the case Is it at all consentaneous to that communicative Goodness wherein God takes most delight to glorifie himself to make those souls the desolate Victims of enraged Vengeance who never had any more then a capability of Existence when their first Parent sinned against heaven and could no more prevent their defilement by that diffusive contagion then hinder themselves from being first made Arrian makes a very near cognation and affinity of the souls of Men with God Cap. 14. lib. 1. in Epictet as if they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 particles and avulsions from him and when Moses made intercession for the Israelites upon the Rebellion of Korah he uses this Title or Appellation Numb xvi 22. The God of the spirits of all flesh as the most prevalent Argument to induce him not to be wrath with the whole Congregation for one mans sin forasmuch as he was their Creator and therefore could not but pity the works of his own hands And the Author to the Hebrews styles this everblessed Being Chap. xii 9. The Father of Spirits who for that very reason can never cast of that Relation and become unpitiful to his own lovely Off-spring who in their lowest state and greatest degeneracy were vouchsafed to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Sons of God Joh. xi 52. And now what other can these things signifie but that there is a very near alliance and consanguinity between God and the souls of Men and that it is only the corrupt imaginations of men which introduced those horrid Decrees and represented God as a hater of Mankind and desirous of the death of his Creation But to carry on this a little further That God should hang the everlasting interest of millions of souls upon the frail and mutable Will of a single Person whom he foresaw would lapse and by it ruin and undo the greater part of his yet uncreated Posterity is an Oeconomy too harsh and rigid ever to be put in execution by the God of Love and unworthy the Nature of him who is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ and in him the Father of Mercies and Compassions Let us be wise unto sobriety and act like men who care not for Words and Names but Things Suppose an hundred Persons condemned to die equally culpable equally criminal and it be in the Power of some Good Man to save ten twenty or all if he please will he not rather deliver all than only redeem twenty or a less number especially when he may do it with the same expence and cost and shall we imagine God to be less Good than a charitable and kind-hearted Man Do God and his holy Angels take an infinite complacency and delight and rejoyce at the Conversion of one sinner and can we think they take pleasure in the destruction of Myriads even before they ever actually offended This made Mr. Calvin betake himself to the defence of the Supralapsarian cause because he knew not how the Personal sin of Adam should be derived upon his Posterity and make them formally guilty so as God might Salvâ bonitate justitiâ Reprobate them as sinners and cast them into the lowest hell Wherefore he ascribes all to the Divine Preordination and doubts not to say In Resp ad Calumn Nebul. ad Art 1. Nihil ad nos unius hominis culpa nisi nos coelestis judex aeterno exitio addiceret But let us hear him speak out his mind more fully to this purpose Instit lib. 3. cap. 23. § 7. Disertis verbis hoc extare negant decretum fuisse à Deo ut sua defectione periret Adam Quasi verò idem ille Deus quem Scriptura praedicat facere quaecunque vult ambiguo fine condideret nobilissimum ex suis Creaturis Liberi arbitrii fuisse Dicunt ut fortunam ipse sibi fingeret Deum verò nihil destinasse nisi ut pro merito eum tractaret Tam frigidum commentum si recipitur ubi erit illa Dei Omnipotentia quâ secundum arcanum consilium quod aliunde non pendet omnia moderatur Atqui Praedestinatio velint nolint in posteris se profert Neque enim factum est naturaliter ut à salute exciderent omnes unius parentis culpâ Quid eos prohibet fateri de uno homine quod inviti de toto humano genere concedunt Quid enim tergiversando luderent operam Cunctos mortales in unius hominis personâ morti aeternae mancipatos fuisse Scriptura clamat Hoc cùm naturae ascribi nequeat ab admirabili Dei consilio profectum esse minime obscurum est Bonos istos justitiae Dei Patronos perplexos haerere in festu â altas verò trabes superare nimis absurdum est Iterum quaero Unde factum est ut tot gentes unà cum liberis eorum infantibus aeternae morti involveret lapsus Adae absque remedio nisi quia Deo ita visum est Hic obmutescere oportet alicqui tam dicaces linguas Decretum quidem horrible fateor inficiari tamen nemo poterit quin praesciverit Deus quem exitum esset habiturus homo antequam ipsum conderet ideo praesciverit quia decreto suo sic ordinarat It cannot be denyed then but that the Scripture abundantly testifies and our dayly experience asserts the Lapse and Apostacy of Men from God and that they are really guilty of an Original contagion but that it came by any Ordination and Decree of God neither Scripture not Reason will assent unto And for this Degeneracy God might justly have punished all the World since that every man had made himself obnoxious by departing from him and violating his Sacred Law But God whose Goodness never fails was so far from taking advantage of the deplorable state of Mankind that he had a design of Good towards them and sent the Lord Christ into the World who taking upon him to become a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of men took of all that displeasure which was conceived against them according as the Apostle tells us 2 Cor. v. 19. Col. i. 19 20. God was in Christ reconciling the World unto himself And again It pleased the Father that in Christ should all fulness dwell and having made peace through the bloud of his Cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself whether they be things in Earth or things in Heaven By which Reconciliation is meant Gods taking into grace and favour lapsed Man and forgiving their foul degeneracy from him and assuring them that their past obliquities shall never ruine them if now they will endeavour to become New-creatures and that now he hath entred upon a Covenant of Peace wherein he promises to them all the assistance that possibly can be given Rational Beings so that now no man is damned for his Original but Actual Transgressions otherwise it cannot be understood how God through Christ should reconcile the World unto
most perfect manifestation of himself as not only without any regard had of their just provocations but even before they became sons of sense and were born into the World to Reprobate the farr greatest part of Mankind and make them the unhappy objects of his endless displeasure And surely if he himself once judged it a less merciful and benign Oeconomy to use his Prerogative of Absolute Dominion in visiting the sins of the Fathers upon the Children though otherwise culpable and therefore confirmed it with an Oath that As he lived there should be no more cause of using that Proverb in Israel The Fathers have eaten sower Grapes and the Childrens teeth are set on edge he will not in these last dayes wherein you tell us he hath clearly explicated and unfolded his Everblessed Nature so farr derogate from his illustrious Goodness as to become more harsh and severe in making Innocency it self feel the heavy weight of an implacable vengeance Was he once so gracious as to accept of an atonement for sin and pardon iniquities upon the Oblation of an Expiatory Sacrifice and will he now have no mercy and compassion upon the blameless works of his own hands who never offended unless it were in acting according to those principles his own good hands placed in them The first man was not turned out of Paradise and condemned to manure the Earth till he rebelled against his Maker and tasted of the tree of Knowledge but according to your Doctrine the souls of men are no sooner created but immediately thrown out of those armes which then embraced them into a state of bitterness and sorrow a region of malediction which both God and man abhorr In a word therefore if the long-expected Messias have propagated this Doctrine in the World I dare not be so treacherous to God and Reason as to entertain what in my apprehension they both plainly deny Having seen the just exceptions of the Jew against Christianity occasioned by that precarious Assertion of Irrespective Decrees which to every discerning eye appears a mighty impediment and hinderance to the planting in them a true value and esteem of the Doctrine of the Holy Jesus We may in the next place attend a while to the Heathen who though he be deprived of those clear Declarations of the Nature and Mind of God which Christians do plentifully enjoy yet having the principles of good and evil just and unjust displayed upon his Nature by the bountiful maker of all things and Truth being alwayes like it self in however various subjects it may reside thus bespeaks those vain Theologasters who out of an imprudent zeal think no man well till he entertain their nice and impertinent Doctrines When I look into the outward Fabrick of the corporeal world and revolve the exact Order Symmetry and Beauty of the external Creation how every thing acts regularly within it's own Sphear and all conspire to the mutual good and perfection of the whole I cannot but acknowledg the existence of an Eternal mind from whose pregnant fecundity this great ball of the Earth the blew Ethereal skie and whatever lies hid and undecerned within the vast capacities of immense space received their being and subsistence From this exuberant source of Goodness did mine and the souls of all mankind flow and those various orders and degrees of rational beings which tast the bounty of their Creator in their several stations and capacities and all these though in different measures and proportions he loves and cares for and takes an infinite delight and complacency to see them all exert those â—ital powers he was pleased to bestow upon them For I cannot think that God made any of his creatures to be miserable or that he should so much darken the early rayes of his Paternal benignity in bringing them into being by making their Existence a burden to them and serve for no other end then for a protraction of their miseries least of all can I without a manifest violation of my faculties yield my assent to that horrid Doctrine which you maintain and propound as necessary to be believed by every one who expects a blessed immortality with the Gods above viz. That the Benigne and All-wise Maker of the World did resolve from the outgoings of Eternity to destroy the greatest part of his noblest Creation and therefore decreed that out all mankind whom he intended to send down upon Earth he would oull out a small number known to him by name whom he would irresistibly without respect to their future Faith or Obedience make happy in the fruition of himself but determined without consideration or prevision of their sin and disobedience to damne and excruciate with interminable torments meeâ—ly upon his own will and pleasure all the rest of the World so soon as Death should deliver them from the infelicities and burdensome circumstances of a painful â—ife here upon Earth This I say which you exact of your Converts I have not fith enough to receive For can any ratinal person imagine That God should become a Tyrant to his creatures That he should have no compassion toward the works of his own hands Nay further That he should introduce them upon the stage of being on purpose to reproach and make them miserable that let them do what they can in order to their future Blessedness they should be befriended of none nor ever pitied by the tender bowels of that Almighty Goodness which first brought them forth but lie as unfortunate marks against which the arrows of Divine vengeance are perpetually levell'd and their cries no more regarded by the Father of Spirits then the groans of dying Victims by those insolent and unpitiful Deities to whom they are offer'd and which yet casts a greater stain and blot upon the Oeconomy of your God that he might not seem to condemn the innocent but to act under the specious pretext of Justice you make him first design then plot and contrive their ruine which to effect that he might set the better face upon it he enacts a Law entailing a sure and severe punishment upon the breach of it and in the mean time not only not affords those whom he intends to destroy the least strength imaginable to perform it but on the contrary by an overruling and uncontroulable power which some of your Authors magnifie as the fairest gemme in his beautiful Crown of Glory necessitates them to have a vile commerce and correspondence with Sin and Hell that the beams and rayes of his Justice may shine with the more dazeling Lustre in their perdition and destruction but as for those whom his discriminative love selected to the participation of his own pacate felicity and beatitude the same unlimited power most effectually carries them on through all states and conditions winking at their most enormous and hainous lapses perhaps into Adultery and Murder or other course Impieties and never forsakes them till they they are brought to the quiet possession of what was
Imprimatur Tho. Tomkyns R. R mo in Christo Patri ac Domino D no. GILBERTO Divinâ Providentiâ Archi-Episcopo Cantuariensi à Sacris Domesticis Ex Aed Lamb. Festo S ti Andreae 1667. DEUS JUSTIFICATUS OR The Divine Goodness Vindicated and Cleared against the Assertors of Absolute and Inconditionate REPROBATION TOGETHER WITH Some Reflections on a late Discourse of Mr. Parkers concerning the Divine Dominion and Goodness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato WISD xi 23. For thou lovest all the things that are and abhorrest nothing which thou hast made for never wouldest thou have made any thing if thou hadst hated it LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-head in Duck-lane 1668. THE PREFACE TO THE READER IT cannot be unknown to any man who hath either carefully observed the manners of Mankind or perufed the Writings of those of this present Age who have made many sad Declarations against the general Corruption of the World that either men are stupidly and blockishly Ignorant even in these dayes wherein Knowledge so much abounds or their Leaders have caused them to Err by instilling into them such Principles as may fairly consist with the practice of Vice and Immorality which easing them of that tedious burden of severe Mortification and sharpe Conflicts with the irregular and inordinate motions of sense and the bodily life soon captivated them to the embracing of them and made a speedy conquest of their unwary Judgments and so infinitely prejudiced their minds against the reception of better Sentiments and Notions that they cannot believe either the sense of the most pious and venerable Antiquity or of our own present Church to be Orthodox And I wish I could say that this latter hath not been the greater cause of those monstrous Impieties which in these late times so much prevailed amongst us For certainly mens natural Faculties and Capacities are no whit worse for the entertaining of Truth if it were rightly and duely propounded to them than former ages but might be much better if every Preacher of the Gospel and Steward of the Mysteries of God had faithfully discharged the trust committed to him But when those that took upon them the title of Evangelical Shepherds came not in at the right door but impudently challenged and usurped that Sacred Office and Dignity of being Co-workers with Christ the chief Shepherd in that great work of implanting his own life and lovely Nature in the lapsed and degenerate souls of men it is no wonder if the Flock went astray and became faint and weak through the unwholesomeness or undue order and proportion of their food And doubtless the blessed Jesus who came into the World to heal and cement the broken ruins and decayes of our Natures did not intend to bring this Heroick undertaking to perfection by perpetual Miracles but by a natural and orderly Method and therefore as he himself before he left the World breathed on his Apostles and gave them Commission both to Teach and Govern his Church So did they having received Authority from the Prince and Head of the Catholick Church the Lord Christ Ordain and Constitute fit persons to succeed them in that Function by which we are sufficiently instructed that it is not for every man to take upon him the Office of a Minister of the Gospel lest God take as little delight in him as he did in those Prophets of old who run before they were sent which too many did in the late times upon the pretence of some inspired Excellency and Perfection above their Brethren but only for those that come into their Office by a regular and due manner and according to the Fundamental Laws and Apostolick Constitutions of the Church wherein they live I may therefore refer the Miscarriages observed amongst us to these two General Heads 1. The great Pride and Self-conceitedness which reigns in vulgar spirits whereby they make their vainglorious Minds the estimate of their Perfections and by puffie conceits of themselves crumble into infinite Sects and Divisions and he that can best act the part of an inspired person and cant most fluently in Scripture expressions becomes the Ring leader of the Sect. And what gives greater occasion to this then that pleasant Doctrin to carnal minds which teaches them that when they can but collect themselves to be heirs of heaven and fancy their names enrolled among the Stars they are then safe enough They shall tread upon the young Lyon and the Dragon and the enemy shall never be able to move or disturbe their rest And all this shall be conferr'd upon them without any attempts or endeavours of their own toward the attainment of it This cannot but fill their sailes and blow up their light heads when they consider how easily they have obtained heaven and how God himself by a peculiar and discriminating love hath separated them from the rest of the polluted rabble of mankinde and dignified them with the title of his Beloved Ones And as the Nature of every Heresie is to diffuse and spread it self and by a contagious affriction savour all capable Subjects round about it no sooner is this Doctrine propounded but it findes good entertainment by the unstable and injudicious because it complies with and patronizes their darling Vices and renders it self very grateful to the Animal Life and withal requires no great pains or labour to be fully instructed in it nothing that shall rouze them up from their deadly slumber or molest their desired security the whole business is nothing but an inactive and easie belief of certain propositions and a delight some application of them to themselves and then Heaven cannot fail of being their portion and reward Thus while they soar aloft and fly in their vain dreams and imaginations they are really suckt into a living Hell of woe and misery and the unrighteous nature whose counsels are the very inspirations of that bottomless-pit takes greater hold upon them and having no substantial foundation to bottom themselves upon they perish in a storm and the windes of adverse fortune sink them even when they think themselves in the haven of Felicity True goodness and righteousness cannot consist with a proud and haughty spirit and is neuer found but in that humble Temper which the Blessed Jesus recommended to all his followers when he said Learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart And certainly 't is the greatest Obex and impediment to real and solid wisdom that possibly can be imagined when we are impatient of instruction and refuse such wholesome precepts and counsels as tend to the building of us up in our most holy Faith and by high-flown imaginations climb to the highest boughs of the tree of knowledge when we are yet unacquainted with the Rudiments of Christianity The way to life and blessedness lies not in the self-chosen tracts of opinions nor in sequestring our selves from the rest of the world by an impertinent contention about words
things which are of an immutable and indispensable necessity and are eternally unalterable even by God himself such are the notions of God and Evil Justice and Injustice and all Moral Rectitude and Deformity and according to the importance of these so is Gods Estimate of all rational Agents without respect to any external qualifications or natural endowments And where-ever he finds the least measure of his own good life springing up he is so far from destroying it that he upholds and nourishes it by the vital streams of his Immense Plenitude and quickens and causes it to distend it self through the powers of the soul by a gentle and divine heat and knowing it to be his own genuine off-spring by those Sacred Hieroglyphicks and impressions it bears upon it he can never forsake or cast it of as a contemptible and worthless thing but embrace it as that which hath the truest and most undoubted right to the Government of the whole World and take the greatest pleasure in dispreading it throughout all the lapsed Creation as being nothing but his own blameless Nature displayed and taking hold of so many several subjects to unite them to it self as to the most absolute and self-originated Good And this is no more then what the sacred Writ gives it's suffrage for Act. 10.34 35. God is no respecter of persons but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him As our growth and increase is in the Life and Nature of God so do we proportionably come under his favour and acceptance For we must not think that so soon as ever this Potent and Divine principle begins to set us free from that heavy slavery and captivity we were detained under by our Tyrannous self-wils that we are immediately so far advanced into the Divine Favour as will admit us into the sacred Adytum or Holy of Holies in the highest Heavens to see and enjoy the glory and presence of the Divine Schehinah and recreate and refresh our selves with that adorable splendor but we are to reckon our selves so far under the benign aspect of heaven as the Holy Life of God rules and bears sway within the Empire of our minds Heaven is not taken with the Grandeur and Blandishments of the world nor is a man so accounted in the ballance of the Divine judgment and approbation as he is valued in the fallacious estimate of frail mortals for God sees not as we see nor are his thoughts as our thoughts but such is the man as is the inward frame and temper of his spirit unbared from that swelling pride and ostentation and the painted gloss and varnish of Hypocrisie which set him off in the eyes of men There is nothing God takes greater joy and contentment in than the expansion and dilatation of his own Nature and Attributes and he never suffers his blessed Life solitarily to contest with the Rebellious and Gygantick lusts in mens souls and then to be vanquisht and die in the midst of enemies for want of his powerful assistance but perpetually aides and succours it making it victorious to the casting down Principalities and Powers and everting and conquering the whole Kingdom of Darkness and every thing that opposes it's Crown and Dignity leading the soul as a glorious spoil taken out of the hands of the airy-Apostate Legions who are but Usurpers and Intruders upon the Rights and Proprieties of the Kingdom of light into it's native Country that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the land of Truth and Righteousness All sin and unrighteousness is directly contrary and opposite to the eternal Rectitude of Gods blessed Nature and being so it is impossible he should ever be reconciled to it or cast a favourable aspect upon it He will ever be chasing pursuing and beating it out of the World and never suffer it to rest any where in peace but will alwayes lay siege against it and will at length prevail and settle his own life upon it's rightful Throne and put all the Powers of Hell and Darkness under his feet These are the two mighty Empires which have been ever since the revolt of Men and Angels from God and are still contending for the Government of the World and industriously promoting the amplitude and enlargement of their respective Dominions and to one of these every man associates and adjoynes himself in this life either by a manly courage and resolution in the wayes and practice of virtue or a pusillanimous declension to iniquity and vice And therefore the Philosopher spake well and agreeable to the sense of Christianity Porphyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. The more we neglect the extirpation of our passions and exorbitances the stronger hold has the unrighteous nature upon us and the nearer are we conjoyned with it The sum of all is this God looking upon and judging men according to their moral habitudes and capacities and beholding them all upright and perfect as the workmanship of his own hands before our great Protoplast Adam transgressed in Paradise could not but intend graciously to them and treat them according to the innocent purity of their Natures and therefore never conceived any such dismal purpose of damnation against them because they were not then in the nature and reason of the thing objects of his hatred and displeasure nor could they become obnoxious to punishment till they had actually violated some Law and Command 4. Conclusion That all the results operations and designs of the Deity relating to and terminated upon something without him are the emanations and effects of Absolute and Compleat Goodness It was not any benefit or addition to his stable glory and felicity which Men or Angels might contribute that first moved and incited the great Creator or the Universe to bring all things into Being but it was to communicate his Nature and display his Goodness in the production of all things capable of existing The whole frame of Nature depends upon him and he upholds it in the circle of his benigne Armes and his exuberant Love like an eternal spring is perpetually sending abroad it's streams and watering all the parts of the Creation with a Divine influx God is not like ambitious Man who acts that he may make himself great and purchase a few swelling titles by sucking in the aiery breath of Popular Applause and like proud Haman contrive and design the ruine of every one that will not bend the knee and adore with humble prostrations the vainer Image of a more conceited Majesty or like those self-will'd aspiring Spirits of whom it 's affirmed Porphyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 2. Sect. 37. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That they will do mischief if once they are incensed by neglect of their due worship and service but will presently become beneficial if flattered and collogued by Prayers Supplications Sacrifices and other accustomed Rites and Ceremonies He never acts out of such scant and
of an unlimited Will and Power how and when he pleaseth and declaring their effluxes and emanations to be the rule of reason and measure of all Moral Actions and the grand Law of the whole Creation or else in those Hymns and Hallelujahs which are offered up to him by intellectual Beings from all quarters of the Universe Whereas in truth his Glory is nothing without himself nor any acquisition and purchase to augment his happiness for he being an Infinite Plenitude of all Perfection is incapable of receiving any complement of Glory or Blessedness but then he most of all elevates and raises his glory and lustre when he most of all communicates his Nature and shines in with a full and uninterrupted light of Truth and Goodness upon all the intellectual Creation He never seeks his Glory in respect of us in any other way than by dispreading and imparting those Soveraign Attributes of Love Mercy Patience Wisdom and Justice And we in the most proper sense do then advance the Glory of God highest and discover it to the World in the most ample and transcendent manner when the life of God becomes a Vital Principle in us carrying us beyond the reach of corporeal exsudations and defilements which render the soul inept for a conformity to his blessed Image and when Truth Holiness and Righteousness in which the Divine Nature is copyed out become not empty and insignificant Names and sounds of words but actuating and quickning Principles and we studiously endeavour to engrave those beautiful Forms in our minds and spirits In a word then do we glorifie God when we converse with him in the Temple of an unspotted heart and derive from him in whom there is no blemish of iniquity such an Universal Holiness as lives within us and pervades and sanctifies all our actions And this the Lord Christ who best knew how to glorifie God hath intimated to us Joh. xv 8. Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit I have now finished this Argument from the consideration of the Divine Nature and have deduced such genuine and legitimate Conclusions that if rightly estimated and weighed cannot but implant for the future in every unprejudic'd mind more generous and serene Apprehensions of the Deity then are offered in any Scheme of the Supralapsarian or Sublapsarian Doctrins both which concurr in that which appears most deformed to every pure and defecate eye viz. The Eternal Reprobation and Confusion of the greatest part of Mankind the one upon pretence of Gods sole Will and Pleasure and the other under the mantle and cover of Adam's transgression in whose loins the whole race of Mankind was included when he fell and lost his Paradise Both which opinions though never so fairly guilded over do really make God put on the mask of cruelty and rigour that he might appear just in his Oeconomy and Administration of the affairs of the World and that which is most barbarous and infamous in the eye of reason is made to speak the glory of the Deity And that God might bring about this dismal and black design of Damning his Creatures he must compass it by injurious artifices and tyrannical contrivances rot unlike that inhumane fraud Tiberius used to Brutus and Nero the sons of Germanicus Suet. in Vit. Tâ—…b c. 54. Variâ fraude induxit ut concitarentur ad convitia concitati perderentur How deep a stain doth this cast upon the lovely rayes and efflorences of the Divine Goodness and Mercy making him to become the Executioner to his own off-spring and rend that dear life in pieces which his own hands gave Being to And although the Sublapsarian Dogma be entertained of some on purpose to mollifie that harsh decree of the Supralapsarian Reprobation yet if we divest it of those terms and artifices of words wherewith it is mantled over to appear more specious to the World we shall find it cast as great a blot upon the Divine Nature as the other For whether is it better to say That God by his Eternal Prerogative of Absolute Dominion over all his Creatures has adjudged the greatest part of Mankind to inevitable misery for no other reason but upon the impulse of his own Will and to shew the glory of his Power Or to say That God for the sin of one Man whom he made the Representative of the succeeding Generations of Men to the end of the World committed some thousands of years ago and imputed only to his Posterity who were no more able to help it than to hinder their being born into the World should take the advantage of his lapse and decree the greatest number of Mankind to Everlasting destruction And if we impartially view this latter it will appear no less precarious and absurd than the former For though it be true that we are really and formally guilty of Original Sin yet to say that God did physically predetermine Adam's fall or in the mildest sense That he looked upon man as fallen for the Reprobationists are not consistent with themselves and so took the opportunity which he foresaw would offer it self by his lapse to bring about his design of ruining the greatest number of Mankind is to bring Almighty God the Father of compassions upon the stage of the World speaking unto the calamitous Off-spring of Adam like the Wolfe when he intended to devour a Lamb Ante hos sex menses ait maledixisti mihi Respondit agnus Equidem natus non eram Pater hercule tuus inquit maledixit mihi Atque ita correptum lacerat injustâ nece Should God take the souls of men being yet innocent so soon as he set them upon acting in the World according to those Principles and Powers he bestowed upon them at their first production and cast them into everlasting burnings they would have this comfort left to them that they suffered innocently and never in the least measure violated any of the sacred Laws of Heaven But when they shall hear that their Creator and Father who upon that very account could not inflict a greater evil than the good he bestowed on them hath contrived their death and drawn them into sin that he might with the fairer shew of equity punish them with infinite tortures both in body and soul this injustice must needs appear unspeakably grievous For although some would seem to excuse this Oeconomy from all harshness iniquity and rigor by substituting the softer termes of Preterition or negative Reprobation yet if they will unmask their apprehensions and speak plain sense the difference will appear only in words not in the thing it self and is all one as if a man should seek to alleviate the calamity of a condemned Malefactor by telling him he should not die by Common but Noble hands For the event declares Gods intention and the denial of his help to extricate them from misery is equivalent to a positive Reprobation Let us consult a little our own faculties and reason
himself or how the Grace of God which came by Christ did abound and was made more efficacious then sin For if the sin of Adam destroyed and slew more than the Death and Passion of the Lord Christ made alive then were Sin of a larger extent and more potent than Grace 〈◊〉 v. and the Apostle could not truly affirm That where Sin abounded Grace did much more abound CHAP. IV. A fourth Argument against the Doctrine of Inconditionate Reprobation taken from the Evangelical Dispensation wherein is shown the purport and design of the Gospel which is to reinstate all men into the Participation of the Divine Nature and that that Rigid Doctrine is destructive of so high and glorious an end THere is no Man that knows himself and discerns the true frame of his own Being what sublime and noble perfections the soul is capable of and withal reflects upon the weak and imperfect state of the Sons of men how uncertain and fluctuating their judgments are at the best and how frequently obscured with prejudice how impotently stubborn their wills to the election of substantial good and how broken and disordered the faculties of their whole man but will assuredly conclude that all Mankind however it comes to pass are extremely alienated and apostatiz'd from that innate purity and excellent state in which they were created for no Man that believes himself made by an Alwise and infinitely perfect Author can imagine that he came thus lame and maimed out of his hands and sunk as low as the capacities of their Nature will permit being only vivacious and active to trifling low and bodily interests and concernments carrying on such poor and momentary designs as are unworthy the native generosity of their minds in a word so devoid of that life in the possession of which consists their true felicity that they are past hopes of recovering by their own solitary endeavours their pristine and ancient glory But although Man by that venturous and bold revolt from the blessed Kingdom of Light dispossessed himself of Gods favour and forfeited all right and title to his ordinary care and Providence yet that ever-to-be-magnified Goodness which made him at first Lapsable beheld him as a calamitous object of compassion and designed the erecting and reedifying that glorious Temple which sin and unrighteousness had miserably defaced and ruined and the repossessing his own life of it's rightful Government and Dominion in the Souls of Men which however they come into the World the subjects of bruitish lusts and passions are yet capable of Angelical accomplishments and a Vital Union with the Creator of all things God therefore being the highest and most perfect life and feeling and knowing his Nature to be the most pretious thing in all the World and the utmost perfection of every Rational Being could not but intend graciously to his lapsed Creatures and seek the extension and dispreading of his goodly Attributes over all capable subjects of the World of life For he that shall look upon the diligence and activity of the dark Powers in enlarging the bounds of their usurped Kingdom and consider the contagious and disseminating Nature of every pitiful and degenerate lust how every crazie and sickly vice attempts and offers at a further explication of it self and every small Exarchat of that Hellish Principality endeavours dayly to make new additions and take in fresh supplies to maintain the general cause of unrighteousness and augment their petty Royalties can never think that God will sit as a disinteressed spectator but promote and advance his own good life to the command of the whole Creation and brake down the power of that great Arimanus who captivates the sons of Men in the fetters and shackles of Mortality and Death The life of God is a strong and powerful principle and hath alwayes the arme of Heaven to aid and assist it but all sin and unrighteousness is a meer poverty and deficiency not able to exist in the World did not the self-wills of men uphold it and can never stand against the potent assaults of the Heavenly Nature Which holy life that God might reestablish in the World he hath delivered the Gospel the last and most perfect dispensation that ever was or shall be communicated to Men which consists not in an external and dead form of words nor is it a meer systeme and compendium of such precepts that like the Mosaical Law sanctifie only to the purifying of the flesh but cannot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Perfect him that doth the service as pertaining to the Conscience that is Purge and cleanse his mind from dead Works and make way for the consummation of the life of God within him whereby he shall no longer be in bondage and servility to every caitive lust but act spontaneously under a free and generous principle and become a law to himself but such a Method of perfect Righteousness and Virtue as shall purifie refine and exalt the spirits of Men from all feculent concretions and subdue every irregular motion and unruly desire that would tempt and sollicit their choice of corporeal joyes and beget in them so true a relish of unblameable Goodness and Holiness as should at the end of their mortal life instal them in the full possession of everlasting Tranquility and Peace Of which glorious contrivance though we have a Scheme and Model drawn out in the Holy Gospels yet there is a life and spirit in Christianity that cannot be blotted on paper but lives and acts in such hearts as are framed and squared according to those Rules contained in the Sacred Writings And this he who is the Author of our Faith and Blessedness testified when he said that his Words were Spirit and Life such as were able and designed to revive the dead and sensless minds of Men and propagate a vital heat and motion through the torpid and benummed World and accordingly the Apostle St. Paul tels us that Christianity is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law of the Spirit of life Rom. viii 2. 2 Cor. 3. and in another place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The ministration of the Spirit and the ministration of Righteousness in opposition to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The dispensation of Death and Condemnation intimating that under the Gospel men shall not have a Mechanical and Artificial Religion but such as frames the life and spirit of God in their hearts and becomes a Vital forme tuning their souls into an Universal consent with Gods own Will whereby they send forth most harmonious and Divine accents not only when they are stricken and beaten upon by an external hand like Memnon's statue whose Musical notes ceased so soon as the Sun-beams were withdrawn from it but from an internal Power incorporated and made one with their own spirits It is true when God at first made Man and sent him into this lower World he left him to be governed by those innate prescriptions and rules of Righteousness
would cast a fatal damp upon their attempts and endeavours after righteousness but being fully convinced as well of the Existence as that God will take care of their souls when they depart this obscure and evanid life and recompence their labour and trouble here with such great degrees of Happiness as shall farr surpass the highest calamity they can suffer in this World it cannot but inspirit their minds with life and resolution to break through all difficulties and discouragements and with a manly valour fight the good fight of Faith and never give over till they lay hold on Immortality and God Crown them as Victorious Conquerors with wreaths of immarcescible Glory It is but a groundless fancy in some to think that the intuition of the reward proposed to us in order to our further progress in Holiness and Virtue is acting upon Mercenary principles since that Christ himself in his greatest Agonies and conflicts supported the weakness of his Nature with the consideration of the reward he should receive as the compensation of his humiliation and sorrows for so we read That he endured the Cross Heb. xii 2. and despised the shame 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the joy that was set before him Besides they understand not the nature of the Reward promised to us in the Gospel for Glory Blessedness and Felicity are not Other things from Piety and Holiness but the consummation and perfection of that Divine Nature whose efformation is begun in this life Grace and Holiness is but Happiness wrapped up and closed and Glory is nothing but Holiness explicated and unfolded to it's due latitude and dimensions Piety is Heaven masked with a cloud of flesh and begirt with sorrow and Heaven is Virtue shining in it's native brightness and clothed with a Celestial splendour And that Ethereal and Paradisiacal body with which all believers shall be arrayed through the gracious bounty of the Lord Jesus at the Resurrection of the Just is the necessary appendage of our felicity and by it's easie and obsequious motions will raise in the exalted powers of the soul the highest sense of love and joy and delightful enravishments of spirit He then that loves Virtue for it's appendant reward does in effect love it for it self and is no whit behind him that is attracted by the naked pleasure resulting from it and thinks it eligible amidst the hoarse bellowings of Phalaris his Bull because the Reward hath a very great affinity and cognation with Virtue and is no otherwise attainable then by a full and perfect exercise of it This great happiness therefore accruing to the soul of Man when refined and purified from the dregs of Earth and Mortality is very rationally set forth in the Gospel to invigorate the minds of men and raise them to the free exertions of the Divine life and to animate their dying resolutions when they walk through a troublesome wilderness and are called to resist even unto blood And if it were not for the expectation of future Blessedness all Religion would fall to the ground the inward sense and feeling of the soul being so much weakned and debilitated by her continual imbibition and attraction of the dregs of the Earthly and mortal Nature whereby she is become sluggish and inactive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 her passions and apprehensions being in a manner wholly corporeal and Truth and Virtue be but idle names or dreams of a shadow existing only in the tongues and fancies of Men but never descending into the depth of the soul and impregnating it with their living Image These are the grand Instruments which the Spirit of God makes use of in the Gospel to induce and perswade the World to act under the Government of the Divine life which if skilfully applyed and managed will undoubtedly compleat and perfect that blessed work which Providence intended them for For we cannot think that Heaven would alarm the World with a false report or raise the expectations of Men by a great sound and noise of something extraordinary when in the conclusion it amounts but to some inconsiderable and trifling design The Eternal Son of God who was that Wisdom which is the delight of Heaven and rejoyced in the habitable parts of the Earth brought down with him from the seat of Majesty that Sacred and recondit method of recovering lapsed mankind which was carryed in the pregnant womb of Goodness from the dayes of Eternity and he became our Redeemer and pervades the very Centre of our Being and shapes and frams his Image of Wisdome and Righteousnes there strengthning our decayes and supporting our weakness and consuming and expelling all our dross and corruption by a subtle and powerful Energy which in Scripture phrase is to be Baptized with the Holy Ghost and with Fire We are fallen into a narrow and contracted state and those Divine forms in our union and fruition of which consisted our blessedness are quite defaced by our fond longing after and adhesion to corporeal features Now God manifesting himself in our flesh renews and perfects those glorious Images again and stamps his impress upon us and as the great conciliating Principle of the corporeal World figures and shapes out of prepared matter the body of a plant so the Holy Spirit frames and shapes out the Divine Nature in the lapsed World of Mankind But this great purpose of the Gospel this great design and plot which God hath laid to reduce Mankind to that blessed state from whence they fell is wholly frustrated and evacuated by the Doctrine of Irrespective Decrees And that I may not charge it with what it stands not guilty of I shall make it good by these two Instances 1. It renders ineffectual the purpose of God in the Gospel by lulling Men asleep in the lap of Security and Presumption of their good estate upon the groundless fancy of their Absolute Election from all Eternity For Men being once initiated and instructed in the Mysterie of this profound Doctrine will with much anxiety and vehemency of mind contend for the truth of that which they so passionately desire to be so and having withal so amorously courted and espoused their lusts and unruly passions and yet being terrified and affrighted with the lashes of their own Consciences they will with great easiness and zeal take sanctuary in so pleasing an opinion which both gives them a fair countenance to enjoy and reap the pleasure of their sensual passions and secures them from those domestick furies which perpetually hurried and tormented them and over and above sooths them up with a confidence of eternal bliss and felicity And he that can attain to this Plerophory or full perswasion of his Election from before the foundation of the World hath the White Stone given to him though he be so farr from eating of the hidden Manna that he feeds upon nothing but husks and vanities and his name is enrolled among the Stars and he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out
be quenched and then making bare his arme and demonstrating his Power by lifting them up from thence into the warm Sun-shine of his favour where they shall remain as secure of Heaven as if they were there already till God please by death to translate them unto glory And being taught on the other hand that whoever finds not this mighty work of Grace within him and feels not this great change wrought in his spirit it is a certain sign he is in the state of Reprobation and one of those who were of old ordained to condemnation Men I say being thus instructed and misguided by Pragmatick zeal that sets up it self in the place of Reason and not knowing that ever they had any sense or perception of those forementioned effects being wrought in them presently conclude that there is nothing to be expected for them but a sure and inevitable Damnation They never heard the sound of that breath of heaven which quickens dry bones and makes them stand up and live nor ever were acquainted with those impetuous agitations and convulsions of spirit whereby the New-birth is formed in them they never took notice of any such audible Voice behind them saying unto them this is the way walk in it Nor ever felt any such black tempest of horror and trembling seazing on them which presently the cloud being blown over was turned into a serene gale of quietness and peace Now it being thus with them what other conclusion can they draw from such Premises but that they are the objects of Gods hatred and are utterly excluded from all hope of happyness by a Decree unalterable as the Laws of the Medes and Persians For God hath determined say the Reprobationists and purposed in himself and he is not as Man that he should lye or the son of Man that he should repent that he will shew mercy to none but those few whom he hath pre-ordained to Salvation for the illustration of the Glory of his free Grace What shall I now comfort those despairing and disconsolate souls withal Should I tell them that God hates nothing that he hath made that he is the Father of Spirits and no Parent will tare out the tender bowels of his own dear off-spring they will presently reply that though the number of souls be as the sand of the Sea a remnant only shall be saved a little flock a tenth as the shaking of an Olive tree two or three berries on the top of the uppermost bough four or five in the outmost fruitful branches and though it be true that God is the Father of Spirits yet he is likewise the Supreme Lord of his Creation and May he not do what he will with his own hath not the potter power over the clay and therefore they are certainly vessels of dishonour and included in that great multitude which shall inherit bitterness and sorrow Should I declare to them that God is merciful and will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledg of the truth and to this end hath sent down the Lord Christ from heaven to declare to mankind that he is reconciled unto them and thinks thoughts of Love and Goodness towards them and that if they will repent and turn to him he will blot out their transgressions and remember their sins no more that Jesus Christ is become an Alsufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole World and hath taken away that anger and displeasure that was conceived against the Sons of Men having tasted Death for every Man and that now he invites all in the most condescending terms to come unto him and hath promised that Whosoever comes unto him he will in no wise cast out And what return now shall I have to these perswasions they will tell me that it 's true God is merciful and would have All that is some of all sorts and conditions of men to be Saved and to this end Christ came down from heaven and was made man that he might gather together the World of his Elect and tasted Death for every one of them and these he invites and these shall come to him but none else for no man can come unto Christ except the Father draw him and we have no evidence or but plausible grounds to think that he either hath or will draw any of us his Sheep only know his voice and follow him but we have no proof whereby we can collect our selves to be of his fold Wherefore all our arguments are fruitless and vain and you can give us no solid and substantial comfort to uphold our weak and dying hopes that we are not in a state of Reprobation I might here before I leave this Argument demand of the stout Champions and Promoters of this rigid Doctrine of Absolute Reprobation What they think of those general calls and invitations of all lapsed Mankind in the Gospel and How they will make them consistent with that sower Dogma for to what end or purpose were these and such like expressions inserted Mat. xi 28. Come unto me all ye that are weary and heaven laden and I will give you rest If any man thirst Joh. vii 37. Isai lv 1. let him come unto me and drink Ho every one that thirsteth come ye to the waters and he that hath no money Come ye Behold I stand at the door and knock Rev. iii. 20. if any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me Wisdom cryeth without Prov. i. she uttereth her voice in the streets How long ye simple ones Turn ye at my reproof The Spirit and the Bride say Come and let him that heareth say Revel xxii 17. Come and let him that is athirst come and whosoever will let him take the water of life freely Why doth Christ invite Reprobates to come to him when he denies them his gracious Assistance and intends they shall not come For that they are included here I think none can question that attends how general the terms are and if the balance be cast on either side the advantage will accrue to Reprobates for Christ came not to call the Righteous those who presume themselves to be Elected but Sinners such as the World judges Castawayes to repentance and besides the Text plainly implyes the same for who are more weary and heavy laden than those who are dayly burdened and know not where to rest Who are more thirsty than those who are scorcht with perpetual heats and travel in unknown deserts and solitudes panting and gasping and lifting up their dying eyes to Heaven and yet cannot obtain so much as one drop of cooling dew to allay the flames and ardors of their parched souls And if it be certain as it cannot be denyed that all men whatever are interessed and concern'd in these passionate invitations it is likewise clear as the Noon-day Sun that all may come and receive the benefit designed
descendeth from the Father of Lights exert it self in pure peaceable gentle merciful and impartial actions But we finding all things go contrary and Autaesthesie the Grand principle of our deviation from God so mischievously powerful leading men to a life of self-seeking and inamouring them with the fading beauties of this inferior World making Intellect and Reason drudge in unjust policy and subtlety for the promoting self-interest and carrying on little and private designs for the treasuring up Riches though by the greatest Extortion and Rapine and consuming and overrunning the poor and innocent like a sweeping Torrent that leaves nothing behind it but the miserable tokens of ruine and desolation This being the state of men and farr worse then I have here represented it under the brutish life and law of sin what signs can they shew that they are arrived to any considerable measure of liberty For it is not some one particular lust but the whole unrighteous and Diabolical Nature which mingles and insinuates it self with the whole frame of the soul and enthrals it to it 's imperious dictates But yet there is some freedome left still and men are not destitute of a light though languid and glimmering to lead them to greater degrees of Vertue if they would suffer themselves to be guided by it There is yet in every man in his greatest Apostacy and lapse from the Divine life a Principle of Conscience accusing and condemning him for the perpetration of evil and that regret and shame a man finds in himself after the commission of impiety is a manifest evidence that he had Power to avoid it 2. Again there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the law of the mind or conscience ver 23. Another law warring against the law of my mind And this is the second state and condition of mankind For as while they were under the Law of sin they were wholly alive unto themselves and disjoyned from the Universal Spirit of life and true freedome they became at last strangers to their own Beings and ignorant of their high and noble extraction so under this Dispensation of the mind or conscience there is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or double-livedness within them being partly alive unto themselves and partly unto God sometimes lending a patient ear to the soft whispers of Divine wisdom and at other times carryed away with the loud murmurs and noises of that worser Principle as Medea in Euripides complains 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My Conscience tells me that I act amiss But fury stronger than my Reason is And now they begin to awake out of their lethargick drowziness and sleep and open the windows of their souls and receive in some beams of the Sun of Righteousness that hath long circled about them and by his light they see themselves in a broken and unhappy plight and fain would come out of it but dare not put themselves to any trouble or pain so they lay themselves down again to slumber But conscience being once forcibly rouz'd up is not so easily lulled asleep but alarms them with fatal cryes and shews them the guiltiness that lies upon them and the mortiferous and dangerous state they are in by reason of the certain punishment all sin draws along with it thus being affrighted they become Religious out of fear and account Christianity as a task and burdensome service imposed upon them only to deprive them of their liberty and abridge them of that freedom they before possessed and still they bear a love and liking to their lusts and often visit them with dear embraces And while they are here they carry a perpetual warr within them between the Law of sin and the Law of the mind sometime the one and sometime the other prevailing the life of the body strugling against the mind or reason and the light endeavouring to chase away the darkness and night And of this state are to be understood these and such like places of Scripture For that which I do I allow not for what I would that do I not Rom. vii but what I hate that do I. So then with the mind I my self serve the law of God but with the flesh the law of sin For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh Gal. v. 17. and these are contrary one to the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that ye cannot do or that ye do not the things that that ye would Now the liberty of Mans will begins to spread and enlarge it self under this Oeconomy for though mens strength be but small yet God whose Goodness both Earth and Sea and the whole community of life partake of cannot behold his own dear life contending with the Powers of darkness and never countenance nor abet it but will lead it victoriously through the midst of hell and secure it from all the Magical spels and enchantments of the inferior World and as this Divine life grows more potent in the soul so the liberty and freedom of the will arises to a greater latitude and perfection But if we prove false to the Divine light and notwithstanding the great helps and means vouchsafed us pretend still our disability and infirmity we may easily lapse again into the brutish life and lie under the Power of the law of sin out of which we began to be delivered and the freedom of our will which was in some measure enlarged will be again contracted into narrowness and exility and our last state will be worse then the first 3. But he that makes good use of Gods gifts and behaves himself as a good Souldier of the Lord Christ and conquers and subdues his rebellious lusts by the power of his Spirit descendihg into the grave with the holy Jesus by a profound humility and mortification and becoming perfectly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dead to all the self-feeling and the luscious relishes of the corporeal life he is arrived to the highest dispensation of Christianity which is to be under the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. viii 2. Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus Such a man is wholly alive unto God and though he be encumbred with many hardships afflictions and outward calamities which threaten approaching ruine to his body of earth yet his life is holy harmless and innocent like the life of Christ upon Earth and his soul is so affected as his was having but one only will in the World which is to annihilate himself that God may be all in him And whoever is arrived to this high pitch of Divine perfection hath attained an enlarged and boundless freedom his life being melted into the Divine life and his will fitted and adapted to the comprehension of the Divine Will For the true liberty of our wills consists not in an uncertain indifferency and dubious fluctuation between two different objects presented to our choice For this arises out of the darkness and imperfection of our
the nutrition and augmentation of the parts of their Natural bodies 3. The usual way and method by which the first disseminators of the Gospel implanted and begot the image of Christ in the minds of men was by exhorting them in the first place to the plain and obvious duties and exercises of Morality such as Justice and Equity Temperance and Chastity great love and compassion towards all men relieving and comforting the necessitous and calamitous according to their several wants and indigencies and such like acts of Virtue and Reason which are the preparatory qualifications for the introducing the Divine Spirit to attempt the formation of the living Image of Jesus Christ and between these and the Divine life there is the same cognation as between the blade and the full-ear'd corn For it is utterly impossible to conceive the life of God without them or to imagine that he can be really Baptiz'd into the life and spirit of Jesus who is unjust to his Neighbour and unpitiful and contemptive of the compassionate needs and sighs of his poor Brother It is sufficiently seen and the sad experience of every man will declare it to him how deplorably Apostate our Natures are when we first come into the World and how vitiously inclined our souls when they begin to exert themselves in acts of Reason and Intellect so that they appear almost breathless and inactive to the concerns of Immortality or whatever offers to better their condition and pull them out of the mire and clay wherein their feet are held And to think that God will forcibly draw them out and hale them like unwilling captives into a state to which they have no cognation or vital congruity awakened in them beside that it is derogatory to his spotless and pure Nature it is likewise inconsistent with the nature of the thing it self considering mens minds so vitiated and totally discomposed by a long and assiduous inflexion and distortion to degenerate Vice For Divine generations as well as Natural require a sutable proportionateness and as every matter is not capable of conciliating and uniting with every formative principle so neither is every temper of humane souls congruously disposed for the inaction of that Divine Spirit which never falls to work but where the subject is rendred plyable and sequacious by timely preparations and fit dispositions and capacities And if it were otherwise that meer Power or the Naked Presence of the Divine Essence dispreading it self through the whole Creation were sufficient to give us any hopeful expectation of our Spiritual Regeneration by it without any precedent assimilation or fitting dispositions I do not see how this boundless and compassionate Goodness can behold the World in so sad and miserable a plight the whole Earth being filled with Violence and the Habitations of cruelty and Oppression and mens spirits so degenerated that saving their outward shape and a little more cunning and craft in contriving and executing self-designs and interests they are hardly distinguishable from the Beasts of the field I do not see I say how that Love which is the inmost centre of the Deity and from whence flow all the perfective irradiations of his blessed Nature can behold the sons of men so unlike himself and yet not reform and change them since the business lies wholly upon the exertion of his Almighty Power But we finding no such thing we may confidently averr that there are some precedaneous qualifications required to the perfection of the Divine birth and these can be no other then Justice and Righteousness purity and abstracted affections from Mundane forms Chastity and moderation of bodily pleasures and a dear and tender regard of the whole Creation Which things have so near an affinity with the Divine life that the one necessarily inferres the presence and existence of the other these requisites being the basis and foundation upon which the heavenly building is framed 1 King vi 7. now as in the structure of the material Temple there was neither sound of ax nor hammer in like manner that heavenly edifice which the Eternal Architect endeavours to erect in the soul of every man is compleated and perfected without any sound or noise the Holy Jesus neither crying nor lifting up his voice in the streets to give a sign of his approach when he renews and forms his image in the sons of men For that image which God shapes out in our Natures is not any thing different and distinct from our moral and inherent Righteousness or any new infused quality but the exaltation and freeing of that principle which though weak and depressed by a load of corruption yet being immortal and incorruptible bears a Divine stamp and exerts it self in acts of Sobriety Justice and Goodness and being assisted and corroborated by the powerful conduct of the Spirit of God successively displayes it self and continually arises to greater measures till the living efformation of Christ be perfectly compleated An instance of this we have in Cornelius Acts x. and the more devout and religious Heathens in whom the life of God was in a good measure radicated and discovered it self in his frequent Prayers and Charitable actions who when he was renewed and sanctified by the gracious illapse and descent of the Holy Ghost was not devested of those Moral accomplishments of his Nature or endued with any thing different from them but his Righteousness and perfections of his mind were increased and sublimated and fitted for the rellishing such delicate and tender impressions which things being seriously considered it cannot be that any one should perceive the beginning or determine the time of the vegetation and increase of the Divine Image and Nature 2. The second illation which concludes the infallible certainty of his Perseverance who is once in a state of Grace and collects himself to be under the immutable decree of life by those Characteristicks delivered from the mouth of no mean Dictator of that pleasing Doctrine as it is destructive of Piety and casts a malevolent aspect upon true Religion and Virtue so it hath not the least print or footstep in the Holy Scriptures nor can alledge any thing but fancy and the prejudice of impotent affections to maintain it's credit in the world as will appear from these subsequent Propositions 1. That the Decrees of God whether of life or death look upon men according to the exigency and import of their present states and conditions not of their potential or future Beings As suppose God foresee and discern that this man righteous at present will hereafter forsake his righteousness and apostatize from the holy Commandement and do wickedly yet so long as he continues righteous he is under the favourable eye of Heaven and is treated as one whose name is written in the Book of Life Whosoever doth righteousness is righteous but he that committeth sin is of the Devil 1 Joh. iii. 7 8. And more plainly yet The righteousness of the righteous shall