2. Majesty 3. Glory 4. Lordship 5. Immutability Fifthly The Measure of all his Attributes is Infiniteness that is They have no Stint nor Measure As the Measure of his Being is Immensity Sixthly The Crown of all his Attributes is his Eternity Of these in order 1. His Bounty the Scripture thus expresseth Psalm 145.15 Thou openest thy hand and satisfiest the desire of every living thing Matth. 6.28 29. Consider the Lilies of the field they toil not neither do they spin and yet I say anto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these And Psal 104.27 28. These wait all upon thee speaking of the several living Creatures that thou mayest give them their meat in due season Thou openest thy hand and they are filled with good 2. His Justice in the Righteous Government of all things the Holy Ghost thus sets forth Psalm 89.14 Justice and Judgment are the Habitation of thy Throne And Psal 9.8 He shall judge the World in Righteousness and minister Judgment to the World in uprightness Jerem. 32.19 Thine Eyes are upon all the Ways of the Sons of Men to give to every one according to his Ways and according to the Fruit of his doings Gen. 18.25 Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right Rev. 15.3 Just and true are thy ways thou King of Saints 3. His Veracity is thus described Numb 23.19 He is not as a Man that he should lye Hath he said it and spoken it and shall it not be made good Rom. 3.4 God is true and every man a lyar Heb. 10.23 God is faithful who hath promised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is to be credited or believed Psalm 138.2 I will woriship towards thy Holy Temple and praise thy Name for thy Loving-kindness and for thy Truth for thou hast magnified thy Word above all thy Name Psalm 86.15 But thou O Lord art plenteous in Mercy and in Truth 4. His Mercy and Compassion to all Rational Creatures is thus expressed John 3.16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Ezek. 33.11 As I live saith the Lord I have no pleasure in him that dyeth or in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live Turn ye turn ye from your evil ways For why will ye dye 1 Tim. 2.4 There it 's said that God would have all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth Besides 1. All those Scriptures that express the Death of Christ for sinners without limitation serve to this purpose such as 1 Tim. 2.6 Who gave himself a Ransome for all Men c. 2. All those Scriptures that contain a Commission to Preach the Gospel to all the World without Exception magnifie this Attribute to the full and make it shine forth gloriously such as Matth. 28.19 Go ye therefore and teach all Nations c. 3. Likewise all those Scriptures that promise Pardon and Salvation upon the Conditions of Repentance and Faith not excluding any from these Terms are a lively demonstration of this lovely Attribute such as 1 John 12. As many as received him to them gave he Power to become the Sons of God even to them that believe in his Name 4. So likewise all those Scriptures that set forth the Patience of God towards sinners in general may be reduced hither and serve under this Head 5. Lastly All those Scriptures that insist upon the Common Providences of God towards wicked Men and his veriest Enemies in supplying all their Necessities and giving them such a large portion of these outward Comforts bear ample Testimony to this Attribute and do very much exalt it such as Matth. 5.45 where God is said to make the Sun to shine upon the Evil and upon the Good and to send Rain on the just and on the unjust 5. His Special Love to Believers the Holy Ghost thus describeth Deut. 33.29 The Lord is the shield of their help and the sword of their excellency Psal 94.14 God will not cast off his Saints nor forsake his Inheritance And Psal 149.4 The Lord taketh pleasure in his people and will beautifie them with salvation And Psal 1. last The Lord knoweth i. approveth the way of the Righteous Isa 49.16 There they are said to be graven on the Palms of his Hands and their Walls are ever in his sight And Vers 15. It 's said God cannot and will not forget them Moreover 1. All those Scriptures that entitle them to Pardon Reconciliation Adoption and Glory Comfort in all Conditions and a blessed Issue out of all their Troubles be they more or less and that entail a Blessing upon their Seed and Posterity are a sufficient proof of God's special Love to Believers and set it forth illustriously such as Psalm 97.11 Light is sown for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart Psal 37.37 Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace Eccles 8.12 13. Though a sinner do evil an hundred times and his days be prolonged yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God which fear before him c. Psal 102.28 The children of thy servants shall continue and their seed shall be established before thee Rom. 8.1 There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus that walk not after the flesh but after the spirit Psal 125.1 2. They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Sion which cannot be removed but abideth for ever As the mountains are round about Jerusalem so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth and for ever Rom. 8.28 All things work together for their good And Gal. 4.6 Because they are sons God will send forth the Spirit of his Son into their hearts 2. All those Scriptures that contain their special relations unto God and Priviledges founded thereupon do lively set forth God's special Love to them Sixthly His Almightiness the Scripture thus expresseth besides the places where he is expresly styled Almighty Ephes 3.20 He is able to do abundantly above what we can think or speak Job 26.14 The thunder of his power who can understand Prov. 21.30 There is no wisdom power nor understanding against him Jerem. 27.5 He hath made the Earth and all that therein is by his great power Isa 40.22 23. It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof are as Grass-hoppers that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in That bringeth the Princes to nothing and maketh the Judges of the Earth as vanity Heb. 1.3 God is there said to uphold all things by the word of his power All those Scriptures that assert the Creation of the World or any part of it by God The Division of the Sea or other Waters miraculously The strange Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha
to draw and invite this Affection And have moreover disappointed thee too often of the Pleasure and Felicity that from them thou hast expected yea and which is far worse have entangled thee in many foolish and hurtful Lusts which have afterwards betrayed thee to sad and bitter complaints But here 's an Object worthy thy strongest love that will not debase and destroy but advance thy Soul to the highest Perfection The Love of him as it is sweet in the exercise so it will end at last in unspeakable sweetness and will not upbraid thee with Folly afterwards as all other Love will be sure to do Thou mayest love other things too much and here 's the Source and Spring of all Sin and Impiety and of all absurd and unreasonable Practices For as Divine Love is the sum of Duty and all worthy and becoming Actions so Carnal Love or the Love of Creatures is the Sum of all Wickedness and all incongruous and unseemly Practice But God can never be exalted too high in thine Estimation and Affections Here thou mayest safely vent and pour out all the store of thy Love with the greatest delight and security and expatiate thy Soul to the widest extent in the Ocean of his infinite and most lovely Perfections To him thou mayest safely offer up thy Soul in sacrifice as a whole-Burnt-Offering in the Fire of Love for ever Wilt thou permit thy Thoughts any more to fly abroad into Trifles and impertinent Matters when thou hast the immense Ocean of Divine Goodness to lanch forth into and mayest lose thy self with the greatest pleasure and advantage in the depths of his infinite Perfections Here to be even drowned and swallowed up is not Death but the sweetest and most ravishing Life Hast thou not pined long enough and melted away in the Cares and Love of the World the Martyrdom which corrupt Nature prompts thee fast enough to chuse Is it not now more than Time to be wiser and to bare an Honourable Testimony to him that hath redeemed thee And to subscribe that Witness to the Truth which thou hast borne too much hitherto to Lies and Falsehood Let them be taken by thee for Fools and Madmen that torture themselves with the Love and Care of this World and take Hell by that violence that the Kingdom of Heaven should be taken by But let the main stream and current of thine Affections be ever after him in whom are all the dimensions of Perfection Some little Twilight and Glimmerings of his Ravishing Beauty thou hast seen in his Words and Works But oh how short how exceeding short have they been through thy wilful Blindness and Inadvertency But these express not the thousandth part of his wonderful astonishing Splendour and Glory Something it may be thou hast tasted of his sweetest reviving Love But oh how little in respect of what thou might'st have had had it not been for thy own wilful neglect and refusal Hadst thou gazed as much upon his Glory as thou hast done upon the fading transitory Glory of the World and studied his Perfections according to the Opportunities and Advantages he hath given thee and not loved dismal affrighting Darkness rather than the quickning trransforming Light and neglected the best use of thine Understanding and Affections in holy Meditations on God Thou might'st confidently have expected the Blessing of God in a Work so well pleasing to him and found the Treasure that would have made thee contemn all other things in Comparison Then thou might'st have had joy in the darkest Night of Affliction and such an Allay to the bitterest Cup that would have made any Condition welcome to thee Then thou would'st have forgotten all the Miseries of thy life past and remembred them as Waters that pass away Job 11.16 Then thou might'st have lyen down with the sense of the pardon of former sins yea thou might'st have lyen down and thy sleep would have been sweet to thee Then the Remembrance of thy latter End would not have been such an unpleasant Theme to thy Meditations as now it is yea the Lord would have satisfied thy Soul in Drought and made thee like a watered Garden and like a Spring whose Waters fail not Isaiah 58.11 And then with what vivacity and chearfulness should'st thou have performed all Duty and borne all Sufferings when God had once answered thee in the joy of thy Heart Considerations to provoke to the Contempt of the World Psalm 119 96. I have seen an End of all Perfection but thy Commandment is exceeding broad 1 John 2.15 16. Love not the world nor the things that are in the world if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him For all that is in the world the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world Vers 17. And the world passeth away and the lust thereof but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever Isa 40.6 7. All flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof is like the flower of the field The grass withereth and the flower fadeth because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it 1 Cor. 7.9 The fashion of this world passeth away Prov. 11.4 Riches profit not in the day of wrath but righteousness delivereth from death Eccles 1.2 and 2.11 Vanity of vanities all is vanity saith the Preacher Eccles 1.8 All things are full of labour man cannot utter it the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear with hearing Prov. 31.30 Favour is deceitful and Beauty is vain AS the Object of all rational saving Love is God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and all that standeth in subserviency to him so far as they conduce to this Noble End and Happiness of the Soul So the Object of all irrational sinful damning Love is the World and whatsoever serves to promote its interest in the Heart so far as it is Competitory with or Contradictory to the Interest of God and conduceth to the inordinate pleasing of the Flesh And thus much I intend here by the World that is any thing in the whole Creation that doth not refer to and is not subordinate unto God is to be the Object of this Contempt and Disdain First Because the World is unsatisfactory and cannot content the Mind of Man There is something still that the Soul misseth when it hath all here that it can desire It silently imagineth an Aliquid ultra when it hath gone its farthest in the Happiness and Prosperity here on Earth And it 's so far from Rest after all that it grows more hot and impatient in its desires And finding nothing to pursue after that can give content begins to fret and grow peevish when the ambitious Soul is gotten to the top of Honour he finds not the thing he expected he calls it by all the slight and contemptible Names he can invent or imagin you may as well satisfie the Appetite
they pass beyond our Imagination Fancy what thou wilt and Majesty Pomp and Beauty can present thee with it 's all but a poor faint Resemblance of the Glorious Life to come It 's easier for a Pencil to draw the Picture of Sound and Tast than for the Tongue to utter or the Heart to imagin The Joys of Heaven All that a curious Artist can do to describe the Content of a Soul at Rest with God and perfectly Happy is so far from what he would but cannot say as Heaven is from Earth We know There 's nothing of all this that we see hear or tast or imagin in the Heavenly Paradise But thou mayest be sure there 's more than all this Considerations to excite Shame and hearty Sorrow for all former Departure from God and present Strangeness to him THough God delighteth not in Sorrow and Contrition meerly as it is the Misery and Affliction of his Creature but rather is afflicted with them in all their Sorrows Isaiah 63.9 yet as it is an expression of any sincere hatred of former sin and willingness to forsake it and comes from any true Love to God who is dishonoured by it and Mens own Souls of which it is the death and destruction and leads directly to their future Reformation and Happiness so the Lord is delighted therewith And a sinner one that is yet under the guilt of his sins cannot present him with a better Sacrifice For The Sacrifices of God are a broken Spirit a broken and contrite heart O Lord thou wilt not despise Psalm 51.17 1. Thou wilt take pleasure in by a usual Figure called Litote or Mecoses And in the former Clause of the Verse The Sacrifices that is The Sacrifice of Sacrifices as the Heaven of Heavens is put for the Highest Heaven In which Forms of Speech it 's customary with the Hebrew Language to leave out the first Substantive * Hence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put for the Elephant because she is the chief Saith Grot. of Beasts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put for God himself because he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most excellent wisdom Psal 49.3 So the Canticles is put for the Canticle of Canticles or the most excellent Song Instances there are many of this kind to shew that the Plural Number is sometime instead of the Comparative Degree Thus you see in what sense God is delighted in our Sorrow and taketh pleasure in a sighing and broken Heart even in the same sense that Paul was glad at the sadness of the Corinthians even as it was a sign of and step to their future Amendment and Happiness 2 Cor. 2.2 For if I make you sorry saith he who is he then that maketh me glad but the same which is made sorry by me And indeed it is no wonder that the merciful God that delighteth so much in the welfare and felicity of his Creatures should yet be so well pleased in the bitter Repentance and heart-breaking Sorrow of sinful Creatures since it is such a preparative to your future Joy and that so many excellent Texts of Scripture are dropt from the Holy Spirit to encourage Sinners to labour after such a wounding piercing Sorrow as this is So Isaiah 57.15 Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth Eternity whose Name is Holy I dwell in the High and Holy Place with him also that is of a contrite and humble Spirit to revive the Spirit of the Humble and the Heart of the Contrite one So Isaiah 66.2 There he seemeth to despise and slight the most magnificent stately Structure which they could build him and to prefer the humble contrite Heart far before all that the Hands of Men could possibly make Thus saith the Lord The Heaven is my Throne and the Earth is my Footstool where is the House that ye build unto me And where is the place of my rest For all these things hath my Hand made But to this Man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my Word And how frequently is he said to comfort those that Mourn and to bind up the broken in Heart to regard their Sighs and bottle up their Tears as if there were no Temper that God more delighteth in There are some though very few that need to be warned and admonished that they do not place the Principal Part of God's Worship and Service in Sighs and Tears and pricking Sorrow and shameful Confessions of their Sin Not that I disswade any from giving due Time and Measure to these humbling self-abasing Acts For it is the design and business of this present Labour to promote this Sorrow in the Heart so far as it is a fit Instrument to promote Reformation in the Heart and Life But yet some I say have need of this Caution that they lay not too much stress upon this part of our Duty we owe unto God much less that they confine the whole work and business of Religion to Acts of Contrition and Mortification For though the Lord delighteth in the penitent broken Heart that mourneth over all its former Sin and Folly and is ashamed of his odious hainous Transgressions and doth loath himself for his Iniquities and doth particularly search into his Sores and uncover them before God with the most distinct clear and open Confession yet this is but a lower and preparatory step to that Love of God constant delight in him praises of him chearful obedience to him in the which he is far more delighted so that Tears and Sorrow and heart-melting Repentance and afflicting our Souls are not absolutely pleasing to God and a part of the immutable unchangeable Worship we owe to him but only acceptable to him 1. Upon supposition of former Miscarriages 2. In preparation to future Obedience Had we never sinned Sorrow and Repentance had been no acceptable Service to God at all neither would it have pleased him to see us go heavily as those that mourn But now supposing that every one of us is born into the World with hereditary Corruption and a depraved Nature quite contrary to that which God gave Man at the first the very first acceptable Service that we can perform to God is to be sensible of and to bewail this perverse Disposition according to its desert and to weigh and consider all the sad and woful Consequences of such a poisoned corrupted Nature how hateful it is to God how disgraceful to our selves here and how destructive to our souls hereafter and how dangerous and infectious it is to others that we are firmly resolved to take any Course to recover our former Freedom and Priviledge we had in the state of Innocency that God shall suggest to us It is as preposterous to offer up any Service to God till this be done as it is to â—earn to Read before we are acquainted with