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
laboured but one Hour as to those that laboured a whole Day saying Why are you evil because I am good Is it not free for me to do with my own what I please But the Folly of this Pretence I see further cleared that it was not possible to evade it for though he should have made a Million of Worlds and far more perfect than this yet still he could have made more and more perfect otherwise his Omnipotence had been exhausted and his Power as well as his Freedom behov'd to cease Besides that Revelation shows the Design of glorifying Man by the Mediator Christ. It had been exceedingly unsutable to his Merit that a Part of glorified Men should have owed nothing to him and so he ought either to have suffered in every Habitation of Mankind or they ought all to be in one Habitation and of one Nature and Blood of both which he was Partaker My Design is to clear up to my self the Divine Perfections and thence to exalt the Loveliness of God and to vindicate the same against these and other Errors and Mistakes by methodical Meditations thereupon according to the natural Order of the Divine Perfections which Order doth very much contribute to distinct Conceptions of them all The Divine Perfections are either natural and absolutely necessary or voluntary free and moral And though they be without all Composition in the fullest Simplicity yet they must necessarily be conceived by Creatures as some being prior and others being posterior in order of Nature the Divine Dispensations must be posterior even in time to his Purposes or Decrees his Decrees being free must presuppose his Freedom and his Will and these must presuppose his Understanding and Wisdom and all must be conceived as into or from a Subject to which they are relative His moral Perfections must relate to his natural Perfections as being prior in order of Nature that he intends and acts all things sutable to worthy of and becoming such natural Perfections and therefore the best Method in meditating upon them is by following their natural Order MEDITATION II. Upon God's being a Spirit 1. GOD's being a Spirit is the only Attribute of God that presupposeth nothing anterior Being a Spirit is the Subject of all the Divine Attributes for the being God doth essentially comprehend all God's Self-existence importeth something that is Self-existent which is his being a Spirit so doth his Independance his Knowledg his Will his Freedom All run up to bring us to consider him as a Spirit We must not consider the Divine Attributes as different Parts of the Divine Nature which were inconsistent with a Spirit which is without all Parts Extension or Composition so that God is altogether Immaterial hath none of the Properties of a Body in whom there is neither Matter nor Form Parts essential or integral which is an incommunicable Property of God It is also incommunicable that there are no Accidents in him he acteth all Things immediately without a superadded Power or Capacity of which no Creature is capable For it 's inconceivable that one Creature should act one way and another another way without superadded Powers freely given of God for if any Creature acted in that it is a Creature or as a Creature then all Creatures behoved so to act or if it act as a Substance a Spirit or a Body then all Spirits all Bodies behoved so to act 2. God's acting without a superadded Power without any accession to his Substance is his incommunicable Perfection implied in all his Divine Perfections neither doth it follow that other Spirits must so act as Angels or the Souls of Men for they are only analogous Spirits by resemblance there is no synonymous degree of Nature common to Finite and Infinite God and Creatures othertherwise that Inference were inevitable Substance and Ens are but abstracted metaphysical Notions and there are no Individuals immediate to these as there are in Man and to the several Species of Brutes Some to avoid this difficulty have supposed the Angels not to be pure Spirits but to have aerial or aetherial Bodies so thin as to be insensible and that pass through the Pores of all solid Bodies which the Air cannot do but then the separate Souls of Men should be pure Spirits yet some have thought that even then they have aerial or aetherial Bodies but certainly the Angels and Souls of Men by the Power of God were separable from such Bodies and yet active and so the immediate actings of God as a Spirit should be competent to these Spirits I know no other way to extricate that Difficulty but that there is nothing purely Spirit but God and therefore Angels and Souls tho they have not Extension and Bulk as Bodies yet they have not that Property that they can co-exist with any other created Substance in the same space so that the Essence of a Body consisteth not in Impenetrability but in Extension and God alone can co-exist with all created Substances This is much confirmed by the chief and most express place in Seripture where God is said to be a Spirit John 4. 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which tho it be rendered God is a Spirit the Words are a Spirit the God And in Scripture Indefinits are equivalent to Universals This way of expression is not to be supposed an accidental Conversion without a very convincing Reason neither is there in it a Copulative but the words are placed as two Synonyma a Spirit and God being one thing The Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not import that God is the Subject and a Spirit is the Attribute but a true Spirit is the God excluding all false Gods and others that are by participation called Gods as in the demonstration of the true God by Elijah the People being fully convinced cry out Jehovah is the God that is the only God The Name of God is comprehensive of all his Perfections from which that conception or Idea doth arise so that it would not be eminently significant to say that Being that hath all possible Perfection is a Spirit but rather a true Spirit must have in it all Perfections and there is nothing in the Attributes of God presupposed to being a Spirit of which a Spirit should be an Attribute but a Spirit is that which in our Conception doth only represent a Substance and therefore the natural Order of this highest Expression is as in the Original a Spirit the God The same is confirmed 2 Cor. 3. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord is the Spirit importing not only that God is a Spirit but that he is the Spirit that is the only Spirit In this I am further confirmed considering that all Philosophers are at a loss to give any rational Account how a Spirit moveth Matter or how Matter acteth upon a Spirit seeing all agree that the efficacious Fiat is proper to God alone and therefore a Spirit cannot move Matter by willing it to
move So that they are forced to say that God hath made such a Connection between certain Thoughts of Spirits and certain Motions of Matter Whence all that are ingenuous come also to confess that Creatures have no Activity at all but that God alone moves Matter as the Spirit willeth it to be moved and yet that Will is universally effectual so that the Motion was never hindred but by extrinsick Force There can nothing more evidently make God pedissequous and dependent not only upon Angels and Men but also upon Devils and even in the worst of all their Actions But if created Spirits be but so called in resemblance to God as well as the Air or the animal Spirits yet cannot coexist with another Spirit or Body then they can thrust upon Matter or Matter upon them and so a Spirit in the Juncture of the Nerves can act the Body in all the ways that we perceive it to move though it had no innate Inclination never to part with that Station of the Body while it could serve it which is the only intelligible Account of the Union of the Soul and Body So that an assistent Spirit possessing the same Place can act an intire Body as an informing Spirit doth these who are possessed speak and move not only without their Will but against their Will 4. I consider then what a truly immaterial Spirit doth imply And 1 A Spirit must necessarily have Cogitation not that it is Cogitation which no Man can conceive without presupposing something that thinketh but it needs not be said that a Spirit presupposeth any thing but that it is absolute Modern Philosophers glory much in sinding a clear Distinction betwixt a Body and a Spirit that a Spirit thinketh and a Body is extended and there is nothing common to these two which indeed is very clear and not improbable But they throw all down by making a Spirit only a Thought for then pure Matter may think inasmuch as there is nothing within the whole Universe of Beings that can be supposed capable of thinking but either Spirit or Matter not Spirit if Spirit be but a Thought for a Thought doth not think therefore it would be consequent that either Matter doth think or nothing doth and yet the Idea of a Thought is as distinct from the Idea of Matter as can be and so an Act shall serve for a separable Substance and it shall be an Act without an Agent and shall act it self But it is a bolder Attempt to hold God to be but a Thought and yet it agreeth well with their Opinion that say God is the Cause of himself and by his Will preserves his Being And one hath lately too consequently said that God by his Will could annihilate himself which is blasphemous enough But I wish the Train of these Consequences would open Mens Eyes to speak more becomingly of God 5. 2. If a Spirit by its Essence must think then it must necessarily be without Parts and indivisible for if it hath Parts the Cogitation must either be in the whole or in more Parts or in one Part only If in the whole then the Separation of any Part loseth the Cogitation and so the Spirit is annihilated Nor is it conceivable how a Thought can be in many Subjects Parts are many though they cohere in one Body If in more Parts severally then there are as many Spirits as Parts in which the Cogitation is If Cogitation be but in one the rest were superfluous Matter 6. 3. A pure self-existent Spirit must be Omniscient for there can be no imaginable Reason why it knows one thing more than another 4. A self-existent thinking Spirit cannot want Capacity to determine it self and to choose 7. 5. A self-existent thinking Spirit determining it self cannot otherwise act upon Matter but by the Determination of the Will and therefore it must either be able to act nothing upon Matter or any thing and so all extrinsick Action must cease for a dependent Spirit must have far less Activity than a self-existent and independent Spirit If then it must have Capacity to act and act of it self there can be no Reason rendred why the Action should be more of one kind than of another and therefore such a Spirit must be Omnipotent but created Spirits act nothing but by Activities freely given of God and no further 8. They are not excusable though far more subtile who apprehend a Substance without Proportion far more pure than the purest Air which is beyond this sensible World so far that it is impossible to conceive how far and therefore is truly infinite in Extension which they do erroneously apprehend to be a true Body or Substance and that it is not possible but that without this sensible World there should be a real Substance seeing it is capable of real Attributes because there is found all the Dimensions of a Body when yet these also are found in a Centaur made up of a Man and a Beast which they acknowledg to have no true Existence but to be impossible and of a Shadow which we conceive to have Dimensions beside the Dimensions of that Body in which the dark Shadow is imagined to be subjected yea it hath clear Figure like unto the Body which intercepts the Light of which there may be true and certain Propositions as that the Shadow of the Head is distant from the Shadow of the Feet and that the Shadow of the Bulk is larger than either where there is a true Connection or Consequence that as the one is so is the other true supposed or imagined There is no more Reality in these imagined Spaces or of their Dimensions yet the Deception they are in doth more easily seduce their Thoughts to apprehend God under the Notion of this immense Substance which is but the Birth of the Brain They are more foolish and hateful that apprehend God under the determined bounded Figure of a Man or of any other Creature as there were a Sect of Men that not by Resemblance but in Reality did believe that God had a Body like to the Body of a Man and were therefore called Anthropomorphitae They are next unto those who though they believe not that God is corporeal or hath a Body yet will make bodily Figures to represent him as the Rays of Light in a round or triangular Figure or in such Shape of a Man as he was represented to the Apostle John in the Revelation but it is clear it was not a Representation of God simply but of the Mediator Christ who lived then and was dead and his being call'd the first and the last is an evident Demonstration of his Deity But all Mens quibbling may cease when they have had so antient an Advertisement to beware to conceive or represent God under the Shape of any thing who saith Take ye therefore good heed unto your selves for ye saw no manner of Similitude on the Day that the Lord spake to you in Horeb out of
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
Father These are the ordinary ways of the Spirit in which the saving Act of Faith is always in the order of Nature anterior to God's part of this particular Covenant of Grace whereby he regenerates Believers begetting in their Souls the Habits of Grace and Holiness which is a new Creation which these and they that receive them are called new Creatures and ordinarily both parts of the Covenant go together Believing and Regeneration yet some are sanctified from the Womb who come afterwards actually to believe The ordinary Procedure of the Spirit held forth in the Scripture hath some Operations of the Spirit anterior to the entering into the Covenant of Grace which are called Preparatory Works And first the Spirit convinceth every Man that cometh to have the use of Reason that he is a Sinner by comparing his Life with the Light and Law of Nature written in his Heart that he hath broken that Law that thereby he deserveth Punishment tho his Transgression were never so secret which neeessarily imports that there is an invisible Judg that can inflict it and who certainly knoweth it and will not pardon it while it is approved and the same Light of Nature shews that there is hope of Pardon to those that do not approve their Transgressions and are grieved for them I doubt not but all this is wrought upon the most barbarous and ignorant Savage for tho by Prepossession and Custom many of the Laws of Nature are never adverted yet ever so much ariseth in the Mind as maketh the Natural Conscience perceive the Transgression of them and a Difference between those who continue and delight in the Transgressions of them and those who grieve for them upon account of Punishment tho they have no distinct Perceptions of that invisible Power from which they fear Punishment or tho their mistaken Interest and the Opinion of their Neighbours seduce them to believe that that fear of Punishment of secret Transgressions is but from a groundless Fancy such as they have in the Darkness and not in the Light That which perswadeth me of this general Operation of the Spirit of God is that otherwise tho greater part of the World were in inevitable necessity of eternal Misery and could never accuse themselves even when awakened in Hell and made clearly to know that through their own fault they were in that Misery which they might escaped if they had followed these Motions by their Natural Conscience to repent I have before cleared my Mind that the blessed and benign Conception of God doth import so much that he condemneth none to eternal Torment but for that Sin which they might have escaped as to the Punishment of it Tho there be no necessity that the Spirit should further follow those who hate to be reformed yet to magnify the Justice and Benignity of God the Spirit proceeds frequently further even with Rejecters clearing up in them the Light of Nature bringing them to know the Word of God in which not only the Light of Nature is revived but much revealed that hath no Foundation in the Light of Nature whence there arises a Perswasion of the Truth of that Word and all revealed in it He gives also frequently the Perception of the hazard and horror of Sin the forbearing of the outward Acts of some Sins and the inward Inclination to some others a natural Pleasure in some Vertues and thence oft-times follows an unwarrantable Perswasion of having obtained Grace and Right to Glory If these or some of them were not the Reprobate would become without all hope of Mercy and as malicious as the Devils yet these are given not for their own sakes but for the common good of Mankind and the special good of the Elect but by none of these is the Covenant of Grace entered The Act of Faith by which Men enter into the Covenant of Grace is not in their own Power nor can they exert it at any time they please even when they hear or meditate upon the Word of God or when they hear read and meditate upon the most convincing and perswading Preaching or when they do most earnestly pray to be pardoned and accepted All these are but the Ordinances of God with which he doth ordinarily confer Regeneration and which are therefore Mens Duty to use them and it were to tempt God to desire or expect Convorsion in another way Neither are these meer Formalities or Solemnities but have their proper Effects especially in loosning the Soul from its Addictedness to Sin for it is said expresly By Grace ye are saved through Faith and not of your selves it is the Gift of God There must therefore be a present inward Vocation Motion or Excitation of the Spirit offering to the Soul to turn it from cleaving to Sin unto God and to give Pardon Reconciliation Holiness and Happiness but not conferring these until the Soul be willing to accept them There will be little difficulty to embrace that Offer as to the Pardon of Sin nor to have the general Notion of Happiness tho if the particular way of Happiness were explicated to be the Delight in God and Spiritual Things and not in Carnal Delights The prepossessed Soul by sensible Pleasures might readily loath that as light Food yet the greatest Difficulty would be in being willing to be made holy that is consecrated and devoted to the Love of and to the Delight in God above all things with an Opposition to all known Sin This therefore must be the Gift of God freely given at the time of that Motion of the Spirit to such only as are elected whether they be such as are not positively resolved to cleave to Sin or reject such Motions or such whom God even against that Reluctancy will overcome and maketh willing to embrace and accept the Offer and Motion of the Spirit This is that inward Call which is one of the Links of the Golden Chain of Salvation for whom he predestinated them he also called justified and glorified and which therefore is called effectual Calling to which there is never made effectual Resistance it being ever stronger than any Resistance yet not so that the Soul could not possibly resist but that God had made the Call so strong that though it was willingly imbraced not necessarily but freely yet always effectually Albeit God might give such an Inclination to accept Holiness as he gives to desire Happiness yet there is no ground to think that he doth so for such Acts which are absolutely necessary deserve not so much as Praise being but as the Instincts of Brutes It is a great Mistake to think that God's inward Call cannot be effectual unless it gave as strong an Inclination as is the desire of Happiness For he knows certainly the Effect of every Condition by Nature or Grace and by his Wisdom he does no more than what is requisite for his Purposes They highly derogate from the Glory of God that imagine his Call to the Elect is
yet at his right Hand there is Fulness of Joy and Pleasures for evermore that is in the State of Glory But there may be even here so much Joy from meditating upon God which all other Objects cannot parallel much less exceed or extinguish 9. The Scripture doth frequently inculcate the Benefit of knowing God of remembring him of meditating upon his Perfections his Laws and Dispensations and gives it as the Character of the Wicked that they know not God that they remember not God that they have him not before their Eyes whom to know is Life everlasting This is Life eternal to know God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent The Knowledg of God cannot formally be Life eternal but it is the Mean necessary to attain it because it doth excite that Joy in which it doth chiefly consist It is said of the Wicked that God is not in all their Thoughts that is so far as they can shun and that they will have no Thoughts of the most High the Thoughts of God crush their sinful Inclinations and Pleasures which fall before them as Dagon did before the Ark of God Job gives it as a discriminating Test between the Godly and the Hypocrite only knowable by every Man of himself when he says of the Hypocrite Will he delight himself in the Almighty Will he always call upon God 10. There is a Knowledg of God by the Light of Nature by Acquisition in Improvement of the Light of Nature and Experience by Revelation of that which hath no Principle in the Light of Nature by spiritual Illumination whereby spiritual things are discernable which the natural Man cannot know because they are spiritually discerned and his Notions of them are but as those of a Country from a Map and according to these several kinds of Knowledg must the different kinds of Meditation and the different Degrees of Joy Love Reverence Obsequiousness and Confidence in God arise and the true Humility of the Soul of Man not so much by debasing it below its true Value but by exalting God and perceiving the Infinite Distance of Perfection betwixt the two which may equally be between two Objects by heightning the one or by depressing the other The Monkish Humility is much in disgracing humane Nature which is not without reflecting upon its Author and doth not only loath humane Nature in so far as sinful The Stoicks fall into the like Fault by looking upon all Affections as vitious Perturbations not endeavouring to rule and use them but to root them out as if a Horse should not be made use of because some ill-managed Horse will kick off his Master or break his Bridle and run away or as if a Sail should not be used because sometimes it oversets a Ship Indeed weak or vitiated Minds were better if they wanted all Affections to be their Servants than having them to be their Masters 11. The natural Knowledg of God improved by Industry and Experience goeth a great way even in Religion for the Light of the natural Conscience convinceth a Man that there is one and only one God who is the just Judg of all rational Creatures and knoweth their most secret Thoughts and that he rules them and the whole World and that they find in their Souls a Rule of their Life a Quiet and Pleasure in their Conscience when they keep it and a Terror when they break it yea they have the natural Notion of the Mercy and Forgiveness of God to penitent Sinners and they think that every Man can repent if he please but they are utterly confounded and at a loss when they consider the Consistency of the Justice and Mercy of God how all might repent and all be forgiven and yet that God is entirely just and fully abhors Sin The Entry of Reveal'd Religion discovering a Messias or Mediator delivering his People from their Sins by his Sufferings is no small Confirmation of the Truth of that Religion inducing a strong Probability of it though nothing but the Divine Illumination can breed a full Perswasion of it nor give Warrant to force the imbracing and professing it as may be done for the Light and Law of Nature as well for Religion as far as it goes as for other Ends. Something of Religion will arise from the Notion of a Deity convincing that God is to be adored by Acknowledgment of his Power Bounty Justice and Mercy by Supplication for his Favour and the Requisites of Life by Deprecations of his Displeasure Justice and Wrath Praise and Thanksgiving for Benefits received or hoped Much more will result from the improved Knowledg of God by the Light of Nature and yet more by the Probability of his revealed Will. Whereby it cannot but be acknowledged that if these things be true which are contained in Scripture God's Bounty and Mercy to Mankind is far greater than what could be dreamed of from the Light of Nature But all this is far short of the Knowledg arising from the Illumination of the Holy Spirit in the Souls of the Regenerate by which they are capable of a far more glorious and firm Apprehension of the Divine Perfections and Dispensations and a quite other and far greater Joy therein and in the Perswasion of Peace and Reconciliation with God and in the Hope of that Glory which is greater than Ear hath heard or Eye hath seen or hath entred into the Heart of Man to consider 12. The Knowledg of God even in the Renewed hath great Variety of Degrees and it is both the Interest and Duty of all of them to extend it so far as their Capacity and Opportunities do enable them that they may increase their Comfort and strengthen their Faith against the Suggestions of Satan and the Seductions of weak or wicked Men misrepresenting God not so much in his Power and Wisdom as in his Goodness and Purity whereby they do exceedingly incroach upon that Infinite Loveliness whereby he draws and ravishes the Souls of Men and doth not only drive them by the Power of his Soveraignty Some represent God as if his Soveraignty were his highest Perfection and his greatest Interest as despotick Soveraigns represent themselves to be above all Law and to be indifferent whom to save or whom to destroy without any consideration of their Actings but to shew their absolute and arbitrary Power and that they neither love their Subjects nor care for the Love of their Subjects but for their Fear that may make them obey without Reserve How strange is it that so many eminent Divines should represent God as if the Order of his Decrees were not only to glorify some and not for their foreseen Performances by their own Power but to eternally torment the greatest part of his rational Creatures without the consideration of their Sin as coming in not as a Motive from the Foresight thereof but as a Mean to that End Others are amaz'd when they consider the Goodness of God why infinite Duration pass'd before he
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
Person Hypostasis or Subsistence of the Divine Nature It is too great Presumption for any in the State of Mortality to determine the manner of the Oneness of the Father Son and Eternal Spirit which is so clearly declared a Mystery near the close of the Canon of Scripture never unfolded after in it The Trinity hath been asserted and owned with the greatest Firmness and Forwardness in the purest State of the antient Christian Church and the least Derogation attempted against it by the Arians hath been condemned with Abhorrence by the most Eminent and Orthodox Fathers and by the Determination and Solemn Confession of Faith by the Council of Nice and it is amongst the most incontestably Catholick Doctrines of the Universal Church owned by all National Societies of Christians in the World above the course of a thousand Years Augustine and some others of the Fathers have attempted to give some Resemblances of the Trinity in Unity though he still acknowledgeth it to be a Mystery they could not fully comprehend So Augustine in his 15th Book of that Treatise he wrote upon the Trinity saith That we have a Representation of the Generation of the Son by the Father in that he is called the Word of God as all Idea's are conceived by Words of the Mind so God's Idea of himself and his Decrees is his Word essential and substantial For all that is in God is God The Son is also the Character of his Person his Image the Brightness of his Glory his Wisdom that was with him from Eternity He says also That the Procession of the Holy Ghost is his Love to Himself by his Idea of Himself with his whole Decrees and that all the Persons of the Trinity are Wise and Powerful by the same Power and Wisdom because they have but one Godhead The Generation of a Son doth not import an Imperfection or Inequality of the Nature of the Son more than of the Father much less doth the Generation of the Eternal Son imply an Inequality of the Son with the Father or a dependance of his Being from the Father as if he needed Preservation like Creatures Yea all the Persons are increated without any Cause and so Self-existent and Coeternal The Errors of Socinians are much more abominable than those of the Arians the Socinians acknowledg nothing of the Son before he was conceived in the Womb of the Virgin The Light of Nature was ever sufficient to confute the Multiplicity of Gods and to convince that there could only be one God Albeit the Multiplicity of Gods did far prevail in the World it was long before it did prevail and not until God had given Men up to their own Ways because of their Wickedness against the clear Light of Nature for they were given up to believe Lies because they did not receive the Truth which by the Light of Nature they knew in Love to live according to it The knowledg of one God was not alone among the Hebrew or Jewish Nation as the Scripture maketh evident in Job and his Friends among whom there was so much clear Knowledg of the Divine Perfections and even of a Saviour and of a Resurrection which are not deducible from any inbred Principle by the Light of Nature and therefore they could not want Revelation yet we have no ground to know any Communication between the Hebrews and them Neither were there a few Persons indued with that Light but a City and Common-wealth having Judges and Counsellors that sate at their Gates Balaam also knew and acknowledged the only true God not by Communication with the Israelites there being a vast distance and no Communication between Aram and Egypt The three Wise Men of the East that were led by a Star to come to Bethlehem when Christ was born could not possibly by Astrology have discovered the Birth of the Mediator and therefore did neither want Revelation nor a miraculous Sign Neither is there any ground to believe that they were Idolaters but that they knew and worshipped the true God and it is highly probable that they were not the only Persons of their Country that did so Yet they did not desire for ought I know to become Proselytes of the Jews Neither is there ground to doubt that Moab or Ammon the Sons of Lot or Ishmael and Abraham's other Sons by Keturah or Esau their nearest Posterity were convinced that there was but one God nor could their Posterity be soon brought to believe a Plurality of Gods So that we have no ground to doubt that the Knowledg of the one God did long and largely propagate it self in the World though through defect of History the Particulars be little known I do not hear of Idolatry before the Flood the cause of it in God's just Judgment is attributed to Mens corrupting of their Ways and the wickedness of their Works After the Flood the Notion of one God did long remain as appears by the common Name of Baal or Lord which was long almost universal and the several Nations that worshipped Baal gave him different Epithets according to their apprehension of his Attributes of which there is frequent mention in the Scripture So the Moabites God was Baal without addition the Sidonians also called their God Baal so did the Canaanites Some Nations called their God Baal Berith that is cursing Baal others Baal Gad Baal Hamon Baal Meon Baal Peor Baal Hanan Baal Hazor Baal Hermon Baal Perazin Baal Zebub the God of Ekron Places also were denominated from Baal as Baal Perazin Baal Shalisha Baal Zebub Baal Zephon and Bell of the Babylonians is but a different Dialect of Baal but that which was the Name of one God with different Epithets did easily come to be apprehended as so many Gods yet the several Nations did not worship many Gods but their own So after the Captivity of the ten Tribes those that were planted in their places being plagued conceived it was by the Anger of the God of that Place and therefore sent for the Jewish Priests to appease him The Greeks were the first that worshipped many Gods and after them the Romans for then the Souls of Men eminent upon Earth were supposed to be cooptated among the Gods in different Orders and as the Nations and Places had Interest in them they had Confidence in them and became forgetful of the true God After arose Images and the relative Honour and Worship attributed to them not only to the Images and Pictures of these Deified Men but also to those Bodies wherein the Gods were supposed to delight and to reside It is not imaginable that so many Men of Discretion and Spirit could with direct Worship adore inanimate Creatures or the meanest Brutes or Plants but that they thought they were delightful to and resided in by Deities and so the Sun the Moon Planets came to be worshipped even by those who did not believe that they had Life or Understanding or were Bodies informed by a Deity but that
they were the Residences thereof yet the ignorant Vulgar gave direct Worship thereto The Earth also was worshipped and particular Mountains Vallies Rivers Islands where evil Spirits had appeared but where they had fixed Oracles they liked better to have the Worship immediate to themselves as more congruous to Human Reason and more difficult to be disswaded The Vulgar did not so soon give direct Worship to Pictures as to Statues representing these imagined Deities to the Life not only in the shape of Man but in other terrible Shapes in which the Devils did appear as hath lately been evident among the Savage People in America who have their evil Gods who appear in Bodies of terrible Aspect and oft-times severely beat them and therefore they worship them with howling and great Terror Other evil Spirits transformed themselves into Angels of Light and appeared benign and favourable both to attain their Adoration and Trust and both pretended an Omniscience and gave Responses of the most uncertain and important Events of which they had most probable Conjectures knowing the Interests and Inclinations of those Persons who had Rule in publick Affairs and on whom they had Influence and in other things giving dark or dubious Responses which might be applied to any Event The Insolence also of some powerful Men made them affect to be adored and esteemed Gods which the Heathen Roman Emperors frequently did and some of the most flagitious of them were so impudent as to be adored when alive and at distance and had Temples and Altars consecrated to them The misapplied Gratitude to the Inventers of those things that are of great and common use to Mankind or those who were admired for their Dexterity in Government or Gallantry in War gave their Ghosts the Esteem to be accounted Gods Demi-Gods or Heroes unto which evil Spirits were very concurring so to seduce The Poets with their Poetical Fictions and the Pleasantness of their Verses did powerfully work upon the Imaginations of People and thereby radicate and increase the Belief of these Absurdities yet they kept still a Distinction and Subordination to the great God whom they called Zeus as the Fountain of Life They did also attribute to their Gods the greatest Vices and Infirmities of Men as Sleeping Recreation Consultation Faction Intrigues Quarrels and not only upon their own Interest but as they partied different Nations and Persons The more judicious counted these but Fables and though few durst express their Mind of the only true God for danger of the seduced Rabble yet many of the Philosophers did There were few of these false Gods that had the Dedication of Temples but were worshipped at Rivers Mountains or other places from which Voices or some extraordinary Signs were heard or seen there at last it came to that height of Absurdity that all believed that wheresoever they would make up an Image or a Statute a Deity would take up Residence there and be their Protector and answer their Prayers Yea the ruder sort ador'd Stocks and Stones and the vilest of Creatures as Deities without the Opinion of any resident Spirit so that not only every Nation but every City and Family had their different Gods These Abominations came to that height that the World became asham'd and wearied of them and would have quit them if their Priests who had Honour and Profit by them had not co-operated with evil Spirits to support them The Romans made it an Interest of State to acknowledg the Deities of all the Nations that they subdued the better to keep them under Obedience It was not Reason but Interest that supported the Plurality of Gods The Silver-smiths of Ephesus did with Tumult and Fury cry up Diana of the Ephesians but their Leader did more ingenuously tell those of his Trade than the rest of the Multitude that by making the Shrines of Diana they had their Wealth In this Condition was the World except among the Jews where Religion was turned to a meer Formality and corrupted with Man's Inventions pretended to be Divine Traditions when Christ came to bring Life and Immortality to light which did hardlier obtain with the Jews than with the Gentiles who were become so irrational in their Worship and therefore the great Apostle of the Gentiles doth not make use of Signs and Miracles but of Reason and the Light of Nature to convince them to know the only true God For they sought Wisdom but the Jews could not be convinced without Miracles to forsake their Ceremonial Worship which they became grosly to mistake as if it had been a perpetual Institution sufficient of it self to purge away Sin So the Light of Nature concerning the only true God revived and made way for the Gospel whereby the Multiplicity of Gods is no where to be found but among the barbarous Nations who kept no Correspondence or Commerce with the rest of the World such as the wildest Tartars the Chineses Japoneses and Americans The clearing up of the true meaning of the Old Testament from the Jews fond Mistake of the Prophecies of the Messia convinced many even by the Light of Nature that God behoved to be just but if without Satisfaction to his Justice he could have pardoned one Sin he might have also pardoned all Sin and so have been without Punitive Justice therefore there was necessity that the Messiah ought to suffer for Sinners The Antiquity and the Reasonableness of the Christian Religion broke much of the Obstinacy both of the Jews and Gentiles and the Grace of God so far prevailed that a great part of the World imbraced and cleaved unto the Christian Religion upon its own account not only without but against all Worldly Interest in that they did even exceed in the desire of Martyrdom But when the Roman Emperors accepted of and established the Christian Religion whereby worldly Interests did attend it in a short time the Roman Empire which then did extend it self to the far greatest part of what was known to be habitable of the World in a great part received it more as the Law of the Empire than as the Law of Christ and were instrumental to make it look as like the Pagan Superstition as they could whereby great Corruption both in Opinion and Practice did ensue In place of the Heathenish Sacrifices the Eucharist was made the Sacrament of the Altar the Presbyters were made Priests and in place of the Heathens Demi-Gods came the Canonized Saints and not only their Ghosts in Heaven but the Relicks of their Bodies upon Earth were brought in to share with God in Adoration without any other but a verbal Distinction for both Prayers and Praises were plentifully perform'd to them and multitudes of Temples dedicated to them Albeit Peter even when present would not suffer Cornelius to kneel before him nor Paul and Barnabas those who offered to sacrifice to them convincing them with that one Reason That they were Men Nor would the glorious Angels accept of such Service as
natural Affection would incline to the forbidden Fruit tho it might easily have been overcome by minding Gratitude to God who did forbid it and the Penalty of the Breach of that Command Therefore the Choice of eating the forbidden Fruit was with Inclination but the Choice of forbearing it had been against the Inclination of the sensible but with the Inclination of the rational Appetite Before the Fall Adam had the Scales of Good and Evil superable but after the Weight of Sin made it insuperable to him and to all his sinful Posterity till they were restored by Grace then the Inclination became superable but the Choice of Good is ordinary contrary Inclination yet there is still in things meerly indifferent a Liberty of Indifferency but in the State of Glory there shall be always a Choice of Inclination which through the Grace and Power of God shall never alter There is no small Contention among different Perswasions concerning the Freedom of Men whether in Mortality they have any Freedom and in what Subject it resides whether in the Understanding the Will or the Affections Some will have Man to have a Freedom in all things and that it is essential to the Will that God cannot determine it by infusing any Habit or Inclination but by Perswasion which it may effectually resist and reject Others attribute a Freedom to Man in indifferent things and in the choice of one Sin rather than another and in the forbearing or not forbearing a particular Act of Sin but that before Grace supervening there is a moral Impossibility of doing any good and holy Work and never a Freedom against the Divine Influence which may be sufficiently proved by Reason and Revelation but it is not proper here to be debated All do agree that a Man is not fully free as to his outward Acts which are liable to Restraint and Constraint and there is thence no small Influence on the inward Acts for thereby Self-love excludes the thoughts of these Motives which are opposite to Force in doubtful things but in things evident and certain no extrinsick Force can alter or hinder the inward Impressions or Acts but the more a Man is constrained or restrained the opposite Desire is the stronger tho outward Dissimulation be procured Then comes the Question In what inward Faculty or Power Liberty resides Some place it in the Affections when they become pliable to the Will some in the Will only without Dependance on the Understanding but that the Will commands the Understanding if not what to judg at least when to judg or think Others place it in the Will with Subordination to the last Judgment determining that it 's now fit to act or forbear But where there can be no real or imaginable Difference the Mind doth not by a positive Act suspend its Choice but privatively cannot choose because there can be no Judgment of Preference but that which appeareth indifferent may with more Attention and Meditation appear not indifferent Some also place Liberty all in the Understanding yea some apprehend the Will to be nothing different from the last Act of the Understanding determining what is fit to be chosen done or forborn at the time of the Resolution I need not now insist in discussing these but I conceive the Enumeration is not full for there are some Acts which are neither from a Power in the Understanding Will or sensible Appetite but are immediately subjected in the Soul or Spirit as Pleasure Grief or Pain which result from the Perception of certain Objects and are not the Acts but the Objects of the Understanding Will and Appetites yet certainly are Acts of the Soul such are all the Acts which the School-men call actus suppositi and therefore a Man is only simply free when he is neither outwardly nor inwardly overpowered and yet that Freedom can neither be an Act of his Understanding or Appetite for these being unchanged outward Force may hinder his Freedom The Understanding is a contemplative but not an active Power The Will or Appetite cannot compare and so cannot prefer one thing to another but the Spirit by the Understanding perceives and compares and the Spirit chooseth by the Will for it understands by the Understanding and wills by the Will The Will of Creatures hath no Activity without it self and cannot suspend the Judgment unless the Judgment be unclear and suspend it self in not concluding what is best to do or forbear yet may it determine what is best to profess or to prosecute by Meditation or by Action I shall now return to the Freedom of God which can no otherwise be known but by Revelation or by Reason from his Works Hence it is evident that God doth not act all that he could by his absolute and infinite Power for then there should be continual and infinite Alterations of all Creatures new Worlds should be every moment created and those that were created annihilated new Kinds new Individuals new Perfections should be continually multiplied and destroyed Therefore God doth not act by an intrinsick Necessity but determines the Effects of his own Omnipotence This may confute their vain Curiosity who enquire why God did not sooner create the World Why he created but one World Why no more Kinds no more Individuals no more Perfections And thence are brought to conjecture that there must be more Men than are upon this little Clod of Earth not descending from Adam and it may be not by Generation yet in other things like to us which may be without Sin as the Angels and live upon the Moon or other dark Planets like the Earth yet still Millions of these would have no Proportion to the Infinite Power of God therefore Creation must be an Act of God's Freedom of Indifferency and so must be the Life and Endurance of the brute and inanimate Creatures and there is no Parity in God's acting in these and in the Acts of his Justice and of his other Moral Perfections They are more brutish that imagine any Creature to have had its Being from God by Necessity or Emanation as many have thought the World to have so been eternally from God which would also import that God hath not Power to create more than he hath created or less than he hath created which some have been so absurd as to imagine besides those that quibble upon the Impossibility of any other thing in respect of the Decrees Seeing God executeth all his Decrees by his sole Will his Will must be necessarily distinct from his Omniscience or any Act of his Judgment in which he differs from all Creatures whose Will alone hath no extrinsick Operation God's Freedom in the Acts of his Moral Perfections are not by Indifferency but commonly by Inclination and yet are free from absolute Necessity albeit not from conditional Necessity or necessary Consequence for so whatsoever is acted while it is acting is necessarily acted not simply but conditionally because it cannot be both acted and
can comprehend them distinctly altogether Therefore it is that glorified Creatures will have an excellent and eternal Exercise of their Minds by apprehending distinctly the several Perfections of God and his manifold Decrees and Dispensations which will yield fresh and renewed Pleasures for ever We find by Experience that our Thoughts turning upon a few delightful Objects give a fresh continuance of Pleasure albeit the Perfection of the Objects be but low How fresh then and how great must that Pleasure be that hath the Variety of God's Existence and Nature in being a pure immaterial Spirit and all his Divine Perfections natural and moral and all his Decrees and Dispensations brought to an unalterable Condition Secondly The Delight and Pleasure of God in himself is infinite and is capable of no higher Degree but Creatures are incapable of any infinite Perfection therefore their Delight might by the Power of God be made still greater yet it is fully satisfactory in the degree that God freely gives it and tho there be different degrees of glorified Angels and Saints yet all of them are satisfied without Envy Emulation or desire of more than what they do receive after the Resurrection and Union of the Souls of Men and their glorified Bodies Thirdly The Delight of glorified Creatures is not upon Grounds from themselves but from the free Gift of God nor from Perfections wholly in themselves but in the Power and Love of God preserving them from falling in all occasions of Danger MEDITATION X. Upon God's Holiness or Godlikeness HAving meditated upon the glorious Divine Perfections of God which are natural necessary and immanent so far as my narrow Capacity doth reach and apprehend and in that natural Order whereby the Antecedent doth always make way for the distinct apprehension of the Subsequent the first and absolute Attribute being a Spirit all the rest being relative supposing a Subject to which they relate of which the nearest to the purely immaterial Spirit of God is Omniscience and next thereto Activity by his Will choosing and effectuating according to his Pleasure and then his Omnipotence extending not only to what he chooseth or willeth but to all that is possible and consistent all which are in himself without any Caufe whereby he is self-existent and eternal self-sufficient infinitely delighting in himself and thereby blessed and as to all transient Acts absolutely free and fully independent in his Being Power Choice or Operations I come now to apply my most serious and humble Thoughts to his voluntary Perfections the Effects whereof are terminate upon Creatures and I have earnestly endeavoured to find the natural Order of these as of the former which I perceive not only to be antecedent and consequent but that they are as Causes and Effects which doth not import that any thing in God hath an extrinsick Cause or a real Multiplicity or Difference I do conceive that God alone doth act immediately by his Being some have extended that to Creatures but if without Injury I think not without Error Supposing for instance that the Soul of Man perceiveth judgeth reasoneth chooseth by its own Substance as it is a Spirit and that it is but Mens Fancy that imagine superadded Powers such as the Understanding or Will wherein they seem as much to err in the Defect as the common course of the Schoolmen do in the Excess multiplying real Entities as they imagine as the eternal Essences and Attributes of these things that have existed or do exist and of the real being of things possible that do not never did nor never shall exist And supposing a multitude of Accidents really distinct from any-Substance and that the same individual Accidents are separable from one individual Substance in which they are subjected unto another and which consequently could subsist without any Substance and so not differ from a Substance by subsisting without a Subject but are differenced by having a fitness to perfect a Subject by actual inhering in it and differing also from Modes that these imply an individual Subject from which they are inseparable yet they durst not be so gross as to attribute such Accidents to God which indeed cannot escape to infer a Composition of separable things It seems inconsistent with a created Substance to act by its Substance or immediately It is true that if we suppose all the multitude of Species to differ by Substantials and consequently by separably subsistent Parts and so should conceive the Intellect and the Will to be such then the Soul would substantially comprehend the Intellect and the Will and must act immediately but tho the Capacity to Reason and Choice be no substantial Parts separable from the Soul they may still be essential tho not substantial Differences and then the Soul acts not immediately but by the addition of these and I conceive it an abusive Speech and if properly taken derogatory to God that he could not withdraw the Power of Reasoning or free Choice from the Soul of Man without annihilating its Substance but only changing it unto another kind which yet might essentially differ from a Brute which cannot judg nor compare no more than reason but only perceive by Sense and act by Instinct It doth much more quadrate to the Glory of God that he freely gave these Powers by which the Soul hath the special Nature of Man and not of Necessity That such Powers must be freely superadded to the Substance of Creatures I satisfy my self with this Reason that there are no Substances but Spirits and Matter that all the Species of Creatures are by superadded Powers or Modes which are not separable Beings and therefore if a Spirit by its Substance can reason choose worship or adore then all Spirits behoved necessarily so to do or if Matter as such could move or act all Bodies behoved so to do therefore something must be superadded to make the difference which is neither Body nor Spirit therefore it is the incommunicable Property of God to act immediately That the transient Acts of God's Perfections are Causes and Effects it doth sufficiently satisfy me that I do not unsutably think of God when I enquire Why doth God punish Sin and resolve that it is because he is just And if I yet further inquire Why is God unchangeably just I cannot but think it is either because it is congruous to his glorious Nature to be unchangeably just or that he is unchangeably just only because he will be so I see no reason for any third Ground or Rise whence all God's Decrees and Dispensations do flow I know there be some who think that it would be derogatory to the Freedom and Absoluteness of God if all his Dispensations did not arise only from his Will but that very Reason infers the contrary Conclusion because it brings a Reason why all must flow from God's Will to wit his Freedom and Absoluteness which yet are not his Will nor from his Will nor are they moral but natural Perfections
repent of Sin and trust in God for Mercy through the Merits of Christ. And when they were told that Adam was once free and was the common Root of Mankind covenanting with God in their Name and therefore as they would have obtained Happiness if he had stood so they must be content with Misery seeing he fell He that takes the benefit of a Bargain must take it with the hazard of the Loss The Sins of an habitual Sinner are more atrocious than his first Sins of that kind and yet less free It was hard to convince them thus that they were in the case of Freedom as to Repentance for while Adam did represent Mankind he could not repent which behoved to presuppose Sin and after Adam had sinned that Covenant was lost and no other Sin of Adam reached all his Posterity but if they had considered that Christ the second Adam had supplied and exceeded the first Adam whereby no Man should be lost but he that refused the Covenant of Grace in the first Motions of it whereby his natural Conscience at least did witness to him that he was a Sinner and thereby deserved to be excluded from God's Favour and yet that God was merciful and gracious to a repenting Sinner but that it could not consist with his Holiness and Purity to reconcile with a Sinner cleaving to his Sin and that God would never suffer him to perish who upon such Motions did not cleave to his Sin It did not thence follow that this Man by the Power of Nature could repent but it was sufficient to convince the Peldgian that God would give him a new supernatural Power to repent and believe All that the Pelagian could reply was that there was no need of a supernatural Power and therefore the Wisdom of God would not choose a superfluous way but would make use of the Powers of Nature Yet the Scripture saith expresly and inculcateth That the Natural Man cannot understand Spiritual Things that are by the Covenant of Grace for which God gave no Capacity to the first Man by his Creation and so none of his Posterity can pretend it by those Powers communicated to Mankind by Creation and Propagation Pelagians did as highly speak of Grace as others but they meant by it only the Powers of Nature 2. There is a new Mistake like to that of the Pelagians taken up by some of the Protestant Church in France and taketh with others which if it be followed will end in Pelagianism but they should not be yet so treated They do not suppose Repentance and Faith to be in the Power of Man but that they are given by God at the time of Conversion yet not by any inward Habit or Power created by God and infused into the Will or Soul of Man but by the Word and other Means of God's Prowidence as when God by Correction lays low a Man's Passions and Lusts which hindered him to give due Attention to the Word of God and then by managing the Word of God and bringing such parts of it to his Thought as is fitted for his Capacity and Circumstances so that he cannot resist it for the Word of God is called the Sword of the Spirit and that it converts the Soul and that the various Expressions in Scripture Line upon Line and Precept upon Precept is contrived to take with several Capacities and Inclinations and that Man being a Rational Creature is always acted by God rationally but infused Habits would be a brute way The Wisdom of God would take the most adapted way the holiest Acts are done by Acts of Reason and Will infused Grace would lead to Enthusiasm and make the Word unnecessary but when the Word prevails it is said to be the ingrafted Word This they think not to be the moral Swasion of the Arminians wherewith Man could prevail but no Angel could so manage the Word it must be the Hand of God alone and seeing Conversion can be that way it were superfluous to add to it other inward Operations of the Spirit In all this there is nothing but the Powers of Nature more subtily managed The whole couse of Scripture is always inculcating the Difference of Grace from Nature If the Pelagians said not the same thing certainly they might have said it but the Scripture saith expresly That the Natural Man cannot know the Things of God because they are spiritually discerned Therefore Man by Nature wants that Sense to discern with Grace is the new Creature and Regeneration the new Birth therefore in Regeneration God must give a new Sense By Nature he hath given five Senses and fitted the Objects with sensible Qualities suted to them all These were not essential to Man God might have given fewer or added more and fitted Qualities for them May he not then give a new Sense for spiritual Things his Word sheweth he doth so which derogates nothing from the Word wherein are the Qualities fitted for that Sense it does not derogate from the Excellency of the natural Light that it cannot work upon a blind Man or that it does require the Sense of Sight The Word of God doth not only excite and promote Grace after Conversion but is a chief Mean to prepare the way for Conversion containing not only supernatural Light by Revelation but reviving and perfecting natural Light manifesting the Divine Perfections the Celestial Glory the way to attain to it the Beauty of Holiness the Deformity of Sin and the dreadful Consequences thereof and so looseth the Mind from that cleaving to Sin that makes the Offer of Grace and Mercy to be despised and rejected But it is not sufficient to turn the Soul to God by Conversion A vertuous Heathen by the Light of Nature may see the Deformity of and may hate gross Vice and may turn from it to that which is comely and convenient for Mankind but can never turn to God to make him the last End The Scripture may much more easily convince but not convert by it self but as it hath the Qualities sutable to make Impressions upon that supernatural Sense and Relish of spiritual Things It discovers not only the Pollutions of the World but those more subtile Sins that Heathens never perceive such as fetting the common Interest of Mankind above the Interest of God the want of the Love and Delight in God and of the Dependance upon him and attributing all good things to him So the ingrafted Word must be in its proper Stock in its own spiritual Sense No Man can refuse that God hath frequently insused Habits in the Soul of Man without the use of any Sense or any Principle in Reason Did not God give the knowledg of Words to Adam and Eve whereby he spoke to them and they to one another yet there was no natural Connection between the Sounds of the first Language and the Thoughts and Things they signified He gave also the Knowledg of many several Languages after Christ's Resurrection not only to the
of Children from the Covenant of Grace yet the Covenant of Grace is one for all the Son having covenanted from Eternity for all the Elect to bring them into the Covenant of Grace by Regeneration exerted according to their Capacity by actual believing of those who are capable so to act which also is an Evidence that the Act of Faith is not saving by any thing absolutely necessary in it self but by the free Choice and Institution of God The third Point proposed is what Act of Faith that is by which Men enter into the Covenant of Grace and which is their Part of the Covenant Many hold it to be a Perswasion of the covenanting Person that Christ died for him whereby it must be an Act of the Understanding but I see not how that can hold for covenanting must be by an Act of the Will promising or otherwise performing the Covenanter's Part which is oftentimes in the one Party no more than an Acceptance as in a Trust or Commission the one Party gives the Trust or Commission which doth make no Covenant but an Offer but when the other Party accepts then the Contract is compleat and the Accepter is thereby bound to follow the Trust and Commission and make an Account and the Giver is obliged to refund the Expences Albeit Contracts be by mutual Consent and that Consent signifies to have the same Thought yet Agreement in one Mind makes no more a Covenant than when two are of one Opinion in Contemplation but a Covenant is ever somewhat practicable and therefore tho Acts of Understanding precede the Covenant it self is by Acts of the Will The Description of saving Faith by Perswasion is but by a Consequent which ought to be endeavoured by all yet is not attained by all for many are in the Covenant of Grace that come not the Length of Perswasion that Christ died effectually for them and that thereby they are reconciled to God and shall be saved for tho they were perswaded that Christ died for all and every Man that would import nothing to saving Faith for it were much more evident that the Effect of Christ's Death for all Men were not the same seeing so many trample under Foot the Blood of the Covenant and so few are saved Therefore no Man hath just Ground to be perswaded that Christ died effectually for him or with Intention to make him holy and happy or any further than to put him in a Condition to be holy and happy if he himself did not hinder it Therefore tho believing in Christ were not only proposed to all but imposed on all as a Duty yet it is only a Duty in the Order God hath imposed it to wit that all Men should consider their sinful natural Estate and that the just Reward of Sin would be eternal Death without Repentance which none could escape who cleaved to any kind of Sin and hated to be reformed and that therefore they should be willing and endeavour to be reformed and use the Means appointed by God for that End and should throw themselves upon God's Mercy through Christ's Merit if thereby they found that the delighting in Sin in those Kinds especially which did most easily beset them did cease and that the Love to and Delight in God did in some measure take Place But to think to reach the highest Step of the Scale per Saltum were altogether without warrant unless it were extraordinary as in Paul's Conversion Paul to the Romans gives the true Warrants of that Perswasion As many as are led by the Spirit are the Sons of God The Spirit it self beareth Witness with our Spirit that we are the Children of God and if children then Heirs Heirs of God and Joint-Heirs with Christ. Hence it is evident how little Moment is in that Arminian Quibble so much magnified by them that Christ must have died for all Men because all Men are bound to believe he died for them We must therefore yet enquire the particular Convenanting Act of Faith which being so necessary is many Ways expressed and set forth in Scripture that it may be reached by several Capacities it is called a Looking to Christ for Salvation Look unto me all ye Ends of the Earth and be saved A turning to God Turn ye turn ye for why will you die O House of Israel A coming to Christ Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy ladened and I will give you rest to your Souls And to the Refractory it is said Ye will not come to me that ye may have Life A drawing near to God Draw near unto God and he will draw near unto you An answering of God's Call Thou saidst Seek ye my Face my Heart answered Thy Face Lord will I seek hide not thy Face from me A receiving of Christ He came to his own but his own received him not but to all that did receive him he gave Power to become the Sons of God So then the saving Act of Faith must imply all these not that he who entereth in the Covenant must have expresly all these Acts but that the Act he must have must imply and import them all and be virtually as much as they all The Spirit of God in this Branch of the Covenant of Grace does not proceed in one way with all the Elect As the Wind moveth whither it listeth and no Man knoweth whence it cometh or whither it goeth so is the Spirit of God Some are chased in by the Thundrings and Terrors of the Law running as a pursued Man to a Rock a Fortress a Tower or a Strength or as in the hazard of Shipwrack running into an Harbour As those who by Peter's Sermon convincing the Jews that they had denied the Holy One and the Just and had killed the Prince of Life Let all the House of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this they were pricked in their Hearts and said unto Peter and the rest of the Apostles Men and Brethren what shall we do And God opened their Ears and their Hearts to receive Instruction But God gaineth others by the sweet and still Voice of the Gospel alluring their Hearts to trust in his Mercy and Faithfulness as being so gracious that he delights not in the Death of a Sinner but rather that they should repent and live that he will not disappoint those who becomingly trust in him He sometimes begins with the Light of Nature to lead in the revealed Light of the Gospel as Paul dealt with the Athenians and saith to Timothy God hath not given us the Spirit of Fear but of Power and of Love and of a sound Mind With some the Spirit proceeds by degrees giving a Spirit of Bondage to fear before the Spirit of Adoption as Paul saith We have not received the Spirit of Bondage again to fear but we received the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba