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
following evidence The Church he would bring out from the Countries where she was scattered and bring the people into the bond of the Covenant He sometimes cuts off the Spirits of Princes Psal 76.12 i. e. cuts off their designs as men do the pipes of a water-course The hearts of all are as open to him as the riches of heaven where he resides He can slip an inclination into the heart of the mighty which they dream'd not of before and if he doth not change their projects he can make them abortive and way-lay them in their attempts Laâ—an marched with fury but God put a padlock upon his passion against Jacob. Gen. 31.24.29 The Devils which ravage mens minds must be still when he gives out his soveraign orders This soveraign can make his people find favour in the eyes of the cruel Egyptians which had so long opprest them Exod. 11.3 And speak a good word in the heart of Nebuchadnezzar for the Prophet Jeremy that he should order his Captain to take him into his special protection when he took Zedekiah away prisoner in chains and put out his eyes Jerem. 39.11 His people cannot want deliverance from him who hath all the world at his command when he is pleased to bestow it he hath as many instruments of deliverance as he hath Creatures at his beck in Heaven or Earth from the meanest to the highest As he is the Lord of Hosts the Church hath not only an interest in the strength he himself is possessed with but in the strength of all the Creatures that are under his command in the Elements below and Angels above in those armies of Heaven and in the inhabitants of the Earth he doth what he will Dan. 4.35 They are all in order and array at his command There are Angels to employ in a fatal stroke Lice and Froggs to quell the stubborn hearts of his Enemies He can range his Thunders and Lightnings the Canon and Granado's of Heaven and the Worms of the Earth in his service He can muzzle Lions calm the fury of the Fire turn his Enemies Swords into their own bowels and their Artillery on their own breasts set the wind in their Teeth and make their Chariot-wheels languish make the Sea enter a quarrel with them and wrap them in its waves till it hath stifled them in its lap The Angels have Storms and Tempests and Warrs in their hands but at the disposal of God when they shall cast them out against the Empire of Antichrist Rev. 7.1 2. then shall Satan be discharg'd from his Throne and no more seduce the Nations the everlasting Gospel shall be preached and God shall reign gloriously in Sion Let us therefore shelter our selves in the divine soveraignty regard God as the most High in our dangers and in our petitions This was Davids resolution Psal 57.1 2. I will cry unto unto God most high This Dominion of God is the true Tower of David wherein there are a thousand shields for defence and encouragement Cant. 4.4 IV. USE If God hath an extensive Dominion over the whole World this ought to be often meditated on and acknowledged by us This is the universal duty of mankind if he be the soveraign of all we should frequently think of our great Prince and acknowledge our selves his Subjects and him our Lord. God will be acknowledg'd the Lord of the whole Earth the neglect of this is the cause of the Judgments which are sent upon the World All the Prodigies were to this end that they might know or acknowledge that God was the Lord. Exod. 10.2 As God was proprietor he demanded the first-born of every Jew and the first-born of every Beast the one was to be Redeemed and the other Sacrificed this was the Quit-Rent they were to pay to him for their fruitful Land The first Fruits of the Earth were ordered to be paid to him as a homage due to the Landlord and an acknowledgment they held all in chief of him The practice of offering first-fruits for an acknowledgment of Gods soveraignty was among many of the Heathens and very ancient hence they dedicated some of the chief of their spoils owning thereby the Dominion and Goodness of God whereby they had gain'd the Victory Cain own'd this in offering the Fruits of the Earth and it was his sin he own'd no more viz. His being a sinner and meriting the Justice of God as his Brother Abel did in his bloody Sacrifice God was a soveraign Proprietor and Governour while man was in a state of innocence but when man proved a Rebel the soveraignty of God bore another relation towards him that of a Judge added to the other The First-fruits might have been offered to God in a state of innocence as a homage to him as Lord of the Manour of the World the design of them was to own Gods propriety in all things and mens dependance on him for the influences of heaven in producing the fruits of the Earth which he had ordered for their use The design of Sacrifices and placing beasts instead of the criminal was to acknowledg their own guilt and God as a soveraign Judge Cain own'd the first but not the second he acknowledged his dependance on God as a proprietor but not his obnoxiousness to God as a Judg which may be probably gathered from his own speech when God came to examine him and ask him for his Brother Gen. 4.9 Am I my Brothers keeper Why do you ask me though I own thee as the Lord of my Land and Goods yet I do not think my self accountable to thee for all my actions This Soveraignty of God ought to be acknowledged in all the parts of it in all the manifestations of it to the creature We should bear a sense of this always upon our Spirits and be often in the thoughts of it in our retirements We should fancy that we saw God upon his Throne in his Royal Garb and great attendants about him and take a view of it to imprint an awe upon our Spirits The meditation on this would 1. Fix us on him as an object of trust 'T is upon his Soveraign Dominion as much as upon anything that safe and secure confidence is built for if he had any superior above him to controul him in his designs and promises his veracity and power would be of little efficacy to form our souls to a close adherency to him It were not fit to make him the object of our trust that can be gainsaid by a higher than himself and had not a full Authority to answer our expectations If we were possessed with this notion fully and believingly that God were high above all that his Kingdom rules over all we should not catch at every broken reed and stand gaping for comforts from a pebble stone He that understands the Authority of a King would not wave a relyance on his promise to depend upon the breath of a changeling favorite None but an ignorant man would
But the Apostle the best Interpreter rectifies this in extending it by name to Jews as well as Gentiles Rom. 3.9 We have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin And v. 10.11 12. Cites part of his Psalm and other passages of Scripture for the further evidence of it concluding by Jews and Gentiles every person in the world naturally in this State of Corruption The Psalmist first declares the Corruption of the faculties of the Soul the fool hath said in his heart Secondly the streams issuing from thence they are corrupt c. the first in Athestical principles the other in unworthy practices and lays all the Evil Tyranny Lust and Persecutions by men as if the World were only for their sake upon the neglects of God and the Atheism cherished in their hearts The fool a term in Scripture signifying a wicked man used also by the Heathen Philosophers to signifie a vicious person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as coming from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the extinction of life in Men Animals and Plants so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken * Isa 40.7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the flower fadeth Isa 28.1 a plant that hath lost all that juyce that made it lovely and useful So a fool is one that hath lost his Wisdom and right notion of God and Divine things which were communicated to man by creation one dead in sin yet one not so much void of rational faculties as of Grace in those faculties not one that wants reason but abuses his reason In Scripture the word signifies foolish ‖ Mais 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 put together Deut. 32.6 Oh foolish people and unwise * Said in his heart that is he thinks or he doubts or he wishes The thoughts of the heart are in the nature of words to God though not to men T is used in the like case of the Atheistical person Psal 10.11.13 He hath said in his heart God hath forgotten he hath said in his heart thou wilt not require it He doth not form a Syllogism as Calvin speaks that there is no God he dares not openly publish it though he dares secretly think it He can not rase out the thoughts of a Deity though he endeavors to blot those Characters of God in his Soul He hath some doubts whither there be a God or no He wishes there were not any and sometimes hopes there is none at all He could not so ascertain him self by convincing arguments to produce to the World but he tampered with his own heart to bring it to that perswasion and smothered in himself those notices of a Deity which is so plain against the light of nature that such a man may well be called a fool for it There is no God * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non potestas Domini Chaldae T is not Jehovah which name signifies the Essence of God as the Prime and Supream being But Eloahia which name signifies the Providence of God * Muis. God as a Rector and Judge Not that he denyes the Existence of a Supream being that Created the World but his regarding the Creatures his Government of the world and consequently his reward of the Righteous or Punishments of the Wicked * Cocceius There is a threefold denyal of God 1. Quoad exisientiam this is absolute Atheism 2. Quoad Providentiam or his inspection into or care of the things of the World bounding him in the Heavens 3. Quoad naturam in regard of one or other of the perfections due to his nature Not owning him as the Egyptians called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of the denyal of the Providence of God most understand this * Eugubin in cloc not excluding the absolute Atheist as Diagoras is reported to be nor the Sceptical Atheist as Protagoras who doubted whither there were a God Those that deny the Providence of God do in effect deny the being of God for they strip him of that Wisdom Goodness Tenderness Mercy Justice Righteousness which are the Glory of the Deity And that principle of a greedy desire to be uncontroul'd in their Lusts which induceth men to a denyal of Providence that thereby they might stifle those seeds of fear which infect and embitter their sinful pleasures may as well lead them to deny that there is any such being as a God That at one blow their fears may be dasht all in peices and dissolved by the removal of the Foundation As men who desire liberty to commit works of darkness would not have the lights in the House dimm'd but extinguished What men say against Providence because they would have no check in their Lusts they may say in their hearts against the existence of God upon the same account little difference between the dissenting from the one and disowning the other They are corrupt they have done abominable works there is none that doth good He speaks of the Atheist in the singular the fool of the corruption issuing in the life in the plural Intimating that though some few may choak in their hearts the sentiments of God and his Providence and positively deny them yet there is something of a secret Atheism in all which is the fountain of the evil practices in their lives not an utter disowning of the Being of a God but a denyal or doubting of some of the rights of his nature * Atheism absolute is not in all mens judgements but practical is in all mens actions The Apostle in the Romans applying the later part of it to all mankind but not the former As the word translated corrupt signifies When men deny the God of purity they must needs be polluted in Soul and Body and grow brutish in their actions When the sense of Religion is shaken off all kind of wickedness is eagerly rusht into whereby they become as loathsome to God as putrified carcases are to men * Atheism absolute is not in all mens judgements but practical is in all mens actions The Apostle in the Romans applying the later part of it to all mankind but not the former As the word translated corrupt signifies Not one or two evil actions is the product of such a principle but the whole scene of a mans life is corrupted and becomes execrable No man is exempted from some spice of Atheism by the depravation of his nature which the Psalmist intimates there is none that doth good Though there are indelible convictions of the being of a God that they cannot absolutely deny it yet there are some Atheistical bublings in the hearts of men which Evidence themselves in their actions As the Apostle Tit. 1.16 They profess that they know God but in works they deny him Evil works are a dust stirred up by an Atheistical breath He that habituates himself in some sordid lust can scarcly be said seriously and firmly to believe that there
made whither stone or brass this nature therefore must have some superior by whose influx it is preserved Since therefore we see a stable order in the things of the world that they conspire together for the good and beauty of the universe that they depend upon one another There must be some principle upon which they do depend somthing to which the first link of the chain is fastened which himself depends upon no superior but wholly rests in his own essence and being T is the title of God to be the preserver of man and beast * Psa 36.6 The Psalmist elegantly describeth it Psal 104.24 c. The Earth is full of his riches all wait upon him that he may give them their meat in due season when he opens his hand he fills them with good when he hides his face they are troubled if he take away their breath they die and return to dust he sends forth his Spirit and they are Created and renews the face of the Earth the glory of the Lord shall endure for ever and the Lord shall rejoyce in his works Upon the consideration of all which the Psalmist v. 34. takes a pleasure in the Meditation of God as the cause and manager of all those things which issues into a joy in God and a praising of him And why should not the consideration of the power and wisdom of God in the Creatures produce the same effect in the hearts of us if he be our God Or as some render it my Meditation shall be sweet or acceptable to him whereby I find matter of praise in the things of the world and offer it to the Creator of it Thirdly III. Reason The third Reas. T is a folly to deny that which a mans own nature witnesseth to him The whole frame of bodies and Souls bears the impress of the infinite power and wisdom of the Creator A body framed with an admirable Architecture a Soul endowed with Understanding Will Judgment Memory Imagination Man is the Epitome of the World contains in himself the substance of all natures and the fulness of the whole universe not only in regard of the universalness of his knowledge whereby he comprehends the reasons of many things but as all the perfections of the several natures of the world are gathered and united in man for the perfection of his own in a smaller volum In his Soul he partakes of Heaven in his body of the earth There is the life of Plants the sense of beasts and the intellectual nature of Angels * Gen. 2.7 The Lord breathed into his Nostril the breath of life and man c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of lifes Not one sort of lifes but several not only an Animal but a Rational life a Soul of a Nobler extract and nature than what was given to other Creatures So that we need not step out of doors or cast our eyes any further than our selves to behold a God He shines in the capacity of our Souls and the vigour of our Members We must flie from our selves and be stript of our own humanity before we can put off the Notion of a Deity He that is ignorant of the Existence of God must be possessed with so much folly as to be ignorant of his own make and frame 1. In the parts whereof he doth consist Body and Soul First I. Take a prospect of the Body The Psalmist counts it a matter of praise and admiration Psal 139.15 16. I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the Earth in thy book all my Members were written The Scheme of man and every Member was drawn in his book All the Sinews Veins Arteries Bones like a peice of Embroidery or Tapestry were wrought by God as it were with deliberation like an Artificer that draws out the model of what he is to do in writing and sets it before him when he begins his work And indeed the Fabrick of mans Body as well as his Soul is an argument for a Divinity The artificial structure of it the Elegancy of every part the proper Situation of them their proportion one to another the fitness for their several functions drew from Galen * Lib. 3. de usu partium Petav. Theol. Dog Tom. 1. lib. 1. cap. 1. pa. 6. a Heathen and one that had no raised sentiments of a Deity a confession of the admirable Wisdom and Power of the Creator and that none but God could frame it 1. In the order fitness and usefulness of every part The whole model of the body is grounded upon reason Every member hath its exact proportion distinct office regular motion Every part hath a particular comliness and convenient temperament bestowed upon it according to its place in the Body The Heart is hot to enliven the whole The Eye clear to take in objects to present them to the Soul Every member is fitted for its peculiar service and action Some are for sense some for motion some for preparing and others for dispensing nourishment to the several parts They mutually depend upon and serve one another What small strings fasten the particular members together as the Earth that hangs upon nothing * Job 26.7 Take but one part away and you either destroy the whole or stamp upon it some mark of deformity All are knit together by an admirable Symmetry all orderly perform their functions as acting by a setled Law none swerving from their rule but in case of some predominant humor And none of those in so great a multitude of parts stifled in so little a Room or justling against one another to hinder their mutual actions none can be better disposed And the greatest wisdom of man could not imagine it till his eyes present them with the sight and connexion of one part and member with another 1. The Heart * Theod. de providentiâ Orat. 3. How strongly it is guarded with ribs like a Wall that it might not be easily hurt It draws blood from the Liver through a channel made for that purpose Rarifies it and makes it fit to pass through the Arteries and Veins and to carry heat and life to every part of the body And by a perpetual motion it sucks in the blood and spouts it out again which motion depends not upon the command of the Soul but is pure natural 2. The Mouth takes in the meat the teeth grind it for the stomack the stomack prepares it nature strains it through the milky veins the liver refines it and mints it into blood separates the purer from the drossy parts which go to the heart circuites through the whole body running through the Veins like Rivers through so many channels of the world for the watering of the several parts Which are framed of a thin skin for the straining the blood through for the supply of the members of the body and framed with
several valves or doors for the thrusting the blood forwards to perform its circular motion 3. The Brain fortified by a strong skull to hinder outward accidents a tough membrane or skin to hinder any oppression by the skull the seat of sense that which coins the animal spirits by purifying and refining those which are sent to it and seems like a curious peice of Needlework 4. The Ear framed with windings and turnings to keep any thing from entring to offend the Brain so disposed as to admit sounds with the greatest safety and delight * Eccles 12.4 filled with an air within by the motion whereof the sound is transmitted to the Brain As sounds are made in the Air by diffusing themselves as you see Circles made in the water by the flinging in a stone This is the Gate of knowledge whereby we hear the Oracles of God and the instruction of men for arts T is by this they are exposed to the mind and the mind of another Man framed in our understandings 5. What a curious Workmanship is that of the Eye which is in the body as the Sun in the World set in the head as in a Watch-Tower having the softest nerves for the receiving the greater multitude of Spirits necessary for the act of Vision How is it provided with defence by the variety of Coats to secure and accomodate the little humor and part whereby the vision is made Made of a round figure and convex as most commodious to receive the species of objects shaded by the eye-brows and eye-lids secured by the eye-lids which are its ornament and safety which refresh it when it is too much dried by heat hinder too much light from insinuating it self into it to offend it cleanse it from impurities by their quick motion preserve it from any invasion and by contraction confer to the more evident discerning of things Both the eyes seated in the hollow of the bone for security yet standing out that things may be perceived more easily on both sides And this little Member can behold the earth and in a moment veiw things as high as Heaven 6. * Coccei sum Theol. cap. 8. § 49. The Tongue for speech framed like a Musical instrument the Teeth serving for variety of sounds the lungs serving for Bellows to blow the Organs as it were to cool the Heart by a continual motion transmitting a pure Air to the Heart expelling that which was smoky and superfluous T is by the Tongue that communication of Truth hath a passage among men it opens the sense of the mind there would be no converse and commerce without it Speech among all Nations hath an elegancy and attractive force mastering the affections of men Not to speak of other parts or of the multitude of Spirits that act every part he quick flight of them where there is a necessity of their presence Solomon 12 Ecclesiast makes an elegant description of them in his Speech of old age And Job â—peaks of this formation of the body Job 10.9 10 11 c. Not the least part of the body is made in vain The hairs of the Head have their use as well as are an ornament The whole Symmetry of the body is a ravishing object Every Member hath a Signature and mark of God and his Wisdom He is visible in the formation of the Members the beauty of the parts and the vigor of the body This structure could not be from the body that only hath a passive power and cannot act in the absence of the Soul Nor can it be from the Soul How comes it then to be so ignorant of the manner of its formation The Soul knows not the internal parts of its own body but by information from others or inspection into other bodies It knows less of the inward frame of the body than it doth of it self But he that makes the Clock can tell the number and motions of the wheels within as well as what figures are without This short discourse is useful to raise our admirations of the Wisdom of God as well as to demonstrate that there is an Infinite Wise Creator And the consideration of our selves every day and the wisdom of God in our frame would maintain Religion much in the world Since all are so framed that no man can tell any error in the constitution of him If thus the body of man is fitted for the service of his Soul by an infinite God the body ought to be ordered for the service of this God and in obedience to him 2. In the admirable difference of the features of Men. Which is a great argument that the world was made by a wise Being This could not be wrought by Chance or be the work of meer nature since we find never or very rarely two persons exactly alike This distinction is a part of infinite wisdom otherwise what confusion would be introduced into the World Without this Parents could not know their Children nor Children their Parents nor a Brother his Sister nor a Subject his Magistrate Without it there had been no comfort of Relations no Government no commerce Debtors would not have been known from strangers nor good men from bad Propriety could not have been preserved nor justice executed the innocent might have been apprehended for the nocent wickedness could not have been stopt by any Law The Faces of men are the same for parts not for features A dissimilitude in a likeness Man like to all the rest in the World yet unlike to any and differenced by some mark from all which is not to be observed in any other species of Creatures This speaks some wise Agent which framed man since for the preservation of human society and order in the world this distinction was necessary Secondly II. As mans own nature witnesseth a God to him in the structure of his body so also in the nature of his Soul * Coâ—cei sam Theolog. cap. 8. § 50.51 We know that we have an understanding in us a substance we cannot see but we know it by its operations as thinking reasoning willing remembring And as operating about things that are invisible and remote from sense This must needs be distinct from the body for that being but dust and Earth in its original hath not the power of reasoning and thinking for then it would have that power when the Soul were absent as well as when it is present Besides if it had that power of thinking it could think only of those things which are sensible and made up of matter as it self is This Soul hath a greater excellency it can know it self rejoyce in it self which other Creatures in this world are not capable of The Soul is the greatest glory of this lower world and as one saith * More There seems to be no more difference between the Soul and an Angel than between a Sword in the Scabbard and when it is Out of the Scabbard First I. Consider the vastness
of its capacity The understanding can conceive the whole world and paint in it self the invisible Pictures of all things T is capable of apprehending and discoursing of things superior to its own nature * Culverwel T is suted to all objects as the Eye to all Colours or the Ear to all sounds How great is the Memory to retain such varieties such diversities The Will also can accomodate other things to it self It invents Arts for the use of Man prescribes rules for the Government of States ransacks the bowels of nature makes endless conclusions and steps in reasoning from one thing to another for the knowledge of Truth It can contemplate and form notions of things higher than the world 2. The quickness of its motion * Theodoret. Nothing is more quick in the whole course o◠nature the Sun runs through the World in a day this can do it in a moment It can with one flight of fancy ascend to the battlements of Heaven The mists of the Air that hinder the sight of the Eye cannot hinder the flights of the Soul it can pass in a moment from one end of the World to the other and think of things a thousand miles distant It can think of some mean thing in the world and presently by one cast in the twinkling of an Eye mount up as high as Heaven As its desires are not bounded by sensual objects so neither are the motions of it restrained by them It will break forth with the greatest vigour and conceive things infinitely above it Though it be in the body it acts as if it were ashamed to be Cloystered in it This could not be the result of any material cause Whoever knew meer matter understand think will And what it hath not it cannot give That which is destitute of Reason and Will could never confer Reason and Will * Coccei sum The dog cap. 8. § 51.52 T is not the effect of the Body for the Body is fitted with members to be subject to it T is in part ruled by the activity of the Soul and in part by the Counsel of the Soul T is used by the Soul and knows not how it is used Nor could it be from the Parents since the Souls of the Children often transcend those of the Parents in vivacity acuteness and comprehensiveness One man is stupid and begets a Son with a capacious understanding one is debauched and beastly in morals and begets a Son who from his Infancy testifies some vertuous inclinations which sprout forth in delightful fruit with the ripeness of his age I do not dispute whether the Soul were generated or no Suppose the substance of it was generated by the Parents yet those more excellent qualities were not the result of them Whence should this difference arise a fool begat the wise man and a debauched the vertuous man The wisdom of the one could not descend from the foolish Soul of the other nor the vertues of the Son from the deformed and polluted Soul of the Parent it lies not in the Organs of the Body For if the folly of the Parent proceeded not from their Souls but the ill disposition of the Organs of their bodies how comes it to pass that the bodies of the Children are better Organiz'd beyond the goodness of their immediate cause We must recur to some invisible hand that makes the difference who bestows upon one at his pleasure richer qualities than upon another You can see nothing in the World endowed with some excellent quality but you must imagine some bountiful hand did inrich it with that dowry None can be so foolish as to think that a vessel ever inricht it self with that spritely Liquor wherewith it is filled or that any thing worse than the Soul should indow it with that knowledge and activity which sparkles in it Nature could not produce it That nature is intelligent or not if it be not then it produceth an effect more excellent than it self in as much as an understanding being surmounts a being that hath no understanding If the supream cause of the Soul be intelligent why do we not call it God as well as nature We must arise from hence to the notion of a God a Spiritual nature cannot proceed but from a Spirit higher than it self and of a transcendent perfection above it self If we beleive we have Souls and understand the state of our own faculties we must be assured that there was some invisible hand which bestowed those faculties and the riches of them upon us A man must be ignorant of himself before he can be ignorant of the Existence of God By considering the nature of our Souls we may as well be assured that there is a God as that there is a Sun by the shining of the beams in at our Windows And indeed the Soul is a Statue and representation of God as the Land-Skip of a Country or Map represents all the parts of it but in a far less proportion than the Country it self is The Soul fills the body and God the world the Soul sustains the body and God the World the Soul sees but is not seen God sees all things but is himself invisible How base are they then that prostitute their Souls an image of God to base things unexpressibly below their own nature 3. I might add the union of Soul and Body Man is a kind of compound of Angel and Beast of Soul and body if he were only a Soul he were a kind of Angel if only a body he were another kind of brute Now that a body as vile and dull as earth and a Soul that can mount up to Heaven and rove about the world with so quick a motion should be linkt in so strait an acquaintance that so noble a being as the Soul should be an inhabitant in such a Tabernacle of Clay must be owned to some infinite power that hath so chained it 3. Man witnesseth to a God in the operations and reflections of Conscience Rom. 2.15 Their thoughts are accusing or excusing An inward comfort attends good actions and an inward torment follows bad ones for there is in every mans Conscience fear of punishment and hope of reward There is therefore a sense of some superior Judge which hath the power both of rewarding and punishing If man were his supream rule what need he fear punishment since no man would inflict any evil or torment on himself nor can any man be said to reward himself for all rewards refer to another to whom the action is pleasing and is a conferring some good a man had not before If an action be done by a Subject or Servant with hopes of reward it can not be imagined that he expects a reward from himself but from the Prince or person whom he eyes in that action and for whose sake he doth it 1. There is a Law in the minds of men which is a rule of good and evil There is a Notion
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
'T is invisible what he is for he makes Darkness his seceret place Psal 18.11 Nothing more clear to the Eye than Light and nothing more difficult to the understanding than the nature of it as Light is the first Object obvious to the Eye so is God the first Object obvious to the Understanding The Arguments from Nature do with greater strength evince his Existence than any pretences can manifest there is no God No man can assure himself by any good reason there is none For as for the likeness of Events to him that is righteous and him that is wicked to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not Eccles. 9.2 It is an Argument for a reserve of Judgment in another State which every mans Conscience dictates to him when the Justice of God shall be glorified in another world as much as his Patience is in this 2. Whosoever doubts of it makes himself a Mark against which all the Creatures fight All the Stars fought against Sisera for Israel All the Stars in Heaven and the Dust on Earth fight for God against the Atheist He hath as many Arguments against him as there are Creatures in the whole compass of Heaven and Earth He is most unreasonable that denies or doubts of that whose Image and Shadow he sees round about him he may sooner deny the Sun that warms him the Moon that in the Night walks in her brightness deny the Fruits he enjoys from the Earth yea and deny that he doth exist He must tear his own Conscience fly from his own Thoughts be changed into the nature of a Stone which hath neither reason nor sense before he can disingage himself from those Arguments which evince the Being of a God He that would make the natural Religion professed in the world a meer Romance must give the lye to the common sense of Mankind he must be at an irreconcileable enmity with his own Reason resolve to hear nothing that it speaks if he will not hear what it speaks in this case with a greater evidence than it can ascertain any thing else God hath so setled himself in the reason of Man that he must vilify the noblest Faculty God hath given him and put off Nature it self before he can blot out the Notion of a God 3. No question but those that have been so bold as to deny that there was a God have sometimes been much afraid they have been in an Error and have at least suspected there was a God when some suddain Prodigy hath presented it self to them and roused their fears And whatsoever Sentiments they might have in their blinding Prosperity they have had other kind of motions in them in their stormy afflictions and like Jonah's Mariners have been ready to cry to him for help whom they disdained to own so much as in being while they swam in their pleasures The thoughts of a Deity cannot be so extinguisht but they will revive and rush upon a Man at least under some sharp affliction Amazing judgments will make them question their own apprehensions God sends some Messengers to keep alive the apprehension of him as a Judg while men resolve not to own or reverence him as a Governour A man cannot but keep a scent of what was born with him As a vessel that hath been seasoned first with a strong juice will preserve the scent of it whatsoever liquors are afterwards put into it 4. What is it for which such men rack their wits to form Notions that there is no God Is it not that they would indulge some vitious habit which hath gained the possession of their Soul which they know cannot be favoured by that holy God whose Notion they would raze out * Psal 94.6.7 Is it not for some brutish affection as degenerative of human Nature as derogatory to the Glory of God a lust as unmanly as sinful The terrours of God are the effects of guilt and therefore men would wear out the apprehensions of a Deity that they might be brutish without controul They would fain believe there were no God that they might not be men but beasts How great a folly is it to take so much pains in vain for a slavery and torment to cast off that which they call a yoke for that which really is one There is more pains and toughness of Soul requisite to shake off the apprehensions of God than to beleive that he is and cleave constantly to him What a madness is it in any to take so much pains to be less than a man by razing out the apprehensions of God when with less pains he may be more than an earthly man by cherishing the notions of God and walking answerably thereunto 5. How unreasonable is it for any man to hazard himself at this rate in the denial of a God The Atheist saith he knows not that there is a God but may he not reasonably think there may be one for ought he knows and if there be what a desperate confusion will he be in when all his bravado's shall prove false What can they gain by such an Opinion a freedom say they from the burdensome yoke of Conscience a liberty to do what they list that doth not subject them to Divine Laws 'T is an hard matter to perswade any that they can gain this They can gain but a sordid pleasure unworthy the Nature of Man But it were well that such would argue thus with themselves If there be a God and I fear and obey him I gain a happy Eternity but if there be no God I lose nothing but my sordid lusts by firmly beleiving there is one If I be deceived at last and find a God can I think to be rewarded by him for disowning him Do not I run a desperate hazard to lose his favour his Kingdom and endless felicity for an endless torment By confessing a God I venture no loss but by denying him I run the most desperate hazard if there be one He is not a reasonable Creature that will not put himself upon such a reasonable arguing What a doleful meeting will there be between the God who is denyed and the Atheist that denyes him who shall meet with reproaches on Gods part and terrors on his own All that he gains is a liberty to defile himself here and a certainty to be despised hereafter if he be in an errour as undoubtedly he is 6. Can any such person say he hath done all that he can to inform himself of the being of God or of other things which he denyes Or rather they would fain imagine there is none that they may sleep securely in their lusts and be free if they could from the thunder-claps of Conscience Can such say they have used their utmost indeavours to instruct themselves in this and can meet with no satisfaction Were it an abstruse Truth it might not be wondred at but not to meet with satisfaction in this which every thing minds us of and
Reprobate Sense and unfit for any good work and judges against all their vain glorious braggs that they had not a Reverence of God in their Hearts there was more of the Denial of God in their Works than there was Acknowledgement of God in their Words Those that have neither God in their Thoughts nor in their Tongues nor in their Works cannot properly be said to acknwledge him Where the Honour of God is not practically owned in the lives of men the Being of God is not sensibly acknowledged in the hearts of men The Principle must be of the same kind with the Actions if the Actions be Atheistical the Principal of them can be no better Prop. 2. All Sin is founded in a secret Atheism Atheism is the Spirit of every Sin all the Flouds of Impieties in the World break in at the Gate of a secret Atheism And though several sins may disagree with one another yet like Herod and Pilate against Christ they joyn hand in hand against the interest of God Though lusts and pleasures be divers yet they are all united in Disobedience to him * Tit. 3.3 All the wicked inclinations in the heart and strugling motions secret repinings self applauding confidences in our own wisdom strength c. envy ambition revenge are sparks from this latent fire the language of every one of these is I would be a Lord to my self and would not have a God Superior to me The variety of sins against the first and second Table the neglects of God and violences against Man are derived from this in the Text first the Fool hath said in his heart and then follows a legion of Devils As all vertuous actions spring from an acknowledgment of God so all vitious actions rise from a lurking Denial of him All licentiousness goes glib down where there is no sense of God Abraham judged himself not secure from Murder nor his Wife from Defilement in Gerar if there were no Fear of God there * Gen. 20.11 He that makes no Conscience of Sin has no regard to the Honour and consequently none to the Being of God By the Fear of God men depart from Evil Pro. 16.6 By the non-regarding of God men rush into Evil. Pharaoh opprest Israel because he knew not the Lord. If he did not deny the Being of a Deity yet he had such an unworthy Notion of God as was inconsistent with the Nature of a Deity he a poor Creature thought himself a Mate for the Creator In sins of Ommission we own not God in neglecting to perform what he enjoyns In sins of Commission we set up some lust in the place of God and pay to that the Homage which is due to our Maker In both we disown him in the one by not doing what he commands in the other by doing what he forbids We deny his Soveraignty when we violate his Laws we disgrace his Holiness when we cast our filth before his Face we disparage his Wisdom when we set up another Rule as the Guide of our Actions than that Law he hath fixed we slight his Sufficiency when we prefer a satisfaction in sin before a happiness in Him alone and his Goodness when we judge it not strong enough to attract us to him Every sin invades the Rights of God and strips him of one or other of his Perfections 'T is such a vilifying of God as if he were not God as if he were not the supream Creator and Benefactor of the World as if we had not our Being from Him as if the Air we breathed in the Food we lived by were our own by right of Supreamacy not of Donation For a Subject to slight his Soveraign is to slight his Royalty or a Servant his Master is to deny his Superiority Prop. 3. Sin implies that God is unworthy of a Being Every Sin is a kind of cursing God in the Heart * Job 1.5 an aim at the destruction of the Being of God not actually but vertually not in the intention of every Sinner but in the nature of every Sin That Affection which excites a man to break his Law would excite him to annihilate his Being if it were in his power A Man in every sin aims to set up his own will as his rule and his own glory as the end of his actions against the will and glory of God and could a Sinner attain his end God would be destroyed God cannot out live his will and his glory God cannot have another rule but his own will nor another end but his own honour Sin is called a turning the back upon God * Jer. 32.33 Deut. 32.15 a kicking against him * Jer. 32.33 Deut. 32.15 as if he were a slighter person than the meanest beggar What greater contempt can be shew'd to the meanest vilest person than to turn the back lift up the heel and thrust away with indignation All which actions though they signifie that such a one hath a Being yet they testifie also that he is unworthy of a Being that he is an unuseful Being in the world and that it were well the world were rid of him All Sin against Knowledge is called a Reproach of God * Numb 15.30 Ezek. 20.27 Reproach is a vilifying a man as unworthy to be admitted into Company We naturally Judge God unfit to be conversed with God is the term turned from by a sinner Sin is the term turned to which implies a greater excellency in the nature of sin than in the nature of God And as we naturally Judge it more worthy to have a being in our affections so consequently more worthy to have a being in the world than that infinite nature from whom we derive our beings and our all and upon whom with a kind of disdain we turn our backs Whosoever thinks the Notion of a Deity unfit to be cherished in his mind by warm Meditation implies that he cares not whether he hath a being in the world or no. Now tho the light of a Deity shines so clearly in Man and the stings of Conscience are so smart that he cannot absolutely deny the being of a God yet most Men endeavour to smother this knowledge and make the Notion of a God a sapless and useless thing Rom. 1.28 They like not to retain God in their knowledge It is said Cain went out from the presence of the Lord Gen. 4.16 That is from the Worship of God Our refusing or abhorring the presence of a man implies a carelessness whether he continue in the World or no T is a using him as if he had no being or as if we were not concerned in it Hence all men in Adam under the Emblem of the prodigal are said to go into a far Country Not in respect of place because of Gods Omnipresence but in respect of acknowledgment and affection they mind and love any thing but God And the descriptions of the Nations of the world lying in the Ruines of Adams fall
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
Job 18.4 Joseph had reason to be displeased with his Brothers if they had muttered because he gave Benjamin a double portion and the rest a single It was unfit that they who had deserved no gift at all should prescribe him rules how to dispense his own doles much more unworthy it is to deal so with God yet this is too rife 5. It is evidenced in corrupt matter or ends of Prayer and praise When we are importunate for those things that we know not whither the righteousness holiness and wisdom of God can grant because he hath not discovered his Will in any promise to bestow them we would then impose such conditions on God which he never oblidged himself to grant when we pray for things not so much to glorifie God which ought to be the end of Prayer as to gratifie our selves We acknowledg indeed by the act of petitioning that there is a God but we would have him un-God himself to be at our beck and debase himself to serve our turns When we desire those things which are repugnant to those attributes whereby he doth manage the Government of the world When by some superficial services we think we have gained indulgence to sins Which seems to be the thought of the Strumpet in her paying her vows to wallowmore freely in the mire of her sensual pleasures * Pro. 7.14 I have peace offerings with me this day I have paid my vows I have made my peace with God and have entertainment for thee Or when men desire God to bless them in the Commission of some sin As when Balack and Balaam offered Sacrifices that they might prosper in the Cursing of the Israelites Numb 25.1 c. So for a Man to pray to God to save him while he neglects the means of Salvation appointed by God Or to renew him when he slights the Word the only Instrument to that purpose This is to impose Laws upon God contrary to the declared Will and wisdom of God and to desire him to slight his own institutions When we come into the presence of God with lusts reeking in our hearts and leap from sin to duty we would impose the Law of our corruption on the holiness of God While we pray the Will of God may be done self-love wishes its own will may be performed as tho God should serve our humors when we will not obey his precepts And when we make vows under any affliction what is it often but a secret conontrivance to bend and flatter him to our conditions We will serve him if he will restore us we think thereby to compound the business with him and bring him down to our terms 6. T is evidenced In positive and bold interpretations of the Judgments of God in the world To interpret the Judgments of God to the disadvantage of the sufferer unless it be an unusual Judgment and have a remarkable hand of God in it and the sin be rendred plainly legible in the affliction is a presumption of this nature When men will Judge the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with the Sacrifices greater sinners than others and themselves righteous because no drops of it were dasht upon them Or when Shimei being of the House of Saul shall Judge according to his own interest and desires Davids flight upon Absoloms rebellion to be a punishment for invading the rights of Sauls Family and depriving him of the succession in the Kingdom 2 Sam. 16.5 as if he had been of Gods Privy Counsel when he decreed such acts of Justice in the world Thus we would fasten our own Wills as a Law or motive upon God and interpret his acts according to the Motions of self Is it not too ordinary when God sends an affliction upon those that bear ill will to us to Judge it to be a righting of our cause to be a fruit of Gods concern for us in revenging our wrongs as if we had heard the secrets of God or as Eliphaz saith had turned over the records of heaven Job 15.8 This is a judgment according to self-love not a divine rule and imposeth Laws upon Heaven implying a secret wish that God would take care only of them make our concerns his own not in ways of kindness and justice but according to our fancies And this is common in the prophane World in those curses they so readily spit out upon any affront as if God were bound to draw his Arrowes and shoot them into the heart of all their offenders at their beck and pleasure 7. It is evidenc'd In mixing rules for the worship of God with those which have been ordered by him Since men are most prone to live by sense 't is no wonder that a sensible worship which affects their outward sence with some kind of amazement is dear to them and spiritual worship most loathsome Pompous rites have been the great Engine wherewith the Devil hath deceived the souls of men and wrought them to a nauseating the simplicity of divine worship as unworthy the Majesty and excellency of God * 2 Cor. 11.3 Thus the Jews would not understand the glory of the second Temple in the presence of the Messiah because it had not the pompous grandeur of that of Solomons erecting Hence in all Ages men have been forward to disfigure Gods models and dress up a brat of their own as though God had been defective in providing for his own honour in his institutions without the assistance of his Creature This hath alwayes been in the world the old World had their imaginations and the new World hath continued them The Israelites in the midst of miracles and under the memory of a famous deliverance would erect a Calf The Pharises that sate in Moses Chair would coyn new Traditions and enjoyn them to be as currant as the Law of God * Mat. 13.6 Papists will be blending the Christian appointments with Pagan Ceremonies to please the carnal fancies of the common people Altars have been multiplied under the knowledge of the Law of God * Hos 8.12 Interest is made the ballance of the conveniency of Gods injunctions Jeroboam fitted a worship to politick ends and posted up Calves to prevent his subjects revolting from his Scepter which might be occasioned by their resort to Hierusalem and converse with the body of the people from whom they were separated * 1 Kings 12.27 Men will be putting in their own dictates with Gods Laws and are unwilling he should be the sole Governour of the World without their Counsel They will not suffer him to be Lord of that which is purely and solely his concern How often hath the practice of the Primitive Church the Custom wherein we are bred the Sentiments of our Ancestors been owned as a more authentick rule in matters of Worship than the mind of God delivered in his word 'T is natural by Creation to worship God and it is as natural by corruption for man to worship him in
sin lies in the neglect of these all grace lies in the practice of them Without some degree of the mortification of these we cannot make profitable and comfortable approaches to God When we come with Idols in our hearts we shall be answered according to the multitude and the baseness of them too * Ezek. 14.4 What expectation of a good look from him can we have when we come before him with undeifying thoughts of him a Petition in our mouths and a Sword in our hearts to stab his honour To this purpose 1. Be often in the views of the excellencies of God When we have no intercourse with God by delightful Meditations we begin to be estranged from him and prepare our selves to live without God in the world Strangness is the Mother and Nurse of disaffection We slight men sometimes because we know them not The very beasts delight in the Company of men when being tamed and familiar they become acquainted with their disposition A dayly converse with God would discover so much of loveliness in his nature so much of sweetness in his ways that our injurious thoughts of God would wear off and we should count it our honour to contemn our selves and magnifie him By this means a slavish fear which is both a dishonour to God and a torment to the Soul * 1 Joh. 4.18 and the root of Atheism will be cast out and an ingenious fear of him wrought in the heart Exercised thoughts on him would issue out in affections to him which would engage our hearts to make him both our rule and our end This course would stifle any temptations to gross Atheism wherewith good Souls are sometimes haunted by confirming us more in the belief of a God and discourage any attempts to a deliberate practical Atheism We are not like to espouse any principle which is confuted by the delightful converse we dayly have with him The more we thus enter into the presence Chamber of God the more we cling about him with our affections the more vigorous and lively will the true Notion of God grow up in us and be able to prevent any thing which may dishonour him and debase our Souls Let us therefore consider him as the only happiness Set up the true God in our understandings possess our hearts with a deep sense of his desirable excellency above all other things This is the main thing we are to do in order to our great business All the directions in the world with the neglect of this will be insignificant Ciphers The neglect of this is Common and is the basis of all the mischiefs which happen to the Souls of men 2. To this purpose Prize and study the Scripture We can have no delight in Meditation on him unless we know him and we cannot know him but by the means of his own Revelation When the Revelation is despised the Revealer will be of little esteem Men do not throw off God from being their rule till they throw off Scripture from being their guide and God must needs be cast off from being an end when the Scripture is rejected from being a Rule Those that do not care to know his Will that love to be ignorant of his nature can never be affected to his honour Let therefore the subtilties of reason vail to the Doctrine of faith and the humor of the Will to the Command of the word 3. Take heed of sensual pleasures And be very watchful and cautious in the use of those comforts God allows us Job was afraid when his Sons feasted that they should Curse God in their hearts * Job 1.4 It was not without cause that the Apostle Peter joyned sobriety with watchfulness and Prayer 1 Pet. 4.7 The end of all things is at hand be ye therefore sober and watch unto Prayer A moderate use of worldly comforts Prayer is the great acknowledgment of God and too much sensuality is a hindrance of this and a step to Atheism Belshazzars lifting himself up against the Lord and not glorifying of God is charged upon his sensuality Dan. 5.23 Nothing is more apt to quench the Notions of God and root out the Conscience of him than an addictedness to sensual pleasures Therefore take heed of that snare 4. Take heed of sins against knowledge The more sins against knowledge are committed the more careless we are and the more careless we shall be of God and his honour We shall more fear his judicial power and the more we fear that the more we shall disaffect that God in whose hand vengeance is and to whom it doth belong Atheism in conversation proceeds to Atheism in affection and that will endeavour to sink into Atheism in opinion and Judgment The Sum of the Whole And now consider in the whole what has been spoken 1. Man would set himself up as his own Rule He disowns the Rule of God is unwilling to have any acquaintance with the Rule God sets him negligent in using the means for the knowledge of his Will and Endeavours to shake it off when any notices of it breaks in upon him VVhen he cannot expel it he hath no pleasure in the Consideration of it and the heart swels against it VVhen the Notions of the Will of God are entertained it is on some other Consideration or with wavering and unsetled affections Many times men designe to improve some lust by his truth This unwillingness respects Truth as t is most Spiritual and holy as it most relates and leads to God as it is most contrary to self He is guilty of Contempt of the Will of God which is seen in every presumptuous breach of his Law In the natural aversions to the declaration of his Will and mind which way soever he turns In slighting that part of his Will which is most for his honour In the awkwardness of the heart when it is to pay God a service A constraint in the first engagement slightness in the service in regard of the matter in regard of the frame without a natural vigour Many distractions much weariness in deserting the Rule of God when our expectations are not answered upon our service in breaking promises with God Man naturally owns any other Rule rather than that of Gods prescribing The Rule of Satan the Will of Man In complying more with the dictates of Men than the Will of God In observing that which is materially so not because it is his Will but the injunctions of Men. In obeying the Will of Man when it is contrary to the Will of God This Man doth in order to the setting up himself This is natural to Man as he is corrupted Men are disatisfied with their own Consciences when they contradict the desires of self Most actions in the world are done more because they are agreeable to self than as they are honourable to God As they are agreable to natural and moral self or sinful self 'T is evident in neglects of taking Gods
the Soul of Man more excellent than other Animals Angels more excellent than Men They contain in their own nature whatsoever dignity there is in the inferior Creatures God must have therefore an excellency above all those and therefore is intirely remote from the conditions of a Body * Calov Socin Proflig P. 129. 130. 'T is a gross conceit therefore to think that God is such a Spirit as the Air is for that is to be a body as the Air is though it be a thin one and if God were no more a Spirit than that or than Angels he would not be the most simple Being * Amirald Sup. Heb. 9. p. 146. c. Yet some think that the spiritual Deity was represented by the Air in the Ark of the Testament It was unlawful to represent him by any Image that God had prohibited Every thing about the Ark had a particular signification The Gold and other Ornaments about it signified something of Christ but were unfit to represent the Nature of God A thing purely invisible and falling under nothing of sense could not represent him to the mind of Man The Air in the Ark was the fittest it represented the invisibility of God Air being imperceptible to our eyes Air diffuseth it self through all parts of the world it glides through secret passages into all Creatures it fills the space between Heaven and Earth there is no place wherein God is not present To evidence this 1. If God were not a Spirit he could not be Creator All multitude begins in and is reduced to unity As above multitude there is an absolute unity So above mixt Creatures there is an absolute simplicity You cannot conceive number without conceiving the beginning of it in that which was not number viz. a unite You cannot conceive any mixture but you must conceive some simple thing to be the Original and Basis of it The works of Art done by rational Creatures have their Foundation in something Spiritual Every Artificer Watch-maker Carpenter hath a model in his own mind of the work he designs to frame The material and outward Fabrick is squared according to an inward and Spiritual Idea A Spiritual Idea speaks a Spiritual faculty as the subject of it God could not have an Idea of that vast number of Creatures he brought into being if he had not had a Spiritual Nature * Amiral moral Tom. 1. pa. 282. The wisdom whereby the world was Created could never be the fruit of a Corporeal nature such natures are not capable of understanding and comprehending the things which are within the compass of their nature much less of produ them And therefore beasts which have only Corporeal faculties move to objects by the force of their sense and have no knowledge of things as they are comprehended by the understanding of Man All acts of wisdom speak an intelligent and Spiritual agent The effects of wisdom goodness power are so great and admirable that they bespeak him a more perfect and eminent being than can possibly be beheld under a bodily shape Can a Coporeal substance put Wisdom in the inward parts and give understanding to the heart * Job 38.16 2. If God were not a pure Spirit he could not be one If God had a body consisting of distinct members as ours or all of one nature as the water and air are yet he were then capable of division and therefore could not be entirely one Either those parts would be finite or infinite if finite they are not parts of God for to be God and finite is a contradiction If infinite then there are as many infinites as distinct members and therefore as many Deities Suppose this body had all parts of the same nature as air and water hath every little part of air is as much air as the greatest and every little part of water is as much water as the Ocean so every little part of God would be as much God as the whole as many particular Deities to make up God as little Atomes to compose a body What can be more absurd If God had a body like a human body and were compounded of body and Soul of substance and quality he could not be the most perfect unity he would be made up of distinct parts and those of a distinct nature as the members of a human body are Where there is the greatest unity there must be the greatest simplicity but God is one As he is free from any change so he is void of any multitude Deut. 6.4 The Lord our God is one Lord. 3. If God had a body as we have he would not be invisible Every material thing is not visible The Air is a body yet invisible but it is sensible the cooling quality of it is felt by us at every breath and we know it by our touch which is the most material sense Every body that hath Members like to bodies is visible But God is invisible * Daille in Tim The Apostle reckons it amongst his other perfections 1 Tim. 1.17 Now unto the King Eternal Immortal Invisible He is invisible to our sense which beholds nothing but material and coloured things and incomprehensible to our understanding that conceives nothing but what is finite God is therefore a Spirit uncapable of being seen and infinitely uncapable of being understood If he be invisible he is also Spiritual If he had a body and hid it from our eyes he might be said not to be seen but could not be said to be invisible When we say a thing is visible we understand that it hath such qualities which are the objects of sense tho we may never see that which is in its own nature is to be seen God hath no such qualities as fall under the perception of our sense His works are visible to us but not his God-head * Rom. 1.20 The nature of a human body is to be seen and handled Christ gives us such a description of it Luke 24.39 Handle me and see for a Spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me have But man hath been so far from seeing God that it is impossible he can see him 1 Tim. 6.16 There is such a disproportion between an infinite object and a finite sense and understanding that it is utterly impossible either to behold or comprehend him But if God had a body more luminous and glorious than that of the Sun he would be as well visible to us as the Sun tho the immensity of that light would dazle our eyes and forbid any close inspection into him by the vertue of our sence We have seen the shape and figure of the Sun but no man hath ever seen the shape of God * Joh. 5.37 If God had a body he were visible tho he might not perfectly and fully be seen by us * Goulart de Dieu pa. 94. As we see the Heavens tho we see not the extension latitude and greatness of them
Tho God hath manifested himself in a bodily shape Gen. 18.1 And elsewhere Jehovah appeared to Abraham Yet the substance of God was not seen no more than the substance of Angels was seen in their Apparitions to men A body was formed to be made visible by them and such actions done in that body that spake the person that did them to be of a higher eminency than a bare Corporeal Creature Sometimes a representation is made to the inward sense and imagination as to Michaiah * 1 King 22.19 and to Isa 6. chap. 1. But they saw not the essence of God but some Images and figures of him proportioned to their sense or imagination The Essence of God no man ever saw nor can see Joh. 1.18 * Goulart de Dieu p. 95. 96. Nor doth it follow that God hath a body because Jacob is said to see God Face to Face Gen. 32.30 And Moses had the like priviledge Deut. 34.10 This only signifies a fuller and clearer manifestation of God by some representations offered to the bodily sense or rather to the inward Spirit For God tells Moses he could not see his Face Exod. 33.20 And that none ever saw the similitude of God Deut. 4.15 Were God a Corporeal substance he might in some measure be seen by Corporeal eies 4. If God were not a Spirit he could not be infinite All bodies are of a finite nature Every body is material and every material thing is terminated The Sun a vast body hath a bounded greatness The Heavens of a mighty bulk yet have their limits If God had a body he must consist of parts those parts would be bounded and limited and whatsoever is limited is of a finite vertue and therefore below an infinite nature Reason therefore tells us that the most excellent nature as God is cannot be of a Corporeal condition because of the limitation and other actions which belong to every body God is infinite for the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain him 2 Chron. 2.6 The largest Heavens and those imaginary spaces beyond the world are no bounds to him He hath an essence beyond the bounds of the world and cannot be included in the vastness of the Heavens If God be infinite then he can have no parts in him if he had they must be finite or infinite Finite parts can never make up an infinite being A vessel of Gold of a pound weight cannot be made of the quantity of an ounce Infinite parts they cannot be because then every part would be equal to the whole as infinite as the whole which is contradictory We see in all things every part is less than the whole bulk that is composed of it As every Member of a Man is less than the whole body of Man If all the parts were finite then God in his Essence were finite and a finite God is not more excellent than a Creature So that if God were not a Spirit he could not be infinite 5. If God were not a Spirit he could not be an independent being Whatsoever is compounded of many parts depends either essentially or integrally upon those parts as the essence of a man depends upon the conjunction and union of his two main parts his Soul and Body when they are separated the essence of a Man ceaseth and the perfection of a man depends upon every Member of the Body So that if one be wanting the perfection of the whole is wanting As if a man hath lost a limb you call him not a perfect man because that part is gone upon which his perfection as an intire man did depend If God therefore had a body the perfection of the Deity would depend upon every part of that body and the more parts he were compounded of the more his dependency would be multiplyed according to the number of those parts of the body For that which is compounded of many parts is more dependent than that which is compounded of fewer And because God would be a dependent being if he had a body he could not be the first being for the compounding parts are in order of nature before that which is compounded by them as the soul and body are before the man which results from the union of them If God had parts and bodily Members as we have or any composition the Essence of God would result from those parts and those parts be supposed to be before God For that which is a part is before that whose part it is As in Artificial things you may conceive it All the parts of a Watch or Clock are in time before that Watch which is made by setting those parts together In natural things you must suppose the Members of a Body framed before you can call it a Man So that the parts of this body are before that which is constituted by them We can conceive no other of God if he were not a pure intire unmixed Spirit If he had distinct parts he would depend upon them those parts would be before him his Essence would be the effect of those distinct parts and so he would not be absolutely and intirely the first Being But he is so Isa 44.6 I am the first and I am the last He is the first nothing is before him Whereas if he had bodily parts and those finite it would follow God is made up of those parts which are not God and that which is not God is in order of Nature before that which is God So that we see if God were not a Spirit he could not be independent 6. If God were not a Spirit he were not immutable and unchangeable His immutability depends upon his simplicity He is unchangeable in his Essence because he is a pure and unmixed spiritual Being Whatsoever is compounded of parts may be divided into those parts and resolved into those distinct parts which make up and constitute the Nature Whatsoever is compounded is changeable in its own nature though it should never be changed Adam who was constituted of Body and Soul had he stood in Innocence had not died there had been no separation made between his Soul and Body whereof he was constituted and his Body had not resolved into those principles of Dust from whence it was extracted Yet in his own nature he was dissoluble into those distinct parts whereof he was compounded And so the glorified Saints in Heaven after the Resurrection and the happy meeting of their Souls and Bodies in a new Marriage knot shall never be dissolved yet in their own nature they are mutable and dissoluble and cannot be otherwise because they are made up of such distinct parts that may be separated in their own nature unless sustained by the grace of God They are immutable by Will the Will of God not by Nature God is immutable by Nature as well as Will As he hath a necessary Existence so he hath a necessary Unchangeableness Mal. 3.6 I the Lord change not He is as unchangeable in his
Essence as in his Veracity and Faithfulness They are perfections belonging to his Nature But if he were not a pure Spirit he could not be immutable by Nature 7. If God were not a pure Spirit He could not be omnipresent He is in Heaven above and the Earth below * Deut. 4.39 He fills Heaven and Earth * Jer. 23.24 The Divine Essence is at once in Heaven and Earth but it is impossible a Body can be in two places at one and the same time Since God is every where he must be spiritual Had he a Body he could not penetrate all things he would be circumscribed in place He could not be every where but in parts not in the whole one member in one place and another in another for to be confined to a particlar place is the property of a Body But since he is diffused through the whole World higher than Heaven deeper than Hell longer than the Earth broader than the Sea * Job 11.8 he hath not any corporeal matter If he had a Body wherewith to fill Heaven and Earth there could be no Body besides his own 'T is the Nature of Bodies to bound one another and hinder the extending of one another Two Bodies cannot be in the same place in the same point of Earth one excludes the other And it will follow hence that we are nothing no substances meer illusions there could be no place for any Body else * Gamacheus Theol. Tom. 1. Quos 3. C. 1. If his Body were as bigg as the World as it must be if with that he filled Heaven and Earth there would not be room for him to move a hand or a foot or extend a finger for there would be no place remaining for the motion 8. If God were not a Spirit he could not be the most perfect Being The more perfect any thing is in the rank of Creatures the more spiritual and simple it is as Gold is the more pure and perfect that hath least mixture of other Metals If God were not a Spirit there would be Creatures of a more excellent Nature than God as Angels and Souls which the Scripture calls Spirits in opposition to Bodies There is more of perfection in the first notion of a Spirit than in the notion of a Body God cannot be less perfect than his Creatures and contribute an excellency of being to them which he wants himself If Angels and Souls possess such an excellency and God want that excellency he would be less than his Creatures and the excellency of the Effect would exceed the excellency of the Cause But every Creature even the highest Creature is infinitely short of the perfection of God for whatsoever excellency they have is finite and limited 't is but a spark from the Sun a drop from the Ocean but God is unboundedly perfect in the highest manner without any limitation and therefore above Spirits Angels the highest Creatures that were made by him An infinite sublimity a pure act to which nothing can be added from which nothing can be taken In him there is light and no darkness * 1 John 1.5 spirituality without any matter perfection without any shadow or taint of imperfection Light pierceth into all things preserves its own purity and admits of no mixture of any thing else with it Question It may be said If God be a Spirit and it is impossible he can be otherwise than a Spirit how comes God so often to have such Members as we have in our Bodies ascribed to him not only a Soul but particular bodily parts as heart arms hands eyes ears face and back-parts And how is it that he is never called a Spirit in plain words but in this Text by our Saviour Answ 'T is true many parts of the Body and natural affections of the human nature are reported of God in Scripture Head * Dan. 7.9 Eyes and Eye-lids * Psal 11.4 Apple of the Eye Mouth c. our Affections also Grief Joy Anger c. But it is to be considered 1. That this is in condescension to our weakness God being desirous to make himself known to Man * Loquitur lex secund ling. filiorum hominum was the H. saying whom he created for his Glory humbles as it were his own Nature to such representations as may sute and assists the capacity of the Creature Since by the condition of our nature nothing erects a notion of it self in our understanding but as it is conducted in by our sence God hath served himself of those things which are most exposed to our sence most obvious to our understandings to give us some acquaintance with his own Nature and those things which otherwise we were not capable of having any notion of As our Souls are linkt with our Bodies so our knowledge is linkt with our sence that we can scarce imagin any thing at first but under a corporeal form and figure till we come by great attention to the Object to make by the help of reason a separation of the spiritual substance from the corporeal fancy and consider it in its own nature We are not able to conceive a Spirit without some kind of resemblance to something below it nor understand the actions of a Spirit without considering the operations of a human Body in its several Members As the Glories of another Life are signified to us by the pleasures of this so the Nature of God by a gracious condescension to our capacities is signified to us by a likeness to our own The more familiar the things are to us which God uses to this purpose the more proper they are to teach us what he intends by them Answ 2. All such representations are to signifie the acts of God as they hear some likeness to those which we perform by those members he ascribes to himself So that those members ascribed to him rather note his visible operations to us than his invisible Nature and signifie that God doth some works like to those which men do by the assistance of those Organs of their Bodies * Amyral de Trin. p. 218. 219. So the wisdom of God is called his Eye because he knows that with his mind which we see with our eyes The efficiency of God is called his Hand and Arm because as we act with our hands so doth God with his Power The divine Efficacies are signified By his eyes and ears we understand his Omniscience by his face the manifestation of his Favour by his mouth the revelation of his Will by his nostrils the acceptation of our Prayers by his bowels the tenderness of his Compassion by his heart the sincerity of his Affections by his hand the strength of his Power by his feet the ubiquity of his Presence And in this he intends instruction and comfort By his eyes he signifies his watchfulness over us By his ears his readiness to hear the crys of the oppressed * Psal 34.15 By his Arm his
Power an Arm to destroy his Enemies and an Arm to relieve his People * Isa 51.9 All those are attributed to God to signifie divine actions which he doth without bodily organs as we do with them 3. Consider also that only those members which are the instruments of the noblest actions and under that consideration are used by him to represent a notion of him to our minds Whatsoever is perfect and excellent is ascribed to him but nothing that savours of imperfection * Episcop institu l. 4. § 3. c. 3 The heart is ascribed to him it being the principle of vital actions to signifie the Life that he hath in himself Watchful and discerning eys not sleepy and lazy ones A mouth to reveal his Will not to take in food To eat and sleep are never ascribed to him nor those parts that belong to the preparing or transmitting nourishment to the several parts of the body as stomach liver reins nor bowels under that consideration but as they are significant of compassion but only those parts are ascribed to him whereby we acquire knowledge as eyes and ears the Organs of learning and wisdom Or to Communicate it to others as the mouth lips tongue as they are the Instrmments of speaking not of tasting Or those parts which signifie strength and power or whereby we perform the actions of Charity for the relief of others Tast and touch senses that extend no further than to Corporeal things and are the grossest of all the senses are never ascribed to him * T is Zanchieâ— observation Tom. 2. de natura Dei lib. 1. cap. 4. Thes 9. It were worth consideration whither this describing God by the Members of an human body were so much figuratively to be understood as with respect to the incarnation of our Saviour who was to assume the human nature and all the Members of a human body Asaph speaking in the person of God Psal 78.1 I will open my mouth in Parables In regard of God it is to be understood figuratively but in regard of Christ literally to whom it is applied Matt. 13.34.35 And that Apparition Isa 6. which was the appearance of Jehovah is applied to Christ John 12.40.41 * Amiraut Meral Tâ—m 1. pa. 293. 294. After the report of the Creation and the forming of man we read of Gods speaking to him but not of Gods appearing to him in any visible shape A voice might be formed in the air to give man notice of his duty some way of infoâ—â—aâ—iâ—n he must have what positive Laws he was to observe besides that Law wâ—â—ch wâ—â—â—â—graven in his nature which we call the Law of nature And without a voice the knowledge of the Divine Will could not be so conveniently communicated to man Tho God was heard in a voice he was not seen in a shape But after the fall we several times read of his appearing in such a form Tho we read of his speaking before mans committing of sin yet not of his walking which is more Corporeal till afterwards * Gen. 3.8 Tho God would not have man believe him to be Corporeal yet he judged it expedient to give some prenotices of that Divine incarnation which he had promised * Amirald 5. Therefore we must not conceive of the visible Deity according to the letter of such expressions but the true intent of them Tho the Scripture speaks of his eyes and arm yet it denies them to be arms of flesh * Job 10.4 2 Chron. 32.8 We must not conceive of God according to the Letter but the design of the Metaphor When we hear things described by Metaphorical expressions for the clearing them up to our fancy we conceive not of them under that garb but remove the vail by an act of our reason When Christ is called a Sun a Vine Bread is any so stupid as as to conceive him to be a Vine with material branches and Clusters or be of the same nature with a Loaf But the things designed by such Metaphors are obvious to the conception of a mean understanding If we would conceive God to have a body like a man because he describes himself so we may conceit him to be like a Bird because he is mentioned with wings * Psal 36.7 or like a Lyon or Leopard because he likens himself to them in the Acts of his strength and fury * Hos 13.7.8 He is called a rock a horn fire to note his strength and wrath If any be so stupid as to think God to be really such they would make him not only a man but worse than a Monster * Maimon More Nevoc par 1. cap. 27. Onkelos the Chalde Paraphrast upon parts of the Scripture was so tender of expressing the Notion of any Corporeity in God that when he meets with any expressions of that nature he translates them according to the true intent of them as when God is said to descend Gen. 11.5 which implies a local motion a motion from one place to another he translates it and God revealed himself We should conceive of God according to the design of the expressions When we read of his eyes we should conceive his Omniscience of his hand his power of his sitting his immutability of his Throne his Majesty and conceive of him as surmounting not only the grossness of bodies but the Spiritual excellency of the most dignified Creatures something so perfect great spiritual as nothing can be conceived higher and purer * Mores conjectura cabalistica pa. 122. Christ saith one is truly Deus figuratus and for his sake was it more easily permitted to the Jews to think of God in the shape of a man Use If God be a pure Spiritual being then 1. Man is not the image of God according to his external bodily form and figure The image of God in man consisted not in what is seen but in what is not seen not in the conformation of the members but rather in the Spiritual faculties of the Soul or most of all in the holy endowments of those faculties Eph. 4.24 That ye put on the new man which after God is Created in righteousness and true holiness * Col. 3 1â— The image which is restored by redeeming grace was the image of God by Original nature The image of God cannot be in that part which is common to us with beasts but rather in that wherein we excell all living Creatures in reason understanding and an immortal Spirit God expresly saith that none saw a similitude of him Deut. 4.15 16. which had not been true if man in regard of his body had been the image and similitude of God for then a figure of God had been seen every day as often as we saw a man or beheld our selves Nor would the Apostles argument stand good Acts 17.29 That the Godhead is not like to stone graven by art if we were not the off-spring of God and bore the stamp of
be a slight and mean Being Our being in Covenant with him must not lower our awful apprehensions of him As he is the Lord thy God 't is a gloririous and fearful Name or wonderful * Deut. 28.58 Though he lay by his Justice to Believers he doth not lay by his Majesty When we have a confidence in him because he is the Lord our God we must have awful thoughts of his Majesty because his name is glorious God is terrible from his Holy-places in regard of the great things he doth for his Israel * Psal 68.35 We should behave our selves with that inward honour and respect of him as if he were present to our bodily eyes The higher apprehensions we have of his Majesty the greater aw will be upon our hearts in his presence and the greater spirituality in our acts We should manage our hearts so as if we had a view of God in his heavenly glory 9. Spiritual Worship is to be performed with humility in our Spirits This is to follow upon the reverence of God As we are to have high thoughts of God that we may not debase him we must have low thoughts of our selves not to vaunt before him When we have right notions of the Divine Majesty we shall be as Worms in our own thoughts and creep as Worms into his presence We can never consider him in his Glory but we have a fit opportunity to reflect upon our selves and consider how basely we revolted from him and how graciously we are restored by him As the Gospel affords us greater discoveries of Gods nature and so enhaunceth our reverence of him so it helps us to a fuller understanding of our own vileness and weakness and therefore is proper to ingender Humility The more spiritual and evangelical therefore any service is the more humble it is That is a spiritual service that doth most manifest the glory of God and this cannot be manifested by us without manifesting our own emptiness and nothingness The Heathens were sensible of the necessity of Humility by the Light of Nature * Plutarch Moral P. 344. after the Name of God signified by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inscribed on the Temple at Delphos followed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereby was insinuated that when we have to do with God who is the only Ens we should behave our selves with a sense of our own infirmity and infinite distance from him As a person so a duty leavened with Pride hath nothing of sincerity and therefore nothing of spirituality in it Hab. 2.4 His Soul which is lifted up is not upright in him The Elders that were crowned by God to be Kings and Priests to offer spiritual Sacrifices uncrown themselves in their worship of him and cast down their Ornaments at his feet * Revel 4 1◠compared with 5. and the 1◠The Greek word to worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to creep like a Dog upon his belly before his Master to lye low How deep should our sense be of the priviledge of Gods admitting us to his worship and affording us such a mercy under our deserts of wrath How mean should be our thoughts both of our persons and performances How patiently should we wait upon God for the success of worship How did Abraham the Father of the Faithful equal himself to the Earth when he supplicated the God of Heaven and devote himself to him under the title of very Dust and Ashes * Gen. 18.27 Isaiah did but behold an Evangelical Apparition of God and the Angels worshipping him and presently reflects upon his own uncleaness * Isa 6.5 Gods presence both requires and causes Humility How lowly is David in his own opinion after a magnificent duty performed by himself and his people 1 Chron. 29.14 Who am I And what is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly The more spiritual the Soul is in its carriage to God the more humble it is and the more gracious God is in his communications to the Soul the lower it lies God commanded not the fiercer Creatures to be offered to him in Sacrifices but Lambs and Kids meek and lowly Creatures none that had stings in their tails or venom in their tongues * Caudam aculeatam vel linguam nigram Alexand. ab Alex. l. 3. c. 12. The meek Lamb was the daily Sacrifice The Doves were to be offered by Pairs God would not have Hony mixed with any Sacrifice Levit. 2.11 That breeds Choler and Choler Pride but Oyle he commanded to be used that supples and mollifies the parts Swelling Pride and boiling Passions render our services carnal they cannot be spiritual without an humble sweetness and an innocent sincerity One grain of this transcends the most costly Sacrifices A Contrite Heart puts a gloss upon Worship * Psal 51.16 17 The departure of men and Angels from God began in Pride Our approaches and return to him must begin in Humility And therefore all those Graces which are bottom'd on Humility must be acted in worship as Faith and a sense of our own indigence Our blessed Saviour the most spiritual Worshipper prostrated himself in the Garden with the greatest lowliness and offered himself upon the Cross a Sacrifice with the greatest humility Melted Souls in worship have the most spiritual conformity to the person of Christ in the state of humiliation and his design in that state As worship without it is not sutable to God so neither is it advantageous for us A time of worship is a time of Gods Communication The Vessel must be melted to receive the Mould it is designed for Softned wax is fittest to receive a stamp and a spiritually melted Soul fittest to receive a spiritual impression We cannot perform duty in an evangelical and spiritual strain without the meltingness and meaness in our selves which the Gospel requires 10. Spiritual worship is to be performed with Holiness God is a holy Spirit a likeness to God must attend the worshipping of God as he is Holiness is alway in season It becomes his house for ever * Psal 91.5 We can never serve the living God till we have Consciences purged from dead works Heb. 9.14 Dead works in our Consciences are unsutable to God an eternal living Spirit The more mortified the heart the more quickned the service Nothing can please an infinite Purity but that which is pure Since God is in his Glory in his Ordinances we must not be in our Filthiness The Holiness of his Spirit doth sparkle in his Ordinances The holiness of our Spirits ought also to sparkle in our observance of them The Holiness of God is most celebrated in the worship of Angels * Isa 6.3 Revel 4.8 Spiritual worship ought to be like Angelical That cannot be with Souls totally impure As there must be perfect holiness to make a worship perfectly spiritual so there must be some degree of holiness to make it in any measure spiritual God would
one as well as the other denies his spiritual nature This is worse for had it been lawful to represent God to the eye it could not have been done but by a bodily figure suted to the sense but since it is necessary to worship him it cannot be by a corporeal attendance without the operation of the Spirit A spiritual frame is more pleasing to God than the highest exterior adornments than the greatest gifts and the highest Prophetical illuminations The glory of the second Temple exceeded the glory of the first * Hag. 2.8 9. As God accounts the spiritual glory of Ordinances most beneficial for us so our spiritual attendance upon Ordinances is most pleasing to him He that offers the greatest services without it offers but flesh Hos 8.13 They sacrifice Flesh for the Sacrifices of my Offerings but the Lord accepts them not Spiritual frames are the Soul of Religious services all other carriages without them are contemptible to this Spirit We can never lay claim to that promise of God none shall seek my face in vain We affect a vain seeking of him when we want a due temper of Spirit for him And vain Spirits shall have vain returns 'T is more contrary to the nature of Gods Holiness to have communion with such than it is contrary to the nature of Light to have communion with Darkness To make use of this Vse 1. First it serves for information 1. If spiritual worship be required by God How sad is it for them that are so far from giving God a spiritual worship that they render him no worship at all I speak not of the neglect of publick but of private when men present not a devotion to God from one years end to the other The speech of our Saviour that we must worship God in Spirit and Truth implies that a worship is due to him from every one That is the common impression upon the Consciences of all men in the world if they have not by some constant course in gross sins hardned their Souls and stifled those natural sentiments There was never a Nation in the world without some kind of Religion and no Religion was ever without some modes to testifie a devotion The Heathens had their Sacrifices and Purifications and the Jews by Gods order had their rites whereby they were to express their Allegiance to God Consider 1. Worship is a duty incumbent upon all men 'T is a homage Mankind ows to God under the relation wherein he stands obliged to him 'T is a prime and immutable justice to own our Allegiance to him 'T is as unchangeable a truth that God is to be worshipped as that God is He is to be worshipped as God as Creator and therefore by all since he is the Creator of all the Lord of all and all are his Creatures and all are his Subjects Worship is founded upon Creation Psal 100.2 3. 'T is due to God for himself and his own essential excellency and therefore due from all 'T is due upon the account of mans nature The human rational nature is the same in all Whatsoever is due to God upon the account of mans nature and the natural obligations he hath laid upon man is due from all men because they all enjoy the benefits which are proper to their nature Man in no state was exempted nor can be exempted from it In Paradise he had his Sabbath and Sacraments Man therefore dissolves the obligation of a reasonable nature by neglecting the worship of God Religion is in the first place to be minded As soon as Noah came out of the Ark he contrived not a Habitation for himself but an Altar for the Lord to acknowledge him the Author of his preservation from the Deluge * Gen. 8.20 And wheresoever Abraham came his first business was to erect an Altar and pay his arrears of gratitude to God before he ran upon the score for new mercies * Gen. 12.7 Gen. 13.4.18 He left a testimony of worship where ever he came 2. Wholly therefore to neglect it is a high degree of Atheism He that calls not upon God saith in his heart there is no God and seems to have the sentiments of natural Conscience as to God stifled in him * Psal 14.1 4 It must arise from a conceit that there is no God or that we are equal to him adoration not being due from persons of an equal state or that God is unable or unwilling to take notice of the adoring acts of his Creatures What is any of these but an undeifying the supream Majesty When we lay aside all thoughts of paying any homage to him we are in a fair way opinionatively to deny him as much as we practically disown him Where there is no knowledge of God that is no acknowledgment of God a gap is opened to all licentiousness * Hos 4.1 2. And that by degrees brawns the Conscience and raseth out the sense of God Those forsake God that forget his holy Mountain * Isa 65.11 They do not practically own him as the Creator of their Souls or bodies 'T is the sin of Cain who turning his back upon worship is said to go out from the presence of the Lord * Gen. 4.16 Not to worship him with our Spirits is against his Law of Creation Not to worship him at all is against his act of Creation Not to worship him in truth is Hypocrisie Not to worship him at all is Atheism whereby we render our selves worse than the worms in the Earth or a toad in a Ditch 3. To perform a worship to a false God or to the true God in a false manner seems to be less a sin than to live in perpetual neglects of it Though it be directed to a false Object instead of God yet it is under the notion of a God and so is an acknowledgement of such a Being as God in the world whereas the total neglect of any worship is a practical denying of the existence of any supream Majesty Whosoever constantly omits a publick and private worship transgresses against an universally received dictate For all Nations have agreed in the common notion of worshipping God though they have disagreed in the several modes and rites whereby they would testifie that adoration By a worship of God though superstitious a veneration and reverence of such a being is maintained in the world whereas by a total neglect of worship he is vertually disowned and discarded if not from his existence yet from his Providence and Government of the world All the mercies we breath in are denied to flow from him A foolish worship owns Religion though it bespatters it As if a stranger coming into a Country mistakes a Subject for the Prince and pays that reverence to the Subject which is due to the Prince though he mistakes the object yet he owns an Authority or if he pays any respect to the true Prince of that Country after the mode of
a good Concoction when there is a greater strength in the vitals of Religion a more eager desire to know God When Moses had been praying to God and prevailed with him he puts up a higher request to behold his Glory * Exod. 33.13 18. When the appetite stands strong to fuller discoveries of God it is a sign there hath been a spiritual converse with him 2. How is it especially as to humility The Pharisees worship was without dispute carnal and we find them not more humble after all their devotions but over-grown with more weeds of spiritual pride they performed them as their righteousness What men dare plead before God in his day they plead before him in their hearts in their day but this men will do at the day of Judgement we have prophesied in thy Name c. Mat. 7.21 They shew what tincture their services left upon their Spirits That which excludes them from any acceptation at the last day excludes them from any estimation of being spiritual in this day The carnal Worshippers charge God with Injustice in not rewarding them and claim an acceptation as a compensation due to them Isa 58.3 Wherefore have we afflicted our Souls and thou takest no knowledge A spiritual Worshipper looks upon his duties with shame as well as he doth upon his sins with confusion and implores the mercy of God for the one as well as the other In the 143 Psalm v. 2. the Prophet David after his supplications begs of God not to enter into Judgment with him and acknowledges any answer that God should give him as a fruit of his faithfulness to his promise and not the merit of his worship * Psal 143.2 In thy Faithfulness answer me c. Whatsoever springs from a gracious Principle and is the breath of the Spirit leaves a man more humble whereas that which proceeds from a stock of nature hath the true blood of nature running in the veins of it viz. that pride which is naturally derived from Acam The breathing of the Divine Spirit is in every thing to conform us to our Redeemer that being the main work of his Office is his work in every particular Christian-act influenced by him Now Jesus Christ in all his actions was an exact Pattern of Humility After the institution and celebration of the Supper a special act of worship in the Church though he had a sense of all the Authority his Father had given him yet he humbles himself to wash his Disciples feet * John 13.2 3 4 And after his sublime Prayer John 17. He humbles himself to the death and offers himself to his Murderers because of his Fathers pleasure John 18.1 When he had spoken those words he wâ—nt over the Brook Kedron into the Garden What is the end of God in appointing worship is the end of a spiritual heart in offering it not his own exaltation but Gods glory Glorifying the name of God is the fruit of that Evangelical-worship the Gentiles were in time to give to God Psal 86.9 All Nations which thou hast made shall come and worship before thee oh Lord and shall glorifie thy Name Let us examin then what debasing our selves there is in a sense of our own vileness and distance from so glorious a Spirit Self-denial is the heart of all Gospel-grace Evangelical Spiritual-worship cannot be without the ingredient of the main Evangelical Principle 3. What delight is there after it What pleasure is there and what is the Object of that pleasure Is it Communion the we have had with God or a Fluency in our selves Is it something which hath touched our hearts or tickled our fancies As the strength of sin is known by the delightful thoughts of it after the commission so is the spirituality of duty by the object of our delightful remembrance after the performance It was a sign David was spiritual in the worship of God in the Tabernacle when he enjoyed it because he longed for the spiritual part of it when he was exil'd from it His desires were not only for Liberty to revisit the Tabernacle but to see the power and glory of God in the Sanctuary as he had seen it before * Psal 63.2 His desires for it could not have been so ardent if his reflection upon what had past had not been delightful nor could his Soul be poured out in him for the want of such opportunities if the remembrance of the converse he had had with God had not been accompanied with a delightful relish * Psal 42.4 Let us examin what delight we find in our spirits after worship Vse 3. Is of comfort And 't is very comfortable to consider that the smallest worship with the Heart and Spirit flowing from a principle of grace is more acceptable than the most pompous veneration yea if the oblation were as precious as the whole Circuit of Heaven and Earth without it That God that values a Cup of Cold water given to any as his Disciple will value a sincere service above a costly Sacrifice God hath his eye upon them that honour his nature He would not seek such to worship him if he did not intend to accept such a worship from them When we therefore invoke him and praise him which are the prime parts of Religion he will receive it as a sweet favour from us and overlook infirmities mixed with the graces The great matter of discomfort and that which makes us question the spirituality of worship is the many starts of our Spirits and rovings to other things For answer to which 1. 'T is to be confest that these starts are natural to us Who is free from them We bear in our own bosoms a nest of turbulent thoughts which like busie Gnatts will be buzzing about us while we are in our most inward and spiritual converses Many wild beasts lurk in a mans heart as in a close and covert wood and scarce discover themselves but at our solemn worship No duty so holy No worship so spiritual that can wholly priviledge us from them They will jogg us in our most weighty employments that as God said to Cain sin lyes at the door and enters in and makes a riot in our Souls As it is said of wicked men they cannot sleep for multitude of thoughts * Eccles 5.12 so it may be of many a good man he cannot worship for multitude of thoughts There will be starts and more in our Religious than natural imployments 't is natural to man Some therefore think the Bells tied to Aarons Garments between the Pomegranates were to warn the People and recall their fugitive minds to the present service when they heard the sound of them upon the least motion of the High priest The Sacrifice of Abraham the Father of the Faithful was not exempt from the Fouls pecking at it * Gen. 15.11 Zechariah himself was drowsie in the midst of his Visions which being more amazing might cause a heavenly intentness*
any Creature is from Grace and Gift Naturally we tend to nothing as we come from nothing This Creature-mutability is not our sin yet it should cause us to lye down under a sense of our own nothingness in the presence of the Creator The Angels as Creatures though not corrupt cover their faces before him And the Arguments God uses to humble Job though a fallen Creature are not from his Corruption for I do not remember that he taxed him with that but from the greatness of his Majesty and excellency of his Nature declared in his Works * Job 38.39 40.41 And therefore Men that have no sense of God and humility before him forget that they are Creatures as well as corrupt ones How great is the distance between God and us in regard of our inconstancy in good which is not natural to us by Creation For the mind and affections were regular and by the great Artificer were pointed to God as the Object of Knowledge and Love We have the same faculties of Understanding Will and Affection as Adam had in Innocence but not with the same Light the same Bias and the same Ballast Man by his fall wounded his head and heart the wound in his head made him unstable in the Truth and that in his heart unstedfast in his Affections He changed himself from the Image of God to that of the Devil from Innocence to Corruption and from an ability to be stedfast to a perpetual Inconstancy His Silver became Dross and his Wine was mixed with Water * Isa 1.22 He changed 1. To inconstancy in Truth opposed to the Immutability of Knowledge in God How are our Minds floating between Ignorance and Knowledge Truth in us is like those Ephemera Creatures of a days continuance springs up in the Morning and expires at Night How soon doth that fly away from us which we have had not only some weak flashes of but which we have learned and have had some relish of The Devil stood not in the Truth * John 8.44 and therefore manages his Engines to make us as unstable as himself Our Minds reel and corrupt reasonings oversway us like Spunges we suck up Water and a light compression makes us spout it out again Truths are not engraven upon our hearts but writ as in Dust defaced by the next puff of Wind carried about with every Wind of Doctrin Eph. 4.14 Like a Ship without a Pilot and Sails at the courtesy of the next Storm or like Clouds that are Tenants to the Wind and Sun moved by the Wind and melted by the Sun The Galatians were no sooner called into the Grace of God but they were removed from it * Gal. 1.6 Some have been reported to have menstruam fidem kept an Opinion for a Month and many are like him that believed the Souls Immortality no longer than he had Plato's Book of that Subject in his hand * Sedgwick Christs Counsel p. 230. One likens such to Children they play with Truths as Children do with Babies one while embrace them and a little after throw them into the Durt How soon do we forget what the Truth is delivered to us and what it represented us to be * James 1.23.24 Is it not a thing to be bewailed that Man should be such a Weathercock turned about with every Breath of Wind and shifting Aspects as the Wind shifts Points 2. Inconstancy in Will and Affections opposed to the Immutability of Will in God We waver between God and Baal and while we are not only resolving but upon motion a little way look back with a hankring after Sodom Sometimes lifted up with heavenly intentions and presently cast down with earthly cares like a Ship that by an advancing Wave seems to aspire to Heaven and the next fall of the Waves makes it sink down to the Depths We change Purposes oftner than Fashions and our Resolutions are like Letters in water whereof no mark remains We will be as John to day to love Christ and as Judas to morrow to betray him and by an unworthy levity pass into the Camp of the Enemies of God resolv'd to be as holy as Angels in the Morning when the Evening beholds us as impure as Devils How often do we hate what before we loved and shun what before we longed for And our Resolutions are like Vessels of Christal which break at the first knock are dasht in pieces by the next Temptation Saul resolved not to persecute David any more but you soon find him upon his old game Pharaoh more than once promised and probably resolved to let Israel go but at the end of the storm his purposes vanish * Exod. 8.27 32. When an Affliction pincheth Men they intend to change their course and the next news of ease changes their intentions Like a Bow not fully bent in their inclinations they cannot reach the Mark but live many years between resolutions of Obedience and affections to Rebellion * Psal 78.17 And what promises men make to God are often the fruit of their Passion their Fear not of their Will The Israelites were startled at the terrors wherewith the Law was delivered and promised obedience * Exod. 20.19 but a Month after forgat them and make a Golden Calf and in the sight of Sinai call for and dance before their Gods * Exod. 32. Never people more unconstant Peter who vowed an Allegiance to his Master and a Courage to stick to him forswears him almost with the same breath Those that cry out with a zeal the Lord he is God shortly after return to the service of their Idols * 1 Kings 18.39 That which seems to be our pleasure this day is our vexation to morrow A Fear of a Judgment puts us into a religious pang and a Love to our Lusts reduceth us to a rebellious inclination As soon as the danger is over the Saint is forgotten Salvation and Damnation present themselves to us touch us and ingender some weak wishes which are dissolved by the next allurements of a carnal interest No hold can be taken of our promises no credit is to be given to our resolutions 3. Inconstancy in practice How much beginning in the Spirit and ending in the Flesh one day in the Sanctuary another in the Stews clear in the morning as the Sun and clouded before noon in Heaven by an excellency of Gifts in Hell by a course of prophanness Like a Flower which some mention that changes its colour three times a day one part white then purple then yellow The Spirit lusts against the Flesh and the Flesh quickly triumphs over the Spirit In a good man how often is there a Spiritual Lethargy Tho he doth not openly defame God yet he doth not alwayes glorifie him He doth not forsake the truth but he doth not alwayes make the attainment of it and settlement in it his business This levity discovers it self in religious duties when I would do
thus That he is not every where by parts as Bodies are as Air and Light are He is every where i. e. his Nature hath no bounds he is not tyed to any place as the Creature is who when he is present in one place is absent from another As no place can be without God so no place can compass and contain him 2. There is an influential Omnipresence of God 1. Vniversal with all Creatures He is present with all things by his Authority because all things are subject to him By his power because all things are sustained by him By his Knowledge because all things are naked before him He is present in the World as a King is in all parts of his Kingdom Regally present Providentially present with all since his Care extends to the meanest of his Creatures His Power reacheth all and his Knowledge pierceth all As every thing in the World was Created by God so every thing in the World is preserved by God and since Preservation is not wholly distinct from Creation 't is necessary God should be present with every thing while he preserves it as well as present with it when he Created it * Psal 36.6 Thou preservest man and Beast †Heb. 1.3 He upholds all things by the word of his Power There is a vertue sustaining every Creature that it may not fall back into that nothing from whence it was elevated by the Power of God All those natural Vertues we call the Principles of Operation are Fountains springing from his Goodness and Power all things are acted and managed by him as well as preserved by him and in this sense God is present with all Creatures for whatsoever acts another is present with that which it acts by sending forth some vertue and influence whereby it acts If free Agents do not only live but move in him and by him * Acts 17.28 much more are the motions of other natural Agents by a vertue communicated to them and upheld in them in the time of their acting This vertual presence of God is evident to our sense a presence we feel his essential presence is evident in our Reason This influential presence may be compar'd to that of the Sun which though at so great a distance from the Earth is present in the Air and Earth by its Light and within the Earth by its influence in concocting those Metals which are in the Bowels of it without being substantially either of them God is thus so intimate with every Creature that there is not the least particle of any Creature but the marks of his Power and Goodness are seen in it and his Goodness doth attend them and is more swift in its effluxes than the breakings out of Light from the Sun which yet are more swift than can be declar'd but to say he is in the World only by his Vertue is to acknowledge only the effects of his Power and Wisdom in the World That his Eye sees all his Arm supports all his Goodness nourisheth all but Himself and his Essence at a distance from them * Zanch. and so the Soul of man according to its measure would have in some kind a more excellent manner of Presence in the body than God according to the Infiniteness of his Being with his Creatures for that doth not only communicate Life to the Body but is actually present with it and spreads its whole Essence through the Body and every Member of it All grant That God is efficaciously in every Creek of the World but some say he is only substantially in Heaven 2. Limited to such Subjects that are capacitated for this or that kind of Presenâ—e Yet it is an Omnipresence because it is a Presence in all the Subjects capacitated for it thus there is a special Providential Presence of God with some in assisting them when he sets them on work as his Instruments for some special Service in the World As with Cyrus * Isa 4â— 2 I will go before thee and with Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander whom he Protected and Directed to execute his Counsels in the World such a presence Judas and others †Mat. 7.22 that shall not enjoy his glorious Presence had in the working of Miracles in the world In thy name we have done many wonderful works Besides * Cajetan in Aquin Par. 1. Qu 8 Artic. 3. as there is an effective Presence of God with all Creatures because he produced them and preserves them so there is an objective Presence of God with rational Creatures because he offers himself to them to be known and loved by them He is near to Wicked men in the offers of his Grace * Isa 55.6 call ye upon him while he is near Besides there is a gracious Presence of God with his People in whom he dwells and makes his abode as in a Temple Consecrated to him by the Graces of the Spirit †John 14.23 We will come i. e. the Father and the Son and make our abode with him He is present with all by the Presence of his Divinity but only in his Saints by a Presence of a gracious Efficacy he walks in the midst of the Golden Candlesticks and hath Dignifi'd the Congregation of his People with the Title of Jehovah Sbammah * Ezek. 48.35 The Lord is there In Salem is his Tabernacle and his dwelling place in Sion †Psal 76.2 As he filled the Tabernacle so he doth the Church with the Signs of his Presence this is not the Presence wherewith he fills Heaven and Earth His Spirit is not bestowed upon all to reside in their hearts enlighten their minds and bedew them with refreshing Comforts When the Apostle speaks of Gods being Above all and through all * Eph. 4.6 Above all in his Majesty Through all in his Providence he doth not appropriate that as he doth what follows and in you all in you all by a special Grace as God was specially present with Christ by the Grace of Union so he is specially present with his People by the Grace of Regeneration So there are several manifestations of his Presence he hath a Presence of Glory in Heaven whereby he Comforts the Saints a Presence of Wrath in Hell whereby he Torments the Damned in Heaven he is a God spreading his Beams of Light in Hell a God distributing his Strokes of Justice by the one he fills Heaven by the other he fills Hell by his Providence and Essence he fills both Heaven and Earth 3. There is an Essential Presence of God in the World He is not only every where by his Power upholding the Creatures by his Wisdom understanding them but by his Essence containing them That any thing is essentially present any where it hath from God God is therefore much more present every where for he cannot give that which he hath not 1. He is Essentially present in all places * Ficin 'T is as reasonable to think the
ignorant of vvhat is done vvithin and vvithout no ignorance can be fastned upon him vvho hath an Universal Presence Hence by the way we may take notice of the wonderful Patience of God who bears with so many provocations not from a Principle of Ignorance for he bears with Sins that are committed near him in his sight Sins that he sees and cannot but see 5. Hence may be infer'd the Incomprehensibility of God He that fills Heaven and Earth cannot be contain'd in any thing he fills the Understandings of Men the Understandings of Angels but is comprehended by neither 't is a rashness to think to find out any bounds of God there 's no measuring of an infinite Being if it were to be measur'd it were not infinite but because it is infinite it is not to be measured God sits above the Cherubims * Ezek. 10.1 above the fulness above the brightness not only of a humane but a created understanding Nothing is more present than God yet nothing more hid he is Light and yet obscurity * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dyonisius called God his Perfections are visible yet unsearchable We know there is an infinite God but it surpasseth the compass of our minds we know there is no Number so great but another may be added to it but no man can put it in practice without losing himself in a maze of Figures What is the reason we comprehend not many nay most things in the World partly from the Excellency of the object and partly from the Imperfection of our understandings How can we then comprehend God who exceeds all and is exceeded by none contains all and is contained by none is above our understanding as well as above our sense as considered in himself infinite as consider'd in comparison with our understandings incomprehensible who can with his eye measure the breadth length and depth of the Sea and at one cast view every dimension of the Heavens God is greater and we cannot know him Job 36.26 he fills the understanding as he fills Heaven and Earth yet is above the understanding as he is above Heaven and Earth He is known by Faith enjoy'd by love but comprehended by no mind God is not contain'd in that one Syllable God by it we apprehend an excellent and unlimited nature himself only understands himself and can unveil himself 6. How wonderful is God and how nothing are Creatures Ascribe the Greatness to our God * Deut. 33.3 He is admirable in the consideration of his Power in the extent of his understanding and no less wonderful in the immensity of his Essence That as Austin saith he is in the World yet not confin'd to it he is out of the World yet not debarr'd from it he is above the World yet not elevated by it he is below the World yet not deprest by it he is above all equall'd by none he is in all not because he needs them but they stand in need of him this as well as Eternity makes a vast disproportion between God and the Creature The Creature is bounded by a little space and no space is so great as to bound the Creator By this we may take a prospect of our own nothingness as in the consideration of Gods Holiness we are minded of our own impurity and in the thoughts of his Wisdom have a view of our own folly and in the meditation of his Power have a sense of our weakness so his Immensity should make us according to our own nature appear little in our own eyes What little little little things are we to God less than an Atome in the Beams of the Sun poor drops to a God that fills Heaven and Earth and yet dare we to strut against him and dash our selves against a Rock If the consideration of our selves in comparison with others be apt to puff us up the consideration of our selves in comparison with God will be sufficient to pull us down if we consider him in the greatness of his Essence there is but little more proportion between him and us than between being and not being than between a Drop and the Ocean How should we never think of God without a Holy Admiration of his Greatness and a deep sense of our own littleness and as the Angels cover their faces before him with what awe should creeping Worms come into his Sight and since God fills Heaven and Earth with his Presence we should fill Heaven and Earth with his Glory for this end he Created Angels to Praise him in Heaven and men to Worship him on Earth that the Places he fills with his Presence may be filled with his Praise We should be swallow'd up in admirations of the Immensity of God as men are at the first sight of the Sea when they behold a mass of Waters without beholding the bounds and immense depth of it 7. How much is this Attribute of God forgotten or contemned We pretend to believe him to be present every where and yet many live as if he were present no where 1. 'T is commonly forgotten or not believ'd All the extravagancies of men may be traced to the forgetfulness of this Attribute as their Spring The first Speech Adam spake in Paradice after his fall testified his unbelief of this * Gen. 3.10 I heard thy Voyce in the Garden and I hid my self his ear understood the voice of God but his mind did not conclude the Presence of God he thought the Trees could shelter him from him whose eye was present in the minutest parts of the Earth he that thought after his Sin that he could hide himself from the Presence of his Justice thought before that he could hide himself from the Presence of his Knowledge and being deceived in the one he would try what would be the fruit of the other In both he forgets if not denies this Attribute either corrupt notions of God or a slight belief of what in general men assent unto gives Birth to every Sin In all Transgressions there is something of Atheism either denying the Being of God or a dash upon some Perfection of God a not believing his Holiness to hate it his Truth that threatens his Justice to punish it and his Presence to observe it Tho' God be not afar off in his Essence he is afar off in the apprehension of the Sinner Drexel Nicet lib. 2. cap. 10. There is no wicked man but if he be an Atheist he is a Heretick and to gratify his Lust will fancy himself to be out of the Presence of his Judge His reason tells him God is present with him his Lust presseth him to embrace the season of a sensual Pleasure he will forsake his Reason and prove a Heretick that he may be an undisturbed Sinner and Sins doubly both in the error of his mind and the vileness of his practice he will conceit God with those in Job Job 22.14 Vail'd with thick Clouds and not able to
future things turn his mind from present but he sees them not one after another but all at once and all together the whole Circle of his own Counsels and all the various Lines drawn forth from the Center of his Will to the circumference of his Creatures Just as if a man were able in one moment to read a whole Library or as if you should imagine a transparent Chrystal Globe hung up in the midst of a Room and so framed as to take in the images of all things in the Room the Fret-Work in the Cieling the in-laid parts of the Floor and the particular parts of the Tapestry about it the eye of a man would behold all the Beauty of the Room at once in it As the Sun by one light and heat frames sensible things so God by one simple act knows all things As he knows mutable things by an immutable knowledg bodily things by a spiritual knowledg so he knows many things by one knowledg Heb. 4.13 All things are open and naked to him more than any one thing can be to us and therefore he views all things at once as well as we can behold and contemplate one thing alone As he is the Father of Lights a God of infinite Understanding there is no variableness in his mind nor any shadow of turning of his eye as there is of ours to behold various things James 1.17 his Knowledg being Eternal includes all times there is nothing past or future with him and therefore he beholds all things by one and the same manner of knowledg and comprehends all knowable things by one act and in one moment This must needs be so 1. Because of the eminency of God God is above all and therefore cannot but see the motions of all He that sits in a Theater or at the top of a place sees all things all persons by one aspect he comprehends the whole Circle of the place whereas he that sits below when he looks before he cannot see things behind God being above all about all in all sees at once the motions of all The whole World in the eye of God is less than a Point that divides one Sentence from another in a Book as a Cypher a grain of Dust Isa 40.15 so little a thing can be seen by man at once and all things being as little in the eye of God are seen at once by him As all Time is but a moment to his Eternity so all things are but as a point to the immensity of his Knowledg which he can behold with more ease than we can move or turn our eye 2. Because all the Perfections of Knowing are united in God Cusan p. 646. As particular senses are divided in man by one he Sees by another he Hears by another he Smells yet all those are united in one common sense and this common sense apprehends all so the various and distinct ways of knowledg in the Creatures are all eminently united in God A man when he sees a grain of Wheat understands at once all things that can in Time proceed from that Seed so God by beholding his own vertue and power beholds all things which shall in time be unfolded by him We have a shadow of this way of knowledg in our own Understanding the sence only perceives a thing present and one object only proper and suitable to it as the eye sees colour the ear hears sounds we see this and that man one time this another minute that but the understanding abstracts a notion of the common nature of man and frames a conception of that nature wherein all men agree and so in a manner beholds and understands all men at once by understanding the common nature of man which is a degree of knowledg above the sense and fancy we may then conceive an infinite vaster Perfection in the Understanding of God As to know is simply better than not to know at all so to know by one act comprehensive is a greater Perfection than to know by divided acts by succession to receive information and to have an increase or decrease of knowledg to be like a Bucket alway descending into the Well and fetching Water from thence 'T is a mans weakness that he is fixed on one object only at a time 't is Gods Perfection that he can behold all at once and is fixed upon one no more than upon another Proposition 3. God knows all things independently This is Essential to an infinite Understanding He receives not his knowledg from any thing without him he hath no Tutor to instruct him or Book to inform him who hath been his Counsellor saith the Prophet Isa 40.13 he hath no need of the Counsels of others nor of the instructions of others This follows upon the first and second Propositions if he knows things by his Essence then as his Essence is independent from the Creatures so is his Knowledg he borrows not any images from the Creature hath no species or pictures of things in his Understanding as we have no Beams from the Creature strike upon him to enlighten him but Beams from him upon the World the Earth sends not Light to the Sun but the Sun to the Earth Our knowledg indeed depends upon the object but all Created objects depend upon Gods Knowledg and Will We could not know Creatures unless they were but Creatures could not be unless God knew them As nothing that he Wills is the cause of his Will so nothing that he knows is the cause of his Knowledg he did not make things to know them but he knows them to make them Who will imagine that the mark of the foot in the Dust is the cause that the foot stands in this or that particular place If his knowledg did depend upon the things then the existence of things did precede Gods knowledg of them to say that they are the cause of Gods Knowledg is to say that God was not the cause of their Being and if he did Create them it was effected by a blind and ignorant power he Created he knew not what till he had produced it If he be beholden for his Knowledg to the Creatures he hath made he had then no knowledg of them before he made them If his knowledg were dependant upon them it could not be Eternal but must have a beginning when the Creatures had a beginning and be of no longer a date than since the nature of things was in actual existence for whatsoever is a cause of knowledg doth precede the knowledg it causes either in order of time or order of nature Temporal things therefore cannot be the cause of that knowledg which is Eternal His Works could not be foreknown to him if his Knowledg commenc'd with the existence of his Works If he knew them before he made them Act 15.18 he could not derive a knowledg from them after they were made He made all things in Wisdom Psal 104.24 how can this be imagin'd if
and Pagan Oracles gained so much Credit upon this Foundation were they established and the Enemies of Mankind owned for a true God I say from the Prediction of future things tho' their Oracles were often ambiguous many times false yet those poor Heathens framed many ingenious excuses to free their Adored Gods from the charge of falsity and imposture And shall we not adore the true God the God of Israel the God Blessed for ever for this incommunicable Property whereby he flies above the Wings of the Wind the understandings of men and Cherubims Sabund Theol. natural Tit. 84. somewhat changed Consider how great it is to know the Thoughts and Intentions and Works of one man from the beginning to the end of his life to foreknow all these before the Being of this man when he was lodged afar off in the Loyns of his Ancestors yea of Adam how much greater is it to foreknow and know the Thoughts and Works of three or four men of a whole Village or Neighbourhood 'T is greater still to know the imaginations and actions of such a multitude of men as are contained in London Paris or Constantinople how much greater still to know the intentions and practises the clandestine contrivances of so many Millions that have do or shall swarm in all quarters of the World every person of them having Millions of Thoughts Desires Designs Affections and Actions Let this Attribute then make the Blessed God honourable in our eyes and adorable in all our affections especially since it is an Excellency which hath so lately discovered it self in bringing to Light the hidden things of darkness in opening and in part confounding the wicked Devices of Bloody men Especially let us adore God for it and admire it in God since it is so necessary a Perfection that without it the goodness of God had been impotent and could not have relieved us for what help can a distressed person expect from a man of the sweetest disposition and the strongest arm if the eyes which should discover the danger and direct the defence and rescue were closed up by blindness and darkness Adore God for this wonderful Perfection 7. In the consideration of this excellent Attribute what low thoughts should we have of our own knowledg and how humble ought we to be before God There 's nothing man is more apt to be proud of than his Knowledg 't is a Perfection he glories in but if our own Knowledg of the little outside and barks of things puffs us up the consideration of the infiniteness of Gods Knowledg should abate the Tumor As our Beings are nothing in regard to the infiniteness of his Essence so our Knowledg is nothing in regard of the vastness of his understanding We have a spark of Being but nothing to the heat of the Sun We have a drop of Knowledg but nothing to the Divine Ocean What a vain thing is it for a shallow Brook to boast of its Streams before a Sea whose depths are unfathomable As it is a vanity to brag of our Strength when we remember the Power of God and of our Prudence when we glance upon the Wisdom of God so 't is no less a vanity to boast of our Knowledg when we think of the Understanding and Knowledg of God How hard is it for us to know any thing Pascall p. 17â— too much noise deafs us and too much light dazels us too much distance alienates the object from us and too much nearness bars up our sight from beholding it When we think our selves to be near the knowledg of a thing as a Ship to the Haven a puff of Wind blows us away and the object which we desired to know eternally flies from us we burn with a desire of knowledg and yet are opprest with the darkness of ignorance we spend our days more in dark Egypt than in enlightened Goshen In what narrow bounds is all the knowledg of the most intelligent persons included Amyrant de praedest p. 116. 117. somewhat changed How few understand the exact Harmony of their own bodies the nature of the life they have in common with other Animals who understands the nature of his own faculties how he Knows and how he Wills how the Understanding Proposeth and how the Will embraceth how his spiritual Soul is united to his material Body what the nature is of the operation of our Spirits nay who understands the nature of his own body the offices of his sences the motion of his Members how they come to obey the command of the Will and a Thousand other things What a vain weak and ignorant thing is man when compar'd with God yet there is not a greater Pride to be found among Devils than among ignorant men with a little very little flashy knowledg Ignorant man is as proud as if he knew as God! As the consideration of Gods Omniscience should render him honourable in our eyes so it should render us vile in our own God because of his knowledg is so far from disdaining his Creatures that his Omniscience is a Minister to his Goodness No knowledg that we are possess'd of should make us swell with too high a conceit of our selves and a disdain of others We have infinitely more of ignorance than knowledg Let us therefore remember in all our thoughts of God that he is God and we are men and therefore ought to be humble as becomes men and ignorant and foolish men to be as weak Creatures should lie low before an Almighty God and impure Creatures before a Holy God false Creatures before a Faithful God finite Creatures before an Infinite God so should ignorant Creatures before an All-Knowing God All Gods Attributes teach admiring thoughts of God and low thoughts of our selves 8. It may inform us how much this Attribute is injured in the World The first error after Adams eating the forbidden Fruit was the denyal of this as well as the Omnipresence of God Gen. 3.10 I heard thy voice in the Garden and I hid my self as if the thickness of the Trees could screen him from the eye of his Creator And after Cains Murder this is the first Perfection he affronts Gen. 4.9 Where is Abel thy Brother saith God How roundly doth he answer I know not as if God were as weak as man to be put off with a Lye Man doth as naturally hate this Perfection as much as he cannot naturally but acknowledg it he wishes God stript of this eminency that he might be incapable to be an inspector of his Crimes and a searcher of the Closets of his heart In wishing him deprived of this there is a hatred of God himself for it is a loathing an Essential Property of God without which he would be a pitiful Governor of the World What a kind of God should that be of a Sinners wishing that had wanted Eyes to see a Crime and Righteousness to punish it The want of the consideration of this Attribute is
and his Resolution to punish 1. It will appear in forbearing Sin from a sense of Mans knowledge not of Gods Open Impieties are refrain'd because of the Eye of Man but secret Sins are not checked because of the Eye of God Wickedness is committed in darkness that is restrained in light as if darkness were as great a clog to Gods Eyes as it is to ours as though his Eyes were mufled with the Curtains of the Night * Job 22.14 This it is likely was at the root of Jonah's flight he might have some secret thought that his Masters Eye could not follow him as though the close Hatches of a Ship could secure him from the knowledge of God as well as the Sides of the Ship could from the dashing of the Waves What lies most upon the Conscience when it is graciously wounded is least regarded or contemned when it is basely inclin'd David's heart smote him not only for his Sin in the gross but as particularly circumstantiated by the commission of it in the sight of God Psal 51.4 Against thee thee only have I sinned and done this ev l in thy sight None knew the reason of Vriah's Death but my self and because others knew it not I neglected any regard to this Divine Eye When Jacob's Sons used their Brother Joseph so barbarously they took care to hide it from their Father but cast away all thoughts of God from whom it could not be conceal'd Doth not the presence of a Child bridle a Man from the act of a long'd for Sin when the Eye of God is of no force to restrain him as if Gods knowledge were of less value than the sight of a little Boy or Girle as if a Child only could see and God were blind He that will forbear an unworthy action for fear of an Informer will not forbear it for God as if Gods Omniscience were not as full an Intelligencer to Him as Man can be an Informer to a Magistrate As we acknowledge the power of Men seeing us when we are ashamed to commit a filthy action in their view so we discover the power of God seeing us when we regard not what we do before the light of his Eyes Secret Sins are more against God than open Open Sins are against the Law secret Sins are against the Law and this prime Perfection of his Nature The Majesty of God is not only violated but the Omniscience of God disown'd who is the only Witness We must in all of them either imagine him to be without Eyes to behold us or without an Arm of Justice to punish us And often it is I believe in such cases that if any thoughts of Gods knowledge strike upon Men they quickly damp them lest they should begin to know what they fear and fear that they might not eat their pleasant Sinful Morsels 2. It appears in partial Confessions of Sin before God As by a free full and ingenuous Confession we offer a due glory to this Attribute so by a feigned and curtail'd Confession we deny him the honour of it For though by any Confession we in part own him to be a Soveraign and Judge yet by a half and pared acknowledgment we own him to be no more than a Humane and ignorant one Achans full Confession gave God the glory of his Omniscience * Josh 7.19 manifested in the discovery of his secret Crime And Joshuah said to Achan My Son give glory to the Lord God of Israel and make Confession unto him And so Psal 50.23 Who so offereth praise glorifieth me or confession as the word signifieth in which sense I would rather take it referring to this Attribute which God seems to tax Sinners with the denial of Vers 21. telling them that he would open the Records of their Sins before them and indite them particularly for every one If therefore you would glorifie this Attribute which shall one day break open your Consciences offer to me a sincere Confession When David speaks of the happiness of a pardon'd Man * Ps 2.1 2. Camero p. 89. col 1. he adds in whose Spirit there is no guile not meaning a sincerity in general but an ingenuity in Confessing To excuse or extenuate Sin is to deny God the knowledge of the depths of our deceitful hearts When we will mince it rather than aggravate it lay it upon the inducements of others when it was the free act of our own wills study shifts to deceive our Judge this is to speak lies of him as the expression is Hos 7.13 as though he were a God easie to be cheated and knew no more than we are willing to declare What did Sauls transferring his Sin from himself to the People * 1 Sam. 15.15 but charge God with a defect in this Attribute When Man could not be like God in his knowledge he would fancy a God like to him in his ignorance and imagine a possibility of hiding himself from his knowledge And all Men tread more or less in their Fathers steps and are fruitful to devise distinctions to disguise Errors in Doctrine and excuses to palliate Errors in Practice This Crime Job removes from himself * Job 31.33 when he speaks of several acts of his sincerity If I cover'd my transgression as Adam by hiding my iniquity in my bosom I hid not any of my Sins in my own Conscience but acknowledg'd God a Witness to them and gave him the glory of his knowledge by a free Confession I did not conceal it from God as Adam did or as Men ordinarily do as if God could understand no more of their secret Crimes than they will let him and had no more sense of their faults than they would furnish him with As the first rise of Confession is the owning of this Attribute for the Justice of God would not scare Men nor the Holiness of God awe them without a sense of his knowledge of their iniquities so to drop out some fragments of Confession discover some Sins and conceal others is a plain denial of the extensiveness of the Divine Knowledge 3. It is discover'd by putting God off with an outside Worship Men are often flatterers of God and think to bend him by formal glavering Devotions without the concurrence of their hearts as though he could not pierce into the darkness of the Mind but did as little know us as one Man knows another There are such things as feigned Lips * Psal 17.1 a contradiction between the Heart and the Tongue a clamour in the Voice and scoffing in the Soul a crying to God thou art my Father the guide of my youth and yet speaking and doing evil to the utmost of our power * Jer. 3 4 5. As if God could be impos'd upon by fawning pretences and like old Isaac take Jacob for Esau and be couzend by the smell of his Garments As if he could not discern the Negro heart under an Angels Garb. Thus Ephraim the Ten Tribes
Thou hast seen it Thou hast intently beheld it as the word properly signifies He beholds and knows the actions of every particular Man as if there were none but he in the World And doth not only know but ponder * Prov. 5.21 and consider their works * Psal 33.15 He is not a bare Spectator but a diligent Observer * 1 Sam. 2.3 By him actions are weighed To see what degree of good or evil there is in them what there is to blemish them what to advantage them what the quality and quantity of every action is Consideration takes in every Circumstance of the Considered Object Notice is taken of the place where the minute when the Mercy against which it is committed the number of them is exact in Gods Book They have tempted me now these ten times * Numb 14.22 against the demonstrations of my Glory in Egypt and the Wilderness The whole Guilt in every Circumstance is spread before him His knowledge of Mens Sins is not confused such an Imperfection an infinite Understanding cannot be subject to 'T is exact for iniquity is markt before him * Jer. 2.22 5. God knows Mens miscarriage so as to judge This use his Omniscience is put to to maintain his Soveraign Authority in the exercise of his Justice His notice of the Sins of Men is in order to a just Retribution Psal 10.14 Thou hast seen mischief to requite it with thy hand The Eye of his Knowledge directs the Hand of his Justice and no sinful action that falls under his Cognizance but will fall under his Revenge they can as little escape his Censure as they can his Knowledge He is a Witness in his Omniscience that he may be a Judge in his Righteousness He knows the hearts of the Wicked so as to hate their Works and testifie his abhorrency of that which is of high value with M n * Luke 16.15 Sin is not preserved in his Understanding or written down in his Book to be moth-eaten as an old Manuscript but to be open'd one day and Copied out in the Consciences of Men He writes them to publish them and sets them in the light of his Countenance to bring them to the light of their Consciences What a terrible consideration is it to think that the Sins of a day are upon Record in an Infallible Uunderstanding much more the Sins of a week What a number then do the Sins of a Month a Year ten or forty Years arise to How many actions against Charity against Sincerity what an infinite number is there of them all bound up in the Court Rolls of Gods Omniscience in order to a Tryal to be brought out before the Eyes of Men Who can seriously consider all those Bonds reserv'd in the Cabinet of Gods Knowledge to be sued out against the Sinner in due time without an unexpressible horror 4. The fourth Use is of Exhortation Let us have a sense of Gods Knowledge upon our hearts All Wickedness hath a spring from a want of due Consideration and sense of it David concludes it so * Psal 86.14 The proud rose against him and violent Men sought after his Soul because they did not set God before them They think God doth not know and therefore care not what nor how they act When the fear of this Attribute is remov'd a Door is open'd to all Impiety What is there so villanous but the minds of Men will attempt to act What Reverence of a Deity can be left when the sence of his infinite Understanding is extinguisht What Faith could there be in Judgments in Witnesses How would the Foundations of Humane Society be overturn'd The Pillars upon which Commerce stands be utterly broken and dissolved What Society can be preserved if this be not truly believed and faithfully stuck to But how easily would Oaths be swallowed and quickly violated if the sense of this Perfection were rooted out of the minds of Men What fear could they have of calling to Witness a Being they imagine blind and ignorant Men secretly imagine that God knows not or soon forgets and then make bold to Sin against him * Ezek. 8.12 How much does it therefore concern us to cherish and keep alive the sense of this If God writes us upon the Palms of his Hands as the Expression is to remember us let us engrave him upon the Tables of our Hearts to remember him It would be a good Motto to write upon our Minds God knows all he is of infinite Understanding 1. This would give check to much iniquity Can a Mans Conscience easily and delightfully swallow that which he is sensible falls under the Cognizance of God when it is hateful to the Eye of his Holiness and renders the Actor odious to him Doth he not see my ways and count all my steps saith Job * Job 31.4 To what end doth he fix this Consideration To keep him from wanton glances Temptations have no encouragement to come near him that is constantly arm'd with the thoughts that his Sin is Book't in Gods Omniscience If any impudent Devil hath the face to tempt us we should not have the impudence to joyn issue with him under the sense of an infinite Understanding How fruitless would his Wiles be against this Consideration How easily would his Snares be crackt by one sensible thought of this This doth Solomon prescribe to allay the heat of Carnal imaginations * Prov. 5.20 21. It were a useful Question to ask at the appearance of every Temptation at the entrance upon every Action as the Church did in Temptations to Idolatry * Psal 44.21 Shall not God search this out for he knows the secrets of the heart His Understanding comprehends us more than our Consciences can our acts or our understanding our thoughts Who durst speak Treason against a Prince if he were sure he heard him or that it would come to his knowledge A sense of Gods knowledge of Wickedness in the first motion and inward contrivance would bar the accomplishment and execution The Consideration of Gods infinite Understanding would cry stand to the first glances of the heart to Sin 2. It would make us watchful over our hearts and thoughts Should we harbour any unworthy thoughts in our Cabinet if our heads and hearts were possess'd with this useful truth That God knows everything which comes into our minds * Ezek. 11.5 We should as much blush at the rising of impure thoughts before the Understanding of God as at the discovery of unworthy actions to the knowledge of Men If we lived under a sense that not a thought of all those millions which flutter about our Minds can be conceal'd from him how watchful and careful should we be of our hearts and thoughts 3. It would be a good preparation to every Duty This Consideration should be the Preface to every service The Divine Understanding knows how I now act This would engage us to serious
various stops to a delightful Harmony So is the Wisdom of God seen in framing the World then in tuning it and afterwards in the motion of the several Creatures The Fabrick of the World is called the Wisdom of God 1 Cor. 1.21 After that in the Wisdom of God the World by Wisdom knew not God i. e. by the Creation the World knew not God the framing Cause is there put for the Effect and the Work framed Because the Divine Wisdom stept forth in the Creatures to a publick appearance as if it had presented it self in a visible shape to Man giving Instructions in and by the Creatures to know and adore him What we translate 1 Gen. 1. In the beginning God Created the Heaven and the earth the Targum expresseth In wisdom God created the Heaven and the Earth Both bear a stamp of this perfection on them * Omne opus naturae est opus intelligentiae And when the Apostle tels the Romans Rom. 1.20 the invisible things of God were clearly understood by the things that are made the word he uses is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this signifies a work of labour but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a work of skill or a Poem The whole Creation is a Poem every Species a Stanza and every individual Creature a Verse in it The Creation presents us with a prospect of the Wisdom of God as a Poem doth the Reader with the wit and fancy of the Composer By wisdom he created the Earth Pro. 3.19 and stretched out the Heavens by discretion Jer. 10.12 There is not any thing so mean so small but Glitters with a beam of Divine skill and the consideration of them would justly make every man subscribe to that of the Psalmist O Lord how manifold are thy works in Wisdom hast thou made them all Psal 104.24 All the least as well as the greatest and the meanest as well as the noblest even those creatures which seem ugly and deformed to us as Toads c. because they fall short of those perfections which are the dowry of other Animals In these there is a footstep of Divine Wisdom since they were not produced by him at random but determin'd to some particular end and design'd to some usefulness as parts of the World in their several natures and stations God could never have had a satisfaction in the review of his works and pronounced them good or comly as he did Gen. 1.31 had they not been agreeable to that eternal original Copy in his own mind 'T is said he was refresh't viz. with that review Exod. 31.17 which could not have been if his piercing eye had found any defect in any thing which had sprung out of his hand or an unsutableness to that end for which he Created them He seems to do as a man that hath made a curious and polite work with exact care to peer about every part and line if he could perceive any imperfection in it to rectify the mistake But no defect was found by the infinitely wise God upon this second examination This Wisdom of the Creation appears 1. In the variety 2. In the beauty 3. The fitness of every Creature for its use 4 The subordination of one Creature to another and the joint concurrence of all to one common end 1. In the Variety Psal 104.24 O Lord how manifold are thy works How great a variety is there 〈◊〉 Animals and Plants with a great variety of forms Shapes Figurations Colours various smels vertues and qualities and this rarity is produced from one and the same Matter as Beasts and Plants from the Earth Gen. 1.11.24 Let the Earth bring forth living Creatures and the Earth brought forth grass and the herb yielding seed after his kind Such diversity of Fowl and Fish from the water Gen. 1.20 Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving Creature that hath life and Fowl that may fly Such a beautiful and active variety from so dul a matter as the Earth so solid a variety from so fluid a matter as the Water so noble a piece as the body of man with such variety of members fit to entertain a more excellent Soul as a guest from so mean a matter as the dust of the ground Gen. 2.7 This extraction of such variety of forms out of one single and dul matter is the Chimistry of Divine wisdom 'T is a greater skill to frame noble Bodies of vile Matter as varieties of precious Vessels of Clay and Earth than of a nobler Matter as Gold and Silver Again all those varieties propagate their kind in every particular and quality of their nature uniformly bring forth exact copies according to the first pattern God made of the kind Gen. 1.11.12.24 Consider also how the same piece of ground is garnisht with Plants and Flowers of several vertues Fruits Colours Scents without our being able to perceive any variety in the Earth that breeds them and not so great a difference in the Roots that bear them Add to this the diversities of Birds of different Colours Shapes Notes consisting of various Parts Wings like Oars to cut the Air Tails as the Rudder of a Ship to guide their motion How various also are the Endowments of the Creatures some have Vegetation and the power of growth others have the addition of Sense and others the excellency of Reason something wherein all agree and something wherein all differ variety in unity and unity in variety The wisdom of the Workman had not been so conspicuous had there been only one degree of goodness The greatest skill is seen in the greatest variety The comliness of the Body is visible in the variety of Members and their usefulness to one another What an inform thing had Man been had he been all Ear or all Eye If God had made all the Stars to be Suns it would have been a demonstration of his Power but perhaps less of his Wisdom No Creatures with the Natures they now have could have continued in being under so much heat There was no less Wisdom went to the frame of the least than to the greatest Creature It speaks more art in a Limner to paint a Landskip exactly than to draw the Sun though the Sun be a more glorious Body I might instance also in the different Characters and Features imprinted upon the Countenances of Men and Women the differences of Voices and Statures whereby they are distinguisht from one another These are the Foundations of Order and of Human Society and Administration of Justice what Confusion would have been if a grown-up Son could not be known from his Father the Magistrate from the Subject the Creditor from the Debtor the Innocent from the Criminal The Laws God hath given to Mankind could not have been put in execution This variety speaks the wisdom of God 2. The wisdom of the Creation appears in the beauty and order and scituation of the several Creatures Eccles 3.11 He hath
been handed down to them by their Predecessors which Paul * 1 Tim. 6.20 entitles a Science falsly so called either meant of the Philosophers or the Gnosticks They presum'd that they were able to measure all things by their own Reason whence when the Apostle came to preach the Doctrine of the Gospel at Athens the great School of Reason in that Age they gave him no better a Title than that of a Babler Acts 17.18 and openly mocked him verse 32. a Seed gatherer ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that hath no more brain or sense than a Fellow that gathers up Seeds that are spilt in a Market or one that hath a vain and empty found without Sense or Reason like a foolish Mountebank so slightly did those Rationalists of the World think of the Wisdom of Heaven That the Son of God should veil himself in a Mortal Body and suffer a disgraceful Death in it were things above the ken of Reason Besides the World had a general disesteem of the Religion of the Jews and were prejudic'd against any thing that came from them Whence the Romans that used to incorporate the gods of other Conquer'd Nations in their Capitol never moved to have the God of Israel worshipped among them Again they might argue against it with much fleshly Reason Here is a Crucified God preached by a Company of Mean and Ignorant persons What Reason can we have to entertain this Doctrine since the Jews who as they tell us had the Prophecies of him did not acknowledge him Surely had there been such Predictions they would not have Crucified but Crowned their King and expected from him the Conquest of the Earth under their Power What reason have we to entertain him whom his own Nation among whom he lived with whom he conversed so unanimously by the Vote of the Rulers as well as the Rout rejected It was impossible to conquer Minds possessed with so many Errors and applauding themselves in their own Reason and to render them capable of receiving Revealed Truths without the influence of a Divine Power 2. It was contrary to the Customes of the World The strength of Custome in most Men surmounts the strength of Reason and Men commonly are so wedded to it that they will be sooner divorc'd from any thing than the Modes and Patterns received from their Ancestors The endeavouring to change Customes of an ancient standing hath begotten Tumults and furious Mutinies among Nations though the change would have been much for their advantage This Doctrine struck at the Root of the Religion of the World and the Ceremonies wherein they had been educated from their Infancy delivered to them from their Ancestors confirm'd by the customary Observance of many Ages rooted in their Mindss and establish'd by their Laws Acts 18.13 This Fellow perswadeth us to worship God contrary to the Law against Customes to which they ascrib'd the happiness of their States and the prosperity of their People and would put in the place of this Religion they would abolish a new one instituted by a Man whom the Jews had condemn'd and put to death upon a Cross as an Impostor Blasphemer and Seditions person It was a Doctrine that would change the Customes of the Jews who were intrusted with the Oracles of God It would bury for ever their Ceremonial Riâ—â—s delivered to them by Moses from that God who had with a mighty hand brought them out of Egypt consecrated their Law with Thunders and Lightnings from Mount Sinai at the time of its publication backt it with severe Sanctions confirm'd it by many Miracles both in the Wilderness and their Canaan and had continued it for so many Hundred years They could not but remember how they had been ravaged by other Nations and Judgments sent upon them when they neglected and slighted it and with what great success they were follow'd when they valued and observed it and how they had abhorred the Author of this new Religion who had spoken slightly of their Traditions till they put him to death with Infamy Was it an easie matter to divorce them from that Worship upon which were entail'd as they imagin'd their Peace Plenty and Glory things of the dearest regard with Mankind The Jews were no less devoted to their Ceremonial Traditions than the Heathen were to their Vain Superstitions This Doctrine of the Gospel was of that nature that the state of Religion all over the Earth must be overturned by it the Wisdom of the Greeks must vail to it the Idolatry of the People must stoop to it and the prophane Customes of Men must moulder under the weight of it Was it an easie matter for the Pride of Nature to deny a customary Wisdom to entertain a new Doctrine against the Authority of their Ancestors to inscribe Folly upon that which hath made them admir'd by the rest of the World Nothing can be of greater esteem with Men than the Credit of their Law-givers and Founders the Religion of their Fathers and Prosperity of themselves hence the Minds of Men were sharpned against it The Greeks the Wisest Nation slighted it as Foolish the Jews the Religious Nation stumbled at it as contrary to the received Interpretations of Ancient Prophecies and Carnal Conceits of an Earthly glory The dimmest Eye may behold the difficulty to change Custome a Second Nature 'T is as hard as to change a Wolf into a Lamb to level a Mountain stop the course of the Sun or change the Inhabitants of Africk into the colour of Europe Custome dips Men in as durable a Dye as Nature The difficulties of carrying it on against the Divine Religion of the Jew and rooted Customes of the Gentiles were unconquerable by any but an Almighty Power And in this the Power of God hath appeared wonderfully 3. It was contrary to the Sensuality of the World and the Lusts of the Flesh How much the Gentiles were over-grown with base and unworthy Lusts at the time of the Publication of the Gospel needs no other Memento than the Apostles Discourse Rom. 1. As there was no Error but prevail'd upon their Minds so there was no brutish Affection but was wedded to their Hearts The Doctrine proposed to them was not easie it flatter'd not the Sense but checked the Stream of Nature It thundred down those three great Engines whereby the Devil had subdued the World to himself the lust of the Flesh the lust of the Eye and the pride of Life Not only the most sordid Affections of the Flesh but the more refin'd Gratifications of the Mind It stript Nature both of Devil and Man of what was commonly esteem'd great and vertuous That which was the root of their Fame and the satisfaction of their Ambition was struck at by this Ax of the Gospel The first Article of it ordered them to deny themselves not to presume upon their own worth to lay their Understandings and Wills at the foot of the Cross and resign them up to one newly
Justice abus'd his Goodness done injury to all those Attributes which are necessary to his relief It was not so in Creation nothing was uncapable of disobliging God from bringing it into Being The Dust which was the Matter of Adams Body needâ—d only the extrinsick Power of God to form it into a Man and inspire it with a living Soul It had not render'd it self obnoxious to Divine Justice nor was capable to excite any disputes between his Perfections But after the entrance of Sin and the merit of Death thereby there was a resistance in Justice to the free Remission of Man God was to exercise a Power over himself to answer his Justice and pardon the Sinner as well as a power over the Creature to reduce the Run-away and Rebel Unless we have recourse to the Infiniteness of Gods Power the infiniteness of our Guilt will weigh us down We must consider not only that we have a mighty Guilt to press us but a mighty God to relieve us In the same act of his being our Righteousness he is our Strength In the Lord have I righteousness and strength Isai 45.24 2. In the sense of Pardon When the Soul hath been wounded with the sense of sin and its Iniquities have star'd it in the face the raising the Soul from a despairing condition and lifting it above those Waters which terrified it to cast the light of Comfort as well as the light of Grace into a heart covered with more than an Egyptian Darkness is an act of his Infinite and Creating Power Isai 57.19 I create the fruit of the lips peace Men may wear out their Lips with numbring up the Promises of Grace and Arguments of Peace but all will signifie no more without a Creative Power than if all Men and Angels should call to that White upon the Wall to shine as splendidly as the Sun God only can create Jerusalem and every Child of Jerusalem a rejoycing * Isai 65.18 A Man is no more able to apply to himself any word of Comfort under the sense of Sin than he is able to Convert himself and turn the proposals of the Word into gracious Affections in his heart To restore the joy of Salvation is in Davids Judgment an act of Soveraign Power equal to that of creating a clean heart Psal 51.10 12. Alas 't is a state like to that of Death as Infinite Power can only raise from Natural death so from a Spiritual death also from a Comfortless death In his favour there is life in the want of his Favour there is death The Power of God hath so placed Light in the Sun that all Creatures in the World all the Torches upon Earth kindled together cannot make it Day if that doth not rise so all the Angels in Heaven and Men upon Earth are not competent Chirurgions for a wounded Spirit The cure of our Spiritual Ulcers and the pouring in Balm is an Act of Soveraign Creative Power 'T is more visible in silencing a Tempestuous Conscience than the Power of our Saviour was in the stilling the stormy Winds and the roaring Waves As none but Infinite Power can remove the Guilt of Sin so none but Infinite Power can remove the Despairing sense of it III. This Power is evident in the preserving Grace As the Providence of God is a manifestation of his Power in a continued Creation so the preservation of Grace is a manifestation of his Power in a continued Regeneration To keep a Nation under the Yoke is an act of the same Power that subdu'd it 'T is this that strengthens Men in suffering against the Fury of Hell †Colos 1.13 't is this that keeps them from falling against the force of Hell the Fathers hand John 10.29 His strength abates and moderates the violence of Temptations his Staff sustains his People under them his Might defeats the Power of Satan and bruiseth him under a Believers feet The Counterworkings of Indwelling Corruption the reluctances of the Flesh against the breathings of the Spirit the fallacy of the Senses and the rovings of the Mind have ability quickly to stifle and extinguish Grace if it were not maintain'd by that Powerful blast that first inbreathed it No less Power is seen in perfecting it than was in planting it ‖ 2 Pet. 1.3 no less in fulfilling the work of Faith than in ingrafting the Word of Faith 2 Thess 1.11 The Apostle well understood the Necessity and Efficacy of it in the preservation of Faith as well as in the firâ—t infusion when he expresses himself in those terms of a Greatness or Hyperbole of Power his Mighty Power or the Power of his Might Ephes 1.19 The Salvation he bestows and the Strength whereby he effects it are joyned together in the Prophets Song Isai 12.2 The Lord is my strength and my salvation And indeed God doth more magnifie his Power in continuing a Believer in the World a weak and half-rigg'd Vessel in the midst of so many Sands whereon it might split so many Rocks whereon it might dash so many Corruptions within and so many Temptations without than if he did immediately transport him into Heaven and cloth him with a perfectly Sanctified Nature To Conclude What is there then in the World which is destitute of Notices of Divine Power Every Creature affords us the Lesson all acts of Divine Government are the marks of it Look into the Word and the manner of its propagation instructs us in it your Changed Natures your Pardoned Guilt your Shining Comfort your quell'd Corruptions the standing of your staggering Graces are sufficient to preserve a sense and prevent a forgetfulness of this great Attribute so necessary for your support and conducing so much to your comfort Vses I. Of Information and Instruction 1. If Incomprehensible and Infinite Power belongs to the Nature of God then Jesus Christ hath a Divine Nature because the Acts of Power proper to God are ascribed to him This Perfection of Omnipotence doth unquestionably pertain to the Deity and is an incommunicable Property and the same with the Essence of God He therefore to whom this Attribute is ascribed is essentially God This is challenged by Christ in conjunction with Eternity Revel 1.8 I am Alpha and Omega the beginning and the ending saith the Lord which is and which was and which is to come the Almighty This the Lord Christ speaks of himself He who was equal with God proclaims himself by the Essential title of the Godhead part of which he repeats again verse 11. and this is the Person which walks in the midst of the seven Golden Candlesticks the Person that was dead and now lives vers 17 18. which cannot possibly be meant of the Father the first Person who can never come under that denomination of having been dead Being therefore adorn'd with the same Title he hath the same Deity and though his Omnipotence be only positively asserted v. 8. yet his Eternity being asserted v. 11 17. it inferreth
the Psalmist Psal 86.2 Preserve my soul for I am holy that is I have an ardent desire to holiness Thou hast separated me from the mass of the corrupted World preserve perfect me with the Assembly of the glorified Quire The more holy any are the more communicative they are God being most holy is most communicative of that which he most esteems in himself and delights to see in his Creature He 〈◊〉 therefore more ready to impart his holiness to them that beg for it than to communicate his knowledge or his power Though he were holy yet he let Adam fall who never petition'd his Holiness to preserve him he let him fall to declare the Holiness of his own Nature which had wanted its due manifestation without it But since that cannot be declar'd in a higher manner than it hath been already in the death of the Surety that bore our Guilt there is no fear he should cast the work out of his hands since the design of the permission of man's Apostacy in the discovery of the perfections of his Nature has been fully answered The finishing the good work he hath begun hath a relation to the glory of Christ and his own glory in Christ to be manifested in the day of his Appearing * Phil. 1.6 wherein the glory both of his own holiness and the holiness of the Mediator are to receive their full manifestation As it is a part of the holiness of Christ to sanctifie his Church †Eph. 5.26 27. till not a wrinkle or spot be left so it is the part of God not to leave that work imperfect which his holiness hath attempted a second time to beautifie his Creature with He will not cease exalting this Attribute which is the Believers by the new Covenant till he utters that applauding Speech of his own work Cant. 4.7 Thou art all fair my Love there is no spot in thee Vse 3. Is for Exhortation Is holiness an eminent perfection of the Divine Nature then 1. Let us get and preserve right and strong apprehensions of this Divine Perfection Without a due sense of it we can never exalt God in our hearts and the more distinct Conceptions we have of this and the rest of his Attributes the more we glorifie him When Moses considered God as his strength and salvation he would exalt him ‖ Exod. 15.2 and he could never break out in so admirable a Doxology as that in the Text without a deep sense of the glory of his Purity which he speaks of with so much admiration Such a sense will be of use to us 1. In promoting genuine Convictions A deep consideration of the holiness of God cannot but be followed with a deep consideration of our impure and miserable Condition by reason of sin We cannot glance upon it without reflections upon our own Vileness Adam no sooner heard the Voice of a holy God in the Garden but he considered his own nakedness with shame and fear * Gen. 3.10 Much less can we fix our Minds upon it but we must be touched with a sense of our own uncleanness The clear beams of the Sun discover that filthiness in our Garments and Members which was not visible in the darkness of the night Impure Metals are discern'd by comparing them with that which is pure and perfect in its kind The sense of guilt is the first natural Result upon a sense of this excellent Perfection and the sense of the Imperfection of our own Righteousness is the next Who can think of it and reflect upon himself as an Object fit for Divine Love Who can have a due thought of it without regarding himself as stubble before a consuming Fire Who can without a confusion of heart and face glance upon that pure Eye which beholds with detestation the foul Motes as well as the filthier and bigger Spots When Isaiah saw his glory and heard how highly the Angels exalted God for this Perfection he was in a cold sweat ready to swoon till a Seraphim with a Coal from the Altar both purg'd and reviv'd him †Isa 6.5 6 7. They are sound and genuine Convictions which have the prospect of Divine Purity for their immediate Spring and not a foresight of our own Misery when it is not the punishment we have deserved but the holiness we have offended most grates our hearts Such Convictions are the first rude Draughts of the Divine Image in our Spirits and grateful to God because they are an acknowledgment of the glory of this Attribute and the first mark of honour given to it by the Creature Those that never had a sense of their own Vileness were alway destitute of a sense of God's holiness And by the way we may observe That those that scoff at any for hanging down the head under the Consideration and Conviction of Sin as is too usual with the World scoff at them for having deeper Apprehensions of the Purity of God than themselves and consequently make a mock of the holiness of God which is the ground of those Convictions a sense of this would prevent such a damnable reproaching 2. A sense of this will render us humble in the possession of the greatest holiness a Creature were capable of We are apt to be proud with the Pharisee when we look upon others wallowing in the Mire of base and unnatural Lusts but let any clap their Wings if they can in a vain boasting and exaltation when they view the holiness of God What Torch if it had reason would be proud and swagger in its own light if it compar'd it self with the Sun Who can stand before this holy Lord God is the just reflection of the holiest Person as it was of those 1 Sam. 6.20 that had felt the marks of his jealousie after their looking into the Ark though likely out of affection to it and triumphant joy at its return When did the Angels testifie by the covering of their Faces their weakness to bear the lustre of his Mâ—jesty but when they beheld his glory When did they signifie by their covering their feet the shame of their own Vileness but when their hearts wer fullest of the applaudings of this Perfection ‖ Isa 6.2 3. Though they found themselves without spot yet not with such a holiness that they could appear either with their faces or feet unvail'd and unmask't in the Presence of God Doth the immense splendor of this Attribute engender shaming reflections in those pure Spirits What will it â—hâ—â— should it do in us that dwell in Houses of Clay and creep up and down with that Clay upon our backs and too much of it in our hearts The Stars themselves which appear beautiful in the night are maskt at the awaking of the Sun What a dimm light is that of a Gloworm to that of the Sun The apprehensions of this made the Elders humble themselves in the midst of their glory by casting down their Crowns before his
Throne * Rev. 4.8 10. a Metaphor taken from the triumphing Generals among the Romans who hung up their victorious Laurels in the Capitol dedicating them to their Gods acknowledging them their Superiors in strength and Authors of their victory This self-emptiness at the consideration of Divine Purity is the note of the true Church represented by the 24 Elders and a note of a true Member of the Church whereas boasting of Perfection Merit is the property of the Antichristian tribe that have mean thoughts of this adorable Perfection think themselves more righteous than the unspotted Angels What a self annihilation is therein a good man when the sense of Divine Purity is most lively in him yea how detestable is he to himsel There is as little proportion between the holiness of the Divine Majesty and that of the most righteous Creature as there is between a nearness of a Person that stands upon a Mountain to the Sun and of him that beholds him in a Vale one is nearer than the other but it is an advantage not to be boasted of in regard of the vast distance that is between the Sun and the elevated Spectator 3. This would make us full of an affectionate Reverence in all our approaches to God By this Perfection God is rendred venerable and fit to be reverenc'd by his Creature and magnificent thoughts of it in the Creature would awaken him to an actual reverence of the Divine Majesty Psal 111.9 Holy and reverend is his name a good opinion of this would engender in us a sincere respect towards him we should then serve the Lord with fear as the Expression is Psal 2.11 that is be afraid to cast any thing before him that may offend the eyes of his Purity Who would venture rashly and garishly into the presence of an eminent Moralist or of a righteous King upon his Throne The fixedness of the Angels arose from the continual prospect of this What if we had been with Isaiah when he saw the Vision and beheld him in the same glory and the heavenly Quire in their reverential Posture in the Service of God would it not have barred our wandrings and stak'd us down to our Duty Would not the fortifying an Idea of it in our Minds produce the same effect 'T is for want of this we carry our selves so loosely and unbecomingly in the Divine Presence with the same or meaner Affections than those wherewith we stand before some vile Creature that is our Superiour in the World as though a piece of filthy Flesh were more valuable than this Perfection of the Divinity How doth the Psalmist double his Exhortation to men to sing Praise to God Psal 47.6 Sing praise to God sing praises sing praise to our King sing praise because of his Majesty and the Purity of his Dominion And verse 8. God reigns over the Heathen God sits upon the Throne of his Holiness How would this elevate us in Praise and prostrate us in Prayer when we praise and pray with an understanding and insight of that Nature we bless or implore as he speaks verse 7. Sing ye praise with understanding The holiness of God in his Government and Dominion the holiness of his Nature and the holiness of his Precepts should beget in us an humble respect in our Approaches The more we grow in a sense of this the more shall we advance in the true performance of all our Duties * Amyrald Moral Tom. 5. p. 462. Those Nations which ador'd the Sun had they at first seen his Brightness wrapped and maskt in a Cloud and paid a veneration to it how would their Adorations have mounted to a greater point after they had seen it in its full brightness shaking off those Vails and chasing away the Mists before it what a profound reverence would they have paid it when they beheld it in its Glory and Meridian Brightness Our reverence to God in all our Addresses to him will arrive to greater degrees if every act of Duty be usher'd in and season'd with the thoughts of God as sitting upon a Throne of Holiness we shall have a more becoming sense of our own Vileness a greater ardor to his Service a deeper respect in his Presence if our Understanding be more clear'd and possessed with Notions of this Perfection Thus take a view of God in this part of his Glory before you fall down before his Throne and assure your selves you will find your hearts and services quickned with a new and lively Spirit 4. A due sense of this Perfection in God would produce in us a fear of God and arm us against Temptations and Sin What made the Heathens so wanton and loose but the representations of their Gods as vitious Who would stick at Adulteries and more prodigious Lusts that can take a Pattern for them from the Person he adores for a Deity Upon which account Plato would have Poets banish'd from his Commonwealth because by dressing up their Gods in wanton garbs in their Poems they encourag'd wickedness in the People But if the thoughts of Gods holiness were imprest upon us we should regard sin with the same eye mark it with the same detestation in our measures as God himself doth So far as we are sensible of the Divine Purity we should account sin vile as it deserves we should hate it intirely without a grain of love to it and hate it perpetually Psal 119.104 Through thy Precepts I get understanding therefore I hate every false way He looks into God's Statute-Book and thereby arrives to an understanding of the Purity of his Nature whence his hatred of Iniquity commenc'd This would govern our Motion check our Vices it would make us tremble at the hissing of a Temptation When a Corrup ion did but peep out and put forth its head a look to the Divine Purity would be attended with a fresh Conâ—oy of Strength to resist it There is such Fortification as to be wrapped up in the sense of this This would fill us with an awe of God we should be asham'd to admit any filthy thing into us which we know is detestable to his pure Eye As the approach of a grave and serious Man makes Children hasten their Trifles out of tâ—e way so would a Consideration of this Attribute make us cast away our Idols and fling away our ridiculous thoughts and designs 5. A due sense of this Perfection would inflame us with a vehement desire to be conform'd to him All our Desires would be ardent to regulate our selves according to this Pattern of Holiness and Goodness which is not to be equalled the Contemplating it as it shines forth in the Face of Christ will transform us into the same Image †2 Cor. 3.19 Since our lapsed state we cannot behold the holiness of God in it self without affrightment nor is it an Object of Imitation but as tempered in Christ to our view When we cannot without blinding our selves look upon the Sun
in its Brightness we may behold it through a colour'd Glass whereby the lustre of it is moderated without dazling our eyes The sense of it will furnish us with a greatness of mind that little things will be contemned by us Motives of a greater alloy would have little influence upon us we should have the highest Motives to every Duty and Motives of the same strain which influence â—he Angels above It would change us not only into an Angelical Nature but a Divine Nature We should act like men of another Sphere as if we had received our Original in another World and seen with Angels the ravishing Beauties of Heaven How little would the mean Imployments of the World sink us into dirt and mud How often hath the Meditation of the Courage of a Valiant Man or Acuteness and Industry of a Learned Person spur'd on some men to an imitation of them and transform'd them into the same Nature As the looking upon the Sun imprints an Image of the Sun upon our eye that we seem to behold nothing but the Sun a while after The view of the Divine Purity would fill us with a holy generosity to imitate him more than the Examples of the best men upon Earth It was a saying of a Heathen That if Vertue were visible it would kindle a noble flame of Love to it in the heart by its ravishing beauty Shall the Infinite Purity of the Author of all Vertue come short of the strength of a Creature Can we not render that visible to us by frequent Meditation which though it be invisible in his Nature is made visible in his Law in his Ways in his Son It would make us ready to obey him since we know he cannot Command any thing that is sinful but what is holy just and good It would put all our Aff ctions in their due place elevate them above the Creature and subject them to the Creator 6. It would make us patient and contented under all God's Dispensations All penal Evils are the Fruits of his Holiness as he is Judge and Governour of the World He is not an Arbitrary Judge nor doth any Sentence pronounc'd nor Warrant for Execution issue from him but what bears upon it a Stamp of the Righteousness of his Nature he doth nothing by Passion or Unrighteousness but according to the Eternal Law of his own unstained Nature which is the Rule to him in his Works the Basis and Foundation of his Throne and Soveraign Dominion Psal 89.14 Justice or Righteousness and Judgment are the Habitation of thy Throne upon these his Soveraign Power is established So that there can be no just Complaint or Indictâ—â—â—t brought against any of his Proceedings with men How doth our Saviour who had the highest Apprehensions of God's Holiness justifie God in his deepest Distresses when he cried and was not answered in the particular he desired in that Prophetick Psalm of him Psal 22.2 3. I cry day and night but thou hearest not Thou seemest to be deaf to all my Petitions afar off from the words of my roaring but thou art holy I cast no blame upon thee All thy dealings are squar'd by thy holiness this is the only Law to thee in this I acquiesce 'T is part of thy holiness to hide thy face from me to shew thereby thy detestation of sin Our Saviour adores the Divine Purity in his sharpest Agony and a like sense of it would guide us in the same steps to acknowledge and glorifie it in our greatest desertions and afflictions especially since as they are the fruit of the holiness of his Nature so they are the means to impart to us clearer stamps of holiness according to that in himself which is the original Copy * Heb. 12.10 He melts us down as Gold to fit us for the receiving a new Impression to mortifie the Affections of the Flesh and clothe us with the Graces of his Spirit The due sense of this would make us to submit to his stroke and to wait upon him for a good issue of his dealings 2. Exhortation Is holiness a Perfection of the Divine Nature Is it the glory of the Deity Then let us glorifie this holiness of God Moses glorifies it in the Text and glorifies it in a Song which was a Copy for all Ages The whole Corporation of Seraphims have their Mouths fill'd with the praises of it The Saints whither Militant on Earth or Triumphant in Heaven are to continue the same Acclamation Holy holy holy Lord God of Hosts †Rev. 4.8 Neither Angels nor glorified Spirits exalt at the same rate the Power which formed them Creatures nor Goodness which preserves them in a blessed Immortality As they do holiness which they bear some beams of in their own Nature and whereby they are capacitated to stand before his Throne Upon the account of this a Debt of Praise is demanded of all Rational Creatures by the Psalmist Psal 99.3 Let them praise thy great and terrible Name for it is holy Not so much for the greatness of his Majesty or the treasures of his Justice but as they are considered in conjunction with his holiness which renders them beautiful for it is holy Grandeur and Majesty simply in themselves are not Objects of Praise nor do they merit the Acclamations of men when destitute of Righteousness This only renders every thing else adorable and this adorns the Divine Greatness with an amiableness Isa 12.6 Great is the holy One of Israel in the midst of thee and makes his Might worthy of Praise Luke 1.49 In honouring this which is the soul and spirit of all the rest we give a glory to all the Perfections which constitute and beautifie his Nature And without the glorifying this we glorifie nothing of them though we should extoll every other single Attribute a thousand times He values no other Adoration of his Creatures unless this be interested nor accepts any thing as a glory from them Levit. 10.3 I will be sanctified in them that come near me and I will be glorified As if he had said in manifesting my Name to be holy you truly you only honour me And as the Scripture seldom speaks of this Perfection without a particular Emphasis it teaches us not to think of it without a special Elevation of heart By this act only while we are on Earth can we joyn consort with the Angels in Heaven he that doth not honour it delight in it and in the meditation of it hath no resemblance of it he hath none of the Image that delights not in the Original Every thing of God is glorious but this most of all If he built the World principally for any thing it was for the communication of his Goodness and display of his Holiness He formed the Rational Creature to manifest his Holiness in that Law whereby he was to be governed Then deprive not God of the design of his own Glory We honour this Attribute 1. When we make it
Drops as well as the fuller Streams are of the same Fountain and relish of the Nature of it And though he do not make all Men partake of the riches of his Grace after the corruption of their Nature Is his Goodness disgraced hereby Or doth he merit the Title of Cruelty Will any diminish the goodness of a Father for his not setting up his Son after he hath foolishly and wilfully proved Bankrupt or not rather admire his liberality in giving him so large a Stock to Trade with when he first set him up in the World 2. The goodness of God to Creatures is to be measured by their distinct Vsefulness to the Common End It were better for a Toad or Serpent to be a Man i. e. better for the Creature it self if it were advanced to a higher degree of Being but not better for the Universe He could have made every Pebble a living Creature and every living Creature a Rational one But that he made every thing as we see it was a goodness to the Creature it self But that he did not make it of a higher Elevation in Nature was a part of his goodness to the Rational Creature If all were Rational Creatures there would have been wanting Creatures of an Inferior Nature for their conveniency There would have wanted the manifestation of the variety and fulness of his goodness Had all things in the World been Rational Creatures much of that goodness which he hath communicated to Rational Creatures would not have appear'd How could Man have shew'd his skill in Taming and Managing Creatures more mighty than himself What Materials would there have been to manifest the goodness of God bestowed upon the Reasonable Creatures for framing Excellent Works and Inventions Much of the Goodness of God had lain wrapt up from Sense and Understanding All other things partake not of so great a goodness as Man yet they are so subservient to that goodness pour'd forth on Man that little of it coulâ— have been seen without them Consider Man every Member in his Body hath a goodness in it self but a greater goodness as referred to the whole without which the goodness of the more noble part would not be manifested The Head is the most excellent Member and hath greater Impressions of Divine Goodness upon it in regard that it is the Organ of Understanding Were every Member of the Body a Head what a deformed Monster would Man be If he were all Head where would be feet for Motion And Arms for Action Man would be fit only for Thought and not for Exercise The goodness of God in giving Man so noble a part as the Head could not be known without a Tongue whereby to Express the Conception of his Mind and without Feet and Hands whereby to act much of what he conceives and determines and execute the resolves of his Will All those have a goodness in themselves an honour a comeliness from the goodness of God * 1 Cor. 12.22 23. but not so great a goodness as the nobler part Yet if you consider them in their Functions and refer them to that excellent Member which they serve their Inferior goodness is absolutely necessary to the goodness of the other without which the goodness of the Head and Understanding would lie in obscurity be insignificant to the whole World and in a great measure to the Person himself that wants such Members 3. The goodness of God is more seen in this inequality If God were equally good to all it would destroy Commerce Unity the Links of Humane Society damp Charity and render that useless which is one of the noblest and delightfullest Duties to be exercised here It would cool Prayer which is excited by wants and is a necessary demonstration of the Creatures dependance on God But in this inequality every Man hath enough in his Enjoyments for Praise and in his VVants matter for his Prayer Besides the inequality of the Creature is the Ornament of the World What pleasure could a Garden afford if there were but one sort of Flowers or one sort of Plants Far less than when there is variety to please the Sight and every other Sense Again the freedom of Divine Goodness which is the glory of it is evident hereby Had he been alike good to all it would have lookt like a necessary not a free act But by the inequality it is manifest that he doth not do it by a Natural necessity as the Sun shines but by a voluntary Liberty as being the entire Lord and free Disposer of his own Goods And that it is the gift of the pleasure of his VVill as well as the Efflux of his Nature That he hath not a Goodness without VVisdom but a VVisdom as rich as his Bounty 4. The goodness of God could not be equally communicated to all after their settlement in their several Beings Because they have not a capacity in their Natures for it He doth bestow the Marks of his Goodness according to that natural capacity of fitness he perceives in his Creatures As the VVater of the Sea fills every Creek and Gulf with different measures according to the compass each have to contain it And as the Sun doth disperse Light to the Stars above and the places below to some more to some less according to the measures of their Reception God doth not do good to all Creatures according to the greatness of his own Power and the extent of his own VVealth but according to the capacity of the Subject Not so much good as he can do but so much good as the Creature can receive The Creature would sink if God would pour out all his Goodness upon it As Moses would have perished if God should have shewn him all his Glory * Exod. 33.18 20. He doth manifest more Goodness to his Reasonable Creatures because they are more capable of acknowledging and setting forth his Goodness 5. God ought to be allow'd the free disposal of his own Goodness Is not God the Lord of his own Gifts and will you not allow him the priviledge of having some more peculiar Objects of his love and pleasure which you allow without blame to Man and use your self without any sense of a Crime Is a Prince esteem'd good though he be not equally bountiful to all his Servants nor equally gracious in pardoning all his Rebels And shall the goodness of the great Soveraign of the World be impeacht notwithstanding those mighty distributions of it because he will act according to his own VVisdom and Pleasure and not according to Mens fancies and humors Must Purblind Reason be the Judge and Director how God shall dispose of his own rather than his own Infinite VVisdom and Soveraign VVill Is God less good because there are number less nothings which he is able to bring into being He could Create a VVorld of more Creatures than he hath done doth he therefore wish evil to them by letting them remain in that nothing from
Bread in a distress by a Miracle as he did to Elijah by the Ravens it would have stuck longer in our memories but the sense of daily favours soonest wears out of our minds which are as great Miracles as any in their own Nature and the products of the same Power But the wonder they should beget in us is obscur'd by their frequency 2. The Goodness of God is contemn'd by an impatient murmuring Our repinings proceed from an inconsideration of Gods free liberality and an ungrateful temper of Spirit Most Men are guilty of this 'T is implied in the commendation of Job under his Pressures * Job 1.22 In all this Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly as if it were a Character peculiar to him whereby he verified the Elogy God had given of him before v 8. That there was none like him in the Earth a perfect and an upright Man What is imply'd by the Expression but that scarce a Man is to be found without unjust complaints of God and charging him under their Crosses with Cruelty when in the greatest they have much more reason to bless him for his Bounty in the remainder Good Men have not been innocent Baruch complains of God for adding grief to his sorrow not furnishing him with those great things he expected whereas he had matter of thankfulness in Gods gift of his life as a prey * Jer. 45.3 4. But his Master chargeth God in a higher strain †Jer. 20.7 Oh Lord thou hast deceiv'd me and I was deceived I am in derision daily When he met with reproach instead of success in the execution of his Function he quarrels with God as if he had a mind to cheat him into a mischief when he had more reason to bless him for the honour of being employ'd in his Service Because we have not what we expect we slight his Goodness in what we enjoy If he Cross us in one thing he might have made us successless in more If he take away some things he might as well have taken away all The unmerited remainder though never so little deserves our acknowledgments more than the deserved loss can justifie our repining And for that which is snatcht from us there is more cause to be thankful that we have enjoyed it so long than to murmur that we possess it no longer Adams Sin implies a repining He imagin'd God had been short in his Goodness in not giving him a knowledge he foolishly conceived himself capable of and would venture a forfeiture of what already had been bountifully bestow'd upon him Man thought God had envied him and ever since Man studies to be even with God and envies him the free disposal of his own Doles All murmuring either in our own Cause or others charges God with a want of Goodness because there is a want of that which he foolishly thinks would make himself or others happy The language of this Sin is that Man thinks himself better than God and if it were in his Power would express a more plentiful Goodness than his Maker As Man is apt to think himself more pure than God * Job 4.17 so of a kinder Nature also than an Infinite Goodness The Israelites are a wonderful Example of this contempt of Divine Goodness They had been Spectators of the greatest Miracles and partakers of the choicest deliverance He had sollicited their Redemption from Captivity and when words would not do he came to blows for them Musters up his Judgments against their Enemies and at last as the Lord of Hosts and God of Battles totally defeats their Pursuers and drowns them and their proud hopes of Victory in the Red Sea Little account was made of all this by the Redeem'd ones They lightly esteem'd the Rock of their Salvation and lanch into greater unworthiness instead of being thankful for the breaking their Yoak They are angry with him that he had done so much for them They repented that ever they had complied with him for their own deliverance and had a regret that they had been brought out of Egypt They were angry that they were Freemen and that their Chains had been knockt off They were more desirous to return to the Oppression of their Egyptian Tyrants than have God for their Governor and Caterer and be fed with his Manna It was well with us in Egypt Why came we forth out of Egypt which is call'd a despising the Lord * Numb 11.18 20. They were so far from rejoycing in the expectation of the future benefits promis'd them that they murmur'd that they had not enjoyed less They were so sottish as to be desirous to put themselves into the Irons whence God had deliver'd them They would seek a Remedy in that Egypt which had been the Prison of their Nation and under the Successors of that Pharaoh who had been the Invader of their Liberties They would snatch Moses from the place where the Lord by an extraordinary Providence hath establisht him * Numb 16.3 9 10 11. They would stone those that minded them of the Goodness of God to them and thereupon of their Crime and their Duty They rose against their Benefactors and murmur'd against God that had strengthen'd the hands of their Deliverers they despised the Manna he had sent them and despised the pleasant Land he intended them * Psal 106.24 All which was a high contempt of God and his unparallell'd Goodness and Care of them All murmuring is an accusation of Divine Goodness 3. By unbelief and impenitency What is the reason we come not to him when he calls us but some secret imagination that he is of an ill Nature means not as he speaks but intends to mock us instead of welcoming us When we neglect his Call spurn at his bowels slight the riches of his Grace As it is a disparagement to his Wisdom to despise his Counsel so it is to his Goodness to slight his Offers as though you could make better provision for your selves than he is able or willing to do It disgraceth that which is design'd to the praise of the glory of his Grace And renders God Cruel to his own Son as being an unnecessary shedder of his Blood As the Devil by his Temptation of Adam envied God the glory of his Creating Goodness so unbelief envies God the glory of his Redeeming Grace 'T is a bidding defiance to him and challenging him to Muster up the Legions of his Judgments rather than have sent his Son to suffer for us or his Spirit to sollicit us Since the sending his Son was the greatest act of Goodness that God could express the refusal of him must be the highest Reproach of thâ—t Liberality God design'd to commend to the World in so rare a Gift The ingratitude in this refusal must be as high in the Rank of Sins as the Person slighted is in the Rank of Beings or Rank of Gifts Christ is a Gift * Rom. 5.16 the Royallest
we cannot love so obliging a God as much as he deserves to be loved by us It would make us humble before Men. Who would be proud of a meer Gift which he knows he hath not Merited How ridiculous would that Servant be that should be proud of a rich Livery which is a Badge of his Service not a Token of his Merit but of his Masters Magnificence and Bounty which though he wear this day he may be stript of to morrow and be turn'd out of his Masters Family 3. A sense of the Divine Goodness would make us faithful to him The Goodness of God obligeth us to serve him not to offend him The freeness of his Goodness should make us more ready to contribute to the advancement of his Glory When we consider the Benefits of a Friend proceed out of kindness to us and not out of self ends and vain applause it works more upon us and makes us more careful of the honour of such a Person 'T is a pure Bounty God hath manifested in Creation and Providence which could not be for himself who being Blessed for ever wanted nothing from us It was not to draw a profit from us but to impart an advantage to us Our goodness extends not to him * Psal 16.2 The service of the Benefactor is but a Rational return for Benefits whence Nehemiah aggravates the Sins of the Jews * Neh. 9.35 †They have not served thee in thy great goodness that thou gavest them i. e. which thou didst freely bestow upon them How should we dare to spend upon our Lusts that which we possess if we consider'd by whose liberality we came by it How should we dare to be unfaithful in the Goods he hath made us Trustees of A deep sense of Divine Goodness will enoble the Creature and make it act for the most glorious and noble end It would strike Satans Temptation dead at a blow It would pull off the false Mask and Vizor from what he presents to us to draw us from the service of our Benefactor We could not with a sense of this think him kinder to us than God hath and will be which is the great motive of Men to joyn hands with him and turn their backs upon God 4. A sense of the Divine Goodness would make us patient under our Miseries A deep sense of this would make us give God the honour of his Goodness in whatsoever he doth though the reason of his actions be not apparent to us nor the event and issue of his proceedings foreseen by us 'T is a stated case that goodness can never intend ill but designs good in all its acts to them that love God * Rom. 8.28 Nay he always designs the best when he bestows any thins upon his People he sees it best they should have it and when he removes any thing from them he sees it best they should lose it When we have lost a thing we loved and refuse to be comforted a sense of this Perfection which acts God in all would keep us from misjudging our sufferings and measuring the intention of the hand that sent them by the sharpness of what we feel What Patient fully perswaded of the affection of the Physician would not value him though that which is given to purge out the Humours racks his Bowels When we lose what we love perhaps it was some outward lustre tickled our apprehensions and we did not see the Viper we would have harm'd our selves by but God seeing it snatcht it from us and we mutter as if he had been Cruel and depriv'd us of the good we imagin'd when he was kind to us and freed us from the hurt we should certainly have felt We should regard that which in goodness he takes from us at no other rate than some guilded Poyson and lurking Venom The sufferings of Men though upon high provocations are often follow'd with rich Mercies and many times are intended as preparations for greater goodness When God utters that Rhetorick of his Bowels * Hos 11.8 How shall I give thee up Oh Ephraim I will not execute the fierceness of my anger he intended them Mercy in their Captivity and would prepare them by it to walk after the Lord. And it is likely the Posterity of those Ten Tribes were the first that ran to God upon the publishing the Gospel in the places where they lived He doth not take away himself when he takes away outward Comforts While he snatcheth away the Rattles we play with he hath a Breast in himself for us to suck The consideration of his Goodness would dispose us to a compos'd frame of Spirit If we are sick 't is Goodness it is a Disease and not a Hell 'T is Goodness that it is a Cloud and not a total Darkness What if he transfers from us what we have He takes no more than what his Goodness first imparted to us And never takes so much from his People as his Goodness leaves them If he strips them of their lives he leaves them their Souls with those faculties he furnisht them with at first and removes them from those Houses of Clay to a richer Mansion The time of our Sufferings here were it the whole Course of our Life bears not the proportion of a moment to that endless Eternity wherein he hath design'd to manifest his Goodness to us The Consideration of Divine Goodness would teach us to draw a Calm even from Storms and distil Balsom from Rods If the Reproofs of the Righteous be an excellent Oyl * Psal 145.5 we should not think the Corrections of a good God to have a less Vertue 5. A sense of the Divine Goodness would mount us above the World It would damp our appetites after meaner things we should look upon the World not as a God but a Gift from God and never think the Present better than the Donor We should never lie soaking in muddy Puddles were we always fill'd with a sense of the richness and clearness of this Fountain wherein we might bath our selves Little petty Particles of good would give us no content when we were sensible of such an unbounded Ocean Infinite Goodness rightly apprehended would dull our desires after other things and sharpen them with a keener edge after that which is best of all How earnestly do we long for the presence of a Friend of whose good will towards us we have full experience 6. It would check any Motions of Envy It would make us joy in the prosperity of good Men and hinder us from envying the outward felicity of the Wicked We should not dare with an evil Eye to censure his good Hand * Matth. 20.15 but approve of what he thinks fit to do both in the matter of his Liberality and the Subjects he chooseth for it Though if the disposal were in our hands we should not imitate him as not thinking them Subjects fit for Bounty Yet since it is in his hands
change the security he may have upon the height of a Rock to expect it from the dwarfishness of a Mole-hill To put confidence in any inferiour Lord more than in the Prince is a folly in civil converse but a rebellion in Divine God only being above all can only rule all can command things to help us and check other things which we depend on and make them fall short of our expectations The due consideration of this Doctrine would make us pierce through second causes to the first and look further than to the smaller sort of Sailers that clime the ropes and dress the Sails to the Pilot that sits at the Helm the Master that by an indisputable Authority orders all their motions We should not depend upon second causes for our support but look beyond them to the Authority of the Deity and the dominion he hath over all the works of his hands Zach. 10.1 Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain When the seasons of the year conspire for the producing such an effect when the usual time of rain is wheel'd about in the year stop not your thoughts at the point of the Heavens whence you expect it but pierce the Heavens and sollicite God who must give order for it before it comes The due meditation of all things depending on the Divine Dominion would strike off our hands from all other holds so that no creature would engross the dependance and trust which is due to the first cause As we do not thank the Heavens when they pour out rain so we are not to depend upon them when we want it God is to be sought to when the Womb of 2d causes is open'd to relieve us as well as when the Womb of 2d causes is barren and brings not forth its wonted progeny 2. It would make us diligent in worship The consideration of God as the supream Lord is the Foundation of all Religion Our Father which art in Heaven prefaceth the Lord's Prayer Father is a name of Authority in Heaven the place where he hath fixed his Throne notes his Government not my Father but our Father notes the extent of this Authority In all worship we acknowledge the object of our worship our Lord and our selves his vassals If we bear a sense that he is our Soveraign King it would draw us to him in every exigence and keep us with him in a reverential posture in every address When we come we should be careful not to violate his right but render him the homage due to his Royalty We should not appear before him with empty souls but fill'd with Holy thoughts We should bring him the best of our flock and present him with the prime of our strength Were we sensible we hold all of him we should not with-hold any thing from him which is more worthy than another Our hearts would be fram'd into an awful regard of him when we consider that glorious and fearful name the Lord our God Deut. 28.58 We should look to our feet when we enter into his house if we considered him in Heaven upon his Throne and our selves on Earth at his Footstool Eccles 5.2 lower before him than a worm before an Angel It would hinder garishness and lightness The Jews saith Capel on the 1 Tim. 1.17 repeat this expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 King of Worlds or Eternal King Probable the first Original of it might be to stake them down from wandring When we consider the Majesty of God cloathed with a Robe of light sitting upon his high Throne adorn'd with his Royal Ensigns we should not enter into the presence of so great a Majesty with the Sacrifice of fools with light motions and foolish thoughts as if he were one of our companions to be droll'd with We should not hear his word as if it were the voice of some ordinary Pesant The consideration of Majesty would engender reverence in our service It would also make us speak of God with honour and respect as of a great and glorious King and not use defaming expressions of him as if he were an infamous being And were he consider'd as a terrible Majesty he would not be frequently sollicited by some to pronounce a damnation upon them upon every occasion 3. It would make us charitable to others Since he is our Lord the great proprietor of the World 't is sit he should have a part of our goods as well as our time he being the Lord both of our goods and time The Lord is to be honour'd with our substance Prov. 3.9 Kings were not to be approached to without a present Tribute is due to Kings but because he hath no need of any from us to bear up his state maintain the charge of his wars or pay his Military Officers and Host 't is a debt due to him to acknowledge him in his poor to sustain those that are a part of his substance Though he stands in no need of it himself yet the poor that we have alwayes with us do As a 7th part of our weekly time so some part of our weakly gains are due to him There was to be a weekly laying by in store somewhat of what God had prosper'd them for the relief of others 1 Cor. 16.1 2. the quantity is not determin'd that is left to every man's Conscience according as God hath prosper'd him that week If we did consider God as the donor and proprietor we should dispose of his gifts according to the design of the true owner and act in our places as Stewards intrusted by him and not purse up his part as well as our own in our coffers We should not deny him a small quit rent as an acknowledgment that we have a greater income from him We should be ready to give the inconsiderable pittance he doth require of us as an acknowledgment of his propriety as well as liberality 4. It would make us watchfull and arm us against all temptations Had Eve stuck to her first Argument against the Serpent she had not been instrumental to that destruction which Mankind yet feel the smart of Gen. 3.3 God hath said ye shall not eat of it The great Governour of the World hath laid his Soveraign command upon us in this point The temptation gain'd no ground till her heart let go the sense of this for the pleasure of her eye and palate The repetition of this the great Lord of the World hath said or order'd had both unargumented and disarm'd the Tempter A sence of God's Dominion over us would discourage a temptation and put it out of countenance It would bring us with a vigorous strength to beat it back to a retreat If this were as strongly urg'd as the temptation it would make the heart of the tempted strong and the motion of the tempter feeble 5. It would make us entertain afflictions as they ought to be entertain'd viz. with a respect to God When men make light of
Pag. 76 A Contempt of Gods Wisdom Pag. 404 405 And of his Goodness Pag. 663 664 And of his Dominion Pag. 760 Impenitence an Abuse of Gods Goodness Pag. 664 665 It will clear the Equity o◠God's Justice Pag. 813 814 An Abuse of Patience Pag. 815 Imperfections in Holy Duties we should be sensible of Pag. 148 Should make us prize Christ's Mediation Pag. 168 Impossible some things are in their own nature Pag. 432 433 Some things so to the Nature and Being of God and his Perfections Pag. 433 434 Some things so because of Gods Ordination Pag. 435 Do not infringe the Almightiness of God's Power Pag. 432 ad 435 Incarnation of Christ the Power of God seen in it Pag. 456 ad 460 Incomprehensible God is so Pag. 263 Inconstancy natural to Man Pag. 231 234 In the knowledge of the Truth Pag. 231 232 In Will and Affections Pag. 232 In Practice Pag. 233 234 'T is the Root of much Evil ibid. Infirmities the Knowledge of God a comfort to his People under them Pag. 332 333 †The Goodness of God in bearing with them Pag. 656 657 His Patience a Comfort under them Pag. 821 Injuries Men highly concern'd for those that are done to themselves little for those that are done to God Pag. 83 Gods Patience under them should make us resent them Pag. 822 Injustice a Contempt of Gods Dominion Pag. 758 Innocent Person whether God may inflict eternal Torments upon him Pag. 712 716 717 Instruments Men are apt to pay a Service to them rather than God Pag. 86 Which is a Contempt of Divine Power Pag. 482 And of his Goodness Pag. 669 670 Deliverances not to be chiefly ascribed to them Pag. 272 273 God makes use of Sinful ones Pag. 358 359 None in Creation Pag. 443 444 The Power of God seen in effecting his Purposes by weak Ones Pag. 455 456 Inventions of Men. Vide Addition and Worship Job when he lived Pag. 439 Jonah how he came to be believed by the Ninivites Pag. 361 Joy a necessary Ingredient in Spiritual Worship Pag. 150 Should accompany all our Duties Pag. 784 Judging the Hearts of others a great Sin Pag. 324 Their Eternal state a greater Pag. 325 Judgment Day a necessity of it Pag. 318 319 398 Judgments Extraordinary prove the Being of God Pag. 37 38 Men are apt to put bold Interpretations on them Pag. 78 79 God is Just in them Pag. 100 Especially after the abuse of his Goodness and Patience Pag. 671 813 814 On God's Enemies matter of Praise Pag. 494. 495 Declare God's Holiness Pag. 511 512 513 Which should be observed in them Pag. 557 Not sent without warning Pag. 602 800 801 802 Mercy mix'd with them Pag. 602 603 604 God sends them on whom he pleases Pag. 746 747 Delay'd a long time where there is no Repentance Pag. 802 803 God unwilling to pour them out when he cannot delay them any longer Pag. 803 Pour'd out with regret Pag. 803 804 By degrees Pag. 804 Moderated Pag. 805 Vide Punishments Justice of God a motive to Worship Pag. 130 Its plea against Man Pag. 375 376 Reconciled with Mercy in Christ Pag. 377 Vindictive natural to God Pag. 547 548 549 Requires Satisfaction Pag. 550 Justification cannot be by the best and strongest works of Nature Pag. 102 320 544 545 550 The Holiness of God appears in that of the Gospel Pag. 515 The expectations of it by the outward observance of the Law cannot satisfie an Inquisitive Conscience Pag. 579 Men naturally look for it by Works Pag. 580 K. KIngdoms are disposed of by God Pag. 742 743 Knowledge in God hath no succession Pag. 185 186 192 307 308 Immutable Pag. 211 212 213 311 312 Arguments to prove it 263 Pag. 312 ad 316 The manner of it Incomprehensible Pag. 214 215 288 295 God is Infinite in it Pag. 274 Own'd by all Pag. 274 275 He hath a Knowledge of Vision and Intelligence speculative and practical Pag. 276 277 Of Apprehension and Approbation Pag. 277 278 Hath a knowledge of himself Pag. 278 279 280 Of all things possible Pag. 280 281 282 Of all things past and present Pag. 282 283 Of all Creatures their Actions and Thoughts Pag. 283 ad 287 Of all Sins and how Pag. 287 288 289 Of all future things he alone and how Pag. 289 ad 296 Of all future Contingences Pag. 296 ad 301 Doth not necessitate the Will of Man Pag. 301 ad 304 'T is by his Essence Pag. 305 306 Intuitive Pag. 306 307 308 Independent Pag. 308 309 Distinct Pag. 309 310 Infallible Pag. 310 311 Arguments to prove it Pag. 263 312 ad 315 No blemish to his Holiness ib. Infinite attributed to Christ Pag. 315 316 317 Infers his Providence Pag. 317 318 And a Day of Judgment Pag. 318 319 And the Resurrection Pag. 319 320 Destroys all hopes of Justification by any thing in our selves Pag. 320 Calls for our adoring Thoughts of him Pag. 320 321 And Humility Pag. 321 322 How injured in the World and wherein Pag. 322 ad 228 Comfortable to the Righteous and wherein Pag. 328 ad 334 †Terrible to Sinners Pag. 334 ad 337 †We should have a sense of it on our hearts and the advantages of it Pag. 337 338 339 †Knowledge of God's Will Men negligent in using the Means to attain it Pag. 55 Enemies to it and have no delight in it Pag. 56 Seek it for by-ends Pag. 57 58 Admit it with wavering Affections Pag. 58 Seek it to improve some Lust by it Pag. 58 59 A sense of Man's hath a greater Influence on us than that of God Pag. 86 87 325 326 Sins against it should be avoided Pag. 107 Distinct from Wisdom Pag. 338 339 Of all Creatures is deriv'd from God Pag. 313 Ours how imperfect Pag. 321 L. LAw of God how opposite Man naturally is to it Vide Man There is one in the Minds of Men which is the Rule of Good and Evil Pag. 33 34 A change of them doth not infer a change in God Pag. 228. 229 Vindicated both as to the Precept and Penalty in the death of Christ Pag. 383 Suted to our Natures Happiness and Conscience Pag. 352 353 354 610 611 We should submit to them Pag. 414 415 The Transgression of them punish'd by God Pag. 511 512 726 727 God's enjoyning one which he knew Man would not observe no blemish to his Holiness Pag. 519 520 To charge them with Rigidness how great a Sin Pag. 545 We should imitate the Holiness of them Pag. 559 The Goodness of God in that of Innocence Pag. 610 ad 615 Cannot but be good Pag. 681 682 He gives Laws to all Pag. 722 723 Positive ones Pag. 723 724 His only reach the Conscience Pag. 724 725 Dispensed with by him but cannot by Man Pag. 725 726 754 755 To make any contrary to God's how great a Sin Pag. 755 Or make Additions to them Pag. 756 757 Or obey those of Men before them Pag.
glory Pag. 83 Resignation of our selves would flow from consideration of God's Wisdom Pag. 414 415 Should from that of his Soveraignty Pag. 775 Restraint of Men and Devils by God in mercy to man Pag. 357 451 452 527 528 650 744 745 Resolutions good how soon broken Pag. 232 Resurrection of the Body no incredible Doctrine Pag. 319 320 479 480 The Power of God in that of Christ Pag. 460 Of Men ascribed to Christ Pag. 476 Reverence necessary in the worship of God Pag. 150 151 Revelations of God are not to be censured Pag. 403 404 Riches inordinate desire after them a hindrance to Spiritual worship Pag. 177 God exercises a Soveraignty in bestowing them Pag. 740 Rivers how useful Pag. 349 Rome why called Babylon Pag. 13 S. SAcraments the goodness of God in appointing them Pag. 639 Salvation of men how desirous God is of it Pag. 636 637 638 808 809 810 Sanctification deserves our thanks as much as Justification Pag. 698 Vide Holiness Satisfaction of the Soul only in God Pag. 36 37 127 128 200 Necessary for sin Pag. 549 550 Scepticks must own a first Cause Pag. 21 Scoffing at Holiness a great sin Pag. 543 544 And at Convictions in others Pag. 553 Scriptures are wrested and abused Pag. 58 59 79 Ought to be prized and studied Pag. 107 The not fulfilling some Predictions in them doth not prove God to be changeable Pag. 226 227 Of the Old Testament give credit to the New and of the New illustrate those of the Old Pag. 334 335 All Truth to be drawn thence ibid. Of the Old Testament to be studied ibid. Something in them sutable to all sorts of men Pag. 354 355 Written so as to prevent foreseen Corruptions Pag. 355 356 To study Arguments from them to defend sin a contempt of God's Holiness Pag. 542 543 The goodness of God in giving them as a Rule Pag. 652 653 654 Sea how useful Pag. 23 The Wisdom of God seen in it Pag. 349 And his Power Pag. 419 446 447 Searching the Hearts of Men how to be understood of God Pag. 287 Seasons the variety of them necessary Pag. 350 Secrecy a poor refuge to sinners Pag. 335 Secret sins cause stings of Conscience Pag. 35 313 Known to God Pag. 263 265 334 335 Shall be revealed in the Day of Judgment Pag. 318 319 Prayers and Works known to God Pag. 331 Security Men abuse God's blessings to it Pag. 668 Self man most opposite to those Truths that are most contrary to it Pag. 60 Man sets up as his own Rule Pag. 70 Dissatisfied with Conscience when it contradicts its desires Pag. 71 72 Meerly the agreeableness to it the spring of many materially good Actions Pag. 72 73 90 ad 94 153 154 Would make it the rule of God Pag. 74 ad 80 And his own end and the end of all Creatures and of God vid. End Applauding thoughts of it how common Pag. 82 Men ascribe the glory of what they have or do to it Pag. 82 83 Desire Doctrines pleasing to it Pag. 83 Highly concern'd for any injury done to it ibid. Obey it against the light of Conscience Pag. 84 How great a sin this is Pag. 84 85 The giving mercies pleasing to it the only cause of many mens love to God Pag. 90 91 Men unweildy to their duty where it is not concern'd Pag. 91 How sinful this is Pag. 94 The great Enemy to the Gospel and Conversion Pag. 101 102 Self-love threefold Pag. 80 81 The cause of all sin and hindrance of Conversion Pag. 81 82 Service of God how unwilling men are to it Pag. 63 64 Slight in the performance of it Pag. 64 65 Shew not that natural vigor in it as they do in their worldly business Pag. 65 Quickly weary of it Pag. 65 66 Desert it Pag. 66 The presence of God a comfort in it Pag. 268 Hypocritical pretences for avoiding it a denial of God's Knowledge Pag. 328 A sense of God's Goodness would make us faithful in it Pag. 681 Some called to and fitted for more eminent ones in their Generation Pag. 739 ad 744 Omissions of it a contempt of God's Soveraignty Pag. 762 763 Sin founded in a secret Atheism and Self-love Pag. 50 81 Reflects a dishonour on all the Attributes of God Pag. 50 Implies God is unworthy of a Being Pag. 50 51 Would make him a foolish impure and miserable Being Pag. 51 52 More troublesom than Holiness Pag. 63 To make it our end a great debasing of God Pag. 87 88 No excuse but an aggravation that we serve but one Pag. 87 Abstinence from it proceeds many times from an evil Cause Pag. 90 91 325 326 God's name word and mercies made use of to countenance it Pag. 94 542 543 668 669 815 Spiritual to be avoided Pag. 128 'T is folly Pag. 193 Past ones we should be humbled for Pag. 197 336 †Hath brought a Curse on the Creation Pag. 207 Vide Creatures Past known to God Pag. 282 283 All known to him and how Pag. 287 288 289 336 †337 †A sense of God's Knowledge and Holiness would check it Pag. 337 338 †554 555 Bounded by God Pag. 357 God brings glory to himself and good to the Creature out of it Pag. 358 ad 366 God hath shewn the greatest hatred of it in redemption Pag. 384 385 A contempt of God's Power Pag. 480 481 Abhorred by God Pag. 501 502 503 547 In God's People more severely punisht in this World than in others Pag. 502 503 God cannot be the Author of in others or do it himself Pag. 504 505 506 God punishes it and cannot but do so Pag. 511 547 548 549 The Instruments of it detestable to God Pag. 512 Opposite to the Holiness of God Pag. 540 To charge it on God or defend it by his word a great sin Pag. 542 543 Entrance of it into the World doth not impeach God's goodness Pag. 594 595 Those that disturb Societies most signally punisht in this life Pag. 651 A contempt of God's Dominion Pag. 752 753 754 How much God is daily provoked by it Pag. 806 807 808 823 An abuse of God's Patience Pag. 815 816 Sincerity required in Spiritual worship Pag. 143 Cannot be unknown to God Pag. 330 331 Consideration of God's Knowledge would promote it Pag. 338 339 †Sinful times in them we should be most holy Pag. 558 Sinners God hath shewn the greatest love to them and hatred to their sins Pag. 384 385 Every thing in their possession detestable to God Pag. 512 Society the goodness of God seen in the preservation of it Pag. 649 ad 652 Could not subsist without restraining Grace v. Restraint Soul the vastness of its capacity and quickness of its motion Pag. 32 33 Its union to the Body wonderful ibid. God only can satisfie it v. Satisfaction They only can converse with God Pag. 127 Should be the Objects of our chiefest care Pag. 128 We should worship God with them Pag. 132 133 The Wisdom and
He Created the world for his glory a people for himself that he might have the Honour of his works That since we live and move in him and by him we should live and move to him and for him It was the condemnation of the Heathen world that when they knew there was a God they did not give him the Glory due to him * Rom. 1.21 He that denyes his being is an Atheist to his essence He that denyes his worship is an Atheist to his Honour 5. If it be a folly to deny the being of God It will be our Wisdom then since we acknowledge his being often to think of him Thoughts are the first issue of a Creature as reasonable * Pro. 4.23 He that hath given us the faculty whereby we are able to think should be the principal object about which the power of it should be exercised T is a Justice to God the Author of our understandings a Justice to the nature of our understandings that the noblest faculty should be imployed about the most excellent object Our minds are a beam from God and therefore as the Beams of the Sun when they touch the Earth should reflect back upon God As we seem to deny the being of God not to think of him we seem also to unsoul our Souls in misimploying the activity of them any other way like Flies to be oftner on Dunghils than Flowers T is made the black mark of an ungodly Man or an Atheist that God is not in all his thoughts Psal 10.4 What comfort can be had in the being of God without thinking of him with Reverence and delight A God forgotten is as good as no God to us A DISCOURSE UPON PRACTICAL ATHEISM Psalm 14.1 Doct. 2. PRACTICAL Atheism is natural to Man in his depraved state and very frequent in the hearts and lives of Men. The Fool hath said in his heart there is no God He regards him as little as if he had no being He said in his heart not with his tongue nor in his head He never firmly thought it nor openly asserted it Shame put a Bar to the first and natural reason to the second Yet perhaps he had sometimes some doubts whether there were a God or no He wished there were not any and sometimes hoped there were none at all He could not rase out the Notion of a Deity in his mind but he neglected the fixing the sence of God in his heart and made it too much his business to deface and blot out those Characters of God in his Soul which had been left under the ruines of original nature Men may have Atheistical hearts without Atheistical heads Their reasons may defend the Notion of a Deity while their hearts are empty of affection to the Deity Jobs Children may curse God in their hearts tho not with their lips * Job 1.5 There is no God Most understand it of a denial of the Providence of God as I have said in opening the former Doctrine He denies some essential Attribute of God or the exercise of that Attribute in the world * So the Chalde reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non potestas denying the authority of God in the world He that denies any essential Attribute may be said to deny the being of God Whosoever denies Angels or men to have Reason and Will denies the human and Angelical nature because Understanding and Will are essential to both those Natures there could neither be Angel nor Man without them No Nature can subsist without the perfections essential to that Nature nor God be conceived of without His The Apostle tells us Eph. 2.12 that the Gentiles were without God in the World So in some sence all unbelievers may be termed Atheists for rejecting the Mediator appointed by God they reject that God who appointed him But this is beyond the intended scope Natural Atheism being the only subject Yet this is deducible from it That the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not only belong to those who deny the Existence of God or to those who contemn all sence of a Deity and would root the Conscience and Reverence of God out of their Souls But it belongs also to these who give not that Worship to God which is due to him Who Worship many Gods or who Worship one God in a false and superstitious manner when they have not right conceptions of God nor intend an adoration of him according to the excellency of his Nature All those that are unconcerned for any particular Religion fall under this Character Though they own a God in general yet are willing to acknowledge any God that shall be coined by the powers under whom they live The Gentiles were without God in the world without the true Notion of God not without a God of their own framing This general or practical Atheism is natural to men 1. Not natural by Created but by corrupted Nature T is against nature as nature came out of the hand of God But universaly natural as nature hath been sophisticated and infected by the Serpents breath Inconsideration of God or misrepresentations of his nature are as agreeable to corrupt nature as the disowning the being of a God is contrary to common reason God is not denied naturâ sed vitiis * Augustin de Civit. Dei 2. T is universally natural The wicked are estranged from the Womb Psa 58.3 They go astray as soon as they be born their poyson is like the poyson of a Serpent The wicked And who by his birth hath a better title They go astray from the dictates of God and the rule of their Creation as soon as ever they be born Their poyson is like the poyson of a Serpent which is radically the same in all of the sames species T is seminally and fundamentally in all men though there may be a stronger restraint by a Divine hand upon some men than upon others This principle runs through the whole stream of Nature The natural bent of every mans heart is distant from God When we attempt any thing pleasing to God t is like the climbing up a Hill against nature when any thing is displeasing to him t is like a Current running down the Channel in its natural course When we attempt any thing that is an acknowledgment of the Holiness of God we are fain to rush with Armes in our hands through a multitude of natural passions and fight the way through the oppositions of our own sensitive appetite How softly do we naturally sink down into that which sets us at a greater distance from God There is no active potent efficacious sence of a God by nature The heart of the Sons of men is fully set in them to do evil Eccl. 8.11 The heart in the singular number as if there were but one Common heart beat in all mankind and bent as with own pulse with a joynt consent and force to wickedness without a sence of the Authority
of God in the Earth as if one heart acted every Man in the world The great Apostle cites the Text to verefie the charge he brought against all mankind * Rom. 3.9 10.11.12 In his interpretation the Jews who owned one God and were dignified with special priviledges as well as the Gentiles that maintained many Gods are within the compass of this Character The Apostle leaves out the first part of the Text the fool hath said in his heart but takes in the latter part and the verses following He charges all because all every man of them was under sin There is none that seeks God and ver 19. He adds what the law saith it speaks to those that are under the Law That none should imagine he included only the Gentiles and exempted the Jews from this description The Leprosie of Atheism had infected the whole Mass of human nature No Man among Jews or Gentiles did naturally seek God and therefore all were void of any spark of the practical sence of the Deity The effects of this Atheism are not in all externally of an equal size Yet in the fundamentals and radicals of it there is not a hairs difference between the best and the worst men that ever traversed the world The distinction is laid either in common Grace bounding and suppressing it or in special Grace killing and crucifying it T is in every one either triumphant or militant reigning or deposed No Man is any more born with sensible acknowledgments of God than he is born with a clear knowledge of the nature of all the Stars in the Heavens or Plants upon the Earth None seeks after God * Coccei None seek God as his rule as his end as his happiness which is a debt the Creature naturally owes to God he desires no communion with God He places his happiness in any thing inferior to God He prefers every thing before him glorifies every thing above him he hath no delight to know him he regards not those paths which lead to him he loves his own filth better than Gods Holiness his actions are tinctured and dyed with self and are void of that respect which is due from him to God The noblest Faculty of Man his Understanding wherein the remaining Lineaments of the Image of God are visible the highest Operation of that Faculty which is Wisdom is in the Judgment of the Spirit of God Devilish whiles it is earthly and sensual * Jam. 3.15 and the Wisdom of the best man is no better by Nature a legion of impure Spirits possess it Devilish as the Devil who though he believe there is a God yet acts as if there were none and wishes he had no Superior to prescribe him a Law and inflict that punishment upon him which his Crimes have merited Hence the Poyson of Man by Nature is said to be like the Poyson of a Serpent alluding to that serpentine temptation which first infected Mankind and changed the nature of Man into the likeness of that of the Devil * Psal 58.4 So that notwithstanding the Harmony of the World that presents men not only with the Notice of the Being of a God but darts into their minds some remarks of his Power and Eternity yet the thoughts and reasonings of Man are so corrupt as may well be called Diabolical and as contrary to the Perfection of God and the original Law of their Nature as the actings of the Devil are For since every natural Man is a Child of the Devil and is acted by the Diabolical Spirit he must needs have that Nature which his Father hath and the Infusion of that Venom which the Spirit that acts him is possessed with though the full Discovery of it may be restrained by various Circumstances Eph. 2.2 To conclude though no man or at least very few arrive to a round and positive Conclusion in their hearts that there is no God yet there is no man that naturally hath in his heart any reverence of God In general before I come to a particular Proof take some Propositions Proposition 1. Actions are a greater discovery of a Principle than Words The Testimony of Works is louder and clearer than that of Words and the Frame of mens hearts must be measured rather by what they do than by what they say There may be a mighty distance between the Tongue and the Heart but a Course of Actions is as little guilty of lying as Interest is according to our common saying All outward Impieties are the branches of an Atheism at the root of our Nature as all pestilential sores are expressions of the Contagion in the Blood Sin is therefore frequently called Ungodliness in our English Dialect Mens Practices are the best Indexes of their Principles The Current of a Mans Life is the counter-part of the Frame of his Heart Who can deny an Error in the Spring or Wheels when he perceives an Error in the hand of the Dial Who can deny an Atheism in the Heart when so much is visible in the Life The Tast of the water discovers what Mineral 't is strained through A practical Denial of God is worse than a verbal because deeds have usually more of deliberation than words words may be the fruit of a Passion but a set of evil actions are the fruit and evidence of a predominant evil Principle in the Heart All slighting words of a Prince do not argue an habitual Treason but a succession of overt treasonable Attempts signifie a setled treasonable disposition in the Mind Those therefore are more deservedly termed Atheists who acknowledge a God and walk as if there were none than those if there can be any such that deny a God and walk as if there were one A Sense of God in the Heart would burst out in the Life Where there is no reverence of God in the Life 't is easily concluded there is less in the Heart What doth not influence a Man when it hath the addition of the Eyes and censures of outward Spectators and the care of a Reputation so much the God of the world to strengthen it and restrain the action must certainly have less power over the Heart when it is single without any other concurrence The Flames breaking out of a house discover the Fire to be much stronger and fiercer within The Apostle judgeth those of the Circumcision who gave heed to Jewish Fables to be Denyers of God though he doth not tax them with any notorious Prophaness Tit. 1.16 They profess that they know God but in works they deny him he gives them Epithites contrary to what they arrogated to themselves * Illyric They boasted themselves to be holy the Apostle calls them abominable They bragged that they fulfilled the Law and observed the Traditions of their Fathers the Apostle calls them disobedient or unperswadable They boasted that they only had the Rule of Righteousness and a sound Judgment concerning it the Apostle said they had a