was moved with compassion on them which word sayes a Learned Critick denotes Summam vehementem commiscrationem ex intimis visceribus profectam Such an inward feeling and yerning of the heart and soul as melts the very bowels into a pitiful commiseration of the object they are affected with which intense affection is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The bowels of the mercy of God Luk. i. 78. And when he came to Jerusalem how did he weep over her and moisten his fresh Laurels with a shower of Tears O Jerusalem Matth. xxiii 37. Jerusalem thou that killedst the Prophets and stonedst them that were sent unto thee how often would I have gathered thy children together as an hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not His heart was so full of grief that it could hold no longer but must empty it self in a sympathizing flood of tears over that incorrigible City softning that ground with his watry eyes which shortly after should be bedewed with blood Oh that thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy day the things that belong unto thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes Surely there is no man so blasphemous as to think Christ wept tears of deceit and treachery No they were the very breathings of his heart to a people that were going into inevitable destruction For if we look into the whole History of the Gospel we shall find that our blessed Lord was of as tender and passive a constitution as ever the world had any cognizance of and in this very instance which was Christs last solemn visit for the recovery of those rebellious Jews he hath left upon record to all succeeding ages of the World the fervency of his Love and the greatness of their Obstinacy and Rebellion He rode in triumph the children sang Hosanna to him and he cured many impotent and diseased persons that at least that miraculous and wonder-working Power residing in him might extort this confession from them that he was the Son of God and the promised Messiah and after all this he weeps for their Infidelity and pities them with tears and having his heart and spirit full of love that is stronger then death he leaves no way untryed but spends the whole day amongst them and looks round about him towards evening to see if any would invite him home being unwilling to depart till their Ingratitude forces him away And now that he is exalted in Glory and sits at the right hand of his Father invested with Majesty and Power his Compassions are no whit abated nor is that benign care and Providence which in the dayes of his Humiliation and condescent he exercised over the fallen generations of Men at all lessened by the augmentation of his Blessedness and Felicity but dayly woes and beseeches us by his Ministers and Servants to enter upon terms of amity and friendship with God who in him hath been pleased to reconcile the World unto himself Should we now cast our eyes upon the whole frame and fabrick of the Gospel we shall find it to be the most effectual engine that infinite Wisdome could contrive for the winding of the minds and spirits of men from their too eager pursuit of the pleasures and gratifications of the lower life and working them up to those noble and high purposes for which they were made And doubtless there is no man in whom prejudice doth not outbalance reason but will readily set his seal to this truth there appearing in the Gospel such sweet condescentions to our capacities and complyances with the frailty of our condition such infinite aversness to our misery and destruction and such powerful endearments and attractives to Holiness and Righteousness that he cannot judge it to proceed from any other then a principle of Infinite Goodness Love and Wisdome I might here further tell you that the Gospel being designed to be the Religion of men of all sorts and conditions of all ranks and qualities and so adapted to our rational powers and in the main drift and scope of it so plain and easie even to the most illiterate capacities Divine Wisdom could not but highly approve of it and by a favourable benediction suffer it to have that Universal effect it pretends to that is the full and compleat renovation of all mankind that would not wilfully reject the counsel of God against themselves and the perfecting every one without exception or limitation that would faithfully and cordially to his utmost powers adhere unto it CHAP. II. Absolute Reprobation repugnant to Right Reason wherein is set out the Moral Nature of our Souls in reference to Good and Evil Truth and Falshood And this Second Argument made good in Four Propositions THere is nothing that can lay any claim or pretence to the decision of Questions of a Moral Nature and Import but will appear very lame and ineffectual without the aid and assistance of Right Reason which is so noble and generous a principle that if we take a serious view of it it will soon discover to us it 's Royal Pedigree and Divine Extraction There is a near alliance and consanguinity between the Reason of Man and that Eternal Goodness which at first sealed it as an impression of his Nature upon our souls and therefore there need be no such distance between true Christianity and it For assuredly that Divine Wisdom which at our first production implanted in us the apprehensions and Idea's of things did so order the business that if we used our discriminative faculties aright we should have no other conceptions of them then what did really and significantly express the Natures of the things themselves and such as were Eternally lodg'd in the All-comprehensive Intellect of the Deity There being then no Judge on Earth whose Dictates and Determinations may be credited as Authentick and Infallible and every man being commanded to prove all things to try the Spirits whether they be of God and to look carefully and diligently to himself that he fall not nor be led into Error and the Reason and understanding of man if rightly manag'd being the Candle of the Lord whereby he is inabled to examine and judge of Doctrines it will follow
* Pyrrho denyed that there was any turpitude or honesty justice or injustice or any truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Diog. Laert. in vita Pyrrhonis Fantastick being We are therefore to conceive an innate Goodness and Evil in things antecedent to our apprehensions of them †Thus Tully speaks de Leg. 1. Nos ad justitiam esse natos neque opinione sed Naturâ constitutum esse jus And Seneca Epist 97. Illic dissentiamus cum Epicuro ubi dicit nihil justum esse naturâ crimina vitanda esse quia vitari metus non potest By the Goodness of Moral objects I mean their congruity conveniency and harmony and by Evil their dissonancy disconvenience and disagreement with those Eternal Verities or common notions God hath interwoven in the Essential contexture of our beings Now because the soul of men not only in his lapsed and degenerate estate wherein sin hath defaced the workmanship of Gods own hands and spread a cloud of death and deformity over heavens brighter Image but in his greatest innocency and glory before he knew what Rebellion meant consists of a double Nature the one meerly Animal governed by sense and the principles of pleasure and rellishing nothing but the grateful and alluring motions of the body and the other Intellectual and perceptive a ray and beam let down from the Sun of heaven and of a near cognation and affinity with the Deity therefore I say we are not to discriminate Moral acts by their harmony and dissonancy with the Animal but Intellectual man for the proper object of the first is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whatsoever is pleasant and delightsome luscious and sweet dispreading all it's powers into the luxuriancy and exorbitancy of corporeal life But the other more severe and castigate part of the souls dictates the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what ought to be done that is what contains in it an eternal and indispensable necessity Since therefore all those Moral Axiomes and Propositions which we find treasured up in the soul are not Thetical and positive as depending upon the efflux of Gods will and power but natural and immutable and can no more be altered by him then he can die or put a period to his Existence and the intellectual faculties of men being gradual derivations and declensions from the Divine Nature and made up of such unalterable principles it must needs follow that whatever bears an amicable correspondence with them should be accounted as indubitable and certain and their determinations rever'd as sacred and holy For such is the frame and furniture of our Spirits that they cannot become indifferent to the reception of every thing propounded to them but are fatally and necessarily bound up to certain Laws and Conditions which as I said are the transcripts of the Moral Nature of God and both guide us through the Labyrinth of the abstrusest Theory and serve for the exploration of whatever Doctrin either is known already or we have great reason to suspect to be adulterate These are the very constitutive and fundamental Principles of our being men and he that is throughly conscious of the innate Generosity and Manlyness of his own mind can no more violate any of them then endure a painful discission and dilaceration of his bodily life I confess there are some so strangely perplext and confounded within themselves partly from their own depraved tempers and partly from the distortion of those genuine formes by an evil education that they can scarce assent to a Mathematical Demonstration but yet if they would give themselves liberty of a free enquiry into Truth they are not uncapable of a Divorce and Separation from those perverse Principles which can no better way be done then by suspending their assent and laying aside all their old Phantasmes and Prepossessions till they attain to a clear and distinct apprehension of whatever it be that they converse with and by so doing they shall at last put a final stop to the importunate incursions of those false Judges and clear themselves from all their formerly imbibed Prejudices and Truth will shine forth arrayed and deckt with her own native beauty and lustre and we shall find a lasting peace and calm within us In the management therefore of this Argument we shall follow the clear duct of Reason and guide our selves by those Sacred Laws we find indelibly engraven in the centre of our beings and in conformity to this we shall lay down several Propositions by which the unreasonableness of this rigid Doctrine we are Impugning will manifestly be detected Prop. 1. 1. To render any being in a far worse condition and more miserable state then it 's nature and capacities were intended for without any consideration of an antecedent Crime or Subsequent advantage accruing meerly upon will and pleasure is repugnant to the light of natural Reason There is no life so fallen out or dissatisfied with it self as to seek it 's own ruine and torment but studiously endeavours to assert it self into the highest happiness it's nature is capable of and exerts and displayes all it's powers for the acquisition of what is most congruous and suitable to it 's internal frame and complexion Now to disturb the kindly actings of such a being by a perverse dislocation of it's contexture and capacities raising thereby the most exquisite sense of pain and torture meerly for the satisfaction of an unaccountable fancy and petulant humour what is it but to act according to the principles of the highest cruelty and oppression For what greater act of ferity and barbarity can be imagined then to vex and hurt the innocent and that upon no other account but because we will have it so yea it is judged so high a piece of depravity and degeneracy that wise men have thought it inconsistent with the very nature of the Devil to do mischief for mischiefs sake Yet such a face of things do these Absolute Reprobationists represent to the World while they make the benigne Father of humane souls to be so far displeased with his own dear off-spring as without any fault of theirs to detrude them from that happy state wherein at first he made them being capable of the reception and communication of his own Nature into a condition of intolerable and endless misery and all this meerly upon his will and pleasure For surely the souls of men as they come out of the benigne hands of God are fitted for very noble and excellent purposes and may if God so please acting according to their intrinsick powers become the capable subjects of his boundless Goodness and rejoyce in a cheerful contemplation of their own powers and faculties and the Theory of the outward Creation and in beholding the Symmetry of all things with that first and Architypal Idea according to which all things in their proportion were fram'd And if beside this we consider what high improvements the soul is capable of and
historiâ colligimus licere Deo si vellet ab illo jure quod positum est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ea facere quae ab Arminianis injusta esse judicantur Causa enim certè illius erit in Majestatis eminentiâ immensâ quae quia immensa est praestabit ex aequo ut quae minus quae magis injusta sunt facere possit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Statue igitur quantamlibet injustitiae magnitudinem in â—o quòd creatura insons addicitur cruciatibus aeternis attamen id si Deus faciat Majestatis quae in ipso est magnitudo actionem ab omni reprehensione aut coërcitione vindicabit So likewise Szydlovius in Praefat. ad Vindic. as he is cited by the same Author Dico hic ingenuè qd scil Deus possit unius peccatum alteri imputatum morte aeternâ punire possit ad interitum ordinare obligare hominem ad impossibile ob non praestitum hoc quod ei dare non decrevit eundem punire Quod velit peccatum Quod prohibendo aliquid contrarium ejus facere ipsemet possit Quod quae velit ideò justa sint quia vult non verò ideò velle quia justa sint c. Quae omnia cùm verissima sint ideò tantò periculosius negata fuerûnt quantò propius ut sic dicam Dei potestatem extenuabant enervabant These Positions are so full of horrid consequences so inconsistent with the blessed Nature of God and so contrariant with the natural and easie Idea's of our minds that it shall be enough to have transcribed them In the mean time it highly concerns every Good man to think as honorably of God as possibly he can and render his apprehensions of that adorable Being amiable and lovely for the time will come when God will unmask all the false and unworthy conceptions men have entertained of him and vindicate his abused Glory from all the defiled spots they have sullied it with and discover to them their perverse and obstinate Errors by a light clear as the noon day and every one shall be ashamed that hath not thought so magnificently of his Nature as he ought to do But here I foresee it will be Objected by some That since none of mankind can be good to God as advantaging him any thing and the sole end of their Creation being for their own good and happiness that benign Author considering what and how he had made them and what was likely to be the sad doom of most of them by revolting from his blessed life through the necessary imperfection of their Natures Lapsability being essentially interwoven in the very contexture of their beings he should be obliged through the infinite fertility of that principle of Love out of which he made them and which delights not in the calamity of any of the Creation to have made them impeccable that so they might never have lost those beautiful forms he engraved in them and consequently never incurr'd the severity of his displeasure And here that I may keep my self within the bounds of sober Theology and determine nothing inconsistent to those Sacred Oracles whose Authority ought to be tenderly regarded I answer 1. That God making all things according to their respective Idea's which eternally shone in his All comprehensive Wisdom it became necessary that he should bring into being such lapsable Creatures as the souls of men for there being a fair possibility of such intermediate Essences as humane souls which should be something below the Nature of Angels and yet superiour to Bruts and the Divine Fecundity being such as to speak with reverence did necessarily constrain him to expand his infinite Plenitude in the production of whatever included no incomposibility of Existence it is not to be imagined that his Nature should be less fruitful then the conceptions and apprehensions of men who can distinctly and rationally place another Species of Beings and fill up that empty Chasme between those two so vastly distant degrees of life Angels and Beasts And therefore if men had been made Impeccable there would want such an order of Creatures in the World as might with those glorious Morning-starrs actuate a body of an Ethereal and heavenly consistency and yet with Brute-Animals be furnished with a congruity to inform courser matter and appear upon the earth clothed with flesh and blood 2. God who is in himself a full and compleat Happiness did likewise grant to all the productions of life a power of exerting those faculties his bountiful hand bestowed upon them and so of enjoying themselves in the free use and exercise of them and like an indulgent Father permitted them the pleasures and gratifications of every degree of life he had placed in them so that it seems a Benefit or Sacred Donative collated on mankind that they were not stated in an inamissible Happiness For though we should say with some that such is the Nature and Fabrick of humane souls that unless we engage Divine Power in a perpetual Miracle they could not be constituted in an Illapsable condition yet that All-knowing mind foresaw that the calamity which many of them were like to undergo by deserting their primitive Happiness was not sufficient to out-ballance the good which might accrue to themselves and the rest of the Creation in their production for albeit they were made Lapsable yet it was no wayes necessary that they should actually recede from their blessed life and it was only their careless and negligent use of Gods paternal bounty in taking to themselves too great a liberty of enjoying the pleasures resulting from Corporeal life which were allowed them in due measures and degrees whereby the Animadversion was too farr called off from a steady observance of the Commands and Laws of the Divine life that turned Adam and the rest of his Off-spring out of a Paradisiacal felicity into a World of briers and thorns But beside this God eternally beholding in himself the Idea's of such mutable creatures which being brought into Being would afterwards ruine themselves did as it were on set purpose interweave many acerbities and incommodities in the structure of their beings which might check and restrain their otherwise exorbitant lusts when they are seducing them to an easie descent and seasonably remind them of that better state they are apostatizing from Lastly God beholding the lapse and degeneracy of humane souls and considering that it somewhat proceeded from that incompossibility he himself had wrought in their Essential structure he determined to send down upon earth the Messias whose pure and immaculate soul never left the bright Mansions of Innocency with the rest of his degenerate Brethren to the intent that he might declare to fallen men the unfeigned desire and will of God to re-instate them in the possession of their ancient glory and in pursuance of this good intention of his to assure them of the powerful conduct of his everblessed Spirit which should be in them a
teach and instruct mankind in the true knowledge and worship of the Deity Hence it is that in the Gentile Theology Love is made the most ancient of the Gods and the Sire of all things * Plutarch tells us that for this reason Hesiod made Love the most ancient of the Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is described by Simmias Rhodius in a pair of Wings which suited well with the Symbolical representation of the Chaos by an Egge which was brooded and hatched under these wings of Love Something of this we find Aristophanes in Avibus sporting withal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Love therefore according to their Divinity being the benigne Creator of all things the Father of Men and Angels from whose bounteous fecundity the vast spaces of the external Creation became replenished with suitable inhabitants must needs be ever present with every thing he hath brought into being and communicate himself to all his Creatures so far as their respective Natures are capable of receiving the influxes of his Paternal Goodness What was therefore obscurely and imperfectly delivered by the Heathens concerning the production of things we have fully declared in the Mosaical history of the Creation where we find the Holy Spirit of Love by his fostering incubation bringing into being and cherishing under his extended wings the new-born World Which manner of production surely denotes a tender care and dear regard of whatever is brought into being and therefore the Metaphorical expression of Wings is often used in Sacred Writ to set forth Gods loving care and providence Psal xci 4. He shall cover thee with his feathers when thou betakest thy self under the shadow of his wings And when the blessed Jesus would denote that dear love wherewith he would have embraced Jerusalem had she returned unto him he tels us that he would have gathered her children together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a bird gathereth her young under her wings Mat 23.37 God cannot be separated from any of mankind but as he brought them into being for no other end but that they might taste of the communications of his Nature so he takes care that none of them shall fall short of this desirable end but through their own default 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Trismegist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. That mind which is the Father of all things being life and nature it self produced man like unto himself and loved him as his own off-spring But far short of this comely Idea of the Divine Nature is that of Calvin who had he been to describe the barbarous stratagem of some cruel Nero or one more inhumane than the World hath yet known contrived to slay the innocent under colour of Justice could scarce have done it with more horror and amazement than that wherein he layes down the eternal counsel of God against Reprobates Instit lib. 3. cap. 24. Sect. 12. Quemadmodum suae erga electos vocationis efficacia salutem ad quam eos aeterno consilio destinaret perficit Deus ita sua habet adversus reprobos judicia quibus consilium de illis suum exequatur Quos ergo in vitae contumeliam mortis exitium creavit ut irae suae organa forent severitatis exempla eos ut in finem suum perveniant nunc audiendi verbi sui facultate privat nunc ejus praedicatione magis excaecat obstupefacit i. e. As God by the efficacy of his Vocation towards the Elect compleates that Salvation to which he designed them by an eternal decree so he hath his determinations against Reprobates by which he executes his decree concerning them Those therefore whom he created for the reproach of life and perdition of death that they might become the instruments of Anger and examples of his Severity those that they may arive to their end he sometimes deprives of the means of hearing his Word and othertimes more blinds and amazes by the preaching of it But is the Name of a Creator nay of a Father no more promising Why was Man made in the Image of God unless he intended to deal with him according to that relation he stood in unto him We do not read that God hath dealt thus with any of the rest of the Creation for the rebellious Devils were not cast down from the higher regions of light and glory till they apostatiz'd from God and drew with them the race of Mankind And shall Man alone the noblest part of that Creation to which God once vouchsafed that cheerful Elogium and Approbation that it was very good shall he only I say be banished from the participation of that All-comprehensive Goodness I can sooner therefore believe that the proud Gyant the fanciful Poets have placed under mount Aetna should by his own native effort throw of that heavy burden from his oppressed breast or that the spirit of Nature should convert a flinty rock into a heap of fragrant flowers than that God should create any of Mankind on purpose to make them the pitious objects of others scorn and his own powerful and implacable vengeance I can never believe any thing I say that savours of such irrational and unjust proceedings but rather affirm that the Eternal benignity of the Holy one diffused and communicated through the whole Orbe of beings and comprehension of Nature will so certainly take hold of every thing that is capable of enjoying it that it shall not fail of being happy so long as it acts evenly and regularly in that place and state infinite Wisedom hath allotted to it Hence Synesius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hymn 3. What wonder is' t if God Who did the World create From his own works repel All sad and evil fate As if it were contradictory to the very Nature of God to be the Demiurgus and Maker of all things and yet not to render his productions as happy as the capacities of their natures will admit For nothing advantageth him ought and all the happiness or misery the Creatures run through in the course and order of things is neither an addition nor detraction of his felicity only he being Essential Love which envies not nor thinks any evill delights to communicate of himself in effects of kindness tenderness and beneficence to all beings round about him The whole Creation tastes of it having all it's parts cemented with Goodness and it's foundation lay'd in Love The Heavens the Earth and Sea and whatever moves within the compass of them bear witness to this Truth This is that All-mighty Love which feeds the young Ravens when they open their mouths towards heaven and provides for the Lybian Lyons when their souls are pincht with hunger and they roar after their prey He it is that opens the windows of heaven and refreshes the dry and parched Earth causing the grass to grow for the Cattel and herb for the service of Man All things in
follows their conduct shall be led to the knowledg of their inexhausted source and origine Having therefore such a determinate notion of God before us we shall descend to some particular Deductions from the consideration of his Nature As 1. That there is something Soveraign in the Deity which is the root and spring of all his other perfections and that this is Absolutely full Goodness That the Attributes of God are arbitrarious and like loose-hanging adjuncts to be put off and on at pleasure I think there is no man who knows what he sayes so blasphemous as to affirm but God is what he is by the necessity of his Nature for he cannot be God except he be immutable in all his essential proprieties which immutability of his is such that he can neither cease to be nor act any otherwise then may be consonant to the fundamental laws of his own Being Wherefore God being the highest and most incomprehensible life and activity cannot fail through the Essential fecundity and plenitude of his blessed Nature of communicating himself to all possible and capable subjects for the more perfect and compleat any life is the more diffusive it is of it self and the reason why Creation is not competible to any Being below the Deity arises not from any positive will of God to the contrary but from the impotency and imperfection of it's Essence But God being no steril and barren principle but every way full and absolute is not only carried forth to the production of things but to the order and management of them in such a way as may most correspond and suit with their intrinsical natures Whether therefore these operations of God ad extra as the Schoolmen phrase it be guided and steered by an explicite and arbitrary Will or whether they have not some other primary foundation from which it is impossible they should at any time swerve and in which they are all terminated comes now to be demonstrated For to say that they are all bounded in the Divine Essence and swallowed up in that immense Abyss introduces such a confusion in the Divine Attributes that our minds can have no particular or distinct apprehension of this or the other mode and beside gives no satisfaction to a rational inquirer who would be apt to question Whether there were not a subordination in the Divine Idiomata and Whether they be all equally active and operative and lastly Whether the Holy Scriptures do not universally magnifie and extol some one Attribute above the rest For the Solution of these Difficulties we must examine our own faculties and consider what we mean by that Idea and representation we have of the Divine Nature and what it is that principally confers to the formation of that notion and conception we entertain in our minds of God That there is in us naturally an Idea of a Being absolutely perfect which we neither derived from sense nor framed by the power of Fancy and Imagination but is indelibly wrought and engraven in our souls by a Divine principle and of the sense of which we can never totally rid our minds however impiously diligent we may be in debauching our Spirits and Sacrilegiously racing the venerable Name of the Deity out of his Temple I shall take for granted But there are some perfections which do more signally appear in the Deity and which peculiarly constitute the Nature of a God such as absolute and compleat Goodness which being so boundlessly diffusive and communicative of it self is necessarily attended with an infinite Wisdom to govern and direct and Power to execute and bring into being whatever this fertile wombe of Love shall travail withall These are the constitutive Principles of a Deity and all other proprieties are but those three grand Attributes severally varied and modified Now that they are not all of equal worth and excellency will appear if we look upon them as so many distinct qualities in created Beings wherein there appears such pain dissimilitude that a man can scarce withhold himself from concluding that they will likewise retain their differences when exalted into the Nature of God himself Goodness is of an universal latitude and extent and all other excellencies and perfections of humane Nature are indiscriminately complicated in it For a good man is not only excited by the innate generosity and goodness of his mind to do that which is best but summons his Wisdom and Knowledg to project and contrive and then uses his utmost Power to bring it into act Goodness is the rule and measure of his actions and Wisdom and Power receive their worth and excellency from the degree of Goodness they partake of Knowledg and Power are more particular and strait and more in a lower sphear and our actions receive no moral denomination from them but as they participate more or less of Goodness For a clearer illustration of the present Theme we will suppose Power to have actual Existence and carryed out to the effecting of whatever lies within it's sphear and comprehension and being infinite and unlimited to be utterly incapable of any hindrance or impediment in it's operations and it will amount to no more than a furious and Gygantick self-will wholly indeterminate to good or evil and as indifferent to destroy and remand back again into non-entity what it hath made if we can without a contradiction attribute to it the Power of Creation as at first to make it whose blind and impetuous self-will is the sole rule of all it 's exorbitant actions which being no knowing principle they may oft prove as ridiculous as the vain attempt of those mighty Gyants to scale heaven by throwing mountain upon mountain We see then that Power alone though we imagine it to have actual Existence speaks no more perfection than that great and mighty wind which rent the Mountains and brake in pieces the Rocks when God passed by before the Prophet Elijah And as the Lord was not in the wind so neither is he to be found in such boisterous effects whose productive cause is meer selfishness and inconsiderate Will God works not after any such unaccountable impulses nor are we to look for meer Will and Power in the Creation of things but for Wisdom and Counsel deriving from immense benignity and love which never acts but for worthy and decorous ends and for the behoof of things themselves This being therefore the Nature of Power considered in it's distinct capacity let us add to it the principles of Wisdom and then it will suggest to us the Idea of the Manichean God whom they make the Author of all the evill in the World For Wisdom and Power disjoyn'd from the blessed fountain of Goodness is nothing else but armed wickedness There is no Being can communicate any thing to another which it self is not invested withal and if we suppose the Existence of a Being of infinite Subtlety and Power it is impossible it should be the Author of any Good in
the World because it is possest of nothing but an unlimited desire of doing mischief and for this reason alone Wisdom and Power are no further good or speak perfection then they are in conjunction with Absolute Goodness and consequently must depend upon it as the beams of light disperst through the air upon the Sun or faculties and actions upon the principles from whence they flow That Wisdom which is devoid of Goodness is nothing but a higher degree of craft something of the Nature of that cunning and wilyness we may discover in voracious Beasts and Birds when they deceive and prey upon the more innocent and harmless sort of Animals so that we plainly perceive that Wisdom and Power separated from Goodness offer no notion of perfection at all to our minds and therefore there is something in the Deity more amiable and lovely and which as it speaks perfection it self and is the most desirable and excellent thing upon earth so it is the spring of all other Attributes in the Deity which are no further morally good than they are united with this prime and noble quality Hence Tully introducing C. Cotta disputing against Velleius the Epicurean tels him that Epicurus by taking away Love from the Deity Tollit id quod maximè proprium est optimae Lib. â—… de Nat. Deorum Seneca Epist 95. Primus est Deorum cultus Deos credere deinde reddere illis Majestatem suam reddere bonitatem sine quae nullae Majestas est praestantissimaeque naturae Nihil enim melius aut praestantius bonitate beneficentiâ Let us now reflect upon that Archetypal Image according to which man was made and if we do not wilfully blind our eyes we cannot but see that it was neither Wisdom nor Power though we partake in some measure of both but Goodness and Love whose glorious forms and Idea's are disseminated through the intellectual World and impressed upon every rational Being The Angels themselves who far exceed us in Power and Wisdom yet should they exercise them without the ballast of Goodness would prove more exorbitant and ungovernable then the Apostate Devils For wherein consists the height of that degeneracy and revolt of Men and Angels from God but only in this that they are departed from the eternal laws and rules of Goodness and strive to sustain and prop up themselves by their unlimited self-will and hence it comes to pass that having no sure and steady foundation to bottom themselves upon they fluctuate and are tossed to and fro by every unruly passion and desire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all good is governable and uniform and it is immutable Goodness above that to speak with reverence makes the Divinity a Uniform Being for Wisdom and Power are in themselves so arbitrarious multiform and uncertain that without the poize of Goodness they cannot settle and radicate themselves upon any permanent Centre This great Truth the ever-blessed Son of God verified when he left the glory and beatitude of Heaven and pitched his Tabernacle amongst men For wherein consisted the flower and excellency of his Divine Perfections Was it not in that Universal Love and Benignity he expressed to the whole World and in that tenderness and compassion he shewed by going about doing good and casting an healing influence upon the bodies and souls of Men This surely was the brightest ray of Divinity that ever shone from God manifested in the flesh and to this every holy mans experience bears witness who then finds himself most peaceable and calm and most conformable to the Divine Image and Pourtraicture when he is doing the most good and his love most enlarged and comprehensive which Love never ascends more acceptably to Heaven than when it overflowes all capable subjects here below and strives to unite and draw them up to God their great Source and Parent Wherefore by what hath been said for the explication of this Proposition it sufficiently appears that Goodness is the inmost Centre of the Deity and Wisdom and Power ray forth from thence like the beams of light from their lucid Centre 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. That that which is most pretious and best as I may so speak in the Divine Nature will be sure to work first and extend it self to all the capacities and possibilities of things We have already proved That the Deity is no Arbitrary Being but that all his Actions and Determinations relating to us have their Original in Infinitely full Goodness which being the most precious thing in the Nature of God and the measure and rule of all his other Attributes and Perfections it cannot but seem most easie and natural to conceive that this Soveraign property as it is the best so it should likewise obtain the first place in working For infinite Power never acting but in subordination to directive Wisdom nor Wisdom and Power exerting themselves but in the way of and according to the laws of Goodness which being in it's own Nature so fruitful and communicative that all other Modes and Attributes are tinctured with it and lie in a laxe and diffuse manner within the sphear and comprehension of it's Energy it must also obtain the first place of acting as of right belonging to it And if we look out and take a view of the several rancks and orders of intellectual Beings we shall find in every of them something of greatest value and excellency which as it exceeds in worth all other perfections of their Natures so it will be most energetical and of the largest extent in acting and contrarily that what is of less excellency is more contracted and circumscribed and of less efficacy and virtue The soul of man though one entire Orbe in the whole latitude and comprehension of her Essence yet is made up of distinct powers and faculties which are not all of equal value and excellency nor do they all operate in the same order and manner The lowest power which we take notice of in humane souls is that Plastick or Formative virtue wherein consists the Vital Union between soul and body and whose peculiar office it is to conserve the motions and keep in play all the Engines of the whole corporeal Machine and this being so stupid languid and inert is perpetually transfixt by the inevitable motions and variegations of matter and fatally bound up to those operations which are common to us with brute Animals But as we ascend higher the Powers of the soul are more explicate and large and according to their worth and excellency obtain a more or less ample sphear of Energy and Life Thus they gradually arise till they come to that which is the Quintessence and choicest perfection of humane souls Reason or Intellect which being sanctified by the Divine Life blossomes and rayes forth on every side to the circumference of it's Essence and hallows all the Corporeal and Animal powers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Platonist speaks with an Intellectual touch and Divine
parsimonious principles nor is he such a mutable and peevish Being as to be overcome with Anger and Revenge upon every slight occasion and yet so easie and fond and thirsty after the praise and glory of his Creatures as to be appeased with a few trivial performances and demure submissions but his Holy Nature is steady and unchangeable Goodness which exerts not it self precariously and arbitrarily being never disjoyned from an All-comprehensive Wisdom nor ever subject to the passions of Envy and Vain-glory or clouded by inadvertencies and surprizals of pettish Wrath but like the Sun beyond the Planetary regions communicates his amiable life by ever serene Radiations and uninterrupted influences There is nothing in the Deity which ariseth out of Poverty or Indigency but of infinite Plenitude and Fulness and no creature can augment his Felicity who is in himself a perfect Self-sufficiency and compleat Happiness Strom. 5. Wherefore Clemens Alexandrinus well observes out of Plato That God brought not the glorious Fabrick of the World into Being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of indigency or that he might receive praise and glory from Men and Angels as a tribute to be paid him by his Creation It is the impotency and effeminacy of mens intellectual powers which lessens and straitens their apprehensions of the Deity that they cannot frame any other conceptions of him then they do of themselves as if he sought for Honour and Advantage and something without himself which he was not as yet possessed of by bringing his Creatures upon the stage of Being And if these uncouth Idea's chance to light upon a subtle and unhewn temper he will easily be provoked to deny the very Existence of God in the World whom he cannot imagine to be Almighty Love and Immense Fulness when he plots and contrives to augment the revenues of his glory by those ignoble and dishonourable wayes of destining his Creatures to misery to the end he may appear potent and magnificent in their destruction For as the great Proplastes of the Universe beginning the efformation of a plant and meeting with stubborn and inobsequious matter gives it a different signature and impression from it's natural Idea and instead of adding to it it 's due proportions and lineaments despoils it of it's native forme and beauty by many mis-shapen botches and protuberances In like manner these direful and harsh apprehensions of the Deity meeting with a rough and unmalleable disposition instead of forming any consistent notion beget in it by their contagious affriction an utter aversation and malice against the thing it self and exasperate it so far that it bends all it's strength of wit and subtlety to eradicate the very Being of a God out of the World For undoubtedly if the minds of men be too untractable to become Devotional and Religious the next step will be to take away all sense and veneration of a Supreme Numen as being something which otherwise would too much curbe and restrain them from prosecuting that liberty their corrupt and debauched Natures assume to themselves And what is it that gives occasion to such dismal thoughts and renders the lovely Idea of God such a Mormo and bugbear to men that they endeavour by all possible wayes to extirpate it out of their minds but only because they see those who pretend to be the great lights of the Gospel and Religion and instructors of others in the wayes of Righteousness make such dreadful representations of his Nature and set him forth in so frightful a dress that they think the World had better be without then groan under the Tyranny of such a blood-thirsty Deity who like churlish Saturn destroyes his off-spring so soon as brought into Being nay before they were any thing but Idea's in the Divine Intellect designed them by an irrevocable law to most sharp and uneasie torments This certainly is the very inward sense of the Atheist who finding very contradictory and unaccountable explications as well of many other grand pieces of Christianity as of the Nature of God made by many who took themselves to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the late times wherein true Religion dwindled away into nothing but formal performances long and pompous Devotions tedious and anxious Confessions as well of the Articles of their Faith as Obliquities of their lives and pedantick niceties took a fair occasion to disbelieve all and by a hellish kind of policy contrived at once a total eversion of Christianity by taking away the object of Religious Worship and expunging the notion of a Deity out of mens minds What Plutarch somewhere speakes of a barbarous sort of people the Atheist retorts upon those rigid masters of Theology that it were much better to have no notion or conception of God at all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than to think that he takes pleasure in the blood of slain men and accounts this the most perfect and consummate Sacrifice and Devotion But this need not have driven the Atheist so far as to deny the Existence of God for had he looked into the inbred formes and characters of his own mind and withal viewed the original draught of God in the Holy Scriptures he might have taken a farr more true lively and amiable resemblance of the Deity than that which scared him from the very thoughts of his Being God is one who carries on no self-interest or particular design but that which he most of all aimes at and intends shall take place upon Earth is the propagation of his own Life and Nature and the general good and welfare of all the sons of Men. Fond and unreasonable Man indeed when he hath gotten power into his hands delights himself in making happy or miserable at his pleasure but that steady and immutable Goodness which neither rises nor sets nor admits any variation or shadow of turning glories not so much in the displaying of his power and making himself formidable to the Creation as in the expansion and dilatation of his Love as the glory and beauty of the Sun are those pleasant rayes that flow from him Gods power is nothing but Goodness arming and exerting it self for the bringing about some design of Love nor can he ever Will any thing but what is every way suitable and correspondent to his invariable Goodness which is the measure of his Will And therefore to think that God takes any complacency in the sole exercise of his Soveraignty and Dominion over his Creatures or advances his glory by exalting and casting them down and making them the objects of his Love or Hare according to his arbitrary Will and Power is all one as if a Man should seek for a name and glory by going about and treading upon a few poor Wormes We all talke much of the glory of God but many of us have very short and contracted conceptions and too oft adopt our own fancies for genuine and natural apprehensions of it as if it consisted in the putting forth the acts
of an unlimited Will and Power how and when he pleaseth and declaring their effluxes and emanations to be the rule of reason and measure of all Moral Actions and the grand Law of the whole Creation or else in those Hymns and Hallelujahs which are offered up to him by intellectual Beings from all quarters of the Universe Whereas in truth his Glory is nothing without himself nor any acquisition and purchase to augment his happiness for he being an Infinite Plenitude of all Perfection is incapable of receiving any complement of Glory or Blessedness but then he most of all elevates and raises his glory and lustre when he most of all communicates his Nature and shines in with a full and uninterrupted light of Truth and Goodness upon all the intellectual Creation He never seeks his Glory in respect of us in any other way than by dispreading and imparting those Soveraign Attributes of Love Mercy Patience Wisdom and Justice And we in the most proper sense do then advance the Glory of God highest and discover it to the World in the most ample and transcendent manner when the life of God becomes a Vital Principle in us carrying us beyond the reach of corporeal exsudations and defilements which render the soul inept for a conformity to his blessed Image and when Truth Holiness and Righteousness in which the Divine Nature is copyed out become not empty and insignificant Names and sounds of words but actuating and quickning Principles and we studiously endeavour to engrave those beautiful Forms in our minds and spirits In a word then do we glorifie God when we converse with him in the Temple of an unspotted heart and derive from him in whom there is no blemish of iniquity such an Universal Holiness as lives within us and pervades and sanctifies all our actions And this the Lord Christ who best knew how to glorifie God hath intimated to us Joh. xv 8. Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit I have now finished this Argument from the consideration of the Divine Nature and have deduced such genuine and legitimate Conclusions that if rightly estimated and weighed cannot but implant for the future in every unprejudic'd mind more generous and serene Apprehensions of the Deity then are offered in any Scheme of the Supralapsarian or Sublapsarian Doctrins both which concurr in that which appears most deformed to every pure and defecate eye viz. The Eternal Reprobation and Confusion of the greatest part of Mankind the one upon pretence of Gods sole Will and Pleasure and the other under the mantle and cover of Adam's transgression in whose loins the whole race of Mankind was included when he fell and lost his Paradise Both which opinions though never so fairly guilded over do really make God put on the mask of cruelty and rigour that he might appear just in his Oeconomy and Administration of the affairs of the World and that which is most barbarous and infamous in the eye of reason is made to speak the glory of the Deity And that God might bring about this dismal and black design of Damning his Creatures he must compass it by injurious artifices and tyrannical contrivances rot unlike that inhumane fraud Tiberius used to Brutus and Nero the sons of Germanicus Suet. in Vit. Tâ—…b c. 54. Variâ fraude induxit ut concitarentur ad convitia concitati perderentur How deep a stain doth this cast upon the lovely rayes and efflorences of the Divine Goodness and Mercy making him to become the Executioner to his own off-spring and rend that dear life in pieces which his own hands gave Being to And although the Sublapsarian Dogma be entertained of some on purpose to mollifie that harsh decree of the Supralapsarian Reprobation yet if we divest it of those terms and artifices of words wherewith it is mantled over to appear more specious to the World we shall find it cast as great a blot upon the Divine Nature as the other For whether is it better to say That God by his Eternal Prerogative of Absolute Dominion over all his Creatures has adjudged the greatest part of Mankind to inevitable misery for no other reason but upon the impulse of his own Will and to shew the glory of his Power Or to say That God for the sin of one Man whom he made the Representative of the succeeding Generations of Men to the end of the World committed some thousands of years ago and imputed only to his Posterity who were no more able to help it than to hinder their being born into the World should take the advantage of his lapse and decree the greatest number of Mankind to Everlasting destruction And if we impartially view this latter it will appear no less precarious and absurd than the former For though it be true that we are really and formally guilty of Original Sin yet to say that God did physically predetermine Adam's fall or in the mildest sense That he looked upon man as fallen for the Reprobationists are not consistent with themselves and so took the opportunity which he foresaw would offer it self by his lapse to bring about his design of ruining the greatest number of Mankind is to bring Almighty God the Father of compassions upon the stage of the World speaking unto the calamitous Off-spring of Adam like the Wolfe when he intended to devour a Lamb Ante hos sex menses ait maledixisti mihi Respondit agnus Equidem natus non eram Pater hercule tuus inquit maledixit mihi Atque ita correptum lacerat injustâ nece Should God take the souls of men being yet innocent so soon as he set them upon acting in the World according to those Principles and Powers he bestowed upon them at their first production and cast them into everlasting burnings they would have this comfort left to them that they suffered innocently and never in the least measure violated any of the sacred Laws of Heaven But when they shall hear that their Creator and Father who upon that very account could not inflict a greater evil than the good he bestowed on them hath contrived their death and drawn them into sin that he might with the fairer shew of equity punish them with infinite tortures both in body and soul this injustice must needs appear unspeakably grievous For although some would seem to excuse this Oeconomy from all harshness iniquity and rigor by substituting the softer termes of Preterition or negative Reprobation yet if they will unmask their apprehensions and speak plain sense the difference will appear only in words not in the thing it self and is all one as if a man should seek to alleviate the calamity of a condemned Malefactor by telling him he should not die by Common but Noble hands For the event declares Gods intention and the denial of his help to extricate them from misery is equivalent to a positive Reprobation Let us consult a little our own faculties and reason
himself or how the Grace of God which came by Christ did abound and was made more efficacious then sin For if the sin of Adam destroyed and slew more than the Death and Passion of the Lord Christ made alive then were Sin of a larger extent and more potent than Grace 〈◊〉 v. and the Apostle could not truly affirm That where Sin abounded Grace did much more abound CHAP. IV. A fourth Argument against the Doctrine of Inconditionate Reprobation taken from the Evangelical Dispensation wherein is shown the purport and design of the Gospel which is to reinstate all men into the Participation of the Divine Nature and that that Rigid Doctrine is destructive of so high and glorious an end THere is no Man that knows himself and discerns the true frame of his own Being what sublime and noble perfections the soul is capable of and withal reflects upon the weak and imperfect state of the Sons of men how uncertain and fluctuating their judgments are at the best and how frequently obscured with prejudice how impotently stubborn their wills to the election of substantial good and how broken and disordered the faculties of their whole man but will assuredly conclude that all Mankind however it comes to pass are extremely alienated and apostatiz'd from that innate purity and excellent state in which they were created for no Man that believes himself made by an Alwise and infinitely perfect Author can imagine that he came thus lame and maimed out of his hands and sunk as low as the capacities of their Nature will permit being only vivacious and active to trifling low and bodily interests and concernments carrying on such poor and momentary designs as are unworthy the native generosity of their minds in a word so devoid of that life in the possession of which consists their true felicity that they are past hopes of recovering by their own solitary endeavours their pristine and ancient glory But although Man by that venturous and bold revolt from the blessed Kingdom of Light dispossessed himself of Gods favour and forfeited all right and title to his ordinary care and Providence yet that ever-to-be-magnified Goodness which made him at first Lapsable beheld him as a calamitous object of compassion and designed the erecting and reedifying that glorious Temple which sin and unrighteousness had miserably defaced and ruined and the repossessing his own life of it's rightful Government and Dominion in the Souls of Men which however they come into the World the subjects of bruitish lusts and passions are yet capable of Angelical accomplishments and a Vital Union with the Creator of all things God therefore being the highest and most perfect life and feeling and knowing his Nature to be the most pretious thing in all the World and the utmost perfection of every Rational Being could not but intend graciously to his lapsed Creatures and seek the extension and dispreading of his goodly Attributes over all capable subjects of the World of life For he that shall look upon the diligence and activity of the dark Powers in enlarging the bounds of their usurped Kingdom and consider the contagious and disseminating Nature of every pitiful and degenerate lust how every crazie and sickly vice attempts and offers at a further explication of it self and every small Exarchat of that Hellish Principality endeavours dayly to make new additions and take in fresh supplies to maintain the general cause of unrighteousness and augment their petty Royalties can never think that God will sit as a disinteressed spectator but promote and advance his own good life to the command of the whole Creation and brake down the power of that great Arimanus who captivates the sons of Men in the fetters and shackles of Mortality and Death The life of God is a strong and powerful principle and hath alwayes the arme of Heaven to aid and assist it but all sin and unrighteousness is a meer poverty and deficiency not able to exist in the World did not the self-wills of men uphold it and can never stand against the potent assaults of the Heavenly Nature Which holy life that God might reestablish in the World he hath delivered the Gospel the last and most perfect dispensation that ever was or shall be communicated to Men which consists not in an external and dead form of words nor is it a meer systeme and compendium of such precepts that like the Mosaical Law sanctifie only to the purifying of the flesh but cannot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Perfect him that doth the service as pertaining to the Conscience that is Purge and cleanse his mind from dead Works and make way for the consummation of the life of God within him whereby he shall no longer be in bondage and servility to every caitive lust but act spontaneously under a free and generous principle and become a law to himself but such a Method of perfect Righteousness and Virtue as shall purifie refine and exalt the spirits of Men from all feculent concretions and subdue every irregular motion and unruly desire that would tempt and sollicit their choice of corporeal joyes and beget in them so true a relish of unblameable Goodness and Holiness as should at the end of their mortal life instal them in the full possession of everlasting Tranquility and Peace Of which glorious contrivance though we have a Scheme and Model drawn out in the Holy Gospels yet there is a life and spirit in Christianity that cannot be blotted on paper but lives and acts in such hearts as are framed and squared according to those Rules contained in the Sacred Writings And this he who is the Author of our Faith and Blessedness testified when he said that his Words were Spirit and Life such as were able and designed to revive the dead and sensless minds of Men and propagate a vital heat and motion through the torpid and benummed World and accordingly the Apostle St. Paul tels us that Christianity is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law of the Spirit of life Rom. viii 2. 2 Cor. 3. and in another place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The ministration of the Spirit and the ministration of Righteousness in opposition to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The dispensation of Death and Condemnation intimating that under the Gospel men shall not have a Mechanical and Artificial Religion but such as frames the life and spirit of God in their hearts and becomes a Vital forme tuning their souls into an Universal consent with Gods own Will whereby they send forth most harmonious and Divine accents not only when they are stricken and beaten upon by an external hand like Memnon's statue whose Musical notes ceased so soon as the Sun-beams were withdrawn from it but from an internal Power incorporated and made one with their own spirits It is true when God at first made Man and sent him into this lower World he left him to be governed by those innate prescriptions and rules of Righteousness
he interwove in the constitution of his Nature at his first production and while he followed this light and turned not aside to the false fires of his depraved will he walked in safe and secure paths But when Men began to multiply upon earth Sin and Vice increased and the infectious steams of Iniquity soon grew into a cloud and obscured the light of the day and men forsook their ancient Guide and wandred about in Darkness and Error and the voice of Reason was not heard when Self-interest and Passion became the sole principles of action Hence it came to pass that in succession of time Mens discriminative faculties growing insensate and dull through the life and vigour of their Animal powers and their Criteria abating and loosing their quick and nimble tast and rellish of true good and happiness they choose only the present satisfaction and pleasure of their corrupt Appetites and embraced blindfold every inordinate motion and passion and it was too late now to curb and restrain their lawless and rampant Desires For although Divine Goodness which was never absent nor withdrawn from the World did in all Ages and Places raise up considerable and holy Persons to instruct the perverse Sons of Men in the wayes of Righteousness yet their Precepts and Admonitions were entertained by very few the rest of the World still slumbring in their old wickedness and stupidity and chusing such faint and glimmering flames to guide themselves by such weak and sickly Principles as might least distrub their fancied Peace and molest their desired Security Wherefore when this way proved unserviceable and unfit for Mans Restauration God entred upon a new Dispensation and revealed himself more plainly to the Jews selecting Jacob for his Portion and Israel for the lot of his Inheritance conducting them by an infant Religion which should make way and prepare their minds for the reception of that glorious Mysterie which in due time should be communicated to the World and delivering to them Laws Statutes and Judgments fencing and hedging in the impure eruptions of their debased Natures by Judicial Decrees and besiedging Vice and Iniquity by the actual promulgation of a Law But the main of this Oeconomy was only Thetical and Positive deriving it's obligation meerly from the Divine Command and adapted for the most part to the Plastick Powers of the soul for it consisting chiefly in external Performances which had no intrinsick Goodness contained in them nor any other Reason of their injunction but the will and pleasure of the Imposer it could not ascend higher then the Fancy or Imagination nor contribute any thing to the sublimating Reason and Intellect while all it's motions were determined in so low a spear And hence arose the great imperfection of the Mosaical Law in that it had only an Adumbration and presented a Landtschap of good things and not the very image and substance Heb. x. 1. and consequently was altogether destitute of a Vital and Energetical Power to promote true and substantial Holiness or extirpate and mortifie the exorbitant passions of corporeal life For indeed the whole body of the Judaical Service was only a Prefiguration of something more perfect and illustrious to be discovered to the World the most mysterious part of it being Typical and Emblematical carrying an abscondit signification under an External Symbol which the Author to the Hebrews seems to allude to when he sayes it was necessary that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. ix 23 24. The patterns of things in the Heavens should be purified with these And again Christ is not entred into the holy places made with hands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The figures of the true But when notwithstanding this careful Discipline men were still corrupt and satisfied themselves with the bare observance of the letter of the Law neglecting the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the weightier and more principal matters such as Justice Righteousness Truth and Goodness God grew weary of this Oeconomy and called more for the performance of the Moral then Ceremonial part of the Law and when the fulness of time was come resolved to bring about his last and most perfect determination which was to send down his well-beloved Son with full Power and Authority to communicate an Everlasting Righteousness and deliver to the World the Gospel which is the sum and substance the flower and quintessence of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exterior modes and schemes wherewith he instructed the Jewish Church of old and which retains only such Ceremonies as are necessary in regard of our frail and mortal state in which we are more affected with the propulsions and motions of sense then with Truths of a refined and intellectual constitution and is compounded and made up of such things as are naturally and immutably good such as have an eternal and indispensable obligation being nothing but the Idea's of our own souls which we had buried and obscured by our fall raised and brought to light again the results of Gods own Nature imprinted upon our minds and his moral Being explicated and dispread throughout our spirits The Gospel is nothing but God manifested in the flesh his Goodness Wisdom Justice and Mercy veiled under the Cortex of words and expressions adapted and fitted to our mean capacities and it 's highest aime and design is to make us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Partakers of the Divine Nature and perfect us according to his own Image of Righteousness and Truth and in our due time invest us with the immortal robes of life and glory This was the Noble end of the Pythagorean Philosophy Hierocles in Carm. Pythag. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And questionless a Divine and Heroick spirit moved in those Philosophers veins and they knew and felt the irradiations of that Heavenly life which quickens and informs every Rational Being that puts no wilful stop and impediment to it's kindly operations But whether ever they obtained that high and excellent atchievement they aimed at by living up to the Precepts and Principles of their Philosophy I shall not now enquire Sure I am there was never any Oeconomy yet divulged to the World which more illustriously propagated the Divine Life and Nature or more effectually conduced to the drawing Men from Sin and Wickedness and weakning the Diabolical Kingdom then that Evangelical Mysterie which hath been hid from Ages and Generations but is now made manifest to Mankind by the appearing of Jesus Christ That we are deeply lapsed and degenerated from God is the universal consent of all Men although they differ in the manner of it's explication Plato taught that the Fall of Man consisted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the defluxion of the souls pinions whereby not being able any longer to bear her self up in the higher Regions she fell to the Earth and inhabited a Mortal body which the above named Author thus Paraphrases upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is As our departure from God and the
defluxe and moulting of our plumes whereby we soared aloft caused our descent into the region of Mortality and Wretchedness so it is the rejection of our bodily passions and the growth and springing of virtue as of new wings which will carry us to the pure habitations of Holiness and Divine felicity But whether our lapse were thus or not it makes little however it was this is certain that our Reascent to God must be in all points contrary to our Apostacy from him As we have polluted our Natures by a boundless regard and Adhesion to corporeal pleasures and sunk our selves deep into the material World so on the other side our reversion to our lost happiness must be effected by refining our souls from terrene dregs and conversing with our mind and intellect and subjugating our Animal powers to the dictates and Imperium of Reason As our descent came by listning to the impure whispers and titillations of the bodily life so our ascent and Resurrection must come by hearkning to the suggestions of the Intellectual Man And what more effectual and powerful means can be excogitated to recover mankind from the thraldom and bondage of sin then that sacred method divulged to the World in the manifestation of the Gospel whose great tendency and scope is to enforce the necessity of a good and vertuous life and mortifie all irregular and inordinate desires and reinthrone Divine Righteousness to it's just rights and possession in the hearts and minds of men To what other purpose are we commanded in the Gospel to extirpate every extravagant lust and passion and crucifie the spurious productions of Vice and prosecute with all diligence and affection their lovely contraries but because the one depresses our minds from their true state by subjecting them to a base and ignoble drudgery and the other recovers them to their first and genuine freedom and puts them into a capacity of immortality For all passions the more corporeal they are and participate of the body the more they draw and wind the soul to the center of the Animal life which by a copious emission of fuliginous rayes obnubilates the intellectual and perceptive powers and whoever purges himself from these shall be a vessel unto honour This purgation of Soul and Spirit was judged indispensably necessary for the recuperation of the Divine Image by the Pythagorean Philosophers and is called by Porphyry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ablation of every thing extraneous leaving only such forms in the soul as are congenit with it's own Nature It 's true as we come into the World we relish little else but the fond gratifications of the body and are taken up and inamour'd with the inescations and allurements of the plastick life whereby our better parts are dulled and stupified and in this degenerate state the soul is truly said in the Pythagorick sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to pass into brutes not by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 transfusion of the humane soul into Beasts but by it's descent into the brutish life and assimilating it self to ferine passions and inclinations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Arrian expresses it The great work therefore of the Gospel is to beat down and conquer the brutish and irrational part in us to eradicate our vile and depraved affections and to place the Divine life in a full and entire command over all our inferior faculties To the bringing about which blessed design and to compleat and perfect a through Purgation of our minds we are injoyned in the Gospel great Temperance Sobriety and Moderation of all terrestrial desires as the most conducive means to spiritualize and attenuate our minds whereas the contrary drowns * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Porphyr l 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 them in corporeal effluxes and exsudations And moreover we are commanded an Universal abstinence from all wrong and injustice and a hearty love and good will to all mankind to hold fast that which is good and abstain from all appearance of evil to abstract our hearts from Mundane and Temporal felicities and make treasures for our selves in heaven and to be no more sollicitous for terrene concernments then the Lillies of the field or the fowls of the air to seek first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness and to depend upon his Fatherly Care and Providence for the necessities of our lives to keep our selves pure and undefiled not only from outward and grosser but internal and more refined pollutions to be ready to do good and distribute to the necessities of our Brethren to live peaceably if it be possible with all men In a word Whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever are pure whatsoever are lovely whatsoever are of good report if there be any vertue if there be any praise to think on those things These are the proper food and nourishment of our intellectual man and bring a present pleasure in the exercise of them far surpassing the choicest entertainments of sense For what truer and nobler delight can accrew to our spirits then to have done an act of Charity to have bound up an aking head dryed up a watry eye and relieved a naked and hungry body How sordid and base is the narrow and contracted mind that never looks beyond it self but moves in a sphear distinct from all the World beside as if it were some particular Being and not a part and member of the Universe What is there more noble and Divine than Love which neither envies nor seeks it's own but fills the mind of man with a solid peace and contentment and How broken and troublesom is the state of that man whose heart is continually corroded with Envie and Malice and cannot look upon his Neighbour without an evil eye What serenity and quietness of life is he possessed of who following the Precepts of the Gospel makes himself master of his passions and never suffers any impure and brutish lust to creep up into the bed of Reason and defile it but lives in a clear exercise of his discriminative faculties and subdues all his lower powers to the obedience of his mind and Intellect while he that renders himself captive to the passions and various motions and inclinations of sense which God gave to be his servants never possesses any true and real tranquillity but carries a Tempest within his breast which perpetually tosses him to and fro like those disconsolate spirits our Saviour mentions Matth. xii who walk through dry places seeking rest but finding none He that sincerely conforms himself to the Evangelical method of Truth and Righteousness forsakes the muddy and grosser World and ascends above the clouds in Divine and peaceful Contemplations and finds himself out of the reach of the storms and thunders of the troubled air he hath left behind him He apprehends God as the most lovely and desirable object in the whole World and then feels himself most at ease when he
endeavours to unite and become one with that ever-blessed Being subtracting his affections from all earthly vanities as finding something more noble and worthy to bestow them upon Lib. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus as Porphyry speaks of the Egyptian Priests 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He hath given up his whole life to Divine Contemplation and search after the Deity Such Power have Evangelical Truths over the minds of men that they transform them into their own native image and similitude and the more they are looked into the more they enravish them with their heavenly beauty and pulchritude And because afflicted and persecuted Vertue could not be thought eligible meerly for it self nor be a sufficient argument to induce us to the love and practice of it who were so fatally addicted to the concerns of sense therefore God who knew our frame and how far and to what degrees we had apostatiz'd from his holy Nature did not only propound good things to our choice but solicit our wills to the embracing of them by the strongest evidences and most attractive motives that our Natures were capable of receiving The life of sense being more powerful and laying a greater though not a juster claim to our minds as we are born into this World God was pleased to deal with us after a sensible manner and in a way of condescending Wisdom proportioning the Truths he delivered to us to our capacity of reception And this was that the Apostle called the Foolishness of Preaching wherein God stoops down and puts on the garb and frailties of humanity and suits the results of his will with our mean and shallow apprehensions Great is the Mysterie of Godliness God was manifested in the flesh and cradled in the circle of a Virgins arms which clearly demonstrates even to outward sense the exceeding Goodness and Wisdom of Almighty God that he hath not cast off the care of Mankind but is at peace with the World and hath put on the bright robes of Loving-kindness and Mercy which he hath given a large Specimen and full proof of in the Mission of the Lord Christ from heaven God would have all men lay aside their hard thoughts and causless-jealousies and suspicions of his Nature as if he did not from his heart intend them good but only suspended his anger for a time which might again break out upon them in prodigious floods of vengeance and fury For this is the most certain sign that God wills and desires our happiness and welfare in that he hath united himself to our Nature and sent down his only begotten Son for no other purpose but to seek and to save that which was lost And if he spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things What is there now can lay a greater tie upon ingenuous spirits then the discovery of so much undeserved kindness and love What heart is there so obdurate and rocky that this will not dissolve into the tears of love and joy to behold the blessed Jesus hanging between heaven and earth upon the Cross that he might reconcile all things that are in heaven and earth and become a propitiatory Sacrifice for all mens sins in the World It is said of Socrates that he was so inamour'd with this Divine passion of Love that he styled himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A servant of Love Let therefore Love which is the Proxenet of Nature the great instrument of conciliating hearts beget in thee a return and retribution of Love and never think of those streams of blood which so copiously flowed from the wounded body of thy dying Lord without a passive and melting spirit but be likewise a servant of Love and act under that generous principle for Love is of God And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God And that we may not think we are set to remove mountains or perform impossibilities when we are exhorted by the Gospel to the participation of Gods holy life we shall never be left alone to sink under our load and die but shall have the assistance of that Almighty and Demiurgical spirit of Love who hovered over the dark Chaos and brought into Being the goodly frame of heaven and earth and replenished all the immense tracts of space with sutable inhabitants Wisd ch vii This is that Wisdom which is the brightness of the Everlasting the unspotted mirrour of the power of God and the Image of his Goodness which remaining in her self makes all things new and in all ages entring into holy souls makes them friends of God and Prophets She will not lodge in a sinful body nor abide when unrighteousness cometh in For she is more beautiful then the Sun and above all the order of stars being compared with the light she is found before it This kind and loving spirit will God bestow upon every one that asks it of him to repair his broken and decayed Nature to raise up the Divine Image to joynt and confirm every perverse dislocation in the frame of his soul and to perfect and compleat the living efformation of Christ within him Let no man then despair of attaining to a state of Blessedness under the Gospel for this Benign Spirit whose delights are with the Sons of Men pervades the whole World and touches and overshadows every man with out-stretched wings who is willing to have the Divine Image and Pourtraiture formed in him and doth not by impurity and uncleanness chase it away Though our enemies are mighty and our souls weak yet let none despair of Victory for through the assistance and conduct of that Almighty we shall be able to overcome them He is ever cherishing and fostring the life of God wherever it 's born into any soul and sweetly insinuates into our minds and hallows and sanctifies all our powers and excites us to a serious and hearty pursuit after the indispensable laws of Truth Righteousness and Goodness We are not fallen and degenerated beyond the power of God but his Spirit is able to raise and bring up our souls from the lowest Hell and to renew and reform our debased and wretched Natures For what cannot he do who at first made us faultless and happy till we ruined and defaced his blessed Image and rendred our selves the miserable objects of his compassions What is there in our frame so stubborn and insequacious that he cannot rectifie and redress who at first created all things and brought into Being all the Beauty and Harmony of Heaven and Earth He will never leave us destitute and forlorn but will take hold of every fitness and capacity till he have perfected in us the Divine life and brought us unto Glory But because Examples are more prevalent with mankind then Precepts and Instructions that God might not leave any thing undone which would in any kind conduce to our Interest he hath recommended to us the Example
of his Blessed Son as the fairest copy of Holiness Justice Compassion and Self-resignation that ever was yet discovered to the World For should we compare him with the greatest lights that ever shone upon the Gentile parts of the Earth they would appear as foils and shadows to set off his glorious lustre and Divine splendor as hath already been made good by a Reverend and profoundly Learned Person There is none can hold any equality with the Lord Christ not Moses himself the Divine Lawgiver of the Jews who indeed was faithful in all his house Heb. ch iii. as a Servant for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after But Christ is a Son over his own house being the Heir of all things and therefore is counted worthy of more glory than Moses And though we read that Moses was meek above all that dwelt upon the Earth yet when he was to fetch water out of the Rock for the murmuring Israelites his spirit was so farr provoked that he spake unadvisely with his lips and after forty years troubles and vexations in the Wilderness he brought not his people into the land of Canaan but dyed after he had taken a prospect of the Promised Inheritance which he must not go to possess But on the contrary the Lord Christ whose lips were full of Grace and Truth and in whose mouth never was any guile found not only promised a spiritual Canaan a Land of immortal peace and rest but went also himself and took possession of it and signified the same to the world by sending down his holy Spirit upon his Church All the time that he dwelt upon Earth and conversed with Men he was full of the Spirit of Love Tenderheartedness and Compassion perpetually going about doing good binding up the broken-hearted gathering the Lambs in his arm and carrying them in his bosom and gently leading those that are with young healing all their infirmities curing their diseases and easing them of their painful sorrows He that was purer then the Sun and whiter then the Robes of Angels yet was content to veil his Glory and put on the dark and course mantle of our flesh and blood that he might teach us humility and submission to the will of God He whose the Earth was and the fulness thereof would not be born in a Princes Court among the Sons of Nobles but in a Stable at a small Town and among the meanest of his Creatures that he might abate our Pride and Grandeur in ostentation of our selves to the World His life though a perpetual Tragedy encompassed with hardships and afflictions and drawn out into many Scenes of trouble and sorrow yet was alwayes holy and harmless and never stained with the least sin or unwarrantable action His Soul was a pure and spotless Temple eternally consecrated to the Divinity residing in him His Heart the holy Altar upon which no unchast flames ever burnt but the fire of Zeal and Love which was kindled from Heaven and dayly sent up clouds of Incense as a sweet smelling savour thither again His Meekness and Patience were no less conspicuous than those other radiant vertues which rendred him acceptable to God and Man for being reviled he reviled not again when he suffered he threatned not but committed his cause to him that judgeth righteously and thereby he became glorious in the eyes of God who recompenced his Indignities by giving him a Name above every Name If we look at his outward condition he became poor and needy for our sakes that we through his poverty might be made rich for though we read that Judas bare the bag yet his holy Lord and Master was forced by the expence of a Miracle to pay his Tribute peny to the Roman Governor The Foxes had holes and the Birds of the air nests but the Son of Man had oft no where to lay his Sacred Head but on a pillow of grass and his covering was the bright and spangled Canopy of Heaven and yet we never find him murmuring or disobliging Heavens Care and Providence by a repining spirit thereby teaching us that our happiness lies not in the abundance of earthly Goods but in the Godlike temper and frame of our minds and that having food and rayment we ought therewith to be content When he was entring into the shadow of Death and beginning his bitter Passion with what manly courage did he behave himself and How illustrious did he appear in a patient and magnanimous suffering all those Ignominies and Disgraces that were put upon him beholding through the cloud or shame and reproach the good effects of the travel of his soul and confidently believing that though he sate in Darkness for a while yet his Light should break forth from obscurity more glorious then the Sun when he rejoyces as a strong man to run his race And when his Humanity began to sink and that which was Natural in him cryed for ease and relief from the heavy pressures of that doleful Agony so that he desired if it were possible that that cup might pass from him yet through the life and vigour of the Divine Spirit by which he was acted he resigns over his whole will and desires to the wise disposal and pleasure of his Heavenly Father Not my will but thy will be done Hereby giving us a Sacred Method and Rule whereby to demean our selves when the Divine Providence brings us into Calamities and Afflictions namely to imitate the Holy Jesus and follow his steps Let us now accompany him to his painful bed of sorrows the Cross where his friends forsake him and stand aloof of and his enemies compass him round where his holy ears that used to hear the melodious accents of Angels are grated with the prophane obloquies of disobedient sinners and his eyes which beheld the glories of Heaven and the beauty and lustre of Divinity are now forced to see the instruments of his misery and sorrow yet when his Crucifiers meant him the most evil he breaths forth from a heart which never knew what it was to hate this passionate Prayer for them Father forgive them for they know not what they do This also was written for our instruction that we might love our enemies bless those that hate us and pray for them who despightfully use us and persecute us and by so doing become the children of our Father which is in heaven who maketh his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust But all this would yet have proved weak and ineffectual for the promoting the Divine life in the World if Christ had not visibly ascended into heaven and given us a sensible assurance of a blessed state in the immortal Regions above that he will take up Humane Nature after due purifications and refinements into a participation of that transcendent felicity he is fully possessed of For if men had been left in suspence and uncertainties it
would cast a fatal damp upon their attempts and endeavours after righteousness but being fully convinced as well of the Existence as that God will take care of their souls when they depart this obscure and evanid life and recompence their labour and trouble here with such great degrees of Happiness as shall farr surpass the highest calamity they can suffer in this World it cannot but inspirit their minds with life and resolution to break through all difficulties and discouragements and with a manly valour fight the good fight of Faith and never give over till they lay hold on Immortality and God Crown them as Victorious Conquerors with wreaths of immarcescible Glory It is but a groundless fancy in some to think that the intuition of the reward proposed to us in order to our further progress in Holiness and Virtue is acting upon Mercenary principles since that Christ himself in his greatest Agonies and conflicts supported the weakness of his Nature with the consideration of the reward he should receive as the compensation of his humiliation and sorrows for so we read That he endured the Cross Heb. xii 2. and despised the shame 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the joy that was set before him Besides they understand not the nature of the Reward promised to us in the Gospel for Glory Blessedness and Felicity are not Other things from Piety and Holiness but the consummation and perfection of that Divine Nature whose efformation is begun in this life Grace and Holiness is but Happiness wrapped up and closed and Glory is nothing but Holiness explicated and unfolded to it's due latitude and dimensions Piety is Heaven masked with a cloud of flesh and begirt with sorrow and Heaven is Virtue shining in it's native brightness and clothed with a Celestial splendour And that Ethereal and Paradisiacal body with which all believers shall be arrayed through the gracious bounty of the Lord Jesus at the Resurrection of the Just is the necessary appendage of our felicity and by it's easie and obsequious motions will raise in the exalted powers of the soul the highest sense of love and joy and delightful enravishments of spirit He then that loves Virtue for it's appendant reward does in effect love it for it self and is no whit behind him that is attracted by the naked pleasure resulting from it and thinks it eligible amidst the hoarse bellowings of Phalaris his Bull because the Reward hath a very great affinity and cognation with Virtue and is no otherwise attainable then by a full and perfect exercise of it This great happiness therefore accruing to the soul of Man when refined and purified from the dregs of Earth and Mortality is very rationally set forth in the Gospel to invigorate the minds of men and raise them to the free exertions of the Divine life and to animate their dying resolutions when they walk through a troublesome wilderness and are called to resist even unto blood And if it were not for the expectation of future Blessedness all Religion would fall to the ground the inward sense and feeling of the soul being so much weakned and debilitated by her continual imbibition and attraction of the dregs of the Earthly and mortal Nature whereby she is become sluggish and inactive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 her passions and apprehensions being in a manner wholly corporeal and Truth and Virtue be but idle names or dreams of a shadow existing only in the tongues and fancies of Men but never descending into the depth of the soul and impregnating it with their living Image These are the grand Instruments which the Spirit of God makes use of in the Gospel to induce and perswade the World to act under the Government of the Divine life which if skilfully applyed and managed will undoubtedly compleat and perfect that blessed work which Providence intended them for For we cannot think that Heaven would alarm the World with a false report or raise the expectations of Men by a great sound and noise of something extraordinary when in the conclusion it amounts but to some inconsiderable and trifling design The Eternal Son of God who was that Wisdom which is the delight of Heaven and rejoyced in the habitable parts of the Earth brought down with him from the seat of Majesty that Sacred and recondit method of recovering lapsed mankind which was carryed in the pregnant womb of Goodness from the dayes of Eternity and he became our Redeemer and pervades the very Centre of our Being and shapes and frams his Image of Wisdome and Righteousnes there strengthning our decayes and supporting our weakness and consuming and expelling all our dross and corruption by a subtle and powerful Energy which in Scripture phrase is to be Baptized with the Holy Ghost and with Fire We are fallen into a narrow and contracted state and those Divine forms in our union and fruition of which consisted our blessedness are quite defaced by our fond longing after and adhesion to corporeal features Now God manifesting himself in our flesh renews and perfects those glorious Images again and stamps his impress upon us and as the great conciliating Principle of the corporeal World figures and shapes out of prepared matter the body of a plant so the Holy Spirit frames and shapes out the Divine Nature in the lapsed World of Mankind But this great purpose of the Gospel this great design and plot which God hath laid to reduce Mankind to that blessed state from whence they fell is wholly frustrated and evacuated by the Doctrine of Irrespective Decrees And that I may not charge it with what it stands not guilty of I shall make it good by these two Instances 1. It renders ineffectual the purpose of God in the Gospel by lulling Men asleep in the lap of Security and Presumption of their good estate upon the groundless fancy of their Absolute Election from all Eternity For Men being once initiated and instructed in the Mysterie of this profound Doctrine will with much anxiety and vehemency of mind contend for the truth of that which they so passionately desire to be so and having withal so amorously courted and espoused their lusts and unruly passions and yet being terrified and affrighted with the lashes of their own Consciences they will with great easiness and zeal take sanctuary in so pleasing an opinion which both gives them a fair countenance to enjoy and reap the pleasure of their sensual passions and secures them from those domestick furies which perpetually hurried and tormented them and over and above sooths them up with a confidence of eternal bliss and felicity And he that can attain to this Plerophory or full perswasion of his Election from before the foundation of the World hath the White Stone given to him though he be so farr from eating of the hidden Manna that he feeds upon nothing but husks and vanities and his name is enrolled among the Stars and he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out
of the reach of danger and if he fall he shall not be utterly cast down for God will raise him up The gates of hell shall never pluck him out of Gods hands nor separate him from his eternal Love for having loved his own he loveth them unto the end The thickest cloud of sin and darkness arising from his polluted and rotten heart though it may suspend for a while yet can never totally divest him of Gods paternal Love and favour because he is one of Christ's Sheep of his little flock and he knows him and is confident he is known of him and though he have lived in vice and rolled in the dirt and mire of the Earth till the utmost Period of his life yet the holy Spirit will infallibly and irresistibly at the very Exit of his soul change and renew it and cast the robes of Christ's spotless Righteousness upon it and then 't is impossible the man should miss of heaven And is this a Doctrine adapted to the carrying on the design God intended in the Gospel namely the Reduction of the world to a conformity to the Divine will to forsake and abandon all their sinful and false wayes and to live in a universal submission and resignation to his holy Laws and Commands What proof or evidence doth it bring that it aims at any such thing Is it in that it declares to a man that Faith and Repentance and every good motion of the soul is the irresistible work of God and that 't is no more in his Power to confer any thing to his being a good Christian a just and Righteous person than to add one cubit to his bodily stature but if he be not as yet regenerated he must stay and wait till that good time come wherein the Spirit of the Lord shall enter into him and make him a New Creature for the wind bloweth where it listeth Or is it in that it affirms That Christ dyed for the Elect and though the value of his Satisfaction were infinite and sufficient to redeem the whole World for them only and that his death hath satisfied for all their sins and that now God imputes the Righteousness of the Lord Christ to them and upon his account they are esteemed as righteous as if in their own Persons they had fulfilled the whole Evangelical Law though in the mean time their hearts are very corrupt and unsound Are these the Demonstrations by which this Doctrine of Irrespective Decrees manifests it self to come from God If it bear the Superscription and Image of God upon it it is then as he himself is Light and there is no Darkness no mixture of impurity and humane imagination in it for God cannot patronize any thing but what is holy as he is holy and pure as he is pure But if we consider well such Positions will appear very obscure and frightful horrid and amazing savouring of the Prince of Darkness by whom they were breathed into the minds and spirits of unsanctified Persons and by them communicated to the World as the Arcana of Christianity but tending in reality to the eversion of it and the augmentation and increase of the Devils Kingdom For when Men shall hear that upon such and such Pulpit-signs which their Impertinent Preachers deliver to them they may gather their Election from all Eternity and that maugre all the Oppositions of Men and Devils they shall never fall quite away by a final Impenitence but assuredly recovered by an uncontrollable and peremtory power when they shall be told likewise That Gods calls are at certain times and seasons and that till they perceive themselves forcibly inacted and carryed away by the impulse of the Divine Spirit all their previous actions are to no purpose Will not these things cause them to sit down in laziness and take their ease without troubling themselves with the renovation of their minds sith that God will take care for that and soak themselves in terrestrial joyes and pleasures till the dead-awakening trump which when it will be they know not call them from the Grave of sin and death as Christ did Lazarus and bid them come forth Will not the imputation of Christs Righteousness and the mantle of his Satisfaction damp the endeavours of men after real and inward Righteousness and inherent Holiness by which they attain to a participation of the Divine Nature since they can have anothers at so cheap a rate which will likewise be as beneficial and stand them in as much stead as if they had of their own Men are prone to palliate their sin and take hold of any pretence to stop the mouth of their accusing consciences and need no such artifices to lead them into those paths that go down to Hell and the comfortless chambers of death Their evil Natures and the examples of others and temptations of Satan are sufficient to draw them into Vice and Irreligion that none need disseminate such doctrins as shall invite them to immorality and iniquity from the Authority and Countenance of Gods word But it is supposed that every Christian Mâ—stagogus who acknowledges himself to have a Master in heaven to whom he must give an account for the souls committed to his charge if not for theirs yet for his own felicities sake will have so much prudence and circumspection as not to build on the foundation of the Gospel Wood Hay or stubble any such Doctrins as will not abide the test of Reason but prove both to God and Mens souls very mischievous and injurious for though he does it ignorantly his work shall be burnt but he himself shall be saved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet so as by fire that is with extreme difficulty as he that hardly escapeth out of the fire 2. The second Instance wherein the Doctrin of Irrespective Decrees inverts and destroyes the end and purpose of God in the Gospel is by leading Men into desperation I do not mean that they should despair of mercy so long as they continue in their sins for this every Criminal ought to do that he may be induced to come out of them the sooner but by Desperation here I mean a disbelief of Gods will or power to save them whereby they go on carelesly and resolutely in a course of Rebellion and Iniquity For being perswaded on the one hand that the number of the Elect is but small in comparison of Reprobates and that both the one and the other are particularly designed and marked out by name for the Lord knows who are his and that all the labours of men after the Kingdom of Heaven will prove unsuccessful and abortive till God by a high and mighty hand come upon them and powerfully convince them of the evil of their wayes and astonish them with the weight and multitude of their sins laying them low and bringing them down as they phrase it to the gates of Hell and shewing them the worm that never dies and the fire which never shall
to or Reprobation from Eternal life and happiness For 1. If this were loving from eternity God could not afterward have given Jacob and the people of Israel a Law annexing a conditional benediction to it For that which God had decreed to them by an immutable and special Decree could not be promised to them under the condition of obedience for it implies a contradiction that a thing should be absolute and conditional at the same time and to the same persons 2. If this love were absolute and eternal to Jacob and his Posterity they could not then have fallen from Gods grace and favour which we find some of them did 1 Cor. x. 5. Heb. iii. 19. As therefore the love here mentioned cannot signifie an Election to eternal life so neither can the Hatred denote eternal Reprobation 1. Because 't is often taken otherwise in Scripture comparatively for a less degree of love and therefore may admit of a more candid interpretation Deut. xxi 15. If a man have two wives one beloved and another hated i. e. If he have one that he loves less then the other For it being lawful at that time to divorce their wives it would scarce ever happen what the text implies if hating were taken properly for who would retain a wife that he really and truly hated when he might put her away and take another which he loved better So Gen. xxviii 31. When the Lord saw that Leah was hated i. e. as in the precedent verse loved with a less degree of affection then Rachel After the same manner must the words of Christ be expounded in the Gospel Luke xiv 26. If any man cometh to me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and hateth not his Father and Mother i. e. if he love not me more then them he cannot be a true Christian 2. That cannot be the object of such an eternal and implacable hatred which hath no cause of hatred in it but Esau had no cause in him that God should thus hate him Before the children had done good or evil Vers 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we may here observe that they do very much misconstrue and misapply the words of the Apostle who make this the sense of them as if it were not at all requisite for obtaining life and eternal Salvation that we should live well and diligently attend to the exercise and performance of faith and good works This I say is a dangerous error and mistake and every holy man experiences the effects of the contrary to be most true For 1 Cor. ix 24. all Christians are plainly and distinctly commanded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to run that they may obtain the heavenly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and reward of their labours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all run but one obtains the prize 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so run that ye may obtain So likewise Heb. xii 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us run with patience And there is the same reason of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Job vii 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any man will do his will he shall know of the Doctrine And upon this account incredulous and unbelieving persons are reprehended for this very thing that they Will not come unto Christ John v. 40. And Christ complains of Jerusalem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I would but ye would not Wherefore when it is said here It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth we must not understand it of that Will whereby a man would do what God commands him But the sense is this That it is not sufficient for the acquisition of Divine favour and grace that we seek it after any sort but it necessarily lies upon us and stands us in stead to endeavour after it by that way and means by which God hath declared to us it may be acquired And hence the Apostle gives an indication of the fruitless attempts of the Jews in contending with so much zeal and noise for the obedience of the Law when God required faith in his Son whom he had sent into the world of them and had openly declared that men should be accounted righteous not by the works of the Law but by the faith of the Gospel Verse 18. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hardens is by many misunderstood and therefore will need some explication That God hardened Pharaoh's heart the Scripture testifies but of the manner how it was done we are now to enquire Some understand this hardning of the heart to be a positive act of God either by conveying a new degree of obstinacy and refractoriness into it or by intending and corroborating that which was in it before But this is neither agreeable to the purity and simplicity of the Divine Nature nor consentaneous to any Oeconomy which God has yet manifested to the World for his Holiness is such that he cannot be the cause or Author of any Impurity or Rebellion which this way of solution would certainly charge upon him The Reverend and Learned Dr. Hammond in his Annotations upon this place observes That God is not said to harden Pharaoh 's heart although he predicted it before in Chap. iv 21. vii 3. till after the sixt judgment and the addition of a special warning given him by Moses before that and then 't is said Exod. ix 12. as it were in a new style The Lord hardens Pharaoh's heart By which computation of time when God hardned Pharaoh's heart he thinks it will appear what is the proper intimation of hardning viz. The total substraction of Gods grace of Repentance from him in the same manner as when one is cast into Hell which Pharaoh at that time had been had it not been more for Gods Glory to continue him alive a while in that desperate irreversible condition which sure was no whit worse to him but somewhat better and more desirable then to have been adjudged to those flames all that time But methinks with submission to more excellent judgments the main of this Explication is not so solid so rational and coherent as might be desired For 1. It may very well be question'd Whether those plagues which were inflicted on him after the immission of the sixt judgment and consequently after God is said to harden his heart were not as efficacious for his amendment and so designed of God as any of the former That they were sufficiently convictive and of force and power enough to subdue and conquer his untamed spirit if he would have made a right use of them is evident as well from Gods upbraiding the people of Israel of incredulity upon this very reason and account that they refused to be wrought upon by those many notable miracles and signs done in the midst of them Deut. xxix 2 3 4. as from the temporarious penitence and suddain sensibility of his miscarriage which the actual and present immission of judgment drew from him Exod. ix 27 28. I have sinned this time and so likewise Chap. x.
16 17. That those after-judgments were also intended of God for the emendation of this obstinate King is I think as clear from the expostulation of Moses and Aaron with him Exod. x. 3. 4. How long wilt thou refuse to humble thy self Let my people go which plainly supposes both that the designation of the Judgment was to humble him and that there was a possibility still of reducing him to that pliable and sequacious temper And if it were otherwise these and the like menaces and threatnings If thou refuse to let my people go I will do thus and thus unto thee would be wholly supervacaneous and ineffectual Nay they would argue an unworthy exprobration in God of his obstinate detention of the people and refusal to submit to his will when he had not strength and power sufficient to attempt the contrary 2. It may well be doubted Whether that Divine Goodness which is alwayes ready to breath upon the least spark of the life of God in every rational Being and assists every good motion and forwardness towards the formation of Gods holy image in every man would not likewise have been as urgent and efficacious in Pharaoh for the mollifying his obdurate spirit before he was taken out of the world had he rightly and duly managed those heavy punishments in order to his melioration i. e. if he would have complyed with the will of God The sum of all therefore seems to be this That Almighty God the ever-wise and benign Creator of all things being conscious to all the affections intrigues and hidden recesses of the spirit of Man only knows how and when to apply a soveraign remedy and like a skilful Chirurgion proportions his medicaments to the nature and quality of the wound and seldom makes use of those more ungentle wayes of cauterizing and excision till necessity and the preservation of the whole urge him to it And even in this singular instance of Pharaoh we may trace the footsteps of Gods benignity and love as that Holy and Pious Father excellently well observes Origen Philocal cap. 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore we may well interpret this hardning which is attributed to God to consist not in any positive act nor yet in the total subtraction of his grace but to be an accidental effect of his kindness and mercy toward Pharaoh in removing that sharp and uneasie though salutary discipline which being not carefully and rightly made use of became an occasion of a greater hardness and obduracy As saith the Father in the same Chapter when a Master forbears to punish a wicked servant he sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have spoiled you and I have made you wicked 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. In like manner those things which proceed from Gods benignity and goodness as if they had been the cause of Pharaoh 's obduracy are said to harden his heart And the Philosopher spake true when he said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it is the greatest evil that possibly can befal a Criminal to be suffered to continue unpunished in wickedness Verse 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To shew his displeasure i. e. The effect of his displeasure to punish by a notable and exemplary way as he did Pharaoh so the word is used Luke xxi 23. For there shall be great distress in the land 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Punishment and Judgment the effect of Wrath upon this people So likewise Rom. iii. 5. Is God unrighteous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who punisheth or taketh vengeance So that this is far from what Beza and other Supralapsarians would inferr as if this Demonstration of his anger were the prime and ultimate end which God proposed in the eternal Reprobation of Men. For what can we imagine more inconsistent and unsutable with the Divine Nature then to be eternally angry with the innocent and undeserving And what more contradicts the gracious Revelation of God whereby he declares himself propense to Mercy and slow to Anger against impenitent sinners then this which makes him equally displeased with the guiltless and criminal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Suffered with much patience and longanimity punishing them not so oft nor when he might justly do it but letting them take as it were the reins into their own hands and break through all the fences and hedges whereby the Divine Goodness sought to restrain them into exorbitancy and impiety and so render themselves more uncapable of a mild and gentle Oeconomy This being the genuine sense we can in no wise approve of their extravagant conjecture who take to themselves the liberty which they thanklessly give to God of making their wills and fancies the rule of their interpretations and actions that this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is only a bare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or forbearance of punishment complicated and conjoyned with a peremptory purpose of eternally excruciating and damning those who were designed to destruction For doubtless this longanimity of God contains and runs upon the supposal of antecedent Exhortations Threatnings and Promises as so many gracious methods to reduce men to Repentance which cannot without clear hypocrisie and dissimulation be affirmed of Reprobates in the Supralapsarian sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vessels of wrath fitted for destruction Here the Supralapsarians endeavour to render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Creari * Vide Beza in hunc locum whereby they would obtrude that God creates men vessels of wrath on purpose to destroy them without any consideration had to any qualifications whatever which being a Doctrine so absurd and unbecoming the Majesty of an Al-wise and good God it will be confutation enough to any rational person to rehearse it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore is an Hebraisme for there being but few verbals in the Hebrew tongue a Particle is used for a Verbal and signifies no more then fit or ready as Luke vi 40. The Disciple is not above his Master 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but every one that is perfect shall be as his Master For the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies fit and is usually rendred by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes from the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which sometimes is rendred by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sometimes by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal lxviii 10. lxxiv. 16. lxxxix 38. By vessels of wrath then are meant men who by their own voluntary and heynous transgressions become so far liable to Gods judgment that his wrath may without any appearance of injustice be poured on them as vessels fit for no other use and the adaptation or fitting of them for a severe destruction must be attributed to themselves and to the inflexibleness of their irreclaimable dispositions Thus men are said in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fit themselves to destruction in the same sense as they are said to wrong their own souls and to love death Prov. viii
36. to judge themselves unworthy of everlasting life Acts xiii 46. To reject or render ineffectual the Counsel of God against themselves Luke vii 30. Not that they do directly and principally intend any such thing but because they commit and act those things which do either naturally or by virtue of the Divine command produce such an event and consequence In like manner on the contrary Men are said to work out their Salvation Phil. ii 12. To save themselves 1 Tim. iv 16. To save their own souls Luke ix 24. because they act and prosecute those things which have an indisputable tendency to such a desired end For a Conclusion of this whole Discourse I shall briefly examine these two following Illations and Deductions of the Contra-Remonstrants from the Doctrine of Absolute and Irrespective Decrees 1. That none can be a true believer or sincere Christian who knows not when nor how he was regenerated and born again by the Spirit that is to speak in their language who cannot tell when he felt the mighty and efficacious power of the Divine Spirit dashing asunder his strong heart and gathering up the broken shivers and uniting them together and changing them into a heart of flesh and infusing new qualities into the will and raising the whole man from death to life See XI and XII Canons of the Dort Synod De homonis corrupt convers◠ad Deau 2. That every man who by those evidences signs and marks of True Believers prescribed to him can collect himself to be such that is to be in a state of Grace and Salvation may assuredly believe that he shall to the last Period of his life remain and 〈◊〉 a living member of the Catholick Church and undoubtedly partake of everlasting bliss and glory Attic. IX and X. of the Dort Synod De Perseverantia Sanctorum Against the first of these I shall lay down these Conclusions 1. That he is a true and sincere Believer who hath to his utmost endeavours so mortified and subdued the body of sin that he willingly harbours no vice nor takes any complacency in the impure motions of the brutish life but through a fixed belief in the Goodness of God displayed unto mankind through the Lord Christ resolutely presses forward to higher measures and degrees of Christian perfection and incessantly breaths after a fuller participation of the Divine Nature Such a man I look upon to be truly regenerate and born anew of the Spirit of God and to be affected according to his proportion as Christ himself was affected when he dwelt on earth and conversed with men And though this Divine life dispread and manifest it self by successive acts and shine not so full and bright as when it is near it's Center yet it is as truly a God-like Nature as an Infant is a Man though he be not so in growth and stature It is nothing but our self will which stands out against heaven and keeps such an impregnable fort against the grace of God and whoever is truly dead to it and receives the gentle impressions of the Divine Spirit into his soul and acts correspondently to so holy a principle he is certainly in the Land of Life and Truth and partakes of that blessed Nature which cannot rest among the dust and rubbish of this lower World but separates whatever is heterogeneous in the soul of man and by perpetual and successful attempts restores again those Divine forms which shone gloriously in humane minds before their unfortunate recession and retrogradation from the lucid fountain of their everlasting joy and happiness 2. The first actings of Grace in such a Man as I have above described are altogether undiscernible and imperceptible being nothing else but the preparatory Exertions of that Almighty Goodness the Source and Father of all things for the fitting and adapting Men to receive the Divine Image and Form of the Holy Jesus according to the words of the Lord Christ John vi 44. No man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him and in this the Nature of Man is wholly passive and the only thing pertaining to him is to see that he do not obstruct and hinder the progress of that efficacious Love by a cowardly submission to the importunate motions of iniquity and unhallowed actions Now the effluxes and operations of this Vital Principle are coeval with the first actings of Reason and discriminative Perception and extend themselves according to the dimensions of the intellectual Powers but no man is any more conscious of it's energy then of the growth of his bones for so he that made the Nature of man and knows his frame hath told us Luke xvii 20. The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation And Mark iv 26 27. So is the Kingdom of God as if a man should cast seed into the ground and should sleep and rise night and day and the seed should spring and grow up he knoweth not how And when men are born again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of that incorrupible seed 1 Pet. i. 23. sown in their hearts by the Eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Christ calls his Father John xv 1. it breaks through the clods and springs up being cherished by the dew of heaven and the warmth of that immortal fire which passeth through the intellectual world and melts and refines every lapsed Being from the contracted filth of material concretions and no man can say Lo here I was caught by the breath of God or lo there was my resurrection from the comfortless grave of sin and death John iii. 8. For as the wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit But this I would have understood of the ordinary way of Gods dispensing his Grace and not of that supernatural manner whereby he converted Saul casting him down to the Earth by a voice from heaven nor of the diffusion of the Spirit to the Heathens when first converted to the faith For such as also notorious and gross sinners may have some sensibility of Divine Vegetation and apprehension of some external circumstances attending the New-birth unto righteousness But for those who are born and educated under Christian Parents our Church hath excellently well determined in the service and office of Baptisme That they are Regenerated and born again not only of Water but of the Spirit by which their Natures are Sanctified as we read of the Prophet Jeremy and John the Baptist who received the spirit of holiness and were hallowed from their Mothers wombs and for any man to enquire of such or for them curiously to search after some preternatural stirrings and motions of the Divine Spirit in their souls by which to discern the first dawnings of the grace of God upon them is as impertinent as it would be to demand of them when first they heard or perceived
the nutrition and augmentation of the parts of their Natural bodies 3. The usual way and method by which the first disseminators of the Gospel implanted and begot the image of Christ in the minds of men was by exhorting them in the first place to the plain and obvious duties and exercises of Morality such as Justice and Equity Temperance and Chastity great love and compassion towards all men relieving and comforting the necessitous and calamitous according to their several wants and indigencies and such like acts of Virtue and Reason which are the preparatory qualifications for the introducing the Divine Spirit to attempt the formation of the living Image of Jesus Christ and between these and the Divine life there is the same cognation as between the blade and the full-ear'd corn For it is utterly impossible to conceive the life of God without them or to imagine that he can be really Baptiz'd into the life and spirit of Jesus who is unjust to his Neighbour and unpitiful and contemptive of the compassionate needs and sighs of his poor Brother It is sufficiently seen and the sad experience of every man will declare it to him how deplorably Apostate our Natures are when we first come into the World and how vitiously inclined our souls when they begin to exert themselves in acts of Reason and Intellect so that they appear almost breathless and inactive to the concerns of Immortality or whatever offers to better their condition and pull them out of the mire and clay wherein their feet are held And to think that God will forcibly draw them out and hale them like unwilling captives into a state to which they have no cognation or vital congruity awakened in them beside that it is derogatory to his spotless and pure Nature it is likewise inconsistent with the nature of the thing it self considering mens minds so vitiated and totally discomposed by a long and assiduous inflexion and distortion to degenerate Vice For Divine generations as well as Natural require a sutable proportionateness and as every matter is not capable of conciliating and uniting with every formative principle so neither is every temper of humane souls congruously disposed for the inaction of that Divine Spirit which never falls to work but where the subject is rendred plyable and sequacious by timely preparations and fit dispositions and capacities And if it were otherwise that meer Power or the Naked Presence of the Divine Essence dispreading it self through the whole Creation were sufficient to give us any hopeful expectation of our Spiritual Regeneration by it without any precedent assimilation or fitting dispositions I do not see how this boundless and compassionate Goodness can behold the World in so sad and miserable a plight the whole Earth being filled with Violence and the Habitations of cruelty and Oppression and mens spirits so degenerated that saving their outward shape and a little more cunning and craft in contriving and executing self-designs and interests they are hardly distinguishable from the Beasts of the field I do not see I say how that Love which is the inmost centre of the Deity and from whence flow all the perfective irradiations of his blessed Nature can behold the sons of men so unlike himself and yet not reform and change them since the business lies wholly upon the exertion of his Almighty Power But we finding no such thing we may confidently averr that there are some precedaneous qualifications required to the perfection of the Divine birth and these can be no other then Justice and Righteousness purity and abstracted affections from Mundane forms Chastity and moderation of bodily pleasures and a dear and tender regard of the whole Creation Which things have so near an affinity with the Divine life that the one necessarily inferres the presence and existence of the other these requisites being the basis and foundation upon which the heavenly building is framed 1 King vi 7. now as in the structure of the material Temple there was neither sound of ax nor hammer in like manner that heavenly edifice which the Eternal Architect endeavours to erect in the soul of every man is compleated and perfected without any sound or noise the Holy Jesus neither crying nor lifting up his voice in the streets to give a sign of his approach when he renews and forms his image in the sons of men For that image which God shapes out in our Natures is not any thing different and distinct from our moral and inherent Righteousness or any new infused quality but the exaltation and freeing of that principle which though weak and depressed by a load of corruption yet being immortal and incorruptible bears a Divine stamp and exerts it self in acts of Sobriety Justice and Goodness and being assisted and corroborated by the powerful conduct of the Spirit of God successively displayes it self and continually arises to greater measures till the living efformation of Christ be perfectly compleated An instance of this we have in Cornelius Acts x. and the more devout and religious Heathens in whom the life of God was in a good measure radicated and discovered it self in his frequent Prayers and Charitable actions who when he was renewed and sanctified by the gracious illapse and descent of the Holy Ghost was not devested of those Moral accomplishments of his Nature or endued with any thing different from them but his Righteousness and perfections of his mind were increased and sublimated and fitted for the rellishing such delicate and tender impressions which things being seriously considered it cannot be that any one should perceive the beginning or determine the time of the vegetation and increase of the Divine Image and Nature 2. The second illation which concludes the infallible certainty of his Perseverance who is once in a state of Grace and collects himself to be under the immutable decree of life by those Characteristicks delivered from the mouth of no mean Dictator of that pleasing Doctrine as it is destructive of Piety and casts a malevolent aspect upon true Religion and Virtue so it hath not the least print or footstep in the Holy Scriptures nor can alledge any thing but fancy and the prejudice of impotent affections to maintain it's credit in the world as will appear from these subsequent Propositions 1. That the Decrees of God whether of life or death look upon men according to the exigency and import of their present states and conditions not of their potential or future Beings As suppose God foresee and discern that this man righteous at present will hereafter forsake his righteousness and apostatize from the holy Commandement and do wickedly yet so long as he continues righteous he is under the favourable eye of Heaven and is treated as one whose name is written in the Book of Life Whosoever doth righteousness is righteous but he that committeth sin is of the Devil 1 Joh. iii. 7 8. And more plainly yet The righteousness of the righteous shall
not deliver him in the day of his transgression as for the wickedness of the wicked he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness Ezek. xxxiii 12 13 14 15. The result of these places is this That particular men or the persons of men from time to time come under the Eternal Decrees of Love or Hatred according to their actual and present state of righteousness or unrighteousness For if God decreed life and death upon the consideration of future sin and holiness he may as well decree a reward and punishment respectively for that which men would have been engaged in had they lived in this World to all eternity which directly contradicts that Scripture wherein we are said to give an account for the things which we have already done not which we should have done had we continued longer in the body And hence it is that the righteous man who is now in the love and favour of God being hardned again through his own negligence and the deceitfulness of sin may relapse into that state which the Decree of death takes hold of and of such a man is that of St. Peter to be understood 2 Peter ii 21. It had been better for such a man not to have known the way of righteousness then after he hath known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered to him And when the righteous man degenerates from his former faith and the enemy takes advantage and oppresses the Divine life through his carelessness and folly God charges all his past sins upon him and recals his justification whereby he was before esteemed as righteous in his sight which is intimated in the Parable Matth. xviii where he that had the debt forgiven him because he dealt so harshly and ungently with his Fellow-servant was again called in question and the whole summe charged upon him and Christ applies it to our present purpose verse 35. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his Brother their trespasses For we must know that God pardons our iniquities by parts and as we grow in Virtue and Holiness so his displeasure decreases and is taken off and he that is justified becomes yet more justified and walks in the light and the breath of God enkindles the heavenly fire and fans it into flames and ardors and so long the man is safe but if he return to folly the anger of God is renewed as at the beginning and the last state of that man is worse then the first 2. That true and real Believers may relapse and be confined and brought in bondage to the strait and narrow laws of their own self-wills and fall from the life of God and become settled and radicated in a life of self-seeking and guided by the parsimonious principles of Pleasure and Interest is the voice of Scripture and Reason the former of which palpably and undeniably concludes and determines the case Heb. x. 38 39. Now the just shall live by faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but if he not any man as our Translation improperly supplies it i. e. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the just man who before is said to live by his faith if he draw back Gods soul shall have no pleasure in him and what this drawing back is we may collect from the subsequent words But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition So again Heb. vi 4 5 6. For it is impossible i. e. very difficult and hard for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those who were once enlightned i.e. Baptized for Baptism was called by the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 illumination and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the Powers of the world to come if if they shall fall away to renew them again to repentance seeing they crucifie to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame And if this were to be understood of Hypocrites what need the expression of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For unto what should they be renewed and reinstated their former condition being in it self so deep an unregeneracy and from what is it they do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fall away when their distempered natures were never recovered by the practice of any real and substantial holiness Wherefore this must necessarily be meant of those who had in a good measure subdued the motions of the inferior life and left 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the principles and rudiments of Christianity and were arising 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to perfection For the tasting the heavenly gift and the good word of God and the powers of the world to come are no more to be understood of a slight touch and transient perception then the same phrase when it is used of the Lord Christ that he tasted death for every man Chap. ii 9. But that as he did really feel and experience the effects of death conquering his mortal life so these here spoken of did truly rellish and apprehend the sweetness of Christianity from a clear discriminating sense of it's native excellency and felt the Divine Spirit destroying the irregular appetites of the inferior life and sanctifying their Natures by a blessed inhabitation To these we may add Ezek. xviii 24. But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness and committeth Iniquity and doth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doth shall he live All his Righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned What can be more manifest than this if men would clear up their apprehensions and look upon things as things and not content themselves with bare names and shadows For that the righteous man in the Text should signifie an Hypocrite and one seemingly righteous is the most distorted gloss that can be put upon it 1. Because the righteous is here opposed to the wicked person but if it were to be expounded of one seemingly righteous who is so much worse then an open profane person in that he acts impiety under the cover of Religion the words must run thus When the righteous man i. e. the Hypocrite turns away from his Hypocrisie and acts according to the abominations of the wicked man and if by the righteous be meant an Hypocrite what is to be understood by the wicked to which 't is opposed 2. This righteous man is said to live by his righteousness but the Scripture no where sayes That the Hypocrite shall live by his counterfeit holiness but directly the contrary The hope of the Hypocrite shall perish And I must confess I do not at all understand the intent and purpose of God in inserting so many Cautions and Exhortations to Watchfulness and Diligence in the Gospel if there be no possibility of a true Believer's desertion of the Faith which questionless the Illustrious Compilers of the Church of England's Confession of Faith
had an eye to when in Artic. xvi they express themselves thus After we have received the Holy Ghost we may depart from the grace given to us and fall into sin and this is the dictate of Reason for Habits as they are acquired by assiduous and repeated acts so they may likewise be lost by inobservance and negligence according to that of the Poet Neglectis urenda filex innascitur agris For the soul of man being a perpetual motion and activity will be alwayes catching at something and if once it cool and flag in the wayes of Righteousness will undoubtedly be wrought off and spend it's strength and powers in the service of that other principle which being not wholly mortified will certainly revive and confirm it's hold when the Counsels and Inspirations of the Divine life are in any measure rejected and it left free to regain the Dominion from whence it was most justly by the powerful and efficacious influence of Gods grace detruded And he that shall further consider that long and confirmed degeneracy the soul lay under before a new and Divine principle began to act in it and how agreeable the objects and impressions of sense are to be our present state and how eligible by us will perceive that the Nature of Man may oft be overcome and the Divine life driven from it's rightful throne till by a sharp and persevering contention it be throughly settled and radicated in a quiet peace and tranquillity by putting all it's enemies under it's feet But for a more clear inspection into this Doctrine of Perseverance we must recurr to what was said above Chap. V. concerning the Liberty of Mans Will and consider all true and sincere Believers under a threefold state for the Divine life arises gradually and increases in due measures and proportions till it arrive to a full and compleat perfection and invest the soul of man with immortality and glory 1. The Scripture speaks of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Infants and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 New-born babes who are fed with the Milk of the Word with the plain Doctrines and Principles of Christianity their Criterion being not yet purged enough to have a true sense and rellish of stronger meat and the more sublime and Mysterious part of Christianity And these are those Lambs which the Lord Christ the great Shepherd when he was leaving the World so affectionately bequeathed to the care and conduct of St. Peter redoubling his request in those passionate terms Feed my Lambs And this is the sense of that Mystical Prophecy denoting the compassionate care of Christ Gathering the Lambs with his arme and carrying them in his bosom and gently leading those that are with young who are pregnant with the Divine form and Image of the Holy Jesus From this infant-state of Grace the descent is easie by reason of the strength and powerfulness of the adverse principle which hath taken so firm and deep a radication and watches all opportunities to propagate and dispread it's infectious Nature that the man is perpetually within the confines of danger till by strong and continued habits of Virtue he have totally mortified and extirpated every lust passion and inordinate desire which hinders and obstructs his passage to that quiet and serene state where all things are plain easie and delightsome Hence is that admonition of St. Paul to Timothy 1 Epist c. iii. v. 6. that he suffer not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Novice one newly converted and brought into the faith of Christ to take upon him the office of a Bishop because that state of Grace is subject to infinite hazards and dangers by reason of the potenr opposition of the contrary life and the prevalency of the Corporeal Nature which till it be perfectly subdued will alwayes breath a fuliginous steam and more or less obnubilate Reason the eye and guide of the soul 2. There are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 young men which have overcome the wicked one and which have in a great measure brought low and weakned the power of the unrighteous Nature such who are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfect men and through a faithful and constant exercise and uninterrupted habit of Holiness have a true discriminating sense of good and evil and have purified and sublimated their intellectual powers by an assiduous mortification and eradication of every perverse desire and motion of the inferior life To these well-grown Christians true Religion displayes it self and appears in it's native beauty and excellency and they embrace it with delight and joy and looking beyond the Horizon of time and change behold nothing but a bright and never-ceasing day and this fills them with a peaceful consolation that the just Judge of Heaven and Earth will not fail to crown his own life witn that glory and felicity which he himself partakes of in the highest heavens But though this state be so glorious and lovely yet it is not wholly out of the reach of danger but needs often admonitions and great diligence accompanied with frequent acts of Devotion which may fan and kindle the heavenly fire lest the dying and perishing principle of the contrary life revive and get the upper hand This degree of grace although it be able to overcome many and great difficulties and defeat the latent stratagems of powerful enemies yet it is sometimes though not so easily or frequently as the former captivated by the undiscerned force of Pride or Hypocrisie or some other refined sin For it may so happen that a good man who cannot be drawn to the commission or acting of a gross impiety by any temptations in the world yet may fall through the prevalency of an intellectual Vice and court the shadow and fantastick image of sin and yet never descend into the brutish and ferine life of action 3. There are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fathers who are arrived to the highest perfection the nature of Man is capable of in this life and these a Plantonist would call Heroically Good although this Divine frame and God-like temper be infinitely more precious and transcendent then the highest reach and comprehension of pure Platonisme and not attainable by the exercise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Paradigmatical Virtues which wholly extirpated the first motions of sin and did in their sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deifie a man and transform them into Intellect and place him out of the noise and perturbations of the inferior life in a quiet and serene contemplation of the first and ever-blessed Author of all things Here the whole will and desires are so farr conformable and resigned to the Will of God as the ordinary course of things and the earthly state will permit and the Man is perfectly dead to himself and to every rellish of bodily motions and the life of God triumphantly seated in the mind from whence it rules and governs every thought word and action with unspeakable ease and pleasure and replenishes the soul with a
those beautiful Daughters of Heaven the souls of men can be thus murder'd by those Benign Hands that first gave them life Had he considered that glorious beauty wherewith the soul of Man was once possessed and of which now that she is born into the World she retains but a very slender memory conversing with it as it were in a Dream and beholding a glimpse of it through the cranies of Mortality and had he beheld this Eternal Pulchritude thrown from it's Celestial Mansion and all those living rayes of Virtue and efflorescences of Divinity plunged into an obscure and dull piece of Earth and that by the Blessed Author of all things he could not but infinitely resent such an harsh Act. 2. Are not all our faculties very much depraved and vitiated insomuch that there is in us a natural proclivity to Vice and we dayly make choice of forbidden instances Are not our Understandings very dark and blind our Wills refractory and stubborn and our Affections violent and head-strong for the most part in the prosecution of base and unworthy objects And if this be our Case as we come into the World as certainly it is and much worse Original sin must be a real depravity of our souls and not an ill temperament of our bodies The Author having determined the Measure and Extent of Gods Sovereignty and Dominion according to his own fancy and humour he endeavours page 25. to frame such an Idea of Divine Goodness as may correspond with the Notion he hath pitched upon of Gods Dominion and therefore he tells us That the Idea of God consists mainly in his Dominion and Sovereignty and that the Notion of him in Scripture never refers to his Essence but alwayes to his Power and Empire But he must give me leave to take the same liberty in rejecting so bold an Assertion that he does in obtruding it upon the World however I shall be so fair and candid to him as not to contradict what he sayes without shewing him a Reason for it The most consistent Idea that we can frame of God is That he is a Being endued with Absolute Perfection now there are no Perfections in the Deity but what may be referred to these three Infinite Goodness Wisdom and Power which being not of equal worth and excellency by Axiome II. it will follow That what is most pretious is likewise most active and energetical and therefore must be the standard and measure of all the rest by Axiome III. and IV. Wherefore when we frame any Notion or make any Representation of God Reason it self will tell us That we ought to express him by that which is most pretious and Sovereign in him which is not Will and Power but Perfect Goodness And methinks the Scripture mightily favours this 1 John iv 16. God is Love sayes the Apostle which Notion if it refer not to Gods Moral Essence I am sure it hath no relation to his Power and Empire It is true when the Jews dwelt under a Theocracy and God went forth as their Captain against their Enemies he owned the Title of the Lord of Hosts and the Expressions of his Sovereign Power Majesty and Dominion were more frequent but when the Evangelical Oeconomy was set on foor God laid aside these Titles and now he expresses himself by no other Attributes but what carry abundance of sweetness along with them and wholly refer and lead us to the consideration of that which is the Flower and Summity of his Being that is Love Therefore I may subjoyn Mr. P's own words with a little Transposition Pag. 26. That no Property which complies not with Goodness can be attributed to God and consequently that that 's a false Notion of his Dominion that interferes with his Goodness Let us see now how he confutes the Platonists with whom he is very angry for asserting That God being Infnite Goodness will necessarily do that which is best page 27. His first Argument to prove the falsity of this Position he sets down page 29 30. c. the sum of which in brief is this That the necessity of Infinite Wisdom doing that which is best takes away the liberty and freedom of the Divine Will To which I answer That the liberty of the Divine Will consists not in an Arbitrary Indifferency of acting or not acting but in acting alwayes sutably and conformablely to his own Infinite Rectitude and Perfection As the true Excellency and Freedom of our wills consists not in an indifferency or dubious suspension between Good and Evil for this is a debility and imperfection in us but in a constant Election of that which Right Reason and Intellect propound to them as Best So that when once that Eternal Providence which sent us down upon Earth shall reinstate us in the Possession of our Native Glory our Wills which shall then obtain their freedom in it's greatest latitude and dimensions yet shall not be left to a bare Indifferency but will as certainly adhere to that which is Good as a wise and prudent man will alwayes give the same judgment of the same thing in the same circumstances Wherefore to answer in short I say that Gods actions are not so fatal and necessary as the motions of an Automaton or Engine because he is endued with an Energetical Power of Reason and Intellect but are free and unconstrained by any external Principle but because his Nature is infinitely Good it will alwayes do that which is Best because Goodness is the chief and first active Principle in it The proof of this lies in Axiome II. III. IV. His second Argument is this That if the Divine Goodness or Beneficence be necessary it would then destroy it 's own Nature because 't is absolutely necessary to the Nature of Beneficence that it proceed from a free and elective Principle page 33. I suppose this Argument is only cast in as a surplusage and not with any intent to convince any of his Readers unless Mr. P. imagine them so unwary and credulous as to be imposed upon by fallacies and sophisms For if by Gods Bounty and Beneficence he mean his gracious Donations and Benefits above what may render his Creatures happy in their several states and capacities then I say it is most free because when any Beings have forfeited their Felicity God is not obliged to re-instate them in all the circumstances of it again But if we take Bounty or Goodness for the Eternal Perfection of Gods Blessed Nature whereby he communicates himself to all capable receptacles this is as necessary as his Being and against this Mr. P. ought properly to have levell'd his Argument Nor does this make the Divine Goodness ever a whit the less Moral because then none of Gods actions would be capable of Being Morally Good for this impossible and blasphemous to assert That the Divine Will is indifferent either to Good or Evill God doth necessarily Love himself as the highest and most Absolute Good and cannot but
embrace every thing that is like himself nor is the Divine Will Indifferent either to Love or Hate it 's own Image and Similitude And if the Communications of the Divine Goodness to such Beings as bear his Impresses upon them and never defiled themselves with the least contagion of sin and vice be not necessary then he is left free to destroy them and consequently he can destroy something of his own Life and Nature which no sober Person will affirm And if this Hypothesis of his be true I know no ground Mankind can have setting aside those Declarations God hath made of himself in Holy Scripture to believe and trust in him and depend upon him for the advancement of their happiness after Death But we find the sober and wise Heathens who believed the soul of man to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Hermes and Plato speak constantly relying upon the Almighty Goodness of God which they confidently believed did alwayes that which was Best and thence became assured and raised a strong foundation for their hopes that it should go well with them in the other World and that that Eternal Providence would take their better parts into it's tutelage and care when they laid down their bodies in their beds of Earth I hasten now to dispatch his last Argument which is this If the Exertions of the Divine Goodness be necessary God can never act otherwise but that he frequently does is manifest in all the Instances of his Anger and Severity which not only Reason but Scripture opposes to Benignity To which I return That Gods anger and severity are only several modifications of his Goodness which is not alwayes displayed and manifested after the same manner because of the different capacities of the subjects upon which it is exercised and have no other distinction then that of divers Modes of the same Subject between one another And when God makes use of those sharper dispensations they are as necessary results of his Goodness as his milder and gentler Oeconomy So that I cannot see what Mr. P. would evince from this I have now sufficiently tired my self in so prolix a Refutation which yet is not altogether unnecessary considering that if those Positions be true which Mr. P. hath laid down they will enervate all those Arguments I have made use of and render my design useless which is no other then to beget in mens minds the most noble and generous Conceptions of God to promote real Piety and Religion by shewing a true Idea of God and declaring the real intent and purpose of the Gospel contrary to that Hypocritical and Artificial kind of Religion which many frame to themselves thereby to palliate their sin and stop the mouth of Right Reason and Conscience THE END THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. INconditionate Reprobation inconsistent with the Declarations of God in Holy Scripture page 1. CHAP. II. Absolute Reprobation repugnant to Right Reason wherein is set out the Moral Nature of our Souls in reference to Good and Evil Truth and Falshood And this Second Argument made good in Four Propositions page 15. CHAP. III. The third Argument taken from the Consideration of the Moral Nature of God from whence are deduced such legitimate Inferences and Conclusions as diametrally oppose the Doctrine of Inconditionate Reprobation page 64. CHAP. IV. A fourth Argument against the Doctrine of Inconditionate Reprobation taken from the Evangelical Dispensation wherein is shewn the purport and design of the Gospel which is to reinstate all men into the Participation of the Divine Nature and that that Rigid Doctrine is destructive of so high and glorious an end page 115. CHAP. V. A fift and last Argument wherein is shewn that the Doctrine of Irrespective Reprobation takes away the liberty of Mans Will and consequently leaves no place for reward of Virtue or punishment of Vice page 171. CHAP. VI. An Explication of several Citations of Scripture suborned to attest the Doctrine of Inconditionate Decrees together with a brief examination of some Positions of the Contra-Remonstrants page 189. Some Reflections on a late Discourse of Mr. Parkers concerning The Divine Dominion and Goodness page 253. FINIS