of Good and Evil in the Consciences of men which is evident by those Laws which are common in all Countries for the preserving human societies the encouragment of Vertue and discouragement of Vice What Standard should they have for those Laws but a common reason The designe of those Laws was to keep men within the bounds of Goodness for mutual commerce whence the Apostle calls the Heathen Magistrate a Minister of God for Good Rom. 13.4 and the Gentiles do by nature the things contained in the Law Rom. 2.14 Man in the first instant of the use of reason finds natural principles within himself directing and choosing them he finds a distinction between good and evil how could this be if there were not some rule in him to try and distinguish good and evil If there were not such a law and rule in man he could not sin for where there is no Law there is no transgression If man were a Law to himself and his own will his Law there could be no such thing as evil whatsoever he willed would be good and agreeable to the Law and no action could be accounted sinful The worst act would be as commendable as the best Every thing at mans appointment would be good or evil If there were no such Law how should men that are naturally inclined to evil disapprove of that which is unlovely and approve of that good which they practise not No man but inwardly thinks well of that which is good while he neglects it and thinks ill of that which is evil while he commits it Those that are vitious do praise those that practise the contrary vertues Those that are evil would seem to be good and those that are blameworthy yet will rebuke evil in others This is really to distinguish between good and evil whence doth this arise by what rule do we measure this but by some innate principle And this is universal the same in one man as in another the same in one Nation as in another they are born with every man and inseparable from his nature Prov. 27.19 As in water face answers to face so the heart of man to man Common reason supposeth that there is some hand which hath fixed this distinction in man How could it else be universally imprest No Law can be without a Law-giver no sparks but must be kindled by some other Whence should this Law then derive its original Not from man he would fain blot it out and cannot alter it when he pleases Natural generation never intended it t is setled therefore by some higher hand which as it imprinted it so it maintains it against the violences of men who were it not for this Law would make the world more than it is an Aceldema and field of blood For had there not been some supream good the measure of all other goodness in the world we could not have had such a thing as good The Scripture gives us an account that this good was distinguisht from evil before man fell they were objecta scibilia good was commanded and evil prohibited and did not depend upon man From this a man may rationally be instructed that there is a God For he may thus argue I find my self naturally obliged to do this thing and avoid that I have therfore a superior that doth oblige me I find something within me that directs me to such actions contrary to my sensitive appetite there must be something above me therefore that put this principle into mans nature If there were no superior I should be the supream Judge of good and evil Were I the Lord of that Law which doth oblige me I should find no contradiction within my self between reason and appetite 2. From the Transgression of this law of nature fears do arise in the Consciences of men Have we not known or heard of men struck by so deep a dart that could not be drawn out by the strength of men or appeased by the pleasure of the world and men crying out with horrour upon a death-bed of their past life when their fear hath come as a desolation and destruction as a whirlewind Prov. 1.27 And often in some sharp affliction the dust hath been blown off from mens Consciences which for a while hath obscured the writing of the law If men stand in awe of punishment there is then some superior to whom they are accountable If there were no God there were no punishment to fear What reason of any fear upon the dissolution of the knot between the Soul and body if there were not a God to punish and the Soul remained not in being to be punished How suddenly will Conscience work upon the appearance of an affliction rouze it self from sleep like an armed man and fly in a mans face before he is aware of it It will surprize the Hipocrites Isa. 38.14 It will bring to mind actions committed long ago and set them in order before the face as Gods deputy acting by his authority and Omniscience As God hath not left himself without a witness among the Creatures Acts 14.17 So he hath not left himself without a witness in a mans own breast 1. This operation of Conscience hath been universal No Nation hath been any more exempt from it than from reason Not a man but hath one time or other more or less smarted under the sting of it All over the world Conscience hath shot its darts It hath torn the hearts of Princes in the midst of their pleasures It hath not flattered them whom most men flatter nor feared to disturb their rest whom no man dares to provoke Judges have trembled on a Tribunal when Innocents have rejoyced in their condemnation The Iron bars upon Pharaohs Conscience were at last broke up and he acknowledged the Justice of God in all that he did Exod. 9.27 I have sinned the Lord is righteous and I and my people are wicked Had they been like Childish frights at the apprehension of bug-bears why hath not reason shaken them off But on the contrary the stronger reason grows the smarter those lashes are Groundless fears had been short liv'd Age and Judgement would have worn them off but they grow sharper with the growth of persons The Scripture informs us they have been of as ancient a date as the revolt of the first man Gen. 3.10 I was afraid saith Adam beecause I was naked which was an expectation of the Judgment of God All his posterity inherit his fears when God expresseth himself in any tokens of his Majesty and Providence in the world Every mans Conscience testifies that he is unlike what he ought to be according to that law engraven upon his heart In some indeed Conscience may be feared or dimmer or suppose some men may be devoid of Conscience shall it be denyed to be a thing belonging to the nature of Man Some Men have not their eyes yet the power of seeing the light is natural to Man and belongs to the
morally carnal in the practises as the Ceremonies were materially carnal in their substance It was not their disobedience to observe them but it was a disobedience and a contempt of the end of the institution to rest upon them to be warm in them and cold in morals They fed upon the Bone and neglected the Marrow pleased themselves with the Shell and sought not for the Kernel They joyned not with them the internal Worship of God Fear of him with Faith in the promised Seed which lay vail'd under those Coverings Hos 6.6 I desired Mercy and not Sacrifice and the Knowledge of God more than burnt Offerings And therefore he seems sometimes weary of his own institutions and calls them not his own but their Sacrifices their Feasts Isa 1.11 14. They were his by appointment theirs by abuse The Institution was from his goodness and condescension therefore his the corruption of them was from the vice of their Nature therefore theirs He often blamed them for their carnality in them shew'd his dislike of placing all their Religion in them gives the Sacrificers upon that account no better a title than that of the Princes of Sodom and Gomorrah * Isa 1.10 And compares the Sacrifices themselves to the cutting off a Dog's Neck Swines Blood and the Murder of a Man * Isa 66.3 And indeed God never valued them or exprest any delight in them He despised the Feasts of the Wicked Amos 5.21 and had no esteem for the material Offerings of the Godly Psal 50.13 Will I eat the flesh of Bulls or drink the blood of Goats which he speaks to his Saints and People before he comes to reprove the Wicked which he begins v. 16. But to the Wicked God said c. So slightly he esteemed them that he seems to disown them to be any part of his Command when he brought his People out of the Land of Egypt Jer. 7.21 I spake not to your Fathers nor commanded them concerning burnt Offerings and Sacrifices He did not value and regard them in comparison of that inward frame which he had required by the moral Law that being given before the Law of Ceremonies obliged them in the first place to an observance of those Precepts They seemed to be below the Nature of God and could not of themselves please him None could in reason perswade themselves that the death of a Beast was a proportionable Offering for the sin of a Man or ever was intended for the expiation of Transgression In the same rank are all our bodily services under the Gospel A loud voice without Spirit bended bulrushes without inward affections are no more delightful to God than the Sacrifices of Animals 'T is but a change of one Brute for another of a higher species a meer Brute for that part of man which hath an agreement with Brutes Such a service is a meer animal service and not spiritual 5. And therefore God never intended that sort of Worship to be durable and had often mentioned the change of it for one more spiritual It was not good or evil in it self whatsoever goodness it had was solely deriv'd to it by institution and therefore it was mutable It had no conformity with the spiritual nature of God who was to be worshipped nor with the rational nature of man who was to worship And therefore he often speaks of taking away the New-Moons and Feasts and Sacrifices and all the ceremonial Worship as things he took no pleasure in to have a Worship more suted to his excellent Nature But he never speaks of removing the Gospel Administration and the worship prescribed there as being more agreeable to the nature and perfections of God and displaying them more illustriously to the World The Apostle tells us it was to be disannul'd because of its weakness * Heb. 7.18 A determinate time was fixed for its duration till the accomplishment of the truth figured under that Pedagogy * Gal. 4.2 Some of the modes of that worship being only typical must naturally expire and be insignificant in their use upon the finishing of that by the Redeemer which they did prefigure And other parts of it though God suffered them so long because of the weakness of the Worshipper yet because it became not God to be alway worshipped in that manner he would reject them and introduce another more spiritual and elevated Incense and a pure Offering should be offered every where unto his Name * Mal. 1.11 * Pascal Pen. 142. He often told them he would make a new Covenant by the Messiah and the old should be rejected that the former things should not be remembred and the things of old no more considered when he should do a new thing in the Earth * Isa 43.18.19 Even the Ark of the Covenant the Symbol of his presence and the glory of the Lord in that Nation should not any more be remembered and visited * Jer. 3.16 That the Temple and Sacrifices should be rejected and others established That the Order of the Aaronical Priest-hood should be abolisht and that of Melchisedeck set up in the stead of it in the Person of the Messiah to endure for ever * Psal 110. That Jerusalem should be changed a new Heaven and Earth created a Worship more conformable to Heaven more advantagious to Earth God had proceeded in the removal of some parts of it before the time of taking down the whole furniture of this house The Pot of Manna was lost Vrim and Thumim ceased the glory of the Temple was diminish'd and the ignorant people wept at the sight of the one without raising their Faith and Hope in the consideration of the other which was promised to be filled with a spiritual glory And as soon as ever the Gospel was spread in the World God thundred out his judgments upon that place in which he had fixed all those legal Observances so that the Jews in the Letter and Flesh could never practise the main part of their worship since they were expelled from that place where it was only to be celebrated 'T is one thousand six hundred years since they have been deprived of their Altar which was the foundation of all the Levitical-worship and have wandred in the world without a Sacrifice a Prince or Priest an Ephod or Teraphim * Hos 3.4 And God fully put an end to it in the Command he gave to the Apostles and in them to us in the presence of Moses and Elias to hear his Son only Matth. 17.5 Behold a voice out of the Cloud which said this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear him And at the death of our Saviour testified it to that whole Nation and the World by the rending in twain the vail of the Temple The whole frame of that service which was carnal and by reason of the corruption of Man weakned is nulled and a spiritual worship is made known to the world
the Moral Law was publisht had been a vain exhortation had there been no revelation of the mind of God in all Ages 2. The dominion of God is manifest in the extent of his Laws As he is the Governour and Soveraign of the whole World so he Enacts Laws for the whole World One Prince cannot make Laws for another unless he makes him his Subject by right of conquest Spain cannot make Laws for England or England for Spain But God having the supream Government as King over all is a Lawgiver to all to irrational as well as rational Creatures The Heavens have their Ordinances Job 38.33 All Creatures have a Law imprinted on their beings Rational Creatures have Divine Statutes Copied in their heart For men it is clear Rom. 2.14 Every Son of Adam at his coming into the World brings with him a Law in his nature and when reason clears it self up from the Clouds of sence he can make some difference between Good and Evil discern something of fit and just Every man finds a Law within him that checks him if he offends it Noâ—◠〈◊〉 without a legal indictment and a legal Executioner within them God 〈…〉 was the Author of this as a Soveraign Lord in establishing a Law iâ— man at the same time wherein as an Almighty Creator he imparted a being This Law proceeds from God's general power of governing as he is the Author of nature and binds not barely as it is the reason of man but by the Authority of God as it is a Law engraven on his Conscience And no doubt but a Law was given to the Angels God did not Govern those intellectual Creatures as he doth brutes and in a way inferior to his rule of Man Some sinned all might have sinned in regard of the changeableness of their nature Sin cannot be but against some rule Where there is no Law there is no Transgression what that Law was is not reveal'd but certainly it must be the same in part with the Moral Law so far as it agreed with their spiritual natures a love to God a Worship of him and a love to one another in their Societies and Persons 3. The dominion of God is manifest in the reason of some Laws which seem to be nothing else than purely his own Will Some Laws there are for which a reason may be rendered from the nature of the thing enjoyned as to Love Honour and Worship God For others none but this God will have it so such was that positive Law to Adam of not eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil Gen. 2.17 which was meerly an asserting his own dominion and was different from that Law of Nature God had written in his heart No other reason of this seems to us but a resolve to try mans Obedience in away of absolute Soveraignty and to manifest his right over all Creatures to reserve what he pleased to himself and permit the use of what he pleased to man and to signifie to man that he was to depend on him who was his Lord and not on his own will There was no more hurt in it self for Adam to have eaten of that than of any other in the Garden the Fruit was pleasant to the Eye and Good for Food but God would shew the right he had over his own goods and his Authority over man to reserve what he pleases of his own Creation from his touch that since man could not claim a propriety in any thing he was to meddle with nothing but by the leave of his Soveraign either discovered by a special or general License Thus God shewed himself the Lord of Man and that man was but his Steward to act by his Orders If God had forbidden man the use of more Trees in the Garden his command had been just Since as a Soveraign Lord he might dispose of his own Goods and when he had granted him the whole compass of that pleasant Garden and the whole World round about for him and his posterity it was a more tolerable exercise of his dominion to reserve this one Tree as a mark of his Soveraignty when he had left all others to the use of Adam He reserv'd nothing to himself as Lord of the Manour but this and Adam was prohibited nothing else but this one as a sign of his subjection Now for this no reason can be rendered by any man but meerly the Will of God this was meerly a fruit of his Dominion For the moral Laws a reason may be rendred to Love God hath reason to enforce it besides Gods Will viz. The Excellency of his Nature and the greatness and multitudes of his benefits To love our Neighbour hath enforcing reasons viz. the Conjunction in blood and the preservation of humane Society and the need we may stand in of their love our selves But no reason can be assign'd of this positive command about the Tree of knowledge of good and evil but meerly the pleasure of God It was a branch of his pure dominion to try mans Obedience and a mark of his Goodness to try it by so easie and light a precept when he might have extended his Authority further Had not God given this or the like order his absolute dominion had not been so conspicuous 'T is true Adam had a Law of Nature in him whereby he was obliged to perpetual Obedience and though it was a part of God's dominion to implant it in him yet his supream dominion over the Creatures had not been so visible to man but by this or a precept of the same kind What was commanded or prohibited by the Law of Nature did bespeak a comeliness in it self it appear'd Good or Evil to the reason of man but this was neither Good nor Evil in it self it receiv'd its sole Authority from the absolute Will of God and nothing could result from the fruit it self as a reason why man should not tast it but only the sole Will of God And as God's dominion was most conspicuous in this precept so man's obedience had been most eminent in observing it For in his obedience to it nothing but the sole power and Authority of God which is the proper rule of obedience could have been respected not any reason from the thing it self To this we may referre some other Commands as that of appointing the time of solemn and public Worship the seventh day though the Worship of God be a part of the Law of Nature yet the appointing a particular day wherein he would be more formally and solemnly acknowledged than on other days was grounded upon his absolute right of Legislation For there was nothing in the time it self that could render that day more Holy than another though God respected his finishing the work of Creation in his institution of that day Gen. 2.3 Such were the Ceremonial Commands of Sacrifices and Washings under the Law and the Commands of Sacraments under the Gospel The one to last till the first
according to God's order Ezek. 37.24 25. David my servant shall be King over them and my servant David shall be their Prince for ever He shall be a Prince over them but my servant in that principality in the exercise and duration of it The Soveraignty of God is paramount in all that Christ hath done as a Priest or shall do as a King The VSE 1. For Instruction 1. How great is the contempt of this soveraignty of God Man naturally would be free from Gods Empire to be a slave under the Dominion of his own lust The soveraignty of God as a Law-giver is most abhorr'd by man Levit. 26.43 The Israelites the best people in the World were apt by nature not only to despise but abhorre his Statutes There is not a Law of God but the corrupt heart of man hath an abhorrency of How often do men wish that God had not enacted this or that Law that goes against the grain and in wishing so wish that he were no soveraign or not such a soveraign as he is in his own â—â—ture but one according to their corrupt model This is the great quarrel between God and Man whither he or they shall be the soveraign Ruler He should not by the Will of Man rule in any one Village in the World Gods vote should not be predominant in any one thing There is not a Law of his but is expos'd to contempt by the perverseness of Man Prov. 1.21 Ye have set at nought all my Counsel and would have none of my reproof Septuag Ye have made all my Counsels without Authority The nature of man cannot endure one precept of God nor one rebuke from him And for this cause God is at the expence of Judgements in the World to assert his own Empire to the Teeth and Consciences of men Psal 59.13 Lord consume them in wrath and let them know that God rules in Jacob to the ends of the Earth The Dominion of God is not slighted by any Creature of this World but Man all others observe it by observing his Order whither in their natural motions or preternaral irruptions they punctually act according to their Commission Man only speaks a Dialect against the strain of the whole Creation and hath none to imitate him among all the Creatures in Heaven and Earth but only among those in Hell Man is more impatient of the yoke of God than of the yoke of Man There are not so many rebellions committed by inferiors against their superiors and fellow Creatures as are committed against God A willing and easie sinning is an equalling the Authority of God to that of Man Hos 6.7 They like men have transgrest my Covenant * Munster They have made no more account of breaking my Covenant than if they had broken some league or compact made with a meer man so slightly do they esteem the Authority of God Such a disesteem of the divine Authority is a vertual undeifying of him To slight his soveraignty is to stab his Deity Since the one cannot be preserved without the support of the other his life would expire with his Authority How base and brutish is it for vile dust and mouldring clay to lift up it self against the Majesty of God whose Throne is in the Heavens who sways his Scepter over all parts of the World A Majesty before whom the Devils shake and the highest Cherubims tremble 'T is as if the Thistle that can presently be trod down by the foot of a wild Beast should think it self a match for the Cedar of Lebanon as the phrase is 2 Kings 14.9 Let us consider this in general and also in the ordinary practise of men First In General 1. All sin in its nature is a contempt of the Divine Dominion As every act of Obedience is a confirmation of the Law and consequently a subscription to the Authority of the Lawgiver Deut 27.26 so every breach to it is a conspiracy against the soveraignty of the Law-giver setting up our Will against the Will of God is an Articling against his Authority as setting up our reason against the methods of God is an Articling against his Wisdom the intendment of every act of sin is to wrest the Scepter out of God's hand The Authority of God is the first attribute in the Deity which it directs its edge against 't is called therefore a transgression of his Law 1 John 3.4 And therefore a slight or neglect of the Majesty of God and the not keeping his Commands is call'd a forgetting God Deut. 8.11 i. e. a forgetting him to be our absolute Lord. As the first notion we have of God as a Creator is that of his Soveraignty so the first perfection that sin struck at in the violation of the Law was his soveraignty as a Lawgiver Breaking the Law is a dishonouring God Rom. 2.23 a Snatching off his Crown to obey our own Wills before the Will of God is to preferre our selves as our own Soveraigns before him Sin is a wrong and injury to God not in his Essence that is above the reach of a Creature nor in any thing profitable to him or pertaining to his own intrinsick advantage not an injury to God in himself but in his Authority in those things which pertain to his Glory a disowning his due right and not using his goods according to his will Thus the whole world may be call'd as God calls Chaldea a Land of Rebels Jer. 50.21 Go up against the Land of Merathaim or Rebels Rebels not against the Jews but against God The mighty opposition in the heart of man to the Supremacy of God is discovered Emphatically by the Apostle Rom. 8.7 in that expression The carnal mind is enmity against God i. e. against the Authority of God because it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be It refuseth not subjection to this or that part but to the whole to every mark of Divine Authority in it it will not lay down its arms against it nay it cannot but stand upon its terms against it the Law can no more be fulfill'd by a carnal mind than it can be disowned by a soveraign God God is so Holy that he cannot alter a Righteous Law and man is so averse that he cares not for nay cannot fulfil one Tittle so much doth the Nature of man swell against the Majesty of God Now an enmity to the Law which is in every sin implies a perversity against the Authority of God that enacted it 2. All sin in its nature is the despoyling God of his sole soveraignty which was probably the first thing the Devil aim'd at That pride was the sin of the Devil the Scripture gives us some account of when the Apostle adviseth not a novice or one that hath but lately embraced the Faith to be chosen a Bishop 1 Tim. 3.6 Least being lifted up with Pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devil Least he fall into the same sin for
Zech. 4.1 The Angel that talked with me came again and awaked me as a man is awaked out of sleep He had been rouzed up before but he was ready to drop down again his heart was gone till the Angel jogged him We may complain of such imaginations as Jerem. doth of the Enemies of the Jews * Lam. 4.19 Our Persecutors are swifter than Eagles they light upon us with as much speed as Eagles upon a Carcass they pursue us upon the Mountain of Divine institutions and they lay wait for us in the Wilderness in our retired addresses to God And this will be so while 1. There is natural corruption in us There are in a Godly man two contrary principles Flesh and Spirit which endeavour to hinder one anothers acts and are alway stirring upon the offensive or defensive part * Gal. 5.17 There is a body of death continually exhaling its noysom vapours 'T is a body of death in our worship as well as in our natures it snaps our resolutions asunder * Rom. 7.19 it hinders us in the doing good and contradicts our wills in the stirring up evil This corruption being seated in all the faculties and a constant Domestick in them has the greater opportunity to trouble us since it is by those faculties that we spiritually transact with God and it stirs more in the time of religious exercises though it be in part mortified As a wounded Beast though tired will rage and strive to its utmost when the Enemy is about to fetch a blow at it All duties of worship tend to the wounding of corruption and it is no wonder to feel the striving of sin to defend it self and offend us when we have our Arms in our hands to mortifie it that the blow may be diverted which is directed against it The Apostles had aspiring thoughts and being perswaded of an earthly Kingdom expected a Grandeur in it And though we find some appearance of it at other times as when they were casting out Devils and gave an account of it to their Master he gives them a kind of a check * Luke 10.20 intimating that there was some kind of evil in their rejoycing upon that account Yet this never swelled so high as to break out into a quarrel who should be greatest * Luke 22.24 until they had the most solemn Ordinance the Lords Supper to quell it* Our corruption is like Lime which discovers not its fire by any smoke or heat till you cast water the Enemy of fire upon it Neither doth our natural corruption rage so much as when we are using means to quench and destroy it 2. While there is a Devil and we in his Precinct As he accuseth us to God so he disturbs us in our selves He is a bold Spirit and loves to intrude himself when we are conversing with God We read that when the Angels presented themselves before God Satan comes among them * Job 1.6 Motions from Satan will thrust themselves in with our most raised and Angelical frames He loves to take off the edge of our Spirits from God He acts but after the old rate He from the first envied God an obedience from man and envied man the felicity of communion with God He is unwilling God should have the honour of worship and that we should have the fruit of it He hath himself lost it and therefore is unwilling we should enjoy it and being subtil he knows how to make impressions upon us sutable to our inbred corruptions and assault us in the weakest part He knows all the avenues to get within us as he did in the temptation of Eve and being a Spirit he wants not a power to dart them immediatly upon our fancy And being a Spirit and therefore active and nimble he can shoot those darts faster than our weakness can beat them off He is diligent also and watcheth for his Prey and seeks to devour our services as well as our Souls and snatch our best morsels from us We know he mixed himself with our Saviours retirements in the Wilderness and endeavoured to Fly-blow his holy converse with his Father in the preparation to his mediatory work Satan is Gods Ape and imitates the Spirit in the Office of a Remembrancer As the Spirit brings good thoughts and divine promises to mind to quicken our worship so the Devil brings evil things to mind and endeavours to fasten them in our Souls to disturb us And though all the foolish starts we have in worship are not purely his issue yet being of kin to him he claps his hands and sets them on like so many Mastives to tear the service in pieces And both those distractions which arise from our own corruption and from Satan are most rise in worship when we are under some pressing affliction This seems to be David's Case Psal 86. when in v. 11. He prays God to unite his heart to fear and worship his Name he seems to be under some affliction or fear of his Enemies Oh free me from those distractions of Spirit and those passions which arise in my Soul upon considering the designs of my enemies against me and press upon me in my addresses to thee and attendances on thee Job also in his affliction complains Job 17.11 That his purposes were broken off He could not make an even thread of thoughts and resolutions they were frequently snapt saunder like rotten Yarn when one is winding it up Good Men and spiritual Worshippers have lain under this trouble Though they are a sign of weakness of grace or some obstructions in the acting of strong grace yet they are not alway evidences of a want of grace What ariseth from our own corruption is to be matter of humiliation and resistance what ariseth from Satan should edge our minds to a noble conquest of them If the Apostle did comfort himself with his disapproving of what rose from the natural spring of sin within him with his consent to the Law and dissent from his Lust and charges it not upon himself but upon the sin that dwelt in him with which he had broken off the former League and was resolved never to enter into Amity with it By the same reason we may comfort our selves if such thoughts are undelighted in and alienate not our hearts from the worship of God by all their busie intrusions to interrupt us 2. These distractions not allowed may be occasions by an holy improvement to make our hearts more spiritual after worship though they disturb us in it By answering those ends for which we may suppose God permits them to invade us And that is 1. When they are occasions to humble us 1. For our carriage in the particular worship There is nothing so dangerous as spiritual pride It deprived Devils and Men of the presence of God and will hinder us of the influence of God If we had had raised and uninterrupted motions in worship we should be apt to be lifted
the thronging multitudes Our groans are as audible and intelligible to him as our words and he knows what is the mind of his own Spirit though exprest in no plainer language than sobs and heavings * Rom. 8.27 Thus David cheers up himself under the neglects of his Friends Psal 38.9 Lord my desire is before thee and my groaning is not hid from thee Not a groan of a panting Spirit shall be lost till God hath lost his knowledge Not a Petition forgotten while God hath a Record nor a Tear dried while God hath a Bottle to reserve it in * Psal 56.8 Our secret works are also known and observed by him not only our outward labour but our inward love in it Heb. 6.10 If with Isaac we go privately into the Field to meditate or secretly cast our Bread upon the Waters he keeps his Eye upon us to Reward us and returns the Fruit into our own Bosoms * Mat. 6.4.6 Yea though it be but a Cup of cold Water from an inward Spring of love given to a Disciple He sees your works and your labour and faith and patience in working them * Rev. 2.2 all the marks of your industry and strength of your intentions and Will be as exact at last in order to a due Praise as to open Sins in order to a just Recompence * 1 Cor. 4.5 6. The Consideration of this excellent Attribute affords Comfort in the Afflictions of good Men. He knows their Pressures as well as hears their Cries * Exod. 3.7 His Knowledge comes not by information from us but his Compassionate listening to our Cries springs from his own Inspection into our Sorrows He is affected with them before we make any discovery of them He is not ignorant of the best Season when they may be usefully inflicted and when they may be profitably removed The Tribulation and Poverty of his Church is not unknown to him Rev. 2.8 9. I know thy Works and Tribulation c. He knows their Works and what Tribulation they meet with for him He sees their extremities when they are toiling against the Wind and Tide of the World * Mark 6.48 Yea the natural exigencies of the multitude are not neglected by him he discerns to take care of them Our Saviour considered the three days fasting of his Followers and miraculously provides a Dish for them in the Wilderness No good Man is ever out of Gods Mind and therefore never out of his Compassionate Care His Eye pierceth into their Dungeons and pities their Miseries Joseph may forget his Brethren and the Disciples not know Christ when he walks upon the Midnight Waves and Turbulent Sea * Barlow's Man 's Refuge p. 29 30. but a Lyons Den cannot obscure a Daniel from his Sight nor the depths of the Whales Belly bury Jonah from the Divine Understanding He discerns Peter in his Chains and Stephen under the Stones of Martyrdom He knows Lazarus under his tatter'd Rags and Abel wallowing in his Blood His Eye and Knowledge goes along with his People when they are transplanted into Foreign Countreys and sold for Slaves into the Islands of the Grecians for he will raise them out of the place Joel 3.6 7. He would defeat the hopes of the Persecutors and applaud the Patience of his People He knows his People in the Tabernacle of Life and in the Valley of the Shadow of Death Psal 23. He knows all penal Evils because he commissions and directs them He knows the Instruments because they are his Sword * Psal 17.13 and he knows his gracious Sufferer because he hath his Mark He discerns Job in his Anguish and the Devil in his Malice By the direction of this Attribute he orders Calamities and rescues from them Thou hast seen it for thou beholdest mischief and spight * Psal 10.14 That is the Comfort of the Psalmist and the Comfort of every Believer and the Ground of committing themselves to God under all the injustice of Men. 7. 'T is a Cofmort in all our Infirmities As he knows our Sins to charge them so he knows the weakness of our Nature to pity us As his infinite Understanding may scare us because he knows our Transgressions so it may relieve us because he knows our natural mutability in our first Creation He knows our frame he remembers that we are dust * Psal 103.14 'T is the reason of the precedent Verses why he removes our Transgression from us why he is so backward in Punishing so patient in waiting so forward in pitying Why He doth not only remember our Sins but remember our frame or forming what brittle though clear Glasses we were by Creation how easie to be crackt He remembers our impotent and weak Condition by Corruption what a sink we have of vain imaginations that remain in us after Regeneration he doth not only consider that we were made according to his Image and therefore able to stand but that we were made of Dust and weak Matter and had a sensitive Soul like that of Beasts as well as an intellectual Nature like that of Angels and therefore liable to follow the dictates of it without exact care and watchfulness If he remembred only the first there would be no issue but Indignation but the Consideration of the latter moves his Compassion How miserable should we be for want of this Perfection in the Divine Nature whereby God remembers and reflects upon his past act in our first frame and the mindfulness of our Condition excites the motion of his Bowels to us Had he lost the knowledge how he first framed us did he not still remember the mutability of our Nature as we were form'd and stampt in his Mint How much more wretched would our Condition be than it is If his remembrance of our Original be one ground of his Pity the sense of his Omniscience should be a ground of our Comfort in the stirring of our infirmities He remembers we were but Dust when he made us and yet remembers we are but Dust while he preserves and forbears us 8. 'T is some Comfort in the fears of some lurking Corruption in our Hearts We know by this whither to address our selves for the search and discovery of it Perhaps some Blessings we want are retarded some Calamities we understand not the particular cause of are inflicted some Petitions we have put up hang too long for an Answer and the Chariot Wheels of Divine Goodness move slow and are long in coming Let us beg the Aid of this Attribute to open to us the Remoras to discover what base Affection there is that retards the Mercies we want or attracts the Affliction we feel or bars the Door against the return of our supplications What our dim sight cannot discover the clear Eye of God can make visible to us Job 10.2 Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me As in want of Pardon we particularly plead his Mercy and in our desires for the
the Earth So Colours are made for the pleasure of the Eye Sounds for the delight of the Ear Light is formed whereby the Eye may see the one and Air to convey the Species of Colours to the Eye and Sound to the Ear all things are like the Wheels of a Watch compacted And though many of the Creatures be endowed with contrary qualities yet they are joyned in a Marriage-knot for the Publick Security and Subserviency to the Preservation and Order of the Universe As the variety of Strings upon an Instrument sending forth various and distinct sounds are temper'd together for the framing excellent and delightful Airs In this universal conspiring of the Creatures together to one end is the wisdom of the Creator apparent in tuning so many Contraries as the Elements are and preserving them in their Order which if once broken the whole Frame of Nature would crack and fall in pieces all are so interwoven and inlaid together by the Divine Workmanship as to make up one intire Beauty in the whole Fabrick As every part in the Body of Man hath a distinct Comliness yet there is besides the Beauty of the whole that results from the union of divers parts exactly fashion'd to one another and linkt together By the way Use How much may we see of the Perfection of God in every thing that presents it self to our eyes And how should we be convinc'd of our unworthy neglect of ascending to him with reverent and admiring thoughts upon the prospect of the Creatures What dull Scholars are we when every Creature is our Teacher every part of the Creature a lively Instruction Those things that we tread under our feet if used by us according to the full design of their Creation would afford rich matter not only for our heads but our hearts As Grace doth not destroy Nature but elevate it so neither should the fresher and fuller discoveries of Divine Wisdom in Redemption deface all our thoughts of his Wisdom in Creation Though the greater Light of the Sun obscures the lesser sparkling of the Stars yet it gives way in the Night to the discovery of them that God may be seen known and considered in all his Works of Wonder and Miracles of Nature No part of Scripture is more spiritual than the Psalms none filled with clearer Discoveries of Christ in the Old Testament yet how often do the Penmen consider the Creation of God and find their Meditations on him to be sweet as consider'd in his Works Psal 104.34 My meditation of him shall be sweet When why after a short History of the Goodness and Wisdom of God in the Frame of the World and the Species of the Creatures 2. The wisdom of God appears in his Government of his Creatures The regular motion of the Creatures speaks for this Perfection as well as the exact Composition of them If the exquisiteness of the Frame conducts us to the skill of the Contriver the exactness of their Order according to his Will and Law speaks no less the wisdom of the Governour It cannot be thought that a rash and irrational Power presides over a World so well disposed The disposition of things hath no less characters of Skill than the Creation of them No man can hear an excellent Lesson upon a Lute but must presently reflect upon the Art of the Person that touches it The Prudence of man appears in wrapping up the Concerns of a Kingdom in his mind for the well-ordering of it and shall not the wisdom of God shine forth as he is the Director of the World I shall omit his Government of Inanimate Creatures and confine the Discourse to his Government of Man as Rational as Sinful as Restor'd 1. In his Government of man as a Rational Creature 1. In the Law he gives to man Wisdom framed it though Will enacted it The will of God is the Rule of Righteousness to us but the wisdom of God is the Foundation of that Rule of Righteousness which he prescribes us * Castellio Dialog l. 4. p. 46. The Composure of a Musician is the Rule of singing to his Scholars yet the Consent and Harmony in that Composure derives not it self from his will but from his understanding he would not be a Musician if his Composures were contrary to the Rules of true Harmony So the Laws of men are compos'd by wisdom though they are enforc'd by will and authority The Moral Law which was the Law of Nature the Law imprinted upon Adam is so framed as to secure the Rights of God as Supream and the Rights of Men in their distinctions of Superiority and Equality 'T is therefore called holy and good Rom. 7.12 holy as it prescribes our duty to God in his worship good as it regulates the offices of human life and preserves the common interest of Mankind 1. 'T is suted to the Nature of Man As God hath given a Law of Nature a fixed Order to Inanimate Creatures so he hath given a Law of Reason to Rational Creatures Other Creatures are not capable of a Law differencing good and evil because they are destitute of Faculties and Capacities to make distinction between them It had not been agreeable to the wisdom of God to propose any Moral Law to them who had neither understanding to discern nor will to chuse 'T is therefore to be observed that whilst Christ exhorted others to the embracing his Doctrine yet he exhorted not little Children though he took them in his Arms because though they had Faculties yet they were not come to such a Maturity as to be capable of a Rational Instruction But there was a necessity for some Command for the government of man since God had made him a Rational Creature it was not agreeable to his wisdom to govern him as a Brute but as a Rational Creature capable of knowing his Precepts and voluntarily walking in them and without a Law he had not been capable of any exercise of his Reason in Services respecting God He therefore gives him a Law with a Covenant annext to it whereby man is obliged to Obedience and secured of a Reward This was enforced with severe Penalties Death with all the Horrours attending it to deterr him from Transgression Gen. 2.17 wherein is implied a Promise of continuance of Life and all its Felicities to allure him to a mindfulness of his Obligation So perfect a Hedge did Divine Wisdom set about him to keep him within the bounds of that Obedience which was both his Debt and Security that wheresoever he looked he saw either something to invite him or something to drive him to the payment of his Duty and perseverance in it Thus the Law was exactly framed to the Nature of man man had twisted in him a desire of Happiness the Promise was suted to cherish this natural Desire He had also the Passion of Fear the proper Object of this was any thing destructive to his Being Nature and Felicity this the threatning met
How wonderful is this Wisdom of God! That the seed of the woman born of a mean Virgin brought forth in a stable spending his days in affliction misery and poverty without any pomp and splendor passing some time in a Carpenters shop with Carpenters tools and afterwards exposed to a horrible and disgraceful death Mark 6 6. should by this way pull down the gates of Hell subvert the kingdom of the Devil and be the hammer to break in pieces that power which he had so long exercised over the World Thus became he the Author of our life by being bound for a while in the chains of death and arrived to a principality over the most malicious powers by being a prisoner for us and the anvâ—l of their rage and fury 7. The Wisdom of God appears In giving us this way the surest ground of comfort and the strongest incentive to obedience The Rebel is reconciled and the rebellion shamed God is propitiated and the sinner sanctified by the same blood What can more contribute to our comfort confidence than Gods richest gift to us What can more enflame our love to him than our recovery from death by the oblation of his Son to misery and death for us It doth as much engage our duty as secure our happiness It presents God glorious and gracious and therefore every way fit to be trusted in regard of the interest of his own glory in it and in regard of the effusions of his grace by it It renders the Creature obliged in the highest manner and so awakens his industry to the strictest and noblest obedience Nothing so effectual as a crucified Christ to wean us from sin and stifle all motions of despair a means in regard of the Justice signaliz'd in it to make man to hate the sin which had ruined him and a means in regard of the love exprest to make him delight in that Law he had violated 2. Cor. 5.14 15. The love of Christ and therefore the love of God exprest in it constrains us no longer to live to our selves 1. It is a ground of the highest comfort and confidence in God Since he hath given such an evidence of his impartial truth to his threatning for the honour of his Justice we need not question but he will be as punctual to his promise for the honour of his mercy T is a ground of confidence in God since he hath redeemed us in such a way as glorifies the steadiness of his veracity as well as the severity of his Justice We may well trust him for the performance of his promise since we have experience of the execution of his threatning his mâ—rciful truth will as much engage him to accomplish the one as his just truth did to inflict the other The goodness which shone forth in weaker rays in the Creation breaks out with stronger beams in redemption And the mercy which before the appearance of Christ was manifested in some small Rivulets diffuseth itself like a boundless Ocean That God that was our Creator is our Redeemer the Repayrer of our Breaches and the Restorer of our Paths to dwell in And the plenteous Redemption from all Iniquity manifested in the Incarnation and Passion of the Son of God is much more a ground of hope in the Lord than it was in the past Ages when it could not be said the Lord hath but the Lord shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities Psal 130.8 It is a full Warrant to cast our selves into his Arms. 2. At incentive to obedience 1. The Commands of the Gospel require the obedience of the Creature There is not one Precept in the Gospel which interferes with any rule in the Law but strengthens it and represents it in its true exactness The heat to scorch us is allaied but the light to direct us is not extinguisht Not the least allowance to any sin is granted not the least affection to any sin is indulg'd The Law is temper'd by the Gospel but not null'd and cast out of doors by it It enacts that none but those that are sanctified shall be glorified that there must be Grace here if we expect Glory hereafter that we must not presume to expect an admittance to the Vision of Gods face unless our Souls be clothed with a robe of Holiness Heb. 12.14 It requires an obedience to the whole Law in our intention and purpose and an endeavour to observe it in our actions It promotes the honour of God and ordains a universal Charity among men it reveals the whole Counsel of God and furnisheth men with the holiest Laws 2. It presents to us the exactest pattern for our Obedience The redeeming Person is not only a Propitiation for the sin but a pattern to the sinner 1 Pet. 2.21 The Conscience of man after the fall of Adam approved of the reason of the Law but by the corruption of Nature man had no strength to perform the Law The possibility of keeping the Law by Human Nature is evidenced by the Appearance and life of the Redeemer and an assurance given that it shall be advanc'd to such a state as to be able to observe it We aspire to it in this life and have hopes to attain it in a future And while we are here the Actor of our Redemption is the copy for our Imitation The Pattern to imitate is greater than the Law to be ruled by What a lustre did his Vertues cast about the World How attractive are his Graces With what high Examples for all Duties has he furnish'd 〈◊〉 out of the copy of his Life 3. It presents us with the strongest motives to Obedience Tit. 2.11 12. The grace of God teaches us to deny ungodliness What Chains bind faster and closer than love Here is love to our nature in his Incarnation love to us though Enemies in his Death and Passion Encouragements to Obedience by the proffers of Pardon for former Rebellions By the disobedience of man God introduceth his redeeming Grace and ingageth his Creature to more Ingenious and excellent returns than his Innocent state could oblige him to In his Created state he had goodness to move him he hath the same goodness now to oblige him as a Creature and a greater love and mercy to oblige him as a repaired Creature and the terror of Justice is taken off which might invenom his Heart as a Criminal In his revolted state he had misery to discourage him in his redeemed state he hath love to attract him Without such a way black despaire had seized upon the Creature exposed to a remediless misery And God would have had no returns of love from the best of his earthly Works But if any sparks of Ingenuity be left they will be excited by the efficacy of this Argument The willingness of God to receive returning sinners is manifested in the highest degree and the willingness of a sinner to return to him in duty hath the strongest engagements He hath done as much to
of God and aspired to be a sharer with him in his Infinite Knowledge Would not let him be the only wise God but cherished an ambition to be his Partner Just as if a Beam were able to imagine it might be as bright as the Sun or a Spark fancy it could be as full fraught with Heat as the whole Element of Fire Man would not submit to the Infinite Wisdom of God in the prohibition of one single Fruit in the Garden when by the right of his Soveraign Authority he might have granted him only the use of one All Presumptuous sins are of thâ—s nature they are therefore called Reproaches of God Numb 15.30 the Soul that doth ought presumptuously reproacheth the Lord. All Reproaches are either for Natural Moral or Intellectual defects All Reproaches of God must imply either a Weakness or Unrighteousness in God If Unrighteousness his Holiness is denied if Weakness his Wisdom is blemished In General All Sin strikes at this Perfection two ways 1. As it defaceth the wise workmanship of God Every Sin is a deforming and blemishing our own Souls which as they are the prime Creatures in the lower World so they have greater Characters of Divine Wisdom in the Fabrick of them But this Image of God is ruin'd and broken by Sin Though the spoiling of it be a scorn of his Holiness 't is also an affront to his Wisdom for though his Power was the cause of the production of so fair a Piece yet his Wisdom was the guide of his Power and his Holiness the Pattern whereby he wrought it His Power effected it and his Holiness was exemplified in it but his Wisdom contrived it If a Man had a curious Clock or Watch which had cost him many years pains and the strength of his Skill to frame it for another after he had seen and considered it to trample upon it and crush it in pieces would argue a contempt of the Artificers Skill God hath shewn infinite Art in the Creation of Man but Sin unbeautifies Man and ravisheth his Excellency It cuts and slasheth the Image of God stampt by Divine Wisdom as though it were an Object only of Scorn and Contempt The Sinner in every Sin acts as if he intended to put himself in a better posture and in a fairer dress than the Wisdom of God hath put him in by Creation 2. In the slighting his Laws The Laws of God are highly Rational they are drawn from the depths of the Divine Understanding wherein there is no unclearness and no defect As his Understanding apprehends all things in their true Reason so his Will enjoyns all things for worthy and wise Ends His Laws are contrived by his Wisdom for the happiness of Man whose Happiness and the Mâ—thods to it he understands better than Men or Angels can do His Laws being the Orders of the Wisest Understanding every breach of his Law is a flying in the Face of his Wisdom All Human Laws though they are enforced by Soveraign Authority yet they are or ought to be in the composing of them founded upon Reason and should be particular applications of the Law of Nature to this or that particular emergency The Laws of God then who is summa ratio are the birth of the truest Reason though the Reason of every one of them may not be so clear to us Every Law though it consists in an act of the Will yet doth presuppose an act of the Understanding The act of the Divine Vnderstanding in framing the Law must be supposed to precede the act of his Will in commanding the Observance of that Law So every Sin against the Law is not only against the Will of God commanding but the Reason of God contriving and a cleaving to our own Reason rather than the Understanding or Mind of God As if God had mistaken in making his Law and we had more understanding to frame a better and more conducing to our happiness As if God were not Wise enough to govern us and prescribe what we should do and what we should avoid as if he designed not our welfare but our misfortune Whereas the Precepts of God are not tyrannical Edicts or Acts of meer Will but the fruits of Counsel and therefore every breach of them is a real declamation against his Discretion and Judgment and preferring our own Imaginations or the Suggestions of the Devil as our Rule before the Results of Divine Counsel While we acknowledge him Wise in our Opinion we speak him Foolish by our Practise when instead of being guided by him we will guide our selves No Man will question but it is a controuling Divine Wisdom to make Alterations in his Precepts dogmatically either to add some of their own or expunge any of his And is it not a Crime of the like reflection to alter them Practically When we will observe one part of the Law and not another part but pick and choose where we please our selves as our Humors and Carnal Interest prompts us It is to charge that part of the Law with Folly which we refuse to conform unto The more cunning any Man is in Sin the more his sin is against Divine Wisdom as if he thought to out-wit God He that receives the Promises of God and the Testimony of Christ sets to his Seal that God is true John 3.33 By the like strength of Argument it will undeniably follow That he that refuseth Obedience to his Precept sets to his Seal that God is foolish Were they not Rational God would not enjoyn them and if they are Rational we are Enemies to Infinite Wisdom by not complying with them If Infinite Prudence hath made the Law why is not every part of it observed if it were not made with the best Wisdom why is any part of it observed If the defacing his Image be any Sin as being a defaming his Wisdom in Creation the breaking his Law is no less a Sin as being a disgracing his Wisdom in his Administration 'T is upon this account likely that the Scripture so often counts Sinners Fools since it is certainly inexcusable Folly to contradict undeniable and infallible Wisdom yet this is done in the least Sin And as he that breaks one title of the Law is deservedly accounted guilty of the breach of the whole James 2.10 so he that despiseth the least stamp of Wisdom in the minutest part of the Law is deservedly counted as a Contemner of it in the frame of the whole Statute-Book But in Particular the Wisdom of God is affronted and Invaded 1. By introducing new Rules and Modes of Worship different from Divine Institutions Is not this a manifest reflection on this Perfection of God as though he had not been Wise enough to provide for his own Honour and model his own Sâ—rvice but stood in need of our directions and the caprichio's of our Brains Some have observed that it is a greater Sin in Worship to do what we should not than to omit what we should
than Men have reason to complain for the exercise of Justice in the vindication of it If God established all things in Order with Infinite Wisdom and Goodness and God silently behold for ever this Order broken would he not either charge himself with a want of Power or a want of Will to preserve the Marks of his own Goodness Would it be a kindness to himself to be careless of the breaches of his own Orders His Throne would shake yea sink from under him if Justice whereby he Sentenceth and Judgment whereby he Executes his Sentence were not the supports of it †Ps 89.14 Justice and Judgment are the habitation of thy Throne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Stability or Foundation of thy Throne So Psal 92.2 Man would forget his Relation to God God would be unknown to be Soveraign of the World were he careless of the breaches of his own Order * Psal 9.16 The Lord is known by the Judgments which he Executes Is it not a part of his Goodness to preserve the indispensible Order between himself and his Creatures His own Soveraignty which is good and the subjection of the Creature to him as Soveraign which is also good The one would not be maintained in its due place nor the other restrained in due limits without Punishment Would it be a goodness in him to see Goodness it self trampled upon constantly without some time or other appearing for the relief of it Is it not a Goodness to secure his own Honour to prevent further Evil Is it not a Goodness to discourage Men by Judgments sometimes from a contempt and ill use of his Bounty as well as sometimes patiently to bear with them and wait upon them for a Reformation Must God be bad to himself to be kind to his Enemies And shall it be accounted an unkindness and a Mark of Evil in him not to suffer himself to be always outrag'd and defy'd The World is wrong'd by Sin as well as God is injur'd by it How could God be good to himself if he righted not his own Honour Or be a good Governour of the World if he did not sometimes witness against the Injuries it receives sometimes from the works of his hands Would he be good to himself as a God to be careless of his own Honour Or good as the Rector of the World and be regardless of the Worlds Confusion That God should give an Eternal good to that Creature that declines its Duty and despiseth his Soveraignty is not agreeable to the goodness of his Wisdom or that of his Righteousness 'T is a part of Gods Goodness to love himself Would he love his Soveraignty if he saw it dayly slighted without sometimes discovering how much he values the Honour of it Would he have any esteem for his own Goodness if he beheld it trampled upon without any will to vindicate it Doth Mercy deserve the name of Cruelty because it pleads against a Creature that hath so often abused it and hath refused to have any pity exercised towards it in a Righteous and Regular way Is Soveraignty destitute of Goodness because it preserves its Honour against one that would not have it Reign over him Would he not seem by such a regardlesness to renounce his own Essence undervalue and undermine his own Goodness if he had not an implacable aversion to whatsoever is contrary to it If Men turn Grace into Wantonness is it not more reasonable he should turn his Grace into Justice All his Attributes which are parts of his Goodness engage him to punish Sin without it his Authority would be vilified his Purity stain'd his Power derided his Truth disgraced his Justice scorn'd his Wisdom slighted He would be thought to have dissembled in his Laws and be judged according to the Rules of Reason to be void of true Goodness 4. Punishment is not the primary Intention of God 'T is his Goodness that he hath no mind to Punish and therefore he hath put a bar to Evil by his Prohibitions and Threatnings that he might prevent Sin and consequently any occasions of severity against his Creature * Zarnovecius de satisfact Part. 1. cap. 1. p. 3 4. The principal Intention of God in his Law was to encourage Goodness that he might reward it And when by the commission of Evil God is provoked to Punish and takes the Sword into his hand he doth not act against the Nature of his Goodness but against the first intention of his Goodness in his Precepts which was to Reward As a good Judge principally intendeds in the Exercise of his Office to protect good Men from Violence and maintain the honour of the Laws yet consequently to punish bad men without which the Protection of the good would not be secured nor the Honour of the Law be supported And a good Judge in the Exercise of his Office doth principally intend the incouragement of the good and wisheth there were no wickedness that might occasion Punishment and when he doth Sentence a Malefactor in order to the Execution of him he doth not act against the goodness of his Nature but pursuant to the Duty of his Place but wisheth he had no occasion for such severity Thus God seems to speak of himself †Isaiah 28.21 He calls the act of his Wrath his Strange Work his Strange Act A work not against his Nature as the Governor of the World but against his first Intention as Creator which was to manifest his Goodness Therefore he moves with a slow pace in those Acts brings out his Judgments with relentings of heart and seems to cast out his Thunderbolts with a trembling hand He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the Children of Men * Lam. 3.33 And therefore he delights not in the death of a Sinner †Ezek. 33.11 Not in Death as Death in Punishment as Punishment but as it reduceth the suffering Creature to the Order of his Precept or reduceth him into order under his Power or reforms others who are Spectators of the Punishment upon a Criminal of their own Nature God only hates the Sin not the Sinner He desires only the destruction of the one * Suarez Vol. 1. de Deo lib. 3. cap. 7. p. 146. not the misery of the other The Nature of a Man doth not displease him because it is a work of his own Goodness but the Nature of the Sinner displeaseth him because it is a work of the Sinners own extravagance Divine Goodness pitcheth not its hatred primarily upon the Sinner but upon the Sin But since he cannot punish the Sin without punishing the Subject to which it cleaves the Sinner falls under his lash Who ever regards a good Judge as an Enemy to the Malefactor but as an Enemy to his Crime when he doth Sentence and Execute him 5. Judgments in the World have a goodness in them therefore they are no Impeachments of the Goodness of God 1. A Goodness in their preparations He
his moral Power whereby it is lawful for him to do what he will Among men Strength and Authority are two distinct things A Subject may be a Giant and be stronger than his Prince but he hath not the same Authority as his Prince Worldly Dominion may be seated not in a brawny Arm but a sickly and infirm Body As knowledge and wisdom are distinguisht knowledge respects the matter being and nature of a thing Wisdom respects the harmony order and actual usefulness of a thing Knowledge searcheth the nature of a thing and Wisdom employs that thing to its proper use A man may have much Knowledge and little Wisdom so a man may have much Strength and little or no Authority A greater strength may be setled in the Servant but a greater Authority resides in the Master strength is the natural vigor of a Man God hath an infinite strength he hath a strength to bring to pass whatsoever he decrees he acts without fainting and weakness Isaiah 40.28 and impairs not his strength by the exercise of it As God is Lord he hath a right to Enact as he is Almighty he hath a power to Execute His strength is the executive power belonging to his Dominion In regard of his Soveraignty he hath a right to Command all Creatures In regard of his Almightiness he hath power to make his Commands be obey'd or to punish men for the violation of them His power is that whereby he subdues all Creatures under him his Dominion is that whereby he hath a right to subdue all Creatures under him This Dominion is a right of making what he pleases of possessing what he made of disposing of what he doth possess whereas his power is an ability to make what he hath a right to Create to hold what he doth possess and to execute the manner wherein he resolves to dispose of his Creatures 2. All the other Attributes of God referre to this perfection of Dominion They all bespeak him fit for it and are discovered in the exercise of it which hath been manifested in the discourses of those Attributes we have passed through hitherto His Goodness fits him for it because he can never use his Authority but for the good of the Creatures and conducting them to their true end His Wisdom can never be mistaken in the exercise of it his power can accomplish the Decrees that flow from his absolute Authority What can be more rightful than the placing Authority in such an infinite Goodness that hath Bowels to pity as well as a Scepter to sway his Subjects That hath a mind to contrive and a will to regulate his contrivances for his own Glory and his Creatures good and an arm of power to bring to pass what he Orders Without this Dominion some perfections as Justice and Mercy would lie in obscurity and much of his Wisdom would be shrouded from our sight and knowledge 3. This of Dominion as well as that of Power hath been acknowledged by all The High Priest was to wave the Offering or shake it to and fro Exod. 29.24 which the Jews say was customarily from East to West and from North to South the four quarters of the World to signifie Gods Soveraignty over all the parts of the World And some of the Heathens in their Adorations turned their Bodies to all quarters to signifie the extensive Dominion of God throughout the whole Earth That Dominion did of right pertain to the Deity was confest by the Heathen in the name Baal given to their Idols which signifies Lord and was not a name of one Idol adored for a God but common to all the Eastern Idols God hath interwoven the notion of his Soveraignty in the Nature and Constitution of Man in the noblest and most inward acts of his Soul in that faculty or act which is most necessary for him in his converse in this World either with God or Man 'T is stampt upon the Conscience of Man and flashes in his face in every act of self Judgment Conscience passes upon a Man Every reflection of Conscience implies an obligation of man to some Law written in his Heart Rom. 2.15 This Law cannot be without a Legislator nor this Legislator without a Soveraign Dominion these are but natural and easie consequences in the mind of Man from every act of Conscience The indelible Authority of Conscience in Man in the whole exercise of it bears a respect to the Soveraignty of God clearly proclaims not only a supream being but a supream Governor and points man directly to it that a man may as soon deny his having such a reflecting principle within him as deny Gods Dominion over him and consequently over the whole World of rational Creatures 4. This notion of Soveraingty is inseparable from the notion of a God To acknowledge the Existence of a God and to acknowledge him a Rewarder are linkt together Heb. 11.6 To acknowledge him a Rewarder is to acknowledge him a Governor Rewards being the marks of Dominion The very name of a God includes in it a supremacy and an actual rule He cannot be conceived as God but he must be conceived as the highest Authority in the World 'T is as possible for him not to be God as not to be supream Wherein can the exercise of his excellencies be apparent but in his Soveraign rule To fancy an infinite power without a supream Dominion is to fancy a mighty senseless Statue fit to be beheld but not fit to be obey'd as not being able or having no right to give out Orders or not caring for the exercise of it God cannot be supposed to be the cheif being but he must be supposed to give Laws to all and receive Laws from none And if we suppose him with a perfection of Justice and Righteousness which we must do unless we would make a lame and imperfect God we must suppose him to have an intire Dominion without which he could never be able to manifest his Justice And without a supream Dominion he could not manifest the supremacy and infiniteness of his Righteousness 1. We cannot suppose God a Creator without supposing a Soveraign Dominion in him No Creature can be made without some Law in its Nature if it had not Law it would be Created to no purpose to no regular end it would be utterly unbecoming an infinite Wisdom to create a lawless Creature a Creature wholly vain much less can a rational Creature be made without a Law if it had no Law it were not rational For the very notion of a rational Creature implies reason to be a Law to it and implies an acting by rule * Maccov Colleg. Theolog 10. Disput 18. p. 6 7. or thereabout If you could suppose rational Creatures without a Law you might suppose that they might blaspheme their Creator and Murder their fellow Creatures and commit the most abominable villanies destructive to humane Society without sin for where there is no Law there is no
* Isa 44.17 They applyed a general Notion to a perticular Image The difference is in the manner and immediate object of worship not in the formal ground of worship The worship sprung from a true Principal though it was not applyed to a right object While they were rational Creatures they could not deface the Notion yet while they were corrupt Creatures it was not difficult to apply themselves to a wrong object from a true principle A blind man knows he hath a way to go as well as one of the clearest sight but because of his blindness he may miss the way and stumble into a Ditch No man would be impos'd upon to take a Bristol Stone instead of a Diamond if he did not know that there were such things as Diamonds in the World nor any man spread forth his hands to an Idol if he were altogether without the sense of a Deity Whether it be a false or a true God men apply to yet in both the natural sentiment of a God is evidenc'd all their mistakes were grafts inserted in this Stock since they would multiply gods rather than deny a Deity * Charron de la Sagesse Livr 1. Cha. 7. p. 43. 44. How should such a general submission be entered into the by all the world so as to adore things of a base alloy if the force of Religion were not such that in any fashion a man would seek the satisfaction of his natural instinct to some object of worship This great diversity confirms this consent to be a good argument for it evidenceth it not to be a Cheat combination or conspiracy to deceive or a mutual intelligence but every one finds it in his climate yea in himself * Gassend Phys § 1. lib. 4. Ca. 2. p. 291. People would never have given the Title of a God to men or Brutes had there not been a pre-existing and unquestioned perswasion that there was such a Being how else should the Notion of a God come into their minds the Notion that there is a God must be more ancient 3. Whatsoever disputes there have been in the World this of the existence of God was never the subject of contention All other things have been questioned What Jarrings were there among Philosophers about natural things into how many parties were they split with what animosities did they maintain their several judgments but we hear of no solemn Controversies about the Existence of a Supream Being this never met with any considerable contradiction no Nation that hath put other things to question would ever suffer this to be disparaged so much as by a publick doubt * Amyrant des Religion p. 50. We find among the Heathen contentions about the Nature of God and the number of gods some asserted an innumerable multitude of gods some affirmed him to be subject to birth and death some affirmed the intire World was God others fancied him to be a circle of a bright Fire others that he was a Spirit diffused through the whole World Yet they unanimously concurr'd in this as the judgment of Universal Reason that there was such a sovereign Being And those that were sceptical in every thing else and asserted that the greatest certainty was that there was nothing certain profest a certainty in this The question was not whether there was a First Cause but why it was * Gassend Phys § 1. lâ—b 4. Ca. 2. p. 291. 'T is much the same thing as the disputes about the Nature and matter of the Heavens the Sun and Planets tho there be great diversity of Judgments yet all agree that there are Heavens Sun Planets so all the Contentions among men about the Nature of God weaken not but rather confirm that there is a God since there was never a publick formal debate about his Existence Those that have been ready to pull out one anothers eyes for their dissent from their judgments sharply censured one anothers sentiments envied the births of one anothers wits alwayes shook hands with an unanimous consent in this never censured one another for being of this perswasion never called it into question as what was never controverted among men professing Christianity but acknowledged by all though contending about other things has reason to be judged a certain Truth belonging to the Christian Religion so what was never subjected to any Controversy but acknowledged by the whole World hath reason to be imbraced as a Truth without any doubt 4. This Vniversal Consent is not prejudiced by some few Dissenters History doth not reckon twenty profest Atheists in all Ages in the compass of the whole World Gassend Phys § 1. lib. 4. cap. 7. p. 282. and we have not the name of any one absolute Atheist upon Record in Scripture yet it is questioned whether any of them noted in History with that infamous name were down-right denyers of the Existence of God but rather because they disparaged the Deities commonly worshipped by the Nations where they lived as being of a clearer reason to discern that those qualities vulgarly attributed to their gods as lust and luxury wantonness and quarrels were unworthy of the nature of a God But suppose they were really what they are termed to be what are they to the multitude of men that have sprung out of the loyns of Adam not so much as one grain of ashes is to all that were ever turned into that form by any fires in your Chimnies And many more were not sufficient to weigh down the contrary consent of the whole World and bear down an universal impression Should the Laws of a Country agreed universally to by the whole Body of the People be accounted vain because a hundred men of those millions disapprove of them when not their reason but their folly and base interest perswades them to dislike them and dispute against them * Gassend ibid. p. 290. What if some men be blind shall any conclude from thence that eyes are not natural to men shall we say that the notion of the Existence of God is not natural to men because a very small number have been of a contrary opinion shall a man in a dungeon that never saw the Sun deny that there is a Sun because one or two blind men tell him there is none when thousands assure him there is Why should then the exceptions of a few not one to millions discredit that which is voted certainly true by the joynt consent of the World Add this too that if those that are reported to be Atheists had had any considerable reason to step aside from the common perswasion of the whole world 't is a wonder it met not with entertainment by great numbers of those who by reason of their notorious wickedness and inward disquiets might reasonably be thought to wish in their hearts that there were no God 'T is strange if there were any reason on their side that in so long a space of time as hath run
out from the Creation of the World there could not be engaged a considerable number to frame a Society for the profession of it It hath died with the Person that started it and vanish'd as soon as it appeared To conclude this is it not folly for any man to deny or doubt of the being of a God to dissent from all mankind and stand in contradiction to humane Nature What is the general dictate of Nature is a certain Truth 'T is impossible that Nature can naturally and universally lie And therefore those that ascribe all to Nature and set it in the Place of God contradict themselves if they give not credit to it in that which it universally affirms ‖ Cicero A general consent of all Nations is to be esteemed as a Law of Nature Nature cannot plant in the minds of all men an assent to a falsity for then the Laws of Nature would be destructive to the reason and minds of men How is it possible that a falsity should be a perswasion spread through all Nations engraven upon the minds of all men men of the most towring and men of the most creeping understanding that they should consent to it in all places and in those places where the Nations have not had any known commerce with the rest of the known World A Consent not settled by any Law of Man to constrain People to a belief of it And indeed 't is impossible that any Law of man can constrain the Belief of the mind Would not he deservedly be accounted a fool that should deny that to be gold which hath been tryed and examined by a great number of knowing Goldsmiths and hath past the test of all their touch-stones what excess of folly would it be for him to deny it to be true gold if it had been tryed by all that had skill in that metal in all Nations in the World Secondly 2. It hath been a constant and uninterrupted consent It hath been as Ancient as the first age of the World no man is able to mention any time from the beginning of the World wherein this Notion hath not been universally owned t is a old as man-kind and hath run along with the course of the Sun nor can the date be fixed lower than that 1. First In all the changes of the World this hath been maintained In the overturnings of the Government of States the alteration of Modes of Worship this hath stood unshaken The reasons upon which it was founded were in all Revolutions of time accounted satisfactory and convincing nor could absolute Atheism in the changes of any Laws ever gain the favour of any one Body of people to be established by a Law When the Honour of the Heathen Idols was laid in the dust this suffered no impair The being of one God was more vigorously owned when the unreasonableness of multiplicity of Gods was manifest and grew taller by the detection of counterfeits When other parts of the Law of nature have been violated by some Nations this hath maintained its standing The long series of Ages hath been so far from blotting it out that it hath more strongly confirmed it and maketh further progress in the confirmation of it Time which hath eaten out the strength of other things and blasted meer inventions hath not been able to consume this The discovery of all other Impostures never made this by any society of men to be suspected as one It will not be easy to name any Imposture that hath walked perpetually in the world without being discovered and whipped out by some Nation or other Falsities have never been so universally and constantly owned without publick controul and question And since the world hath detected many errors of the former age and learning been increased this hath been so far from being dimm'd that it hath shone out clearer with the increase of natural knowledge and received fresh and more vigorous confirmations 2. The fears and anxieties in the Consciences of men have given men sufficient occasion to root it out had it been possible for them to do it If the Notion of the Existence of God had been possible to have been dasht out of the minds of men they would have done it rather than have suffered so many troubles in their Souls upon the Commission of sin since there did not want wickedness and wit in so many corrupt ages to have attempted it and prospered in it had it been possible How comes it therefore to pass that such a multitude of profligate persons that have been in the world since the fall of man should not have rooted out this principle and dispostest the minds of men of that which gave birth to their tormenting fears How is it possible that all should agree together in a thing which created fear and an obliligation against the Interest of the Flesh if it had been free for men to discharge themselves of it No man as far as corrupt nature bears sway in him is willing to live contrould The first Man would rather be a God himself than under one * Gen. 3.5 Why should men continue this Notion in them which shackled them in their vile inclinations if it had been in their power utterly to deface it If it were an Imposture how comes it to pass that all the wicked ages of the world could never discover that to be a cheat which kept them in continual alarums Men wanted not will to shake off such apprehensions As Adam so all his Posterity are desirous to hide themselves from God upon the Commission of sin * Gen. 3.9 and by the same reason they would hide God from their Souls What is the reason they could never attain their will and their wish by all their endeavours Could they possibly have satisfied themselves that there were no God they had discarded their fears the disturbers of the repose of their lives and been unbridled in their pleasures The wickedness of the world would never have preserved that which was a perpetual molestation to it had it been possible to be rased out But since men under the turmoils and lashes of their own Consciences could never bring their hearts to a setled dissent from this Truth it evidenceth that as it took its birth at the beginning of the world it cannot expire no not in the ashes of it nor in any thing but the reduction of the Soul to that nothing from whence it sprung This conception is so perpetual that the nature of the Soul must be dissolved before it be rooted out nor can it be extinct whiles the Soul endures 3. Let it be considered also by us that own the Scripture that the Devil deems it impossible to root out this sentiment It seems to be so perpetually fixed that the Devil did not think fit to tempt man to the denial of the Existence of a Deity but perswaded him to beleive he might ascend to that Dignity and become a God himself Gen. 3.1 Hath
sense and those that have life and sense are made for those that are endued with reason When the Psalmist admiringly considers the Heavens Moon and Starrs he intimates man to be the end for which they were Created Psal 8.3 4. What is man that thou art mindful of him He expresseth more particularly the Dominion that Man hath over the beasts of the field the fowl of the Air and whatsoever passes through the paths of the Sea vers 6.7.8 and concludes from thence the excellency of Gods Name in all the Earth All things in the World one way or other Center in an usefulness for man some to feed him some to clothe him some to delight him others to instruct him some to exercise his wit and others his strength Since man did not make them he did not also order them for his own use If they conspire to serve him who never made them they direct man to acknowledge an other who is the joynt Creator both of the Lord and the Servants under his Dominion And therefore as the inferior natures are ordered by an invisible hand for the good of man so the nature of man is by the same hand ordered to acknowledge the Existence and the glory of the Creator of him This visible order man knows he did not constitute he did not settle those Creatures in subserviency to himself they were placed in that order before he had any acquaintance with them or Existence of himself which is a question God puts to Job to consider of Job 38.4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundation of the Earth declare if thou hast understanding All is ordered for Mans use the Heavens answer to the Earth as a roof to a floor both composing a delightful habitation for man vapors ascend from the Earth and the Heaven concocts them and returns them back in welcome showers for the supplying of the Earth * Jer. 10.13 The light of the Sun descends to beautifie the Earth and imploys its heat to midwife its fruits and this for the good of the community whereof Man is the head and though all Creatures have distinct natures and must act for particular ends according to the Law of their Creation yet there is a joynt combination for the good of the whole as the common end just as all the Rivers in the world from what part soever they come whether North or South fall into the Sea for the supply of that mass of waters which loudly proclaims some infinitely wise nature who made those things in so exact an harmony * Morn de verit cap. 1. pag. 7. As in a Clock the hammer which strikes the bell leads us to the next Wheel that to another the little wheel to a greater whence it derives its motion this at last to the spring which acquaints us that there was some Artist that framed them in this subordination to one another for this orderly motion 4. This order or Subserviency is regular and uniforme Every thing is determined to its peculiar nature * Amiraut The Sun and Moon make day and night months and years determine the seasons never are defective in coming back to their station and place they wander not from their Roads shock not against one another nor hinder one another in the functions assigned them From a small grain or seed a Tree springs with body root bark leaves fruit of the same shape figure smell tast that there should be as many parts in one as in all of the same kind and no more and that in the Womb of a sensitive Creature should be formed one of the same kind with all the due members and no more and the Creature that produceth it knows not how it is formed or how t is perfected If we say this is nature this nature is an intelligent being if not how can it direct all causes to such uniforme ends If it be intelligent this nature must be the same we call God Who ordered every herb to yeild seed and every fruit-Tree to yeild fruit after its kind and also every Beast and every creeping thing after its kind Gen. 11 12 24. And every thing is determined to its particular season The sap riseth from the Root at its appointed time enlivening and cloathing the branches with a new Garment at such a time of the Suns returning not wholly hindered by any accidental coldness of the weather it being often colder at its return than it was at the Suns departure All things have their Seasons of flourishing budding blossoming bringing forth fruit they ripen in their seasons cast their leaves at the same time throw off their old cloaths and in the spring appear with new Garments but still in the same fashion * Coccei sum Theol. cap. 8. § 77. The Winds and the Rain have their seasons and seem to be administred by laws for the profit of man No satisfactory cause of those things can be ascribed to the Earth the Sea to the Air or Stars Can any understand the spreading of his clouds or the noise of his Tabernacle Job 38.29 The natural reason of those things cannot be demonstrated without recourse to an infinite and intelligent being Nothing can be rendred capable of the direction of those things but a God This regularity in Plants and Animals is in all Nations The Heavens have the same motion in all parts of the world all men have the same Law of nature in their mind all Creatures are stampt with the same law of Creation In all parts the same Creatures serve for the same use and though there be different Creatures in India and Europe yet they have the same subordination the same subserviency to one another and ultimately to man which shows that there is a God and but one God who tunes all those different strings to the same notes in all places Is it nature meerly conducts these natural causes in due measures to their proper effects without interfering with one another Can meer nature be the cause of those musical proportions of time You may as well conceive a Lute to sound its own strings without the hand of an Artist a City well Governed without a Governor an Army keep its Stations without a General as imagine so exact an order without an Orderer Would any Man when he hears a Clock strike by sit intervals the hour of the day imagine this regularity in it without the direction of one that had understanding to manage it He would not only regard the motion of the Clock but commend the diligence of the Clock-Keeper 5. This order and Subserviency is constant Children change the customes and manners of their Fathers Magistrats change the Laws they have received from their Ancestors and enact new ones in their room But in the world all things consist as they were created at the beginning The Law of nature in the Creatures hath met with no change * Petav. ex Athanas Tâ—eol Dog tom 1. lib. 1.
cap. 1. § 4. Who can behold the Sun rising in the morning the Moon shining in the night increasing and decreasing in its due spaces the Stars in their regular motions night after night for all ages and yet deny a President over them And this motion of the Heavenly bodies being contrary to the nature of other Creatures who move in order to rest must be from some higher cause But those ever since the setling in their places have been perpetually rounding the world * Whether it be the Sun or the Earth that moves it is all one Whence have either of them this constant and uniform motion What nature but one powerful and intelligent could give that perpetual motion to the Sun which being bigger than the Earth a hundred sixty six times runs many thousand miles with a mighty swiftness in the space of an hour with an unwearied diligence performing its dayly task and as a strong man rejoycing to run its race for above five thousand years together without intermission but in the time of Joshuah * Josh 10.13 T is not natures Sun but Gods Sun which he makes to rise upon the just and unjust * Mat. 5.45 So a Plant receives its nourishment from the Earth sends forth its juyce to every branch forms a bud which spreads it into a blossom and flower the leaves of this drop off and leave a fruit of the same colour and tast every year which being ripened by the Sun leaves seeds behind it for the propagation of its like which contains in the nature of it the same kind of buds blossoms fruit which were before and being nourished in the Womb of the Earth and quickened by the power of the Sun discovers it self at length in all the progresses and motions which its predecessor did Thus in all ages in all places every year it performs the same task spinns out fruit of the same colour tast vertue to refresh the several Creatures for which they are provided This setled state of things comes from that God who laid the foundations of the Earth that it should not be removed for ever * Psal 104.5 and set ordinances for them to act by a stated law * Job 38.33 according to which they move as if they understood themselves to have made a Covenant with their Creator * Jer. 33.20 3. Add to this union of contrary qualities and the subserviency of one thing to another the admirable variety and diversity of things in the World What variety of Metals living Creatures Plants what variety and distinction in the shape of their leaves flowers smell resulting from them Who can number up the several sorts of Beasts on the Earth Birds in the Air Fish in the Sea How various are their motions Some Creep some Go some Fly some Swim And in all this variety each Creature hath Organs or members fitted for their peculiar motion If you consider the multitude of Stars which shine like Jewels in the Heavens their different magnitudes Or the variety of colours in the Flowers and Tapestry of the Earth you could no more conclude they made themselves or were made by chance than you can imagine a peice of Arras with a diversity of figures and colours either wove it self or were knit together by hazzard How delicious is the sap of the Vine when turned into Wine above that of a Crab Both have the same Womb of Earth to conceive them both agree in the nature of Wood and Twigs as Channels to convay it into fruit What is that which makes the one so sweet the other so sower or makes that sweet which was a few weeks before unpleasantly sharp Is it the Earth No They both have the same soil the Branches may touch each other the strings of their Roots may under ground entwine about one another Is it the Sun both have the same beams Why is not the tast and colour of the one as gratifying as the other Is it the root The tast of that is far different from that of the fruit it bears Why do they not when they have the same Soil the same Sun and stand near one another borrow something from one anothers natures No reason can be rendred but that there is a God of infinite Wisdom hath determin'd this variety and bound up the nature of each Creature within it self * Amirald de Trinitate pa. 21. Everything follows the Law of its Creation and it is worthy observation that the Creator of them hath not given that power to Animals which arise from different species to propagate the like to themselves As Mules that arise from different species No reason can be rendred of this but the fixt determination of the Creator that those species which were Created by him should not be lost in those mixtures which are contrary to the Law of the Creation This cannot possibly be ascribed to that which is commonly called nature but unto the God of nature who will not have his Creatures exceed their bounds or come short of them Now since among those varieties there are somethings better than other yet all are good in their kind and partake of Goodness * Gen. 1.31 there must be something better and more execellent than all those from whom they derive that goodness which inheres in their nature and is communicated by them to others And this excellent Being must inherit in an eminent way in his own nature the goodness of all those varieties since they made not themselves but were made by another All that goodness which is scattered in those varieties must be infinitely concentred in that nature which distributed those various perfections to them Psal 94.9 He that Planted the Ear shall not he hear he that formed the Eye shall not he see he that teacheth Man knowledge shall not he know The Creator is greater than the Creature and whatsoever is in his effects is but an Impression of some excellency in himself There is therefore some cheif fountain of goodness whence all those various goodnesses in the world do flow From all this it follows if there be an Order and Harmony there must be an Orderer one that made the Earth by his Power established the world by his Wisdom and stretched out the Heavens by his Discretion Jer. 10.12 Order being the effect cannot be the cause of it self Order is the disposition of things to an end and is not intelligent but implies an intelligent Orderer And therefore it is as certain that there is a God as it is certain there is order in the world Order is an effect of Reason and Counsel this reason and Counsel must have its residence in some being before this order was fixed The things ordered are always distinct from that Reason and Counsel whereby they are ordered and also after it as the effect is after the cause No Man begins a peice of work but he hath the Model of it in his own mind No Man
integrity of the body Who would argue that because some men are mad and hâ—ve lost their reason by a distemper of the brain that therefore reason hath no reality but is an imaginary thing But I think it is a standing truth that every man hath been under the scourge of it one time or other in a less or greater degree For since every man is an offender it cannot be imagined Conscience which is natural to man and an active faculty should always lie idle without doing this part of its office The Apostle tells us of the thoughts accusing or excusing one another or by turns according as the actions were Nor is this truth weakned by the corruptions in the world whereby many have thought themselves bound in Conscience to adhere to a false and superstitious worship and Idolatry as much as any have thought themselves bound to adhere to a Worship commanded by God This very thing infers that all men have a reflecting principle in them it is no argument against the being of Conscience but only inferrs that it may Err in the application of what it naturally owns We can no more say that because some men walk by a false rule there is no such thing as Conscience than we can say that because men have Errors in their minds therefore they have no such faculty as an Understanding or because men will that which is evil they have no such faculty as a Will in them 2. These operations of Conscience are when the wickedness is most secret These tormenting fears of Vengeance have been frequent in men who have had no reason to fear man since their wickedness being unknown to any but themselves they could have no accuser but themselves They have been in many acts which their companions have justified them in Persons above the stroak of human laws yea such as the people have honoured as Gods have been haunted by them Conscience hath not been frighted by the power of Princes or brib'd by the pleasures of Courts David was pursued by his horrors when he was by reason of his dignity above the punishment by the Law or at least was not reacht by the Law since though the Murder of Vriah was intended by him it was not acted by him Such examples are frequent in human Records When the crime hath been above any punishment by man they have had an Accuser Judge and Executioner in their own breasts Can this be originally from a mans self He who loves and cherishes himself would fly from any thing that disturbs him T is a greater Power and Majesty from whom man cannot hide himself that holds him in those fetters What should affect their minds for that which can never bring them shame or punishment in this World if there were not some supream Judge to whom they were to give an account whose instrument Conscience is Doth it do this of it self hath it received an Authority from the man himself to sting him It is some supream power that doth direct and commission it against our Wills 3. These operations of Conscience cannot be totally shaken off by Man If there 〈◊〉 no God why do not men silence the clamors of their Consciences and scatter thâ—â—e fears that disturb their rest and pleasures How inquisitive are men after some remedy against those convulsions Sometimes they would render the charge insignificant and sing a rest to themselves though they walk in the wickedness of their own hearts * Deâ—â— How often do men attempt to drown it by sensual pleasures and perhaps over-power it for a time but it revives reinforceth it self and Acts a revenge for its former stop It holds sin to a mans view and fixes his eyes upon it whether he will or no The wicked are like a troubled Sea and cannot rest Isa 57.20 They would wallow in sin without controul but this inward principle will not suffer it nothing can shelter men from those blows What is the reason it could never be cried down Man is an Enemy to his own disquiet what man would continue upon the rack if it were in his power to deliver himself why have all human remedies been without success and not able to extinguish those operations though all the wickedness of the heart hath been ready to assist and second the attempt It hath pursued men notwithstanding all the violence used against it and renewed its scourges with more severity as men deal with their resisting Slaves Man can as little silence those Thunders in his Soul as he can the Thunders in the Heavens He must strip himself of his humanity before he can be stript of an accusing and affrighting Conscience It sticks as close to him as his nature Since man cannot throw out the Process it makes against him t is an evidence that some higher power secures its Throne and standing Who should put this scourge into the hand of Conscience which no man in the World is able to wrest out 4. We may add the comfortable reflections of Conscience There are excusing as well as accusing reflections of Conscience when things are done as works of the law of nature Rom. 2.15 As it doth not forbear to accuse and torture when a wickedness though unknown to others is committed So when a man hath done well though he be attackt with all the calumnies the wit of man can forge yet his Conscience justifies the action and fills him with a singular contentment As there is torture in sinning so there is peace and joy in well doing Neither of those it could do if it did not understand a Soveraign Judge who punishes the Rebels and rewards the well-doer Conscience is the foundation of all Religion and the two Pillars upon which it is built are the being of God and the bounty of God to those that diligently seek him * Heb. 11.6 This proves the Existence of God If there were no God Conscience were useless the operations of it would have no foundation if there were not an eye to take notice and a hand to punish or reward the action The accusations of Conscience evidence the Omniscience and the Holiness of God The terrors of Conscience the justice of God The approbations of Conscience the Goodness of God All the order in the world owes it self next to the Providence of God to Conscience Without it the world would be a Golgotha As the Creatures witness there was a first cause that produced them so this Principle in man evidenceth it self to be set by the same hand for the good of that which it had so framed There could be no Conscience if there were no God and man could not be a rational Creature if there were no Conscience As there is a Rule in us there must be a Judge whether our actions be according to the rule And since Conscience in our corrupted state is in some particular misled there must be a power superior to Conscience to judge how it hath behaved it self in its deputed
of Man Folly is the disturber of Families Cites Nations The disgrace of human nature First I. T is pernicious to the World 1. It would root out the foundations of Government It demolisheth all order in Nations The being of a God is the guard of the world The sense of a God is the foundation of Civil order without this there is no tye upon the Consciences of men What force would there be in Oaths for the decisions of controversies what right could there be in Appeals made to one that had no being A City of Atheists would be a heap of confusion there could be no ground of any commerce when all the sacred bands of it in the Consciences of men were snapt asunder which are torne to peices and utterly destroyed by denying the Existence of God What Magistrate could be secure in his standing what private person could be secure in his right * Lessius de Provid p. 665. Can that then be a truth that is destructive of all publick good If the Atheists sentiment that there were no God were a truth and the contrary that there were a God were a falsity It would then follow that falsity made men good and serviceable to one another That error were the foundation of all the beauty and order and outward felicity of the world the fountain of all good to man If there were no God to believe there is one would be an error and to beleive there is none would be the greatest wisdom because it would be the greatest truth And then as it is the greatest wisdom to fear God upon the apprehension of his Existence * Psal 111 1â— So it would be the greatest error to fear him if there were none It would unquestionably follow that Error is the support of the world the spring of all human advantages and that every part of the world were obliged to a falsity for being a quiet habitation which is the most absur'd thing to imagine T is a thing impossible to be tolerated by any Prince without laying an Axe to the root of the Government 2. It would introduce all evil into the World If you take away God you take away Conscience and thereby all measures and rules of good and evil And how could any Laws be made when the measure and standard of them were removed All good Laws are founded upon the dictates of Conscience and reason upon common sentiments in human nature which spring from a sense of God So that if the foundation be demolisht the whole superstructure must tumble down A man might be a Thief a Murderer an Adulterer and could not in a strict sense be an offender The worst of actions could not be evil if a man were a God to himself a Law to himself Nothing but evil deserves a Censure and nothing would be evil if there were no God the Rector of the world against whom evil is properly committed No man can make that morally evil that is not so in it self As where there is a faint sense of God the heart is more strongly inclin'd to wickedness so where there is no sense of God the bars are removed the flood-gates set open for all wickedness to rush in upon mankind Religion pinions men from abominable practices and restrains them from being Slaves to their own passions An Atheists arms would be loose to do any thing * Lessius de Provid p. 664. Nothing so villanous and unjust but would be Acted if the natural fear of a Deity were extinguisht The first consequence issuing from the apprehension of the Existence of God is his Government of the world If there be no God then the natural consequence is that there is no supream Government of the world Such a Notion would cashiere all sentiments of good and be like a Trojan Horse whence all impurity tyranny and all sorts of mischeifs would break out upon mankind Corruption and abominable works in the text are the fruit of the fools perswasion that there is no God The perverting the ways of men oppression and extortion owe their rise to a forgetfulness of God Jer. 3.21 They have perverted their way and they have forgotten the Lord their God Ezek. 22.12 Thou hast greedily gained by extortion and hast forgotten me saith the Lord. The whole Earth would be filled with violence all flesh would corrupt their way as it was before the deluge when probably Atheism did abound more than Idolatry and if not a disowning the being yet denying the Providence of God by the posterity of Cain Those of the Family of Seth only calling upon the name of the Lord Gen. 6.11.12 compared which Gen. 4.26 The greatest sense of a Deity in any hath been attended with the greatest innocence of life and usefulness to others And a weaker sense hath been attended with a baser impurity * Iessius de Provid p. 665. If there were no God Blasphemy would be praise-worthy As the reproach of Idols is praise-worthy because we testifie that there is no Divinity in them What can be more contemptible than that which hath no being Sin would be only a false opinion of a violated Law and an offended Deity If such appresensions prevail what a wide door is opened to the worst of villanies If there be no God no respect is due to him all the Religion in the world is a trifle and Error and thus the Pillars of all human society and that which hath made Common-wealths to flourish are blown away Secondly 2 T is pernicious to the Atheist himself If he fear no future punishment he can never expect any future reward All his hopes must be confined to a Swinish and despicable manner of life without any imaginations of so much as a dram of reserved hapiness He is in a worse condition than the filliest animal which hath something to please it in its life Whereas an Atheist can have nothing here to give him a full content no more than any other man in the World and can have less satisfaction hereafter He deposeth the noble end of his own being which was to serve a God and have a satisfaction in him to seek a God and be rewarded by him And he that departs from his end recedes from his own nature All the content any Creature finds is in performing its end moveing according to its natural instinct As it is a joy to the Sun to run its race * Psal 19.5 In the same manner it is a satisfaction to every other Creature and its delight to observe the Law of its Creation What content can any man have that runs from his end opposeth his own nature denies a God by whom and for whom he was Created whose Image he bears which is the Glory of his nature and sinks into the very dregs of bruitishness How elegantly is it described by Bildad * Job 18.7.8 c. to the end his own Counsel shall cast him down terrors shall make him afraid on
consist before we can beleive any means which conduct us to him Moses begins with the Author of Creation before he treats of the Promise of Redemption Paul preached God as a Creator to a University before he preached Christ as Mediator * Acts 17.24 What influence can the Testimony of God have in his Revelation upon one that doth not firmly assent to the truth of his Being All would be in vain that is so often repeated thus saith the Lord if we do not beleive there is a Lord that speaks it There could be no aw from his Soveraignity in his Commands nor any comfortable taste of his Goodness in his Promises The more we are strengthened in this Principle the more credit we shall be able to give to divine Revelation to rest in his Promise and to reverence his Precept the Authority of all depends upon the Being of the Revealer To this purpose since we have handled this discourse by natural Arguments 1. Study God in the Creatures as well as in the Scriptures The primary use of the Creatures is to acknowledge God in them they were made to be witnesses of himself and his Goodness and Heralds of his Glory which Glory of God as Creator shall endure for ever Psal 104.31 that whole Psalm is a Lecture of Creation and Providence The World is a sacred Temple Man is introduced to contemplate it and behold with Praise the Glory of God in the pieces of his Art As Grace doth not destroy Nature so the Book of Redemption blots not out that of Creation Had he not shewn himself in his Creatures he could never have shewn himself in his Christ The order of things required it God must be read where ever he is legible The Creatures are one book wherein he hath writ a part of the excellency of his name * Psal 8.9 as many Artists do in their Works and Watches Gods Glory like the Filings of Gold is too precious to be lost where ever it drops Nothing so vile and base in the World but carries in it an instruction for Man and drives in further the Notion of a God As he said of his Cottage Enter here Sunt hic etiam Dij God disdains not this place So the least Creature speaks to Man every Shrub in the Field every Fly in the Air every Limbin a Body consider me God disdains not to appear in me he hath discovered in me his Being and a part of his Skill as well as in the highest The Creatures manifest the Being of God and part of his Perfections We have indeed a more excellent way a Revelation setting him forth in a more excellent manner a firmer Object of Dependence a brighter Object of Love raising our hearts from self confidence to a confidence in him Though the appearance of God in the one be clearer than in the other yet neither is to be neglected The Scripture directs us to Nature to view God it had been in vain else for the Apostle to make use of natural Arguments Nature is not contrary to Scripture nor Scripture to Nature unless we should think God contrary to himself who is the Author of both 2. View God in your own experiences of him There is a taste and sight of his Goodness though no sight of his Essence * Psal 34.98 By the taste of his Goodness you may know the reality of the fountain whence it springs and from whence it flows This surpasseth the greatest Capacity of a meer natural Understanding Experience of the sweetness of the ways of Christianity is a mighty preservative against Atheism Many a Man knows not how to prove Hony to be sweet by his reason but by his sense and if all the reason in the world be brought against it he will not be reasoned out of what he tasts Have not many found the delightful illappses of God into their Souls often sprinkled with his inward blessings upon their seeking of him had secret warnings in their approaches to him and gentle rebukes in their Consciences upon their swervings from him Have not many found sometimes an invisible hand raising them up when they were dejected some unexpected providence stepping in for their relief and easily perceived that it could not be a work of chance nor many times the intention of the instruments he hath used in it You have often found that he is by finding that he is a rewarder and can set to your seals that he is what he hath declared himself to be in his word Isa 43.12 I have declared and have saved therefore you are my witnesses saith the Lord that I am God The secret touches of God upon the heart and inward converses with him are a greater evidence of the Existence of a supream and infinitely good being than all nature Vse 4 4. Is it a folly to deny or doubt of the being of God T is a folly also not to worship God when we acknowledge his Existence T is our Wisdom then to Worship him As it is not indifferent whether we beleive there is a God or no So it is not indifferent whether we will give Honour to that God or no. A worship is his right as he is the Author of our being and fountain of our happiness By this only we acknowledge his Deity Tho we may profess his being yet we deny that profession in neglects of worship To deny him a Worship is as a great folly as to deny his being He that renounceth all homage to his Creator envies him the being which he cannot deprive him of The natural inclination to worship is as universal as the Notion of a God Idolatry else had never gained footing in the world The Existence of God was never owned in any Nation but a Worship of him was appointed And many people who have turned their backs upon some other parts of the Law of nature have paid a continual homage to some superior and invisible being The Jews give a Reason why Man was Created in the Evening of the Sabbath because he should begin his being with the worship of his Maker As soon as ever he found himself to be a Creature his first solemn act should be a particular respect to his Creator * Eccl. 12. To fear God and keep his Commandment is the whole of man or is * Heb. whole man he is not a man but a beast without observance of God Religion is as requisite as reason to compleat a man He were not reasonable if he were not Religious because by neglecting Religion he neglects the chiefest dictate of reason Either God framed the world with so much Order Elegancy and variety to no purpose or this was his end at least that reasonable Creatures should admire him in it and Honour him for it The Notion of God was not stampt upon men the shadows of God did not appear in the Creatures to be the Subject of an idle contemplation but the motive of a due homage to God
and the dregs of that revolt is that they know not God They forget God as if there were no such being above them and indeed he that doth the works of the Devil owns the Devil to be more worthy of observance and consequently of a being than God whose nature he forgets and whose presence he abhors Proposition 4. Every sin in its own nature would render God a foolish and impure being Many Transgressors esteem their acts which are contrary to the Law of God both Wise and Good If so the Law against which they are committed must be both foolish and impure What a reflection is there then upon the Law-giver The Moral Law is not properly a meer act of Gods Will considered in it self or a Tyrannical Edict like those of whom it may well be said stat pro ratione voluntas But it commands those things which are good in their own nature and prohibits those things which are in their own nature evil and therefore is an act of his Wisdom and Righteousness the result of his wise Council and an extract of his pure nature as all the Laws of just Law-givers are not only the acts of their Will but of a Will governed by Reason and Justice and for the good of the publick whereof they are conservators If the Moral commands of God were only acts of his Will and had not an intrinsick necessity reason and goodness God might have commanded the quite contrary and made a contrary Law whereby that which we now call Vice might have been canonized for Virtue He might then have forbid any Worship of him Love to him fear of his name He might then have commanded Murders Thefts Adulteries In the first he would have untied the link of duty from the Creature and dissolved the obligations of Creatures to him which is impossible to be conceived for from the Relation of a Creature to God obligations to God and duties upon those obligations do necessarily result It had been against the rule of Goodness and Justice to have commanded the Creature not to love him and fear and obey him This had been a command against Righteousness Goodness and intrinsick obligations to Gratitude And should Murder Adulteries Rapines have been commanded instead of the contrary God would have destroyed his own Creation he would have acted against the rule of goodness and order he had been an unjust tyrannical Governor of the world Publick society would have been crackt in peices and the world become a Shambles a Brothel House a place below the common sentiments of a meer man All sin therefore being against the Law of God the Wisdom and holy rectitude of Gods Nature is denyed in every Act of disobedience And what is the consequence of this but that God is both foolish and unrighteous in commanding that which was neither an Act of Wisdom as a Governour nor an Act of goodness as a benefactor to his Creature As was said before presumptuous sins are called reproaches of God Num. 15.30 The Soul that doth ought presumptuously reproacheth the Lord. Reproaches of men are either for natural moral or intellectual defects All reproaches of God must imply a charge either of unrighteousness or ignorance If of unrighteousness t is a denial of his Holiness If of Ignorance t is a blemishing his Wisdom If Gods Laws were not wise and holy God would not enjoyn them And if they are so we deny infinite Wisdom and Holiness in God by not complying with them As when a man believes not God when he promises he makes him a lyar 1 John 5.10 So he that obeys not a wise and holy God commanding makes him guilty either of folly or unrighteousness Now suppose you knew an absolute Atheist who denyed the being of a God yet had a life free from any notorious spot or defilement would you in reason count him so bad as the other that owns a God in being yet lays by his course of action such a black imputation of folly and impurity upon the God he professeth to own an imputation which renders any man a most despicable Creature Proposition 5. Sin in its own nature endeavours to render God the most miserable being T is nothing but an opposition to the will of God The will of no Creature is so much contradicted as the Will of God is by Devils and Men And there is nothing under the Heavens that the affections of human nature stand more point blank against than against God There is a slight of him in all the faculties of Man our Souls are as unwilling to know him as our Wills are averse to follow him Rom. 8.7 The carnal mind is enmity against God t is not subject to the Law of God nor can be subject T is true Gods will cannot be hindered of its effect for then God would not be supremely blessed but unhappy and miserable All misery ariseth from a want of that which a nature would have and ought to have Besides if any thing could frustrate Gods Will it would be superior to him God would not be Omnipotent and so would lose the perfection of the Deity and consequently the Deity it self for that which did wholly defeat Gods Will would be more powerful than he But sin is a contradiction to the Will of Gods Revelation to the Will of his precept and therein doth naturally tend to a superiority over God and would usurp his Omnipotence and deprive him of his blessedness For if God had not an infinite power to turn the designs of it to his own glory but the will of sin could prevail God would be totally deprived of his blessedness Doth not sin endeavour to subject God to the extravagant and contrary wills of men and make him more a slave than any Creature can be For the Will of no Creature not the meanest and most despicable Creature is so much crost as the Will of God is by sin Isa 43.24 Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins Thou hast endeavoured to make a meer slave of me by sin Sin endeavors to subject the blessed God to the humour and lust of every person in the world Proposition 6. Men sometimes in some circumstances do wish the not being of God This some think to be the meaning of the Text the fool hath said in his heart there is no God that is he wishes there were no God Many tamper with their own hearts to bring them to a perswasion that there is no God And when they cannot do that they conjure up wishes that there were none Men naturally have some Conscience of sin and some notices of Justice Rom. 1.32 They know the Judgement of God and they know the demerit of sin they know the Judgment of God and that they which do such things are worthy of death What is the consequent of this but fear of punishment and what is the issue of that fear but a wishing the Judge either unwilling or unable to vindicate the Honour of his
dived into the depths of Nature have been more studious of the qualities of the Creatures than of the excellency of the nature or the discovery of the mind of God in them who regard only the rising and motions of the Star but follow not with the wise men its conduct to the King of the Jews How often do we see men filled with an eager thirst for all other kind of knowledge that cannot acquiesce in a twilight discovery but are inquisitive into the causes and reasons of effects yet are contented with a weak and languishing knowledge of God and his Law and are easily tired with the Proposals of them He now that nauseates the means whereby he may come to know and obey God has no intention to make the Law of God his Rule There is no man that intends seriously an end but he intends means in order to that end As when a man intends the preservation or recovery of his health he will intend means in order to those ends otherwise he cannot be said to intend his health So he that is not diligent in using means to know the mind of God has no sound intention to make the Will and Law of God his Rule Is not the inquiry after the Will of God made a work by the by and fain to lacquy after other concerns of an inferior nature if it hath any place at all in the Soul which is a despising the Being of God The Notion of the Soveraignty of God bears the same date with the Notion of his Godhead and by the same way that he reveals Himself he reveals his Authority over us whether it be by Creatures without or Conscience within All Authority over Rational Creatures consists in commanding and directing the duty of Rational Creatures in compliance with that Authority consists in obeying Where there is therefore a careless neglect of those means which convey the knowledge of Gods Will and our Duty there is an utter disowning of God as our Soveraign and our Rule 2. When any part of the Mind and Will of God breaks in upon Men they endeavour to shake it off As a Man would a Sergeant that comes to arrest him they like not to retain God in their Knowledge Rom. 1.28 A natural Man receives not the things of the Spirit of God that is into his Affection he pusheth them back as men do troublesome and importunate Beggers They have no kindness to bestow upon it They thrust with both shoulders against the Truth of God when it presseth in upon them and dash as much contempt upon it as the Pharisees did upon the Doctrine our Saviour directed against their Covetousness As men naturally delight to be without God in the world so they delight to be without any offspring of God in their thoughts Since the Spiritual Palate of Man is depraved Divine Truth is unsavoury and ungrateful to us till our taste and relish is restored by Grace Hence men damp and quench the motions of the Spirit to Obedience and Compliance with the Dictates of God strip them of their Life and Vigor and kill them in the Womb. How unable are our Memories to retain the substance of spiritual Truth but like Sand in a Glass put in at one part and runs out at the other Have not many a secret wish that the Scripture had never mentioned some truths or that they were blotted out of the Bible because they face their Consciences and discourage those boiling Lusts they would with eagerness and delight pursue Me thinks that interruption John gives our Saviour when he was upon the Reproof of their Pride looks little better * Mark 9.33.38 than a design to divert him from a discourse so much against the grain by telling him a story of their prohibiting one to cast out Devils because he followed not them How glad are men when they can raise a Battery against a Command of God and raise some smart Objection whereby they may shelter themselves from the strictness of it 3. When men cannot shake off the Notices of the Will and Mind of God they have no pleasure in the consideration of them Which could not possibly be if there were a real and fixed design to own the Mind and Law of God as our Rule Subjects or Servants that love to obey their Prince and Master will delight to read and execute their Orders The Devils understand the Law of God in their minds but they loath the impressions of it upon their Wills Those miserable Spirits are bound in Chains of Darkness evil Habits in their Wills that they have not a thought of obeying that Law they know It was an unclean Beast under the Law that did not chew the Cud 'T is a corrupt Heart that doth not chew Truth by Meditation A natural man is said not to know God or the things of God he may know them notionally but he knows them not affectionately A sensual Soul can have no delight in a spiritual Law To be sensual and not to have the Spirit are inseparable Jude 19. Natural Men may indeed meditate upon the Law and Truth of God but without delight in it if they take any pleasure in it 't is only as 't is knowledge not as it is a Rule for we delight in nothing that we desire but upon the same account that we desire it Natural Men desire to know God and some part of his Will and Law not out of a sense of their practical excellency but a natural thirst after knowledge and if they have a delight 't is in the act of knowing not in the Object known not in the Duties that stream from that Kowledge they design the furnishing their Understandings not the quickning their Affections like idle Boys that strike Fire not to warm themselves by the heat but sport themselves with the Sparks Whereas a gracious Soul accounts not only his Meditation or the Operations of his Soul about God and his Will to be sweet but he hath a joy in the object of that Meditation * Psal 104.34 Many have the knowledge of God who have no delight in Him or his Will Owls have Eyes to perceive that there is a Sun but by reason of the weakness of their sight have no pleasure to look upon a Beam of it So neither can a man by Nature love or delight in the Will of God because of his natural corruption That Law that riseth up in men for Conviction and Instruction they keep down under the power of Corruption making their Souls not the Sanctuary but Prison of Truth Rom. 1.18 They will keep it down in their hearts if they cannot keep it out of their heads and will not endeavour to know and taste the Spirit of it 4. There is farther a rising and swelling of the Heart against the Will of God 1. Internal Gods Law cast against a hard Heart is like a Ball thrown against a stone Wall by reason of the resistance rebounding the further
end in the Flesh Our hearts like Lute-strings are changed with every change of weather with every appearance of a Temptation scarce one motion of God in a thousand prevails with us for a setled abode 'T is a hard task to make a signature of those Truths upon our affections which will with ease pass currant with our understandings Our affections will as soon lose them as our understandings embrace them The heart of Man is unstable as water * Gen. 49.4 Jam. 1.8 Some were willing to rejoyce in Johns Light which reflected a lustre on their minds but not in his heat which would have conveyed a warmth to their hearts and the Light was pleasing to them but for a season * Joh. 5.35 while their corruptions lay as if they were dead not when they were awakened Truth may be admitted one day and the next day rejected As Austin saith of a wicked Man he loves the Truth shining but he hates the Truth reproving This is not to make God but our own humor our rule and measure 7. Many desire an acquaintance with the Law and Truth of God with a design to improve some lust by it To turn the Word of God to be a Pander to the Breach of his Law This is so far from making Gods Will our Rule that we make our own vile affections the Rule of his Law How many forced Interpretations of Scripture have been coyned to give content to the lusts of men and the Divine Rule forced to bend and be squared to mens loose and carnal apprehensions 'T is a part of the instability or falseness of the heart to wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction * 2 Pet. 3.16 which they could not do if they did not first wring them to countenance some detestable Error or filthy Crime In Paradise the first Interpretation made of the first Law of God was point blank against the mind of the Law-giver and venemous to the whole Race of Mankind Paul himself feared that some might put his Doctrine of Grace to so ill a use as to be an Altar and Sanctuary to shelter their Presumption Rom. 6.1.15 shall we then continue in Sin that Grace may abound Poysonous Consequences are often drawn from the sweetest Truths As when Gods Patience is made a Topick whence to argue against his Providence * Psal 94.1 or an encouragement to commit Evil more greedily as though because he had not presently a revenging Hand he had not an all seeing Eye Or when the Doctrine of Justification by Faith is made use of to depress a holy life or Gods readiness to receive returning sinners an encouragement to defer repentance till a death bed A Lyar will hunt for shelter in the reward God gave the Midwifes that lyed to Pharaoh for the preservation of the Males of Israel and Rahabs saving the Spies by false intelligence God knows how to distinguish between grace and corruption that may lie close together or between something of moral goodness and moral evil which may be mixed We find their fidelity rewarded which was a moral good but not their lye approved which was a moral evil Nor will Christs conversing with sinners be a plea for any to thrust themselves into evil Company Christ conversed with sinners as a Physitian with diseased persons to cure them not approve them others with profligate persons to receive infection from them not to communicate holiness to them Satans Children have studied their Fathers art who wanted not perverted Scripture to second his Temptations against our Saviour * How often do carnal hearts turn Divine Revelation to carnal ends as the Sea fresh water into salt As meâ—â—â—â—ject the precepts of God to carnal interests so they subject the truths of God to â—â—â—nal fancies When men will allegorize the Word and make a humorous and crazy fancy the Interpreter of Divine oracles and not the Spirit speaking in the Word This is to enthrone our own imaginations as the rule of Gods Law and depose his Law from being the rule of our reason This is to riflle truth of its true mind and intent T is more to rob a man of his reason the essential constitutive part of man than of his estate This is to refuse an intimate acquaintance with his Will We shall never tell what is the matter of a precept or the matter of a promise if we impose a sense upon it contrary to the plain meaning of it Thereby we shall make the Law of God to have a distinct sense according to the variety of mens imaginations and so make every mans fancy a Law to himself Now that this unwillingness to have a Spiritual acquaintance with Divine Truth is a disowning God as our rule and a setting up self in his stead is evident because this unwillingness respects Truth 1. As it is most Spiritual and Holy A fleshly mind is most contrary to a Spiritual Law and particularly as it is a searching and discovering Law that would dethrone all other rules in the Soul As men love to be without a Holy God in the world so they love to be without a holy Law the transcript and image of Gods Holiness in their hearts and without holy men the lights kindled by the Father of lights As the holiness of God so the holiness of the Law most offends a carnal heart Isa 30.11 Cause the holy one of Israel to cease from before us prophecy to us right things They could not endure God as a holy one Herein God places their Rebellion rejecting him as their rule ver 9. Rebellious Children that will not hear the Law of the Lord. The more pure and precious any discovery of God is the more it is disrelisht by the world As Spiritual sins are sweetest to a carnal heart so Spiritual truths are most distastful The more of the brightness of the Sun any beam conveys the more offensive it is to a distempered eye 2. As it doth most relate to or lead to God The Devil directs his fiercest batteries against those Doctrines in the Word and those Graces in the heart which most exalt God debase man and bring men to the lowest subjection to their Creator Such is the Doctrine and grace of justifying faith That men hate not knowledge as knowledge but as it directs them to choose the fear of the Lord was the determination of the Holy Ghost long ago Prov. 1.29 for that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. Whatsoever respects God clears up guilt witnesses mans revolt to him rouzeth up Conscience and moves to a return to God a man naturally runs from as Adam did from God and seeks a shelter in some weak bushes of error rather than appear before it Not that men are unwilling to inquire into and contemplate some Divine Truths which lie furthest from the heart and concern not themselves immediatly with the rectifying the soul They may view them with such a pleasure as
some might take in beholding the Miracles of our Saviour who could not endure his searching Doctrine The light of speculation may be pleasant but the light of conviction is grievous that which galls their Consciences and would affect them with a sense of their duty to God Is it not easy to perceive that when a man begins to be serious in the concerns of the Honour of God and the duty of his soul he feels a reluctancy within him even against the pleas of Conscience which evidenceth that some unworthy principle has got footing in the hearts of men which fights against the declarations of God without and the impressions of the Law of God within at the same time when a man 's own Conscience takes part with it which is the substance of the Apostles discourse Rom. 7.15 16 c. Close discourses of the Honour of God and our duty to him are irksome when men are upon a merry pin They are like a damp in a Mine that takes away their breath they shuffle them out as soon as they can and are as unwilling to retain the-speech of them in their mouths as the knowledge of them in their hearts Gracious speeches instead of bettering many men distemper them as sometimes sweet perfumes affect a weak head with aches 3. As t is most contrary to self Men are unwilling to acquaint themselves with any truth that leads to God because it leads from self Every part of the Will of God is more or less displeasing as it sounds harsh against some carnal interest men would set above God or as a Mate with him Man cannot desire any intimacy with that Law which he regards as a Bird of prey to pick out his right eye or gnaw off his right hand his lust dearer than himself The reason we have such hard thoughts of Gods Will is because we have such high thoughts of our selves T is a hard matter to Believe or Will that which hath no affinity with some principle in the understanding and no interest in our Will and Passions Our unwillingness to be acquainted with the Will of God ariseth from the disproportion between that and our corrupt hearts We are alienated from the life of God in our minds Eph. 41 18 19. As we live not like God so we neither think or Will as God There is an antipathy in the heart of man against that Doctrine which teaches us to deny our selves and be under the rule of another But whatsoever favours the ambition lusts and profits of men is easily entertainable Many are fond of those Sciences which may enrich their understandings and grate not upon their sensual delights Many have an admirable dexterity in finding out Philosophical reasons Mathematical demonstrations or raising observations upon the Records of History and spend much time and many serious and affectionate thoughts in the study of them In those they have not immediatly to do with God their beloved pleasures are not impaired T is a satisfaction to self without the exercise of any hostility against it But had those Sciences been against self as much as the Law and Will of God they had long since been rooted out of the World Why did the Young-man turn his back upon the Law of Christ because of his worldly self Why did the Pharisees mock at the Doctrine of our Saviour and not at their own traditions because of Covetous self Why did the Jews slight the person of our Saviour and put him to death after the reading so many Credentials of his being sent from Heaven because of ambitious self that the Romans might not come and take away their Kingdom If the Law of God were fitted to the humors of self it would be readily and cordially observed by all men Self is the measure of a world of seeming Religious actions while God seems to be the object and his Law the motive self is the rule and end Zach. 7.5 Did you fast unto me c. 2 As men discover their disowning the Will of God as a rule by unwillingness to be acquainted with it so they discover it by the contempt of it after they cannot avoid the Notions and some impressions of it The rule of God is burthensome to a sinner he flies from it as from a frightful bug-bear and unpleasant Yoke Sin against the knowledge of the Law is therefore called a going back from the Commandment of Gods lips Job 23.12 A casting Gods word behind them * Psal 50.17 as a contemptible thing fitter to be trodden in the durt than lodged in the heart Nay it is a casting it off as an abominable thing for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Hos 8.3 Israel hath cast off the thing that is good an utter refusal of God Jer. 44.16 As for the word which thou hast spoken to us in the name of the Lord we will not hearken In the slight of his precepts his essential perfections are slighted In disowning his Will as a Rule we disown all those attributes which flow from his Will as Goodness Righteousness and Truth As an Act of the Divine understanding is supposed to precede the Act of the Divine Will so we slight the infinite reason of God Every Law tho it proceeds from the Will of the Law-giver and doth formally consist in an Act of the Will yet it doth presuppose an act of the understanding If the Commandment be holy just and good as it is Rom. 7.12 if it be the image of Gods holiness a transcript of his righteousness and the efflux of his goodness then in every breach of it durt is cast upon those Attributes which shine in it and a slight of all the regards he hath to his own Honour and all the provisions he makes for his Creature This Atheism or contempt of God is more taken notice of by God than the matter of the sin it self As a respect to God in a weak and imperfect obedience is more than the matter of the obedience it self because it is an acknowledgment of God So a contempt of God in an act of disobedience is more than the matter of the disobedience The Creature stands in such an Act not only in a posture of distance from God but defiance of him It was not the bare act of Murder and Adultery which Nathan charged upon David but the Atheistical principle which Spirited those evil acts The despising the Commandment of the Lord was the venom of them * 2 Sam. 12. ◠1◠T is possible to break a Law without contempt But when men pretend to believe there is a God and that this is the Law of God it shews a contempt of his Majesty * Claud. Men naturally account Gods Laws too strict his Yoak too heavy and his limits too strait And he that liveth in a contempt of this Law curseth God in his life How can they believe there is a God who despise him as a Ruler How can they believe him to
party we disaffect So the Will of God may be performed not as his Will but as it may gratifie some selfish consideration when we will please God so far as it may not displease our selves and serve him as our Master so far as his Command may be a Servant to our humor When we consider not who it is that Commands but how short it comes of displeasing that sin which Rules in our heart pick and chuse what is least burdensom to the flesh and distastful to our lusts He that doth the Will of God not out of Conscience of that Will but because it is agreeable to himself casts down the Will of God and sets his own Will in the place of it takes the Crown from the head of God and places it upon the head of self If things are done not because they are Commanded by God but desirable to us t is a disobedient obedience a conformity to Gods Will in regard of the matter a conformity to our own Will in regard of the motive either as the things done are agreeable to natural and moral self or sinful self 1. As they are agreeable to natural or moral self When men will practise some points of Religion and walk in the track of some Divine precepts not because they are Divine but because they are agreeable to their humor or constitution of nature from the sway of a natural bravery the Byas of a secular interest not from an ingenuous sense of Gods Authority or a voluntary submission to his Will As when a man will avoid excess in drinking not because it is dishonourable to God but as it is a blemish to his own reputation or an impair of the health of his body Doth this deserve the name of an observance of the Divine injunction or rather an obedience to our selves Or when a man will be liberal in the distribution of his Charity not with an eye to Gods precept but in compliance with his own natural compassion or to pleasure the generosity of his nature The one is obedience to a mans own preservation the other an obedience to the interest or impulse of a moral Vertue T is not respect to the rule of God but the Authority of self and at the best is but the performance of the material part of the Divine Rule without any concurrence of a Spiritual motive or a Spiritual manner That only is a maintaining the rights of God when we pay an observance to his rule without examining the agreeableness of it to our secular interest or consulting with the humour of flesh and blood when we will not decline his service though we find it cross and hath no affinity with the pleasure of our own nature Such an obedience as Abraham manifested in his readiness to sacrifice his Son Such an obedience as our Saviour demands in cutting off the right hand When we observe any thing of divine order upon the account of its suitableness to our natural Sentiments we shall readily divide from him when the interest of nature turns it's point against the interest of Gods honour we shall fall off from him according to the change we find in our own humours And can that be valued as a setting up the rule of God which must be depos'd upon the mutable interest of an inconstant mind Esau had no regard to God in delaying the execution of his resolution to shorten his brothers dayes though he was awed by the reverence of his Father to delay it he considered perhaps how justly he might lie under the imputation of hastening crazy Isaacs death by depriving him of a beloved Son But had the old mans head been laid neither the contrary command of God nor the nearness of a fraternal relation could have bound his hands from the act no more than they did his heart from the resolution Gen. 27.41 Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him and Esau said in his heart the days of mourning for my father are at hand then will I slay my brother So many Children that expect at the death of their Parents great Inheritances or Portions may be observant of them not in regard of the rule fixed by God but to their own hopes which they would not frustrate by a disobligement Whence is it that many men abstain from gross sins but in love to their reputation Wickedness may be acted privately which a mans one credit puts a bar to the open commission of The preserving his own esteem may divert him from entring into a brothell house to which he hath set his mind before against a known precept of his Creator As Pharaoh parted with the Israelites so do some men with their blemishing sins not out of a sense of Gods rule but the smart of present Judgments or fear of a future wrath Our security then and reputation is set up in the place of God This also may be and is in renewed men who have the law written in their hearts that is an habitual disposition to an agreement with the law of God when what is done is with a respect to this habitual inclination without eying the divine precept which is appointed to be their rule This also is to set up a creature as renewed self is instead of the Creator and that Law of his in his word which ought to be the rule of our actions Thus it is when men chuse a moral life not so much out of respect to the law of nature as it is the law of God but as it is a law become one with their souls and constitutions There is more of self in this than consideration of God For if it were the latter the revealed law of God would upon the same reason be received as well as his natural law From this principle of self morality comes by some to be advanced above Evangelical dictates 2. As they are agreeable to sinful self Not that the commands of God are suited to bolster up the corruptions of men no more than the law can be said to excite or revive sin * Rom. 7.8 9. But it is like a scandal taken not given an occasion taken by the tumultuousness of our depraved nature The Pharisees were devout in long Prayers not from a sense of duty or a care of Gods honour but to satisfie their ambition and rake together fuel for their covetuousness * Math. 23.14 You devour Widdows Houses and for a pretence makes long Prayers that they might have the greater esteem and richer offerings to free by their prayers the souls of deceased persons from Purgatory an opinion that some think the Jewish Synagogue had then entertain'd * Gerrard in loc since some of their Doctors have defended such a notion Men may observe some Precepts of God to have a better conveniency to break others Jehu was ordered to cut off the house of Ahab The service he undertook was in it self acceptable but corrupt nature misacted that which
as well as Heathens who used the outward Ceremonies not as signs of better things but as if they did of themselves please God and render the worshippers accepted with him without any sutable frame of the inward man * Amirald in loc It is as if he had said now you must separate your selves from all carnal modes to which the service of God is now tyed and render a worship chiefly consisting in the affectionate motions of the heart and accommodated more exactly to the condition of the object who is a Spirit In Spirit and Truth * Amirald in loc The Evangelical Service now required has the advantage of the former that was a Shadow and Figure this the Body and Truth * Muscul Spirit say some is here opposed to the legal Ceremonies Truth to hypocritical services or * Chemnit rather truth is opposed to shadows and an opinion of worth in the outward action 't is principally opposed to external Rites because our Saviour saith v. 23. The hour comes and â—oâ— is c. Had it been opposed to Hypocrisy Christ had said no new thing For God always required Truth in the inward parts and all true Worshippers had served him with a sincere Conscience and single Heart The old Patriarks did worship God in Spirit and Truth as taken for sincerity Such a Worship was always and is perpetually due to God because he always was and eternally will be a Spirit * Musâ—al And it is said the Father seeks such to worship him not shall seek He always sought it it always was performed to him by one or other in the world And the Prophets had always rebuked them for resting upon their outward Solemnities Isa 58.7 and Micah 6.8 But a Worship without legal Rites was proper to an Evangelical State and the times of the Gospel God having then exhibited Christ and brought into the world the substance of those shadows and the end of those institutions There was no more need to continue them when the true reason of them was ceased All Laws do naturally expire when the true reason upon which they were first framed is changed Or by Spirit may be meant such a Worship as is kindled in the heart by the breath of the holy Ghost Since we are dead in sin a spiritual light and flame in the heart sutable to the nature of the object of our worship cannot be raised in us without the operation of a supernatural Grace And though the Fathers could not worship God without the Spirit yet in the Gospel-times there being a fuller effusion of the Spirit the Evangelical State is called the administration of the Spirit and the newness of the Spirit 2 Cor. 3.8 in opposition to the legal Oeconomy entitled the oldness of the Letter * Rom. 7.6 The Evangelical State is more suted to the Nature of God than any other Such a Worship God must have whereby he is acknowledged to be the true Sanctifier and Quickner of the Soul The nearer God doth approach to us and the more full his manifestations are the more spiritual is the Worship we return to God The Gospel pares off the rugged parts of the Law and Heaven shall remove what is material in the Gospel and change the Ordinances of Worship into that of a Spiritual Praise In the words there is 1. A Proposition God is a Spirit The Foundation of all Religion 2. An Inference they that worship him c. As God a Worship belongs to him as a Spirit a spiritual Worship is due to him in the inference we have 1. The manner of Worship in Spirit and Truth 2. The necessity of such a Worship must The Proposition declares the Nature of God the Inference the Duty of Man The Observations lie plain Ob. 1. God is a pure spiritual Being He is a Spirit 2. The Worship due from the Creature to God must be agreeable to the Nature of God and purely spiritual 3. The Evangelical State is suted to the Nature of God For the first D. God is a pure spiritual Being 'T is the Observation of one * Episcop insti tut l. 4. c. 3. that the plain assertion of Gods being a Spirit is found but once in the whole Bible and that is in this place which may well be wondred at because God is so often described with hands feet eyes and ears in the form and figure of a Man The spiritual Nature of God is deducible from many places but not any where as I remember asserted totidem verbis but in this Text Some alledge that place 2 Cor. 3.17 the Lord is that Spirit for the proof of it but that seems to have a different sense In the Text the Nature of God is described in that place the operations of God in the Gospel * Amyrald in loc 'T is not the Ministry of Moses or that old Covenant which communicates to you that Spirit it speaks of but it is the Lord Jesus and the Doctrin of the Gospel delivered by him whereby this Spirit and Liberty is dispensed to you He opposes here the Liberty of the Gospel to the Servitude of the Law 'T is from Christ that a Divine Vertue diffuseth it self by the Gospel 't is by him not by the Law that we partake of that Spirit * Suarez de Deo vol. 1. P. 9. Col. 2. The Spirituality of God is as evident as his Being If we grant that God is we must necessarily grant that he cannot be corporeal because a Body is of an imperfect Nature It will appear incredible to any that acknowledge God the first Being and Creator of all things that he should be a massy heavy Body and have Eyes and Ears Feet and hands as we have For the explication of it 1. Spirit is taken various ways in Scripture It signifies sometimes an aereal substance as Psal 11.6 A horrible Tempest Heb. A Spirit of Tempest Sometimes the breath which is a thin substance Gen. 6.17 All Flesh wherein is the breath of Life Heb. Spirit of Life A thin substance though it be material and corporeal is called Spirit And in the bodies of living Creatures that which is the principle of their actions is called Spirits the animal and vital Spirits And the finer parts extracted from Plants and Minerals we call Spirits Those volatile parts separated from that gross matter wherein they were immerst because they come nearest to the nature of an incorporeal substance And from this notion of the word 't is translated to signifie those substances that are purely immaterial as Angels and the Souls of Men. Angels are called Spirits Psal 104.4 who makes his Angels Spirits * Heb. 1.14 And not only good Angels are so called but evil Angels Mark 1.27 Souls of men are called Spirits Eccl. 12. And the Soul of Christ is called so John 19.30 whence God is called the God of the Spirits of all Flesh Numb 22.16 and Spirit is opposed to Flesh Isa
or nills nothing to be in Time but what he willed and nilled from Eternity if he willed in Time that to be that he willed not from Eternity then he would know that in Time which he knew not from Eternity For God knows nothing future but as his Will orders it to be future and in time to be brought into being 3. There can be no Reason for any change in the Will of God When men change in their minds it must be for want of foresight because they could not foresee all the Rubbs and Barrs which might suddenly offer themselves which if they had foreseen they would not have taken such measures hence men often will that which they afterwards wish they had not willed when they come to understand it clearer and see that to be injurious to them which they thought to be good for them or else the change proceeds from a natural instability without any just cause and an easiness to be drawn into that which is unrighteous or else it proceeds from a want of power when men take new Counsels because they are invincibly hindred from executing the old But none of those can be in God 1. It cannot be for want of foresight What can be wanting to an infinite Understanding How can any unknown event defeat his Purpose since nothing happens in the world but what he wills to effect or wills to permit and therefore all future events are present with him Besides it doth not consist with Gods Wisdom to resolve any thing but upon the highest reason and what is the highest and infinite reason cannot but be unalterable in it self for there can be no Reason and Wisdom higher than the highest All Gods purposes are not bare acts of Will but acts of Counsel Eph. 1.11 He works all things according to the Counsel of his own Will and he doth not say so much that his Will as that his Counsel shall stand Isa 46.10 It stands because it is Counsel And the Immutability of a Promise is called the Immutability of his Counsel Heb 6.17 as being introduced and setled by the most perfect Wisdom and therefore to be carried on to a full and compleat execution His Purpose then cannot be changed for want of foresight for this would be a charge of weakness 2. Nor can it proceed from a natural Instability of his Will or an easiness to be drawn to that which is unrighteous If his Will should not adhere to his Counsel 't is because it is not fit to be followed or because it will not follow it If not fit to be followed 't is a reflection upon his Wisdom if it be establisht and he will not follow it there is a contrariety in God as there is in a fallen Creature Will against Wisdom That cannot be in God which he hates in a Creature viz. the disorder of faculties and being out of their due place The Righteousness of God is like a great Mountain Psal 36.6 The rectitude of his Nature is as immoveable in it self as all the great Mountains in the World are by the strength of Man He is not as a Man that he should repent or lye Numb 23.19 who often changes out of a perversity of Will as well as want of wisdom to foresee or want of ability to perform His eternal Purpose must either be righteous or unrighteous if righteous and holy he would become unholy by the change if not righteous nor holy then he was unrighteous before the change which way soever it falls it would reflect upon the Righteousness of God which is a blasphemous imagination * Maxim Tyrius dissert 3.30 If God did change his Purpose it must be either for the better then the Counsel of God was bad before or for the worse then he was not wise and good before 3. Nor can it be for want of strength Who hath power to controul him Not all the combin'd devices and endeavours of men can make the Counsel of God to totter Prov. 19.21 There are many devices in a mans heart nevertheless the Counsel of the Lord that shall stand that and that only shall stand Man hath a power to devise and imagin but no power to effect and execute of himself God wants no more Power to effect what he will than he wants Understanding to know what is fit Well then since God wanted not Wisdom to frame his Decrees nor Holiness to regulate them nor Power to effect them what should make him change them Since there can be no reason superior to His no event unforeseen by him no Holiness comparable to His no Unrighteousness found in Him no Power equal to His to put a rub in his way 4. Though the Will of God be immutable yet it is not to be understood so as that the things themselves so willed are immutable Nor will the immutability of the things willed by him follow upon the unchangeableness of his Will in willing them though God be firm in willing them yet he doth not will that they should alway be God did not perpetually will the doing those things which he once decreed to be done He decreed that Christ should suffer but he did not decree that Christ should alway suffer so he willed the Mosaical Rites for a time but he did not will that they should alway continue He willed that they should endure only for a time and when the time came for their ceasing God had been mutable if he had not put an end to them because his Will had fixed such a Period So that the changing of those things which he had once appointed to be practised is so far from charging God with changeablness that God would be mutable if he did not take them away since he decreed as well their abolition at such a time as their continuance till such a time so that the removal of them was pursuant to his unchangeable Will and Decree If God had decreed that such Laws should alway continue and afterwards changed that Decree and resolved the abrogation of them then indeed God had been mutable He had rescinded one Decree by another He had then seen an error in his first resolve and there must be some weakness in the reason and wisdom whereon it was grounded * Turretin de satisfac p. 266. But it was not so here for the change of those Laws is so far from slurring God with any mutability that the very change of them is no other than the Issue of his eternal Decree for from Eternity he purposed in himself to change this or that dispensation though he did decree to bring such a dispensation into the world The Decree it self was eternal and immutable but the thing decreed was temporary and mutable As a Decree from Eternity doth not make the thing decreed to be eternal so neither doth the immutability of the Decree render the thing so decreed to be immutable As for Example God decreed from all Eternity to create the World the
inferior things And it is likely the Psalmist considers not only the beginning of Redemption but the compleating of it at the second coming of Christ for he complains of those evils which shall be removed by his second coming viz. The shortness of life persecutions and reproaches wherewith the Church is afflicted in this world and comforts not himself with those attributes which are directly opposed to sin as the mercy of God the Covenant of God but with those that are opposed to mortality and calamities as the unchangeableness and Eternity of God and from thence infers a perpetual establishment of believers * Ver. 28. The Children of thy Servants shall continue and their seed shall be established before thee So that the Psalm it self seems to aim in the whole discourse at Christ and asserts his Divinity which the Apostle as an interpreter doth fully evidence applying it to him and manifesting his Deity by his immutability as well as Eternity * Daile Melang des Sermons Part 2. Sect. 1. p. 8. 9. 10 c. While all other things lose their forms and pass through multitudes of variations he constantly remains the same and shall be the same when all the Empires of the world shall slide away and a Period be put to the present motions of the Creation And as there was no change made in his being by the Creation of things so neither shall there be by the final alteration of things he shall see them finish as he saw them rise up into being and be the same after their reign as he was before their original he is the first and the last * Revel 1.17 2. Here is ground and encouragement for Worship An Atheist will make another use of this If God be immutable why should we worship him why should we pray to him Good will come if he wills it evil cannot be averted by all our supplications if he hath ordered it to fall upon us But certainly since unchangeableness in knowing and willing goodness is a perfection An adoration and admiration is due to God upon the account of this excellence If he be God he is to be reverenced and the more highly reverenc'd because he cannot but be God Again what comfort could it be to pray to a God that like the Chamaeleon changed colours every day every moment What encouragement could there be to lift up our eyes to one that were of one mind this day and of another mind to morrow Who would put up a Petition to an Earthly Prince that were so mutable as to grant a Petition one day and deny it another and change his own act But if a Prince promise this or that thing upon such or such a condition and you know his promise to be as unchangeable as the Laws of the Medes and Persians would any Man reason thus because it is unchangeable we will not seek to him we will not perform the condition upon which the fruit of the Proclamation is to be enjoyed Who would not count such an inference ridiculous What blessings hath not God promised upon the condition of seeking him Were he of an unrighteous nature or changeable in his mind this would be a bar to our seeking him and frustrate our hopes But since it is otherwise is not this excellency of his nature the highest encouragement to ask of him the blessings he hath promised and a beam from Heaven to fire our zeal in asking If you desire things against his Will which he hath declared he will not grant Prayer then would be an act of disobedience and injury to him as well as an act of folly in it self his unchangeableness then might stifle such desires But if we ask according to his Will and according to our reasonable wants what ground have we to make such a ridiculous argument He hath Willed every thing that may be for our good if we perform the condition he hath required and hath put it upon record that we may know it and regulate our desires and supplications according to it If we will not seek him his immutability cannot be a bar but our own folly is the cause and by our neglect we despoil him of this perfection as to us and either imply that he is not sincere and means not as he speaks or that he is as changeable as the Wind sometimes this thing sometimes that and not at all to be confided in If we ask according to his revealed Will the unchangeableness of his Nature will assure us of the Grant and what a presumption would it be in a Creature dependent upon his Soveraign to ask that which he knows he has declared his Will against since there is no good we can want but he hath promised to give upon our sincere and ardent desire for it God hath decreed to give this or that to Man but conditionally and by the means of enquiring after him and asking for it * Ezek. 36.37 Mat. 7.7 Ask and you shall receive as much as to say you shall not receive unless you ask When the highest promises are made God expects they should be put in sute Our Saviour joyns the Promise and the Petition together the Promise to encourage the Petition and the Petition to enjoy the Promise He doth not say perhaps it shall be given but it shall that is it certainly shall your heavenly Father is unchangeably willing to give you those things We must depend upon his Immutability for the thing and submit to his Wisdom for the time Prayer is an acknowledgment of our dependence upon God which dependence could have no firm foundation without unchangeableness Prayer doth not desire any change in God but is offered to God that he would conferr those things which he hath immutably willed to communicate but he willed them not without Prayer as the means of bestowing them The light of the Sun is ordered for our comfort for the discovery of visible things for the ripening the fruits of the Earth but withal t is required that we use our faculty of seeing that we employ our industry in sowing and planting and expose our fruits to the view of the Sun that they may receive the influence of it If a man shuts his eyes and complains that the Sun is changed into darkness it would be ridiculous the Sun is not changed but we alter our selves Nor is God changed in not giving us the blessings he hath promised because he hath promised in the way of a due address to him and opening our Souls to receive his influence and to this his Immutability is the greatest encouragement 3. This shews how contrary Man is to God in regard of his inconstancy What an infinite distance is there between the immutable God and mutable Man and how should we bewail this flittingness in our Nature There is a Mutability in us as Creatures and a Creature cannot but be mutable by Nature otherwise it were not a Creature but God The establishment of
him So it is impossible but that the seed of God by his Eternal purpose should be brought to a Spiritual life and that calling cannot be retracted for that gift and calling is without repentance * Rom. 11.29 And when repentance is removed from God in regard of some works the immutability of those works is declared And the reason of that immutability is their pure dependance on the Eternal favour and unchangeable grace of God * Eph. 1.9 11. purpos'd in himself and not upon the mutability of the Creature Hence their happiness is not as Patents among men quam diu bene se gesserint so long as they behave themselves well but they have a promise that they shall behave themselves so as never wholly to depart from God Jer. 32.40 I will make an everlasting Covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good but I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me God will not turn from them to do them good and promiseth that they shall not turn from him for ever or forsake him And the bottom of it is the everlasting Covenant and therefore believing and sealing for security are linkt together Eph. 1.13 And When God doth inwardly teach us his Law he puts in a Will not depart from it Psalm 119.102 I have not departed from thy Judgments what is the reason For thou hast taught me 3. By this Eternal Happiness is ensured This is the Inference made from the Eternity and Unchangeableness of God in the verse following the Text verse 28. The Children of thy Servants shall continue and their Seed shall be established before thee This is the sole conclusion drawn from those Perfections of God solemnly asserted before The Children which the Prophets and Apostles have begotten to thee shall be totally delivered from the reliques of their Apostacy and the punishment due to them and rendred partakers of Immortality with thee as Sons to dwell in their Fathers house for ever The Spirit begins a spiritual Life here to fit for an immutable Life in Glory hereafter where Believers shall be placed upon a Throne that cannot be shaken and possess a Crown that shall not be taken off their heads for ever 3. Use Of Exhortation 1. Let a sense of the changeableness and uncertainty of all other things beside God be upon us There are as many changes as there are figures in the world The whole fashion of the world is a transient thing every man may say as Job * Job 10.17 Changes and War are against me Lot chose the Plain of Sodom because it was the richer Soyl He was but a little time there before he was taken Prisoner and his substance made the Spoyl of his Enemie That is again restored but a while after Fire from Heaven devours his Wealth though his Person was secur'd from the Judgment by a special Providence We burn with a desire to settle our selves but mistake the way and build Castles in the Air which vanish like bubbles of Sope in water And therefore 1. Let not our thoughts dwell much upon them Do but consider those Souls that are in the possession of an unchangeable God that behold his never fading Glory Would it not be a kind of Hell to them to have their thoughts starting out to these things or find any desire in themselves to the changeable trifles of the Earth Nay have we not reason to think that they cover their faces with shame that ever they should have such a weakness of Spirit when they were here below as to spend more thoughts upon them than were necessary for this present Life much more that they should at any time value and court them above an unchangeable Good Do they not disdain themselves that they should ever debase the immutable perfections of God as to have neglecting thoughts of him at any time for the entertainment of such a mean and inconstant Rival 2. Much less should we trust in them or rejoyce in them The best things are mutable and things of such a Nature are not fit Objects of confidence Trust not in Riches they have their wanes as well as increases they rise sometimes like a Torrent and flow in upon men but resemble also a Torrent in as suddain a fall and departure and leave nothing but slime behind them Trust not in Honour all the Honour and Applause in the World is no better than an Inheritance of Wind which the Pilot is not sure of but shifts from one corner to another and stands not perpetually in the same point of the Heavens How in a few Ages did the house of David a great Monarch and a man after Gods own heart descend to a mean condition and all the glory of that house shut up in the stock of a Carpenter David's Sheep-hook was turned into a Scepter and the Scepter by the same hand of Providence turned into a Hatchet in Joseph his Descendent Rejoyce not immoderately in wisdom That and Learning languish with Age. A wound in the head may impair that which is the Glory of a Man If an Organ be out of frame Folly may succeed and all a mans Prudence be wound up in an irrecoverable Dotage Nebuchadnezzar was no Fool yet by a suddain hand of God he became not only a Fool or a mad Man but a kind of Brute Rejoyce not in strength that decays and a mighty Man may live to see his strong Arm withered and a Grass-hopper to become a Burthen * Eccles 12.5 The strong men shall bow themselves and the Grinders shall cease because they are few * V. 3. Nor rejoyce in Children they are like Birds upon a Tree that make a little chirping musick and presently fall into the Fowlers Net Little did Job expect such sad news as the loss of all his Progeny at a blow when the Messenger knocked at his Gate And such changes happen oftentimes when our expectations of comfort and a contentment in them are at the highest How often doth a string crack when the Musitian hath wound it up to a just height for a Tune and all his pains and delight marr'd in a Moment Nay all these things change while we are using them like Ice that melts between our fingers and Flowers that wither while we are smelling to them The Apostle gave them a good title when he called them uncertain riches and thought it a strong argument to disswade them from trusting in them * 1 Tim 6.17 The wealth of the Merchant depends upon the Winds and Waves and the revenue of the Husbandman upon the Clouds and since they depend upon those things which are used to express the most changeableness they can be no fit Object for trust Besides God sometimes kindles a Fire under all a mans Glory which doth insensibly consume it * Isa 10.16 and while we have them the fear of losing them renders us not very happy in the
Pet. 1.12 It was publish'd in Paradise but in such words as Adam did not fully understand It was both discover'd and clouded in the Smoke of Sacrifices It was wrapped up in a Vail under the Law but not open'd till the Death of the Redeemer It was then plainly said to the Cities of Judah Behold your God comes The whole Transaction of it between the Father and the Son which is the Spirit of the Gospel was from Eternity the Creation of the World was in order to the manifestation of it Let us not then regard the Gospel as a Novelty the consideration of it as one of Gods Cabinet Rarities should enhance our Estimation of it No Traditions of Men no Inventions of vain Wits that pretend to be wiser than God should have the same Credit with that which bears date from Eternity 8. Observe That Divine Truth is Mysterious According to the revelation of the mystery Christ manifested in the flesh The whole Scheme of Godliness is a Mystery No Man or Angel could imagine how two Natures so distant as the Divine and Human should be united how the same Person should be Criminal and Righteous how a Just God should have a Satisfaction and Sinful Man a Justification how the Sin should be punish'd and the Sinner saved None could imagine such a way of Justification as the Apostle in this Epistle declares It was a Mystery when hid under the Shadows of the Law and a Mystery to the Prophets when it sounded from their Mouths they searched it without being able to comprehend it †1 Pet. 1.10 11. If it be a Mystery 't is humbly to be submitted to Mysteries surmount Human Reason The study of the Gospel must not be with a yawning and careless frame Trades you call Mysteries are not learned sleeping and nodding Diligence is required we must be Disciples at Gods Feet As it had God for the Author so we must have God for the Teacher of it the Contrivance was his and the Illumination of our Minds must be from him As God only manifested the Gospel so he only can open our Eyes to see the Mysteries of Christ in it In Verse 26. we may observe 1. The Scriptures of the Old Testament verifie the substance of the New and the New doth evidence the Authority of the Old By the Scriptures of the Prophets made known The Old Testament credits the New and the New illustrates the Old The New Testament is a Comment upon the Prophetick part of the Old The Old shews the Promises and Predictions of God and the New shews the Performance What was foretold in the Old is fulfilled in the New the Predictions are cleared by the Events The Predictions of the Old are Divine because they are above the Reason of Man to foreknow None but an Infinite Knowledge could foretell them because none but an Infinite Wisdom could order all things for the accomplishment of them The Christian Religion hath then the surest Foundation since the Scriptures of the Prophets wherein it is foretold are of undoubted Antiquity and owned by the Jews and many Heathens which are and were the great Enemies of Christ The Old Testament is therefore to be read for the strengthning of our Faith Our Blessed Saviour himself draws the Streams of his Doctrine from the Old Testament He clears up the Promise of Eternal Life and the Doctrine of the Resurrection from the words of the Covenant I am the God of Abraham c. Mat. 22.32 And our Apostle clears up the Doctrine of Justification by Faith from Gods Covenant with Abraham Rom. 4. It must be read and it must be read as it is writ It was writ to a Gospel End it must be studied with a Gospel Spirit The Old Testament was writ to give Credit to the New when it should be manifested in the World It must be read by us to give strength to our Faith and establish us in the Doctrine of Christianity How many view it as a bare story an Almanack out of date and regard it as a dry Bone without sucking from it the Evangelical Marrow Christ is in Genesis Abrahams Seed in Davids Psalms and the Prophets the Messiah and Redeemer of the World 2. Observe the Antiquity of the Gospel Is made manifest by the Scriptures of the Prophets It was of as Ancient a date as any Prophesy The first Prophesy was nothing else but a Gospel Charter it was not made at the Incarnation of Christ but made manifest It then rose up to its Meridian lustre and sprung out of the Clouds wherewith it was before obscur'd The Gospel was preached to the Ancients by the Prophets as well as to the Gentiles by the Apostles Heb. 4.2 Vnto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them To them first to us after to them indeed more cloudy to us more clear but they as well as we were Evangeliz'd as the word signifies The Covenant of Grace was the same in the Writings of the Prophets and the Declarations of the Evangelists and Apostles Though by our Saviours Incarnation the Gospel Light was clearer and by his Ascension the Effusions of the Spirit fuller and stronger yet the Believers under the Old Testament saw Christ in the Swadling Bands of Legal Ceremonies and the Lattice of Prophetical Writings they could not else offer one Sacrifice or read one Prophesy with a Faith of the right stamp Abrahams Justifying Faith had Christ for its Object though it was not so Explicit as ours because the Manifestation was not so clear as ours 3. All Truth is to be drawn from Scripture The Apostle refers them here to the Gospel and the Prophets The Scripture is the Source of Divine Knowledge not the Traditions of Men nor Reason separate from Scripture Whosoever brings another Doctrine coyns another Christ nothing is to be added to what is written nothing detracted from it He doth not send us for Truth to the Puddles of Human Inventions to the Enthusiasms of our Brain not to the See of Rome no nor to the Instructions of Angels but the Writings of the Prophets as they clear up the Declarations of the Apostles The Church of Rome is not made here the Standard of Truth but the Scriptures of the Prophets are to be the Touch-stone to the Romans for the Trial of the Truth of the Gospel 4. How great is the Goodness of God The Borders of Grace are enlarged to the Gentiles and not hid under the Skirts of the Jews He that was so long the God of the Jews is now also manifest to be the God of the Gentiles The Gospel is now made known to all Nations according to the Commandment of the Everlasting God Not only in a way of Common Providence but Special Grace in Calling them to the Knowledge of himself and a Justification of them by Faith He hath brought Strangers to him to the Adoption of Children and lodged them under the Wings of the Covenant that were before alienated from
acts of the Divine will yet we must not think that they were acts of meer will without wisdom but they are represented so to us because we are not capable of understanding the infinite Reason of its acts His Soveraignty is more intelligible to us than his Wisdom We can better know the Commands of a Superiour and the Laws of a Prince than understand the reason that gave birth to those Laws We may know the Orders of the Divine will as they are publish'd but not the sublime Reason ot his will Though Election be an act of God's Soveraignty and he hath no cause from without to determine him yet his infinite wisdom stood not silent while meer Dominion acted Whatsoever God doth he doth wisely as well as soveraignly though that wisdom which lies in the secret places of the Divine Being be as incomprehensible to us as the effects of his Soveraignty and Power in the World are visible God can give a reason of his proceeding and that drawn from himself though we understand it not The causes of things visible lye hid from us Doth any man know how to distinguish the seminal vertue of a small Seed from the Body of it and in what nook and corner that lies and what that is that spreads it self in so fair a Plant and so many Flowers Can we comprehend the Justice of God's proceedings in the prosperity of the wicked and the afflictions of the Godly Yet as we must conclude them the fruits of an unerring righteousness so we must conclude all his actions the fruits of an unspotted wisdom though the concatenation of all his counsels is not intelligible to us for he is as essentially and necessarily wise as he is essentially and necessarily good and righteous God is not only so wise that nothing more wise can be conceiv'd but he is more wise than can be imagin'd something greater in all his Perfections than can be comprehended by any Creature 'T is a foolish thing therefore to question that which we cannot comprehend we should adore it instead of disputing against it and take it for granted that God would not order any thing were it not agreeable to the Soveraignty of his wisdom as well as that of his will Though the reason of man proceed from the wisdom of God yet there is more difference between the reason of man and the wisdom of God than between the light of the Sun and the feeble shining of the Glowworm yet we presume to censure the ways of God as if our purblind reason had a reach above him 7. God is only wise infallibly The wisest men meet with rubs in the way that make them fall short of what they aim at they often design and fail then begin again and yet all their counsels end in smoak and none of them arrive at perfection If the wisest Angels lay a plot they may be disappointed for though they are higher and wiser than man yet there is one higher and wiser than they that can check their Projects God always compasseth his end never fails of any thing he designs and aims at all his undertakings are counsel and will as nothing can resist the efficacy of his will so nothing can countermine the skil of his counsel There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord Prov. 21.30 He compasseth his ends by those actions of Men and Devils wherein they think to cross him they shoot at their own Mark and hit his Lucifer's plot by Divine wisdom fulfilled God's purpose against Lucifer's mind The counsel of Redemption by Christ the end of the Creation of the World rode into the World upon the back of the Serpents Temptation God never mistakes the means nor can there be any disappointments to make him vary his Counsels and pitch upon other means than what before he had ordain'd His word that goeth forth of his mouth shall not return to him void but it shall accomplish that which he pleases and it shall prosper in the thing whereto he sent it Isa 55.11 What is said of his word is true of his counsel it shall prosper in the thing for which it is appointed it cannot be defeated by all the Legions of Men and Devils for as he thinks so shall it come to pass and as he hath purposed so shall it stand The Lord hath purposed and who shall disanul it Isa 14.24 27. The wisdom of the Creature is a drop from the wisdom of God and is like a drop to the Ocean and a shadow to the Sun and therefore is not able to mate the wisdom of God which is infinite and boundless No wisdom is exempted from mistakes but the Divine He is wise in all his Resolves and never calls bâ—ck his words and purposes Isa 31.2 III. The third General is to prove that God is wise This is ascrib'd to God in Scripture Dan. 2.20 Wisdom and might are his Wisdom to contrive and Power to effect * Culverwell light of Nature p. 30. Where should Wisdom dwell but in the head of a Deity and where should Power triumph but in the arm of Omnipotency All that God doth he doth artificially skilfully whence he is called the Builder of the Heavens Heb. 11.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an artificial and curious Builder a Builder by Art And that word Prov. 8.30 meant of Christ Then I was by him as one brought up with him some render it Then was I the curious Artificer and the same word is translated a cunning workman Cant. 7.5 For this cause Counsel is ascrib'd to God †Isa 46.10 Jer. 22.19 Great in counsel Job 12.13 He hath counsel and understanding not properly for Counsel implies something of Ignorance or Irresolution antecedent to the consultation and a posture of will afterwards which was not before Counsel is properly a laborious deliberation and a reasoning of things An invention of means for the attainment of the end after a discussing and reasoning of all the doubts which arise pro re natâ about the matter in counsel But God hath no need to deliberate in himself what are the best means to accomplish his ends He is never ignorant or undetermin'd what course he should take as men are before they consult But it is an expression in condescension to our Capacity to signifie that God doth nothing but with reason and understanding with the highest prudence and for the most glorious ends as men do after consultation and the weighing of every foreseen circumstance Though he acts all things Soveraignly by his will yet he acts all things wisely by his understanding and there is not a decree of his will but he can render a satisfactory reason for in the face of Men and Angels As he is the Cause of all things so he hath the highest wisdom for the ordering of all things If wisdom among men be the knowledge of Divine and Human things God must be infinitely wise since knowledge is most radiant in
with In the whole it was accommodated to man as rational Precepts to the Law in his mind Promises to the natural Appetite Threatnings to the most prevailing Affection and to the implanted Desires of preserving both his Being and Happiness in that Being These were rational Motives fitted to the nature of Adam which was above the life God had given Plants and the sense he had given Animals The Command given man in Innocence was suted to his strength and power God gave him not any Command but what he had ability to observe and Since we want not power to forbear an Apple in our corrupted and impotent State he wanted not strength in his state of Integrity The Wisdom of God Commanded nothing but what was very easy to be observed by him and inferior to his natural Ability It had been both unjust and unwise to have commanded him to fly up to the Sun when he had not Wings or stop the Course of the Sea when he had not strength 2. 'T is suted to the happiness and benefit of man God's Laws are not an act of meer Authority respecting his own Glory but of wisdom and goodness respecting mans Benefit They are perfective of mans Nature conferring a Wisdom upon him rejoycing his Heart enlightning his eyes Psal 19.7 8. affording him both a knowledge of God and of himself To be without a Law is for man to be as Beasts without Justice and without Religion Other things are for the good of the Body but the Laws of God for the good of the Soul the more perfect the Law the greater the benefit The Laws given to the Iews were the honour and excellency of that Nation Deut. 1.8 What Nation is there so great that hath statutes and Judgments so righteous They were made States-men in the Judicial Law Ecclesiasticks in the Ceremonial honest men in the Second Table and Divine in the First All his Laws are suted to the true satisfaction of man and the good of Human Society Had God framed a Law only for one Nation there would have been the Characters of a particular Wisdom but now an universal wisdom appears in accommodating his Law not only to this or that particular Society or Corporation of men but to the benefit of all mankind in the variety of Climates and Countries wherein they live Every thing that is disturbing to Human Society is provided agaâ—nst nothing is enjoin'd but what is sweet rational and useful It orders us not to attempt any thing against the life of our Neighbour the honour of his Bed propriety in his Goods and the clearness of his Reputation and if well observed would alter the face of the World and make it look with another hue The World would be alter'd from a brutish to a human World It would châ—nge Lions and Wolves men of Lion-like and Wolvish disposition into reason and sweetness And because the whole Law is sum'd up in love it obligeth us to endeavour the preservation of one anothers Beings the favouring of one anothers Interests and increasing the Goods as much as Iustice will permit and keeping up one anothers Credits because love which is the Soul of the Law is not shewn by a cessation from action but signifies an ardor upon all occasions in doing good I say were this Law well observed the World would be another thing than it is It would become a Religious Fraternity the Voice of Enmity and the Noise of Groans and Cursings would not be heard in our Streets Peace would be in all Borders plenty of Charity in the midst of Cities and Countries Joy and singing would sound in all habitations Mans advantage was design'd in Gods Laws and doth naturally result from the observance of them God so ordered them by his Wisdom that the obedience of man should draw forth his Goodness and prevent those smarting Judgments which were necessary to reduce the Creature to order that would not voluntarily continue in the order God had appointed The Laws of men are often unjust oppressive cruel sometimes against the Law of nature But an universal wisdom and righteousness glitters in the Divine Law There is nothing in it but what is worthy of God and useful for the Creature so that we may well say with Job Who teaches like God Job 36.22 or as some render it who is a law-giver like God Who can say to him thou hast wrought iniquity or folly among men His Precepts were framed for the preservation of man in that rectitude wherein he was Created in that likeness to God wherein he was first made that there might be a correspondence between the Integrity of the Creature and the Goodness of his Creator by the Obedience of man that man might exercise his Faculties in Operations worthy of him and beneficial to the World 3. The Wisdom of God is seen in suting to Laws to the Consciences as well as the Interest of all Mankind Rom. 2.14 The Gentiles do by nature the things contained in the Law so great an affinity there is between the wise Law and the Reason of man There is a natural Beauty emerging from them and darting upon the Reasons and Consciences of men which dictates to them that this Law is worthy to be observed in it self The two main Principles of the Law the Love and worship of God and doing as we would be done by have an indelible impression in the Consciences of all men in regard of the Principle though they are not sutably exprest in the Practise Were there no Law outwardly publisht yet every mans Conscience would dictate to him that God was to be acknowledged worshipped loved as naturally as his Reason would acquaint him that there was such a Being as God This sutableness of them to the Consciences of men is manifest in that the Laws of the best governed Nations among the Heathen have had an agreement with them Nothing can be more exactly composed according to the Rules of right and exact Reason than this no man but approves of something in it yea of the whole when he exerciseth that dimm Reason which he hath Suppose any man not an absolute Atheist he cannot but acknowledge the reasonableness of worshipping God Grant him to be a Spirit and it will presently appear absurd to represent him by any Corporeal Image and derogate from his Excellency by so mean a resemblance with the same easiness he will grant a reverence due to the Name of God that we must not serve our turn of him by calling him to witness to a lye in a solemn Oath That as Worship is due to him so that some stated time is a circumstance necessary to the performance of that Worship And as to the Second Table will any man in his right reason quarrel with that Command that engageth his Inferiors to honour him that secures his Being from a violent murder and his goods from unjust rapine and though by the fury of his Lusts he break the Laws of Wedlock himself
yet he cannot but approve of that Law as it prohibits every man from doing him the like injury and disgrace The sutableness of the Law to the Consciences of men is further evidenced by those furious reflections and strong alarms of Conscience upon a transgression of it and that in all parts of the World more or less in all men So exactly hath Divine wisdom fitted the Law to the Reason and Consciences of men as one Tally to another Indeed without such an agreement no mans Conscience could have any ground for a Hue and Cry nor need any man be startled with the Records of it This manifests the wisdom of God in framing his Law so that the Reasons and consciences of all men do one time or other subscribe to it What Governour in the World is able to make any Law distinct from this revealed by God that shall reach all places all persons all Hearts We may add to this the extent of his Commands in ordering goodness at the root not only in action but affection not only in the motion of the Members but the disposition of the Soul which suting a Law to the inward frame of man is quite out of the compass of the wisdom of any Creature 4. His Wisdom is seen in the incouragements he gives for the studying and observing his will Psal 19.11 In keeping thy Commandments there is great reward The variety of them there is not any particular Genius in man but may find something sutable to win upon him in the revealed will of God There is a strain of Reason to satisfy the Rational of Eloquence to gratify the the Fanciful of Interest to allure the Selfish of Terror to startle the Obstinate As a skilful Angler stores himself with Baits according to the Appetites of the sorts of fish he intends to catch so in the Word of God there are varieties of Baits according to the varieties of the Inclinations of men Threatnings to work upon Fear Promises to work upon Love Examples of holy men set out for Imitation and those plainly neither his Threatnings nor his Promises are dark as the Heathen Oracles but peremptory as becomes a Soveraign Law giver and plain as was necessary for the understanding of a Creature As he deals graciously with men in exhorting and incouraging them so he deals wisely herein by taking away all Excuse from them if they ruine the interest of their Souls by denying Obedience to their Soveraign Again the Rewards God proposeth are accommodated not to the Brutish parts of man his Carnal Sense and Fleshly Appetite but to the Capacity of a Spiritual Soul which admits only of Spiritual Gratifications and cannot in its own Nature without a sordid subjection to the Humors of the Body be moved by Sensual Proposals God backs his Precepts with that which the Nature of Man longed for and with Spiritual Delights which can only satisfy a rational Appetite And thereby did as well gratifie the noblest Desires in man as Oblige him to the noblest Service and Work * Amytaut Indeed Vertue and Holiness being perfectly amiable ought chiefly to affect our Understandings and by them draw our Wills to the esteem and pursuit of them But since the desire of Happiness is inseparable from the Nature of Man as impossible to be dis-join'd as an Inclination to descend to be severed from heavy Bodies or an instinct to ascend from Light and A ry of Substances God serves himself of the Inclination of our Natures to happiness to engender in us an esteem and affection to the Holiness he doth require He proposeth the enjoyment of a supernatural Good and everlasting Glory as a Bait to that insatiable longing our Natures have for Happiness to receive the impression of Holiness into our Souls And besides he doth proportion Rewards according to the degrees of mens Industry Labour and Zeal for him and weighs out a Recompence not only suted to but above the service He that improves five Talents is to be ruler over five Cities that is a greater proportion of Honour and Glory than another Luke 19.17.18 As a wise Father excites the affection of his Children to things worthy of Praise by varieties of Recompenses according to their several Actions And it was the Wisdom of the Steward in the Judgment of our Saviour to give every one the portion that belonged to him Luke 12.42 There is no part of the Word wherein we meet not with the will and Wisdom of God varieties of Duties and varieties of Encouragement mingled together 5. The Wisdom of God is seen In fitting the Revelations of his will to after-times and for the preventing of the foreseen Corruptions of men The whole Revelation of the mind of God is stored with Wisdom in the words connexion sence It looks backwards to past and forwards to Ages to come A hidden wisdom lies in the bowels of it like Gold in a Mine The Old testament was so composed as to fortify the New when God should bring it to light The Foundations of the Gopel were laid in the Law The Predictions of the Prophets and figures of the Law were so wisely framed and laid down in such clear expressions as to be Proofs of the Authority of the New Testament and Convictions of Jesus his being the Messiah Luke 24.14 Things concerning Christ were written in Moses the Prophets and Psalms and do to this day stare the Jews so in the face that they are fain to invent absurd and Nonsensical Interpretations to excuse their Unbelief and continue themselves in their obstinate Blindness And in pursuance of the efficacy of those Predictions it was a part of the Wisdom of God to bring forth the Translation of the Old Testament by the means Ptolomy King of Egypt some hundreds of years before the coming of Christ into the Greek Language the Tongue then most known in the World And why to prepare the Gentiles by the reading of it for that gracious call he intended them and for the entertainment of the Gospel which some few years after was to be publisht among them that by reading the Predictions so long before made they might more readily receive the accomplishment of them in their due time The Scripture is written in such a manner as to obviate Errors foreseen by God to enter into the Church It may be wondred why the Vniversal Particle should be inserted by Christ in the giving the Cup in the Supper which was not in the distributing the Bread Mat. 26 27. Drink ye all of it Not at the distributing the Bread Eat you all of it And Mark in his Relation tels us They all drank of it Mark 11.23 The Church of Rome hath been the occasion of discovering to us the Wisdom of our Saviour in in s erting that Particle all since they were so bold to exclude the Communicants from the Cup by a trick of Concomitancy Christ foresaw the Error and therefore put in a little word to obviate a
question the Skill that alters a black Jet into a clear Chrystal a Glow-worm into a Star a Lion into a Lamb and a Swine into a Dove The more intricate and knotty any business is the more eminent is any Mans Ability and Prudence in untying the knots and bringing it to a good Issue The more desperate the Disease the more admirable is the Physicians Skill in the Cure He pitches upon Men for his service who have Natural dispositions to serve him in such ways as he disposeth of them after their Conversion So Paul was naturally a Conscientious Man what he did against Christ was from the dictates of an erroneous Conscience soak'd in the Pharisaical Interpretations of the Jewish Law He had a strain of Zeal to prosecute what his depraved Reason and Conscience did inform him in God pitches upon this Man and works him in the Fire for his Service He alters not his Natural disposition to make him of a Constitution and Temper contrary to what he was before but directs it to another Object claps in another Byass into the Bowl and makes his Ill-governed Disposition◠move in a new way of his own appointment and guided that Natural heat to the service of that Interest which he was before ambitious to extirpate As a high metled Horse when left to himself creates both disturbance and danger But under the conduct of a wise Rider moves regularly not by a change of his Natural fierceness but a skilful management of the Beast to the Riders purpose 2. In the seasons of Conversion The Prudence of Man consists in the Timing the execution of his Counsels and no less doth the Wisdom of God consist in this As he is a God of Judgment or Wisdom he waits to introduce his Grace into the Soul in the fittest Season This Attribute Paul in the story of his own Conversion puts a particular remark upon which he doth not upon any other in that Catalogue he reckons up 1 Tim. 1.17 Now unto the King Eternal Immortal Invisible the only Wise God be Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen A most solemn Doxology wherein Wisdom sits upon the Throne above all the rest with a special Amen to the glory of it which refers to the Timing of his Mercy so to Paul as made most for the glory of his Grace and the encouragement of others from him as the Pattern God took him at a time when he was upon the brink of Hell when he was ready to devour the New-born Infant Church at Damascus when he was Arm'd with all the Authority from without and fired with all the Zeal from within for the prosecution of his Design Then God seizeth upon him and runs him in a Chanel for his own Honour and his Creatures happiness 'T is observable * Which I have upon another Occasion noted how God set his Eye upon Paul all along in his furious course and lets him have the Reins without putting out his hand to bridle him yet no motion he could take but the Eye of God runs along with him He suffered him to kick against the pricks of Miracles and the convincing Discourse of Stephen at his Martyrdom There were many that Voted for Stephens Death as the Witnesses that flung the Stones first at him but they are not named only Saul who testified his Approbation as well as the rest and that by watching the Witnesses Cloaths while they were about that bloody work Acts 7.58 The Witnesses laid their cloaths at a young Mans feet named Saul Again though Multitudes were consenting to his Death yet Acts 8.1 Saul only is mentioned Gods Eye is upon him yet he would not at that time stop his Fury He goes on further and makes havock of the Church Acts 8.3 He had surely many more Complices but none are named as if none regarded with any design of Grace but Saul Yet God would not reach out his hand to Change him but Eyes him waiting for a fitter opportunity which in his Wisdom he did foresee And therefore Acts 9.1 the Spirit of God adds a Yet Saul yet breathing out Threatnings It was not Gods time yet but it would be shortly But when Saul was putting in execution his design against the Church of Damascus when the Devil was at the top of his Hopes and Saul in the height of his Fury and the Christians sunk into the depth of their Fears the Wisdom of God lays hold of the opportunity and by Pauls Conversion at this Season defeats the Devil disappoints the High Priests shields his People discharges their Fears by pulling Saul out of the Devils hands and forming Satans Instrument to a holy Activity against him 3. The Wisdom of God appears In the manner of Conversion So great a Change God makes not by a destruction but with a preservation of and sutableness to Nature As the Devil Tempts us not by offering violence to our Natures but by proposing things convenient to our Corrupt Natures so doth God solicite us to a Return by proposals suted to our Faculties As he doth in Nature convey Nourishment to Men by means of the Fruits of the Earth and produceth the Fruits of the Earth by the Influences of Heaven the Influences of Heaven do not force the Earth but excite that Natural virtue and strength which is in it So God produceth Grace in the Soul by the Means of the Word fitted to the capacity of Man as Man and proportion'd to his Rational Faculties as Rational It would be contrary to the the Wisdom of God to move Man like a Stone to invert the order and priviledge of that Nature which he setled in Creation for then God would in vain have given Man Understanding and Will Because without moving Men according to those Faculties they would remain unprofitable and unuseful in Man †Daille sur Philip. Part 1. p. 545 546. God doth not reduce us to himself as Logs by a meer force or as Slaves forced by a Cudgel to go forth to that place and do that work which they have no stomach to But he doth accommodate himself to those Foundations he hath laid in our Nature and guides us in a way agreeable thereunto by an Action as sweet as powerful clearing our Understandings of dark Principles whereby we may see his Truth our own Misery and the Seat of our Happiness and bending our Wills according to this Light to desire and move conveniently to this End of our Calling Efficaciously yet agreeably powerfully yet without imposing on our Natural Faculties * Sanderson Part 2. p. 203. sweetly without Violence in ordering the Means but effectually without Failing in accomplishing the End And therefore the Scripture calleth it Teaching John 6.45 Alluring Hos 2.14 Calling us to seek the Lord Psal 27.8 Teaching is an act of Wisdom Alluring an act of Love Calling an act of Authority But none of them argue a violent constraint The principle that moves the Will is Supernatural but the
there been some reason of any disgust it could not have ballanced that kindness which had so much reason to oblige him However he had received no courtesie from the fallen Angel to oblige him to turn into his Camp Was it not enough that one of thy Creatures would have stript thee of the glory of Heaven but this also must deprive thee of thy glory upon Earth which was due from him to thee as his Creator Can he charge the difficulty of the Command No It was rather below than above his strength He might rather complain that it was no higher whereby his Obedience and Gratitude might have a larger scope and a more spacious Field to move in than a Precept so light so easie as to abstain from one Fruit in the Garden What excuse can he have that would prefer the liquorishness of his Sense before the dictates of his Reason and the Obligations of his Creation The Law thou didst set him was righteous and reasonable and shall Righteousness and Reason be rejected by the Supream and Infallible Reason because the rebellious Creature hath trampled upon it What must God abrogate his holy Law because the Creature hath slighted it What Reflection will this be upon the Wisdom that enacted it And upon the Equity of the Command and Sanction of it Either Man must suffer or the Holy Law be expunged and for ever out of date And is it not better Man should Eternally smart under his Crime than any dishonourable Reflections of Unrighteousness be cast upon the Law and of folly and want foresight upon the Lawgiver Not to punish would be to approve the Devils Lye and justifie the Creatures Revolt It would be a Condemnation of thy own Law as unrighteous and a Sentencing thy own Wisdom as imprudent Better Man should for ever bear the Punishment of his Offence than God bear the dishonour of his Attributes Better Man should be miserable than God should be unrighteous unwise false and tamely bear the denial of his Soveraignty But what advantage would it be to gratifie Mercy by Pardoning the Malefactor Besides the irreparable dishonour to the Law the falsifying thy veracity in not executing the denounced threatning he would receive incouragement by such a grace to spurn more at thy Soveraignty and oppose thy Holiness by running on in a course of sin with hopes of Impunity If the Creature be restored it can not be expected that he that hath fared so well after the breach of it should be very careful of a future observance His easy readmission would abet him in the repetition of his Offence and thou shalt soon find him cast off all Moral dependance on thee Shall he be restored without any Condition or Covenant He is a Creature not to be governed without a Law and a Law is not be enacted without a Penalty What future regard will he have to thy Precept or what fear will he have of thy Threatning if his Crime be so lightly past over Is it the stability of thy Word What reason will he have to give credit to that which he hath found already disregarded by thy self Thy Truth in future Threatnings will be of no force with him who hath experienced thy laying it aside in the former 'T is necessary therefore that the rebellious creature should be punished for the preservation of the honour of the Law and the honour of the Lawgiver with all those perfections that are united in the composure of it 2. Secondly Mercy doth not want a Plea 'T is true indeed the sin of man wants not its aggravations He hath slighted thy Goodness and accepted thy Enemy as his Counsellor but it was not a pure act of his own as the Devils revolt was He had a Tempter and the Devil had none He had I acknowledge an Understanding to know thy Will and a Power to obey it yet he was mutable and had a capacity to fall It was no difficult task that was set him nor a hard yoke that was laid upon him yet he had a brutish part as well as a rational and sense as well as Soul whereas the fallen Angel was a pure Intellectual Spirit Did God create the World to suffer an eternal dishonour in letting himself be out-witted by Satan and his work wrested out of his hands Shall the work of eternal Counsel presently sink into irreparable destruction and the honour of an Almighty and wise Work be lost in the ruine of the Creature This would seem contrary to the nature of thy Goodness to make Man only to render him miserable To design him in his Creation for the Service of the Devil and not for the Service of his Creator What else could be the issue if the chief work of thy Hand defaced presently after the erecting should for ever remain in this marred condition What can be expected upon the continuance of his misery but a perpetual hatred and enmity of thy Creature against thee Did God in Creation design his being hated or his being loved by his Creature Shall God make a holy Law and have no obedience to that Law from that Creature whom it was made to govern Shall the curious workmanship of God and the excellent Engravings of the Law of Nature in his heart be so soon defaced and remain in that blotted condition for ever This fall thou couldst not but in the treasures of thy Infinite Knowledge foresee Why hadst thou Goodness then to Create him in an Integrity if thou wouldst not have Mercy to pity him in Misery Shall thy Enemy for ever trample upon the honour of thy Work and triumph over the glory of God and applaud himself in the success of his subtilty Shall thy Creature only passively glorifie thee as an Avenger and not actively as a Compassionater Am not I a perfection of thy Nature as well as Justice Shall Justice ingross all and I never come into view 'T is resolved already that the fallen Angels shall be no Subjects for me to exercise my self upon and I have now less reason than before to plead for them They fell with a full consent of will without any motion from another and not content with their own Apostacy they envy thee and thy glory upon Earth as well as in Heaven and have drawn into their party the best part of the Creation below Shall Satan plunge the whole Creation in the same irreparable ruine with himself If the Creature be restored will he contract a boldness in sin by impurity Hast thou not a Grace to render him ingenuous in Obedience as well as a Compassion to recover him from Misery What will hinder but that such a Grace which hath established the standing Angels may establish this recovered Creature If I am utterly excluded from exercising my self on men as I have been from Devils a whole Species is lost nay I can never expect to appear upon the Stage If thou wilt quite ruine him by Justice and create another World and another
place of the Original of their Ancestors and their affection to the Country wherein they were born might have occasioned their embracing the Idolatrous Worship of the place Afterwads the Persecutions of Antiochus scatter'd many of the Jews for their security into other Nations yet a great part and perhaps the greatest preserved their Religion and by that were obliged to come every year to Jerusalem to Offer and so were present at the effusion of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost and were witnesses of the miraculous effects of it Had they not been dispers'd by Persecution had they not resided in several Countries and been acquainted with their Languages the Gospel had not so easily been diffused into several Countreys of the World The first Persecutions also raised against the Church propagated the Gospel the scattering of the Disciples enflamed their courage and dispers'd the Doctrine ‖ Acts 8.3 ccording to the Prophecy of Daniel Dan. 12.4 Many should run to and fro and knowledge should be encreased The flights and hurryings of men should enlarge the Territories of the Gospel There was not a Tribunal but the primitive Christians were cited to not a horrible Punishment but was inflicted upon them Treated they were as the dregs and offals of Mankind as the common Enemies of the World yet the Flames of the Martyrs brightned the Doctrine and the Captivity of its Professors made way for the Throne of its Empire The imprisonment of the Ark was the downfal of Dagon Religion grew stronger by Sufferings and Christianity taller by Injuries What can this be ascribed to but the conduct of a Wisdom superiour to that of Men and Devils defeating the methods of human and hellish Policy thereby making the wisdom of the World foolishness with God 1 Cor. 3.19 Fifthly The Vse I. Of Information If wisdom be an excellency of the Divine Nature then 1. Christ's Deity may hence be asserted Wisdom is the emphatical Title of Christ in Scripture Prov. 8.12 13 31. where Wisdom is brought in speaking as a distinct Person ascribing Counsel and Understanding and the Knowledge of witty Inventions to it self He is called also the power of God and the wisdom of God * 1 Cor. 1.21 And the Ancients generally understood that place Col. 2.3 In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge as an assertion of the God-head of Christ in regard of the infiniteness of his knowledge referring wisdom to his knowledge of Divine things and knowledge to his understanding of all Human things But the natural sense of the place seems to be this that all wisdom and knowledge is displayed by Christ in the Gospel and the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 refer either to Christ or the mystery of God spoken of vers 2. But the Deity of Christ in regard of infinite Wisdom may be deduc'd from his Creation of things and his Government of things both which are ascribed to him in Scripture The first ascribed to him John 1.3 All things were made by him and verse 27. Without him was not any thing made that was made The second John 5.22 The Father hath committed all Judgment to the Son and both put together Col. 2.16 17. Now since he hath the Government of the World he hath the Perfections necessary to so great a Work As the Creation of the World which is ascribed to him requires an infinite power so the Government of the World requires an infinite wisdom That he hath the knowledge of the hearts of men was proved in handling the Omniscience of God That knowledge would be to little purpose without wisdom to order the motions of mens hearts and conduct all the qualities and actions of Creatures to such an end as is answerable to a wise Government we cannot think so great an Imployment can be without an Ability necessary for it The Government of Men and Angels is a great part of the glory of God and if God should intrust the greatest part of his Glory in hands unfit for so great a trust it would be an argument of weakness in God as it is in men to pitch upon unfit Instruments for particular Charges Since God hath therefore committed to him his greatest Glory the Conduct of all things for the highest end he hath a wisdom requisite for so great an end which can be no less than infinite If then Christ were a finite Person he would not be capable of an infinite Communication he could not be a Subject wherein infinite wisdom could be lodged for the terms finite and infinite are so distant that they cannot commence one another finite can never be changed into infinite no more than infinite can into finite 2. Hence we may assert The right and fitness of God for the Government of the World as he is the wisest Being Among men those who are excellent in Judgment are accounted fittest to preside over and give orders to others the wisest in a City are most capable to govern a City or at least though ignorant men may bear the Title yet the advice of the soundest and skilfullest Heads should prevail in all publick Affairs We see in Nature that the eye guides the body and the mind directs the eye * Amyâ—â—uâ— Mâ—â— â—or 1. p. 253 259. Power and Wisdome are the two Arms of Authority Wisdom knows the end and directs the means Power executes the means design'd for such an end The more splendid and strong those are in any the more Authority results from thence for the conduct of others that are of an inferiour Orb Now God being infinitely excellent in both his ability and right to the management of the World cannot be suspected the whole World is but one Commonwealth whereof God is the Monarch Did the Government of the World depend upon the Election of Men and Angels where could they pitch or where would they find Perfections capable of so great a work but in the Supream Wisdom His Wisdom hath already been apparent in those Laws whereby he formed the World into a Civil Society and the Israelites into a Commonwealth The one suted to the Consciences and Reasons of all his Subjects and the other suted to the Genius of that particular Nation drawn out of the Righteousness of the Moral Law and applicable to all Cases that might arise among them in their Government so that Moses asserts that the wisdom apparent in their Laws enacted by God as their chief Magistrate would render them famous among other Nations in regard of their Wisdom as well as their Righteousness Deut. 4.6 7 9. Also this perfection doth evidence that God doth actually govern the World It would not be a commendable thing for a man to make a curious Piece of Clock-work and take no care for the orderly motion of it Would God display so much of his Skill in framing the Heaven and Earth and none in actual guidance of them to their particular and universal ends Did he lay the Foundation in
was when he denied Christs condescension to wash his feet John 13.8 and thereby judged of the comliness of his Masters intention and action Such as continually neglect the great Institution of the Lords Supper out of a sense of Vnworthiness are in the same rank with Peter and do as well as he fall under the blame and reproof of Christ Men would be saved and use the Means but either Means of their own Appointment or not all the Means of Gods ordering †Pont. Mâ—dit part 3 p 366. They would have Gods Wisdom and Will condescend to theirs and not theirs conformed to God As if our blind Judgments were fittest to make the election of the Paths to Happiness Lâ—ke Naâ—man who when he was ordered by the Prophet for the cure of his Leprosie to wash seven times in Jordan would be the Prophets Director and have him touch him with his Hand As if a Patient sick of a desperate Disease should Prescribe to his Skilful Physician what Remedies he should order for his Cure and make his own infirm Reason or his Gust and Palate the Rule rather than the Physicians Skill Mens Inquiries are Who will shew us any good They rather fasten upon any Means than what God hath ordained * Durant de Tent. p. 403 404. We invert the Order Divine Wisdom hath established when we would have God save us in our own way not in his 'T is the same thing as if we would have God nourish us without Bread and cure our Diseases without Medicines and increase our Wealth without our Industry and cherish our Souls without his Word and Ordinances 'T is to demand of him an alteration or his Methods and a separation of that which he hath by his Eternal Judgment joyned together Therefore for a Man to pray to God to save him when he will not use the Means he hath appointed for Salvation when he slights the Word which is the Instrument of Salvation is a Contempt of the Wisdom of Divine Institutions Also in Onassions of Prayer when we consult not with God upon emergent Occasions we trust more to our own wisdom than Gods and imply that we stand not in need of his Conduct but have ability to direct our selves and accomplish our Ends without his guidance Not seeking God is by the Prophet tax'd to be a reflection upon this Perfection of God Isai 31.1 2. They look not to the Holy One of Israel neither seek the Lord c. And the like Charge he brings against them Hos 8.9 They are gone up to up to Assyria a wild Ass alone by himself not consulting God 3. In censuring Gods Revelations and Actions if they be not according to our Schemes When we will not submit to his plain Will without penetrating into the unrevealed Reason of it nor adore his Counsels without controuling them as if we could correct both Law and Gospel and frame a better Method of Redemption than that of Gods contriving Thus Men slighted the Wisdom of God in the Gospel because it did not agree with that Philosophical Wisdom and Reason they had suckt in by Education from their Masters †1 Cor. 1 21 22. contrary to their Practice in their Superstitious Worshâ—p where the Oracles they thought Divine were entertained with Reverence not with Dispute and though ambiguous were not counted ridiculous by the Worshipper How foolish is Man in this wherein he would be accounted wise Adam in Innocence was unfit to controul the Doctrine of God when the Eye of his Reason was clear and much more are we since the depravation of our Natures The Revelations of God tower above Reason in its Purity much more above Reason in its Mud and Earthiness The Rays of Divine Wisdom are too bright for our Human Understandings much more for our Sinful Understandings 'T is base to set up Reason a Finite principle against an Infinite Wisdom much baser to set up a depraved and and purblind Reason against an All-seeing and holy Wisdom If we would have a Reason for all that God speaks and all that God acts our Wisdom must become Infinite as his or his Wisdom become Finite as ours All the Censures of Gods Revelations arise from some prejudicate Opinions or Traditional Maximes that have enthroned themselves in our Minds which are made the Standard whereby to judge of the things of God and receive or reject them as they agree with or dissent from those Principles ‖ Coloss 2.8 Hence it was that the Philosophers in the Primitive Times were the greatest Enemies to the Gospel And the Contempt of Divine Wisdom in making Reason the Supream Judge of Divine Revelation was the fruitful Mother of the Heresies in all Ages springing up in the Church and especially of that Socinianism that daily insinuates it self into the minds of Men. This is a wrong to the Wisdom of God He that censures the Words or Actions of another implies that he is in his Censure wiser than the Person censured by him 'T is as insupportable to determine the Truth of Gods plain Dictates by our Reason as it is to measure the sutableness or unsutableness of his Actions by the humor of our Will We may sooner think to span the Sun or grasp a Star or see a Gnat swallow a Leviathan than fully understand the Debates of Eternity To this we may refer too curious Enquiries into Divine Methods and intruding into those things which are not revealed Coloss 2.18 It is to affect a Wisdom equal with God and an Ambition to be of his Cabinet-Councel We are not content to be Creatures that is to be every way below God below him in Wisdom as well as Power 4. In prescribing God methods of Acting When we pray for a thing without a due submission to Gods Will as if we were his Counsellors yea his Tutors and not his Subjects and God were bound to follow our humors and be swayed according to the Judgment of our Ignorance when we would have such a Mercy which God thinks not fit to give or have it in this method which God designs to convey through another Chanel Thus we would have the only wise God take his measures from our Passions Such a controuling of God was Jonahs Anger about a Gourd Jonah 3.10 It displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was very angry We would direct him how to dispose of us as though he that had Infinite Wisdom to contrive and rear the excellent Fabrick of the World had not Wisdom enough without our Discretions to place us in a sphere proper for his own Ends and the use he intends us in the Universe All the Speeches of Men Would I had been in such an Office had such a Charge Would I had such a Mercy in such a method or by such Instruments are Intrenchments upon Gods wise disposal of Affairs This imposing upon God is a Hellish disposition and in Hell we find it The Rich man in Hell that pretends some Charity for his
what God hath hid as to be careless of what God hath manifested Too great an inquisitiveness beyond our line is as much a provoking arrogance as a blockish negligence of what is revealed is a slighting ingratitude 2. Submit to God in his Precepts and Methods Since they are the results of Infinite Wisdom disputes against them are not tolerable What orders are given out by Infallible Wisdom are to be entertained with respect and reverence though the reason of them be not visible to our purblind minds Shall God have less respect from us than Earthly Princes whose Laws we observe without being able to pierce into the exact reason of them all Since we know he hath not a Will without an Understanding our observance of him must be without Repining we must not think to mend our Creators Laws and presume to judg and condemn his Righteous Statutes If the flesh rise up in opposition we must cross its motions and Silence its Murmurings his Will should be an acceptable Will to us because it is a wise Will in itself God hath no need to impose upon us and deceive us He hath just and righteous waies to attain his glory and his Creatures good To deceive us would be to dishonour himself and contradict his own nature He cannot impose false injurious Precepts or unavailable to his subjects happiness not false because of his Truth not injurious because of his Goodness not vain because of his Wisdom Submit therefore to him in his Precepts and in his Methods too The honour of his Wisdom and the interest of our Happiness calls for it Had Noah disputed with God about building an Ark and listned to the scoffs of the sensless World he had perished under the same fate and lost the honour of a Preacher and worker of righteousness Had not the Israelites been their own enemies if they had been permitted to be their own guides and returned to the Egyptian bondage and furnaces instead of a liberty and earthly felicity in Canaan Had our Saviour gratified the Jews by descending from the Cross and freeing himself from the power of his Adversaries he might have had that Faith from them which they promised him but It had been a faith to no purpose because without ground they might have believed him to be the Son of God but he could not have been the Saviour of the World His death the great ground and object of Faith had been unaccomplished they had believed a God pardoning without a content to his Iustice and such a Faith could not have rescued them from falling into eternal Misery The Precepts and Methods of Divine Wisdom must be submitted to 3. Submit to God in all Crosses and Revolutions Infinite Wisdom cannot err in any of his paths or step the least hairs bredth from the way of Righteousness There is the Understanding of God in every motion an Eye in every Wheel the Wheel that goes over us and crusheth us We are led by Fancy more than Reason We know no more what we ask or what is fit for us than the Mother of Zebedees children did when she Petitioned Christ for her sons advancement when he came into his Temporal Kingdom * Mat. 20.22 The things we desire might pleasure our Fancy or Appetite but impair our health One man complains for want of Children but knows not whither they may prove Comforts or Crosses Another for want of Health but knows not whither the health of his Body may not prove the disease of his Soul We migh◠lose in Heavenly things if we possess in Earthly things what we long for God in regard of his infinite Wisdom is fitter to carve out a condition than we our selves our Shallow reason and self-love would wish for those things that are injurious to God to our selves to the World but God alwaies chooses what is best for his Glory and what is best for his Creatures either in regard of themselves or as they stand in relation to him or to others as parts of the World We are in danger from our self-love in no danger in complying with Gods Wisdom When Rachel would dye if she had no Children she had Children but Death with one of them †Gen. 30.1 Good men may conclude that whatsoever is done by God in them or with them is best and fittest for them because by the Covenant which makes over God to them as their God the conduct of his Wisdom is assured to them as well as any other Attribute And therefore as God in every transaction appears as their God so he appears as their wise Director and by this Wisdom he extracts good out of evill makes the affliction which destroys our outward Comforts consume our inward Defilements And the waves which threatned to swallow up the vessel to cast it upon the shore And when he hath occasion to manifest his Anger against his People his Wisdom directs his Wrath. In Judgment he hath a work to do upon Zion and when that work is done he punishes the fruit of the stout heart of the King of Assyria ‖ Isa 10 1◠As in the answers of Prayer he doth give oftentimes above what we ask or think Eph. 3.20 so in outward concerns he doth above what we can expect or by our short-sightedness conclude will be done Let us therefore in all things frame our minds to the Divine Wisdom and say with the Psalmist Psal 47.4 The Lord shall chuse our inheritance and condition for us 6. Exhortation Censure not God in any of his waies Can we Understand the full scope of Divine Wisdom in Creation which is perfected before our Eyes Can we by a rational knowledge walk over the whole Surface of the Earth and wade through the Sea Can we Understand the Nature of the Heavens Are all or most or the thousandth part of the particles of Divine Skil known by us yea or any of them throughly known How can we then Understand his deeper methods in things that are but of yesterday that we have not had a time to View We should not be too quick or too rash in our Judgments of him The best that we attain to is but feeble conjectures at the designs of God As there is something hid in whatsoever is revealed in his Word so there is some thing inaccessible to us in his Works as well as in his Nature and Majesty In our Saviours act in washing his Disciples feet he checkt Peters contradiction John 13.7 What I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter God were not infinitely wise if the reason of all his acts were obvious to our Shallowness He is no profound States-man whose inward intention can be sounded by vulgar Heads at the first act he starts in his designed method The wise God is in this like wisemen that have not breasts like glasses of Christal to discover all that they intend There are secrets of Wisdom above our reach * Iob 11.6 nay when
we see all his acts we cannot see all the draughts of his skill in them An unskilful hearer of a musical lesson may receive the melody with his Ear and understand not the rarities of the composition as it was wrought by the Musitians mind Under the old Testament there was more of Divine Power and less of his Wisdom apparent in his acts As his Laws so his acts were more fitted to their Sense Under the new Testament there is more of Wisdom and less of power As his Laws so his acts are more fitted to a spiritual mind Wisdom is less discernable than power Our Wisdom therefore in this case as it doth in other things consists in silence and expectation of the end and event of a work We owe that honour to God that we do to men wiser than our selves to imagin he hath reason to do what he doth though our shallowness cannot comprehend it We must suffer God to be wiser than our selves and acknowledg that there is something soveraign in his waies not to be measured by the feeble reed of our weak understandings And therefore we should acquiesce in his proceedings take heed we be not found slanderers of God but be adorers instead of Censurers and lift up our hands in admiration of him and his waies instead of citing him to answer it at our Bar. Many things in the first appearance may seem to be rash and unjust which in the Issue appear comely and regular If it had been plainly spoke before that the Son of God should dye that a most holy person should be crucified it would have seemed cruel to expose a Son to misery unjust to inflict punishment upon one that was no Criminal to joyn together exact Goodness and Physical evil that the Soveraign should dye for the Malefactor and the Observer of the Law for the Violators of it But when the whole design is unravelled what an admirable connexion is there of Justice and Mercy Love and Wisdom which before would have appeared absurd to the muddied reason of man We see the Gardiner pulling up some delightful Flowers by the roots digging up the Earth overwhelming it with Dung an ignorant person would imagine him wild out of his wits and charge him with spoiling his Garden But when the Spring is arrived the spectator will acknowledge his skill in his former Operations The truth is the whole design and methods of God are not to be judged by us in this World the full declaration of the whole contexture is reserved for the other World to make up a part of good mens happiness in the amazing views of divine Wisdom as well as the other perfections of his nature We can no more perfectly understand his Wisdom than we can his Mercy and Iustice till we see the last lines of all drawn and the full expressions of them We should therefore be sober and modest in the consideration of Gods ways his Judgments are unsearchable and his ways past finding out The riches of his Wisdom are past our counting his depths not to be fathomed yet they are depths of righteousness and equity Though the full manifestation of that equity the grounds and methods of his proceedings are unknown to us As we are too short fully to know God so we are too ignorant fully to comprehend the acts of God Since he is a God of Judgment we should wait till we see the issue of his works Esa 30.18 And in the mean time with the Apostle in the Text give him the glory of all in the same expressions To the only wise God be glory through Jesus Christ for ever Amen A DISCOURSE UPON THE Power of God Job 26.14 Loe these are parts of his wayes but how little a portion is heard of him but the thunder of his power who can understand BILDAD had in the foregoing Chapter entertain'd Job with a Discourse of the dominion and power of God and the purity of his righteousness whence he argues an impossibility of the justification of Man in his Presence who is no better than a Worm Job in this Chapter acknowledges the greatness of Gods power and descants more largely upon it than Bildad had done but doth Preface it with a kind of Ironical speech as if he had not acted a friendly part or spake little to the purpose or the matter in hand The subject of Job's Discourse was the worldly happiness of the Wicked and the Calamities of the Godly And Bildad reads him a Lecture of the extent of Gods Dominion the number of his Armies and the unspotted rectitude of his Nature in comparison of which the purest Creatures are foul and crooked Job therefore from verse 1. to verse 4. taxeth him in a kind of scoffing manner that he had not touched the Point but rambled from the Subject in hand and had not applyed a Salve proper to his Sore Verse 2. How hast thou helped him that is without power how savest thou the arm of him that hath no strength c. your discourse is so impertinent that it will neither strengthen a weak person nor instruct a simple one * Munster But since Bildad would take up the Argument of Gods Power and discourse so short of it Job would shew that he wanted not his Instructions in that kind and that he had more distinct Conceptions of it than his Antagonist had uttered And therefore from verse 5. to the end of the Chapter he doth magnificently treat of the Power of God in several Branches And verse 5. he begins with the lowest Dead things are formed from under the waters and the inhabitants thereof You read me a Lecture of the Power of God in the heavenly Host Indeed it is visible there yet of a larger extent and Monuments of it are found in the lower parts What do you think of those dead things under the Earth and Waters of the Corn that dies and by the moysâ—â—ng influences of the Clouds springs up again with a numerous progeny and increase for the nourishment of man What do you think of those varieties of Metals and Minerals conceived in the bowels of the Earth those Pearls and Riches in the depths of the Waters midwifed by this Power of God Add to these those more prodigious Creatures in the Sea the Inhabitants of the Waters with their vastness and variety which are all the Births of Gods Power both in their first Creation by his mighty Voice and their propagation by his cherishing Providence Stop not here but consider also that his Power extends to Hell either the Graves the Repositories of all the crumbled dust that hath yet been in the World for so Hell is sometimes taken in Scripture Verse 6. Hell is naked before him and destruction hath no covering The several lodgings of deceased men are known to him No skreen can obscure them from his sight nor their dissolution be any bar to his Power when the time is come to compact those mouldred Bodies to entertain
such a Property that it was capable of receiving it This Capacity is from the nature of the Metal by God's Creation of it but the carving the Figure of this or that Man is not the Act of God but the Act of Man As Images in Scripture are called the Work of mens hands in regard of the imagery though the Matter Wood or Stone upon which the Image was carv'd was a Work of God's Creative Power When an Artificer frames an excellent Instrument and a Musician exactly tunes it and it comes out of their hands without a blemish but capable to be untun'd by some rude hand or receive a crack by a suddain fall if it meet with a Disaster is either the Workman or Musician to be blam'd The ruin of a House caused by the wastfulness or carelesness of the Tenant is not to be imputed to the Workman that built it strong and left it in a good Posture 2. Proposition God's Holiness is not blemisht by enjoyning Man a Law which he knew he would not observe 1. The Law as not above his strength Had the Law been impossible to be observed no Crime could have been imputed to the Subject the fault had layn wholly upon the Governour the Non-observance of it had been from a want of strength and not from a want of will Had God commanded Adam to fly up to the Sun when he had not given him Wings Adam might have a will to obey it but his Power would be too short to perform it But the Law set him for a Rule had nothing of impossibility in it it was easie to be observed the Command was rather below than above his strength and the sanction of it was more apt to restrain and fear him from the breach of it than encourage any daring Attempts against it He had as much power or rather more to conform to it than to warp from it and greater arguments and interest to be observant of it than to violate it his All was secured by the one and his Ruin ascertained by the other * 1 Joh. 5.3 The Commands of God are not grievous from the first to the last Command there is nothing impossible nothing hard to the original and created Nature of Man which were all summ'd up in a love to God which was the pleasure and delight of Man as well as his Duty if he had not by inconsiderateness neglected the dictates and resolves of his own Understanding The Law was suted to the strength of Man and fitted for the Improvement and Perfection of his Nature In which respect the Apostle calls it good as it refers to Man as well as holy as it refers to God †Rom. 7.12 Now since God Created man a Creature capable to be governed by a Law and as a Rational Creature endued with Understanding and Will not to be govern'd according to his Nature without a Law was it congruous to the Wisdom of God to respect only the future state of Man which from the Depth of his Infinite Knowledge he did infallibly foresee would be miserable by the wilful defection of Man from the Rule Had it been agreeable to the Wisdom of God to respect only this future state and not the present state of the Creature and therefore leave him lawless because he knew he would violate the Law Should God forbear to act like a wise Governour because he foresaw that Man would cease to act like an obedient Subject Shall a righteous Magistrate forbear to make just and good Laws because he foresees either from the dispositions of his Subjects their ill humour or some Circumstances which will intervene that Multitudes of them will incline to break those Laws and fall under the Penalty of them No blame can be upon that Magistrate who minds the Rule of Righteousness and the necessary Duty of his Government since he is not the Cause of those turbulent Affections in Men which he wisely foresees will rise up against his just Edicts 2. Though the Law now be above the strength of man yet is not the holiness of God blemisht by keeping it up 'T is true God hath been graciously pleased to mitigate the severity and rigour of the Law by the entrance of the Gospel yet where men refuse the terms of the Gospel they continue themselves under the Condemnation of the Law and are justly guilty of the breach of it though they have no strength to observe it The Law as I said before was not above mans strength when he was possessed of Original Righteousness though it be above mans strength since he was stript of Original Righteousness The Command was dated before man had contracted his Impotency when he had a power to keep it as well as to break it Had it been enjoyned to man only after the fall and not before he might have had a better pretence to excuse himself because of the impossibility of it yet he would not have had sufficient excuse since the impossibility did not result from the Nature of the Law but from the corrupted Nature of the Creature It was weak through the Flesh Rom. 8.3 but it was promulg'd when man had a strength proportion'd to the Commands of it And now since man hath unhappily made himself uncapable of obeying it must God's Holiness in his Law be blemisht for enjoyning it Must he abrogate those Commands and prohibit what before he enjoyned for the satisfaction of the corrupted Creature would not this be his ceasing to be holy that his Creature might be unblameably unrighteous Must God strip himself of his Holiness because man will not discharge his Iniquity He cannot be the cause of sin by keeping up the Law who would be the cause of all the unrighteousness of men by removing the Authority of it Some things in the Law that are intrinsecally good in their own Nature are indispensable and it is repugnant to the Nature of God not to Command them If he were not the Guardian of his indispensable Law he would be the Cause and Countenancer of the Creatures Iniquity So little reason have men to charge God with being the Cause of their sin by not repealing his Law to gratifie their Impotence that he would be unholy if he did God must not lose his Purity because man hath lost his and cast away the Right of his Soveraignty because man hath cast away his Power of Obedience 3. God's foreknowledge that his Law would not be observ'd lays no blame upon him Though the foreknowledge of God be infallible yet it doth not necessitate the Creature in acting It was certain from Eternity that Adam would fall that men would do such and such Actions that Judas would betray our Saviour God foreknew all those things from Eternity but it is as certain that this foreknowledge did not necessitate the will of Adam or any other Branch of his Posterity in the doing those Actions that were so foreseen by God they voluntarily run into such Courses
the battle when they will rebell against the light God doth often leave them to their own course sentence him that is filthy to be filthy still ‖ Reve. 22.11 which is a righteous act of God as he is Rector and Governor of the World Man's not receiving or not improving what God gives is the cause of Gods not giving further or taking away his own which before he had bestowed This is so far from being repugnant to the Holiness and Righteousness of God that it is rather a commendable act of his Holiness and Righteousness as the Rector of the World not to let those gifts continue in the hand of a man who abuses them contrary to his glory Who will blame a Father that after all the good Counsels he hath given his Son to reclaim him all the Corrections he hath inflicted on him for his irregular practice leaves him to his own courses and withdraws those assistances which he scoft at and turned the deaf Ear unto Or who will blame the Physician for deserting the Patient who rejects his Counsel will not follow his Prescriptions but dasheth his Physick against the Wall No man will blame him no man will say that he is the cause of the Patients death but the true cause is the fury of the Distemper and the obstinacy of the diseased Person to which the Physician left him And who can justly blame God in this case who yet never denied supplies of Grace to any that sincerely sought it at his hands and what man is there that lies under a hardness but first was guilty of very provoking sins What unholiness is it to deprive men of those assistances because of their sin and afterwards to direct those counsels and practices of theirs which he hath justly given them up unto to serve the ends of his own glory in his own methods 4. Which will appear further by considering that God is not oblig'd to continue his Grace to them It was at his liberty whither he could give any renewing Grace to Adam after his fall or to any of his Posterity He was at his own liberty to withold it or communicate it But if he were under any Obligation then surely he must be under less now since the multiplication of Sin by his Creatures But if the Obligation were none just after the fall there is no pretence now to fasten any such Obligation on God That God had no Obligation at first hath been spoken to before He is less obliged to continue his Grace after a repeated refusal and a peremptory abuse than he was bound to proffer it after the first Apostacy God cannot be charg'd with unholiness in withdrawing his Grace after we have received it unless we can make it appear that his Grace was a thing due to us as we are his Creatures and as he is Governor of the World What Prince looks upon himself as oblig'd to reside in any particular place of his Kingdom But suppose he be bound to inhabit in one particular City yet after the City rebells against him is he bound to continue his Court there spend his Revenue among Rebels endanger his own Honour and Security inlarge their Charter or maintain their Ancient Priviledges Is it not most just and righteous for him to withdraw himself and leave them to their own Tumultuousness and Sedition whereby they should eat the fruit of their own doings If there be an Obligation on God as a Governor it would rather lie on the side of Justice to leave Man to the Power of the Devil whom he courted and the prevalency of those Lusts he hath so often caressed and wrap up in a Cloud all his common Illuminations and leave him destitute of all common workings of his Spirit 8. Proposition Gods Holiness is not blemisht by his commanding those things sometimes which seem to be against Nature or thwart some other of his Precepts As when God commanded Abraham with his own hand to Sacrifice his Son * Gen. 22.2 there was nothing of Unrighteousness in it God hath a Soveraign Dominion over the lives and beings of his creatures whereby as he creates one day he might annihilate the next and by the same right that he might demand the life of Isaac as being his Creature he might demand the Obedience of Abraham in a ready return of that to him which he had so long enjoy'd by his grant 'T is true killing is unjust when it is done without cause and by a private Authority But the Authority of God surmounts all private and Publick Authority whatsoever Our lives are due to him when he calls for them and they are more than once forfeit to him by reason of Transgression But howsoever the case is God commanded him to do it for the trial of his Grace but suffered him not to do it in favour to his ready Obedience But had Isaac been actually slain and offer'd how had it been unrighteous in God who enacts Laws for the Regulation of his Creature but never intended them to the prejudice of the Rights of his Soveraignty Another Case is that of the Israelites borrowing Jewels of the Egyptians by the order of God †Exod. 11.2.3 Exod. 12.36 Is not God Lord of mans goods as well as their lives What have any they have not received that not as Proprietors independent on God but his Stewards and may not he demand a portion of his Steward to bestow upon his Favourite He that had power to dispose of the Egyptians Goods had power to order the Israelites to ask them Besides God acted the part of a just Judge in ordering them their wages for their Service in this method and making their Task-masters give them some recompence for their unjust oppression so many years It was a Command from God therefore rather for the preservation of Justice the Basis of all those Laws which link human Society than any infringement of it It was a material recompence in part though not a formal one in the intention of the Egyptians It was but in part a recompence It must needs come short of the dammage the poor Captives had sustained by the tyranny of their Masters who had inslav'd them contrary to the rules of hospitality and could not make amends for the lives of the poor Infants of Israel whom they had drowned in the River He that might for the unjust oppression of his People have taken away all their Lives destroy'd the whole Nation and put the Israelites into the possession of their Lands could without any unrighteousness dispose of part of their Goods And it was rather an act of Clemency to leave them some part who had doubly forfeited all Again the Egyptians were as ready to lend by Gods influence as the Israelites were to ask by Gods order And though it was a loan God as Soveraign of the World and Lord of the Earth and the fulness thereof alienated the property by assuming them to the use of the
to the Innocent and Culpable Could you account him Good if he did always with pleasure behold Evil and perpetually suffer the Oppressions of the Innocent under unpunisht Wickedness How should we know the Goodness of the Divine Nature and his Affection to the goodness of his Creature if he did not by some acts of severity witness his implacable aversion against Sin and his care to preserve the good Government of the World If corrupted Creatures should always be exempt from the effects of his Indignation he would declare himself not to be Infinitely Good because he would not be really Righteous No Man thinks it a Natural Vice in the Sun by the power of its scorching heat to dry up and consume the unwholsom Vapours of the Air nor are the demonstrations of Divine Justice any blots upon his Goodness since they are both for the defence and glory of his Holiness and for the preservation of the beauty and order of the World 2. Is it not part of the Goodness of God to make Laws and annex Threatn ngs And shall it be an impeachment of his Goodness to support them The more severe Laws are made for deterring Evil the better is that Prince accounted in making such provision for the welfare of the Community The design of Laws and the design of upholding the honour of those Laws by the punishment of Offenders is to promote Goodness and restrain Evil The Execution of those Laws must be therefore pursuant to the same design of Goodness which first setled them Would it not be contrary to Goodness to suffer that which was design'd for the support of Goodness to be scorn'd and slighted It would neither be prudence nor goodness but folly and vice to let Laws which were made to promote Vertue be broken with impunity Would not this be to weaken Vertue and give a new life and vigor to Vice Not only the Righteousness of the Law it self but the Wisdom of the Law-giver would be exposed to contempt if the Violations of it remained uncontroul'd and the Violence offer'd by Men passed unpunished None but will acknowledge the Divine Precepts to be the Image of the Righteousness of God and beneficial for the common good of the World * Rom. 7.12 The Law is holy just and good and so is every Precept of it The Law was for no other end but to keep the Creature in subjection to and dependance on God This dependance could not be preserved without a Law nor that Law be kept in Reputation without a Penalty nor would that Penalty be significant without an Execution Every Law loseth the nature of a Law without a Penalty and the Penalty loseth its vigor without the infliction of it How can those Laws attain their end if the Transgressions of them be not punished Would not the wickedness of Mens hearts be encouraged by such a kind of uncomely Goodness And all the threatnings be to no other end than to engender vain and fruitless fears in the minds of Men Is it good for the Majesty of God to suffer it self to be trampled on by his Vassals To suffer Men by their Rebellion to level his Law with the wickedness of their own hearts and by impunity slight his own Glory and incourage their Disobedience Who would give any Man any Prince any Father that should do so the name of a good Governor If it were a fruit of Divine Goodness to make Laws is it contrary to Goodness to support the honour of them 'T is every whit as rational and as good to vindicate the honour of his Laws by Justice as at first to settle them by Authority As much goodness to vindicate it from Contempt as at first to Enact it As it is as much Wisdom to preserve a Law as at first to frame it Shall his Precepts be thought by him unworthy of a support that were not thought by him unworthy to be made The same reason of Goodness that led him to enjoyn them will lead him to revenge them Did Evil appear odious to him while he Enacted his Law and would not his own Goodness as well as his Wisdom appear odious to him if he did never Execute it Would it not be a denial of his own Goodness to be led by the foolish and corrupt Judgment of his Creatures and slight his own Law because his Rebels spurn at it Since he valued it before they could actually contemn it would he not misjudge his own Law and his own Wisdom discount from the true value of them condemn his own Acts censure his Precepts as Unrighteous and therefore Evil and Injurious Remove the differences between Good and Evil look upon Vice and Virtue and Wickedness as Righteousness if he thought his Commands unworthy of a Vindication How can there be any support to the honour of his Precepts without sometimes Executing the severity of his Threatnings And as to his Threatnings of Punishment for the breach of his Laws are they not designed to discourage Wickedness as the Promises of Reward were designed to encourage Goodness Hath he not multiplied the one to scare Men from Sin as well as the other to allure Men to Obedience Is not the same Truth engaged to support the one as well as the other And how could he be abundant in Goodness if he were not abundant in Truth Both are linkt together * Exod. 34.6 If he neglected his Truth he would be out of love with his own Goodness since it cannot be manifested in performing the Promises to the Obedient if it be not also manifested in executing his Threatnings upon the Rebellious Had not God annext Threatnings to his Laws he would have had no care of his own Goodness The Order between God and the Creature wherein the declaration of his Goodness consisted might have been easily broken by his Creature Man would have freed himself from subjection to God been unaccountable to him Had this consisted with that infinite Goodness whereby he loves himself and loves his Creatures As therefore the annexing Threatnings to his Law was a part of his Goodness the Execution of them is so far from being a blemish that it is the honour of his Goodness The Rewards of Obedience and the Punishment of Disobedience refer to the same end viz. the due manifestation of the valuation of his own Law the glorifying his own Goodness which enjoyned so beneficial a Law for Man and the support of that goodness in the Creatures which by that Law he demands righteously and kindly of them 3. Hence it follows That not to punish Evil would be a want of Goodness to himself The Goodness of God is an indulgent Goodness in a way of Wisdom and Reason not a fond Goodness in a way of weakness and folly Would it not be a weakness always to bear with the Impenitent A want of expressing a goodness to Goodness it self Would not Goodness have more reason to complain for a want of Justice to rescue it
beautify our Dwellings furnish our Closets or store our VVardrobes * Psal 104.24 The whole Earth is full of his Riches Nothing but by the rich Goodness of God is exquisitely accomodated in the numerous brood of things immediately or mediately for the use of Man All in the issue conspire together to render the VVorld a delightful Residence for Man And therefore all the living Creatures were brought by God to attend upon Man after his Creation to receive a Mark of his Dominion over them by the imposition of their Names †Gen. 2.19 20. He did not only give variety of Senses to Man but provided variety of delightful Objects in the VVorld for every Sense The Beauties of Light and Colours for our Eye the Harmony of Sounds for our Ear the Fragrancy of Odours for our Nostrils and a Delicious Sweetness for our Palates Some have qualities to pleasure all every thing a quality to pleasure one or other He doth not only present those things to our view as Rich Men do in Ostentation their Goods He makes us the Enjoyers as well as the Spectators and gives us the Use as well as the Sight And therefore he hath not only given us the Sight but the Knowledge of them He hath set up a Sun in the Heavens to expose their outward Beauty and Conveniencies to our Sight and the Candle of the Lord is in us to expose their inward Qualities and Conveniencies to our Knowledge that we might serve our selves of and rejoyce in all this Furniture wherewith he hath garnisht the World and have wherewithal to employ the inquisitiveness of our Reason as well as gratifie the pleasure of our Sense And particularly God provided for Innocent Man a delightful Mansion-house a place of more special Beauty and Curiosity the Garden of Eden a delightful Paradise a Model of the Beauties and Pleasures of another World wherein he had placed whatsoever might contribute to the felicity of a Rational and Animal Life the Life of a Creature composed of Mire and Dust of Sense and Reason * Gen. 2.9 Besides the other Delicacies consign'd in that place to the use of Man there was a Tree of Life provided to maintain his Being and nothing denied in the whole compass of that Territory but one Tree that of the knowledge of Good and Evil which was no Mark of an ill will in his Creator to him but a Reserve of Gods absolute Soveraignty and a Trial of Mans voluntary Obedience What blur was it to the Goodness of God to reserve one Tree for his own propriety when he had given to Man in all the rest such numerous Marks of his Rich Bounty and Goodness VVhat Israel after Mans Fall enjoyed sensibly Nehemiah calls great Goodness †Neh. 9.25 How inexpressible then was that Goodness manifested to Innocent Man when so small a part of it indulg'd to the Israelites after the Curse upon the Ground is call'd as truly it Merits such great Goodness How can we pass through any part of this great City and cast our Eyes upon the well Furnisht Shops stor'd with all kinds of Commodities without reflections upon this Goodness of God starting up before our Eyes in such varieties and plainly telling us that he hath accommodated all things for our use suited things both to supply our need content a reasonable Curiosity and delight us in our aims at and passage to our Supream End 3. The Goodness of God appears in the Laws he hath given to Man the Covenant he made with him It had not been agreeable to the Goodness of God to let a Creature governable by a Law be without a Law to regulate him his Goodness then which had broke forth in the Creation had suffer'd an Eclipse and obscurity in his Government As Infinite Goodness was the Motive to Create so Infinite Goodness was the Motive of his Government And this appears 1. In the fitting the Law to the Nature of Man It was rather below than above his strength he had an integrity in his Nature to answer the Righteousness of the Precept * Eccles 7.29 God Created Man upright his Nature was suited to the Law and the Law to his Nature it was not above his understanding to know it nor his will to embrace it nor his passions to be regulated by it The Law and his Nature were like two exact streight Lines touching one another in every part when joyned together God exacted no more by his Law than what was written by Nature in his Heart He had a knowledge by Creation to observe the Law of his Creation and he fell not for want of a Righteousness in his Nature He was enabled for more than was commanded him but wilfully indisposed to less than he was able to perform The Precepts were easie not only becoming the Authority of a Soveraign to exact but the Goodness of a Father to demand and the Ingenuity of a Creature and a Son to pay †1 John 5.3 His Commands are not grievous the observance of them had fill'd the Spirit of Man with an extraordinary Contentment It had been no less a pleasure and a delightful satisfaction to have kept the Law in a Created State than it is to keep it in some measure in a Renew'd State The Renewed Nature finds a suitableness in the Law to kindle a delight * Psal 1.2 It could not then have anywise shook the Nature of an upright Creature nor have been a burden too heavy for his Shoulders to bear Though he had not a Grace given him above Nature yet he had not a Law given him that surmounted his Nature It did not exceed his Created strength and was suited to the Dignity and Nobility of a Rational Nature It was a just Law †Rom. 7.12 and therefore not above the Nature of the Subject that was bound to obey it And had it been impossible to be observed it had been unrighteous to be Enacted It had not been a matter of Divine Praise and that seven times a day as it is * Psal 119.164 Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy Righteous Judgments The Law was so Righteous that Adam had every whit as much reason to bless God in his Innocence for the Righteousness of it as David had with the Reliques of Enmity against it His Goodness shines so much in his Law as merits our Praise of him as he is a Soveraign Law-giver as well as a Gracious Benefactor in the imparting to us a Being 2. In fitting it for the Happiness of Man For the satisfaction of his Soul which finds a Reward in the very act of keeping it †Psal 119.165 Great peace in the loving it for the preservation of Human Society wherein consists the External felicity of Man It had been inconsistent with Divine Goodness to enjoyn Man any thing that should be oppressive and uncomfortable Bitterness cannot come from that which is altogether Sweet
Goodness would not have oblig'd the Creature to any thing but what is not only free from damaging him but wholly conducing to his VVelfare and Perfective of his Nature Infinite Wisdom could not order any thing but what was agreeable to Infinite Goodness As his Laws are the most Rational as being the contrivance of Infinite Wisdom so they are the best as being the Fruit of Infinite Goodness His Laws are not only the acts of his Soveraign Authority but the Effluxes of his Loving-Kindness and the Conductors of Man to an enjoyment of a greater Bounty He minds as well the promotion of his Creatures Felicity as the asserting his own Authority As good Princes make Laws for their Subjects benefit as well as their own honour What was said of a more difficult and burdensom Law long after Mans fall may much more be said of the easie Law of Nature in the state of Mans Innocence that it was for our good * Deut. 10.12 13. He never pleaded with the Israelites for the observation of his Commands upon the account of his Authority so much as upon the score of their benefit by them †Deut. 4.40 * Deut. 12.28 And when his Precepts were broken he seems sometimes to be more griev'd for Mens impairing their own felicity by it than for their violating his Authority †Esaiah 48.18 Oh that thou hadst hearken'd to my Commandments then had thy Peace been as a River Goodness cannot prescribe a thing prejudicial whatsoever it enjoyns is beneficial to the Spiritual and Eternal Happiness of the Rational Creature This was both the design of the Law given and the end of the Law Christ in his Answer to the Young mans Question refers him to the Moral Law which was the Law of Nature in Adam as that whereby Eternal Life was to be gained Which evidenceth that when the Law was first given as the Covenant of VVorks it was for the happiness of Man and the end of giving it was that Man might have Eternal Life by it There would else be no strength or truth in that Answer of Christ to that Ruler And therefore Stephen calls the Law given by Moses which was the same with the Law of Nature in Adam * Acts 7.38 The living Oracles He enjoyned Mens Services to them not simply for his own Glory but his Glory in Mens VVelfare As if there were any Being better than himself his Goodness and Righteousness would guide him to love that better than himself because it is Good and Righteous to love that best which is most amiable So if there were any that could do us more good and shour down more happiness upon us than himself †1 Kings 18.21 he would be content we should obey that as Soveraign and Steer our Course according to his Laws If God be God follow him but if Baal then follow him If the observance of the Precepts of Baal be more beneficial to you If you can advance your Nature by his Service and gain a more mighty Crown of Happiness than by mine follow him with all my heart I never intended to enjoyn you any thing to impair but increase your Happiness The chief design of God in his Law is the Happiness of the Subject and Obedience is intended by him as a means for the attaining of Happiness as well as preserving his own Soveraignty This is the reason why he wished that Israel had walked in his ways that their time might have endured for ever Psal 81.13 15 16. And by the same reason this was his intendment in his Law given to Man and his Covenant made with Man at the Creation that he might be fed with the finest part of his Bounty and be satisfied with Honey out of the Eternal Rock of Ages To Paraphrase his Expression there The Goodness of God appears further 3. In engaging Man to Obedience by Promises and Threatnings A Threatning is only mentioned Gen. 2.17 but a Promise is implied If Eternal Death were fixed for Transgression Eternal Life was thereby design'd for Obedience And that it was so the Answer of Christ to the Ruler evidenceth that the first intendment of the Precept was the Eternal Life of the Subject order'd to obey it 1. God might have acted in settling his Law only as a Soveraign Though he might have dealt with Man upon the score of his absolute Dominion over him as his Creature and signified his pleasure upon the right of his Soveraignty threatning only a Penalty if Man transgressed without the promising a bountiful acknowledgment of his Obedience by a Reward as a Benefactor yet he would treat with Man in gentle Methods and Rule him in a tract of Sweetness as well as Soveraignty He would preserve the rights of his Dominion in the Authority of his Commands and honour the condescensions of his Goodness in the allurements of a Promise He that might have solely demanded a compliance with his Will would kindly Article with him to oblige him to observe him out of love to himself as well as Duty to his Creator that he might have both the interest of avoiding the Threatned Evil to affright him and the interest of attaining the promised Good to allure him to Obedience How doth he value the Title of Benefactor above that of a Lord when he so kindly Sollicites as well as Commands and engageth to Reward that Obedience which he might have absolutely claim'd as his due by enforcing fears of the severest Penalty His Soveraignty seems to stoop below it self for the elevation of his Goodness and he is pleased to have his Kindness more taken notice of than his Authority Nothing imported more condescension than his bringing forth his Law in the Nature of a Covenant whereby he seems to humble himself and vail his Superiority to treat with Man as his equal that the very manner of his Treatment might oblige him in the richest Promises he made to draw him and the startling Threatnings he pronounced to link him to his Obedience And therefore is it observable that when after the Transgression of Adam God comes to deal with him he doth not do it in that thundring Rigor which might have been expected from an enrag'd Soveraign but in a gentle Examination * Gen. 3.11 13. Hast thou eaten of the Tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat To the Woman he said no more than What is this that thou hast done And in the Scripture we find when he cites the Israelites before him for their Sin he Expostulates with them not so much upon the absolute right he had to challenge their Obedience as upon the equity and reasonableness of his Law which they had transgrest That by the same Argument of sweetness wherewith he would attract them to their Duty he might shame them after their Offence †Isaiah 1.2 * Ezek. 18.25 2. By the Threatnings he manifests his Goodness as well as by his Promises He Promises that
away our guilt on the Cross and pleads for our Persons at the Throne of Grace That Blood which silenc'd the Curse pacifi'd Heaven and purg'd Earth is given to us for our refreshment This is the Bread sent from Heaven the true Manna The Cup is the Cup of Blessing and therefore a Cup of Goodness †1 Cor. 10.15 'T is true Bread doth not cease to be Bread nor the Wine cease to be Wine neither of them lose their Substance but both acquire a Sanctification by the relation they have to that which they represent and give a nourishment to that Faith that receives them In those God offers us a Remedy for the Sting of Sin and troubles of Conscience He gives us not the Blood of a meer Man or the Blood of an incarnate Angel but of God blessed for ever A Blood that can secure us against the wrath of Heaven and the tumults of our Consciencies A Blood that can wash away our Sins and beautifie our Souls A Blood that hath more strength than our Filth and more prevalency than our Accuser A Blood that secures us against the terrours of Death and purifies us for the Blessedness of Heaven The Goodness of God complies with our senses and condescends to our weakness He instructs us by the Eye as well as by the Ear He lets us see and taste and feel him as well as hear him He vails his Glory under Earthly Elements and informs our understanding in the Mysteries of Salvation by signs familiar to our Senses and because we cannot with our Bodily Eyes behold him in his Glory he presents him to the Eyes of our Minds in Elements to affect our understandings in the representations of his Death The Body of Christ Crucified is more visible to our Spiritual sense than the invisible Deity could be visible in his Flesh upon Earth And the Power of his Body and Blood is as well experimented in our Souls as the power of his Divinity was seen by the Jews in his miraculous actions in his Body in the World 'T is the Goodness of God to mind us frequently of the great things Christ hath purchased That as himself would not let them be out of his mind to communicate them to us so he would give us means to preserve them in our minds to adore him for them and request them of him whereby he doth evidence his own solicitousness that we should not be depriv'd by our own forgetfulness of that Grace Christ hath purchased for us It was to remember the Redeemer and shew his Death till he came * 1 Cor. 1â—â— 25 26. 1. His Goodness is seen in the end of it which is a sealing the Covenant of Grace * Amyral 〈◊〉 p. 16 â—7 The common Nature and End of Sacraments is to seal the Covenant they belong to and the truths of the Promises of it The legal Sacraments of Circumcision and the Passover sealed the legal Promises and the Covenant in the Judaical Administration of it And the Evangelical Sacraments seal the Evangelical Promises as a Ring confirms a contract of Marriage and a Seal the Articles of a Compact By the same reason Circumcision is call'd a Seal of the Righteousnâ—ss of Faith †Rom. 4.11 other Sacraments may have the same Title God doth attest that he will remain firm in his Promise and the Receiver atteâ—ts he will remain firm in his Faith In all Reciprocal Covenants there are mutual Engagements and that which serves for a Seal on the part of the one serves for a Seal also on the part of the other God obligeth himself to the performance of the Promise and Man engageth himself to the performance of his Duty The thing confirm'd by this Sacrament is the perpetuity of this Covenant in the Blood of Christ whence it is called the New Testament or Covenant in the Blood of Christ * Lâ—ke 22.20 In every repetition of it God by presenting confirms his resolution to us of sticking to this Covenant for the Merit of Christs Blood and the Receiver by eating the Body and drinking the Blood engageth himself to keep close to the Condition of Faith expecting a full Salvation and a blessed Immortality upon the Merit of the same Blood alone This Sacrament could not be called the New Testament or Covenant if it had not some relation to the Covenant and what it can be but this I do not understand The Covenant it self was confirm'd by the Death of Christ †Heb. 9.15 and thereby made unchangeable both in the Benefits to us and the Condition requir'd of us but he seals it to our sense in a Sacrament to give us strong consolation Or rather the Articles of the Covenant of Redemption between the Father and the Son agreed on from Eternity were accomplisht on Christs part by his Death on the Fathers part by his Resurrection Christ performed what he promsed in the one and God acknowledgeth the validity of it and performs what he had promised in the other The Covenant of Grace founded upon this Covenant of Redemption is sealed in the Sacrament God owns his standing to the terms of it as sealed by the Blood of the Mediator by presenting him to us under those Signs and gives us a right upon Faith to the enjoyment of the Fruits of it As the right of a House is made over by the delivery of the Key and the right of Land translated by the delivery of a Turf whereby he gives us assurance of his reality and a strong support to our confidence in him Not that there is any vertue and power of sealing in the Elements themselves no more than there is in a Turf to give an Infeoffment in a parcel of Land but as the power of the one is derived from the Order of the Law so the confirming power of the Sacrament is deriv'd from the Institution of God As the Oyl wherewith Kings were anointed did not of it self confer upon them that Royal Dignity but it was a sign of their investiture into Office order'd by Divine Institution We can with no reason imagine that God intended them as naked Signs or Pictures to please our Eyes with the Image of them to represent their own Figures to our Eyes but to confirm something to our understanding by the Efficacy of the Spirit accompanying them * Daille Melâ—â—g part 1. p. 153. They convey to the Believing Receiver what they represent as the great Seal of a Prince fixed to the Parchment doth the Pardon of the Rebel as well as its own Figure Christs Death and the Grace of the Covenant is not only signified but the Fruits and Merit of that Death communicated also Thus doth Divine Goodness evidence it self not only in making a Gracious Covenant with us but fixing Seals to it not to strengthen his own Obligation which stood stronger than the Foundations of Heaven and Earth upon the Credit of his Word but to strengthen our weakness and
evident in encouraging any thing of Moral Goodness in the World Though Moral Goodness cannot claim an Eternal Reward yet it hath been many times rewarded with a Temporal Happiness He hath often signally rewarded acts of honesty justice and fidelity and punisht the contrary by his Judgments to deter Man from such an unworthy practice and encourage others to what was Comely and of a general good report in the World Ahab's humiliation put a demurrer to Gods Judgments intended against him and some ascribe the great Victories and success of the Romans to that justice which was observed among themselves Baruch was but an Amanuensis to the Prophet Jeremy to write his Prophesy and very despondent of his own welfare * Jer. 45.13 God upon that account provides for his safety and rewards the industry of his service with the security of his Person He was not a States-Man to declare against the corrupt Counsels of them that sat at the Helm nor a Prophet to declare against their prophane practices but the Prophets Scribe and as he writes in Gods service the Prophesies revealed to the Prophet God writes his name in the Roll of those that were design'd for preservation in that deluge of Judgments which were to come upon that Nation Epicurus complain'd of the administration of God that the Vertuous Moralist had not sufficient smiles of Divine Favour nor the Swinish Sensualist frowns of Divine Indignation But what if they have not always that confluence of outward Wealth and Pleasures but remain in the common level Yet they have the happiness and satisfaction of a clear Reputation the esteem of Men and the secret applauses of their very Enemies besides the inward ravishments upon an exercise of Vertue and the commendatory subscription of their own hearts a dainty the Vicious Man knows not of They have an inward applause from God as a Reward of Divine Goodness instead of those Racks of Conscience upon which the Prophane are sometimes stretch'd He will not let the worst Men do him any service though they never intended in the act of service him but themselves without giving them their Wages He will not let them hit him in the teeth as if he were beholding to them If Nebuchadnezzar be the instrument of Gods Judgments against Tyrus and Israel he will not only give him that rich City but a richer Country Egypt the granary for her Neighbours a wages above his work In this is Divine Goodness eminent since in the most Moral actions as there is something beautiful so there is something mixt hateful to the infinitely exact Holiness of the Divine Nature yet he will not let that which is pleasing to him go unrewarded and defeat the expectations of Men as Men do with those they employ when for one flaw in an action they deny them the reward due for the other part God encourag'd and kept up Morality in the Cities of the Gentiles for the entertainment of a further goodness in the Doctrine of the Gospel when it should be publisht among them 4. Divine Goodness is eminent in providing a Scripture as a Rule to guide us and continuing it in the World If Man be a Rational Creature governable by a Law can it be imagin'd there should be no revelation of that Law to him Man by the light of Reason must needs confess himself to be in another condition than he was by Creation when he came first out of the hands of God and can it be thought that God should keep up the World under so many Sins against the light of Nature and bestow so many providential influences to invite Men to return to him and acquaint no Men in the World with the means of that return Would he exact an Obedience of Men as their Consciencies witness he doth and furnish them with no Rules to guide them in the darkness they cannot but acknowledge that they have contracted No Divine Goodness hath otherwise provided This Bible we have is his Word and Rule Had it been a falsity and imposture would that Goodness that watches over the World have continued it so long That Goodness that overthrew the burdensom Rites of Moses and expell'd the foolish Idolatry of the Pagans would have discover'd the imposture of this had it not been a transcript of his own Will Whatever mistakes he suffers to remain in the World what goodness had there been to suffer this anciently amongst the Jews and afterwards to open it to the whole World to abuse Men in Religion and Worship which so nearly concern'd himself and his own Honour that the World should be deceiv'd by the Devil without a remedy in the morning of its appearance It hath been honour'd and admir'd by some Heathens when they have cast their Eyes upon it and their natural Light made them behold some footsteps of a Divinity in it If this therefore be not a Divine Praescript let any that deny it bring as good Arguments for any Book else as can be brought for this Now the publishing this is an argument of Divine Goodness 'T is design'd to win the affections of beggarly Man to be espous'd to a God of Eternal Blessedness and immense Riches It speaks words in season No doubts but it resolves No Spiritual Distemper but it Cures No Condition but it hath a Comfort to suit it 'T is a Garden which the hand of Divine Bounty hath planted for us In it he condescends to shadow himself in those Expressions that render him in some manner intelligible to us Had God wrote in a loftiness of Style sutable to the greatness of his Majesty his Writing had been as little understood by us as the brightness of his Glory can be beheld by us But he draws Phrases from our affairs to express his mind to us He incarnates himself in his Word to our Minds before his Son was incarnate in the Flesh to the Eyes of Men He ascribes to himself Eyes Ears Hands that we might have from the consideration of our selves and the whole Humane Nature a conception of his Perfections He assumes to himself the Members of our Bodies to direct our Understandings in the knowledge of his Deity This is his Goodness Again Though the Scripture was written upon several occasions yet in the dictating of it the Goodness of God cast his Eye upon the last Ages of the World * 1 Cor. 10 11. They are written for our admonition upon whom the endâ— of the World are come It was given to the Israelites but Divine Goodness intended it for the future Gentiles The old Writings of the Prophets were thus design'd much more the later Writings of the Apostles Thus did Divine Goodness think of us and prepare his Records for us before we were in the World These he hath written plain for our instruction and wrapt up in them what is necessary for our Salvation 'T is clear to inform our Understanding and rich to comfort us in our Misery 'T is a Light
upon a higher ground of outward Prosperity vaunt it loftily above their Neighbours the common fault of those that enjoy a Worldly Sun-shine which the Apostle observes in his Direction to Timothy * 1 Tim. 6.17 Charge them that are rich in this World that they be not high-mâ—nded 'T is an ill use of Divine Blessings to be fill'd by them with Pride and Wind. Also 2. When Men abuse Plenty to Ease because they have abundance spend their time in idleness and make no other use of Divine Benefits than to trifle away their time and be utterly useless to the World 3. When they also abuse Peace and other Blessings to security As they which would not believe the threatnings of Judgment and the Storm coming from a far Country because the Lord was in Sion and her King in her * Jer. 8.19 Is not the Lord in Sion is not her King in her thinking they might continue their progress in their Sin because they had the Temple the Seat of the Divine Glory Sion and the promise of an everlasting Kingdom to David abusing the Promise of God to presumption and security and turning the Grace of God into wantonness 4. Again When they abuse the Bounty of God to sensuality and luxury mis-employing the Provisions God gives them in resolving to live like Beasts when by a good improvement of them they might attain the Life of Angels Thus is the light of the Sun abus'd to conduct them and the Fruits of the Earth abus'd to enable them to their prodigious Debauchery As we do saith one * Young of Affliction p. 34. with the Thames which brings us in Provision and we soil it with our Rubbish The more God sowes his Gifts the more we sow our Cockle and Darnel Thus we make our outward Happiness the most unhappy part of of our lives and by the strength of Divine Blessings exceed all Laws of Reason and Religion too How unworthy a Carriage is this to use the Expressions of Divine Goodness as occasions of a greater outrage and affront of him When we stab his Honour by those Instruments he puts into our hands to glorifie him as if a favorite should turn that Sword into the Bowels of his Prince wherewith he Knighted him And a Servant enricht by a Lord should hire by that Wealth Murderers to take away his life How brutish is it the more God Courts us with his Blessings the more to spurn at him with our Feet Like the Mule that lifts up its Heel against the Dam as soon as ever it hath suckt her We never beat God out of our hearts but by his own Gifts He receives no blows from Men but by those Instruments he gave them to promote their Happiness While Man is an Enjoyer he makes God a Looser by his own Blessings inflames his Rebellion by those Benefits which should kindle his love and runs from him by the strength of those favours which should endear the Donor to him Do you thus requite the Lord Oh foolish People and unwise is the Expostulati n Deut. 32.6 Divine Goodness appears in the complaint of the abuse of it in giving them Titles below their Crime and complaining more of their being unfaithful to their own Interest than Enemies to his Glory Foolish and unwise in neglecting their own Happiness a Charge below the Crime which deserved to be abominable ungrateful People to a Prodigy All this Carriage towards God is as if a Man should knock the Chirurgeon on the Head as soon as he hath set and bound up his Dislocated Members So God compares the ungrateful behaviour of the Israelites against him * Hos 7 1â— Though I have bound and strengthn'd their Arms yet do they imagine mischief against me A Metaphor taken from a Chirurgeon that applies Corroborating Playsters to a broken Limb. 9. We contemn the Goodness of God in ascribing our Benefits to other Causes than Divine Goodness Thus Israel ascribed her Felicity Plenty and Success to her Idols as Rewards which her lovers had given her * Hos 2.5.12 And this Charge Daniel brought home upon Belshazzâ—r †Dan. 5.23 Thou hast praised the Gods of Silver and Gold and Brass and Iron and the God in whose hand is thy breath and whose are all thy ways hast thou not glorify'd The God who hath given success to the Arms of thy Ancestors and convey'd by their hands so large a Dominion to thee thou hast not honour'd in the same Rank with the sordidest of thy Idols 'T is the same case when we own him not as the Author of any success in our Affairs but by an over-weening conceit of our own Sagacity applaud and admire our selves and over-look the Hand that conducted us and brought our endeavours to a good issue We Eclipse the Glory of Divine Goodness by setting the Crown that is due to it upon the head of our own Industry A Sacriledge worse than Belshazzar's drinking of Wine with his Lords and Concubines in the Sacred Vessels pilfer'd from the Temple as in that place of Daniel This was the proud vaunt of the Assyrian Conqueror for which God threatens to punish the fruit of his stout heart * Isai 10.12.13 14. By the strength of my hand I have done it and by my Wisdom for I am prudent and I have removed the bounds of the People and have robbed their Treasures and I have put down the Inhabitants like a valiant Man Not a word of Divine Goodness and Assistance in all this but applauding his own Courage and Conduct This is a robbing of God to set up our selves and making Divine Goodness a Footstool to ascend into his Throne And as it is unjust so it is ridiculous to ascribe to our selves or Instruments the chief honour of any work As ridiculous as if a Soldier after a Victory should Erect an Altar to the honour of his Sword or an Artificer offer Sacrifices to the Tools whereby he compleated some excellent and useful Invention A practice that every Rational Man would disdain where he should see it 'T is a discarding any thoughts of the Goodness of God when we imagine that we chiefly owe any thing in this World to our own Industry or Wit to Friends or Means as though Divine Goodness did not open its hand to interest it self in our Affairs support our Ability direct our Counsels and mingle it self with any thing we do God is the principal Author of any advantage that accrues to us of any wise Resolution we fix upon or any proper way we take to compass it No Man can be wise in opposition to God act wisely or well without him His Goodness inspires Men with generous and magnificent Counsels and furnisheth them with fit and proportionable Means When he withdraws his hand Mens heads grow foolish and their hands feeble folly and weakness drops upon them as darkness upon the World upon the removal of the Sun 'T is an abuse of Divine Goodness
transgression But those things are accounted sins by all mankind and sins against the supream being So that a Dominion and the exercise of it is so fast linkt to God so intirely in him so intrinsick in his Nature that it cannot be imagined that a rational Creature can be made by him without a stamp and mark of that Dominion in his very nature and frame 't is so inseparable from God in his very act of Creation 2. 'T is such a Dominion as cannot be renounced by God himself 'T is so intrinsick and connatural to him so inlaid in the nature of God that he cannot strip himself of it nor of the exercise of it while any Creature remains ' Tâ—â— preserv'd by him for it could not subsist of its self 't is govern'd by him it could not else answer its end 'T is impossible there can be a Creature which hath not God for its Lord. Christ himself though in regard of his Deity equal with God yet in regard of his created state and assuming our nature was God's servant was govern'd by him in the whole of his office acted according to his command and directions God calls him his servant Isaiah 42.1 And Christ in that Prophetick Psalm of him calls God his Lord. Psal 16.2 Oh my Soul Thou hast said unto the Lord thou art my Lord. It was impossible it should be otherwise Justice had been so far from being satisfi'd that it had been highly incensed if the order of things in the due subjection to God had been broke and his terms had not been complied with It would be a Judgment upon the World if God should give up the Government to any else as it is when he gives Children to be Princes Isaiah 3.4 i. e. Children in understanding 3. 'T is so inseparable that it cannot be communicated to any Creature No Creature is able to exercise it every Creature is unable to perform all the offices that belong to this Dominion No Creature can impose Laws upon the Consciences of men Man knows not the inlets into the Soul his pen cannot reach the inwards of man What Laws he hath power to propose to Conscience he cannot see executed because every Creature wants omniscience he is not able to perceive all those breaches of the Law which may be committed at the same time in so many Cities so many Chambers Or suppose an Angel in regard of the height of his standing and the insufficiency of Walls and darkness and distance to obstruct his view can behold mens actions yet he cannot know the internal acts of mens minds and Wills without some outward eruption and appearance of them And if he be ignorant of them how can he execute his Laws If he only understand the outward fact without the inward thought how can he dispense a Justice proportionable to the crime He must needs be ignorant of that which adds the greatest aggravation sometimes to a sin and inflict a lighter punishment upon that which receives a deeper tincture from the inward posture of the mind than another fact may do which in the outward act may appear more base and unjust and so while he intends Righteousness may act a degree of injustice * Mâ—â—â—ii Colleg. Theoloâ— Disp 18. p. 12 13. Besides no Creature can inflict a due punishment for sin that which is due to sin is a loss of the Vision and sight of God but none can deprive any of that but God himself nor can a Creature reward another with Eternal Life which consists in Communion with God which none but God can bestow II. Thing Wherein the Dominion of God is founded 1. On the Excellency of his Nature Indeed a bare excellency of Nature bespeaks a fitness for Government but doth not properly convey a right of Government Excellency speaks aptitude not Title A Subject may have more Wisdom than the Prince and be fitter to hold the Reins of Government but he hath not a Title to Royalty A man of large capacity and strong vertue is fit to serve his Countrey in Parliament but the Election of the People conveys a Title to him Yet a strain of Intellectual and Moral abilities beyond others is a foundation for Dominion And it is commonly seen that such eminences in men though they do not invest them with a Civil Authority or an Authority of Jurisdiction yet they create a veneration in the minds of men their vertue attracts reverence and their advice is regarded as an Oracle Old men by their age when stored with more Wisdom and Knowledge by reason of their long experience acquire a kind of power over the younger in their Dictates and Counsels so that they gain by the strength of that excellency a real Authority in the minds of those men they converse with and possess themselves of a deep respect from them God therefore being an incomprehensible ocean of all perfection and possessing infinitely all those vertues that may lay a claim to Dominion hath the first foundation of it in his own nature His incomparable and unparalell'd excellency as well as the greatness of his work attracts the voluntary Worship of him as a Soveraign Lord. Psal 86.8 Among the Gods there is none like unto thee neither are there any works like unto thy work All Nations shall come and Worship before thee Though his benefits are great engagements to our Obedience and Affection yet his infinite Majesty and perfection requires the first place in our acknowledgements and adorations Upon this account God claims it Isaiah 46.9 I am God and there is none like me I will do all my pleasure And the Prophet Jeremy upon the same account acknowledgeth it Jer. 10.6 7. Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee Oh Lord thou art great and thy name is great in might who would not fear thee O King of Nations For to thee doth it appertain Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee And this is a more noble Title of Dominion It being an uncreated Title and more eminent than that of Creation or Preservation * 〈◊〉 Thâ—olog Nat. pag. 757. This is the natural order God hath plac'd in his Creature 's that the more excellent should rule the inferior He committed not the Government of lower Creatures to Lions and Tygers that have a delight in blood but no knowledge of vertue but to man who had an eminence in his nature above other Creatures and was formed with a perfect rectitude and a height of reason to guide the reins over them In man the Soul being of a more sublime nature is set of right to rule over the Body the Mind the most excellent Faculty of the Soul to rule over the other Powers of it and Wisdom the most excellent habit of the Mind to guide and regulate that in its determinations and when the Body and sensitive Appetite controul the Soul and Mind 't is an Usurpation against Nature not a rule according to Nature the excellency therefore of
Coming of Christ and his Passion the other to last till the second Coming of Christ and his Triumph Thus he made natural and unavoidable uncleannesses to be sins and the touching a dead Body to be pollution which in their own nature were not so 4. The Dominion of God appears in the Moral Law and his Majesty in publishing it As the Law of Nature was writ by his own Fingers in the Nature of man so it was Engraven by his own finger in the Tables of Stone Exod. 31.18 Which is very emphatically exprest to be a mark of God's Dominion Exodus 32.16 And the Tables were the work of God and the writing was the writing of God Engraven upon the Tables and when the first Tables were broken though he orders Moses to frame the Tables yet the writing of the Law he reserves to himself Exod. 34.1 'T is not said of any part of the Scripture that it was writ by the finger of God but only of the Decalogue herein he would have his Soveraignty eminently appear it was publish't by God in state with a numerous attendance of his heavenly Militia Deut. 32.2 And the Artillery of Heaven was shot off at the solemnity And therefore it is call'd a fiery Law coming from his right hand i. e. His Soveraign power It was publisht with all the marks of supream Majesty 5. The Dominion of God appears in the Obligation of the Law which reacheth the Conscience The Laws of every Prince are fram'd for the outward conditions of Men they do not by their Authority bind the Conscience and what obligations do result from them upon the Conscience is either from their being the same immediately with divine Laws or as they are according to the just power of the Magistrate founded on the Law of God Conscience hath a protection from the King of Kings and cannot be arrested by any humane power God hath given man but an Authority over half the man and the worst half too that which is of an Earthly original but reserved the Authority over the better and more heavenly half to himself The Dominion of earthly Princes extends only to the bodies of men they have no Authority over the Soul their punishment and rewards cannot reach it And therefore their Laws by their single Authority cannot bind it but as they are co-incident with the Law of God or as the equity of them is subservient to the preservation of humane Society a regular and Righteous thing which is the Divine end in Government and so they bind as they have a relation to God as the supream Magistrate The Conscience is only intelligible to God in its secret motions and therefore only guidable by God God only pierceth into the Conscience by his Eye And therefore only can conduct it by his Rule Man cannot tell whither we embrace this Law in our Heart and Consciences or only in appearance He only can Judge it Luke 12.3 4. And therefore he only can impose Laws upon it 't is out of the reach of humane penal Authority if their Laws be transgress'd inwardly by it Conscience is a Book in some sort as Sacred as the Scripture no addition can be lawfully made to it no substraction from it Men cannot diminish the duty of Conscience or raze out the Law God hath stampt upon it They cannot put a supersedeas to the Writ of Conscience or stop its mouth with a Noli Prosequi They can make no addition by their Authority to bind it 't is a flower in the Crown of Divine Soveraignty only 2. His Soveraignty appears in a power of dispensing with his own Laws 'T is as much a part of his Dominion to dispense with his Laws as to enjoyn them he only hath the power of relaxing his own right no Creature hath power to do it that would be to usurp a superiority over him and order above God himself Repealing or dispensing with the Law is a branch of Royal Authority 'T is true God will never dispense with those Moral Laws which have an eternal reason in themselves and their own nature as for a Creature to Fear Love and Honour God this would be to dispense with his own Holiness and the Righteousness of his Nature to fully the purity of his own Dominion it would write folly upon the first Creation of man after the Image of God by writing mutability upon himself in framing himself after the corrupted Image of man It would null and frustrate the excellency of the Creature wherein the Image of God mostly shines nay it would be to dispense with a Creatures being a Creator and make him independent upon the Soveraign of the World in Moral Obedience But God hath a right to dispense with the ordinary Laws of Nature in the inferior Creatures he hath a power to alter their course by an arrest of Miracles and make them come short or go beyond his Ordinances established for them He hath a right to make the Sun stand still or move backward to bind up the Womb of the Earth and barr the influences of the Clouds bridle in the rage of the fire and the fury of Lions make the liquid waters stand like a Wall or pull up the dam which he hath set to the Sea and command it to overflow the neighbouring Countries He can dispense with the natural Laws of the whole Creation and strain every string beyond its ordinary pitch Positive Laws he hath revers'd as the Ceremonial Law given to the Jews The very nature indeed of that Law requir'd a repeal and fell of Course when that which was intended by it was come it was of no longer significancy as before it was a useful shadow it would afterwards have been an empty one Had not God took away this Christianity had not in all likelyhood been propagated among the Gentiles This was the partition wall beetween Jews and Gentiles Eph. 2.14 Which made them a distinct Family from all the World and was the occasion of the enmity of the Gentiles against the Jews When God had by bringing in what was signified by those Rites declar'd his decree for the ceasing of them and when the Jews fond of those Divine Institutions would not allow him the right of repealing what he had the Authority of enacting he resolved for the asserting his Dominion to bury them in the ruines of the Temple and City and make them for ever uncapable of practising the main and Essential parts of them For the Temple being the pillar of the legal Service by demolishing that God hath taken away their right of sacrificing it being peculiarly annext to that place they have no Altar dignifyed with a fire from Heaven to consume their sacrifices no legal High Priest to offer them God hath by his Providence chang'd his own Law as well as by his precept Yea he hath gone higher by vertue of his Soveraignty and chang'd the whole scene and methods of his Government after the fall from King Creator
to King Redeemer He hath revok'd the Law of works as a Covenant releas'd the penalty of it from the beleiving sinner by transferring it upon the surety who interpos'd himself by his own will and divine designation He hath establish'd another Covenant upon other promises in a higher root with greater Priviledges and easier terms Had not God had this right of Soveraignty not a man of Adam's posterity could have been blessed he and they must have lain groaning under the misery of the fall which had render'd both himself and all in his Loyns unable to observe the Terms of the first Covenant He hath as some speak dispens'd with his own Moral Law in some cases in commanding Abraham to Sacrifice his Son his only Son a Righteous Son a Son whereof he had the promise that in Isaac should his Seed be call'd yet he was commanded to Sacrifice him by the right of his absolute Soveraignty as the supream Lord of the Lives of his Creatures from the highest Angel to the lowest Worm whereby he bound his Subjects to this Law not himself Our Lives are due to him when he calls for them and they are a just forâ—â—it to him at the very moment we sin at the very moment we come into the World by reason of the venom of our nature against him and the disturbance the first sin of man whereof we are inheritors gave to his Glory Had Abraham sacrificed his Son of his own head he had sinned yea in attempting it but being Authoriz'd from Heaven his act was Obedience to the Soveraign of the World who had a power to dispense with his own Law and with this Law he had before dispens'd in the case of Cains Murder of Abel as to the immediate punishment of it with death which indeed was setled afterwards by his Authority but then omitted because of the paucity of men and for the peopling the World but setled afterwards when there was almost though not altogether the like occasion of omitting it for a time 3. His Soveraignty appears in punishing the Transgression of his Law 1. This is a branch of Gods Dominion as Lawgiver So was the vengeance God would take upon the Amalekites Exod. 17.16 The Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have War The Hebrew is the hand upon the Throne of the Lord as in the margent As a Lawgiver he saves or destroyes James 4.12 He acts according to his own Law in a congruity to the sanction of his own precepts though he be an Arbitrary Lawgiver appointing what Laws he pleases yet he is not an Arbitrary Judge As he commands nothing but what he hath a right to command so he punisheth none but whom he hath a right to punish and with such punishment as the Law hath denounced All his acts of Justice and inflictions of Curses are the effects of this Soveraign Dominion Psal 29.10 He sits King upon the Flouds Upon the deluge of Waters wherewith he drown'd the World say some 'T is a right belonging to the Authority of Magistrates to pull up the infectious weeds that corrupt a Common-Wealth 'T is no less the right of God as the Lawgiver and Judge of all the Earth to subject Criminals to his vengeance after they have rendered themselves abominable in his Eyes and carried themselves unworthy Subjects of so great and glorious a King The first name whereby God is made known in Scripture is Elohim Gen. 1.1 In the beginning God Created the Heaven and Earth A name which signifies his power of judging in the opinion of some Criticks from him it is deriv'd to earthly Magistrates their Judgment is said therefore to be the Judgement of God Deut. 1.17 When Christ came he propos'd this great motive of Repentance from the Kingdom of Heaven being at hand the Kingdom of his Grace whereby to invite men the Kingdom of his Justice in the punishment of the neglecters of it whereby to terrifie men Punishments as well as Rewards belong to Royalty it issued accordingly those that believ'd and repented came under his gracious Scepter those that neglected and rejected it fell under his Iron Rod. Jerusalem was destroy'd the Temple demolish'd the Inhabitants lost their lives by the edge of the Sword or linger'ed them out in the chains of a miserable Captivity This term of Judge which signifies a Soveraign right to govern and punish Delinquents Abraham gives him when 〈◊〉 came to root out the People of Sodom and make them the examples of his veâ—geance Gen. 18.25 2. Punishing the Transgressions of his Law This is necessary branch of Dominion His Soveraignty in making Laws would be a trifle if there were not also an Authority to vindicate those Laws from Contempt and Injury he would be a Lord only spurn'd at by Rebels Soveraignty is not preserved without Justice When the Psalmist speaks of the Majesty of God's Kingdom he tells us that Righteousness and Judgment are the Habitation of his Throne Psal 97.1 2. These are the Engines of Divine dignity which render him glorious and majestick A Legislative power would be trampled on without executive by this the reverential apprehensions of God are preserved in the Wâ—rld He is known to be Lord of the World by the Judgements which he executes Psal 9.16 When he seems to have lost his dominion or given it up in the World he recovers it by punishment When he takes some away with a Whirlwind and in his Wrath the natural consequence men make of it is this Surely there is a God that Judgeth the Earth Psal 58.9.11 He reduceth the Creature by the lash of his judgments that would not acknowledge his Authority in his precepts Those sins which disown his Government in the Heart and Conscience as Pride inward blasphemy c. he hath reserved a time hereafter to reckon for He doth not presently shoot his arrows into the marrow of every delinquent but those sins which traduce his Government of the World and tear up the Foundations of humane converse and a publick respect to him he reckons with particularly here as well as hereafter that the Life of his Soveraignty might not always faint in the World 3. This of punishing was the second discovery of his dominion in the World His first act of Soveraignty was the giving a Law the next his appearance in the State of a judge When his orders were violated he rescues the honour of them by an execution of Justice He first judg'd the Angels punishing the evil ones for their crime the first Court he kept among them as a Governour was to give them a Law the second Court he kept was as a Judge trying the Delinquents and adjudging the Offenders to be reserved in Chains of darkness till the final Execution Jude 6. And at the same time probably he confirmed the good ones in their obedience by Grace So the first discovery of his dominion to man was the giving him a precept the next was the inflicting a punishment for the
breach of it He summons Adam to the Bar indicts him for his Crime finds him guilty by his own Confession and passeth sentence on him according to the rule he had before acquainted him with 4. The means whereby he punisheth shews his dominion Sometimes he musters up Hail and Mildew sometimes he sends regiments of wild Beasts so he threatens Israel Levit. 26.22 Sometimes he sends out a party of Angels to beat up the quarters of men and make a carnage among them 2 King 19.35 Sometimes he mounts his Thundring battery and shoots forth his Ammunition from the Clouds as against the Philistines 1 Sam. 7.10 Sometimes he sends the slightest Creatures to shame the Pride and punish the sin of man as Lice Froggs Locusts as upon the Egyptians the 8 9 10. chap. of Exodus 2. This Dominion is manifested by God as a proprietor and Lord of his Creatures and his own Goods And this is evident 1. In the choice of some persons from Eternity He hath set a part some from Eternity wherein he will display the invincible efficacy of his Grace and thereby infallibly bring them to the fruition of Glory Eph. 1.4 5. According as he hath chosen us in him before the Foundation of the World that we should be Holy and without blame before him in Love having Predestinated us to the Adoption of Children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will Why doth he write some names in the Book of Life and leave out others why doth he enroll some whom he intends to make Denizons of Heaven and refuse to put others in his register The Apostle tells us 't is the pleasure of his Will You may render a reason for many of God's actions till you come to this the top and Foundadation of all and under what head of reason can man reduce this act but to that of his Royal Prerogative Why doth God save some and condemn others at last Because of the Faith of the one and unbelief of the other Why do some men beleive Because God hath not only given them the means of Grace but accompanied those means with the efficacy of his Spirit Why did God accompany those means with the efficacy of his Spirit in some and not in others Bccause he had decreed by Grace to prepare them for Glory But why did he decree or choose some and not others Into what will you resolve this but into his soveraign pleasure Salvation and Condemnation at the last upshot are acts of God as the Judge conformable to his own Law of giving life to Believers and inflicting death upon unbeleivers for those a reason may be rendered but the choice of some and preterition of others is an act of God as he is a soveraign Monarch before any Law was actually transgrest because not actually given When a Prince redeems a Rebel he acts as a Judge according to Law but when he calls some out to pardon he acts as a soveraign by a Prerogative above Law into this the Apostle resolves it Rom. 9.13.15 When he speaks of Gods loving Jacob and hating Esau and that before they had done either good or evil It is Because God will have Mercy on whom he will have Mercy and Compassion on whom he will have Compassion Though the first scope of the Apostle in the beginning of the Chapter was to declare the reason of God's rejecting the Jews and calling in the Gentiles had he only intended to demolish the pride of the Jews and flat their opinion of merit and aim'd no higher than that Providential act of God he might convincingly enough to the reason of men have argued from the Justice of God provoked by the obstinacy of the Jews and not have had recourse to his absolute Will but since he asserts this latter * Amyrald dissert p. 101 102. the strength of his argument seems to lie thus if God by his absolute soveraignty may resolve and fix his love upon Jacob and estrange it from Esau or any other of his Creatures before they have done good or evil and man have no ground to call his infinite Majesty to account may he not deal thus with the Jews when their demerit would be a barr to any complaints of the Creature against him If God were considered here in the quality of a Judge it had been fit to have considered the matter of Fact in the Criminal but he is considered as a Soveraign rendring no other reason of his action but his own Will whom he will he hardens ver 18. And then the Apostle concludes Ver. 20. Who art thou O Man that replyest against God If the reason drawn from Gods Soveraignty doth not satisfie in this enquiry no other reason can be found wherein to acquiesce For the last condemnation there will be sufficient reason to clear the Justice of his proceedings But in this case of Election no other reason but what is alledg'd viz. The Will of God can be thought of but what is liable to such knotty exceptions that cannot well be untyed 1. It could not be any merit in the Creature that might determine God to choose him If the decree of Election falls not under the merit of Christ's passion as the procuring cause it cannot fall under the merit of any part of the corrupted mass The decree of sending Christ did not precede but follow'd in order of nature the determination of choosing some When men were chosen as the subjects for Glory Christ was chosen as the means for the bringing them to Glory Eph. 1.4 Chosen us in him and predestinated us to the Adoption of Children by Jesus Christ The choice was not meerly in Christ as the moving cause that the Apostle asserts to be the good pleasure of his will but in Christ as the means of conveying to the chosen Ones the fruits of their Election What could there be in any man that could invite Gpd to this act or be a cause of distinction of one branch of Adam from another Were they not all hew'd out of the same Rock and tainted with the same corruption in blood Had it been possible to invest them with a power of merit at the first had not that venom contracted in their nature degraded all of power for the future What merit was there in any but of wrathfull punishment since they were all considered as Criminals and the cursed brood of an ungrateful Rebel what dignity can there be in the nature of the purest part of clay to be made a Vessel of Honour more than in another part of Clay as pure as that which was form'd into a Vessel for mean and sordid use What had any one to move his mercy more than another since they were all Children of wrath and equally dawb'd with Original guilt and filth Had not all an equal proportion of it to provoke his Justice What merit is there in one dry bone more than another to be inspir'd with the breath
the World without any knowledge of God or promises of Christ The Jews might sooner in a way of reason have been wrought upon than the Gentiles who were ignorant of the Prophets by whose writings they might have examined the Truth of the Apostles Declarations thus are they refus'd that were the kindred of Christ according to the Flesh and the Gentiles that were at a greater distance from him brought in by God Thus he catcheth not at the subtle and mighty Devils who had an original in spiritual nature more like to him but at weak and simple man 2. Not for any Moral perfection Because he converts the most Sinful The Gentiles steept in Idolatry and Superstition He sow'd more Faith among the Romans than in Jerusalem more Faith in a City that was the common Sewer of all the Idolatry of the Nations conquered by them than in that City which had so signally been own'd by him and had not practised any Idolatry since the Babylonish Captivity He planted Saintship at Corinth a place notorious for the infamous Worship of Venus a Superstition attended with the grossest uncleanness At Ephesus that presented the whole World with a Cup of Fornication in their Temple of Diana Among the Colossians Votaries to Cybele in a manner of Worship attended with beastly and lascivious Ceremonies And what character had the Cretians from one of their own Poets mentioned by the Apostle to Titus whom he had plac'd among them to further the progress of the Gospel but the vilest and most abominable Tit. 1.12 Lyars not to be credited Evil Beasts not to be associated with Slow Bellies fit for no service What prerogative was there in the nature of such putrefaction As much as in that of a Toad to be elevated to the dignity of an Angel What steam from such Dunghils could be welcome to him and move him to cast his eye on them and sweeten them from Heaven What treasures of worth were here to open the treasures of his Grace Were such filthy snuffs fit of themselves to be kindled by and become a lodging for a Gospel beam What invitements could he have from Lying Beastliness Gluttony but only from his own Soveraignty By this he plucked firebrands out of the fire while he left straiter and more comely sticks to consume to ashes 3. Not for any Civil Perfection Because he turns the most despicable He elevates not nature to Grace upon the account of Wealth Honour or any Civil station in the World he dispenseth not ordinarily those Treasures to those that the mistaken World foolishly admire and dote upon 1 Cor. 1.26 Not many Mighty not many Noble A purple Robe is not usually deckt with this Jewel He takes more of mouldy Clay than refin'd dust to cast into his Image and lodges his Treasures more in the earthly Vessels than in the World 's Golden ones He gives out his richest doles to those that are the scorn and reproach of the World Should he impart his Grace most to those that abound in wealth or honour it had been some foundation for a conception that he had been mov'd by those vulgarly esteem'd excellencies to indulge them more than others And such a conceit languisheth when we behold the Subjects of his Grace as void originally of any allurements as they are full of provocations Hereby he declares himself free from all Created engagements and that he is not led by any external motives in the object 4. 'T is not from any obligation which lies upon him He is indebted to none disoblig'd by all No man deserves from him any Act of Grace but every man deserves what the most deplorable are left to suffer He is obliged by the Children of wrath to nothing else but showers of wrath owes no more a debt to fall'n man than to fall'n Devils to restore them to their first station by a superlative Grace how was he more bound to restore them than he was to preserve them to catch them after they fell than to put a barr in the way of their falling God as a Soveraign gave Laws to men and a strength sufficient to keep those Laws What obligation is there upon God to repair that strength man willfully lost and extract him out of that condition into which he voluntarily plung'd himself What if man sinned by temptation which is a reason alledged by some Might not many of the Devils do so too Though there was a first of them that sinned without a temptation yet many of them might be seduced into Rebellion by the Ringleader Upon that account he is no more bound to give Grace to all men than to Devils If he promis'd life upon Obedience he threatned death upon Transgression By man's disobedience God is quit of his promise and owes nothing but punishment upon the violation of his Law Indeed man may pretend to a claim of sufficient strength from him by Creation as God is the Author of Nature and he had it but since he hath extinguisht it by his sin he cannot in the least pretend any obligation on God for a new strength If it be a peradventure whither he will give Repentance as it is 2 Tim. 2.25 There is no tye in the case a tye would put it beyond a peradventure with a God that never forfeited his obligation * Claudes sur la parabole des Noces p. 29. No Husbandman thinks himself oblig'd to bestow cost and pains manure and tillage upon one field more than another though the nature of the ground may require more yet he is at his liberty whither he will expend more upon one than another He may let it lie Fallow as long as he please God is less oblig'd to till and prune his Creatures than man is oblig'd to his Feild or Trees If a King proclaim a pardon to a company of Rebels upon the condition of each of them paying such a summe of Money their Estates before were capable of satisfying the condition but their Rebellion hath reduc'd them to an indigent condition the proclamation it self is an act of Grace the condition requir'd is not impossible in it self the Prince out of a tenderness to some sends them that summe of Money he hath by his Proclamation oblig'd them to pay and thereby enabled them to answer the condition he requires the first he doth by a Soveraign Authority the second he doth by a Soveraign bounty he was oblig'd to neither of them punishment was a debt due to all of them if he would remit it upon condition he did relax his Soveraign right and if he would by his largess make any of them capable to fulfil the condition by sending them presently a sufficient summe to pay the fine he acted as proprietor of his own goods to dispose of them in such a quantity to those to whom he was not oblig'd to bestow a mite 5. It must therefore be an Act of his meer Soveraignty This can only sit arbitrator in every gracious act
Civil associations for Politick Government Gen. 4.26 Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord viz. In the time of Seth. No question but Adam had worshipped God before as well as Abel and a Family-Religion had been preserved but as mankind increased in distinct Families they knit together in Companies to solemnize the worship of God * Stillingfleet's Irenicum cap. 1. § 1. pa. 23. Hence as some think those that incorporated together for such ends were called the Sons of God Sons by profession tho not Sons by Adoption As those of Corinth were Saints by profession tho in such a Corrupted Church they could not be all so by regeneration yet Saints as being of a Christian society and calling upon the name of Christ that is worshipping God in Christ tho they might not be all Saints in Spirit and Practise So Cain and Abel met together to worship Gen 4.3 at the end of the days at a set time God setled a publick worship among the Jews instituted Synagogues for their Convening together whence call'd the Synagogues of God * Psa 74.8 The Sabbath was instituted to acknowledge God a Common Benefactor Publick worship keeps up the Memorials of God in a world prone to Atheism and a sense of God in a heart prone to forgetfulness The Angels sung in Company not singly at the Birth of Christ * Luke 2.13 and praised God not only with a simple elevation of their Spiritual nature but audibly by forming a voice in the air Affections are more lively Spirits more raised in publick than private God will Credit his own ordinance Fire increaseth by laying together many Coals on one place so is devotion inflamed by the union of many hearts and by a joynt presence Nor can the approach of the last day of Judgment or particular Judgments upon a Nation give a Writ of ease from such assemblies Heb. 10.25 Not forsaking the assembling our selves together but so much the more as you see the day approaching Whether it be understood of the day of Judgment or the day of the Jewish destruction and the Christian persecution the Apostle uses it as an argument to quicken them to the observance not to encourage them to a neglect Since therefore natural light informs us and Divine institution Commands us publickly to acknowledge our selves the Servants of God it implies the service of the body Such acknowledgments cannot be without visible Testimonies and outward exercises of devotion as well as inward affections This promotes Gods honour checks others prophaness allures men to the same expressions of duty And tho there may be hypocrisy and an outward garb without an inward frame yet better a moiety of worship than none at all better acknowledge Gods right in one than disown it in both 3. Jesus Christ the most Spiritual worshipper worshipt God with his body He Prayed orally and kneeled Father if it be thy Will c. * Luke 22.41 42. He blessed with his mouth Father I thank thee * Mat. 11.26 He lifted up his eyes as well as elevated his Spirit when he praised his Father for mercy received or begged for the blessings his Disciples wanted * John 11.41 John 12.1 The strength of the Spirit must have vent at the outward members The holy men of God have employed the body in significant expressions of worship Abraham in falling on his face Paul in kneeling employing their Tongues lifting up their hands Tho Jacob was bedrid yet he would not worship God without some devout expression of Reverence t is in one place leaning upon his staff * Heb. 11.21 in another bowing himself upon his beds head * Gen. 47.31 The reason of the diversity is in the Heb. word which without vowels may be red Mittah a bed or Matteh a staff howsoever both signifie a Testimony of adoration by a reverent gesture of the body Indeed in Angels and separated Souls a worship is performed purely by the Spirit but whiles the Soul is in conjunction with the body it can hardly perform a serious act of worship without some tincture upon the outward man and reverential composure of the body Fire cannot be in the clothes but it will be felt by the members nor flames be pent up in the Soul without bursting out in the body The heart can no more restrain it self from breaking out than Joseph could enclose his affections without expressing them in tears to his Brethren * Gen. 45.1 2. We Believe and therefore speak * 2 Cor. 4.13 To conclude God hath appointed some parts of worship which cannot be performed without the body as Sacraments we have need of them because we are not wholly spiritual and incorporeal Creatures The Religion which consists in externals only is not for an intellectual nature A worship purely intellectual is too sublime for a nature allyed to sense and depending much upon it The Christian mode of worship is proportioned to both It makes the sense to assist the mind and elevates the spirit above the sense Bodily worship helps the spiritual The members of the body reflect back upon the heart the voice bars distractions the tongue sets the heart on fire in good as well as in evil T is as much against the light of nature to serve God without external significations as to serve him only with them without the intention of the mind As the invisible God declares himself to men by visible works and signs so should we declare our invisible frames by visible expressions God hath given us a soul and body in conjunction and we are to serve him in the same manner he hath framed us 2. The second thing I am to shew is what Spiritual worship is In general the whole Spirit is to be employed The name of God is not sanctifyed but by the engagement of our Souls Worship is an Act of the understanding applying it self to the knowledge of the excellency of God and actual thoughts of his Majesty recognizing him as the supreme Lord and Governour of the world which is natural knowledge beholding the glory of his Attributes in the Redeemer which is Evangelical knowledge This is the sole act of the Spirit of Man The same reason is for all our worship as for our thanksgiving This must be done with understanding Psal 47.7 Sing ye praise with understanding with a knowledge and sense of his greatness goodness and Wisdom T is also an act of the Will whereby the Soul adores and reverenceth his Majesty is ravisht with his amiableness embraceth his goodness enters it self into an intimate Communion with this most lovely object and pitcheth all his affections upon him We must worship God understandingly t is not else a reasonable service The nature of God and the Law of God abhor a blind offering we must worship him heartily else we offer him a dead Sacrifice A reasonable service is that wherein the mind doth truly act something with God
All Spiritual acts must be acts of reason otherwise they are not human acts because they want that principle which is constitutive of man and doth difference him from other Creatures Acts done only by sense are the acts of a brute acts done by reason are the acts of a man That which is only an act of sense cannot be an act of Religion The sense without the conduct of reason is not the subject of Religious acts for then beasts were capable of Religion as well as Men There cannot be Religion where there is not reason and there cannot be the exercise of Religion where there is not an exercise of the rational faculties Nothing can be a Christian act that is not a human act Besides all worship must be for some end the worship of God must be for God t is by the exercise of our rational faculties that we only can intend an end An Ignorant and Carnal worship is a brutish worship Particularly 1. Spiritual Worship is a Worship from a spiritual Nature Not only Physically spiritual so our Souls are in their frame but morally spiritual by a renewing principle The heart must be first cast into the Mould of the Gospel before it can perform a Worship required by the Gospel Adam living in Paradice might perform a spiritual worship but Adam fallen from his rectitude could not We being Heirs of his Nature are Heirs of his Impotence Restoration to a spiritual Life must precede any act of spiritual Worship As no work can be good so no worship can be spiritual till we are created in Christ * Eph. 2.10 Christ is our Life * Col. 3.4 As no natural action can be performed without life in the root or heart so no spiritual act without Christ in the Soul Our being in Christ is as necessary to every spiritual act as the union of our Soul with our Body is necessary to natural action Nothing can exceed the limits of its nature for then it should exceed it self in acting and do that which it hath no principle to doe A Beast cannot act like a Man without partaking of the nature of a Man nor a Man act like an Angel without partaking of the Angelical nature How can we perform spiritual acts without a spiritual principle Whatsoever worship proceeds from the corrupted nature cannot deserve the title of spiritual worship because it springs not from a spiritual habit If those that are evil cannot speak good things those that are carnal cannot offer a spiritual service Poyson is the fruit of a Vipers nature Mat. 12.34 Oh Generation of Vipers how can you being evil speak good things For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks As the root is so is the fruit If the Soul be habitually carnal the worship cannot be actually spiritual There may be an intention of Spirit but there is no spiritual principle as a root of that intention A heart may be sensibly united with a duty when it is not spiritually united with Christ in it Carnal motives and carnal ends may fix the mind in an act of worship as the sense of some pressing affliction may enlarge a mans mind in Prayer Whatsoever is agreeable to the nature of God must have a stamp of Christ upon it a stamp of his grace in performance as well as of his mediation in the acceptance The Apostle lived not but Christ lived in him * Gal. 2.20 the Soul worships not but Christ in him Not that Christ performs the act of Worship but enables us spiritually to worship after he enables us spiritually to live As God counts not any Soul living but in Christ so he counts not any a spiritual Worshipper but in Christ The goodness and fatness of the fruit comes from the fatness of the Olive wherein we are engrafted We must find healing in Christs wings before God can find spirituality in our services All worship issuing from a dead nature is but a dead service A living action cannot be performed without being knit to a living root 2. Spiritual Worship is done by the influence and with the assistance of the Spirit of God A Heart may be spiritual when a particular act of Worship may not be spiritual The Spirit may dwell in the Heart when he may suspend his influence on the act Our worship is then spiritual when the fire that kindles our affections comes from Heaven as that fire upon the Altar wherewith the Sacrifices were consumed God tasts a sweetness in no service but as it is drest up by the hand of the Mediator and hath the Air of his own Spirit in it They are but natural acts without a supernatural assistance Without an actual influence we cannot act from spiritual motives nor for spiritual ends nor in a spiritual manner We cannot mortifie a Lust without the Spirit * Rom. 8.13 nor quicken a service without the Spirit Whatsoever corruption is killed is slain by his Power whatsoever duty is spiritualized is refined by his Breath He quickens our dead bodies in our Resurection * Rom. 8.11 He renews our dead Souls in our Regeneration He quickens our carnal services in our adorations The choicest acts of worship are but infirmities without his auxiliary help * Rom. 8.26 We are Loggs unable to move our selves till he raise our faculties to a pitch agreeable to God puts his hand to the duty and lifts that up and us with it Never any great act was performed by the Apostles to God or for God but they are said to be filled with the Holy-Ghost Christ could not have been conceived immaculate as that holy thing without the Spirits overshadowing the Virgin nor any spiritual act conceived in our heart without the Spirits moving upon us to bring forth a living Religion from us The acts of worship are said to be in the Spirit Supplication in the Spirit * Eph. 6.18 not only with the strength and affection of our own Spirits but with the mighty operation of the Holy-Ghost if Jude may be the Interpreter * Jude 20. The Holy-Ghost exciting us impelling us and firing our Souls by his divine flame raising up the affections and making the Soul cry with a holy importunity Abba Father To render our worship spiritual we should before every ingagement in it implore the actual presence of the Spirit without which we are not able to send forth one spiritual breath or groan but be Wind-bound like a Ship without a Gale and our worship be no better than carnal How doth the Spouse solicite the Spirit with an awake oh North-wind and come thou South-wind c. * Cant. 4.16 3. Spiritual Worship is done with Sincerity When the heart stands right to God and the Soul performs what it pretends to perform When we serve God with our Spirits as the Apostle Rom. 1.9 God is my Witness whom I serve with my Spirit in the Gospel of his Son This is not meant of the