done The Goodness of God is also taken as comprehending all his Moral Perfections by which it is said that he is good and doth Good and that there is none good but one that is God who only is absolutely and infinitely good but the Goodness of God here proposed is distinct from his Justice Mercy and Truth and is more exactly expressed by his Bountifulness or Benignity The Goodness of God is likewise taken as it comprehends his Faithfulness and Mercy which are his most eminent Goodness and Benignity but here it is understood for that Goodness of God to his Rational Creatures which is without Consideration or Connotation of any thing in these Creatures and is so distinguished from Faithfulness which presupposeth Trust or Expectation in the Creature of some Good which is sutable to his excellent Nature to give to those that do depend trust or wait on him for it and yet is not as an Act of Reward in Justice Mercy imports Compassion to a Miserable Creature chiefly in and for Sin and Forgiveness of the Sin and Restitution from the Misery But the Goodness which I now consider is that which is freely bestowed upon the Creature presupposing nothing in it of which there are exceeding many degrees whereof some are anterior to Sin and Misery and some are posterior and yet are not the Acts of Mercy For when Adam had fallen from his Innocency and from the Favour of God it was an Act of Mercy by the Mediator to pardon him and to restore him unto the Favour of God but it was not an Act of Mercy to raise him to an higher degree of Happiness than he had when he fell by which he could never fall again from the Favour of God The first Act of God's Goodness and Bounty was in the creating of Rational Creatures which in their Essence did necessarily imply Understanding by which they could perceive their Creator themselves and other Objects and could judg of the Attributes of these Objects and deduce Consequences from these Judgments and determine their own Choice of what they thought best with a Power to act the same all which is implied in the Essence and Being of a Rational Creature and there can nothing be imagined more free and abstract than God's Goodness in giving this Existence to Rational Creatures which were of two kinds Angels and Men Angels exerting all their Faculties with outward Objects having Communication with them either immediately or by Impressions upon them by a Medium For unless Angels knew the Thoughts of God Angels and Men and the distant Actings of extrinsick Objects without intervention of a Medium which I am far from believing and which is an incommunicable Perfection of God who can be passive in nothing but knows all things actually in his own Decrees I must believe that Angels communicate their Thoughts by some Signs in a Medium and do so perceive the Thoughts and Actings of other Objects tho it was not necessary the manner of the Knowledg of Angels should be revealed yet I may safely remove from them what God appropriates to himself to know Thoughts without any outward Sign yet God communicates to Angels by a Medium or immediately I do sufficiently know by Revelation that some Angels were created with far greater Perfection of Knowledg and Strength than Man one Angel did in one Night kill fourscore and five thousand Men. I doubt nothing that by the Goodness of God there were inbred Principles of Knowledg and Inclination in Angels as well as in Men by which they were innocent and holy while they did follow them but changeable when so great a Multitude of them fell from their Innocency and the Favour of God And tho the elect Angels who persevered have the same changeable Nature they could not be justly called happy if God had not added a farther degree of Goodness confirming them against all danger of falling whence he calls them in his Word Elect Angels which I do not think to be an Act of God's Primitive Justice being so high a Perfection that they could never merit it by being innocent during the time of their Trial but that it was by the free and undeserved Goodness and Bounty of God The Angels by their Nature had no Power of Propagation of their Kind but for any thing appears they were created all together and none of them depended upon another but in so far as some might have greater Knowledg and Strength than others and so Beelzebub is called the Prince of Devils and it is like he hath been the Author of the Fall of the rest as it is certain he was the Seducer of Man The Nature of Man as the Scripture tells us was lower than the Angels and his Soul was incorporate with a Body fitted with Instruments apt for exerting all his Capacities by the receiving the Impression of outward Objects through the Senses all having Communication to the Brain by the Nerves and Spirits by which the Soul is passive and by the same Nerves Spirits and other Instruments are fitted to exercise Motion and act upon outward Objects and upon the Parts of their own Bodies These Specialities are in the specifick Nature of Angels and Men and therefore I reckon each of them but as Gifts of the Bounty of God All other Creatures were created in farther Manifestation of the Perfections of God which is his Glory and for the use of Angels and Men. I think it too great Partiality in those who make all the inferior Creatures to be design'd for Man's use only and not for Angels who have greater Pleasure in the knowledg of them and of the Glory of the Divine Perfections shining in them than Man and tho Man hath more need of them and Benefit by them yet the Angels are not without both in making use of them as Instruments in Communication outwardly by them and inwardly in them The free Bounty of God did imprint upon the Soul of Man the first Principles of his Knowledg of Things that fall not under Sense without which he could never have had firm and clear Knowledg albeit he had the Capacity to discern Implications and Consequences downward from Causes to Effects and upwards from Effects to Causes for if there were not some Principles self-evident the Chain of Consequences might run without end The Bounty of God did also give to Man the Capacity to know Consequences which makes a great addition to his Perfection God did likewise in his Bounty give Man the distinguishing Acts of Joy and Sorrow the one arising from Objects congruous to his Nature and useful for him the other from Objects unsutable and hurtful to him that he might approach the one and fly from the other So that Joy and Grief are not at Man's Discretion but have their peculiar Objects by the Impression whereof on the Sense Imagination or Memory they are excited and not otherwise I know no sufficient Reason why such Sounds should be harmonious and
the midst of the Fire lest ye corrupt your selves and make you a graven Image the Similitude of any Figure What a pitiful Evasion is it that a graven Image is only forbidden when also is expresly forbidden the Similitude of any Figure and the Reason added is general For ye saw no manner of Similitude The Fire out of the midst of which God spake is there expressed to be no Similitude or Figure of God or the Sun for which there might be the greatest Pretence yea it is made one of the ten Words of the Decalogue After all this shall we imagine that God hath changed this Precept which was not Ceremonial but opposite to Ceremonies Is it not an horrid and impious Boldness to leave that Command out of the Decalogue rather than to forbear the worshipping of or by Images as the Church of Rome does avow and practise I adore Thee the only pure Spirit that thou hast not left me to my Imagination to apprehend Thee as being any way like a Body or Matter by Extension or Diffusion of Substance or being excluded where any other Substance is or can be whether a Body or created Spirit it being so incident to Man that is born of a Woman to have all his first Thoughts by Imagination of Bodies and their Resemblances except the Son of God alone for it was the Pleasure of the Father that in him all Fulness should dwell I lament and pity their Weakness that frame a Conception of the infinitely glorious God as a Body or any thing like a Body though it were the most pure Air or AEther that Reason convinceth to be every where in this World as the mean of Communication throughout the World without which no Creature at distance could communicate its Thoughts or Actings to another which scarce can the Imagination apprehend but only the purer Reason and which is conceived so pure that it is invisible impalpable unperceivable by any Sense in resomblance to which Men conceive Angels or their own Souls as Substances like some part of the purest Air that can pass without Stop through all Bodies though of never so close Contexture and are apt to apprehend God by the like Resemblance because God is invisible and can fall under no Sense yet is far more clearly conceivable purely by the Mind I pray God it be not imputed to those who through Weakness have so low and unsutable Thoughts of the ever blessed God MEDITATION III. Upon the Self-Existence and Eternity of God BY Self-Existence I understand the Existence of a Being which hath no Cause of the Existence thereof and which hath its Existence in it self for if it had an efficient Cause it behoved to derive its Being from that Cause as the Author thereof A self-existent Being can have no constituent or component Parts whether they be essential Parts or integral Parts or of whatsoever Composition can be supposed for then it behoved to owe its Original to these component Parts for such Parts though they be not the efficient Cause of that Compound yet they are the material formal or essential Causes thereof A self-existent Being can have no final Cause or any End ulteriour to it self but the Design thereof must necessarily be it self as the ultimate and last End and cannot be a Mean or Mids towards any other End but all things designed and acted thereby must necessarily be designed for and terminate upon it self as the last End A self-existent Being hath been acknowledged by all Sects who have pretended to any Learning in the World Those whose Minds could not be so far elevated as to apprehend a Possibility of Creation or any thing that could be so powerful as to give Existence to a Substance which had no Existence before and yet were not Atheists did acknowledg a Deity knowing and capable to do all things possible which did necessarily suppose a self-existent active Cause as the first Cause and a self-existent passive or material Cause of and upon which the first Cause made all Productions and Alterations whether that Cause were one similar Substance which most of them did with the greater Probability suppose to be Water or Air or whether it were an Heterogenious Mass or Chaos whereby the active Cause could only segregate the immutable Particles of that Chaos and unite them in Compounds of divers Shapes but none of them could ever distinctly propose whence Life and Perception arose and therefore were necessitated to suppose that there had preceded eternal Trains of all Animals and that there was no self-existent percipient Cause but these first active Causes only Yea all the Atheistical Philosophers who did not acknowledg a Deity yet did acknowledg a self-existent Being both active and passive and yet attributing no Knowledg to the active Cause and so working without Choice by fatal Necessity but they did acknowledg no percipient Being to be self-existent but either by eternal Generation or by Production from the Earth not only Plants but Animals These things first arising which are less perfect and need less Elaboration so that Mankind was esteemed to be the last Birth of the Earth I rejoice that all these phantastick Suppositions are evanished and that not only Revelation but Reason also have concurred that Creation is not only possible but true and I do admire and resent that even some Christian Philosophers and many of them by Profession Divines maintain the impossiblity of Vacuity without any Body or any real Extension because such a Vacuity is inconceivable without conceiving Longitude Latitude and Profundity which are the necessary intrinsick Properties of a Body and therefore must be from Eternity And therefore God could not annihilate the whole or any part of Matter leaving nothing where it was nor could give existence to any Body where nothing was before And therefore the Universe must necessarily be so far extended that there could be no further extension thereof By these Opinions there is supposed an eternal passive Cause from Eternity to Eternity and there cannot be imagined an Evasion that this passive Cause must be Self-existent or that God from Eternity did give it Existence and yet it cannot be truly said that he gave it Existence if it proceeded from him by Emanation without Choice Nor is there any ground to suppose that by Choice he gave it Existence from Eternity much less that he gave it an independent Existence that he could not annihilate it in the whole or any part of it It exceeds my Capacity to imagine how these things are consistent with the Wisdom of God and with his relation of the World's Creation I have elsewhere cleared my own Judgment that there is no Solidity in that Consequence that Vacuity could not be imagined to be without Longitude Latitude and Profundity and that all the Demonstrations thereupon were as true as upon any Body I shall only say here that the truth of attribution of Properties and Consequences doth not import the real existence of the
sweet to the Ear and others harsh than this free Gift of God For tho some Difference might arise from the grating of the Ear or the easy insinuating in it I see not how that could go the length of the Pleasure of Harmony or Displeasure of Discord nor can there another sufficient Reason be given of the Pleasure arising from certain Figures and Colours and of the Displeasure from others nor of that great variety of Smells and Tastes or of the Pleasure that arises from the Touch beside that Smoothness or Ruggedness of any pungent Impression It is a farther degree of God's Bounty that he gave Man so many Senses by which he might perceive the Impression of all bodily Objects and receive Pleasure and Profit by them and shun Displeasure and Hurt Food being necessary for the Subsistence of Man God hath placed three Senses as Sentinels at different distances warning what Food is convenient or inconvenient for him The Eye sees ordinarily at the farthest distance by which at the view his Appetite is moved the very Brutes at view discern their Food and Physick more exactly than Man because he hath the use of Reason and Experience but many things which cannot be discerned by the Sight being brought near the Nose will be discerned by the Smell and what cannot be so distinguished will be discerned by the Taste The Bounty of God hath yet further gratified Man by variety of Creatures affecting all his Senses not only for his Necessity but for an innumerable variety of Pleasures There is a several kind of Perfection by the Goodness of God given to Man in the wonderful Structure of his Body wherein there is such variety and multitude of Instruments serving for the use of the Soul that there is nothing in it or of it but what is befitted to be an Instrument of the Soul that all the Industry of Physicians till of late made a very small Progress by Inference from the sensible Effects of the Body of Man or by Anatomical Inspection and every day there are new Discoveries made wherein the late Invention of Microscopes helpeth much discovering these minute Vessels which are impossible otherwise to be seen so that the Psalmist cries out with Admiration I am fearfully and wonderfully made No Man hath yet given any probable account of the Formation of the Body of Man or other Animals nor how the Bones do grow in the Womb of her that is with Child Whence there is a great Check to Man's Presumption who is so slow in acknowledging a Being superior to himself and so apt to admire his own Knowledg as if there were nothing he could not reach when yet he knows so very little of his own Body The Comeliness and Beauty of Man's Body is a farther degree of the Bounty of God which tho it be much marred hath in some so much remaining whence it may be considered how great the Beauty of Man was before the Fall and shall be yet much more after the Resurrection of the Elect for they shall be like unto Christ's glorious Body It were but a vain Curiosity to inquire what Alteration in Man's Body would be congruous unto that State The Bounty of God is signally seen in the admirable Union of the Soul and Body which are two diverse Substances which can and do subsist apart and are of the most different Natures and yet are so firmly united that the Soul will never desert the Body were it never so unfirm and crazy while it can exercise its Faculties by it and doth so love it that it feels all things that make Impression upon it it hath Pleasure in all that befits the Body to be its Instrument and Grief or Pain on the perception of all that is hurtful to the Body Yea it apprehends not only that the Grief and Pain but that the Hurt that causeth it is subjected in the Soul it self the Excess and Abuse of which makes Men reflecting upon themselves to apprehend themselves much more as a Body than as a Spirit as if the Soul were subordinate to the Rody and its chief Use were only to enliven and preserve it And therefore in the sharp Pains confounding Terrors or excessive Joys arising from Sense or Imagination the Soul can hardly admit of another Thought by still reflecting upon these and therefore sensible Pleasures do divert and seduce the Soul from Objects and Delights which are more spiritual and sutable to it self more noble and sublime the increase or continuance whereof will never breed loathing or lessening of their Pleasure thence arising as sensible Pleasures do yet this is not to be imputed to nor doth it blemish the Goodness of God in giving sensible Pleasures which cherish and befit the Mind when rightly used The Stoical Severity doth not a little reflect upon the Wisdom and Goodness of God There is no small Debate among the Learned about the Cause of the Union of the Soul and Body which I am not now to prosecute but I cannot so well satisfy my self as by apprehending that this Union is by an Instinct freely given of God to the Soul by which it doth so cleave to the Body and delight in it that it can never leave it while it is able to serve it which is not in the Essence of the Soul tho it be comprehended in the Essence of Man implying more than a Soul and an organized Body by which it can receive Impressions and act accordingly which an Angelical Spirit can do and Experience hath shown that they oft-times have done acting by a fresh and incorrupted Body whence the Soul was departed that it was not discernable from a Man Yea evil Spirits have frequently possessed living Bodies and have overacted the Soul contrary to its Inclinations and Attempts as being a stronger Spirit When I consider the Strength of Self-love that is another inavoidable Instinct or even the fresh and tender Affection of Parents to their Children having nothing in them to breed Aversion which no reasoning can overpower I have no Hesitation that the Soul is capable of this Instinct and that it ceaseth not to have a desire to be reunited to the Body even in its glorious State of Separation else the Resurrection should not be a farther Perfection of Glory Neither do I like the excessive Expressions of the Soul 's being in the Body as in a Prison for tho the Soul be more happy when out of the Body when it is in a sinful State because a great part of Mens Sins arise from their bodily Affections whereof Angelical Spirits are not capable yet that is from Man's Corruption through Sin and doth nothing derogate the Goodness of God I do not believe that these Spirits acting a Body have Pleasure or Pain as Souls have by the Impressions or Actings through that Body If it were not for this inavoidable Instinct would not the Soul prevent the Pains of Torture and Death Oft-times with Ignominy and Cruelty to prevent which
and Reason No Man could know there were any real thing existent beside himself nor what or whence himself were Atheists are come to that height of Impudence as to pretend that they are the Wits of the World who will believe nothing but what is certain and evident and will not believe that there is a God because they see it not evident in which they are evidently the grossest Ignorants as well as the most imprudent Fools Ignorant they are because they found all their Interest upon an inconsistent Lie supposing certainty of Knowledg from themselves when yet they find themselves often deceived yea supposing themselves undeceiveable whereas it is impossible to attain to any certain Rule of Man's Life without supposing a Deity abounding in Truth and which cannot lie or deceive How could any be sure of any outward Impression of Sense for the same Impression may be in the Sense or Brain not from an extrinsick but from an intrinsick Cause Those whose Eyes are vitiated with any unnatural Tincture think they see all Objects painted with certain Colours but falsly Yea the Hypochondriack think they see not only false Colours but even Bodies and Shapes without any extrinsick Impression What strange Sounds doth the disordered Ear represent Taste and Smell may not only be depraved but deprived how then could Certainty be inferred from Sense if it were not presupposed that the Author of Sense were true and would not deceive and therefore hath given his reasonable Creatures Understanding distinct from Sense which can reflect upon its own Apprehensions and perceive the Condition of the Organs and Medium of Sense and make use of the concurring Testimonies of other Senses and the natural self-evident Principles in the Mind and thereby rest in perfect assurance which must explicitly or implicitly rest upon this ground that God the Author of these Faculties is true and cannot deceive and therefore the Creature may securely rest in the Concurrence of them This is yet more evident in the inbred first Principles of Knowledg contemplative or practical How could any certainly believe that these were true if he did not believe the Truth of God that gave them The concurring Testimony of Men through the World could not suffice for that Testimony is known by Sense by Word or Writing yea tho one Man could travel through the whole World and speak with all the Persons in it that were yet by Sense which needs those inbred Principles of Reason to secure it against Error there could no more be firmly concluded than that these Notions being common among People that keep no Intercouse they cannot be from Men but from a superior Cause which yet would not conclude if that Cause were not infallible which could neither be deceived nor deceive As the Truth of God is a necessary Foundation of the Certainty of natural Knowledg it must be no less necessary for the Certainty of revealed Knowledg For if God could lie or deceive how were it possible to know the truth of Revelations and distinguish them from the Illusions of Devils or Men not from Miracles which might be from God's Omnipotence and could not conclude without his Veracity not from the Assertion of the greatest Apostle and most glorious Angel For Paul saith If we or an Angel from Heaven shall preach another Gospel to you let him be accursed which necessarily implies that if a contrary Doctrine were preach'd from God it behoved to overturn his Veracity for otherwise the posterior Testimony of Paul or of an Angel would be derogatory and preferable to the prior It were not possible to know that God were Holy Benign Just Merciful Faithful Wise and Soveraign if he were not absolutely true for it is clear that these could not be believed because God said it if he were not unchangeably true nor could any part of his Holiness or Godlikeness be believed without believing that he is true there being nothing more sutable to the Deity than Truth which being surely believed all his other Perfections must be believed because God that cannot lie hath declared them by Reason and Revelation I am not moved with that Objection against the Apostle's Assertion that God altered the Constitution and Order of the Jewish Church and why might be not then without incroaching upon his Veracity alter the Christian Church The Reason is clear because in the Christian Religion it is a chief part that there is no Name given under Heaven by which Salvation can come but by the Name of Jesus and that there is never another way to be accepted or expected tho by the Annunciation of an Angel from Heaven this was never said of the Jewish Oeconomy The Truth of God being so fundamentally necessary to be believed God in his Wisdom and Goodness hath given the strongest Evidences of it There can be nothing more contrary to the Principles of natural Light than to imagine a lying or deceiving God There is nothing so powerfully and peremptorily asserted in the Scripture as the Truth of God who is called the God of Truth and Christ calleth himself the Truth in abstracto In the Character and Description God gives of himself to Moses he declareth himself merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in Goodness and Truth and he is a God full of Compassion and gracious long-suffering and plenteous in Mercy and Truth his Mercy is everlasting and his Truth endureth to all Generations Seldom is the Truth of God mentioned but with his Mercy for Mercy could be of no moment if God's Truth were not absolutely sure By Mercy and Truth Iniquity is purged saith Solomon and Mercy and Truth preserve the King God's Word is frequently called the Word of Truth But that which is most signal to convince us of the Truth of God is that he declareth it is impossible for God to lie Truth doth import 1. The Conformity between the Signs instituted to express Thoughts and the Thoughts whether these Signs be by Word or Writ or by other Signs as beckning with the Hand or the Head or the raising a pleasant Aspect in the Countenance to signify Assent Approbation or Acceptance which is more properly called Sincerity and Truth by such Signs is called Veracity Truth doth also extend to the Conformity between the Thoughts and the Objects thereof and so Truth is said to be in the Heart and to the Conformity of Words spoken or written or other Signs unto things signified tho not conform to the Thoughts or Judgment of him that expresseth them so there may be Veracity without Verity when Words are conform to the Judgment of him that speaketh but not to the thing signified yet both may concur with design to seduce or lead into Error or evil Practice when the Premises are expressed and the Conclusion is left to the Hearer whose Principles or Opinions are known that thence they would infer a wrong and inconsequent Conclusion which when done with design to seduce is no less Deceit than