Doctrines which have been handled at large in other English Treatises of the Christian Faith and especially in that incomparable one of our most learned Bishop of Chester on the Creed a Book which next to the Bible I thankfully acknowledg my self more beholden to for my instruction in the Doctrines of Religion than to any one I ever read I have contracted my self into as narrow a compass as the barely necessary explication of them would permit me but where that renowned Pen hath insisted more Cursorily as for instance on the particular Offices of our blessed Mediator I have most enlarged my self though even there I have for brevity sake pretermitted some things I intended less immediate and necessary appertaining to the Argument UPON the whole I can truly say that to the best of my understanding I have herein delivered nothing but what is agreeable to the Doctrine of the Primitive Church which as the most faithful Comment on the holy Writings of our Saviour and his Apostles I have all along carefully consulted in doubtful and difficult cases and this is the reason why it hath stuck so long in hand the pains I have taken in consulting the ancient Monuments of Christianity about it being as I may truly say at least double to that of composing it and in following the Primitive Doctrine I have followed the Doctrine of the Church of England which in its Faith Government and Discipline I believe in my conscience is the most Primitive Church in the World As for the Method I have chosen which is to deduce all the Doctrines of Christianity from one general Head viz. the Doctrine of the Mediator it is the most convenient I could think of for my purpose which was to represent at once to the Readers view all the parts of our holy Religion in their natural connexion with and dependence on one another that so he might be the better able to judge of the beautiful contexture and admirable contrivance of the whole and that by seeing how regularly all the parts of it proceed out of one common Principle and conspire in one common end he may be the better satisfied that Christianity is so far from being a heap of incoherencies as some have injuriously represented it that considering it merely as an Hypothesis abstracted from all that external evidence that accompanies it the very Art and contrivance of it the proportion symetry and correspondence of its parts their subserviency to each other and the concurrence and tendency of them all together to the common ends of Religion are such as do apparently exceed all humane Invention and argue it to be the product of a divine mind For as he who would form a true Idea of the beauty of a Picture must not contemplate the parts of it separately but survey them all together and consider them in their proportions and correspondencies with each other so he who would frame a right Notion of Religion must not look upon it as it lies scattered and divided into single parts and propositions but consider them in contexture and as they are connected all together into one body or hypothesis For it is in their apt Junctures their mutual dependencies and admirable coherencies with one another that the beauty and harmony of the whole consists And therefore to do right to Christianity and enable the Reader to contemplate it with the greatest advantage I have endeavoured to represent to him the whole in a view and to give him a prospect of all the parts of it together in an harmonious union and connexion with each other For I verily believe that the mean opinion which some witty men have entertained of Christianity proceeds in a great measure from their broken and imperfect apprehensions of it they understand it piecemeal and take it asunder into single propositions which they consider separately and apart by themselves without ever putting them together into one regular System and presenting them to their thoughts in that orderly connexion wherein the holy Oracles have delivered them to us For I can scarce imagine how any man of sense should contemplate Christianity all together and throughly consider the harmonious coherence of all its parts and the wonderful contrivance of the whole without being captivated with the beauty and elegancy of it AND now I have nothing further to add concerning this Treatise but only to intreat the Reader not to be too severe in the perusal of it For though as for the Doctrine of it I see no reason at all to Apologize for it because I am fully persuaded of the truth of it yet being forced as I was to compose it by snatches and in the more quiet intervals of a busie and uneasie life I very much suspect the exactness both of the Stile and Method of it and therefore all the favour I desire is this that where I have improperly or obscurely express'd my self I may be construed in the most favourable sense and that wherever I may seem to be confused or immethodical it may be attributed to those frequent interruptions which the disorders of my body have given to my thoughts And these are requests so very just and reasonable that I am confident none will be so peevish as to deny me but they who read Books only to carp and find fault and without any design to Edifie their own understandings But I hope the Reader will consider that the Argument here treated of is of too great moment to him to be so wretchedly trifled with and that therefore he will not be either so disingenuous to me or uncharitable to himself as to peruse with such a spiteful design that which I sincerely intended for his good and which he I am sure if he pleases may be the better for for ever THE CONTENTS CHAPTER I. HUmane Actions of three sorts page 1. Necessary and sinful Actions are either such as are good or evil in themselves which are those we call Moral Actions or such as are commanded and forbid by positive Law p. 2 3 4 5 6 7. The Nature of Moral Good explained Sect. 1. p. 8 9 10 11. That there is such a thing as Moral Good in humane Actions proved in five Propositions p. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27. The various ways by which God hath discovered to us what is Morally Good in six particulars Sect. 2. p. 28 to p. 53. Actions Morally Good are the principal parts of Religion Sect. 3. p. 53 54 55. This demonstrated by six Arguments from Scripture p. 55 to p. 71. Four Reasons why God principally requires what is Morally Good p. 71 to p. 91. CHAP. II. OF the nature of Religion in General and of natural Religion what it is p. 92 93 94 95 96. And of Revealed Religion p. 97 98 99 100. A definition of natural and revealed Religion considered as they are now in conjunction p. 101 102. From the nature of Religion thus defined the
Principles of all Religious Obligations are deduced p. 202. Which are reduced to five Heads p. 102 103. CHAP. III. OF the necessity of believing the existence of God in order to our being truly Religious p. 104 105. Atheism resolved into the corruption of mens Wills and Imaginations Sect. 1. p. 106 107 108 109. The particular causes of it reduced to nine Heads and of the folly and unreasonableness of them p. 109 to p. 157. Of the great folly and madness of Atheism in its self p. 157 158. This shewn at large in six particulars p. 158 to p. 196. CHAP. IV. THat to the founding the Obligations of Religion it is necessary we should acknowledge the divine Providence p. 196 197 198 199. What are the particular Acts of Providence which we are to acknowledg shewn in five Particulars p. 200 to 244. The Divine Providence proved first à Priori by Arguments drawn from the nature of God which are reduced to four Heads p. 245 to 256. secondly à Posteriori by Arguments drawn from sensible effects of God in the World of which six instances are given p. 256 to p. 310. The most considerable Objections against a Divine Providence reduced to five Heads and particularly answered p. 310 to p. 354. CHAP. V. THe necessity of acknowledging divine Rewards and Punishments to oblige us to be truly Religious p. 355 356 357 358. How far it is necessary we should believe them shewn in four particulars p. 358 to 369. Of the Universal acknowledgment of future Rewards and Punishments p. 370 371 372 373. The reality of these future Rewards and Punishments proved by six Arguments p. 373 to 399. By what means our belief of future Rewards and Punishments is to be acquired and confirmed shewn in four particulars p. 399 to 410. Of the force and power of this belief to oblige us to be truly Religious p. 410 to 417. CHAP. VI. THe necessity of Right Notions of God to oblige us to be truly Religious p. 417 418. In what respects they are necessary to oblige us to be truly Religious shewn in four particulars p. 419 to p. 444. Of the way of forming right Notions of God in general p. 445 to 449. Si◠general Rules laid down for the framing right Notions of God p. 449 to 484. Of the common causes of mens misapprehensions of God in si◠particular instances p. 485 to 513. OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE PART II. CHAP. I. Concerning the Being and Nature of Moral Goodness ALL Humane Actions are either Necessary or Sinfull or Indifferent The Necessary are such as are commanded the Sinful such as are forbidden by God the Indifferent such as are neither commanded nor forbidden but left entirely free to our Choice and Discretion Again the necessary and the sinful actions are either such as are necessary and sinfull in themselves and are commanded and forbidden upon the account of some Good and Evil that is inseparable to their Natures or such as are indifferent in their own Natures as to any good or evil inherent in them but are made necessary or sinful by some positive Command or Prohibition superinduced upon them Of the first sort are those which we call Moral Actions as being the subject matter of the Moral Law which commands and forbids nothing but what is essentially and immutably good and evil and whilst there was no other Law but this every Action which did not oblige by some eternal Reason or which is the same by some inseparable good or evil was left free and indifferent But in process of time God superadded to this Moral Law a great many Positive ones whereby he obliged men to do and forbear sundry of those indifferent things which were left to their liberty by the Law of Nature For such we call the Rites and Ceremonies of the Mosaick Law all which were indifferent before they were imposed and as soon as ever the Imposition was taken off from them did immediately return to their Primitive Indifferency so that by the abolition of their Ceremonial Law the Jews were restored to all the Liberties of the Moral excepting only the matter of the two Sacraments and of maintaining a visible Communion with the Church which are determined by positive Laws of Christianity And of this later sort of necessary and sinful Actions are not only all those indifferent ones which God himself has commanded and forbidden immediately but also all those which he commands and forbids by his Vice-roys and Representatives in this World For whatsoever he hath not commanded or forbidden by his own immediate Dictate and Authority he hath Authorized his Vicegerents to command or forbid as they shall judge it most expedient for the Publick So that when they command what God hath not forbidden or forbid what he hath not commanded their will is God's who commands us by their Mouths and stamps their Injunctions with his own Authority And of this distinction between actions that are morally and positively Necessary the Scripture frequently takes notice and particularly Mich. vi 6.7 8. Wherewithall shall I come before the Lord and bow my self before the high God shall I come before him with Burnt-Offerings with Calves of a year old c. No these are not the things that will render me acceptable in his eyes and procure me a welcome Admission into his Presence and yet it is certain that these things were then required and commanded and therefore were positively necessary but that they were not necessary in themselves upon the account of any intrinsick Goodness that was in them is evident from what follows He hath shewed thee O man what is good as much as if he should have said the things above named are in their own nature indifferent having neither good nor evil in themselves and are made necessary meerly by positive Command upon which account they are insufficient to recommend you to God but there are other things that carry an intrinsick Beauty and Goodness in their Nature by which they strictly oblige you to imbrace and practise them and do thereupon recommend you by their own native Charms to the Love and Favour of God and what these good things are he hath sufficiently shewn or discovered to you viz. To do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God which are the main and principal Duties that he requires of you Which plainly implies that there are some Actions which are morally that is in their own Natures eternally good and therefore eternally necessary and some that are necessary only because for some present Reason God Wills and Commands them For no account can be given why he should be more pleased with Justice and Mercy and Humility than with Sacrifice unless we suppose the former to be good and therefore necessary upon immutable Reasons and upon that account to be immutably pleasing to him and the latter to be necessary only upon mutable reasons which therefore were to lose their Necessity as soon as those reasons
that which we most converse with and with whose Consent and Agreement in any matters we are best acquainted is that of Men and therefore if among Men we can discover such an Universal Agreement concerning the Goodness of these Rules as will warrant us to conclude all other Rational Beings to be consenting with them this will be a sufficient Demonstration of the Truth of the Proposition These two things therefore I shall endeavour to make out 1. That the Reason of Men is Vniversally consenting in this matter viz. That there is an immutable Goodness in these Rules of Morality 2. That this Universal Consent of Mens Reason in this matter is a sufficient Demonstration that all other reasonable Beings are consenting with them First THEREFORE there is nothing more evident than that Men are Universally agreed in this matter that to Worship God to Honour their Parents and Superiours to be temperate in their Passions and Appetites and just and charitable towards one another are things in their own nature immutably good that this is not an Opinion peculiar to such an Age or to such a Nation or to such a Sect of Religion but the Vniversal Judgment of all Mankind of whatsoever Age Nation or Religion For 't is upon this judgment that all that Conscience is founded which approves of or condemns mens actions which Conscience is nothing else but a Sense or Feeling of Moral Good and Evil and is every whit as natural to Mens minds as the Sense of pleasant or painful touches to their Bodies Since therefore general Effects must spring from general Causes it necessarily follows that the Pain and Pleasure which Mens minds generally feel upon the Commission of bad and good Actions must be resolved into some general Cause and what else can that be but the general Consent of their Reason concerning the immutable Evil of the one and Good of the other I know 't is pretended by some of our Modern Navigators that there are a sort of People in the World who have not the least sense of Good and Evil and do own neither God nor Religion nor Morality But considering the short Converse and imperfect Intercourse which these our new Discoverers have had with those Barbarous Countries it is fairly supposeable that the Inhabitants may have Notions both Religious and Moral of which Strangers who understand not their Language and Customs and Manners can make little or no Discovery But suppose that what they report were true yet by their own confession these wretched Barbarians are in all other things so extreamly Brutish that they discover no other token of their Humanity but their Shape For they live altogether regardless of themselves of the Conveniences of their Lives and of the Dignity of their Natures without making any Reflections on their own minds or any Observations from their own experience Since therefore all Knowledge is acquired by Attention it is not at all impossible for Creatures so utterly supine and negligent to be ignorant of the most common Notions But for any man to question the truth of this general Rule because there are a few Exceptions from it is every whit as absurd as if he should question whether Men are generally two-legg'd Animals because there have been some Monsters with three And what if among men there are some Monsters in respect of their Minds as well as others in respect of their Bodies This is no more a prejudice to the standing Laws of Humane Nature than Prodigies are to the Regularity of the constant course of Vniversal Nature Specimen naturae cujuslibet saith Tully à natura optima sumendum est i. e. The true sample of every Nature is to be taken from the best Natures of the kind Since therefore the men of all Nations and Ages and Religions who have in any measure attended to the Nature of things and made but any tolerable use of their Reasons are and always have been universally agreed that there is an immutable Good in Vertue and Evil in Vice it is no Argument at all that this is not the general Sense of Mankind supposing it true which is very questionable that there are some few such inhumane Barbarians in the World as make no distinction at all between ' em But then Secondly THIS Universal Consent of Mens Reason in this matter is a sufficient Demonstration that all other Reasonable Beings are consenting with them For it shews that God himself is of this mind and if He be we may be sure that all other Reasonable Beings are For if we believe that God made us we must believe that he made us for some End and if he made us for any End he must esteem those Actions good which promote it and those evil which obstruct and hinder it And what other End can an infinitely happy and blessed Being have in making other Beings but only to do 'em good and according to their several Capacities to make them partakers of his own Happiness And if this be the end for which God made us to be sure those Actions must be good in his esteem that are beneficial and those evil that are hurtful and mischievous to our Nature And therefore since he hath implanted in us not only a natural Desire of Happiness but also a rational Faculty to discern what Actions make for our Happiness and what not we may be sure that whatsoever this Faculty doth Vniversally determine to be good or evil for us is good or evil in the Judgment of God 'T is true when the Reason that is in one man judges contrary to the Reason that is in another there must be a Disagreement on one side or the other from the Reason and Judgment of God but when all mens Reason is agreed that this is good and that evil it is plain that this is is the Judgment of the Rational Faculty which naturally makes such a Distinction of things For there is no man that uses his Reason can possibly think that Truth and Falshood Justice and Injustice Mercy and Cruelty are equally good in themselves his Rational Faculty being so framed as that at the first glance and reflection it naturally distinguishes 'em into Good and Evil. When therefore God hath created us with such a Faculty as naturally makes such a Judgment of Good and Evil that Judgment must be Gods as well as the Faculty which made it That therefore which is the unanimous Judgment of all Men must be the Natural Language of the Rational Faculty and that which is the natural Language of the Rational Faculty must be the Language of the God of Nature For he who created me with such a Faculty as naturally judges this Good and that Evil must either have the same Judgment himself or create in me a Contradiction to his own Judgment and that Judgment which he hath created in me he must be supposed to create in all other Beings that are capable of Judging otherwise he would be the author
and when he pleases directs them quite contrary to their Intentions for the way of Man saith the Prophet is not in himself it is not in Man that walketh to direct his steps Jer. 10.23 It is the Man that walks and acts but it is God alone that leads his Way and directs his Actions to what End he pleases ALL which it is necessary we should believe in order to our being truly religious For while we look upon God as a Foreiner to the World that hath altogether retired himself from the Affairs of it and abandoned it to the Disposal of blind Chance or Necessity he must stand for a Cypher in our Esteem and signifie no more to us than the Emperor of the World in the Moon who for all we know may be a glorious and puissant Prince but is so far removed from us and our Affairs that he can do us neither good nor hurt And if God intermeddle not with those Goods and Evils which happen here below what doth he signifie to us who live apart from him in another World from which he is wholly retired and withdrawn But if we firmly believe that there is nothing befalls us whether it be in the Course of Nature or by Chance or Design but by his Order and Direction we must lay aside our Reason and Humanity if for every Good we want or do receive we do not apply our selves to him with humble and submissive thankfull and ingenuous Minds and if under every Evil that we feel or fear we do not resign up our Wills and lift up our Eyes to him as to the sole Arbitrator of our Fate For where should we pay our Thanks or whence should we expect our Supplies and Deliverances but to him who is the Fountain of all Good and from him who is the supreme Moderator of all Events Who is there in Heaven or Earth whom we are so much concerned to please and so much obliged to acknowledge and submit to so much engaged to trust to and rely on as him who hath all our Fortunes in his Hands and the absolute Disposal of every thing in which we are or may or can be any way interested or concerned So that the Belief of Gods over-ruling Providence hath every Link of our Duty fastened to it in a strong and rational Concatenation and if it be loosened from this Principle the whole Chain must necessarily fall in sunder V. and Lastly To oblige us to be truly religious it is also necessary we should believe that God is the Supreme Governor of the rational World which is a distinct Branch of Providence from the former For all things whatsoever are subject to Gods Order and Disposal but in strictness of Speech 't is only rational Beings that are subject to his Government For Government supposes Laws and Laws Rewards and Punishments of which rational Beings alone are capable they alone having the power to deliberate and upon Deliberation to choose what is good and refuse what is Evil without which no Being can deserve either to be rewarded or punished So that the Government of God in strictness of Speech respects only the rational World consisting of Angels and Men. As for the Government of Angels 't is impossible we should understand any more of it than what God hath revealed because tho they converse with us and our Affairs yet we do not converse with them our Spiritual Nature by which we are near allied to them being shut up in Matter which like a Wall of Partition divides us from them and hinders us from looking over into their World and from seeing their Nature and Operations and surveying their Polity and Government Indeed so far as we understand their Natures we may easily understand the Laws by which God Governs them because we know Gods Laws are always adapted to the Natures of things and consequently since we know that they are rational Creatures we may conclude from thence that whatsoever is fit and decorous for rational Creatures as such they stand obliged to by the Law of their Natures But since there are particular Powers and Properties in their Natures which we understand not 't is impossible we should understand all the particular Laws by which they are Governed Only thus much in general we know that the whole Order of Angelical Beings were from the first Moment of their Creation subjected to Laws fitted to their Nature by which natural Laws they stood obliged to obey their Creator in all his positive Commands and Institutions and that these Laws whatsoever they were both natural and positive were established in Rewards and Punishments by which if they continued obedient they were to continue for ever in their most blissful Ranks and Stations but if they rebelled were immediately to be banished thence into everlasting Wretchedness and Misery that a certain Order of these Angelical Beings excited either by their Pride or Envy or sensual Affection did under their Head or Chieftain revolt from God by transgressing some natural or positive Law for which they were expelled the high Territories of Happiness and driven into these lower Parts of the World where under the Prince of their Rebellion they have ever since waged War against God and Man that in this state of War they are under the Restraint of Gods almighty Power who sets Bounds to their Power and Malice which it cannot pass and determins it to what Ends and Purposes he pleases employing it sometimes to try and chasten good Men sometimes to execute his Wrath upon the Children of Disobedience and sometimes again letting it loose merely to display his own almighty Power in its Defeat and Overthrow in which State they are reserved as Prisoners at large to the Judgment of the great Day whereby together with wicked men they shall be sentenced and confined to everlasting Flames and Darkness that the good Angels in reward of their constant Obedience are continued and fixed in a most blissful Condition in which they enjoy the constant Smiles of God and the unspeakable Pleasure of being entirely resigned to his Will who upon all Occasions sends them to and fro the World as the great Messengers and Ministers of his Providence to Minister to the Recovery of recoverable Sinners and to pour out the Vials of his Wrath upon the obstinate and unreclaimable to assist protect and comfort good Men while they live and when they depart from hence to conduct their Spirits through the aery Territories of the wicked Angels into those blissful Mansions that are prepared to receive them till the Resurrection at which time their Part will be to summon and gather both the good and bad before the Tribunal of Christ to receive their final Sentence to everlasting Weal or Wo. THIS is the main of what we know concerning Gods Government of Angels the sincere Belief of which will be of vast Advantage to us in the whole Course of our Religion For since there is such a mighty Colony of evil
that framed it And indeed this notion of a future state is such as hath been generally imbraced by those Persons who are least capable of deducing it by a Logical dependence of one thing upon another and therefore since it hath no dependency in their minds on any other antecedent notion how could it have been so generally entertain'd did not the common dictate of Nature or Reason acting alike in all Men move 'em to conspire in it though they knew not one anothers minds For it hath been believed with a kind of repugnancy to sense which discovers all things round about it to be mortal and which upon that account would have been too apt to have seduced ruder minds into a disbelief of any other state had not some more powerful impression on their Souls forcibly urg'd 'em to believe it BUT because this Argument drawn from universal consent is liable to some little exception I shall not insist upon it but indeavour to prove the reality of this future state of Rewards and Punishments from these Topicks First From the Wisdom of God's Government Secondly From the Justice of his Providence Thirdly From the natural capacity of our Souls to survive our Bodies and to enjoy future Rewards and suffer future Punishments Fourthly From the natural expectance we have of future Rewards and dread of future Punishments Fifthly From the excellent frame and structure of humane Nature Sixthly From the Testimony of the Christian Religion I. FROM the Wisdom of God's Government That Mankind is under the Government of God is evident from that Law which he hath imprinted on our nature by which our actions are distinguish'd into Good and Evil Virtuous and Vitious of which sufficient proof hath been given Ch. 1. and since God hath given a Law to our natures there is no doubt to be made but he hath taken sufficient care to inforce the observance of it by Rewards and Punishments otherwise his Government over us would be very insecure and precarious For that Law giver doth only Petition his Subjects to obey who doth not promise such rewards and denounce such penalties as are sufficient to oblige 'em thereunto BUT now there is no Reward can be sufcient to oblige us to obey which doth not abundantly compensate any loss or evil we may sustain by our obedience no punishment sufficient to deter us from disobeying that doth not far surmount all the Benefits and Pleasures which we can hope to reap from our Disobedience but unless there be a future state the Law of Nature can propose no such Rewards and Punishments to us For if we have nothing to dread or hope for beyond the Grave our present interest is all our concern and in reason we ought to judg things to be Good or Evil according as they promote or obstruct our temporal happiness Now though it is certain that in the general there is a natural good accrewing to us from all vertuous actions as on the contrary a natural evil from all vitious ones and it is ordinarily more conducive to our temporal Interest to obey than to disobey the Law of our natures yet there are a world of instances wherein Vice may be more advantageous to us than Vertue abstracting from the Rewards and Punishments of another life It is ordinarily better for me to be an honest Man than a Knave it is more for my Reputation and usually for my Profit too and it is more for the publick good in which my own is involved but yet in several circumstances it may be better for me with respect only to this World to be a Knave than an honest Man For whensoever I can cheat so secretly and securely as not to fall under the publique lash nor impair my reputation and I can gain more by the Cheat than I shall lose in the damage of the Publique it will be doubtless more advantageous for me as to my worldly interest to cheat than to be honest and how often such fair opportunities of cozenage do occur no Man can be insensible that hath but the least insight into the affairs of this World So that if there were no future Rewards and Punishments this great Law of Righteousness would not have force enough universally to oblige us because there are a world of instances wherein we might gain more good and eschew more evil by doing unrighteously than all its present Rewards and Punishments do amount to And the same may be said of all other laws of Nature which without the great motives of future happiness and misery can no longer induce Men to obey 'em than it is for their temporal interest to do so For suppose I can secretly stab or poison a Man whom I hate or dread or from whose death I may reap any considerable advantage what should restrain me from it If you say the Law of Nature pray what Reward doth the Law of Nature propose that is sufficient to compensate for the disatisfaction of my Revenge or for the danger I run in suffering my Enemy to live or what punishment doth the Law of Nature denounce that can ballance the advantage of a thousand or perhaps ten thousand pounds a year that may accrew to me by his death IF you say the Law of Nature proposes to me the reward of a quiet and satisfied Mind and denounces the punishment of a guilty and amazed Conscience I easily answer that this peace and horror which is consequent to the forbearance or commission of sin arises from the hope and dread of future Rewards and Punishments which being taken away to sin or not sin will be indifferent as to any peace or horror that can follow upon it and when this restraint is taken off what consideration will there be left that is sufficient to withhold me from the bloody fact when ever I have an opportunity to act it securely and am furiously spurred on to it by my own Revenge and Covetousness So that if there be no Rewards and Punishments in another life to inforce the commands of the Law of Nature it 's certain that there are no such annex'd to it in this as are universally sufficient to oblige us to observe ' em For as for the Goods and Evils of this life they are ordinarily distributed among Men with so little respect and discrimination as not only to occasion but to justifie that famous observation of the Wise Man that all things happen alike to all Either therefore there are other Goods to be hoped for and other Evils to be feared or there are a world of cases wherein God hath not sufficiently provided to secure our obedience to the Law of our Nature and to imagine that God should give a Law to his Creatures and take no care to secure the Authority of it is a most sensless Blasphemy of the Wisdom of his Government for this would be to expose his own Authority to contempt and to cast his Laws at the feet of his Creatures to be spurned
and trampled on by 'em at their pleasure IF it be Objected that all that this Argument proves is that to secure our obedience to the Law of Nature it 's necessary we should believe that there are future Rewards and Punishments but that it doth not hence follow that 't is necessary that there should be future Rewards and Punishments because whether there be any such things or no our belief of 'em will be sufficient to secure the Authority of the Law I answer That if our belief of future Rewards and Punishments be necessary one of these two things must inevitably follow either that the Objects of our Belief are real which is the thing I am proving or that to countenance the Authority of his Laws it 's necessary for God to impose upon our faith and deceive us into the belief of a falshood For if to inforce God's Law it 's necessary we should believe that there are future Rewards and Punishments either there must be such things really existing or God must inforce his Law with our belief of a falshood and to imagin that when God might have created for us a future state of Reward and Punishment if he had so pleased and governed us by the hopes and fears of it he hath rather chosen to govern us by Tricks and Lyes and to wheedle us into obedience by a cheat and delusion is a Blasphemy no less sensless than horrid Since therefore to secure the Authority of that Law by which the humane Nature is to be governed it is necessary that it should be inforc'd with the motives of everlasting Reward and Punishment one of these three things necessarily follows either that God hath not sufficiently inforc'd his Law which is a soul imputation on his Wisdom or that he is fain to inforce it with a Lye which is an impious reflection on his Truth or that there are everlasting Rewards and Punishments II. FROM the Justice of the divine Providence For if there be a divine Providence presiding over the World as that there is hath been already sufficiently proved Justice and Equity which is the most glorious perfection of an Over-ruling power must necessarily be included in the notion of it For without Justice over-ruling power is nothing but an impotent Tyranny whch to attribute to God is far more dishonourable and incongruous to the nature of his perfections than to strip him of all Providence as Epicurus did and shut him up in the heavens in a state of everlasting Sloth and Luxury For not to Govern is only to do Nothing but to Govern without Justice is to do Mischief and 't is a much less Derogation from the Perfection of any Being to suppose it to be Idle than to suppose it to be Mischievous So that allowing that God who is the most perfect of all Beings governs the World it would not be only Blasphemous but Nonsense to imagine that he governs it unjustly Now the proper justice of Government consists in the Equality of its Distributions for since there is such a thing as immutable Good and Evil in the actions of free and reasonable Agents it is naturally fit and due that those who do good should receive good and those who do evil evil from their hands who have the Government of actions and this proportionably to the good and evil of their doings So that Gods Governing the World justly consists in Distributing good to those that do good and evil to those that do evil or in other words in Proportioning Rewards and Punishments to men according to the Good and Evil he finds in their actions and unless we suppose him to do this it is non-sense to imagine that he Governs the World BUT if all his Distributions are confined to this life and there is neither Reward nor Punishment to be expected from him in another there are infinite instances of his Providence wherein it will be impossible to defend his equality and justice For if there be no other Scene of good and evil reward and punishment but only this life all the afflicted good and prosperous bad men that ever were in the World of which there infinite instances are so many reproachful Monuments of the woful inequality of the divine Government For how many Millions of brave Souls have there been who have thought nothing too dear for God and his service and have sacrificed their lusts their lives and their fortunes to him and yet upon this supposal have reaped no other recompence for so doing but only a miserable life and a wofull death and an obscure dishonourable grave As on the contrary how many Millions of Millions of wicked men that have lived in open defiance to all that is sacred and just and good blasphemed God affronted his authority and trampled upon all the Laws of his Government and yet supposing there is no other life have undergone no other punishment for so doing but to live prosperously and die quietly and lie inshrined in a Marble Monument Now how can we otherwise Apologize for the justice of Providence when it thus cross-couples Prosperity with Vice and Adversity with Vertue but only by supposing this present life to be only the state of our Trial and Probation which will quickly determine in our everlasting Recompence or Punishment according as we behave and acquit our selves in it upon which supposal the justice of Providence may be fairly accounted for were the present distributions of it a thousand times more unequal than they are For then we need not wonder that good and bad men are at present so unequally treated since now they are only upon their Proof and Trial which as I have shewn before requires such a treatment but their Reward and Punishment is reserved for another state wherein all these seeming inequalities shall be fairly adjusted and Vertue shall be crowned with everlasting Glory and Pleasure and Vice damn'd to eternal horror and confusion But if the Goods and Evils of this present life are all the reward and punishment that good and bad Men are to expect where is the Justice of the divine Government that many times oppresses its Friends and advances its Enemies and in the conclusion extinguishes their Beings together and therewith all possibility of making any future retribution of good to the one or evil to the other And therefore if it be true that the Judge of all the World will do righteously that first or last he will certainly distribute his Rewards and Punishments to his Subjects accord to the Merit and Demerit of their actions it must be as true that for the main he hath reserved the doing it to a future state since it cannot be denied but that at present he very often doth the quite contrary and if it be but as evident that there is such a future state as it is that God governs the World justly I think 't is as fair an assurance of it as any modest Man can require III. FROM the natural
yet still they pursue 'em and ever and anon break in upon 'em and scare and terrifie 'em and because their minds are so haunted with these importunate terrours of the World to come they are affraid to look inwards but are fain to live abroad in their own defence as not daring to trust themselves alone with themselves all which are plain Presages of a future Judgment and Vengeance that awaits wicked Souls after this life For if this dread of future Punishment be natural to us as its sticking so closely and universally to humane Nature plainly argues it is it must be imprest on us by the great Author of Nature and for him to impress a Passion on us which hath no real Object would be to impose a Cheat upon our Natures and abuse our minds with a false Alarm So that either we must suppose that God hath implanted in our Natures a â—â—ead of that which is not which is a dishonourable reflection on his Truth and Veracity or that there is really a future Punishment answerable to that dread AND as the dread of future Punishment is natural to us when we do ill so the desire and expectance of future Reward is no less natural to us when we do well For I dare boldly say there never was any vertuous Man of whatsoever Nation or Religion or sect of Philosophers whose mind hath not been winged with earnest hopes and desires of a future happiness and there is none that ever yet either denied or despair'd of it but only such as have first debauched the very Principles of their Nature For such it 's evident were the Sadduces and Epicureans sects of Men that had drowned all that was humane in 'em in sensuality and voluptuousness and are branded upon Record for their shameful Indulgence to their own brutish Genius and such are no Standards of humane Nature but ought rather to be look'd upon as Monsters of Men. And therefore as we do not judg of the natural Figures and proportions of humane Bodies by monstrous and mishapen births so neither ought we to judg of what is natural or unnatural to Men by those brutes in humane shape who by submitting their Reason to their passions and Appetites have disfigur'd their Natures and distorted it into an unnatural Position But if we would know what is humane and natural to us we must take our measures from those who live most conformably to the Laws of a Rational Nature and these are they whom we call Pious and Virtuous who are therefore to be look'd upon as the true Standards of humane Nature by whom we may best judg of what is natural and unnatural to us and if we judg by these we shall most certainly find that Virtue and the hopes of Immortality are so nearly allied that like Hippocrates Twins they live and die together For though while Men live a brutish and sensual Life their future hopes are usually drowned in their present Enjoyments yet when once they recover out of this unnatural state and begin to live like reasonable beings immediately they feel great desires and expectations of a future happiness springing up in their minds and so arising higher and higher proportionably as they advance in virtue and goodness which is a plain evidence that these hopes and desires are natural to us and interwoven with the frame and constitution of our Souls But now how can it consist with the goodness of God to implant such desires and hopes in our Natures and then withhold from 'em that which is the only Object that can sute and satisfie ' em For as a great Divine of our own hath well observed Other Beings we see have no natural desire in vain the good God having so ordered things that there are Objects in Nature apportioned to all their natural Appetites but if there be no future state of happiness reserved for good Men We are by a natural Principle most strongly inclined to that which we can never attain to as if God had purposely framed us with such inclinations that so we might be perpetually tormented between those two Passions Desire and Despair an earnest propension after a future Happiness and an utter incapacity of enjoying it as if Nature it self whereby all other things are disposed to their perfection did serve only in Man to make him miserable and which is more considerable as if Virtue which is the perfection of Nature did only serve to contribute to our infelicity by raising in us such desires and expectations as without a future Happiness must be for ever disappointed But if this Desire and Expectation be natural to us as it evidently is it must be implanted there by the God of Nature with whose truth and goodness it can never consist to inspire us with such Desires and Hopes as he knows have no Object in the nature of things and so can never be fulfilled and accomplish'd V. FROM the excellent frame and constitution of humane Nature it 's also evident that there is a future state of Reward and Punishment For whoever shall impartially consider the frame of our Natures will easily discern that we are made for much greater purposes than to enjoy this World and that our faculties are as much too big for these sensitive fruitions as the Channel of the Ocean is for the streams of a little River For the highest happiness we can frame an Idea of is the enjoyment of God by contemplation and love and imitation of his Perfections as I have proved at large Part. 1. c. 3. which doth as far excel all Worldly happiness as the Enjoyments of a Prince do the pleasures of a Fly and yet it is evident that our minds are framed with a natural capacity of enjoying this supream Beatitude i. e. of contemplating and loving and imitating God For as for the Being and Existence of God all things round about us preach and proclaim it and which way soever we turn our Eyes we behold the footsteps of his Power and Wisdom and being endowed with a reasoning faculty we can easily ascend to the infinite Perfections of his Nature by those borrowed Perfections we behold in his Creatures which are so many lively Comments and Paraphrases upon him and so far forth as they are Perfefections must necessarily meet and concenter in him and then such is the frame of our natures that from the contemplation of the Beauty and Perfection of any Being we naturally proceed to admire and love it so that unless our wills be violently prejudiced against the Perfections of God our contemplation must necessarily kindle our love of 'em and then those Perfections which we love and admire in another we are naturally ambitious to transcribe into our selves so that being once inflamed with the love of God that will be continually prompting us to imitate him and that will by degrees mould us into a fair and glorious resemblance of him Thus God hath implanted in the very frame of our Nature
its Will Affections and Actions with those everlasting Laws of righteousness which right reason prescribes how many are there that look upon this as a very mean and carnal accomplishment and place all their perfection in things of a quite different nature viz. in the Ebbs and Flows of their sensitive passion and the extraordinary Fermentations of their bloud and spirits that is to say in unaccountable dejections and exaltations of mind in vehement impressions of fancy and Mechanical movements of affection in Raptures and Ecstacies and Hypocondriacal incomes and manifestations that have nothing of substantial Vertue or Piety in them nor commonly any other effect but to cause men to renounce that Righteousness which they never had and rely upon that which they have no Title to and to sooth and tickle their fancies and blow them up into glorious opinions of themselves and Triumphant assurances of their being the Darlings and Favourites of God whilst poor Moral men that make conscience of regulating their affections and actions by the eternal Laws of Righteousness are look'd upon by them with a scornful compassion and placed in the lowermost form of sinners at the greatest distance from the Kingdom of God Now when men take such false measures of their own perfection how is it possible they should conceive aright of the perfections of God which they have no other way to conceive of but only by arguing from their own Wherefore in order to the forming our Ideas of Gods perfections it is necessary we should first fix the true Notion of our own which is no hard matter for us to do For our Nature being reasonable to be sure its perfection must consist in willing affecting and acting reasonably or which is the same thing in Governing it self in all its relations and circumstances by those immutable Laws of goodness which right reason prescribes and which are exemplified to us in the holy Scripture and when we have fixt in our minds this Notion of our own perfection it will naturally conduct our thoughts to God's and let us see that his perfection consists not in a lawless and boundless Will that decrees without foresight resolves without reason and Wills because it will and then executes its own blind and unaccountable purposes by dint of irresistible power without any regard to right or wrong For if we rightly understand our own perfection we cannot but discern that such a Will as this is one of the most monstrous deformities in nature because it is the most Diametrically opposite to the true Idea of our own Perfection which while we attentively fix our eyes on we cannot but infer from it that the true perfection of God consists in the unvariable determination of his Will by the all-comprehending reason of his Mind or in chusing and refusing decreeing and executing upon such reasons as best becomes a God to will and act on i. e. upon such as are infinitely wise and good and just and merciful For if to Will and Act upon such reasons as these be the perfection of our nature we cannot but conclude that it is the perfection of Gods too but if we are ignorant of our own perfection we must necessarily think of God at Rovers without any certain aim or rule to square and direct our apprehensions II. ANOTHER cause of our misapprehension of God is our framing our Notions of him according to the Model of our own particular humour and temper For self-love being the most vehement affection of Humane Nature and that upon which all it s other affections are founded there is no one Vice to which we are more universally obnoxious than that of excessive fondness and partiality to our selves which makes us too often dote upon the deformities and even Idolize the Vices of our own temper So that whether our nature be stern sour and imperious or fond easie and indulgent we are apt to admire it as a great perfection merely because it is Ours without measuring it by those eternal reasons which are the Rules of Good and Evil Perfection and Imperfection and then whatever we look upon as a perfection in our selves we naturally attribute to God who is the cause and fountain of all perfection And hence it comes to pass that mens minds have been always tinctured with such false and repugnant opinions of God because they frame their judgments of him not so much by their reason as by their temper and humour and so their different humours being not only unreasonable in themselves but repugnant and contrary to one another produce in them not only false and unreasonable but contrary and repugnant opinions of God Thus for instance the Epicureans who were a soft and voluptuous Sect intirely addicted to ease and pleasure fancied God to be such a one as themselves a Being that was wholly sequestred from action and confined to an Extra-mundane Paradise where he lived in perfect ease and was entertained with infinite Luxuries without ever concerning his thoughts with any thing abroad for this they thought was the top of all perfection and therefore thus they would have chosen to live had they been Gods themselves Thus the Stoicks who were a sort of very morose and inflexible people copied their Notions of God from their own complexion supposing him to be an inflexible Being that was utterly incapable of being moved and affected by the reasons of things but was wholly governed by a stern and inexorable Fate And accordingly the Scythians and Thracians the Gaules and Carthaginians who were a people of a bloudy and Barbarous nature Pictured their Gods from their own temper imagining them to be of a bloud-thirsty nature that delighted to feed their hungry Nostrils with the Nidorous reeks and steams of humane gore Whereas on the contrary the Platonists who were generally of a very soft and amorous nature took their measure of God thereby and so framed an Idea of him that was as soft and amorous as their own complexion composed altogether of loves and smiles and indearments without the least intermixture of vengeance and severity how just soever in it self or necessary to the well-government of the World Thus as the Ethiopians pictured their Gods black because they were black themselves so generally men have been always prone to represent God in the colour of their own complexions which is the cause that they many times represent him so utterly unlike to himself because out of an unreasonable partiality to themselves they first mistake the deformities of their own natures for perfections and then Deifie them them into Divine Attributes Thou thoughtest saith God that I was altogether such a one as thy self Psal. 50.21 that is thou didst frame thy conceptions of me according to the Pattern of thy own ill-nature and so thoughtest basely and unworthily of me And hence I doubt not spring most of those misapprehensions of God which have been received among Christians For how is it possible for any man that is not of
did alter or cease For had Sacrifices been good in their own Natures their goodness had been as unalterable as their Nature whereas on the contrary we find that whereas their Nature neither is nor can be altered yet their Goodness or Necessity is For as before God adopted them into the Rubrick of Religion by his own positive Institution they were indifferent things so after this Institution was repealed by a contrary Command they became unlawful So that it is now as necessary that we should not Offer them in the Worship of God as it was before that we should And the same may be said of all the other Rites of the Mosaick Law which being in their own Nature Indifferent could no otherewise be converted either into Necessary or Sinful but by God's express Command or Prohibition Whereas Justice and Mercy c. are good in themselves abstractly considered from all Will and Command and are not good meerly because they are Commanded but are commanded because they are good because they carry with them such unalterable Reasons as do in themselves render the practice of them eternally necessary For tho there be very good reason why men should not offer material Sacrifices notwithstanding they were once injoyned yet it can never be reasonable for them to be unjust or cruel or proud because the contrary vertues carry such fixed and immutable Reasons with them as will bind and oblige us to eternity insomuch that tho we had a Dispensation to be proud under the Broad-Seal of Heaven yet 't would still be very absurd and unreasonable to be so And as things that are only positively necessary or sinful derive all their necessity and sinfulness from God's direct or express Command and Prohibition so they cannot be commanded or forbidden by Consequence For if the Matter of them be antecedently Lawful or Indifferent it must necessarily remain so till it is directly commanded or forbidden there being no other Reason to bound and limit it but only the Will of the Law-giver in whose disposal it is and therefore till he directly signifies his Will either for or against it it must remain as it is i. e. Free and Indifferent But you will say Suppose God hath commanded such an indifferent thing for such a Reason doth it not thence follow that he thereby commands every other indifferent thing that hath the same reason for it I answer No for if the Reason why he commands it be necessary and eternal it is not a thing indifferent but morally necessary and so is every thing else that hath the same Reason for it and consequently the reason of the Law tho it be applyed but to one thing extends to every thing of the same Nature because in all moral Cases the Reason of the Law is the Law But if the thing commanded be in it self indifferent the Reason why it is commanded cannot be necessary and therefore tho there be the same Reason why another thing of the same Nature should be commanded yet it doth not necessarily oblige unless it be commanded actually because in such Cases it is not the Reason but the Authority of the Law that obliges and therefore where there is only the Reason and not the Law it lays no obligation on the Conscience From the whole therefore it is evident what is the difference between things that are positively and morally Necessary and Sinful which I thought very necessary to explain at large for the giving a fuller light to the ensuing Discourse in which I shall endeavor to shew First THAT there is such an intrinsick Goodness in some Humane Actions as renders them for ever necessary and obliging to us Secondly THAT God hath sufficiently discovered to us what those Humane Actions are which carry with them this perpetual obligation Thirdly THAT these Actions which carry with them this perpetual obligation are the main and principal parts of Religion SECT I. That there is such an Intrinsick Good in some Humane Actions as render them for ever Necessary and obliging to us GOOD is twofold Absolute or Respective or the Good of the End and the Good of the Means The good of the End is that which is the Perfection and Happiness of any Being the good of the Means is that which tends and conduces thereunto As for Instance the absolute Good of a Brute Animal consists in the Perfection and Satisfaction of its Sense or in having perfect Feeling and Sensation of such things as are most grateful to its Appetite and Senses It s respective Good is the Means by which its Senses are perfected or rendred lively and vigorous and by which it 's provided for with such things as are grateful and pleasing to them For there being in every animate nature a Principle whereby it 's necessarily inclined to promote its own Preservation and Well-being that which hath in it a fitness to promote this End is called Good as on the contrary that which is apt to hinder it Evil. Now Man being not only a sensitive but a rational Creature hath a twofold Good belonging to his Nature the first Sensitive which is the same with that of brute Animals consisting in the Perfection and Satisfaction of his bodily Senses and Appetites and in those means which conduce thereunto and this for distinction sake is called his Natural Good the second Rational which consists in the Perfection and Satisfaction of his Rational Faculties and in those means which tend thereunto and this is stiled his Moral Good though in reality 't is as much Natural as the former For Man being naturally as well Rational as Sensitive that which promotes his Rational Perfection and Happiness is no less naturally good for him than that which promotes his Sensitive Nay his Rational Nature being the much more noble and excellent part of him that which naturally promotes the Perfection and Happiness of it is in it self a much greater good to his Nature and ought to be preferred by him before any of those Natural goods which conduce only to the happiness of his sensitive Nature and he who indulges his sensitive Part in any Pleasure which his Rational disallows doth thereby create a torment to himself and raise a Devil in his own mind For tho Reason and Religion doth allow that the Sensitive nature should be gratified in all its natural Appetites and Desires yet neither allow that it should be pampered and indulged in any such Excsses as are prejudicial either to it self or to that Rational Nature whereunto it is joyned and he who indulges his Sense in any such Excesses renders himself obnoxious to his own Reason and to gratifie the Brute in him displeases the Man and sets his two Natures at variance So that there is nothing can be naturally good for us that is any way inconsistent with what is morally so i. e. with what conduces to the Perfection and Happiness of our rational Nature and tho this Natural and Moral Good are no way
inconsistent with one another yet it is the Moral that is the Supreme Good of a Man because it is the good of his most excellent Nature Having thus premised what I mean by Good in general and particularly by Moral Good I proceed to shew that in some Humane actions there is such an intrinsick moral Good as renders 'em for ever obliging to us And this I shall endeavour in these following Propositions First THAT the Happiness of Humane Nature is founded in its Perfection Secondly THAT the Perfection of Humane Nature consists in acting suitably to the most perfect Reason Thirdly THAT the most perfect Reason is that wherein all reasonable Beings do consent and agree Fourthly THAT there are certain Rules of Moral Good wherein all Reasonable Beings are agreed Fifthly THAT to act suitably to those Rules hath been always found by universal experience conducible to the Happiness of Humane Nature and the contrary mischievous thereunto I. THAT the Happiness of Humane Nature is founded in its Perfection For the Perfection of Beings consists in their being compleatly disposed and adapted for the End whereunto they are designed Now the End of all Beings that have Life and Sense is that sort of Happiness that is sutable to their Natures for 't is thither that they all of them naturally tend and therein that their Faculties do all concenter When therefore their Faculties or Powers of Action are compleatly disposed to enjoy the proper Happiness of their Natures then are they perfect in their Kind Thus for instance the End of Brutes which have only Bodily Sense is Sensitive and corporeal Happiness and thererefore then is the Brute Creature perfect in its kind when it hath not only all the Parts and Senses that are necessary to procure and enjoy its Happiness but hath them also perfectly sitted tempered and qualified to pursue and relish it And supposing that all the pleasure or happiness of a Beast consisted in the Taste and Smell of its Pasture it could never be compleatly happy so long as the Organs of its Smell or Taste were imperfect So that the perfection of every Sensible Nature consists in being perfely disposed to enjoy its Natural Happiness And accordingly herein consists the Perfection of Humane Nature in being perfectly fitted and disposed to enjoy and relish Humane Happiness For this being its proper End it is impossible it should ever be perfect in its Kind till 't is compleatly contempered and adapted thereunto So that our Happiness must necessarily be founded in our Perfection which is nothing else but the perfect Disposition of our Natures to relish and enjoy those Goods wherein the Happiness of our Nature consists and till our Nature is perfectly disposed to enjoy them all the good things of Heaven and Earth will be insufficient to render us perfectly happy II. THAT the Perfection of Humane Nature consists in acting sutably to the most Perfect Reason For Reason being the top and Crown of Humane Nature hath a natural Right to Command and Dispose of its Motions to be the Eye of its Will and the Guide of its Affections and the Law of all its Powers of Action And indeed for what other use serves the Reason of a Man but to prescribe Rules to his unreasonable Affections to light and direct them to their proper Objects and as they are moving towards them to moderate their Excesses and to quicken their Defects and to lead them on to true Happiness in an even Course through all the wild Mazes of popular Mistakes And unless it be thus imployed the man is Reasonable in vain and his light like a Candle inclosed in a Dark-Lanthorn burns out in wast and spends it self in an useless and unprofitable blaze And whilst to please our Appetites and Passions we run counter to the advice of our Reason we forsake the rule of our Natures and act like Beasts and not like Men in which course of Action if we persist we must necessarily degenerate from our selves and sink by degrees into the most sordid Brutality For when once our Appetites have gotten the Command of our Reason and not only dethroned but inslaved it the very Order of our Nature is transposed and we are become our own Reverse and Antipodes If therefore we would arrive at our own Perfection it must be by following our Reason and submitting all our Affections and Appetites to its Government For what else can be the Perfection of a Rational Nature but to be perfectly Rational and what is it to be perfectly Rational but to have our Minds throughly instructed with the Principles of Right Reason and our Will and Affections intirely regulated by them For herein consists the Supream Perfection not only of Men but of Angels yea and of God Himself the Crown and Glory of whose Nature it is that he always knows and chuses and acts what is fittest and best and most reasonable And when once our Understanding is so far inlightned as that it always dictates right Reason to us and our Will and Affections are so far subdued as that they always freely and chearfully comply with it we have arrived to the very top of our Nature and are Commenced perfect Men in Christ Jesus III. THAT the most perfect Reason is that wherein all Reasonable Beings do consent and agree For if there be any such matter as True and False Reasonable and Vnreasonable in the Nature of things and if there be any such thing as Vnderstanding among Beings whereby they are capable of distinguishing between the one and the other either that must be True and Reasonable which all Understandings do consent and agree in or all the Understandings that are in the World must be under a fatal Cheat and Delusion Which later being supposed inevitably destroys all Knowledge and Certainty and lays a foundation for the wildest Scepticism For supposing all Understandings to be deceived and imposed on it is impossible for us to be certain of any thing and for all we know a Part may be bigger than the Whole two and two may make twenty and both parts of a Contradiction may be true Nay we can never be certain whether we are not Dreaming when we think we are Awake and whether we are not Awake when we think we are Dreaming Either therefore we must renounce all Certainty whatsoever and fluctuate in eternal Scepticism or allow that to be True and Reasonable which all Understandings do unanimously vote so IV. THAT there are certain Rules of Moral Goodness concerning the immutable Reason whereof all Understandings are agreed For such are all those which prescribe the Dueness of Worship and Veneration to God of Obedience and Loyalty to our Parents and Superiours of Temperance and Fortitude to our selves and of Justice and Charity to one another to the Goodness and Reasonableness of which Rules all Understandings do as unanimously consent as to the truth of any Proposition in the Mathematicks Now of all the orders of Reasonable Beings
Happiness Secondly HE hath given us Reason to discern what Actions they are that make for our Happiness and what not Thirdly HE hath so contrived our Natures as that we are thrust on by our own Instincts and Passions to those Actions which make for our Happiness Fourthly HE hath taken care to excite and oblige us to those Actions by annexing natural Rewards to them and entailing natural Punishments on their Contraries Fifthly To strengthen and inforce this Obligation he hath frequently superadded to these natural Rewards and Punishments supernatural Blessings and Judgments Sixthly THAT to enforce all this he hath made sundry supernatural Revelations wherein he hath plainly told us what those things are that carry with 'em this intrinsick Good and Necessity I. GOD hath taken care to discover to us what is Morally Good by implanting in us a natural Desire of Happiness which is so inseparable to Humane nature that 't is impossible for us to forbear desiring what is good for us or at least what appears so For tho through our own Ignorance and Inconsideration we many times mistake Evil for Good and Misery for Happiness yet such is the Frame of our Nature that we cannot desire Evil as Evil or Misery as Misery but whensoever we imbrace a real Evil 't is either under the Notion of a less Evil or of a real and substantial Good Now by this unquenchable Thirst and Desire of Happiness which God hath implanted in our Natures we are continually importuned and excited to search out and enquire by what Ways and Means we may arrive to be happy So that as Hunger and Thirst and the sense of bodily Pain and Pleasure forceth men upon the invention of Trades and civil Occupations to supply their Necessities and Conveniences So this vehement Hunger and Thirst after Happiness which God hath created in our Bosoms doth almost necessitate and constrain us to pry into the Nature of our Actions that so we may discover what Trade and Course of life it is that tends most directly to our own Felicity And by thus importuning us by our own self love to enquire into the Nature of our Actions and into their natural tendencies to our Weal or Woe he hath not only expressed his good will towards us by taking Security of our selves for our own Welfare and obliging us to be happy by the most tender and vigorous Passion in our Natures but hath also taken an effectual Course to discover to us the Good and Evil of our own Actions Considering II. THAT he hath given us Reason to discern what Actions they are that make for our Happiness and what not 'T is true had he only implanted in our Breasts a blind Desire of Happiness without any Eye of Reason in our Heads to guide and direct our Actions towards it we must have wandered in the dark for ever till we had pined away our wretched Beings with a hungry and unsatisfied Desire But by giving us a quick-sighted Faculty of Reason to guide and conduct this our blind Desire he hath taken sufficient care not only to excite our Enquiry after the Way to Happiness but also to inable us to find it For the natural tendencies of our Actions to our Happiness or Misery are so very obvious and visible that we can scarce open our Eyes and look abroad without observing them For how can any man who makes any observations upon things be so stupid as not to discern the vast Difference there is between Truth and Falshood Justice and Injustice as to their natural tendency to the Good and Hurt Happiness and Misery of Mankind 'T is true if men will neglect using their Reason they may be ignorant of the plainest Propositions but if they be 't is their inexcusable Folly But if men will be so true to their own Interest as calmly to reflect upon their Actions their Sense cannot more readily distinguish between Honey and Gall than their Reason will beween Virtue and Vice the fundamental Reasons of which are so legible in all the Appearances of Nature so necessary to the Being and Preservation of Mankind and their equity is so apparent and their Convenience so obvious that a man can hardly reflect upon any thing either within or without him without being convinced of their Force and Obligation So that for a man that hath the use of his Reason not to observe the Difference of his Actions as to their intrinsick Good and Evil and necessary Tendency to his Happiness and Misery would be as gross and unexcusable a Stupidity as if he should pass through the World without ever taking notice that two and two make four God therefore by giving us a Reasonable Faculty to discern the nature of things upon which the Differences of Good and Evil are so plainly and legibly imprinted hath hereby taken sufficient Care to shew us the difference of our own Actions For to inspire us with a Faculty of Reasoning by which we can form true Notions of things from single Experiments and infer one truth from another and immediately to inspire this Faculty with Divine Truth are only two different Modes of Divine Revelation and God did as really reveal himself to us when he gave us Reason to understand his Will as when he sent to us his Messengers from Heaven to make known his mind and Will to us For God hath so framed our Understandings as that whensoever we impartially reason about things we are forced to distinguish between Good and Evil and cannot persuade our selves without doing infinite Violence to our own Faculties that to Blaspheme God or to Reverence him to lie or speak Truth to honour our Parents or to scorn and despise them are things of an indifferent Nature but as soon as ever we open the Eye of our Reason we discern such an essential Difference between them as forces us to condemn the one and approve the other And accordingly as for the great strokes of Iniquity we find they have as much the Universal Judgment of our Reason against them as any false Conclusion in the Mathematicks whilst the Goodness of their contrary Vertues is as universally acknowledged by us as the Truth of any first Principle in Philosophy Since therefore God hath so framed our Understanding as that it cannot calmly reflect upon our Actions without distinguishing between the good and bad he hath hereby sufficiently revealed to us what that good is that immutably binds and obliges us III. GOD hath so contrived our Natures as that we are thrust on by our own Instincts and Passions to those Actions which are morally Good and do make for our Happiness For we are framed and constituted with such Passions and Affections as do naturally point and direct us unto vertuous Actions and tho by the Constitution of our Natures our Passions are subjected to our Reason and all our Vertue consists in being reasonably affected yet in the very Nature of our Passions there is a certain Tendency and
Direction to Vertue antecedent to all our Reasoning and Discourse Which Theages the Pythagorean stiles a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a certain natural Impetus or Enthusiasme by which without any previous Discourse or Deliberation we are forcibly carried on towards vertuous Actions For some Affections there are in our Nature which do in the general plainly signifie to us that there is such a thing as Moral Good and Evil in Humane Actions and others that do as plainly point out what those Actions are wherein this moral good and evil is subjected Of the first sort are the Affections of Love and Hatred Complacency and Horror Glory and Shame Repentance and Self-satisfaction which plainly declare that there are answerable Objects in the Nature of Things and Actions that there is a Good to be beloved and an Evil to be hated a Deformity to be abhorred and a Beauty to be delighted in an Excellency to be gloried in and a Filthiness to be ashamed of a Well-doing to be satisfied 〈…〉 an Ill doing to be repented of For 〈◊〉 theâ—e were no such real Distinctions in the Nature of Things and Actions all these Affections in us would be utterly vain and impertinent And as these Affections of our Nature do signifie in the general that there is a moral Good and Evil in our Actions so there are others which do particularly point out what Actions are morally Good and what Evil. Thus for Instance the Passions of Veneration and Disdain do plainly direct us to Honour God and our Superiors and to be constant in good Courses out of a generous Scorn of all Temptations to the contrary Thus Commiseration and Envy direct us to Charity and Justice to lament and assist those who are undeservedly unfortunate and to be displeased with the Advancement of base and undeserving People and consequently to be just and equal in our Distributions and to proportion them to mens Merit and Desert For by this Passion of Envy Nature teaches us that there is such a thing as just and unjust equal and unequal and that the former is to be embraced and the latter to be shunned And to name no more thus Sorrow and Joy doth by a silent Language disswade us from injuring and perswade us to benefit one another For so by the mournful Voice the dejected Eyes and Countenance the Sighs and Groans and Tears of the sorrowful and opprest all which are the powerful Rhetorick of Nature we are importuned not only to forbear heaping any further Injuries upon them but also to commiserate their Griefs and by our timely Aids to succour and relieve them As on the contrary the florid and chearful Looks the pleasant and grateful Air which we behold in those that rejoyce are so many Charms and Attractives by which Nature allures us to mutual Vrbanity and Sweetness of Behaviour and a continual Study to please and gratifie one another By these and many other Instances I might give it is evident that tho by our own ill Government we too often deprave our Affections and corrupt them into Vices yet their natural Drift and tendency lies towards Vertue Thus by their own natural Light which they carry before us they direct our steps to the Way we are to walk in and point out all those Tracts of eternal Goodness that lead to our Happiness For since these Affections are in us antecedently to all our Deliberations and Choices it is evident they were placed there by the Author of our Natures and therefore since 't is He who hath inclined them to all that they naturally incline to He doth in Effect direct and guide us by their Inclinations So that their natural Tendencies and Directions are the Voice of God in our Natures which murmurs and whispers to us that natural Law which our Reason indeed doth more plainly and articulately promulge And from this natural Tendency of our Affections to Good proceeds that pleasant and painful Sense of good and bad Actions which we experience in our selves before ever we can discourse For thus before we are capable of reasoning our selves into any Pleasure or Displeasure our Nature is rejoyced in a kind or just Action either in our selves or others and we are sensibly pleased when we have pleasured those that oblige us and as sensibly grieved when we are conscious of having grieved and offended them We love to see those fare well who we imagine have deserved well and when any unjust Violence is offered them our Nature shrinks at and abhors it We pity and compassionate the miserable when we know not why and are ready to offer at their Relief when we can give no Reason for it which shews that these things proceed not either from our Education or deliberate Choice but from the Nature of our Affections which have a Sympathy with Vertue and an Antipathy to Vice implanted in their very Constitution And hence it is that in the Beginnings of Sin our Nature is commonly so shy of an evil Action that it approaches it with such a modest Coyness and goes blushing to it like a bashful Virgin to an Adulterers Bed that it passes into it with such Regret and Reluctancy and looks back upon it with such Shame and Confusion which in our tender years when as yet we are not arrived to the Exercise of our Understandings cannot be supposed to proceed from Reason and Conscience and therefore must be from the natural Sense of our Affections which by these and such like Indications do signifie that they are violated and offended Now this natural Sense of Good and Evil which springs from the Frame and Nature of our Affections was doubtless intended by God to be the 〈◊〉 guide of Humane Nature that so when as yet 't is not capable of following Reason and Conscience it might be directed to what is Good and be preserved from wicked Habits and Prejudices by its own Sense and Feeling till such time as it 's capable of the Conduct of Reason that so when this leading Faculty undertakes the Charge of it it may find it 〈…〉 to its 〈◊〉 and be able to manage it with more Ease and Facility And thus by the natural Drift and Tendency of our Affections God hath plainly revealed to us what is good and what not IV. GOD hath also entailed upon our Actions natural Rewards and Punishments and thereby plainly declared which are good and which evil For it is easily demonstrable by an Induction of Particulars that every Vertue hath some natural Efficacy in it to advance both our publick Good and our private Interest That Temperance and Charity Righteousness and Fidelity Gratitude and Humility are not only convenient but absolutely necessary to our Joy and Comfort our Peace and Quietness our Safety and Contentment to the Health of our Body and the Satisfaction of our Mind and the Security and Happiness of our Society with one another Whereas on the contrary Vice naturally teems with mischievous Effects and is ever productive
of Horror in the Conscience Anguish in the mind Discord in the Affections Diseases in the Body and Confusions and Disturbances in Humane Society Since therefore the Divine Wisdom and Contrivance hath thus inseparably coupled good Effects to good Actions and evil ones to evil it hath hereby very plainly and sensibly declared to us what it would have us do and what not For seeing it hath so constituted things as that in the Course of Nature such Proportions of Happiness do necessarily result to us from such Actions and such Proportions of Misery from their Contraries what can be more evident than that its Design was hereby to encourage us to the one and affright us from the other So that by these natural Rewards and Punishments which in the Course of things God hath chained to our Actions he hath as expresly prescribed us what to do and what not as he could have done if he had spoken to us in an audible voice from the Battlements of Heaven For since the whole Train of Natural Effects is to be resolved into the Providence of God and since his Providence hath so ordered and contrived things as that in the ordinary Course of them good Effects do spring out of good Actions and evil out of evil ones what else could he intend by it but to allure us to the one and terrifie us from the other For it is by Rewards and Punishments that all Lawgivers declare their Will and Pleasure concerning those Actions which they command and sorbid and therefore since God in his Providential Government of the World hath thought good to link natural Rewards to such Actions and natural Punishments to such these are to be lookt upon as the great Sanctions of the Law of Nature whereby he commands what pleases and prohibits what displeases him For when God had no otherwise revealed himself to the World than only by the establsht Course and Nature of things that was the great Bible by which alone Mankind was instructed in their Duty and there being no revealed Threats or Promises annexed to good and bad Actions Gods Will and Pleasure concerning them was visible only in the good and bad Consequents which they drew after them which are so plain and obvious to the Observation of Mankind that 't would be the most inexcusable Inadvertency not to take Notice of them So that the moral Good and Evil of all Actions finally resolves into the natural Good and Evil that is appendant to them and therefore are our Actions morally good because they are naturally beneficial to us and therefore morally evil because they are naturally prejudicial and hurtful and those which in their own nature are neither good nor evil are indifferent in themselves and left altogether undetermined by the Law of Nature which commands and forbids nothing but under the Sanction of those natural Rewards and Punishments which in the Course of things are made necessary to Humane Actions V. TO these natural Rewards and Punishments which God hath entailed upon good and bad Actions he hath thought good many times to superadd supernatural Blessings and Judgments For tho he had before sufficiently expressed his Will concerning Humane Actions in the great Bible of Nature and by their natural Effects had plainly enough distinguished the good from the bad yet considering what heedless and inobservant Creatures we are and how apt to overlook the ordinary Consequents of our Actions he hath not altogether abandoned us to the easie Instructions of Nature but out of his superabundant Care to shew us what is Good and lead us to our Duty and Happiness he hath from time to time seconded the natural Rewards and Punishments of our Actions with supernatural Favours and Judgments that so by these he might awake our drowsie Attention and revive in us the languishing sense of our Duty Of which we have infinite Instances in the several Ages of the World there being scarce any History either Sacred or Prosane that abounds not with them Several of which both Blessings and Judgments do as plainly evince themselves to be intended by God for Rewards and Punishments as if they had been attended with a Voice from Heaven proclaiming the Reasons for which they were sent For how many famous Instances have of we miraculous Deliverances of Righteous Persons who by an Invisible Hand have been rescued from the greatest Dangers when in all outward appearance their Condition was hopeless and desperate and of wonderful Blessings that have hapned to them not only without but contrary to all secondary Causes of some that have been so eminently rewarded in kind as that the Goods which they received were most visible Significations of the Goods which they did of others who have received the Blessings which they have asked whilst they were praying for them and obtained them with such distinguishing Circumstances as plainly signified them to be the Answers and Returns of their devout Addresses to Heaven And so on the contrary how many notable Examples are there of such miraculous Judgments inflicted upon unrighteous Persons as have either exceeded the Power of secondary Causes or been caused by them contrary to their natural tendencies of men that have been punished in the very Act of their Sin and sometimes in the very Part by which they have offended that have had the evil of their Sin retaliated upon them in a correspondent Evil of Suffering and been struck with those very Judgments which they have imprecated on themselves in the Justification of a known Falshood All which supernatural Judgments and Blessings of God are only his Comments on the Text of Nature by which he farther explains to us the Meaning of those natural Rewards and Punishments which Vertue and Vice draw after them and shews us what clear Indications they are of his Almighty Pleasure and Displeasure For when he rewards men supernaturally it is for those Actions that carry a natural Reward with them and when he punishes them supernaturally it is for such Actions as do carry a natural Punishment with them so that his supernatural Rewards and Punishments do speak the same Sense and Language with his natural only they speak plainer and louder to rouse and awake those stupid Souls that are deaf to and regardless of the soft and still voice of natural Rewards and Punishments Thus when the old World by not attending to the natural Consequents of their own Actions had almost extinguished their Sense of Good and Evil God by a supernatural Deluge in which he drowned the wicked and preserved the righteous consigned to all future Generations a standing Monument of his Hatred of Sin and Love of Righteousness that so by the Remembrance of it he might keep Mens heedless Minds more attentive to the natural Rewards and Punishments of their Actions And when the Remembrance of this was almost worn out and with it mens natural Sense of good and evil God by raining down Fire and Brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorra and rescuing
Nature we do in obeying them take Impression from him and stamp his blessed Nature on our own For all those virtuous Dispositions of mind which we acquire by the Practice of Virtue are so many genuine Signatures of God taken from the Seal of his Law and Participations of his Nature For so Holiness which consists in a Conformity of Soul with the eternal Laws of Goodness is in Scripture called the Signature or impression of the Spirit of God whereby we are sealed unto the day of Redemption Eph. 4.30 and such as do righteousness are said to be born of God 1 John 2.29 which implies their deriving from him who is their divine Parent a divine and Godlike Nature even as Children do their humane Nature from their humane Parents So that by the Practice of moral Goodness we receive from God the best thing he can bestow viz. a divine and Godlike Nature and consequently by so doing we render him the highest Honour and Glory For since we can no otherwise honour him but by receiving from him we doubtless do him the greatest honour when we receive Himself by partaking of the Perfections of his Nature which are the greatest Gift he can communicate to us Herein saith our Saviour is my Father Glorified that ye bear much fruit John 15.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the aforenamed Philosopher i. e. he only knows how to honour God who presenrs himself a Sacrifice to him carves his own Soul into a divine Image and composes his Mind into a Temple for the Entertainment of God and the Reception of the divine Light and Glory 'T is then therefore that we best honour God when by the Practice of true Godliness we conform our Wills and Affections to him and derive into our selves his Nature and Perfections and should you erect to him a Temple more magnificent than Solomons and load its Altars with Hecatombs of Sacrifices and make it perpetually ring with Psalms and resounding Choirs of Halelujahs it would not be comparably so great an Honour to him as to convert your own Souls into living Temples and make them the Habitations of his Glory and Perfections For he values no Sacrifice like that of an obedient Will delights in no Choir like that of pure and heavenly Affections nor hath he in all his Creation an Ensign of Honour so truly worthy of him as that of a divine and God-like Soul a Soul that reflects his Image and shines back his own Glory upon him Wherefore since 't is by the Practice of moral Goodness that we receive God and copie his Nature into our own it is no wonder he should make it the principal Part of our Duty For how can it be otherwise expected but that he should exact that chiefly of us which most conduces to his own glory Since then nothing we can do can conduce to his Glory but only our receiving Benefits from him and since no Benefit we receive from him can so much conduce to it as our receiving Himself and since we can no otherwise receive himself but by practising that Goodness which is the Perfection of his Nature we must hereby doubtless render him the greatest Honour and Glory II. GOD hath made moral Goodness the principal Part of our Duty because 't is by this that we do most truely imitate him For so you find in Scripture that wherever God is proposed to us for a Pattern of Action it is by some Act or other of Morality that we are required to transcribe and imitate him So 1 Pet. 1.16 be ye holy for I am holy and Luke 6.36 be ye merciful as your Father is merciful and Mat. 5.48 be you perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect And indeed 't is only in Moral Goodness that God can be the Pattern of our Imitation as for those Perfections of his which for Distinction-sake we call natural viz. his Omniscience and Omnipresence Omnipotence and Eternity they are all beyond the Sphere of our Imitation and therefore were never proposed to us as the Copies of our Action But as for his moral Perfections viz. his Goodness and Righteousness and Purity and Mercy they are the Fundamental Rules and Standards of all moral Action For the Nature of God as it is infinitely good and righteous is the eternal Fountain whence all the Laws of Morality are derived and all those moral Precepts by which he governs his rational Creation are only so many Exemplifications of the moral Perfections of his own Nature For the Holiness of God which comprehends all his moral Perfections consists in that essential Rectitude of Nature whereby he always chooses and acts conformably to the Dictates of his own infallible Reason and 't is to this Rectitude of choosing and acting that all his moral Laws do oblige us For moral Laws are only the Dictates of right Reason prescribing us what to do and what to avoid so that in our Complyance with them we follow the Rule of Gods own Will and Actions and thereby imitate the eternal Rectitude of his Nature For tho in those different States and Relations of God and Creature right Reason cannot be supposed to oblige him and us to all the same particular Choices and Actions yet it obliges us both to act reasonably in our respective States and Relations it obliges God to act reasonably and as it becomes the State and Relation of a God and Creator and it obliges us to act reasonably and as it becomes the State and Relation of men and Creatures And as for God He is invariably inclined to do all that right Reason obliges him to by the essential Rectitude of his own Nature and herein consists all his moral Perfection which is nothing else but the immutable Inclination of his Nature to do whatever is just and good and reasonable So that while we live according to the Dictates of Reason or which is the same thing the eternal Laws of Morality we trace and imitate the moral Perfections of God and in our Place and Station live at the same Rate and by the same Rule that He doth in his We do what God himself would do if he were in our Place and what the Son of God did do when he was in our Nature and there is no other Difference between his Life and ours but what necessarily arises out of our different States and Relations Since therefore Moral Goodness is an Imitation of God 't is no wonder that he so much prefers it before all other matter of Duty For he must needs be supposed to love that above all things which is the true Copie and Image of those Perfections of his Nature for the sake of which he loves Himself above all For he loves himself not merely because he is Himself but because he is in all respects morally Good and his Will and Power are perfectly compliant with the infallible Dictates of his own Reason and hence arises his infinite Complacency in himself that there is
nothing in him but what his own Reason perfectly approves no Inclination in his Will or Nature but what is exactly agreeable to the fairest Ideas of his own Mind And since it is for his own Goodness-sake that he loves himself as he doth we may be sure that there is nothing without him can be so dear to him as that in us which is the Image of his Goodness Every like we say loves its like and the righteous Lord saith the Psalmist loveth Righteousness Psal. 11.7 i. e. being righteous himself he loves Righteousness in others by an invincible sympathy of Nature His greatest Heaven and Delight is in his own most righteous Nature and next to that in righteous Souls that imitate and resemble him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God hath not a more grateful Habitation upon Earth than in a pure and vertuous Mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Apollo that Mimick of God by his Pythian Oracle i. e. I rejoyce as much in pious Souls as in my own Heaven Which is much what the same with that gracious Declaration that God himself makes by the Prophet Isaiah 57.15 thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity whose Name is Holy I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble Spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones Since therefore moral Duties are all but so many Copies and Exemplifications of Gods Nature this is a sufficient Reason why he should prefer them before all the Positives of Religion III. GOD principally requires moral Goodness because 't is by the Practice of this that we advance to our own natural Happiness For the natural Happiness of reasonable Creatures consists in being entirely governed by right Reason i. e. in having our Minds perfectly informed what it is that right Reason requires of us and our Wills and Affections reduced to an entire Conformity thereunto And this is the Perfection of moral Goodness which consists in behaving our selves towards God and our selves and all the World as right Reason advises or as it becomes rational Creatures placed in our Circumstances and Relations And when by practising all that true Piety and Vertue which moral Goodness implies we are perfectly accomplished in our Behaviour towards God our selves and all the World so as to render to each without any Reserve or Reluctancy what is fit and due in the Judgment of right Reason we are arrived to the most happy State that a reasonable Nature can aspire to 'T is true in this Life we cannot be perfectly happy and that not only because we live in wretched Bodies that are continually liable to Pain and Sickness but also because we are imperfect our selves and have none to converse with but imperfect Creatures But were we once stript of these natural and moral Imperfections wheresoever we lived we should necessarily be happy Were I to live all alone without this painful Body I should necessarily be in a great measure happy while I followed right Reason tho I lived in the darkest Nook of the Creation For there I should still contemplate God and while I did so my mind would be always ravish'd with his Beauty and Perfections there I should most ardently love him and while I did so I should sympathise and share with him in his Happiness there I should still adore and praise him and while I did so I should feel my self continually drawn up to him and wrapt into a real Injoyment of him there I should be imitating his Perfections and while I did so I should enjoy an unspeakable Self-satisfaction perceiving how every Moment I grew a more Divine and Godlike Creature there I should intirely resign up my self to his heavenly Will and Disposal and while I did so I should be perpetually exulting under a joyous Assurance of his Love and Favour in a word there I should firmly depend upon his Truth and Goodness and while I did so I should be always triumphing in a sure and certain Hope of a happy Being for ever Thus were I shut up all alone in an unbodied State and had none but God to converse with by behaving my self towards him as right Reason directs me I should always enjoy him and in that Injoyment should be always Happy And if while I thus behaved my self towards God I took care at the same time to demean my self towards my self with that exact Prudence and Temperance and Fortitude and Humility which right Reason requires I should hereby create another Heaven within me a Heaven of calm Thoughts quiet and uniform Desires serene and placid Affections which would be so many everflowing Springs of Pleasure Tranquillity and Contentment within me But if while I thus enjoyed God and my self by behaving my self as right Reason directs I might be admitted to live and converse among perfect Spirits and to demean my self towards them with that exact Charity and Justice and Peaceableness and Modesty which right Reason requires the Wit of man could not conceive a true Pleasure beyond what I should now enjoy For now I should be possest of every thing my utmost Wishes could propose of a good God a Godlike joyful and contented Soul a peaceable kind and righteous Neighbourhood and so all above within and without me would be a pure and perfect Heaven And indeed when I have thrown off this Body and am stript into a naked Ghost the only or at least the greatest goods my Nature will be capable of enjoying are God my self and blessed Spirits and these are no otherwise injoyable but only by Acts of Piety and Vertue without which there is no good thing beyond the Grave that a Soul can tast or relish So that if when I go to seek my Fortune in the World of Spirits God should thus bespeak me O man now thou art leaving all these Injoyments of Sence consult with thy self what will do thee good and thou shalt have whatsoever thou wilt ask to carry with thee into that spiritual State I am sure the utmost I should crave would be this Lord give me a heart inflamed with Love and winged with Duty to thee that thereby I may but enjoy thee give me a sober and a temperate mind that thereby I may but enjoy my self give me a kind a peaceable and a righteous Temper that thereby I may but enjoy the sweet Society of blessed Spirits O give me but these blessed things and thou hast crowned all my wishes and to Eternity I will never crave any other Favour for my self but only this that I may continue a pious and a vertuous Soul for ever for while I continue so I am sure I shall enjoy all spiritual Good and be as happy as Heaven can make me So that the main Happiness you see of Humane Nature consists in the Perfection of moral Goodness and it being so it is no wonder that the good God who above all things desires the
Happiness of his Creatures should above all things exact of us the Duties of Morality He knows that our supreme Beatitude is founded in our Piety and Vertue and that out of our free and constant sprightly and vivacious Exercise of these arises all our Heaven both here and hereafter and knowing this that tender Love which he bears us that mighty Concern which he hath for our Welfare makes him thus urgent and importunate with us For he regards our Duty no farther than it tends to our Good and values each Act of our Obedience by what it contributes to our Happiness and 't is therefore that he prefers moral Duties above positive because they are more essential to our eternal Welfare IV. and Lastly GOD principally requires of us moral Goodness because when all positive Duty is ceast this is to be the eternal Work and Exercise of our Natures For Moral Good is from everlasting to everlasting its Birth was elder than the World and its Life and Duration runs parallel with Eternity before ever the Mountains were brought forth 't was founded in the Nature of God and as an inseparable Beam of his all-comprehending Reason it shines from one end of the World to the other For as soon as ever there was a rational Creature in being the obligations of Morality laid hold on him before ever any positive Duty was imposed and as long as ever there remains a rational Creature the Obligations of Morality will abide on him when all positive Duty is expired For moral Obligations are not founded like positive ones upon mutable Circumstances but upon firm and everlasting Reasons upon Reasons that to all Eternity will carry with them the same force and necessity For as long as we are the Creatures of an infinitely perfect Creator 't will be as much our Duty as 't is now to love and adore him as long as we are reasonable Creatures 't will be as much our Duty as 't is now to submit our Will and Affections to our Reason and as long as we are related to other reasonable Creatures 't will be as much our Duty as 't is now to be kind and just and peaceable in all our Intercourses with them So that these are such Duties as no Will can dispense with no Reasons abrogate no Circumstances disanul or make void but as long as God is what he is and we are what we are they must and will oblige us So that what the Psalmist saith of God may be truly applied to moral Goodness the Heavens shall perish but thou shalt remain they all shall wax old as doth a garment and be folded up and Changed but thou art the same yesterday to day and for ever and thy years shall have no end But as long since the positive Parts of the Jewish Religion were cancell'd and repealed the Vail of the Temple rent in twain the Temple it self buried in Ruins and all its Altars thrown down and their Sacrifices abolished whilst the moral Parts of that Religion still stand firm as the everlasting Mountains about Jerusalem so the time will come whem the positive Parts of Christianity it self must cease when Faith must be swallowed up in Visâ—on and Sacraments be made void by Perfection and all the stated times and outward Solemnities of our Worship expire into an everlasting Sabbath but then when all this Scene of things is quite vanished away Piety and Virtue will still keep the Stage and be the everlasting Exercise of our glorified Natures For as I shewed before all positive Duty is instituted in subserviency to moral and like a Scaffold to a House is only erected for the Convenience of Building up this everlasting Structure of Morality and when this is once finished must be all taken down again as an unnecessary Incumbrance that now only hides and obscures the Beauty of that Heavenly Building that was raised on it and shall abide without it for ever to entertain our Faculties through all the future Ages of our Being and to be the everlasting Mansion of our Natures Wherefore since positive Duties must all cease and expire and only moral Goodness is to be our Business for ever 't is no wonder that God who is so good a Master takes so much Care in ths short Apprentiship of our Life to train us up in that which is to be our Trade for ever He knows it is upon Piety and Vertue that we must live to Eternity and maintain our selves in all our Glory and Happiness and that if when we come into the invisible World we have not this blessed Trade to subsist by we are undone for ever and therefore out of a tender Regard to our Welfare he makes it his principal Care to train us up in this everlasting Business of our Natures WHAT then remains but that above all things we take care to apply our selves to the Practice of moral Goodness to contemplate and love and adore and imitate God to depend upon him and resign up our selves to his Disposal and Government to be sober and temperate in our Affections and Appetites and just and Charitable and modest and peaceable towards one another These are the great things which God requires at our hands and without these all our Religion is a fulsome Cheat. 'T is true the positive Parts of Religion are our Duty as well as these and God by his Sovereign Authority exacts them at our hands and unless when Jesus Christ hath been sufficiently proposed to us we do sincerely believe in him unless we strike Covenant with him by Baptism and frequently renew that Covenant in the Lords Supper unless we diligently attend on the Publick Assemblies of his Worship and use an honest Care to avoid Schism and to persist in Vnity with his true Catholick Church there is no Pretence of Morality will bear us out when we appear before his dread Tribunal But then we are to consider that the proper Use of all these positive Duties is to improve and perfect us in moral Goodness and unless we use them to this Effect we shall render them altogether void and insignificant Wherefore as we would not lose all the Fruits of our positive Duties let us take care to extend them to their utmost Design to improve our Sacrifice to Obedience our Sacraments to Gratitude and Love our Hearing to Practice our Praying to Devotion and our Fasting to Humility and Repentance For if we rest in these Duties and go no farther thinking by such short Payments to Compound with God for all those Debts we owe to the eternal Laws of Morality we miserably cheat and befool our own Souls which notwithstanding all this Exactness about the Positives of Religion are by their own immoral Affections still enslaved to the Devil to whom it is much one what our outward Form of Religion is whether it be Christian or Heathen or Mahometan provided it doth not operate on our minds or give any Check to the Current of our depraved Natures
and to absent ones self ordinarily from the Publick Assemblies was hardly consistent with the Reputation of being a Christian. By which means their natural Sense and Dread of the divine Powers being continually awakened and revived they were not only secured by it from all Atheistical Impressions but also animated and excited to a pious and sober Conversation But the spirit of Schism prevailing against the Power and Discipline of the Church till it had uttterly disabled it from restraining the Wantonness of that crooked and perverse Generation some incorporated themselves into separate Communions and others under Pretence of so doing withdrew from the Publick Assemblies to the common Resorts of Idleness Drunkenness and Debauchery and whilst the Masters took the Liberty of Conscience to go to Conventicles the Servants pretending to be of a different Perswasion assumed the Liberty of Will to go to Taverns and Ale-houses insomuch that it grew a common Observation that there have been more young People debauched on the Lords Day than all the Week after whilst under pretence of joyning with a different Communion they have taken occasion to withdraw themselves from the Inspection of their Parents and Masters And till once our Schisms and Divisions are cured it will be impossible to prevent this ill Practice unless we will be so unjust as to deny that Liberty of Conscience to our Servants which with so much Clamour and Confidence we demand of our Governors And thus by degrees Profaneness hath insinuated it self under the Covert of Schism and Liberty of Conscience became a common Sanctuary for the licentious Neglect and Contempt of Gods Worship till at last it grew so common and fashionable that it almost ceast to be scandalous Yea so far at length hath this impious Humour prevailed that to go to Church and be devout is among too many Men grown a Note of Disgrace and the Character of a Priest-ridden fool and a Man is hardly lookt upon as fit for genteel Conversation that knows any other use of a Holy-day but only to be at leisure to lie abed or to Game or Drink and Debauch by which Neglect and Contempt of the Worship of God that natural Sense of him which should have been quickned and cherished by it hath been gradually worn out of Mens Minds the Consequence of which is all that Atheism and Infidelity that overspreads this present Age. For when once Men have renounced the Worship of God and in Consequence are abandoned of their natural Sense of his Majesty they are upon the brink of Atheism into which their own vile Lusts whose Interest it is that there should be no God will easily precipitate them But alas how ridiculous as well as impious is it for Men to take occasion from their own Neglect of Gods Worship to renounce the Belief of his Being what is this but to tail one folly to another and to second Extravagance with Madness It would make one amazed to think that ever reasonable Beings should be so besotted as to live in a World over which an Almighty Being presides who sees all their Actions and in whose Hands all events are which concen them and even the everlasting Fate of their Souls and yet take no more notice of him pay no more Respect or Veneration to him than if he were the merest trifle or most insignificant Cypher in the whole Creation But sure when Men have been guilty of such a black and horrid Impiety one would think their wisest Course for the time to come should be to repent of it and to endeavour to compensate for their past Profaneness by the strictness and Sincerity of their future Devotion but for Men to proceed from neglecting Gods Worship to denying his Being is to do worse because they have done ill and thereby to inflame the Provocation as if they were resolved to render their Condition desperate because they have been so fool-hardy as to render it dangerous AND thus I have given a short Account of the common Causes of Atheism which you see are all derived from Mens Wills and not from their Reason For this I do most firmly believe that the Arguments of Gods Existence are so plain and convincing that no Man ever was or can be an Atheist without some inexcusable fault in his Will SECT II. Of the inexcusable Folly and Unreasonableness of Atheism THE next thing I proposed was to endeavour to confirm and establish this great Principle of Religion viz. the Belief of a God by representing the great folly and unreasonableness of Atheism In discoursing which I shall meddle no more than needs must with the Proofs and Arguments of a Deity because as I have shewed before 't is not for want of Arguments that Men turn Atheists but for want of Consideration and an honest Will and that the Byass that carries them towards Infidelity is not in their Vnderstandings but in their Wills and Affections that 't is only their Partiality to their Lusts that inclines them to Atheism and that the Reason why they are so ready to believe that there is no God is because they wish in their Hearts that there were none To establish the Belief of a God therefore I shall endeavour to represent the folly and unreasonableness of Mens being partial on the side of Atheism supposing it were disputable whether there be a God or no and this will evidently appear in the following Particulars 1. The Atheist concludes against the Dignity of Humane Nature and renders it not only mean but ridiculous 2. He concludes against the very Being and Well-being of Humane Society 3. He concludes against that which is the main Support and Comfort of Humane Life 4. He concludes for that side of the Question which is infinitely the most unsafe and hazardous 5. He concludes for the unsafest side of the Question upon the highest uncertainties 6. He plainly contradicts himself in his Conclusion I. THE Atheist concludes against the Dignity of Humane Nature and thereby renders it not only mean but ridiculous For the chief Worth and Dignity of Humane Nature consists in its Relation to God without whom its noblest and most excellent Faculties are in a great measure useless and insignificant for if there be no God the objects of our Five Senses are the sole Entertainment of our Understanding and Will and we have no other use of these mighty Faculties which if there were any such thing as an infinite Truth and Goodness are naturally capable of enjoying them but only to consult and choose the Gratifications of our Sense and the Pleasures of this perishing Body For excepting God there is no such thing in Nature as a spiritual enjoyment no Good to be found but what is prepared to entertain the boundless Liquorishness of our carnal Appetites and had we none but such as these to consult for our Reason which is the Crown and Glory of our Natures would have nothing else to do but to Cater for our Flesh and we should
have an Understanding and Will to no other purpose but to enable us to play the Brutes with more Skill and Sagacity And indeed setting God aside we are so far from having the advantage of Brutes by being rational that we are rather so much the more wretched and despicable than they For as for the Happiness of this Life which wholly consists of sensual Good the Senses and Appetites we have in Common with the Beasts that perish are sufficient for the enjoyment of it and with these we might relish it as well without our Reason as with it we might Eat and Drink and Sleep and enjoy all the Pleasures of a Brute with as much Gust and Savour as we do now with our Reason For if we were Brutes we should do as Brutes do we should weary our selves no longer with vain pursuits nor vex our selves with fruitless Expectations nor torment our selves with the fears of a Disappointment but e'en take our Pleasures when our Appetites craved 'em and they freely offered themselves to our Injoyment And tho our Reason doth sometimes cook the Injoyments of our Sense and give them a higher Relish and and Luxury yet this advantage is very much out-weighed by the many Regrets and Remorses and stinging Reflections it intermingles with our Pleasures So that had we only the Faculties of Brutes I am verily perswaded we should more sincerely enjoy the Happiness of the brutal Nature but to be sure we should bear our Miseries with much more Ease and Chearfulness For supposing there is no God our Reason can afford us no solid support under any Calamity the main Arguments of Comfort as I shall shew by and by being derived from the Consideration of God and his Providence which being taken away I doubt not but we should bear our miseries without our Reason much better than with it For then we should neither be terrified at the approach of them nor tormented with Despair under them then we should neither multiply them with false Opinions nor inrage them with bitter Reflections on the Causes of them but whenever they happened bear them as Beasts do without any other Pain or Uneasiness than what they necessarily impressed on our Senses which would render them a thousand times more tolerable to us than all our Arguments can do supposing we have no God nor Providence to argue from So that were that true which the Atheist concludes for viz. that there is no God it would follow that Reason in a Man serves to no other purpose but to render him more wretched and despicable If there be a God indeed our rational Faculties are of excellent Use as having an Object commensurate to their widest Capacities and every way fit and worthy to employ and exercise them an infinite Truth for our Vnderstanding to dive into and an infinite Good for our Wills and Affections to pursue and embrace But if there be nothing to be enjoyed by us but what is Carnal and Sensual our Reason is so far from being our Ornament and Perfection that it is the Plague and Disgrace of our Natures FOR for any Nature to have more Faculties than what are necessary to its Happiness is monstrous and therefore had we nothing to enjoy but the Happiness of Brutes 't would be a Deformity to our Natures to have the Faculties of Angels because these Faculties would be in vain there being no adequate Object in the Nature of Things to employ and entertain them So that were the Doctrine of the Atheist true it would cashier our Reason for a vain and useless Faculty a thing that serves our Nature to little other purpose but only to vex and disquiet it And what Man that hath any Regard or Reverence for himself would ever be fond of a Belief that thus sinks and depreciates him and lays the Glory of his Nature in the Dust For if it be true that there is no God it is as true that Man is a most despicable Creature that his Reason upon which he so much values himself is a frivolous and impertinent Faculty a Faculty that can serve him to no higher purpose than only to be a Cook and a Taylor to his Body to study Sauces and Fashions for it and that while it serves him in this disserves him in a thousand other Instances in mingling his Pleasures with Gall and Wormwood with Fears and Impatiences Anxieties and Remorses and in aggravating and putting Stings into his Griefs and Calamities So that when all is done the only thing that makes it worth the while for a Man to be reasonable is that there is a Being of infifinite Perfection to be known and loved and imitated and adored by him and to deny the Existence of this blessed Being is infinitely to undervalue our selves and to eclipse the Glory and Dignity of our Natures So that by being partial to Atheism we are partial to our own Shame and Disgrace and industriously consult the Reproach and Infamy of Humane Nature for the Devil himself cannot affix a blacker Scandal on our Reason than what is implied in this Assertion that there is no God AND as it lays the greatest Reproach upon our Nature so it also renders us the most Ridiculous of all Beings For there are certain Affections interwoven with Humane Nature which if there be no God are shamefully ridiculous such as the Dread of invisible Powers the Sense of Good and Evil and the anxious Expectation of a Judgment to come all which are so deeply inlaid in our Beings as that with all our Arts and Reasoning we cannat totally erase them And even the Atheists themselves who have tried all possible ways of extinguishing them have found by Experience that the utmost they can do is to damp and stupifie them at present but that in despight of them they will revive and awake again when Death or Danger approaches them Now how ridiculous are these Affections in Humane Nature if there be no such Being as a God For upon this Supposal we have Passions that have no Objects in the Nature of things that have nothing in the World to move and affect them but wild Chimeraes flying Dragons and Castles in the Air and whereas all other Beings have real Objects in Nature corresponding to their several Instincts and Affections for so the Hare hath a natural dread of a Dog the Sheep of a Wolf the Mice of a Cat the Toad of a Spider all the Objects of which dread have a real Existence Poor silly Man supposing there is no God naturally trembles at an invisible Nothing and is horribly afraid of the Shadow of an Imagination So that if the Atheists Opinion were true the Ape that looks pale at the sight of a Snail and flies as if he feared lest that slow Creature should overtake and devour him would be a great deal less ridiculous than timorous Man whose Nature is thus hagg'd with frightful Imaginations of invisible Powers and a Judgment to come AND what Man
that hath any Reverence for the Humane Nature within him would ever suffer himself to be bribed for an Opinion that doth not only undervalue but deride and Ridicule it Should you hear your self branded with a contemptible Character or ranked among Apes or any such ridiculous Animals you would doubtless be so far from courting the Author of it that you would resent it as a great Affront and think your selves obliged in honour to return the Provocation and yet for the sake of a few base Lusts which are the Shame and Scandal of your Natures you espouse the Cause of Atheism tho it derides and affronts you to your Face and stains the Glory of your Natures with the most contemptible and ridiculous Character in the World II. THE Atheist concludes against the very Being and Well-being of Humane Society For the Soul that penetrates through all Humane Society and compacts and unites it in a regular Body is Religion or the Sense and Acknowledgment of a Divine Power without which all the Parts of the Corporation of Mankind like the Members of a dead Body must necessarily disband and flye abroad into Atoms For a form'd Society which is an united Multitude consists in the Harmony and Consent of its Members mutually united by Laws and Agreements and disposed into a Regular Subordination to one another neither of which can any Humane Society long continue without the Belief and Acknowledgment of a God FOR without this in the first place 't is impossible that the Parts of any Society should continue united by Laws and Agreements For 't is from the Belief of a God that all the Obligations of Conscience are derived so that take that away and these must dissolve and when the Obligations of Conscience are dissolved there is nothing but Mens temporal Interests can oblige them to conform to those Laws and mutual Agreements by which they are united to one another And if it be their Interest only that obliges them to be just and faithful to their mutual Agreements they will be equally obliged to be unjust and unfaithful when ever it is their Interest to be so So that this Principle which only obliges them to be honest while it is for their Advantage will as effectually oblige them to be Knaves when ever the Case is altered and things being reduced to this Issue there remains no Foundation of Trust and mutual Confidence among Men. For what can any Mans Promise signifie if he be under no Obligation but Interest To be sure if it be for his Interest he will do what he says without any Promise but if it be not what Promise can oblige him You will say it is his Interest to keep his Word because otherwise he will forfeit his Reputation for the future But pray what Reputation can a Man have to forfeit that owns no other Law or Obligation but his Interest or who will ever presume upon that Mans Word and Engagement whose avowed Principle it is to be honest no longer than he can gain by it Thus Atheism you see resolves all our Obligations into our worldly Interest which is so fickle and mutable a Principle so dependent upon Chance and the Inconstancies of Fortune that there is no hold to be taken of those that are governed by it For that which is their Interest to Day may be their Disadvantage to Morrow and if it should so happen they must steer a contrary Course or else act contrary to their leading Principle So that for Men to trust each other upon this fickle Principle is all one as to relie upon the Constancy of a Weather-cock which every contrary Wind turns to a contrary Position And things being once reduced to this Issue that Men can place no Trust or Confidence in one another their Society will soon become their greatest Plague and Vexation For every Man will be forced to stand upon his Guard against every Man and keep himself reserved and retired within himself till at last out of mutual Distrust and Jealousie of one another they are forced to withdraw their Society and to live apart in separate Dens for fear of being intrapt and devoured by each other AND as Atheism cuts in sunder those Ligaments of mutual Trust and Agreement by which the Parts of Humane Society are united so it also dissolves that Regular Subordination that is between them Plutarch observes in his Treatise against Colot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. It seems to me more possible for a City to stand without Ground than for a Commonwealth to subsist and continue without the Belief of a God which is 〈◊〉 only firm Foundation whereupâ—◠〈…〉 and Society depends For if there be no God what should oblige any to own any Superiour or pay any Submission And if his Interest be his only Obligation to his Superiours when ever he can mend his Fortune by Rebelling against them that very same Interest which at present restrains him from it will with equal force invite him to it nor will it signifie any thing that we are obliged to the contrary by Oaths of Fidelity and Allegiance for if it be our Interest to be faithful to the Government our own Prudence and Discretion will oblige us to it without such Oaths as well as with them but if it be not our Interest and this be the only Principle that obliges us no Oath or Engagement can hold us So that in this State of things all the Security that Governors can have of their Subjects is that they will not Rebel when they are not able but as soon as they think it safe to be sure they will think it lawful which being once admitted will undermine the very Foundations of Government and utterly dissolve that regular Subordination by which Humane Society is supported Whereas admitting that the Laws of our Prince are bound upon us by the Authority of a Sovereign Lord who can render us eternally happy or miserable we are obliged to obey him by all that we can hope or fear and have all the Engagements to Loyalty that the Reflections on a happy or miserable Eternity can lay upon us What a prodigious piece of Folly is it therefore for Men to embrace Atheism as their Interest which doth thus directly tend to deprive us of all the Comforts of Society by involving us in eternal Confusions and Disorders For if once we take away mutual Trust and Government from the World both which have a necessary Dependence on the Belief of a God we break all the Harmony of Humane Society and convert it into a Commonwealth of Canibals And what Man in his Wits would ever be found of an Opinion that proclaims open War with Mankind and is pregnant with Consequents so fatal and destructive to the World Can we think it more advantageous to us that Atheism should be true than that Humane Society should be upheld and perpetuated or are the Pleasures we reap from the Lusts which incline us to Atheism comparably
so valuable as the Benefits which acrue to us from being formed and united into regular Corporations If not how apparently do we engage against our own Interest when we espouse the Cause of Irreligion III. THE Atheist concludes against that which is the main Support and Comfort of Humane Life For while we are in this World our best and securest Condition is exposed to a world of sad and uncomfortable Accidents which we have neither the Wisdom to foresee nor the Power to prevent So far are we from being self-sufficient as to our worldly Happiness that there are a thousand Causes upon which we depend for it that are not in our Power to dispose of and in such a State of uncertainty wherein we are continally bandyed to and fro and made the Game of inconstant Fortune what Quiet or Security can we enjoy within our selves without believing that there is a God at the Helm that steddily over-rules all events that concern us and steers and directs them by the invariable Compass of his own infinite Wisdom and Goodness For considering how poor and indigent our Nature is how we are fain to seek abroad and to go a begging from Door to Door for our Happiness how we depend upon Chance and are secure of nothing we possess or desire or hope for how prone we are to be alarmed with the Prospect of a sad Futurity and to magnifie distant Evils in our own Aprehensions how apt we are to aggravate our Miseries by our Impatience and Despair and to pall our Enjoyments by expecting more from them than their Natures will afford considering these things I say which way can we turn our selves without a God or where can we repose our restless Thoughts but in his Providence Verily could I be tempted to believe that there is no God I should look upon Humane Nature in its present Circumstances as the most forlorn and abandoned part of the Creation and wish that I had had the Luck to be of any other Species than that of a Rational Animal For in the State I am I find my self liable to a thousand Dangers against which I have no Sanctuary and under which I have no Support if there be no God to govern the World and having such a dismal Prospect of things before me and a busie Mind within me that will be continually working on and aggravating the Evils of it what can I do with my self or how can I enjoy my self without a God to relie on Upon the supposal that he is and that he governs the World I can easily relieve my self under the most dismal Apprehensions I can fairly conclude and safely depend on it that if I take care by my submission to Gods Will to make him my Friend he will either prevent the Evils I apprehend or support me under them or convert them to my good either of which is sufficient to set my Heart at ease and instate me in a quiet Enjoyment of my self But now by giving up the Belief of a God I throw away all these Considerations and leave my self utterly destitute and supportless For what solid ground of Support can I have when I have no manner of Security either that the Evils I dread shall be prevented or that I shall have a Proportionable Strength to bear them or that I shall ever reap any good or advantage from them without which Considerations every Evil that threatens or befals me is pure unmingled Misery against which there is no Fence or Cordial in Reason or Philosophy For suppose I should argue with the ancient Moralists that every ill Accident that befalls me is fatal as being the Effect of some necessary Cause that is without my Power or Disposal and therefore 't is unreasonable for me to grieve at it this will be so far from any way mollifying the Anguish of my Mind that 't will rather inrage and inflame it For that my Calamity is fatal so that it is not in my Power to avoid or remove it is rather an Aggravation than a Diminution of it Or suppose I should reason as the same Moralists otherwhiles do Why should I grieve at the Evils that befal me when alas my Grief will be so far from lessening them that 't will rather encrease and multiply them contribute new Venome to their Stings and render them more pungent and dolorous What a faint Cordial would it be to my oppressed Mind to consider that my Grief will but augment my Load It is some Ease to a dejected Soul to vent its Griefs in Moans and Lamentations which while she seeks to smother in a sullen silence like imprisoned Wind will breed a Collick in her Bowels and is it not a sad thing that I must deny my self the only Solace of a miserable Man for fear of augmenting my Misery Again suppose I should reason thus with the same Authors that Afflictions are indifferent things and in themselves neither good nor evil but indifferently improvable into Mischiefs or Benefits this I confess were a good Argument supposing that the Affliction came from a good God who can extract Good out of all our Evils and render the rankest Poyson Medicinal but otherwise you will find 't is but a cold Comfort to call your Misery by another Name For if there be no God to temper our Evils and to ordain and direct them to wise and good Ends we shall find in the issue they will prove themselves Evils to us by what soft Name soever we may call them Again and to name no more Suppose I should reason thus as these Masters of Morality do that to bear Afflictions with an unconcerned Mind is brave and manly and generous that it is an Argument of a great and Heroick Mind that hath raised it self above the reach of Misfortunes I readily confess so it is supposing a Man hath good reason thus to bear his Afflictions which is the Question in debate for then it is the Triumph of Reason over Passion and an illustrious Instance of a well fortified Mind but if we have no reason for it all these glorious Words Generous Brave c. are nothing but empty Flash and mere Rodomontado For for a Man to be unconcerned with Evils without reason is so far from being generous and brave that 't is an Argument of his brutal Stupidity and Fool-hardiness But yet supposing that there is no God these are the main Arguments we have to support our selves under any Calamity But alas such real Griefs of ours are not to be redress'd with pretty Sayings and grave Sentences which tho they may look takingly at a Distance will when we come to apply and experience them force us to pronounce as Job did of his Friends miserable Comforters are ye all and Physicians of no value So that were we left destitute of God and a Providence and of all those blessed Supports we derive from thence we were of all Creatures the most miserable For in this state of things we
only a possible Kind of Being wanting but a Kind which by partaking both of Reason and Sense of Spirit and of Matter is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Simplicius expresses it i. e. the vital Joynt that clasps the upper and lower World together and if it were no way unsutable to the Goodness of God to create the two Extremes viz. Angels and Brutes why should it be thought unsutable to make a middle Nature between them IT is true by partaking of both Natures we are not only free to Evil in common with Angels but also liable to stronger Temptations to it than they because we are placed in a tempting Body among a great many brutish Passions and Appetites and that Body is placed in a tempting World among a great many sensitive Goods and Evils that are continually importuning those Appetites to mutiny against Reason and to carry us away captive into Folly and Wickedness but to place us in this state is so far from being inconsistent with the Goodness of God that it is exactly pursuant to the Design of a most wise and gracious Providence For since we are placed by the Condition of our Natures in a lower Rank of Being and Perfection than Angels we have no more reason to complain of that than Ants or Flies have that they are not Men. But in this imperfect state the highest good that Providence could design us was to put us into a state of Trial and Probation wherein by the good use of our Liberty we might by degrees fit our selves for and at length arrive to a better and more raised Condition and by an orderly Progression from this rude and imperfect state might in the different Periods of our Lives grow up into higher and more excellent Capacities and at length ripen into Perfection Now in order to our Trial it was tequisite we should be placed among Difficulties without which no Proof can be made of our Virtues of our Patience and Temperance and Chastity and Equanimity Meekness and Sobriety all which are proper to us as Beings made up of Angel and Brute from the latter of which Natures all those brutal Appetites arise in us in the good or bad Government whereof consists the Nature of Humane Virtue and Vice So that this present state of our Life is intended by God for a Field of Combat between our Sense and our Reason our brutal and angelical Nature and that the Victory of our Reason might through the Difficulty of it be rendered more glorious and rewardable God hath furnished its Antagonist with the Weapons of worldly Temptation to assault and oppose it to try its strength and Mettle and to exercise both its active and passive Virtues intending when it hath conquered to translate us hence as a Reward of our Victory into a free and disintangled state where we shall be vexed and inticed no more with the Importunities of sensual Lust and Affection but to all Eternity enjoy the Serenity and Pleasure of a pure angelical Nature And what is there in all this that is any way unsutable yea that is not every way answerable to the Goodness of Providence 'T is true instead of conquering we may if we please yield our selves captive to Folly and Wickedness but what then Is Providence to be blamed for leaving Mens Hands at Liberty because some have been so desperate as to cut their own Throats 'T is sufficient that he hath proposed to us Reward enough to encourage us to contend and contributed to us Assistance enough to enable us to conquer and having done all that becomes a wise and good Governour to prevent our Sin and Ruine who is to be blamed for it but our selves God leaves us at Liberty indeed among Temptations to Evil and this the very State and Composition of our Natures requires but all he designs by it is to exercise our Virtues and thereby to improve and train us up to a state of higher Perfection and to furnish us with glorious Opportunities of fighting for and winning Crowns and Rewards and this is so far from any way reflecting on the Goodness of his Providence that it is an illustrious Instance of it and yet 't is only thus far that he is concerned in the Being of sin in the World all the rest is owing to our own mad and desperate abuse of our natural Liberty to our wilful Opposition to his gracious Intentions and obstinate Resistance to his powerful Arts and Methods of preventing our Sin and Ruine What then can be more unreasonable than for us to object against the Goodness of Gods Providence that which is purely the Effect of our own Madness and Folly AND if the Evil of Sin be no way inconsistent with the Goodness of Providence much less is the Evil of Misery since the Generality of those Evils which we suffer in this World are either the natural Effects or the just Punishments or the necessary Antidotes and Preventives of our sin And therefore when you come into a great School of wild and unruly Boys you may as well argue that there is no Master of it because there are Rods and Ferulaes in it as that there is no Providence over this sinful World because there are Miseries and Afflictions in it for upon the Being of Sin in the World the Being of Misery is so far from being an Argument against Providence that 't is rather a Demonstration of it because a◠sinful World can no more be governed without Misery than an unruly School without Correction IV. ANOTHER Objection that is made against Providence is that unequal division of Goods and Evils that is made in this World If there were a just Providence that over-ruled the World one would think it should make a more visible Distinction between good and bad Men in the Distribution of its Rewards and Punishments whereas in the ordinary Course of things we see all things happen alike to all and many times it fares worst with the best and best with the worst of Men. Now because this is the greatest and most universal Objection that was ever urged against the Providence of God I shall in answer to it endeavour to shew 1. That it is for the most part false and groundless 2. That so far as it is true it is no Argument at all against a Providence First I say this Objection that there is no Difference made among Men as to the Goods and Evils of this World is in a great Measure false and groundless For I make no doubt but in the ordinary Course of things good Men are more prosperous even in this World than bad as for times of Persecution they are a just Exception from the general rule of Providence because therein God to serve his own Glory and the great Ends of Religion exchangeth with good Men spiritual for temporal and heavenly for earthly Enjoyments which is such an Exchange as no man will account a Robbery that understands the just value of
ill as certainly pursue him with a dire Revenge This Belief carries with it such constraining Terrors and Allurements as cannot but affect all reasonable Minds and finally prevail with their Hopes and Fears against all contrary Temptations Wherefore if ever we would fix the Obligations of Religion upon our Minds it concerns us above all things to be throughly instructed in the Nature and confirmed in the Belief of the divine Providence CHAP. V. Of the necessity of believing divine Rewards and Punishments in order to our being truly Religious HUMANE Nature is framed to move upon the Hinges of Hope and Fear and to be elicited and drawn forth in Action either by the Proposal of some attainable Good or Prospect of some avoidable Evil the former of which begets Hope in us and that Pursuit the latter Fear and that Flight and Avoidance and accordingly we find all Laws address to the Hopes and Fears of Men with Proposals of Reward and Punishment as to the Master-Springs and Principles of their Action by which they are moved to do or forbear according as they are required and enjoyned And indeed to give Laws to Men without inforcing them with Rewards and Punishments would be to leave it indifferent whether they obeyed them or no which is inconsistent with the Nature of Laws for Laws necessarily imply an Obligation to Obedience but what Obligation could we have to obey them did they leave it indifferent as to any Good or Evil accrewing from it whether we obeyed them or no for if it will be as well for us one way as t'other what matter is it which way we determine our selves And this holds good in nothing more than in the Matter of our Obedience to the Laws of Religion to which our corrupt Nature is above all things backward and averse all that spiritual Exercise which those Laws require being quite against the Grain of our Earthy and sensual Inclinations so that were we not drawn to it by the Hope of Good and driven by the Fear of Evil to be sure our own bad natures would keep us at an eternal Distance from it but unless we believe God to be a Rewarder of those that obey and a Punisher of those that despise him we have no ground to hope for any Good or to dread any Evil at his hands For unless we believe that he will Crown those that serve him with some Mark of his Favour how can we think he is pleased with them there being no other way for him to express his being Pleased but by Crowning 'em with some signal Reward and if he be not Pleased with those that serve him to be sure he is not Displeased with those that Neglect him and if he be not Displeased with 'em what Reason have we to apprehend that he will Punish ' em Thus the unbelief of Gods being a Rewarder of those that obey him draws after it an unbelief of his being a Punisher of those that Despise him and so on the contrary For unless we believe him to be so much concerned for his Service as to punish those that neglect it we have no reason to think he is so much concerned for it as to reward those that embrace it So that the belief and unbelief of Gods being a Rewarder and a Punisher do by necessary consequence mutually imply each other and unless we believe Both there is no reason we should believe Either And when our nature is so averse as it is to his Service what should induce us to serve him when we expect no Good from him or hinder us from slighting him when we fear no Evil And what is there can bring us home to God when we are carried away from him with an impetuous Tide of corrupt Inclinations and have neither Hope nor Fear to Bound or Restrain it So that considering the Aversation of our Nature to Gods service it is morally impossible we should ever be heartily reconciled to it without being Drawn with the Hope of Reward and Driven with the Fear of Punishment In the Prosecution of this Argument I shall indeavour to shew First How far it 's necessary that our Belief of divine Rewards and Punishments should extend Secondly What Evidence there is to induce us to believe them Thirdly By what Means this is to be Begotten and Confirmed SECT I. How far it is necessary that our belief of divine Rewards and Punishments should extend FOR to induce us to submit to the Obligations of Religion it is by no means sufficient that we believe in the general that God will Reward us if we do well and Punish us if we do wickedly For this we may firmly believe and yet at the same time prefer the Pleasures of sin as much greater Goods than the Rewards of Vertue and Dread the Difficulties of Vertue as much greater Evils than the Punishments of sin wherefore to Render our Belief of divine Rewards and Punishments an Effectual Principle of Religion these four things are necessary First That we should believe that God is so far a Rewarder of those that serve him and so far a Punisher of those that neglect him as to make a Plain and sensible Distinction between them Secondly Considering how Promiscuously the Goods and Evils of this World are distributed among Good and Bad men it 's necessary we should believe That there is a Future state of Rewards and Punishments Thirdly It is necessary we should believe those Future Rewards and Punishments to be such as do Infinitely Transcend any Good we can Reap by our sins and any Evil we can Incur by doing our Duty Fourthly It is necessary we should believe that there is no other way for us to Avoid those Punishments but by forsaking our sins or to Acquire those Rewards but by submitting to our Duty I. IT is necessary we should believe that God is so far a Rewarder of those that serve and so far a Punisher of those that Neglect him as to make a plain and sensible distinction between them For unless we believe that God makes some Distinction between those serve and those that neglect him we shall Confound Good and Evil in our own Apprehensions and look upon all humane actions as Indifferent and thereby dissolve all the Ties and Obligations of Religion For things are in Themselves as they are in the Judgment and Esteem of God who cannot be mistaken in Estimating their Natures and therefore unless there be some Distinction between Men and Men and Actions and Actions in the Esteem of God rhey must be all Alike and Indifferent in their Own natures And if all Actions are Indifferent in themselves we are free from all the Ties and Obligations of Religion and 't is left Indifferent to us whether we will Worship God or Blaspheme him So that unless we believe that God makes some Distinction between the Good and bad Religion can have no force at all upon our minds But now there is no other way for God to
capacity of our Souls to survive our Bodies and enjoy future Rewards and suffer future Punishments it also follows that there is a future state of Reward and Punishment For we find in our Souls a certain innate force and power whereby they determine themselves which way they please in their motions and operations whereby they are exempt from the necessitating influence of any thing that is forein to 'em and this innate liberty or power of self-determination is necessarily supposed in the management of all humane Affairs in Commerce and Treaties in Government and Laws and Administrations of Justice in Councils Admonitions reproofs and persuasions in all which applications are made to our Souls as to free and self-determining Agents that have the absolute disposal of their own motions and can direct 'em which way they please and indeed were not our Souls left to their own free disposal but concluded by the Laws of a fatal necessity as we see all material Agents are such applications to 'em as these would be very absurd and ridiculous and we may as reasonably hope to tame Wolves and Tygers by reading Ethicks to 'em or to still the North-wind by sending Ambassadours to him to propose Articles of Peace as to prevail upon Mens minds by moral addresses and persuasions because if they are not masters of their own choices whatsoever the rigid Laws of necessity determine 'em to they must necessarily choose in despight of all persuasions to the contrary NOW by this self-determining Power our Souls do evidently manifest themselves to be immaterial substances and consequently not liable to Death and Corruption For if they were matter they would be moved like matter i. e. by the pressure or thrusting of other matter upon 'em and it would be no more in their power to move any other way than that which some other matter presses and impels 'em than it is for a stone not to move upwards when 't is impel'd by the force which your Arm impresses on it and not to move down again when that force is spent and 't is prest back by its own weight and gravity Whereas we feel in our Soul an innate power to determine it self which way it pleases and even to move quite contrary to all forein impressions For when 't is prest on by outward Object to such and such thoughts and purposes with all imaginable vigour it often stems the impetuous Tide and thinks and purposes the quite contrary How then can that be matter which is not determined in its motions by matter but when it pleases can either move counter to all material impressions or of two material impressions can move counter to the strongest THAT our Souls therefore are immaterial is just as evident as that they have liberty of will and that they have liberty of will needs no other proof than the common sense and feeling of mankind and whatsoever essence feels this freedom within it self whereby it is absolved from the rigid Laws of matter may with all the reason in the World conclude it self immaterial and if our Souls are immaterial substances to be sure they can naturally subsist and live without these Bodies and must necessarily do so unless God destroys 'em as having no contrary qualities or divisible parts no principles of death or corruption in 'em and since God hath made our Soul of an immaterial and immortal nature we have all the reason in the World to conclude that he will not unravel his own workmanship but permit it to survive its Body and enjoy or indure that happy ot miserable Fate which it self hath chosen and made IV. FROM the natural expectance we have of future Rewards and dread of future Punishments it is also evident that there is a state of future Rewards and Punishments Thus after the commission of any flagitious wickedness there naturally arise ill-abodings in Mens minds of a dire after-reckoning and though the Commission be secret and conceal'd from all humane cognizance so that there is no reason to dread the corrections of publique Justice for it yet when ever the Man reflects on it it fills his mind with horrible presages of a woful Futurity as on the contrary when ever a Man doth any great good or conquers any violent temptation to evil it lifts up his Soul into a blessed expectation and swells his hope with the promise of a future Reward and though the good he hath done or the evil he hath avoided gives him no kind of prospect of any present advantage yet his mind is soothed and ravished with the contemplation of it which naturally suggests to him the joyous hopes of a recompence to come For whence should this hope and dread spring up in Mens minds upon the Commission of good and bad actions but from some common impression upon humane nature intimating to us a future state of Reward and Punishment If you say 't is from those religious Principles which we imbibe in our Education I would fain know how came this Principle concerning the future state to be so universally imbibed if there were not something in it that is very agreeable with the reason of all mankind For whatever is the matter wee see 't is very easily embraced but very difficultly parted with Mens Minds do catch at it with a strange kind of greediness but when once they have swallowed it it never comes up again without straining and violence and what should be the reason of this if there were not something in it that is very agreeable with the natural tast and rellish of our understandings We know there have been great Wits and Philosophers that have taken as much pains to rase the belief of a future state out of Mens minds as ever any others did to imprint it there and yet though their Doctrine hath been always highly befriended by Mens wicked lusts and affections to which the belief of a future state is the most terrible and vexatious thing in the World yet with all their Wit and Sophistry they have never been able to root it out of Mens minds If then our hopes and fears of another World be merely owing to our Teaching and Education why should not teaching erase as well as imprint 'em especially when it is so powerfully seconded with all the Bosom Rhetorick of Mens vitious inclinations Whereas on the contrary those who have most industriously attempted to extinguish their sense of another World have generally been very unsuccessful and though in the Riot of their sinful delights they many times charm and stupifie it for the present yet no sooner do they retire into themselves and coolly reflect upon their own minds but it presently awakes again and haunts and pursues 'em and though they use all imaginable ways to divert their minds from the thoughts of another world and to avoid these Bosom Accusers and Tormentors run for Sanctuary to all things without 'em to Sports and Recreations to Wine and Women to Care and Business
and the World by a blind and obstinate Will without any regard to the eternal reasons of things we shall worship him as the Indians do their arbitrary Devils i. e. follow him with houlings and lamentations with trembling hearts and frighted looks and dismal tones and by flattering him with praises and fauning upon him with slavish submissions and addresses endeavour to collogue with Heaven and ingratiate our selves with its dreadful Majesty for what can be more agreeable to such a tyrannical Divinity than such a forc'd and slavish Worship In a word if we apprehend him to be a fond and indulgent Being that is governed by a foolish pity and blind commiseration we shall not fail to render him a sutable Worship i. e. to retire and grow melancholly to whine and bemoan our selves to deject our looks and disfigure our countenances and teaze our Souls into fits of fruitless compunction that so by the soft Rhetorick of a well-acted sorrow we may pierce his bowels and melt him into pity and compassion towards us for what can be more prevalent with such a soft and indulgent Deity than such a mournful and passionate Religion Thus whilst we have wrongful apprehensions of God they must necessarily mislead us into false ways of Worship because we can no otherwise worship him than by rendering him such Services as are sutable to the apprehensions we have of his Nature and therefore while we think any otherwise of his Nature than it is we must necessarily think such Services sutable to it as are not BUT if we truly understand what God is we cannot but apprehend what Worship is sutable to him by that Eternal congruity and proportion that there is between things and things which is as obvious to mens minds as sounds and colours to their ears and eyes If God be a Being endowed with such and such Perfections every Mans mind will tell him that between such an Object and such actions and affections there is a natural congruity and therefore so and so he ought to be treated and address'd to with such and such actions and affections to be served and worship'd So that if we apprehend God truly as he is circled with all his natural glories and perfections our apprehensions will produce in us such affections and our affections such deportment and behaviour towards him as are sutable to the perfections of his Nature and we shall worship him with such Services as will both please and become him with admiring thoughts and dutiful wills and God-like affections with an ingenuous fear a humble confidence and an obedient love with chearful Praises and profound Adorations with sober wise and rational Devotions such as will wing and employ our best affections and most noble faculties For 't is such a Worship only that can sute such Perfections and please such a Nature as Gods II. A right apprehension of God is also necessary to inspire us with the best Principle of serving him For it 's certain that there is no Principle in humane Nature that will so effectually engage us to the service of God or render our service so acceptable to him as that of Love which will tune our wills into such an Harmony with Gods that we shall no longer chuse and refuse according to our particular likings and dislikings but what is most pleasing or displeasing to him will be so to us and our wills being thus united and subjected to his our obedience will extend to all his Commands and admit no other bounds but his Will and Pleasure Whereas if we do not obey him out of love we shall indeavour to contract our obedience into as narrow a compass as may be because we shall render it to him with a grudging mind and consequently with a narrow and stingy hand for we shall serve him no farther than we are driven by fear and the restless importunities of a clamorous conscience and so consequently fall infinitely short of our duty and take up in a partial and hypocritical obedience For while we do not love him it is impossible we should obey him with a ready will which is the proper seat of his Empire and while we obey him with a stubborn and rebellious will we are only his slaves but the Devils subjects 'Till therefore we do obey him at least in some measure from a Principle of love it is impossible our obedience should be either universal or sincere But to the inspiring our Souls with this Principle there is nothing more necessary than right apprehensions of God who in himself is doubtless the most amiable of beings as having all those Perfections in infinite degrees that can beget or deserve a rational affection So that we cannot think him to be any way otherwise than he is without thinking him less lovely and detracting more or less from the infinite beauty of his Nature For since he cannot be more lovely than he is in himself every false apprehension of him must needs represent him less lovely But since of all his Perfections that of his Goodness is the most powerful motive and ingagement of Love there is nothing more necessary to kindle our love to him than right apprehensions thereof For being infinitely good as he is in his own Nature it is impossible we should conceive him to be better than he is and therefore every false notion we entertain of his goodness must necessarily detract from it and so much as we detract from his goodness so much we detract from the principal reason and motive of our loving him And therefore in order to the ingaging of our love to him it concerns us above all things not to entertain any Opinion of him that reflects a disparagement on his goodness For too many such Opinions there are that have been imbibed among Christians as the fundamental Principles of their Orthodoxy namely such as these that Gods Sovereign Will is the sole rule of his actions and that he doth things not because they are just and reasonable but that they are just and reasonable because he doth 'em as if he were merely an Omnipotent blind Will that acts without Reason and did run through the World like an irresistible Whirlwind hurrying all things before him without any consideration of right or wrong That his Decrees of Governing and disposing his creatures are wholly founded in his absolute and irresistible Will that determins of the everlasting fate of Souls without any reason or foresight or condition that by this his unaccountable Will he hath impaled the far greater part of 'em within an absolute Decree of Reprobation for no other end but that Nimrod-like he might have game enough to sport and breath his vengeance for ever and that having nailed 'em to this woful cross by this his dire Decree he bids 'em save themselves and come down as those cruel Mockers did our Saviour and because they do not obey torments and cruciates 'em for ever though he knows they are not able to do
influence upon us unless we have a right and genuine apprehension of them The consideration of his Majesty is naturally apt to strike our minds into an awful reverence of his Authority but if we look upon it under the notion of a mere Arbitrary greatness that Governs not it self by Counsel and Reason but by a blind and absolute and unaccountable Will that always chuses and refuses pro imperio without any regard to the eternal reasons of things we may be astonish'd and confounded at it but we can never truly reverence it The consideration of his Holiness is naturally apt to deter us from approaching him with vicious and impure affections but if we place his holiness in a mere formal affectation of external decency respect and reverence and not in the immutable conformity of his Will with the eternal Rules of Righteousness it may move us to be very ceremonious and respectful to him as to the Place and Garb and Posture of our Worship but it will never prevail with us to cleanse and rectifie our hearts and affections Again the consideration of his Justice is naturally apt to restrain us from affronting his Authority by perverse and wilful violations of his Laws but while we look upon it as a stern and implacable Attribute which nothing will appease and satisfie but bloud and revenge it may overwhelm us with horrour and despair but 't will never persuade us to reform and amend Once more the consideration of his Mercy is naturally apt when we are gone astray to invite us to return with the hopeful prospect it gives us of pardon and reconciliation but while we look upon it under the notion of a blind pity or effeminate easiness and tenderness of Nature that will admit of no severity how wholsom soever or necessary to the ends of Government instead of moving us to repentance it will animate us in our rebellion In fine the consideration of his Goodness is naturally apt to work upon our Ingenuity and to draw us Godwards with the cords of a man and the bonds of love but while we mistake it for a blind Partiality that chuses its Favourites without reason and rewards them without respect to their Qualifications instead of captivating our love 't will provoke our disdain and excite in us a secret contempt and aversation Thus though the nature of God be in it self a most fruitful Topick of Motives and Arguments to ingage us to serve and obey him yet by the false representations that are sometimes made of it it may be perverted into an inducement to wickedness and made a plausible pretence to encourage and justifie us in our rebellions against him Whilst we look upon God as he is in himself shining with his own unstained and immaculate Glories there is nothing more apt to influence all the springs of motion within us to enflame our love encourage our hope and alarm our fear and by these to set the Wheels of our Obedience agoing For there is nothing in humane nature that is capable of being moved and affected by Reason which hath not an answerable reason in the nature of God to move and affect it And as in him there are all the reasons that can affect us so there is all the force and efficacy of those reasons every thing in him being perfect and infinite in him there is an infinite beauty to attract our love an infinite good to inflame our desire an infinite kindness to affect our ingenuity an infinite Justice armed with an infinite power to awaken our fear an infinite mercy to invite our hope and an infinite truth to confirm and support it So that 't is beyond the power of all humane imagination to frame or fancy an Object that is so every way fitted to affect humane nature and influence all its Principles of action as God in himself is Whilst therefore we apprehend him truly and as he is in himself the consideration of him must needs be of wonderful force to oblige us to serve and obey him and there is not one of all those glorious perfections in which his Nature is arrayed but will suggest to us some powerful persuasive to Piety and Vertue and either by our hope or our fear our love or our gratitude incline our hearts to keep his Commandments So that if we are ignorant of his perfections or do entertain false Notions concerning them we shall either want those Motives to Piety which they naturally suggest or draw Arguments from them to encourage and justifie us in our rebellions against him And thus you see in all these instances how indispensably necessary right Notions of God are to ingage us to serve and obey him SECT II. Rules for the forming right Apprehensions of God DIonysius the Areopagite and from him all the Schoolmen assign three ways by which we are to frame our apprehensions of the Nature of God viz. Viam Causalitatis viam Eminentiae viam Remotionis i. e. the way of Causality the way of Eminency and the way of Remotion The first consists in arguing from those perfections which God hath caused and produced in his Creatures to the perfections of his Nature For whatsoever degrees of perfection there are in the Creature they must either be uncreated which is a contradiction or flow from the Creator as from the immense Ocean of all perfection but 't is impossible they should flow from him unless they were first in him So that when we behold such and such perfections in the Creature we may from them most certainly infer that the same are all in God who is the cause and fountain of them and though the divine Nature abounds with innumerable vertues and perfections yet 't is impossible for us by our own natural light to discover any other of them than those of which he himself hath imprinted some specimens upon created Beings these being the only Scales by which our understanding can ascend to the reach and view of the divine perfections But because all created perfections are not only short in their degrees but also intermingled with defects in their very kind and nature therefore in attributing them to God we ought carefully to abstract from them whatever is defective whether it be in kind or in degree For God is the cause of perfection only but not of defect which so far forth as it is natural to created Beings hath no cause at all but is merely a negation or non-entity For every created thing was a negation or non-entity before ever it had a positive being and it had only so much of its primitive negation taken away from it as it had positive being conferred on it and therefore so far forth as it is its being is to be attributed to that soveraign cause that produced it but so far forth as it is not it s not being is to be attributed to that Original Non-entity out of which it was produced For that which was once nothing would still have
When therefore we conceive of the perfections of God we must so conceive of them as that there may be no manner of inconsistency or disagreement between them otherwise we must admit into our conceptions of them something or other that is defective or imperfect As for instance in God there is infinite Wisdom and infinite Justice infinite Goodness and infinite Mercy wherefore if we would conceive aright of these his glorious perfections we must take care not to admit any Notion of any one of them that renders it repugnant to any other but so to conceive of them altogether as that they may mutually accord and agree with each other For while we apprehend his Goodness to be such as that it will not accord with his Wisdom we must either suppose his Wisdom to be Craft or his Goodness to be Folly and whilst we apprehend his Mercy to be such as that it will not agree with his Justice we must either suppose his Justice to be Cruelty or his Mercy to be blind Pity and Fondness and it is certain that that goodness cannot be a perfection which exceeds the measures of Wisdom nor that Mercy neither which transgresses the bounds of Justice and so on the contrary For if either Gods goodness excludes his wisdom or his wisdom his goodness if either his Mercy swallow up his Justice or his Justice his Mercy there is an apparent repugnance and contrariety between them and where there is a contrariety there must be imperfection in one or t'other or both WHEREFORE if we would apprehend them altogether as they truly are in God that is under the notion of perfections we must so conceive of them as that in all respects they may be perfectly consistent and harmonious as that his Wisdom may not clash with his Goodness nor his Goodness with his Wisdom as that his Mercy may not justle with his Justice nor his Justice with his Mercy that is we must conceive him to be as wise as he can be with infinite goodness as good as he can be with infinite wisdom as just as he can be with infinite mercy and as merciful as he can be with infinite justice which is to be wise and good and just and merciful so far as it is a perfection to be so For to be wise beyond what is good is Craft to be good beyond what is wise is Dotage to be just beyond what is merciful is Rigour to be merciful beyond what is just is Easiness that is they are all imperfection so far as they are beyond what is perfect Wherefore we ought to be very careful not to represent these his Moral perfections as running a tilt at one another but to conceive of them all together as one intire perfection which though like the Center of a Circle it hath many Lines drawn from it round about and so is looked upon sometimes as the term of this Line and sometimes of that yet is but one common and undivided term to them all or to speak more plainly though it exerts it self in different ways and actions and operates diversly according to the diversities of its Objects and accordingly admits of divers Names such as Wisdom Goodness Justice and Mercy yet is in it self but one simple and indivisible principle of action all whose operations how diverse soever are such as perfectly accord with each other whose acts of Wisdom are all infinitely good whose acts of goodness are all infinitely wise whose acts of justice are infinitely merciful and whose acts of mercy are infinitely just so that in this as well as in their extension and degrees they are all most perfect viz. that they always operate with mutual consent and in perfect harmony And while we thus conceive of the divine perfections our minds will be mightily secured against all those false apprehensions of God which lead to superstition and presumption for we shall so apprehend his wisdom and justice as not to be superstitiously afraid and so apprehend his goodness and mercy as not to be presumptuously secure and as on the one hand his Justice will protect his Mercy from being abused by our wanton security so on the other hand his goodness will protect his wisdom from being misrepresented by our anxious suspition For while we consider his mercy thus tempered with his justice and his wisdom with his goodness we can neither expect impunity from the one if we continue wicked nor yet suspect any ill design against us in the other if we return from our evil ways and persevere in well doing SECT III. Of the causes of our mis-apprehensions of God I Now proceed to the last thing I proposed which was to assign and remove the causes of mens misapprehensions of God many of which are so secret and obscure so peculiar to the frame and temper of mens brains so interwoven with the infinite varieties of humane Constitutions that it is very difficult if not impossible to trace them so as to make an exact enumeration of them all and therefore I shall only assign the most common and visible causes by which the generality of men are mislead in their Apprehensions of the divine Nature whinh are reducible to these six Heads First Ignorance of what is the true perfection of our own Nature Secondly Framing our Notions of God according to the model of our own humour and temper Thirdly Obstinate partiality to our own sinful lusts and affections Fourthly Measuring Gods Nature by particular Providences Fifthly Taking up our Notions of God from obscure and particular passages and not from the plain and general current of Scripture Sixthly Indevotion I. ONE great cause of our misapprehensions of God is Ignorance of what is the true perfection of our own Natures For as I shewed before in conceiving of the perfections of God we must take our rise from those perfections we behold in his Creatures and particularly in our own Natures wherein there is a composition of all created perfections so that while we are ignorant of what is the true perfection of our own Natures our thoughts can have no rule or aim whereby to judg of God's That he hath all those perfections in himself which he hath derived to us is the Fundamental Maxim upon which we are to erect our Notions of him and therefore unless we know what those perfections are which he hath derived to us and wherein they consist our mind hath no footing or foundation whereon to raise any certain Idea of him For since we have no other way to conceive of his perfections but by our own how is it possible that while we are ignorant of our own we should ever conceive aright of his This therefore is one great reason why men do so grosly misconceive of God because they have no true Notion of their own perfection by which they are to form their conceptions of his FOR whereas the true perfection of humane nature consists In Moral goodness or an universal compliance of