some bold and presumptuous men as void for the most part of all honest and sober morals as they are of sound learning and philosophy being equally debauched and corrupted in their understanding and in their behaviour and practise are wont as it were triumphantly to propose even in places of publick resort as well as in their ordinary conversation in this Sceptical and Atheistical age against a creation against the miracles recorded in the holy Scriptures against the doctrine of the ever blessed and adorable Trinity and of the incarnation of the Son of God and lastly against the belief of a resurrection and the like will vanish and disappear and all those truths whether natural or revealed which they with equal rashness and impiety have pronounced impossible will be found just objects as to the former of our knowledge and understanding and as to the latter of faith and of a wise and rational assent In order hereento I will shew these three things I. What is the true and proper notion of the divine power and in what respect it is said that nothing is impossible to God that II. The attribute of infinite power is necessarily included in the notion and idea of God and that III. It is altogether unreasonable to limit the power of God in things possible or deny any doctrine of religion whether revealed in Scripture or flowing from the principles of natural reason because it transcends either our power or our understanding I. What concerns the first particular viz. what is the true and proper notion of the divine power and in what respect it is affirmed both by the voice of nature and Scripture that nothing is impossible to God may be comprized in these two following propositions 1. The first proposition is that God can readily and easily effect and do whatever is absolutely possible to be done The world it is certain from the beginning has been subject to the laws of Providence and all things run the course which was at first set them and are directed and carried on to the several ends of their creation by an unerring hand and notwithstanding their several tendencies all concur to accomplish the great design of God and that without prejudice to their respective natures Thus the celestial orbs and vortices have their fixt periods and revolutions the sun and moon and stars are regular in their motion and take their rounds day and night about the earth and the great ocean in its ebbs and flows follows the laws of motion and statick principles And so for all other natural Agents they have their limits set them which they cannot pass they only do what is agreeable to their nature and they can do no more the powers whereby they act being necessary but withal confined Yet though this order and course of things be fixt and settled and seldom interrupted by God unless to alarm the world and for some great end and to shew that nature depends upon him and that all things subsist by his power which is onely able to preserve what it first made yet there is no repugnance that things might have been made otherwise than they are if it had pleased him We cannot but acknowledge several possibilities of things lying in their causes which we by reason of our weakness cannot draw forth into effect for want of such and such combinations and by reason of several impediments and accidents which it is not in our power to remove or through some indisposition in the matter to be wrought upon it happens that those possibilities are not clothed with actual existence there being no repugnancy in the nature of the thing it self and the defect wholly arising from some other cause Whatsoever effects there are then of the divine power now existing more may be produced new species of things may be added and new worlds made whatever becomes of the hypothesis of the habitableness of the planets and of the opinion that every fixed Star is a Sun at an almost immense distance from the earth and from one another and those things which are might have been endowed with different powers activities qualities impressions motions and operations and matter made capable of other far different modifications and determinations of particular motions from which might have been derived inconceivably great variety of other natural productions And here it may be necessary to interpose that God does no more than what he first wills his power is directed by his wisdom and divine pleasure which is the rule and measure of it which consideration should justly satisfie us about the late creation of this visible world in which we breath To call in question therefore the accompts given of it by Moses who fixes its beginning not many thousand years ago as our modern Atheists and Deists do and to object idle foolish unlearned and groundless phansies against those authentick Registers acknowledged in all ages since his time and which the more grave and judicious sort of Heathen Writers have revered and from whence they have borrowed several of their tenents both of philosophy and religion though oftentimes artificially disguised or corrupted with their fabulous additions is altogether irrational For let these men of high-flown wit and phansie deny if they can or dare and at the same time pretend to reason like Philosophers and Scholars whether this is not to prescribe to the almighty and alwise God what he should have done and with equal impudence and impiety limit his will For suppose for arguments sake that the world had been created forty or fifty thousand years before or if they will so many myriads and millions of years and that the chronology of the Chineses Chaldeans and Egyptians which latter is preserved out of the writings of Manetho a Priest of that country who lived in the time of Prolemaeus Philadelphus by Julius Africanus and out of him by Eusebius and Georgius Syncellus were not fabulous and proceeded not from a vain affectation of Antiquity but had some ground in nature and history yet considering the eternal power of the Godhead the same question might as well be put and it may be put thousands of years hence if the present constitution of the world should continue so long undissolved why was it not produced sooner this mighty space as it seems to us poor frail and mortal creatures who are permitted by the great God who made us to live here upon earth three or fourscore years at furthest being comparatively inconsiderable and holding no proportion to a duration which had no beginning Thus at last these conceitedly inquisitive men lose themselves in the rambling and unbounded flights of their phansie or else run themselves upon this gross absurdity that dull and unactive matter is eternal and take upon them to direct an alwise and infinite being when and what worlds he should make not considering that the mind of God is unsearchable and past the comprehension of finite understanding and that no
unpardonable piece of arrogance is it for a man to think his reason able to comprehend the things of God when there is such an infinite disproportion between them and call in question the truth of the divine revelations and measure all by this crooked and deceitful rule whether it be agreeable to his phansie or not It is a most rational and infallible ground of faith that God who has revealed these mysteries cannot utter a falshood It is more certain than demonstration if God has once said it There are some monsters in the world whose lusts and debaucheries have suggested to them doubts about the being of God and the truth of his attributes and a consciousness of their guilt has made them wish that there were none No one was ever found who acknowledged a God and did not at the same time acknowledge that he was just and true Pythagoras found no opposition when he taught that there were two things by which men became like to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by speaking truth and doing good both perfections naturally streaming from the divine nature So that upon the whole matter it will appear that it is nothing but pride and a presumptuous conceit of mastering all the difficulties of religion by the strength of reason which put them upon the denial of these revealed truths and that this pride and presumption are altogether unjust and unreasonable Which was the thing to be proved From this necessary essential and fundamental notion of the divine power these following inferences relating to practise may most certainly be drawn 1. That we are to repose our whole trust and confidence in God whose power is infinite We naturally fly in case of distress and danger to a power which is able to protect and relieve us There is no man but needs a support some time or other Men are not always able of themselves to resist successfully the assaults of envy and malice but this way envy may be at last conquered and enemies brought over and reconciled or else defeated Let this therefore be the great comfort of our minds that God is both able and ready to assist us in our utmost and greatest dangers and in all the particular difficulties and distresses of our lives which may befall us It was a reflexion upon this which made David break out into those triumphant expressions Psalm xlvi 1 2 3. God is our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble therefore will we not fear tho' the earth be moved and tho' the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea tho' the waters roar and be troubled tho' the mountains shake with the swelling thereof And v. 7. The Lord of hosts is with us the God of Jacob is our refuge 2. That we are to stand in fear and awe of God and do nothing which may displease him Fear is a passion which usually results from a reflexion upon power and according to the nature and degrees of it the fear will rise and encrease proportionably and therefore the power of God who is able to punish us eternally is a most rational ground of fear S. Luke xii 4 5. says our B. Saviour to his disciples Be not afraid of them who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do but I will forewarn you whom you shall fear fear him who after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell yea I say unto you fear him And with this argument the heroic woman encouraged her young son to endure the torments and cruelties of Antiochus as his six brothers had done before him rather than save his life by violation of the divine law I beseech thee my son look upon the heaven and upon the earth and all that is therein and consider that God has made them of things that were not and so was mankind made likewise Fear not this tormentor but being worthy of thy brethren take thy death that I may receive thee again in mercy with thy brethren as you may read the tragical history in the second book of Maccabees chap. vii Whosoever reflects seriously on God's infinite power will never presumptuously do such things as may draw on him his displeasure and upon a true sense of his guilt will be restless till by repentance and a good life he is reinstated in the love and favour of God 3. That the sense of our weakness and defects should teach us humility and modesty in our enquiries into the great mysteries of religion there being as great reason for us to submit our understanding to the revealed truths of Scripture as our will to its commands He who religiously adores and believes a God and acknowledges him to be a being infinitely perfect will not dare to question the truth of his revelations and as firmly will he believe that all those promises and threats which are contained in the holy Scriptures which have a reference to a future state shall one day be fulfilled For with what pretense can any one doubt or disbelieve their fulfilling who reflects upon God's truth and power All doubt or distrust ariseth from a double cause either because men are not real in what they say and so intend it not or else want power to make their words good neither of which can possibly have any place here For God is a God of infinite veracity and all his promises are infallibly real and firm and he is able to perform them We value not indeed those menaces which are the effects of an impotent passion when we are out of their power and when they cannot reach us but there will be no flying from God his eye and hand will find and lay hold on us wherever we are He who made me at first and placed the several parts of my body in that comely order in which they stand and which from time to time in continuance and in the succession of a few months were fashioned when as yet there was none of them he can raise up this very body at the last day and will raise it up and of this I cannot pretend to have the least rational doubt were it ten thousand times more difficult to conceive than it is because he has absolutely promised it and his veracity is obliged for it and his infinite power can easily make it good Does God threaten impenitent and incorrigible sinners with everlasting torment in hell I with trembling submit to the truth of this threatning because he can easily continue a creature in a miserable being unconsumed and that for ever and I know he will do it because he has said it And upon this belief and assurance we are to provide accordingly that so we may avoid the strokes the fierceness the terribleness of his revenging hand and may partake of those most glorious promises which his goodness and mercy in Christ our Saviour has made over to us in this life and which his infinite power will make good to
state what demonstration can these great Masters of reason as they think themselves whom nothing less will content and satisfie bring to the contrary It is but just and reasonable that they who deny or so much as call in question the truth of any opinion tho' built upon probable arguments should produce arguments if not of greater yet at least of equal probability To deny a thing boldly at first without giving any reason for the denial and then to be very peremptory in the affirmation of a contrary proposition is against all the laws and rules of wise discoursing and arguing and is not the effect of judgment but of meer trifling and foolish conceitedness much more when they pluck up the very foundations of a science when they destroy the principles of nature when they condemn a truth as is this of a future state which all mankind in all ages has received and embraced except an inconsiderable number of wretches like themselves they should be throughly convinced before hand that their proofs are just and good and little less than infallible But all which they alledge in behalf of their infidelity is either that they cannot frame a just and clear idea of such a state or else they make some little and unphilosophical exceptions and cavils at terms as Spirit incorporeal substance and the like which is the way of Mr. Hobbes tho' the notion of an incorporeal substance and of thought is as easie to conceive and as little liable to just exceptions as of substance in general or of substance in extended matter pleasing themselves onely with the gross images of sensible beings They cannot pretend to any direct and positive proofs they neither can nor dare say that what they imagine is certain and infallible They only think so and wish so and indeed for their wishes they have some reason tho' none for their opinion For what malefactor can think of his trial and the consequences of it with any kind of patience and not wish at the same time that there were no such things as a law and a judge to execute that law in their deserved punishment And besides this they very foolishly and idly alledge that they have not spoken with any who have arisen from the dead to give them an accompt of it as if before they would be convinced whether there be such places as a heaven or an hell they would have an exact survey taken of them and several chorographical schemes and maps made to describe them the better to them But is not this a most irrational and senseless ground of their infidelity Have we not in the sacred writings undoubted testimonies of several raised from the dead beyond all possibility of denial of which faithful and authentic registers have been made to inform posterity But may it not also be justly supposed that these very men if the most real and certain apparition possible were made to them after they had recovered themselves from the surprize and affrightment into which such a gastly sight might cast them would look upon it onely as a meer phantome as Cassius one of the sect of Epicurus told his friend Brutus as Plutarch writes in his life that the evil genius which appeared to him was the effect of his melancholy no other than a dream and the roving of his disturbed imagination when he was between sleeping and waking or if a dead person raised again to life should appear to them they would cavil and say that he had not been really dead they would find out some such foolish and idle pretense and excuse and still hold fast their beloved conclusion The rich man in the Parable when he was in hell was very sollicitous for his surviving brethren that they might not come into that place of torment and therefore made it his request that a messenger might be sent thence express to forewarn them but the proposal was rejected as unjust and unnecessary They were sufficiently instructed out of the divine writings that there was such a place the Law and the Prophets were continually read and sounded in their ears that they could not pretend ignorance Besides if they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded tho' one arose from the dead But let us suppose in order to the conviction of these men if any of them should chance to cast their eyes upon these papers that there were an equal probability on both sides that as much might be said against the certainty of a future state as for it that God had not so clearly and expresly revealed his will in the holy Scriptures about it and that the case had not been so fully determined but yet hung as it were in aequilibrio yet because it is of an eternal consequence right reason and common prudence should teach a man to make choice of the surer side nay if there were less degrees of probability for it we should make provision however for fear that it should prove so If in matters of ordinary speculation which signifie nothing to our interest and advantage whether they be true or no for what am I the better whether the Ptolemaic or Copernican hypothesis best solves the various appearances of the heavens we relinquish the vulgar opinions which have the prescription of antiquity and which seem confirmed by sense as being swayed by more rational proofs and evidences certainly in a business of such moment as is the living hereafter for ever in happiness or misery when there are so many arguments to sway and encline our belief when we have all the assurance which things that are future and not yet seen can possibly have when the danger is so great and the loss infinite and irrepairable it is a folly beyond all expression for any person to suffer himself to be cheated by the corrupt judgment of sense which in this case cannot pretend to arbitrate and by the little cavillings and oppositions of a gross phansie into the belief of the contrary If onely the probable hope of gain makes men despise certain danger and carries them round about the world to the utmost points of East and West if they undergo not onely with patience but with great readiness and chearfulness all those uneasinesses and hazards which such long voyages in tempestuous seas and through various climates of excessive heat and cold necessarily subject them to if they venture their health and oftentimes their lives and that too with the good liking and applause of the world especially if the advantage be any way proportionable to the danger certainly the interest of our immortal souls should make us adventure as much for heaven a place of infinite blessedness where we shall live for ever without feeling the decays of age and without being weary of those unmixt pleasures which it affords and where are heaped up treasures of glory which no time shall exhaust if we had not the infallible word of God for it but onely