as well as Heathens who used the outward Ceremonies not as signs of better things but as if they did of themselves please God and render the worshippers accepted with him without any sutable frame of the inward man * Amirald in loc It is as if he had said now you must separate your selves from all carnal modes to which the service of God is now tyed and render a worship chiefly consisting in the affectionate motions of the heart and accommodated more exactly to the condition of the object who is a Spirit In Spirit and Truth * Amirald in loc The Evangelical Service now required has the advantage of the former that was a Shadow and Figure this the Body and Truth * Muscul Spirit say some is here opposed to the legal Ceremonies Truth to hypocritical services or * Chemnit rather truth is opposed to shadows and an opinion of worth in the outward action 't is principally opposed to external Rites because our Saviour saith v. 23. The hour comes and â—oâ— is c. Had it been opposed to Hypocrisy Christ had said no new thing For God always required Truth in the inward parts and all true Worshippers had served him with a sincere Conscience and single Heart The old Patriarks did worship God in Spirit and Truth as taken for sincerity Such a Worship was always and is perpetually due to God because he always was and eternally will be a Spirit * Musâ—al And it is said the Father seeks such to worship him not shall seek He always sought it it always was performed to him by one or other in the world And the Prophets had always rebuked them for resting upon their outward Solemnities Isa 58.7 and Micah 6.8 But a Worship without legal Rites was proper to an Evangelical State and the times of the Gospel God having then exhibited Christ and brought into the world the substance of those shadows and the end of those institutions There was no more need to continue them when the true reason of them was ceased All Laws do naturally expire when the true reason upon which they were first framed is changed Or by Spirit may be meant such a Worship as is kindled in the heart by the breath of the holy Ghost Since we are dead in sin a spiritual light and flame in the heart sutable to the nature of the object of our worship cannot be raised in us without the operation of a supernatural Grace And though the Fathers could not worship God without the Spirit yet in the Gospel-times there being a fuller effusion of the Spirit the Evangelical State is called the administration of the Spirit and the newness of the Spirit 2 Cor. 3.8 in opposition to the legal Oeconomy entitled the oldness of the Letter * Rom. 7.6 The Evangelical State is more suted to the Nature of God than any other Such a Worship God must have whereby he is acknowledged to be the true Sanctifier and Quickner of the Soul The nearer God doth approach to us and the more full his manifestations are the more spiritual is the Worship we return to God The Gospel pares off the rugged parts of the Law and Heaven shall remove what is material in the Gospel and change the Ordinances of Worship into that of a Spiritual Praise In the words there is 1. A Proposition God is a Spirit The Foundation of all Religion 2. An Inference they that worship him c. As God a Worship belongs to him as a Spirit a spiritual Worship is due to him in the inference we have 1. The manner of Worship in Spirit and Truth 2. The necessity of such a Worship must The Proposition declares the Nature of God the Inference the Duty of Man The Observations lie plain Ob. 1. God is a pure spiritual Being He is a Spirit 2. The Worship due from the Creature to God must be agreeable to the Nature of God and purely spiritual 3. The Evangelical State is suted to the Nature of God For the first D. God is a pure spiritual Being 'T is the Observation of one * Episcop insti tut l. 4. c. 3. that the plain assertion of Gods being a Spirit is found but once in the whole Bible and that is in this place which may well be wondred at because God is so often described with hands feet eyes and ears in the form and figure of a Man The spiritual Nature of God is deducible from many places but not any where as I remember asserted totidem verbis but in this Text Some alledge that place 2 Cor. 3.17 the Lord is that Spirit for the proof of it but that seems to have a different sense In the Text the Nature of God is described in that place the operations of God in the Gospel * Amyrald in loc 'T is not the Ministry of Moses or that old Covenant which communicates to you that Spirit it speaks of but it is the Lord Jesus and the Doctrin of the Gospel delivered by him whereby this Spirit and Liberty is dispensed to you He opposes here the Liberty of the Gospel to the Servitude of the Law 'T is from Christ that a Divine Vertue diffuseth it self by the Gospel 't is by him not by the Law that we partake of that Spirit * Suarez de Deo vol. 1. P. 9. Col. 2. The Spirituality of God is as evident as his Being If we grant that God is we must necessarily grant that he cannot be corporeal because a Body is of an imperfect Nature It will appear incredible to any that acknowledge God the first Being and Creator of all things that he should be a massy heavy Body and have Eyes and Ears Feet and hands as we have For the explication of it 1. Spirit is taken various ways in Scripture It signifies sometimes an aereal substance as Psal 11.6 A horrible Tempest Heb. A Spirit of Tempest Sometimes the breath which is a thin substance Gen. 6.17 All Flesh wherein is the breath of Life Heb. Spirit of Life A thin substance though it be material and corporeal is called Spirit And in the bodies of living Creatures that which is the principle of their actions is called Spirits the animal and vital Spirits And the finer parts extracted from Plants and Minerals we call Spirits Those volatile parts separated from that gross matter wherein they were immerst because they come nearest to the nature of an incorporeal substance And from this notion of the word 't is translated to signifie those substances that are purely immaterial as Angels and the Souls of Men. Angels are called Spirits Psal 104.4 who makes his Angels Spirits * Heb. 1.14 And not only good Angels are so called but evil Angels Mark 1.27 Souls of men are called Spirits Eccl. 12. And the Soul of Christ is called so John 19.30 whence God is called the God of the Spirits of all Flesh Numb 22.16 and Spirit is opposed to Flesh Isa
Civil associations for Politick Government Gen. 4.26 Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord viz. In the time of Seth. No question but Adam had worshipped God before as well as Abel and a Family-Religion had been preserved but as mankind increased in distinct Families they knit together in Companies to solemnize the worship of God * Stillingfleet's Irenicum cap. 1. § 1. pa. 23. Hence as some think those that incorporated together for such ends were called the Sons of God Sons by profession tho not Sons by Adoption As those of Corinth were Saints by profession tho in such a Corrupted Church they could not be all so by regeneration yet Saints as being of a Christian society and calling upon the name of Christ that is worshipping God in Christ tho they might not be all Saints in Spirit and Practise So Cain and Abel met together to worship Gen 4.3 at the end of the days at a set time God setled a publick worship among the Jews instituted Synagogues for their Convening together whence call'd the Synagogues of God * Psa 74.8 The Sabbath was instituted to acknowledge God a Common Benefactor Publick worship keeps up the Memorials of God in a world prone to Atheism and a sense of God in a heart prone to forgetfulness The Angels sung in Company not singly at the Birth of Christ * Luke 2.13 and praised God not only with a simple elevation of their Spiritual nature but audibly by forming a voice in the air Affections are more lively Spirits more raised in publick than private God will Credit his own ordinance Fire increaseth by laying together many Coals on one place so is devotion inflamed by the union of many hearts and by a joynt presence Nor can the approach of the last day of Judgment or particular Judgments upon a Nation give a Writ of ease from such assemblies Heb. 10.25 Not forsaking the assembling our selves together but so much the more as you see the day approaching Whether it be understood of the day of Judgment or the day of the Jewish destruction and the Christian persecution the Apostle uses it as an argument to quicken them to the observance not to encourage them to a neglect Since therefore natural light informs us and Divine institution Commands us publickly to acknowledge our selves the Servants of God it implies the service of the body Such acknowledgments cannot be without visible Testimonies and outward exercises of devotion as well as inward affections This promotes Gods honour checks others prophaness allures men to the same expressions of duty And tho there may be hypocrisy and an outward garb without an inward frame yet better a moiety of worship than none at all better acknowledge Gods right in one than disown it in both 3. Jesus Christ the most Spiritual worshipper worshipt God with his body He Prayed orally and kneeled Father if it be thy Will c. * Luke 22.41 42. He blessed with his mouth Father I thank thee * Mat. 11.26 He lifted up his eyes as well as elevated his Spirit when he praised his Father for mercy received or begged for the blessings his Disciples wanted * John 11.41 John 12.1 The strength of the Spirit must have vent at the outward members The holy men of God have employed the body in significant expressions of worship Abraham in falling on his face Paul in kneeling employing their Tongues lifting up their hands Tho Jacob was bedrid yet he would not worship God without some devout expression of Reverence t is in one place leaning upon his staff * Heb. 11.21 in another bowing himself upon his beds head * Gen. 47.31 The reason of the diversity is in the Heb. word which without vowels may be red Mittah a bed or Matteh a staff howsoever both signifie a Testimony of adoration by a reverent gesture of the body Indeed in Angels and separated Souls a worship is performed purely by the Spirit but whiles the Soul is in conjunction with the body it can hardly perform a serious act of worship without some tincture upon the outward man and reverential composure of the body Fire cannot be in the clothes but it will be felt by the members nor flames be pent up in the Soul without bursting out in the body The heart can no more restrain it self from breaking out than Joseph could enclose his affections without expressing them in tears to his Brethren * Gen. 45.1 2. We Believe and therefore speak * 2 Cor. 4.13 To conclude God hath appointed some parts of worship which cannot be performed without the body as Sacraments we have need of them because we are not wholly spiritual and incorporeal Creatures The Religion which consists in externals only is not for an intellectual nature A worship purely intellectual is too sublime for a nature allyed to sense and depending much upon it The Christian mode of worship is proportioned to both It makes the sense to assist the mind and elevates the spirit above the sense Bodily worship helps the spiritual The members of the body reflect back upon the heart the voice bars distractions the tongue sets the heart on fire in good as well as in evil T is as much against the light of nature to serve God without external significations as to serve him only with them without the intention of the mind As the invisible God declares himself to men by visible works and signs so should we declare our invisible frames by visible expressions God hath given us a soul and body in conjunction and we are to serve him in the same manner he hath framed us 2. The second thing I am to shew is what Spiritual worship is In general the whole Spirit is to be employed The name of God is not sanctifyed but by the engagement of our Souls Worship is an Act of the understanding applying it self to the knowledge of the excellency of God and actual thoughts of his Majesty recognizing him as the supreme Lord and Governour of the world which is natural knowledge beholding the glory of his Attributes in the Redeemer which is Evangelical knowledge This is the sole act of the Spirit of Man The same reason is for all our worship as for our thanksgiving This must be done with understanding Psal 47.7 Sing ye praise with understanding with a knowledge and sense of his greatness goodness and Wisdom T is also an act of the Will whereby the Soul adores and reverenceth his Majesty is ravisht with his amiableness embraceth his goodness enters it self into an intimate Communion with this most lovely object and pitcheth all his affections upon him We must worship God understandingly t is not else a reasonable service The nature of God and the Law of God abhor a blind offering we must worship him heartily else we offer him a dead Sacrifice A reasonable service is that wherein the mind doth truly act something with God
less vain must it be when the Bodies of Men are presented to supply the place of their Spirits As an omission of duty is a contempt of Gods Soveraign Authority so the omission of the manner of it is a contempt of it and of his amiable excellency and that which is a contempt and mockery can lay no just claim to the title of Worship Reason 4. There is in worship an approach of God to Man It was instituted to this purpose that God might give out his blessings to Man And ought not our Spirits to be prepared and ready to receive his communications We are in such acts more peculiarly in his presence In the Israelites hearing the Law it is said God was to come among them * Exod. 19.10 11. Then men are said to stand before the Lord * Deut. 10.8 God before whom I stand that is whom I worship And therefore when Cain forsook the worship of God setled in his Fathers Family * Kings 1.17 he is said to go out from the presence of the Lord Gen. 4.16 God is essentially present in the world graciously present in his Church The name of the Evangelical City is Jehovah Shammah * Ezek. 48.35 the Lord is there God is more graciously present in the Evangelical institutions than in the Legal He loves the Gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob * Psal 87.2 His Evangelical Law and Worship which was to go forth from Zion as the other did from Sinai Mic. 4.2 God delights to approach to Men and converse with them in the worship instituted in the Gospel more than in all the dwellings of Jacob. If God be graciously present ought not we to be spiritually present A liveless Carcass service becomes not so high and delectable a presence as this 'T is to thrust him from us not invite him to us 'T is to practise in the Ordinances what the Prophet predicts concerning mens usage of our Saviour Isa 53.2 There is no form no comeliness nor beauty that we should desire him A slightness in worship reflects upon the excellency of the object of worship God and his worship are so linkt together that whosoever thinks the one not worth his inward care esteems the other not worth his inward affection How unworthy a slight is it of God who profers the opening his Treasure the reimpressing his Image conferring his blessings admits us into his presence when he hath no need for us who hath millions of Angels to attend him in his Court and celebrate his Praise He that worships not God with his Spirit regards not Gods presence in his Ordinances and slights the great end of God in them and that perfection he may attain by them We can only expect what God hath promised to give when we tender to him what he hath commanded us to present If we put off God with a Shell he will put us off with a Husk How can we expect his heart when we do not give him ours or hope for the blessing needful for us when we render not the glory due to him It cannot be an advantagious worship without spiritual graces for those are uniting and Union is the ground of all Communion Reason 5. To have a spiritual worship is Gods end in the restoration of the Creature both in Redemption by his Son and Sanctification by his Spirit A fitness for spiritual Offerings was the end of the coming of Christ * Mal. 3.3 He should purge them as Gold and Silver by Fire a Spirit burning up their dross melting them into a holy compliance with and submission to God To what purpose That they may offer to the Lord an Offering in Righteousnes a pure Offering from a purified Spirit He came to bring us to God * 1 Pet. 3.18 in such a Garb as that we might be fit to converse with him Can we be thus without a fixedness of our Spirits on him The offering of spiritual Sacrifices is the end of making any a spiritual Habitation and a holy Priest-hood * Pet. 2.5 We can no more be Worshippers of God without a Worshippers nature than a man can be a man without humane nature As man was at first created for the honour and worship of God so the design of restoring that Image which was defaced by Sin tends to the same end We are not brought to God by Christ nor are our services presented to him if they be without our Spirits Would any man that undertakes to bring another to a Prince introduce him in a slovenly and sordid habit such a garb that he knows hateful to him Or bring the Clothes or Skin of a Man stuft with straw instead of the Person To come with our Skins before God without our Spirits is contrary to the design of God in Redemption and Regeneration If a carnal worship would have pleased God a carnal heart would have served his turn without the expence of his Spirit in Sanctification He bestows upon man a spiritual nature that he may return to him a spiritual service He enlightens the Understanding that he may have a rational service and new moulds the Will that he may have a voluntary service As it is the Milk of the Word wherewith he feeds us so it is the service of the Word wherewith we must glorifie him So much as there is of confusedness in our understanding so much of starting and levity in our Wills so much of slipperiness and skipping in our affections so much is abated of the due qualities of the worship of God and so much we fall short of the end of Redemption and Sanctification Reason 6. A spiritual worship is to be offered to God because no worship but that can be acceptable We can never be secured of acceptance without it He being a Spirit nothing but the worship in Spirit can be sutable to him What is unsutable cannot be acceptable There must be something in us to make our services capable of being presented by Christ for an actual acceptation No service is acceptable to God by Jesus Christ but as it is a spiritual Sacrifice and offered by a spiritual heart 1 Pet. 2.5 The Sacrifice is first spiritual before it be acceptable to God by Christ When it is an offering in righteousness it is then and only then pleasant to the Lord Mal. 3.3 4. No Prince would accept a gift that is unsutable to his Majesty and below the condition of the person that presents it Would he be pleased with a bottle of water for drink from one that hath his Cellar full of wine How unacceptable must that be that is unsutable to the Divine Majesty And what can be more unsutable than a withdrawing the operations of our Souls from him in the oblation of our Bodies We as little glorifie God as God when we give him only a corporeal worship as the Heathen did when they represented him in a corporeal shape * Rom. 1.21
word perish the raising a new frame is signified by the word changed as if the Spirit of God would prevent any wrong meaning of the word perish by alleviating the sense of that by another which signifies only a mutation and change as when we change a Habit and Garment we quit the old to receive the new As a Garment as a Vesture Thou shalt change them * Septuag 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou shalt fold them up The Heavens are compared to a Curtain * Psal 104.2 and shall in due time be folded up as Clothes and Curtains are As a Garment encompasseth the whole body so do the Heavens encircle the Earth * Estius in Heb. 1. Some say as a Garment is folded up to be laid aside that when there is need it may be taken again for use so shalt thou fold up the Heavens like a Garment that when they are repaired thou mayest again stretch them out about the Earth Thou shalt fold them up so that what did appear shall not now appear It may be illustrated by the metaphor of a Scrole or Book which the Spirit of God useth Isa 34.4 Rev. 6.14 The Heavens departed as a Scrole when it is rouled together When a Book is rouled up or shut nothing can be read in it till it be opened again so the Face of the Heavens wherein the Stars are as Letters declaring the Glory of God shall be shut or rouled together so that nothing shall appear till by its renovation it be opened again As a Garment it shall be changed not to be used in the same fashion and for the same use again It seems indeed to be for the worse an old Garment is not changed but into raggs to be put to other uses and afterwards thrown upon the Dung-hill But Similitudes are not to be pressed too far and this will not agree with the new Heavens and new Earth physically so as well as metaphorically so 'T is not likely the Heavens will be put to a worse use than God designed them for in Creation However a change as a Garment speaks not a total corruption but an alteration of qualities as a Garment not to be used in the same fashion as before We may observe 1. That 〈◊〉 probable the world shall not be annihilated but refin'd It shall lose its present form and fashion but not its foundation Indeed as God raised it from nothing so he can reduce it into nothing yet it doth not appear that God will annihilate it and utterly destroy both the matter and form of it part shall be consumed and part purified 2 Pet. 3.12 13. The Heavens shall be on fire and dissolved nevertheless we according to his promise look for a new Heaven and a new Earth They shall be melted down as Gold by the Artificer to be refined from its Dross and wrought into a more beautiful fashion that they may serve the design of God for those that shall reside therein a new world wherein Righteousness shall dwell The Apostle opposing it thereby to the old world wherein wickedness did reside The Heavens are to be purged as the Vessels that held the Sin-offering were to be purified by the fire of the Sanctuary God indeed will take down this Scaffold which he hath built to publish his Glory As every Individual hath a certain term of its duration so an end is appointed for thâ— universal nature of Heaven and Earth Isa 51.6 The Heavens shall vanish like Smoke which disappears As Smoke is resolved and attenuated into Air not annihilated So shall the world assume a new face and have a greater clearness and splendor As the Bodies of Men dissolved into Dust shall have more glorious qualities at their Resurrection As a Vessel of Gold is melted down to remove the batterings in it and receive a more comely Form by the Skill of the Workman 1. The world was not destroyed by the Deluge It was rather washed by water than consumed So it shall be rather refined by the last fire than lie under an irrecoverable ruin 2. 'T is not likely God would liken the everlastingness of his Covenant and the perpetuity of his spiritual Israel to the duration of the ordinances of the Heavens as he doth in Jer. 21.35 36. if they were wholly to depart from before him* Though that place may only tend to an assurance of a Church in the world while the world endures yet it would be but small comfort if the happiness of Believers should endure no longer than the Heavens and Earth if they were to have a total period 3. Besides the Bodies of the Saints must have place for their support to move in and glorious objects suted to these glorious senses which shall be restored to them Not in any carnal way which our Saviour rejects when he saith there is no eating or drinking or marrying c. in the other world but whereby they may glorify God though how or in what manner their senses shall be used would be rashness to determine only something is necessary for the corporeal state of men that there may be an employment for their Senses as well as their Souls 4. Again How could the Creature the world or any part of it be said to be delivered from the bondage of Corruption * Rom. 8.21 into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God if the whole Frame of Heaven and Earth were to be annihilated Rom. 8.21 The Apostle saith also that the Creature waits with an earnest expectation for this manifestation of the Sons of God v. 19. which would have no foundation if the whole frame should be reduced to nothing What joyful expectation can there be in any of a total ruin How should the Creature be capable of partaking in this glorious liberty of the Sons of God * Hâ—per in Heb. 1. As the World for the sin of man lost its first dignity and was cursed after the fall and the beauty bestowed upon it by creation defaced So it shall recover that ancient glory when he shall be fully restored by the Resurrection to that dignity he lost by his first sin As Man shall be freed from his corruptibility to receive that glory which is prepared for him so shall the Creatures be freed from that imperfection or corruptibility those stains and spots upon the face of them to receive a new glory suted to their nature and answerable to the design of God when the glorious liberty of the Saints shall be accomplisht * Mestraezat sur Heb. 1. As when a Princes Nuptials are solemnized the whole Country eccho's with joy So the inanimate Creatures when the time of the Marriage of the Lamb is come shall have a delight and pleasure from that renovation The Apostle sets forth the whole world as a person groaning and the Scripture is frequent in such Metaphors as when the Creatures are said to wait upon God and to be troubled * Psal 104.27 29. the
of the Heaven c. How could this great heap be brought into being unless a God had framed it Every plant every Atome as well as every Star at the first meeting whispers this in our Ears I have a Creator I am witness to a Deity who ever saw Statues or Pictures but presently thinks of a Statuary and Limner Who beholds Garments Ships or Houses but understands there was a Weaver a Carpenter an Architect * Philo. ex Petav. Theolo Dog Tom 1. li. 1. cap. 1 pa. 4. somewhat changed Who can cast his eyes about the world but must think of that power that formed it and that the goodness which appears in the formation of it hath a perfect Residence in some Being those things that are good must flow from somthing perfectly good that which is chief in any kind is the cause of all of that kind Fire which is most hot is the cause of all things which are hot There is some being therefore which is the cause of all that Perfection which is in the Creature and this is God Aquin. 1 qu. 2. Artic. 3. All things that are demonstrate something from whence they are All things have a contracted perfection and what they have is Communicated to them Perfections are parcelled out among several Creatures Any thing that is imperfect cannot exist of it self We are led therefore by them to consider a fountain which bubbles up in all perfection a hand which distributes those several degrees of Being and Perfection to what we see we see that which is imperfect our minds conclude somthing perfect to exist before it our eye sees the streams but our understanding riseth to the head as the eye sees the shadow but the understanding informs us whither it he the shadow of a man or of a beast God hath given us Sense to behold the objects in the World and Understanding to reason his Existence from them the understanding cannot conceive a thing to have made it self that is against all reason * Rom. 1.20 As they are made they speak out a Maker and cannot be a trick of chance since they are made with such an immense Wisdom that is too big for the grasp of all humane understanding Those that doubt whither the Existence of God be an implanted Principle yet agree that the effects in the world lead to a supream and universal cause And that if we have not the knowledge of it rooted in our Natures yet we have it by discourse since by all Masters of reason a Processus in Infinitum must be accounted impossible in subordinate causes This will appear in several things First I. The World and every Creature had a beginning The Scripture Ascertains this to us * Gen. 1. By Faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God c. David who was not the first man gives the praise to God of his being curiously wrought c. Psal 139.14.15 God gave being to Men and Plants and Beasts before they gave being to one another He gives being to them now as the Fountain of all being though the several Modes of being are from the several natures of second causes * Heb. 11.3 T is true indeed we are ascertained that they were made by the true God that they were made by his word that they were made of nothing and not only this lower world wherein we live but according to the Jewish division the world of Men the the world of Stars and the world of Spirits and Souls We do not waver in it or doubt of it as the Heathen did in their disputes we know they are the workmanship of the true God of that God we adore not of false Gods By his Word without any instrument or engin as in earthly Sâ—ructures of things which do not appear without any preexistent matter as all Artificial works of men are framed Yet the proof of the beginning of the world is affirmed with good reason and if it had a beginning it had also some higher cause than it self Every effect hath a cause * Daille 20. Serm. Psa 102.26 pa. 13. 14. The World was not Eternal or from Eternity The matter of the world cannot be Eternal Matter cannot subsist without form nor put on any form without the action of some cause this cause must be in being before it acted that which is not cannot act The cause of the world must necessarily exist before any matter was endued with any form that therefore cannot be Eternal before which another did subsist if it were from Eternity it would not be subject to mutation If the whole was from Eternity why not also the parts what makes the changes so visible then if Eternity would exempt it from mutability 1. Time cannot be infinite and therefore the World not Eternal * Daille ut Supra All motion hath its beginning if it were otherwise we must say the number of Heavenly revolutions of days and nights which are past to this instant is actually infinite which cannot be in nature If it were so it must needs be granted that a part is equal to the whole because infinite being equal to infinite the number of days past in all Ages to the beginning of one year being Infinite as they would be supposing the World had no beginning would by consequence be equal to the number of days which shall pass to the end of the next whereas that number of days past is indeed but a part and so a part would be equal to the whole 2. Generations of Men Animals and Plants could not be from Eternity * Petar Theo. Dogmat. tom 1. lib. 1. cap. 2. pag. 15. If any Man say the world was from Eternity then there must be propagations of living Creatures in the same manner as are at this day For without this the World could not consist what we see now done must have been perpetually done if it be done by a necessity of nature But we see nothing now that doth arise but by a mutual propagation from another If the world were Eternal therefore it must be so in all Eternity take any particular species suppose a man if men were from Eternity then there were perpetual generations some were born into the World and some died Now the natural condition of generation is that a man doth not generate a man nor a Sheep a Lamb as soon as ever it self is brought into the World but get strength and vigour by degrees and must arrive to a certain stated age before they can produce the like for whilst any thing is little and below the due age it cannot increase its kind Men therefore and other Creatures did propagate their kind by the same Law not as soon as ever they were born but in the interval of some time and Children grew up by degrees in the Mothers Womb till they were fit to be brought forth If this be so then there could not be an Eternal
from it The meeting of a Divine Truth and the Heart of Man is like the meeting of two Tides the weaker swells and foams We have a natural Antipathy against a Divine Rule and therefore when it is clapt close to our Consciences there is a snuffing at it high reasonings against it corruption breaks out more strongly As Water poured on Lime sets it on Fire by an Antiperistasis and the more Water is cast upon it the more furiously it burns Or as the Sun Beams shining upon a Dung-hill makes the steams the thicker and the stench the noysomer neither being the positive cause of the smoke in the Lime or the stench in the Dung-hill but by accident the causes of the eruption Rom. 7.8 But Sin taking occasion by the Commandment wrought in me all manner of Concupiscence for without the Law Sin was dead Sin was in a languishing posture as if it were dead like a lazy Garrison in a City till upon an Alarm from the Adversary it takes Arms and revives its courage all the sin in the heart gathers together its force to maintain its standing like the vapours of the Night which unite themselves more closely to resist the Beams of the rising Sun Deep Conviction often provokes fierce Opposition sometimes Disputes against a Divine Rule end in Blasphemies Acts 13.45 Contradicting and Blaspheming are coupled together Men naturally desire things that are forbidden and reject things commanded from the corruption of Nature which affects an unbounded Liberty and is impatient of returning under that Yoke it hath shaken off and therefore rageth against the bars of the Law as the Waves roar against the restraint of a bank When the Understanding is dark and the Mind Ignorant Sin lies as dead * Thes Salmur De Spiritu Servitutis Thes 19. a man scarce knows he hath such Motions of Concupiscence in him he finds not the least breath of Wind but a full calm in his Soul but when he is awakened by the Law then the vitiousness of nature being sensible of an Invasion of its Empire arms it self against the Divine Law and the more the Command is urged the more vigorously it bends its strength and more insolently lifts up it self against it he perceives more and more Atheistical Lusts than before all manner of Concupiscence more leprous and contagious than before When there are any motions to turn to God a reluctancy is presently perceived Atheistical thoughts bluster in the mind like the wind they know not whence they come nor whether they go So unapt is the heart to any acknowledgement of God as his Ruler and any re-union with him Hence men are said to resist the Holy Ghost Acts 7.51 to fall against it as the word signifies as a stone or any ponderous body falls against that which lies in its way They would dash to pieces or grind to powder that very motion which is made for their instruction and the Spirit too which makes it and that not from a fit of passion but an habitual repugnance Ye always resist c. 2. External 't is a fruit of Atheism in the fourth verse of this Psalm Who eat up my people as they eat bread How do the revelations of the Mind of God meet with opposition And the Carnal World like dogs bark against the shining of the Moon So much men hate the Light that they spurn at the Lanthorns that bear it And because they cannot endure the Treasure often fling the earthen vessels against the ground wherein it is held If the entrance of Truth render the Market worse for Diana's Shrines the whole City will be in an uproar * Act. 19.24.28.29 When Socrates upon natural Principles confuted the Heathen Idolatry and asserted the unity of God the whole cry of Athens a learned University is against him and because he opposed the publick received Religion though with an undoubted Truth he must end his Life by Violence How hath every Corner of the World steam'd with the blood of those that would maintain the Authority of God in the World The Devils Children will follow the steps of their Father and endeavour to bruise the Heel of Divine Truth that would endeavour to break the Head of corrupt Lust 5. Men often seem desirous to be acquainted with the Will of God not out of any respect to his Will and to make it their Rule but upon some other Consideration Truth is scarce received as truth There is more of Hypocrisie than Sincerity in the pale of the Church and attendance on the Mind of God The outward dowry of a religious Profession makes it often more desirable than the Beauty Judas was a follower of Christ for the Bag not out of any affection to the Divine Revelation Men sometime pretend a desire to be acquainted with the Will of God to satisfie their own passions rather than to conform to Gods Will The Religion of such is not the judgment of the Man but the passion of the Brute Many entertain a Doctrine's for the persons sake rather than a person for the Doctrine sake and believe a thing because it comes from a Man they esteem as if his lips were more Canonical than Scripture The Apostle implies in the Commendation he gives the Thessalonians * 1 Thes 2.13 that some receive the Word for human interest not as it is in truth the Word and Will of God to command and govern their Consciences by its Soveraign Authority Or else they have the Truth of God as St. James speaks of the Faith of Christ with respect of persons * Jam. 2.2 and receive it not for the sake of the Fountain but of the Channel So that many times the same Truth delivered by another is disregarded which when dropping from the fancy and mouth of a Man 's own Idol is cryed up as an Oracle This is to make not God but Man the Rule For though we entertain that which materially is the Truth of God yet not formally as his Truth but as conveyed by one we affect And that we receive a Truth and not an Error we ow the obligation to the honesty of the Instrument and not to the strength and clearness of our own Judgment Wrong considerations may give admittance to an unclean as well as a clean beast into the Ark of the Soul That which is contrary to the Mind of God may be entertained as well as that which is agreeable 'T is all one to such that have no respect to God what they have As it is all one to a Spunge to suck up the foulest water or the sweetest wine when either is applyed to it 6. Many that entertain the Notions of the Will and Mind of God admit them with unsettled and wavering Affections There is a great Levity in the heart of Man The Jews that one day applaud our Saviour with Hosannahs as their King vote his Crucifixion the next and use him as a Murderer We begin in the Spirit and
end in the Flesh Our hearts like Lute-strings are changed with every change of weather with every appearance of a Temptation scarce one motion of God in a thousand prevails with us for a setled abode 'T is a hard task to make a signature of those Truths upon our affections which will with ease pass currant with our understandings Our affections will as soon lose them as our understandings embrace them The heart of Man is unstable as water * Gen. 49.4 Jam. 1.8 Some were willing to rejoyce in Johns Light which reflected a lustre on their minds but not in his heat which would have conveyed a warmth to their hearts and the Light was pleasing to them but for a season * Joh. 5.35 while their corruptions lay as if they were dead not when they were awakened Truth may be admitted one day and the next day rejected As Austin saith of a wicked Man he loves the Truth shining but he hates the Truth reproving This is not to make God but our own humor our rule and measure 7. Many desire an acquaintance with the Law and Truth of God with a design to improve some lust by it To turn the Word of God to be a Pander to the Breach of his Law This is so far from making Gods Will our Rule that we make our own vile affections the Rule of his Law How many forced Interpretations of Scripture have been coyned to give content to the lusts of men and the Divine Rule forced to bend and be squared to mens loose and carnal apprehensions 'T is a part of the instability or falseness of the heart to wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction * 2 Pet. 3.16 which they could not do if they did not first wring them to countenance some detestable Error or filthy Crime In Paradise the first Interpretation made of the first Law of God was point blank against the mind of the Law-giver and venemous to the whole Race of Mankind Paul himself feared that some might put his Doctrine of Grace to so ill a use as to be an Altar and Sanctuary to shelter their Presumption Rom. 6.1.15 shall we then continue in Sin that Grace may abound Poysonous Consequences are often drawn from the sweetest Truths As when Gods Patience is made a Topick whence to argue against his Providence * Psal 94.1 or an encouragement to commit Evil more greedily as though because he had not presently a revenging Hand he had not an all seeing Eye Or when the Doctrine of Justification by Faith is made use of to depress a holy life or Gods readiness to receive returning sinners an encouragement to defer repentance till a death bed A Lyar will hunt for shelter in the reward God gave the Midwifes that lyed to Pharaoh for the preservation of the Males of Israel and Rahabs saving the Spies by false intelligence God knows how to distinguish between grace and corruption that may lie close together or between something of moral goodness and moral evil which may be mixed We find their fidelity rewarded which was a moral good but not their lye approved which was a moral evil Nor will Christs conversing with sinners be a plea for any to thrust themselves into evil Company Christ conversed with sinners as a Physitian with diseased persons to cure them not approve them others with profligate persons to receive infection from them not to communicate holiness to them Satans Children have studied their Fathers art who wanted not perverted Scripture to second his Temptations against our Saviour * How often do carnal hearts turn Divine Revelation to carnal ends as the Sea fresh water into salt As meâ—â—â—â—ject the precepts of God to carnal interests so they subject the truths of God to â—â—â—nal fancies When men will allegorize the Word and make a humorous and crazy fancy the Interpreter of Divine oracles and not the Spirit speaking in the Word This is to enthrone our own imaginations as the rule of Gods Law and depose his Law from being the rule of our reason This is to riflle truth of its true mind and intent T is more to rob a man of his reason the essential constitutive part of man than of his estate This is to refuse an intimate acquaintance with his Will We shall never tell what is the matter of a precept or the matter of a promise if we impose a sense upon it contrary to the plain meaning of it Thereby we shall make the Law of God to have a distinct sense according to the variety of mens imaginations and so make every mans fancy a Law to himself Now that this unwillingness to have a Spiritual acquaintance with Divine Truth is a disowning God as our rule and a setting up self in his stead is evident because this unwillingness respects Truth 1. As it is most Spiritual and Holy A fleshly mind is most contrary to a Spiritual Law and particularly as it is a searching and discovering Law that would dethrone all other rules in the Soul As men love to be without a Holy God in the world so they love to be without a holy Law the transcript and image of Gods Holiness in their hearts and without holy men the lights kindled by the Father of lights As the holiness of God so the holiness of the Law most offends a carnal heart Isa 30.11 Cause the holy one of Israel to cease from before us prophecy to us right things They could not endure God as a holy one Herein God places their Rebellion rejecting him as their rule ver 9. Rebellious Children that will not hear the Law of the Lord. The more pure and precious any discovery of God is the more it is disrelisht by the world As Spiritual sins are sweetest to a carnal heart so Spiritual truths are most distastful The more of the brightness of the Sun any beam conveys the more offensive it is to a distempered eye 2. As it doth most relate to or lead to God The Devil directs his fiercest batteries against those Doctrines in the Word and those Graces in the heart which most exalt God debase man and bring men to the lowest subjection to their Creator Such is the Doctrine and grace of justifying faith That men hate not knowledge as knowledge but as it directs them to choose the fear of the Lord was the determination of the Holy Ghost long ago Prov. 1.29 for that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. Whatsoever respects God clears up guilt witnesses mans revolt to him rouzeth up Conscience and moves to a return to God a man naturally runs from as Adam did from God and seeks a shelter in some weak bushes of error rather than appear before it Not that men are unwilling to inquire into and contemplate some Divine Truths which lie furthest from the heart and concern not themselves immediatly with the rectifying the soul They may view them with such a pleasure as
a posture to be his Mate Other sins Adultery and Theft c. could not be committed by him at that time but he immediatly puts forth his hand to usurp the power of his Maker This Treason is the old Adam in every man The first Adam contradicted the Will of God to set up himself The second Adam humbled himself and did nothing but by the Command and Will of his Father This principle wherein the venom of the Old Adam lies must be Crucified to make way for the Throne of the humble and obedient principle of the New Adam or quickning Spirit Indeed sin in its owns nature is nothing else but a willing according to self and contrary to the Will of God Lusts are therefore called the Wills of the flesh and of the mind * Eph. 2.3 As the precepts of God are Gods Will So the violations of these precepts is mans Will And thus man usurps a God-head to himself by giving that Honour to his own Will which belongs to God appropriating the right of rule to himself and denying it to his Creator That Servant that acts according to his own Will with a neglect of his Masters refuseth the duty of a Servant and invades the right of his Master This Self-love and desire of Independency on God has been the root of all sin in the World The great controversy between God and man hath been whether he or they shall be God whether his Reason or theirs his Will or theirs shall be the guiding principle As Grace is the union of the Will of God and the Will of the Creature so sin is the opposition of the Will of self to the Will of God Leaning to our own understanding is opposed as a natural evil to trusting in the Lord * Pro. 3.5 a supernatural grace Men commonly love what is their own their own inventions their own fancies therefore the ways of a wicked man are called the ways of his own heart * Eccl. 11.9 and the ways of a superstitious man his own devices Jer. 18.11 We will walk after our own devices We will be a law to our selves And what the Psalmist saith of the tongue our tongues are our own who shall controul us is as truly the language of mens hearts our Wills are our own who shall check us 2. This is eviden in the dissatisfaction of men with their own Consciences when they contradict the desires of self Conscience is nothing but an actuated or reflex knowledg of a superior power and an equitable law a law imprest and a power above it impressing it Conscience is not the law-giver but the remembrancer to mind us of that law of nature imprinted upon our Souls and actuate the considerations of the duty and penalty to apply the rule to our acts and pass Judgment upon matter of fact T is to give the charge urge the rule enjoyn the practice of those notions of Right as part of our duty and obedience But man is much displeased with the directions of Conscience as he is out of love with the accusations and condemning sentence of this officer of God We cannot naturally endure any quick and lively practical thoughts of God and his Will and distast our own Consciences for putting us in mind of it They therefore like not to retain God in their knowledge * Rom. 1.28 that is God in their own Consciences they would blow it out as it is the Candle of the Lord in them to direct them and their acknowledgments of God to secure themselves against the practice of its principles They would stop all the avenues to any beam of light and would not suffer a sparkle of Divine knowledge to flutter in their minds in order to set up another directing rule suited to the fleshly appetite And when they cannot stop the light of it from glaring in their faces they rebel against it and cannot endure to abide in its paths * Job 24.13 He speaks not of those which had the written word or special Revelations but only a natural light or traditional handed from Adam Hence are all the endeavors to still it when it begins to speak by some carnal pleasures as Sauls evil Spirit with a fit of Musick or bribe it with some fits of a glavering devotion when it holds the Law of God in its commanding Authority before the mind They would wipe out all the impressions of it when it presses the advancement of God above self and entertain it with no better Complement than Ahab did Elijah hast thou found me O my Enemy If we are like to God in any thing of our natural fabrick t is in the superior and more Spiritual part of our Souls The resistance of that which is most like to God and instead of God in us is a disowning of the Soveraign represented by that Officer He that would be without Conscience would be without God whose Vicegerent it is and make the sensitive part which Conscience opposes his Law-giver Thus a man out of respect to sinful self quarrels with his natural self and cannot comport himself in a friendly behaviour to his internal implanted principles He hates to come under the rebukes of them as much as Adam hated to come into the presence of God after he turned Traytor against him The bad entertainment Gods deputy hath in us reflects upon that God whose cause it pleads T is upon no other account that men loath the upright Language of their own reasons in those matters and wish the eternal silence of their own Consciences but as they maintain the rights of God and would hinder the Idol of self from usurping his God-head and prerogative Tho this power be part of a mans self rooted in his nature as essential to him and inseparable from him as the best part of his being yet he quarrels with it as it is Gods Deputy and stickling for the honour of God in his Soul and quarrelling with that sinful self he would cherish above God We are not displeased with this faculty barely as it exerciseth a self-reflection but as it is Gods Vice-gerent and bears the mark of his Authority in it In some cases this self-reflecting act meets with good Entertainment when it acts not in contradiction to self but sutable to natural affections As suppose a man hath in his passion struck his Child and caused thereby some great mischeif to him the reflection of Conscience will not be unwelcome to him will work some tenderness in him because it takes the part of self and of natural affection But in the more Spiritual concerns of God it will be rated as a busy body 3. Many if not most actions materially good in the world are done more because they are agreeable to self than as they are honourable to God As the word of God may be heard not as his word * 1 Thes 2.13 but as there may be pleasing Notions in it or discourses against an opinion or
a humane way and not in a divine Is not this to impose Laws upon God To esteem our selves wiser than he To think him negligent of his own service and that our feeble brains can find out ways to accommodate his honour better than himself hath done Thus do men for the most part equal their own imaginations to Gods oracles As Solomon built a high place to Moloch and Chemoch upon the Mount of Olives to face on the East part Hierusalem and the Temple * 1 Kings 11.7 This is not only to impose Laws on God but also to make self the Standard of them 8. 'T is evidenc'd in suting interpretations of Scripture to their own minds and humors Like the Lacedemonians that drest the Images of their Gods according to the fashion of their own Countrey We would wring Scripture to sâ—rve our own designs and Judge the Law of God by the law of sin and make the Serpentine seed in us to be the interpreter of Divine Oracles This is like Belshazar to drink healths out of the sacred Vessels As God is the Author of his Law and Word so he is the best interpreter of it the Scripture having an impress of divine Wisdom Holiness and Goodness must be regarded according to that impress with a submission and meekness of Spirit and Reverence of God in it But when in our enquiries into the word we enquire not of God but consult flesh and blood the temper of the times wherein we live or the satisfaction of a party we side withal and impose glosses upon it according to our own fancies it is to put Laws upon God and make self the rule of him He that interprets the law to bolster up some eager appetite against the Will of the law-giver ascribes to himself as great an authority as he that enacted it 9. In falling off from God after some fair compliances when his Will grateth upon us and crosseth ours They will walk with him as far as he pleaseth them and leave him upon the first distast as tho God must observe their humors more than they his Will Amos must be suspended from Prophecying because the Land could not bear his words and his discourses condemned their unworthy practices against God * Amos. 7.10 c. The Young man came not to receive directions from our Saviour but expected a Confirmation of his own rules rather than an imposition of new * Mark 10.17 22. He rather cares for Commendations than instructions and upon the disappointment turns his back He was sad that Christ would not suffer him to be rich and a Christian together and leaves him because his Command was not suitable to the Law of his Covetousness Some truths that are at a further distance from us we can hear gladly But when the Conscience begins to smart under others if God will not observe our Wills we will with Herod be a Law to our selves * Mark 6 2â—.27 More instances might be observed Ingratitude is a setting up self and an imposing Laws on God T is as much as to say God did no more than he was obliged to do as if the Mercies we have were an Act of Duty in God and not of bounty Insatiable desires after wealth Hence are those speeches Jam. 4.13 We will go into such a City and buy and sell c. to get gain As tho they had the Command of God and God must Lacquey after their Wills VVhen our hearts are not contented with any supply of our wants but are craving an overplus for our lust When we are unsatisfied in the midst of plenty and still like the Grave cry give give Incorrigibleness under affliction c. Secondly 2. The second main thing As Man would be a Law to himself So he would be his own end and happiness in opposition to God Here four things shall be discoursed on 1. Man would make himself his own End and Happiness 2. He would make any thing his End and Happiness rather than God 3. He would make himself the End of all Creatures 4. He would make himself the End of God First 1. Man would make himself his own End and Happiness As God ought to be esteem'd the first cause in point of our dependance on him so he ought to be our last end in point of our enjoyment of him When we therefore trust in our selves we refuse him as the first cause and when we act for our selves and expect a blessedness from our selves we refuse him as the Chiefest good and last End which is an undeniable piece of Atheism For man is a Creature of a higher rank than others in the world and was not made as Animals Plants and other works of the Divine power materially to glorifie God but a rational Creature intentionally to Honour God by obedience to his Rule dependance on his goodness and zeal for his glory T is therefore as much a slighting of God for man a Creature to set himself up as his own End as to regard himself as his own Law For the discovery of this observe that there is a three-fold self-love 1. Natural which is common to us by the Law of nature with other Creatures Inanimate as well as Animate and so closely twisted with the nature of every Creature that it cannot be dissolved but with the dissolution of nature it self It consisted not with the wisdom and goodness of God to Create an unnatural nature or to Command any thing unnatural Nor doth he for when he Commands us to Sacrifice out Selves and dearest lives for himself t is not without a promise of a more noble state and being in exchange for what we lose This self-love is not only commendable but necessary as a Rule to measure that duty we owe to our Neighbour whom we cannot love as our selves if we do not first love our selvs God having planted this self-love in our nature makes this natural principle the measure of our affection to all Mankind of the same blood with our selves 2. Carnal self-love when a man loves himself above God in opposition to God with a contempt of God when our thoughts affections designs Center only in our own fleshly interest and rifle God of his honour to make a present of it to our selves Thus the natural self-love in it self good becomes Criminal by the excess when it would be superior and not subordinate to God 3. A Gracious self-love VVhen we love our selves for higher ends than the nature of a Creature as a Creature dictates Viz. in subserviency to the Glory of God This is a reduction of the revolted Creature to his true and happy order A Christian is therefore said to be Created in Christ to good works * Eph. 1 10. As all Creatures were Created not only for themselves but for the honour of God so the Grace of the new Creation carries a man to answer this end and to order all his operations to the Honour of God and his
* â—â—r 20. Their Fathers Worshipping in that Mountain and the Jews affirming Jerusalem to be a place of worship She pleads the Antiquity of the worship in this place Abraham having built an Altar there Gen. 12.7 and Jacob upon his return from Syria And surely had the place been capable of an exception such persons as they and so well acquainted with the Will of God would not have pitched upon that place to Celebrate their worship Antiquity hath too too often bewitched the minds of Men and drawn them from the revealed Will of God Men are more willing to imitate the outward actions of their famous Ancestors than conform themselves to the revealed Will of their Creator The Samaritans would imitate the Patriarchs in the place of worship but not in the faith of the worshippers Christ answers her that this question would quickly be resolved by a new state of the Church which was neer at hand and neither Jerusalem which had now the precedency nor that Mountain should be of any more value in that concern than any other place in the world * ver 21. But yet to make her sensible of her sin and that of her Country-men tells her that their Worship in that Mountain was not according to the Will of God he having long after the Altars built in this place fixed Jerusalem as the place of Sacrifices besides they had not the knowledge of that God which ought to be worshipped by them but the Jews had the true object of Worship and the true manner of worship according to the declaration God had made of himself to them * ver â—â— But all that service shall vanish the vail of the Temple shall be rent in twain and that Carnal worship give place to one more Spiritual shadows shall fly before substance and truth advance it self above figures and the worship of God shall be with the strength of the Spirit such a worship and such worshippers doth the Father seek * ver 23. For God is a Spirit and those that Worship him must Worship him in Spirit and in truth The design of our Saviour is to declare that God is not taken with external worship invented by men no nor Commanded by himself and upon that this reason because he is a Spiritual essence infinitely above gross and Corporeal matter and is not taken with that pomp which is a pleasure to our Earthly imaginations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Some translate it just as the words lie Spirit is God * Vulgar lat Illyrc Clav. But it is not unusual both in the old and new Testament languages to put the predicate before the subject as Psal 5.9 Their throat is an open Sepulchre in the Hebrew a Sepulchre open their throat So Psa 111.3 His work is honourable and glorious Heb. Honour and glory his work And there wants not one example in the same Evangelist Joh. 1.1 And the word was God Greek and God was the word In all the predicate or what is ascribed is put before the subject to which it is ascribed One tells us and he an head of a party that hath made a disturbance in the Church of God * Eâ—â—â—â—â—p Institut lib. 4. cap. 3. that this place is not aptly brought to prove God to be a Spirit And the reason of Christ runs not thus God is of a Spiritual Essence and therefore must be worshipped with a Spiritual worship for the Essence of God is not the Foundation of his worship but his Will for then we were not to worship him with a Corporal worship because he is not a body but with an invisible and Eternal worship because he is invisible and eternal But the nature of God is the foundation of worship the Will of God is the Rule of worship the matter and manner is to be performed according to the Will of God But is the nature of the object of worship to be excluded No as the object is so ought our Devotion to be Spiritual as he is Spiritual God in his Commands for worship respected the discovery of his own nature in the Law he respected the discovery of his mercy and justice and therefore Commanded a worship by Sacrifices a Spiritual worship without those institutions would not have declared those Attributes which was Gods end to display to the world in Christ And tho the nature of God is to be respected in worship yet the obligations of the Creature are to be considered God is a Spirit therefore must have a Spiritual worship The Creature hath a body as well as a Soul and both from God and therefore ought to worship God with the one as well as the other since one as well as the other is freely bestowed upon him The Spirituality of God was the foundation of the change from the Judaical carnal worship to a more Spiritual and Evangelical God is a Spirit That is he hath nothing Corporeal no mixture of matter not a visible substance a bodily form * Melancton He is a Spirit not a bare Spiritual substance But an understanding willing Spirit holy wise good and just Before Christ spake of the Father * ver 23. the first person in the Trinity Now he speaks of God Essentially The word Father is personal the word God essential So that our Saviour would render a reason not from any one person in the blessed Trinity but from the Divine nature why we should worship in Spirit and therefore makes use of the word God the being a Spirit being Common to the other persons with the Father This is the reason of the proposition verse 23. Of a Spiritual Worship Every nature delights in that which is like it and distasts that which is most different from it If God were Corporeal he might be pleased with the victims of beasts and the beautiful Magnificence of Temples and the noyse of Musick But being a Spirit he cannot be gratified with carnal things He demands something better and greater than all those that Soul which he made that Soul which he hath endowed a Spirit of a frame sutable to his nature He indeed appointed Sacrifices and a Temple as shadows of those things which were to be most acceptable to him in the Messiah but they were imposed only till the time of Reformation * Heb. 9.10 Must Worship him Not they may or it would be more agreeable to God to have such a manner of worship But they must T is not exclusive of bodily worship for this were to exclude all publick worship in societies which cannot be performed without reverential postures of the body * Terniti The Gestures of the body are helps to worship and declarations of Spiritual acts We can scarcely worship God with our Spirits without some tincture upon the outward-man But he excludes all acts meerly Corporeal all resting upon an external service and devotion which was the Crime of the Pharisees and the general persuasion of the Jews
the Spirit * 2 Cor. 7.1 By the one we defile the Body by the other we defile the Spirit which in regard of its Nature is of kin to the Creator To wrong one who is neer of kin to a Prince is worse than to injure an inferior Subject When we make our Spirits which are most like to God in their Nature and framed according to his Image a stage to act vain imaginations wicked desires and unclean affections we wrong God in the excellency of his Work and reflect upon the nobleness of the Patern we wrong him in that part where he hath stampt the most signal Character of his own spiritual nature we defile that whereby we have only converse with him as a Spirit which he hath ordered more immediately to represent him in this Nature than all corporeal things in the world can and make that Spirit with whom we desire to be joyned unfit for such a knot Gods Spirituality is the root of his other perfections We have already heard he could not be infinite omnipresent immutable without it Spiritual sins are the greatest root of bitterness within us As grace in our Spirits renders us more like to a spiritual God so spiritual sins bring us into a conformity to a degraded Devil * Eph. 2.2 3. Carnal sins change us from men to brutes and spiritual sins devest us of the Image of God for the Image of Satan We should by no means make our Spirits a Dung-hill which bear upon them the Character of the spiritual Nature of God and were made for his residence Let us therefore behave our selves towards God in all those ways which the spiritual nature of God requires us A DISCOURSE OF Spiritual Worship HAVING thus dispatcht the first proposition God is a Spirit It will not be amiss to handle the inference our Saviour makes from that proposition which is the second observation propounded Doct. That the Worship due from us to God ought to be Spiritual and Spiritually performed Spirit and Truth are understood variously Either we are to Worship God 1. Not by legal ceremonies The Evangelical administration being called Spirit in opposition to the legal ordinances as carnal and Truth in opposition to them as typical As the whole Judaical service is called flesh so the whole Evangelical service is called Spirit Or Spirit may be opposed to the worship at Jerusalem as it was carnal Truth to the worship on the Mount Gerizim because it was false They had not the true object of worship nor the true Medium of worship as those at Jerusalem had Their worship should cease because it was false and the Jewish worship should cease because it was carnal There is no need of a Candle when the Sun spreads it beams in the Air no need of those Ceremonies when the Sun of righteousness appeared They only served for Candles to instruct and direct men till the time of his coming The shadows are chased away by the displaying the substance so that they can be of no more use in the worship of God since the end for which they were instituted is expired and that discovered to us in the Gospel which the Jews sought for in vain among the baggage and stuff of their Ceremonies 2. With a Spiritual and sincere frame In Spirit i. e. with Spirit with the inward operations of all the faculties of our Souls and the cream and flower of them And the reason is because there ought to be a worship sutable to the nature of God And as the worship was to be Spiritual so the exercise of that worship ought to be in a Spiritual manner * Lingend Tom. 2. p. 777. It shall be a worship in Truth because the true God shall be adored without those vain imaginations and phantastick resemblances of him * Taylors Exemplar Preface § 30. which were common among the blind Gentiles and contrary to the glorious nature of God and unworthy ingredients in Religious services It shall be a worship in Spirit without those carnal rites the degenerate Jews rested on Such a posture of Soul which is the life and ornament of every service God looks for at your hands There must be some proportion between the object adored and the manner in which we adore it It must not be a meer Corporeal worship because God is not a body but it must rise from the Center of our Soul because God is a Spirit If he were a body a bodily worship might sute him Images might be fit to represent him but being a Spirit our bodily services enter us not into communion with him Being a Spirit we must banish from our minds all carnal imaginations of him and separate from our Wills all cold and dissembled affections to him We must not only have a loud voice but an elevated Soul not only a bended knee but a broken heart not only a supplicating tone but a groaning Spirit not only a ready ear for the word but a receiving heart and this shall be of greater value with him than the most costly outward services offered at Gerizim or Jerusalem Our Saviour certainly meant not by worshipping in Spirit only the matter of the Evangelical service as opposed to the legal administration without the manner wherein it was to be performed T is true God always sought a worship in Spirit he expected the heart of the worshipper should joyn with his instituted rights of adoration in every exercise of them But he expects such a carriage more under the Gospel administration because of the clearer discoveries of his nature made in it and the greater assistances conveyed by it I shall therefore 1. Lay down some general propositions 2. Shew what this Spiritual worship is 3. Why we must offer to God a Spiritual service 4. The Vse 1. Some general propositions Proposition 1. First The right exercise of worship is founded upon and riseth from the Spirituality of God * Ames medul lib. 2. cap. 4. § 20. The first ground of the worship we render to God is the infinite excellency of his nature which is not only one attribute but results from all For God as God is the object of worship and the Notion of God consists not in thinking him wise good just but all those infinitely beyond any Conception And hence it follows that God is an object infinitely to beloved and honoured His goodness is sometimes spoken of in Scripture as a motive of our homage Psal 130.4 There is forgiveness with thee that thou maist be feared Fear in the Scripture dialect signifies the whole worship of God Acts 10.35 But in every Nation he that fears him is accepted of him * So 2 Kings 17.32 33. If God should act towards men according to the rigors of his Justice due to them for the least of their Crimes there could be no exercise of any affection but that of despair which could not engender a worship of God which ought to be joyned with love not
of the Soul 't is there his Image glitters He hath given us a Jewel as well as a Case and the Jewel as well as the Case we must return to him The Spirit is Gods gift and must return to him * Eccl. 12.7 It must return to him in every service morally as well as it must return to him at last physically 'T is not fit we should serve our Maker only with that which is the Brute in us and withold from him that which doth constitue us reasonable Creatures we must give him our bodies but a living Sacrifice * Rom. 12.1 If the Spirit be absent from God when the Body is before him we present a dead Sacrifice 'T is morally dead in the duty though it be naturally alive in the posture and action 'T is not an indifferent thing whether we shall worship God or no nor is it an indifferent thing whether we shall worship him without Spirits or no As the excellency of mans knowledge consists in knowing things as they are in Truth so the excellency of the Will in willing things as they are in goodness As it is the excellency of Man to know God as God so it is no less his excellency as well as his duty to honour God as God As the obligation we have to the Power of God for our Being binds us to a worship of him so the obligation we have to his bounty for fashioning us according to his own Image binds us to an exercise of that part wherein his Image doth consist God hath made all things for himself Pro. 16.4 that is for the evidence of his own goodness and wisdom We are therefore to render him a glory according to the the excellency of his nature discovered in the frame of our own T is as much our sin not to glorifie God as God as not to attempt the glorifying of him at all T is our sin not to worship God as God as well as to omit the testifying any respect at all to him As the divine nature is the object of worship so the Divine perfections are to be honoured in worship We do not honour God if we honour him not as he is we honour him not as a Spirit if we think him not worthy of the ardors and ravishing admirations of our Spirits If we think the Devotions of the body are sufficient for him we contract him into the condition of our own being and not only deny him to be a Spiritual nature but dash out all those perfections which he could not be possessed of were he not a Spirit 5. The Ceremonial law was abolisht to promote the Spirituality of Divine worship That service was gross carnal calculated for an infant and sensitive Church It consisted in rudiments the Circumcision of the flesh the blood and smoak of Sacrifices the steams of incense observation of days distinction of meats Corporal purifications every leaf of the law is clogged with some rite to be particularly observed by them The Spirituality of worship lay veild under a thick cloâ—ld that the people could not behold the glory of the Gospel which lay covered under those shadows 2 Cor. 3.13 They could not stedfastly look to the â—â—d of that which is abolished They understood not the Glory and Spiritual intent of the law and therefore came short of that Spiritual frame in the worship of God which was their duty And therefore in opposition to this administration the worship of God under the Gospel is called by our Saviour in the Text a worship in Spirit more Spiritual for the matter more Spiritual for the motives and more Spiritual for the manner and frames of worship 1. This legal service is called flesh in Scripture in opposition to the Gospel which is called Spirit The ordinances of the Law tho of Divine institution are dignified by the Apostle with no better a title than Carnal ordinances * Heb. 9.10 and a Carnal Command * Heb. 7.16 But the Gospel is called the Ministration of the Spirit as being attended with a special and Spiritual efficacy on the minds of men * 2 Cor. 3.8 And when the degenerate Galatians after having tasted of the pure streams of the Gospel turned about to drink of the thicker streams of the Law the Apostle tells them that they begun in the Spirit and would now be made perfect in the flesh * Gal. 3.3 They would leave the righteousness of faith for a justification by works The moral law which is in its own nature Spiritual * Rom. 7.14 in regard of the abuse of it in expectation of justification by the outward works of it is called flesh Much more may the Ceremonial administration which was never intended to run parallel with the moral nor had any foundation in nature as the other had That whole Oeconomy consisted in sensible and material things which only touched the flesh 'T is called the letter and the oldness of the Letter * Rom. 7.6 as Letters which are but empty sounds of themselves but put together and formed into words signifie something to the mind of the hearer or reader An old Letter a thing of no efficacy upon the Spirit but as a law written upon paper The Gospel hath an efficacious Spirit attending it strongly working upon the mind and Will and moulding the Soul into a Spiritual frame for God according to the Doctrin of the Gospel the one is old and decays the other is new and increaseth dayly And as the law it self is called flesh so the observers of it and resters in it are called Israel after the flesh * 1 Cor. 10.18 And the Evangelical worshipper is called a Jew after the Spirit Rom. 2.29 They were Israel after the flesh as born of Jacob not Israel after the Spirit as born of God and therefore the Apostle calls them Israel and not Israel * Rom. 9.6 Israel after a carnal birth not Israel after a Spiritual Israel in the Circumcision of the flesh not Israel by a regeneration of the heart 2. The legal Ceremonies were not a fit means to bring the heart into a Spiritual frame They had a Spiritual intent the Rock and Manna prefigured the Salvation and Spiritual nourishment by the Redeemer * 1 Cor. 10.3 4. The Sacrifices were to point them to the Justice of God in the punishment of sin and the mercy of God in substituting them in their steads as types of the Redeemer and the ransome by his blood The Circumcision of the flesh was to instruct them in the Circumcision of the heart They were flesh in regard of their matter weakness and cloudiness Spiritual in regard of their intent and signification They did instruct but not efficaciously work strong Spiritual affections in the Soul of the worshipper They were weak and beggerly elements * Gal 4.9 had neither wealth to inrich nor strength to nourish the Soul They could not perfect the Comers to them or put
Wisdom Power signify at a distance from us Let us frame in our minds a strong Idea of it 't is this makes so great a difference between the actions of one man and another one maintains actual thoughts of it another doth not tho' all believe it as a Perfection pertaining to the infiniteness of his Essence David or rather a greater than David had God always before him there was no time no occasion wherein he did not stir up some lively thoughts of him Psal 16.8 Let us have right notions of it imagine not God as a great King sitting only in his Majesty in Heaven acting all by his Servants and Ministers This saith one * Musculuâ— is a Childish and unworthy conceit of God and may in time bring such a conceiver by degrees to deny his Providence the denyal of this Perfection is an Axe at the Root of Religion if it be not deeply imprinted in the mind personal Religion grows faint and feeble who would fear that God that is not imagin'd to be a Witness of his actions Who would worship a God at a distance both from the Worship and Worshipper * Drexel Let us believe this Truth but not with an idle Faith as if we did not believe it Let us know that as wheresoever the Fish moves it is in the Water wheresoever the Bird moves it is in the Air so wheresoever we move we are in God as there is not a moment but we are under his Mercy so there is not a moment that we are out of his Presence Let us therefore look upon nothing without thinking who stands by without reflecting upon him in whom it Lives Moves and hath its Being When you view a man you fix your eyes upon his Body but your mind upon that invisible part that acts every member by life and motion and makes them fit for your converse Let us not bound our thoughts to the Creatures we see but pierce through the Creature to that boundless God we do not see we have continual remembrancers of his Presence the Light whereby we see and the Air whereby we live give us perpetual notices of it and some weak resemblance why should we forget it yea what a shame is our unmindfulness of it when every cast of our Eye every motion of our Lungs jogs us to remember it Light is in every part of the Air in every part of the World yet not mixt with any both remain entire in their own substance Let us not be worse than some of the Heathens who pressed this notion upon themselves for the spiriting their actions with Vertue That all places were full of God This was the means Basil used to prescribe upon a Question was askt him Omnia Diâ—plena How shall we do to be serious Mind Gods Presence How shall we avoid distractions in Service Think of Gods Presence How shall we resist Temptations Oppose to them the Presence of God 1. This will be a Shield against all Temptations God is present is enough to blunt the Weapons of Hell this will secure us from a ready complyance with any base and vile attractives and curb that head-strong Principle in our nature that would joyn hands with them the Thoughts of this would like the powerful Presence of God with the Israelites take off the Wheels from the Chariots of our sensitive Appetites and make them perhaps more slower at least towards a Temptation How did Peter fling off the Temptation which had worsted him upon a look from Christ the actuated faith of this would stifle the Darts of Satan and fire us with an anger against his sollicitations as strong as the Fire that inflames the Darts Moses his Sight of him that was Invisible strengthned him against the costly Pleasures and Luxuries of a Princes Court Heb. 11 27. We are utterly senseless of a Deity if we are not moved with this Item from our Consciences God is Present Had our first Parents actually consider'd the nearness of God to them when they were Tempted to Eat of the Forbidden Fruit they had not probably so easily been overcome by the Temptation What Soldier would be so base as to revolt under the Eye of a tender and obliging General Or what man so negligent of himself as to Rob a House in the Sight of a Judg Let us consider That God is as near to observe us as the Devil to sollicite us yea nearer the Devil stands by us but God is in us we may have a Thought the Devil knows not but not a Thought but God is actually present with as our Souls are with the Thoughts they think nor can any Creature attract our heart if our minds were fixed on that invisible Presence that contributes to that excellency and sustains it and considered that no Creature could be so present with us as the Creator is 2. It will be a Spur to Holy Actions What man would do an unworthy action or speak an unhandsom Word in the Presence of his Prince the Eye of the General inflames the Spirit of a Soldier Why did David keep Gods Testimonies Psal 119 168 because he consider'd that all his ways were before him because he was perswaded his ways were present with God Gods Precepts should be present with him The same was the cause of Jobs Integrity Job 31.4 Doth he not see my ways to have God in our Eye is the way to be sincere Gen 17. â— walk before me as in my Sight and be thou perfect Communion with God consists chiefly in an ordering our Ways as in the Presence of him that is Invisible This would make us spiritual rais'd and watchful in all our Passions if we consider'd that God is present with us in our Shops in our Chambers in our Walks and in our Meetings as present with us as with the Angels in Heaven who tho' they have a Presence of Glory above us yet have not a greater measure of his Essential Presence than we have What an awe had Jacob upon him when he consider'd God was present in Bethel Gen. 28.16 17 If God should appear visibly to us when we were alone should we not be reverent and serious before him God is every where about us he doth encompass us with his Presence should not Gods seeing us have the same influence upon us as our seeing God He is not more essentially present if he should so manifest himself to us than when he doth not Who would appear besmear'd in the presence of a great person or not be asham'd to be found in his Chamber in a nasty posture by some visitant Would not a man blush to be catched about some mean action tho' it were not an immoral Crime If this Truth were imprest upon our Spirits we should more blush to have our Souls daub'd with some loathsom Lust swarms of Sin like Egyptian Lice and Frogs creeping about our Heart in his Sight If the most sensual man be asham'd
the thronging multitudes Our groans are as audible and intelligible to him as our words and he knows what is the mind of his own Spirit though exprest in no plainer language than sobs and heavings * Rom. 8.27 Thus David cheers up himself under the neglects of his Friends Psal 38.9 Lord my desire is before thee and my groaning is not hid from thee Not a groan of a panting Spirit shall be lost till God hath lost his knowledge Not a Petition forgotten while God hath a Record nor a Tear dried while God hath a Bottle to reserve it in * Psal 56.8 Our secret works are also known and observed by him not only our outward labour but our inward love in it Heb. 6.10 If with Isaac we go privately into the Field to meditate or secretly cast our Bread upon the Waters he keeps his Eye upon us to Reward us and returns the Fruit into our own Bosoms * Mat. 6.4.6 Yea though it be but a Cup of cold Water from an inward Spring of love given to a Disciple He sees your works and your labour and faith and patience in working them * Rev. 2.2 all the marks of your industry and strength of your intentions and Will be as exact at last in order to a due Praise as to open Sins in order to a just Recompence * 1 Cor. 4.5 6. The Consideration of this excellent Attribute affords Comfort in the Afflictions of good Men. He knows their Pressures as well as hears their Cries * Exod. 3.7 His Knowledge comes not by information from us but his Compassionate listening to our Cries springs from his own Inspection into our Sorrows He is affected with them before we make any discovery of them He is not ignorant of the best Season when they may be usefully inflicted and when they may be profitably removed The Tribulation and Poverty of his Church is not unknown to him Rev. 2.8 9. I know thy Works and Tribulation c. He knows their Works and what Tribulation they meet with for him He sees their extremities when they are toiling against the Wind and Tide of the World * Mark 6.48 Yea the natural exigencies of the multitude are not neglected by him he discerns to take care of them Our Saviour considered the three days fasting of his Followers and miraculously provides a Dish for them in the Wilderness No good Man is ever out of Gods Mind and therefore never out of his Compassionate Care His Eye pierceth into their Dungeons and pities their Miseries Joseph may forget his Brethren and the Disciples not know Christ when he walks upon the Midnight Waves and Turbulent Sea * Barlow's Man 's Refuge p. 29 30. but a Lyons Den cannot obscure a Daniel from his Sight nor the depths of the Whales Belly bury Jonah from the Divine Understanding He discerns Peter in his Chains and Stephen under the Stones of Martyrdom He knows Lazarus under his tatter'd Rags and Abel wallowing in his Blood His Eye and Knowledge goes along with his People when they are transplanted into Foreign Countreys and sold for Slaves into the Islands of the Grecians for he will raise them out of the place Joel 3.6 7. He would defeat the hopes of the Persecutors and applaud the Patience of his People He knows his People in the Tabernacle of Life and in the Valley of the Shadow of Death Psal 23. He knows all penal Evils because he commissions and directs them He knows the Instruments because they are his Sword * Psal 17.13 and he knows his gracious Sufferer because he hath his Mark He discerns Job in his Anguish and the Devil in his Malice By the direction of this Attribute he orders Calamities and rescues from them Thou hast seen it for thou beholdest mischief and spight * Psal 10.14 That is the Comfort of the Psalmist and the Comfort of every Believer and the Ground of committing themselves to God under all the injustice of Men. 7. 'T is a Cofmort in all our Infirmities As he knows our Sins to charge them so he knows the weakness of our Nature to pity us As his infinite Understanding may scare us because he knows our Transgressions so it may relieve us because he knows our natural mutability in our first Creation He knows our frame he remembers that we are dust * Psal 103.14 'T is the reason of the precedent Verses why he removes our Transgression from us why he is so backward in Punishing so patient in waiting so forward in pitying Why He doth not only remember our Sins but remember our frame or forming what brittle though clear Glasses we were by Creation how easie to be crackt He remembers our impotent and weak Condition by Corruption what a sink we have of vain imaginations that remain in us after Regeneration he doth not only consider that we were made according to his Image and therefore able to stand but that we were made of Dust and weak Matter and had a sensitive Soul like that of Beasts as well as an intellectual Nature like that of Angels and therefore liable to follow the dictates of it without exact care and watchfulness If he remembred only the first there would be no issue but Indignation but the Consideration of the latter moves his Compassion How miserable should we be for want of this Perfection in the Divine Nature whereby God remembers and reflects upon his past act in our first frame and the mindfulness of our Condition excites the motion of his Bowels to us Had he lost the knowledge how he first framed us did he not still remember the mutability of our Nature as we were form'd and stampt in his Mint How much more wretched would our Condition be than it is If his remembrance of our Original be one ground of his Pity the sense of his Omniscience should be a ground of our Comfort in the stirring of our infirmities He remembers we were but Dust when he made us and yet remembers we are but Dust while he preserves and forbears us 8. 'T is some Comfort in the fears of some lurking Corruption in our Hearts We know by this whither to address our selves for the search and discovery of it Perhaps some Blessings we want are retarded some Calamities we understand not the particular cause of are inflicted some Petitions we have put up hang too long for an Answer and the Chariot Wheels of Divine Goodness move slow and are long in coming Let us beg the Aid of this Attribute to open to us the Remoras to discover what base Affection there is that retards the Mercies we want or attracts the Affliction we feel or bars the Door against the return of our supplications What our dim sight cannot discover the clear Eye of God can make visible to us Job 10.2 Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me As in want of Pardon we particularly plead his Mercy and in our desires for the
Pet. 1.12 It was publish'd in Paradise but in such words as Adam did not fully understand It was both discover'd and clouded in the Smoke of Sacrifices It was wrapped up in a Vail under the Law but not open'd till the Death of the Redeemer It was then plainly said to the Cities of Judah Behold your God comes The whole Transaction of it between the Father and the Son which is the Spirit of the Gospel was from Eternity the Creation of the World was in order to the manifestation of it Let us not then regard the Gospel as a Novelty the consideration of it as one of Gods Cabinet Rarities should enhance our Estimation of it No Traditions of Men no Inventions of vain Wits that pretend to be wiser than God should have the same Credit with that which bears date from Eternity 8. Observe That Divine Truth is Mysterious According to the revelation of the mystery Christ manifested in the flesh The whole Scheme of Godliness is a Mystery No Man or Angel could imagine how two Natures so distant as the Divine and Human should be united how the same Person should be Criminal and Righteous how a Just God should have a Satisfaction and Sinful Man a Justification how the Sin should be punish'd and the Sinner saved None could imagine such a way of Justification as the Apostle in this Epistle declares It was a Mystery when hid under the Shadows of the Law and a Mystery to the Prophets when it sounded from their Mouths they searched it without being able to comprehend it †1 Pet. 1.10 11. If it be a Mystery 't is humbly to be submitted to Mysteries surmount Human Reason The study of the Gospel must not be with a yawning and careless frame Trades you call Mysteries are not learned sleeping and nodding Diligence is required we must be Disciples at Gods Feet As it had God for the Author so we must have God for the Teacher of it the Contrivance was his and the Illumination of our Minds must be from him As God only manifested the Gospel so he only can open our Eyes to see the Mysteries of Christ in it In Verse 26. we may observe 1. The Scriptures of the Old Testament verifie the substance of the New and the New doth evidence the Authority of the Old By the Scriptures of the Prophets made known The Old Testament credits the New and the New illustrates the Old The New Testament is a Comment upon the Prophetick part of the Old The Old shews the Promises and Predictions of God and the New shews the Performance What was foretold in the Old is fulfilled in the New the Predictions are cleared by the Events The Predictions of the Old are Divine because they are above the Reason of Man to foreknow None but an Infinite Knowledge could foretell them because none but an Infinite Wisdom could order all things for the accomplishment of them The Christian Religion hath then the surest Foundation since the Scriptures of the Prophets wherein it is foretold are of undoubted Antiquity and owned by the Jews and many Heathens which are and were the great Enemies of Christ The Old Testament is therefore to be read for the strengthning of our Faith Our Blessed Saviour himself draws the Streams of his Doctrine from the Old Testament He clears up the Promise of Eternal Life and the Doctrine of the Resurrection from the words of the Covenant I am the God of Abraham c. Mat. 22.32 And our Apostle clears up the Doctrine of Justification by Faith from Gods Covenant with Abraham Rom. 4. It must be read and it must be read as it is writ It was writ to a Gospel End it must be studied with a Gospel Spirit The Old Testament was writ to give Credit to the New when it should be manifested in the World It must be read by us to give strength to our Faith and establish us in the Doctrine of Christianity How many view it as a bare story an Almanack out of date and regard it as a dry Bone without sucking from it the Evangelical Marrow Christ is in Genesis Abrahams Seed in Davids Psalms and the Prophets the Messiah and Redeemer of the World 2. Observe the Antiquity of the Gospel Is made manifest by the Scriptures of the Prophets It was of as Ancient a date as any Prophesy The first Prophesy was nothing else but a Gospel Charter it was not made at the Incarnation of Christ but made manifest It then rose up to its Meridian lustre and sprung out of the Clouds wherewith it was before obscur'd The Gospel was preached to the Ancients by the Prophets as well as to the Gentiles by the Apostles Heb. 4.2 Vnto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them To them first to us after to them indeed more cloudy to us more clear but they as well as we were Evangeliz'd as the word signifies The Covenant of Grace was the same in the Writings of the Prophets and the Declarations of the Evangelists and Apostles Though by our Saviours Incarnation the Gospel Light was clearer and by his Ascension the Effusions of the Spirit fuller and stronger yet the Believers under the Old Testament saw Christ in the Swadling Bands of Legal Ceremonies and the Lattice of Prophetical Writings they could not else offer one Sacrifice or read one Prophesy with a Faith of the right stamp Abrahams Justifying Faith had Christ for its Object though it was not so Explicit as ours because the Manifestation was not so clear as ours 3. All Truth is to be drawn from Scripture The Apostle refers them here to the Gospel and the Prophets The Scripture is the Source of Divine Knowledge not the Traditions of Men nor Reason separate from Scripture Whosoever brings another Doctrine coyns another Christ nothing is to be added to what is written nothing detracted from it He doth not send us for Truth to the Puddles of Human Inventions to the Enthusiasms of our Brain not to the See of Rome no nor to the Instructions of Angels but the Writings of the Prophets as they clear up the Declarations of the Apostles The Church of Rome is not made here the Standard of Truth but the Scriptures of the Prophets are to be the Touch-stone to the Romans for the Trial of the Truth of the Gospel 4. How great is the Goodness of God The Borders of Grace are enlarged to the Gentiles and not hid under the Skirts of the Jews He that was so long the God of the Jews is now also manifest to be the God of the Gentiles The Gospel is now made known to all Nations according to the Commandment of the Everlasting God Not only in a way of Common Providence but Special Grace in Calling them to the Knowledge of himself and a Justification of them by Faith He hath brought Strangers to him to the Adoption of Children and lodged them under the Wings of the Covenant that were before alienated from
it runs thus To the alone Wise God through Jesus Christ to him be glory for ever But we must not understand it as if God were Wise by Jesus Christ but that Thanks is to be given to God through Christ because in and by Christ God hath revealed his Wisdom to the World The Greek hath a Repetition of the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not exprest in the Translation To him be glory Beza expungeth this Article but without reason for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To him and joyning this The only Wise God with the 25th Verse To him that is of Power to establish you Reading it thus To him that is of Power to establish you the only Wise God leaving the rest in a Parenthesis it runs smoothly To him be glory through Jesus Christ And Crellius the Socinian observes that this Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which some leave out might be industriously inserted by the Apostle to shew that the Glory we ascribe to God is also given to Christ We may Observe That neither in this place nor any where in Scripture is the Virgin Mary or any of the Saints associated with God or Christ in the Glory ascrib'd to them In the Words there is 1. An Appropriation of Wisdom to God and a Remotion of it from all Creatures Only wise God 2. A Glorifying him for it The Point I shall insist upon is Doctr. That Wisdom is a transcendent Excellency of the Divine Nature We have before spoken of the Knowledge of God and the Infiniteness of it The next Attribute is the Wisdom of God Most confound the Knowledge and Wisdom of God together but there is a manifest distinction between them in our conception I shall handle it thus 1. Shew what Wisdom is Then lay down 2. Some Propositions about the Wisdom of God And shew 3. That God is Wise and only Wise 4. Wherein his Wisdom appears 5. The Vse I. What Wisdom is Wisdom among the Greeks first signified an eminent Perfection in any Art or Mystery so a good Statuary Engraver or Limner was called Wise as having an excellent Knowledge in his particular Art But afterwards the Title of Wise was appropriated to those that devoted themselves to the contemplation of the highest things that served for a Foundation to Speculative Sciences †A myrant Moral Iom 3. p. 123. But ordinarily we count a Man a Wise Man when he conducts his Affairs with discretion and governs his Passions with moderation and carries himself with a due proportion and harmony in all his concerns But in Particular Wisdom consists 1. In acting for a right End The chiefest part of Prudence is in fixing a right End and in chusing fit Means and directing them to that scope To shoot at random is a mark of Folly As he is the wisest Man that hath the noblest End and fittest Means so God is Infinitely Wise as he is the most excellent Being so he hath the most excellent End As there is none more excellent than himself nothing can be his End but himself As he is the Cause of all so he is the End of all and he puts a true Byass into all the Means he useth to hit the Mark he aims at Of him and through him and to him are all things Rom. 11.36 2. Wisdom consists in observing all Circumstances for Action He is counted a Wise man that lays hold of the fittest Opportunities to bring his designs about that hath the fullest foresight of all the little Intrigues which may happen in a Business he is to manage and Times every part of his Action in an exact harmony with the proper Minutes of it God hath all the Circumstances of things in one entire Image before him he hath a prospect of every little Creek in any design He sees what Second Causes will act and when they will act this or that yea he determines them to such and such Acts so that it is impossible he should be mistaken or miss of the due Season of bringing about his own Purposes As he hath more Goodness than to deceive any so he hath more Understanding than to be mistaken in any thing Hence the Time of the Incarnation of our Blessed Saviour is called the Fulness of Time the proper Season for his coming Every Circumstance about Christ was Tim'd according to the Predictions of God even so little a thing as not parting his Garment and the giving him Gall and Vinegar to drink And all the Blessings he showrs down upon his People according to the Covenant of Grace are said to come in his season Ezek. 34.25 26. 3. Wisdom consists In willing and acting according to the right Reason according to a right Judgment of things We never count a Wilful man a Wise man but him only that acts according to a right Rule when right Counsels are taken and vigorously executed The Resolves and Ways of God are not meer Will but Will guided by the Reason and Counsel of his own Infinite Understanding Eph. 1.11 Who works all things according to the counsel of his own will The Motions of the Divine Will are not rash but follow the Proposals of the Divine Mind He chooses that which is fittest to be done so that all his Works are graceful and all his Ways have a comeliness and decorum in them Hence all his Ways are said to be Judgment Deut. 32.4 not meer Will Hence it appears that Wisdom and Knowledge are two distinct Perfections Knowledge hath its seat in the Speculative Understanding Wisdom in the Practical Wisdom and Knowledge are evidently distinguish'd as two several gifts of the Spirit in Man 1 Cor. 12.8 To one is given by the Spirit the word of Wisdom to another the word of Knowledge by the same Spirit Knowledge is an understanding of general Rules and Wisdom is a drawing Conclusions from those Rules in order to particular cases A Man may have the Knowledge of the whole Scripture and have all Learning in the Treasury of his Memory and yet be destitute of Skill to make use of them upon particular Occasions and unty those knotty Questions which may be proposed to him by a ready application of those Rules Again Knowledge and Wisdom may be distinguish'd in our Conception as two distinct Perfections in God The Knowledge of God is his Understanding of all things his Wisdom is the Skilful resolving and acting of all things And the Apostle in his Admiration of him owns them as distinct Oh the depths of the riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God Rom. 11.33 Knowledge is the Foundation of Wisdom and antecedent to it Wisdom the Superstructure upon Knowledge Men may have Knowledge without Wisdom but not Wisdom without Knowledge according to our common Proverb The greatest Clerks are not the wisest Men. All Practical Knowledge is founded in Speculation either Secundum rem as in a Man or Secundum rationem as in God They agree
inferior nature of nothing As bodily things are more imperfect than spiritual so their Creation may be supposed easier than that of spiritual There was as little need of any matter to be wrought to his hands to contrive into this visible Fabrick as there was to erect such an excellent Order as the glorious Cherubims 2. This Creation of things from nothing speaks an infinite power The distance between Nothing and Being hath been alway counted so great that nothing but an infinite Power can make such distances meet together either for Nothing to pass into Being or Being to return to nothing To have a thing arise from nothing was so difficult a Text to those that were ignorant of the Scripture that they knew not how to fathom it and therefore laid it down as a certain Rule That of nothing nothing is made which is true of a created Power but not of an uncreated and Almighty Power A greater distance cannot be imagin'd then that which is between Nothing and Something that which hath no being and that which hath And a greater Power cannot be imagin'd then that which brings Something out of Nothing * Amyral Morale tom 1. p. 252. We know not how to conceive a Nothing and afterwards a Being from that Nothing but we must remain swallowed up in admiration of the Cause that gives it being and acknowledge it to be without any bounds and measures of Greatness and Power The further any thing is from being the more immense must that Power be which brings it into being 'T is not conceivable that the power of all the Angels in one can give being to the smallest spire of Grass To imagine therefore so small a thing as a Bee a Fly a grain of Corn or an Atome of Dust to be made of nothing would stupifie any Creature in the consideration of it Much more to behold the Heavens with all the Troop of Stars the Earth with all its embroidery and the Sea with all her Inhabitants of Fish and Man the noblest Creature of all to arise out of the Womb of meer Emptiness Indeed God had not acted as an Almighty Creator if he had stood in need of any Materials but of his own framing It had been as much as his Deity was worth if he had not had all within the compass of his own Power that was necessary to Operation if he must have been beholden to something without himself and above himself for matter to work upon Had there been such a necessity we could not have imagin'd him to be Omnipotent and consequently not God 3. In this the power of God exceeds the power of all natural and rational Agents Nature or the Order of second Causes hath a vast Power The Sun generates Flies and other Insects but of some Matter the Slime of the Earth or a Dunghill The Sun and the Earth bring forth Harvests of Corn but from Seed first sown in the Earth Fruits are brought forth but from the Sap of the Plant. Were there no Seed or Plants in the Earth the power of the Earth would be idle and the influence of the Sun insignificant whatsoever strength either of them had in their Nature must be useless without matter to work upon All the united strength of Nature cannot produce the least thing out of nothing It may multiply and increase things by the powerful blessing God gave it at the first erecting of the World but it cannot create The Word which signifies Creation used in Gen. 1.1 is not ascrib'd to any second Cause but only to God a word in that sense as incommunicable to any thing else as the action it signifies Rational Creatures can produce admirable Pieces of Art from small things yet still out of Matter created to their hands Excellent Garments may be woven but from the Entrails of a small Silkworm Delightful and Medicinal Spirits and Essences may be extracted by ingenious Chymists but out of the Bodies of Plants and Minâ—rals No Picture can be drawn without Colours no Statue engraven withouâ—â—tone no Building erected without Timber Stones and other Materials Nor can any man raise a thought without some Matter framed to his hands or cast into him Matter is by Nature formed to the hands of all Artificers they bestow a new Figure upon it by the help of Instruments and the product of their own Wit and Skill but they create not the least particle of Matter when they want it they must be supplyed or else stand still as well as Nature for none of them or all together can make the least Mite or Atom And when they have wrought all that they can they will not want some to find a flaw and defect in their work God as a Creator hath the only Prerogative to draw what he pleases from nothing without any defect without any imperfection He can raise what Matter he please enoble it with what form he pleases Of nothing nothing can be made by any created Agent But the Omnipotent Architect of the World is not under the same necessity nor is limited to the same Rule and tied by so short a Tedder as created Nature or an ingenious yet feeble Artificer 2. It appears In raising such variety of Creatures from this barren Womb of Nothing or from the Matter which he first commanded to appear out of Nothing Had there been any preexistent Matter yet the bringing forth such varieties and diversities of excellent Creatures some with life some with sense and others with reason superadded to the rest and those out of indisposed and undigested Matter would argue an infinite Power resident in the first Author of this variegated Fabrick From this Matter he formed that glorious Sun which every day displays its Glory scatters its Beams clears the Air ripens our Fruits and maintains the propagation of Creatures in the World From this Matter he lighted those Torches which he set in the Heaven to qualifie the darkness of the Night From this he compacted those Bodies of Light which though they seem to us as little sparks as if they were the Glow-worms of Heaven yet some of them exceed in greatness this Globe of the Earth on which we live And the highest of them hath so quick a motion that some tell us they run in the space of every hour 42 millions of Leagues From the same matter he drew the Earth on which we walk from thence he extracted the Flowers to adorn it the Hills to secure the Valleys and the Rocks to fortifie it against the Inundations of the Sea And on this dull and sluggish Element he bestowed so great a fruitfulness to maintain feed and multiply so many Seeds of different kinds and conferred upon those little Bodies of Seeds a power to multiply their kinds in conjunction with the fruitfulness of the Earth to many thousands From this rude Matter the Slime or Dust of the Earth he kneaded the Body of Man and wrought so curious a Fabrick fit to
make them march in the same order to their Confusion as they did in their Creation Who can jumble the whole Frame together and by a Word dissolve the Pillars of the World and make the Fabrick lie in a ruinous heap 2. In effecting his Purposes by small Means In making use of the Meanest Creatures As the Power of God is seen in the creation of the smallest Creatures and assembling so many perfections in the little body of an Insect as an Ant or Spider So his Power is not less magnified in the use he makes of them As he magnifies his Wisdom by using ignorant Instruments so he exalts his Power by employing weak Instruments in his service The Meaness and Imperfection of the matter sets off the Excellency of the Workman so the weakness of the Instrument is a foyl to the Power of the principal Agent When God hath effected things by Means in the Scripture he hath usually brought about his Purposes by weak Instruments Moses a Fugitive from Egypt and Aaron a Captive in it are the Instruments of the Israelites Deliverance By the motion of Moses his Rod he works Wonders in the Court of Pharaoh and summons up his Judgments against him He brought down Pharaohs stomack for a while by a squadron of Lice and Locusts wherein Divine Power was more seen than if Moses had brought him to his own Articles by a multitude of Warlike Troops The fall of the Walls of Jericho by the sound of Rams horns was a more glorious Character of Gods Power than if Joshuah had batter'd it down with an hundred of Warlike Engines Josh 6.20 Thus the great Army of the Midianites which lay as Grasshoppers upon the ground were routed by Gideon in the head of Three hundred Men and Goliah a Giant laid level with the ground by David a Stripling by the force of a Sling A Thousand Philistines dispatcht out of the World by the Jaw Bone of an Ass in the hand of Sampson He can master a stout Nation by an Army of Locusts and render the Teeth of those little Insects as destructive as the Teeth yea the strongest Teeth the Cheek Teeth of a great Lion * Joel 1.6 7. The Thunderbolt which produceth sometimes dreadful effects is compacted of little Atoms which fly in the Air small Vapors drawn up by the Sun and mixt with other Sulphurous matter and petrifying Juice Nothing is so weak but his Strength can make victorious nothing so small but by his Power he can accomplish his great ends by it nothing so vile but his Mâ—ght can conduct to his glory and no Nation so mighty but he can waste and enfeeble by the Meanest Creatures God is great in Power in the greatest things and not little in the smallest his Power in the minutest Creatures which he uses for his service surmounts the force of our Understanding III. The Power of God appears in Redemption As our Saviour is called the Wisdom of God 1 Cor. 1.24 so he is called the Power of God The Arm of Power was lifted up as high as the designs of Wisdom were laid deep As this way of Redemption could not be contriv'd but by an Infinite Wisdom so it could not be accomplish'd but by an Infinite Power None but God could shape such a design and none but God could effect it The Divine Power in Temporal deliverances and freedom from the slavery of humane Oppressors vails to that which glitters in Redemption whereby the Devil is defeated in his designs stript of his spoils and yok'd in his strength The Power of God in Creation requires not those degrees of Admiration as in Redemption In Creation the World was erected from Nothing as there was Nothing to act so there was Nothing to oppose no victorious Devil was in that to be subdued no thundring Law to be silenced no Death to be conquer'd no Transgression to be pardoned and rooted out no Hell to be shut no Ignominious death upon the Cross to be suffered It had been in the nature of the thing an easier thing to Divine Power to have created a new World than repair'd a broken and purified a polluted one This is the most admirable Work that ever God brought forth in the World greater than all the Marks of his Power in the first Creation And this will appear 1. In the Person Redeeming 2. In the publication and propagation of the Doctrine of Redemption 3. In the application of Redemption I. In the Person Redeeming First In his Conception 1. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost in the Womb of the Virgin Luke 1.35 The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee Which act is exprest to be the effect of the Infinite Power of God and it expresses the supernatural manner of the forming the Humanity of our Saviour and signifies not the Divine Nature of Christ infusing it self into the Womb of the Virgin for the Angel refers it to the manner of the operation of the Holy Ghost in the producing the Humane Nature of Christ and not to the Nature assuming that Humanity into union with it self The Holy Ghost or the Third Person in the Trinity overshadowed the Virgin and by a Creative act fram'd the Humanity of Christ and united it to the Divinity It is therefore exprest by a word of the same import with that used Gen. 1.2 The Spirit moved upon the face of the face of the Waters which signifies as it were a Brooding upon the Chaos shadowing it with his Wings as Hens sit upon their Eggs to form them and hatch them into Animals or else it is an allusion to the Cloud which covered the Tent of the Congregation when the Glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle * Exod. 40 34 It was not such a Creative Act as we call Immediate which is a production out of Nothing but a Mediate Creatâ—on such as Gods bringing things into form out of the first Matter which had nothing but an Obediential or Passive disposition to whatsoever stamp the Powerful Wisdom of God should imprint upon it So the substance of the Virgin had no active but only a passive disposition to this work The Matter of the Body was Earthy the substance of the Virgin the forming of it was Heavenly the Holy Ghost working upon that Matter And therefore when it is said Mat. 1.18 that she was found with Child of the Holy Ghost 't is to be understood of the Efficacy of the Holy Ghost not of the Substance of the Holy Ghost The matter was Natural but the manner of Conceiving was in a Supernatural way above the methods of Nature In reference to the Active Principle the Redeemer is called in the Prophecy †Isai 4.2 The Branch of the Lord in regard of the Divine hand that planted him In respect to the Passive Principle The Fruit of the Earth in regard of the Womb that bare him and therefore said to be made
at the Presence of the Council that had their hands yet reeking with the Blood of his Master but being filled with the Holy Ghost seems to dare the Power of the Priests and Jewish Governours and is as confident in the Council Chamber as he had been cowardly in the High Priests Hall †Acts 4.9 c. the efficacy of Grace triumphing over the Fearfulness of Nature Whence should this Ardor and Zeal to propagate a Doctrine that had already born the Scars of the Peoples Fury be but from a mighty Power which changed those Hares into Lions and stript them of their Natural Cowardize â—o cloath them with a Divine Courage making them in a moment both Wise and Magnanimous alienating them from any Consultations with Flesh and Blood As soon as ever the Holy Ghost came upon them as a mighty rushing Wind they move up and down for the Interest of God as Fish after a great Clap of Thunder are rowz'd and move more nimbly on the top of the Water therefore that which did so fit them for this undertaking is called by the title of Power from on high Luke 24.49 III. The Divine Power appears in the Means whereby it was propagated 1. By Means different from the Methods of the World Not by force of Arms as some Religions have taken root in the World Mahomets Horse hath trampled upon the Heads of Men to imprint an Alcoran in their Brains and robb'd Men of their Goods to plant their Religion But the Apostles bore not this Doctrine through the World upon the Points of their Swords they presented a Bodily death where they would bestow an Immortal life They employ'd not Troops of Men in a Warlike posture which had been possible for them after the Gospel was once spread they had no Ambition to subdue Men unto themselves but to God they coveted not the Possessions of others design'd not to enrich themselves invaded not the Rights of Princes nor the Liberties and Properties of the People They rifled them not of their Estates nor scar'd them into this Religion by a fear of losing their Worldly happiness The Arguments they used would naturally drive them from an entertainment of this Doctrine rather than allure them to be Proselytes to it Their design was to change their Hearts not their Government to wean them from the love of the World to a love of a Redeemer to remove that which would ruine their Souls It was not to enslave them but ransom them they had a warfare but not with Carnal weapons but such as were mighty through God for the pulling down of strong holds 2 Cor. 10.4 they used no weapons but the Doctrine they preach'd Others that have not gained Conquests by the Edge of the Sword and the Stratagems of War have extended their Opinions to others by the strength of Humane Reason and the Insinuations of Eloquence But the Apostles had as little flourish in their Tongues as edge upon their Swords Their Preaching was not with the enticing words of Mans wisdom * 1 Cor. 2.4 their Presence was mean and their Discourses without varnish their Doctrine was plain a Crucified Christ a Doctrine unlac'd ungarnisht untoothsom to the World but they had the demonstration of the Spirit and a mighty Power for their Companion in the work The Doctrine they preached viz. the Death Resurrection and Ascension of Christ are called the Powers not of this World but of the World to come †Heb. 6.5 No less than a Supernatural Power could conduct them in this Attempt with such weak Methods in Humane appearance 2. Against all the Force Power and Wit of the World The Divisions in the Eastern Empire and the feeble and consuming State of the Western contributed to Mahomets Success ‖ Dailâ—é 15. Serm. p. 57. But never was Rome in a more flourishing condition Learning Eloquence Wisdom Strength were at the highest pitch Never was there a more diligent Watch against any Innovations never was that State governed by more severe and suspicious Princes than at the time when Tiberius and Nero held the Rains No time seemed to be more unfit for the entrance of a New Doctrine than that Age wherein it begun to be first publish'd never did any Religion meet with that Opposition from Men. Idolatry hath been often setled without any Contest but this hath suffered the same Fate with the Institutor of it and endured the Contradictions of Sinners against it self And those that publish'd it were not only without any Worldly prop but expos'd themselves to the Hatred and Fury to the Racks and Tortures of the strongest Powers on Earth It never set foot in any place but the Country was in an uproar †Acts 19.28 Swords were drawn to destroy it Laws made to suppress it Prisons provided for the Professors of it Fires kindled to consume them and Executioners had a perpetual employment to stifle the progress of it Rome in its Conquest of Countries chang'd not the Religion Rites and Modes of their Worship They alter'd their Civil Government but left them to the liberty of their Religion and many times joyned with them in the Worship of their Peculiar gods and sometime imitated them at Rome instead of abolishing them in the Cities they had subdued But all their Councils were assembled and their Force was bandied against the Lord and against his Christ and that City that kindly receiv'd all manner of Superstitions hated this Doctrine with an irreconcileable hatred It met with Reproaches from the Wise and Fury from the Potentates it was derided by the one as the greatest Folly and persecuted by the other as contrary to God and Mankind the one were afraid to lose their Esteems by the Doctrine and the other to lose their Authority by a Sedition they thought a change of Religion would introduce The Romans that had been Conquerors of the Earth feared Intestine Commotions and the falling asunder the Links of their Empire Scarce any of their first Emperors but had their Swords dy'd Red in the Blood of the Christians The Flesh with all its Lusts the World with all its Flatteries the Statesmen with all their Craft and the Mighty with all their Strength joyn'd together to extirpate it Though many Members were taken off by the Fires yet the Church not only lived but flourish'd in the Furnace Converts were made by the Death of Martyrs and the Flames which consumed their Bodies were the occasion of firing Mens hearts with a Zeal for the Profession of it Instead of being extinguish'd the Doctrine shone more bright and multiplied under the Sickles that were employed to cut it down God ordered every Circumstance so both in the Persons that publish'd it the Means whereby and the Time when that nothing but his Power might appear in it without any thing to dim and darken it IV. The Divine Power was conspicuous in the great success it had under all these difficulties Multitudes were Prophecied of to
1 Cor. 1.9 Is he the Instrumental or Principal cause of our effectual Vocation And can the Will of God be the Instrument of putting Paul into the Apostleship or the Soveraign cause of investing him with that Dignity when he calls himself an Apostle by the will of God Ephes 1.3 And when all things are said to be through God as well as of him must he be counted the Instrumental cause of his own Creation Counsels and Judgments * Rom. 11.36 When we mortifie the deeds of the Body through the Spirit Rom. 8.13 or keep the Treasure of the Word by the Holy Ghost 2 Tim. 1.14 Is the Holy Ghost of no more dignity in such acts than Instrument Nor doth the gaining a thing by a Person make him a meer Instrument or Inferior as when a Man gains his Right in a way of Justice against his Adversary by the Magistrate is the Judge inferiour to the Suppliant If the Word were an Instrument in Creation it must be a created or uncreated Instrument If Created it could not be true what the Evangelist saith that All things were made by him since himself the Principal thing could not be made by himself if Uncreated he was God and so acted by a Divine Omnipotency which surmounts an Instrumental cause But indeed an Instrument is impossible in Creation since it is wrought only by an act of the Divine Will Do we need any Organ to an act of Volition the efficacious Will of the Creator is the cause of the Original of the Body of the World with its particular Members and exact Harmony It was form'd by a Word and establish'd by a Command †Psal 33.9 the beauty of the Creation stood up at the Precept of his Will Nor was the Son a Partial cause as when many are said to build a House one works one part and another frames another part God created all things by the immediate operation of the Son in the unity of Essence Goodness Power Wisdom not an extrinsick but a connatural Instrument As the Sun doth illustrate all things by his Light and quickens all things by his Heat so God created the Worlds by Christ as he was the brightness or splendor of his Glory the exact image of his Person which follows the declaration of his making the Worlds by him ‖ Heb. 1.3 4. to shew that he acted not as an Instrument but one in Essential conjunction with him as Light and Brightness with the Sun But suppose he did make the World as a kind of Instrument He was then before the World not bounded by Time and Eternity cannot well be conceiv'd belonging to a Being without Omnipotency He is the End as well as the Author of the Creatures * Colos 1.16 not only the Principle which gave them Being but the Sea into whose glory they run and dissolve themselves which consists not with the meaness of an Instrument 2. As Creation so Preservation is ascribed to him Colos 1.17 By him all things consist As he preceded all things in his Eternity so he establishes all things by his Omnipotency and fixes them in their several Centers that they sink not into that nothing from whence he fetched them By him they flourish in their several Beings and observe the Laws and Orders he first appointed That Power of his which extracted them from insensible Nothing upholds them in their several Beings with the same facility as he spake Being into them even by the word of his Power ‖ Heb. 1 3. and by one Creative continued Voice called all Generations from the beginning to the Period of the World * Isai 41.4 and causes them to flourish in their several seasons 'T is by him Kings reign and Princes decree justice and all things are confin'd within the limits of Government All which are Acts of an Infinite Power 3. Resurrection is also ascrib'd to him The Body crumbled to Dust and that Dust blown to several quarters of the World cannot be gathered in its distinct parts and new formed for the entertainment of the Soul without the strength of an Infinite Arm. This he will do and more change the vileness of an Earthly Body into the glory of an Heavenly one a Dusty flesh into a Spiritual Body which is an argument of a Power Invincible to which all things cannot but stoop for it is by such an operation which testifies an ability to subdue all things to himself †Phil. 3.21 especially when he works it with the same ease as he did the Creation by the power of his Voice John 5.28 All that are in the Graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth Speaking them into a restored life from insensible Dust as he did into Being from an empty Nothing The greatest acts of Power are own'd to belong to Creation Preservation Resurrection Omnipotence therefore is his Right and therefore a Deity cannot be denied to him that inherits a Perfection essential to none but God and impossible to be intrusted in or managed by the hands of any Creatures And this is no mean comfort to those that believe in him He is in regard of his Power the Horn of salvation so Zachariah sings of him Luke 1.69 Nor could there be any more Mighty found out upon whom God could have laid our help ‖ Psal 89.19 No reason therefore to doubt his ability to save to the utmost who hath the Power of Creation Preservation and Resurrection in his hands His Promises must be accomplished since nothing can resist him He hath Power to fulfil his Word and bring all things to a final issue because he is Almighty by his Outstretched Arm in the Deliverance of his Israel from Egypt for it was his Arm 1 Cor. 10. he shewed that he was able to deliver us from Spiritual Egypt The charge of Mediator to expiate Sin vanquish Hell form a Church conduct and perfect it are not to be effected by a Person of less ability than Infinite Let this Almightiness of his be the Bottom wherein to cast and fix the Anchor of our Hopes 2. Information Hence may be inferred the Deity of the Holy Ghost Works of Omnipotency are ascrib'd to the Spirit of God By the motion of the Wings of this Spirit as a Bird over her Eggs was that rude and unshapen Mass hatcht into a comly World * Gen. 1.2 So the word Moved properly signifies The Stars or perhaps the Angels are meant by the garnishing of the Heavens in the Verse before the Text were brought forth in their comliness and dignity as the ornaments of the upper World by this Spirit By his Spirit he hath garnished the Heavens To this Spirit Job ascribes the formation both of the Body and Soul under the Title of Almighty Job 33.4 The Spirit of God hath made me and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life Resurrection another work of Omnipotency is attributed to him Rom. 8.11 The Conception of our Saviour
to guide us and a Cordial to refresh us 'T is a Lamp to our Feet and a Medicine for our Diseases a Purifier of our Filth and a Restorer of us in our faintings He hath by his Goodness seal'd the truth of it by his efficacy on multitudes of Men He hath made it the Word of Regeneration * Jam. 1.18 Men wilder and more monstrous than Beasts have been tam'd and chang'd by the power of it It hath rais'd multitudes of dead Men from a Grave fuller of horrour than any Earthly one Again Goodness was in all ages sending his Letters of Advice and Counsel from Heaven till the Canon of the Scripture was clos'd Sometimes he wrote to chide a froward People sometimes to chear up an oppressed and disconsolate People according to the State wherein they were as we may observe by the several Seasons wherein parts of Scripture were written It was his Goodness that he first reveal'd any thing of his Will after the Fall it was a further degree of Goodness that he would add more Cubits to its Stature before he would lay aside his Pensil it grew up to that bulk wherein we have it And his Goodness is further seen in the preserving it He hath triumphed over the powers that opposed it and shewed himself good in the Instruments that propagated it He hath maintain'd it against the blasts of Hell and spread it in all Languages against the obstructions of Men and Devils The Sun of his Word is by his kindness preserv'd in our Horizon as well as the Sun in the Heavens How admirable is Divine Goodness He hath sent his Son to die for us and his written Word to instruct us and his Spirit to edge it for an entrance into our Souls He hath open'd the Womb of the Earth to nourish us and sent down the Records of Heaven to direct us in our Pilgrimage He hath provided the Earth for our habitation while we are Travellers and sent his Word to acquaint us with a felicity at the end of our Journey and the way to attain in another World what we want in this viz. a happy Immortality 5. His Goodness in his Government is evident In Conversions of Men. Though this Work be wrought by his Power yet his Power was first sollicited by his Goodness It was his rich Goodness that he would employ his power to pierce the scales of a heart as hard as those of the Leviathan It was this that opened the Ears of Men to hear him and draws them from the hurry of Worldly cares and the Charms of Sensual Pleasures and which is the top of all the impostures and Cheats of their own hearts It is this that sends a spark of his wrath into Mens consciencies to put them to a stand in sin that he might not send down a shower of Brimstone eternally to consume their persons This it was that first shewed you the Excellency of the Redeemer and brought you to taste the sweetness of his Bloud and find your security in the Agonies of his Death 'T is his Goodness to call one man and not another to turn Paul in his course and lay hold of no other of his companions 'T is his Goodness to call any when he is not bound to call one 1. 'T is his Goodness To pitch upon mean and despicable Men in the eye of the World To call this poor Publican and over-look that proud Pharisee this Man that sits upon a Dunghil and neglect him that glisters in his Purple His Majesty is not enticed by the lofty Titles of Men nor which is more worth by the Learning and Knowledge of Men. Not many Wise not many Mighty * Cor. 1.26 27 28. not many Doctâ—rs not many Lords though some of them but his Goodness condescends to the base things of the World and things which are despised The Poor receive the Gospel * Mat. 11.5 when those that are more acute and furnisht with a more apprehensive Reason are not toucht by it 2. The worst Men. He seizeth sometimes upon Men most soyl'd and neglects others that seem more clean and less polluted He turns Men in their course in sin that by their infernal practices have seem'd to have gone to School to Hell and to have suckt in the sole instructions of the Devil He lays hold upon some when they are most under actual demerit and snatcheth them as Fire-brands out of the Fire as upon Paul when fullest of rage against him And shoots a Beam of Grace where nothing could be justly expected but a Thunder-bolt of Wrath. 'T is his Goodness to visit any when they lie putrifying in their loathsome Lusts To draw near to them who have been guilty of the greatest contempt of God and the light of Nature The murdering Manassehs persecuting Sauls Christ-crucifying Jews Persons in whom Lusts had had a peaceable possession and Empire for many years 3. His Goodness appears In converting Men possest with the greatest enmity against him while he was dealing with them All were in such a state and framing contrivances against him when Divine Goodness knockt at the door * Col. 1.21 He lookt after us when our backs were turned upon him and sought us when we slighted him and were a gain-saying People * Rom. 10.21 when we had shaken off his convictions and contended with our Maker and mustered up the Powers of Nature against the Alarms of Conscience strugled like wild Bulls in a Net and blunted those Darts which stuck in our Souls Not a Man that is turn'd to him but had lifted up the heel against his Gospel-Grace as well as made light of his Creating Goodness Yet it hath employed it self about such ungrateful Wretches to polish those knotty and rugged pieces for Heaven And so invincibly that he would not have his Goodness defeated by the fierceness and rebellion of the Flesh Though the thing was more difficult in it self if any thing may be said to have a difficulty to Omnipotency than to make a Stone live or to turn a Straw into a Marble-Pillar The Malice of the Flesh makes a Man more unfit for the one than the nature of the straw unfits it for the other 4. His Goodness appears in turning Men When they were pleased with their own misery and unable to deliver themselves When they preferr'd a Hell before him and were in love with their own Vileness when his Call was our torment and his neglect of us had been accounted our felicity Was it not a mighty Goodness to keep the Light close to our Eyes when we endeavoured to blow it out and the corrosive near to our hearts when we endeavoured to tear it off being more fond of our Disease than the Remedy We should have been scalded to death with the Sodomites had not God laid his good hand upon us and drawn us from the approaching ruine we affected and were loath to be freed from And had we been displeased with our state
Estimation When the Excellency of his Nature and the Expressions of his Bounty are in conjunction the Excellency of his own Nature renders him estimable in a way of Justice and the greatness of his Benefits renders him valuable in a way of Gratitude The first ravisheth and the other allures and melts He hath enough in his Nature to attract and sufficient in his Bounty to engage our Affections The Excellency of his Nature is strong enough of it self to blow up our Affections to him were there not a Malignity in our hearts that represents him under the Notion of an Enemy therefore in regard of our Corrupt State the consideration of Divine Largesses comes in for a share in the Elevation of our Affections For indeed 't is a very hard thing for a Man to love another though never so well qualified and of an eminent Vertue while he believes him to be his Enemy and one that will severely handle him though he hath before received many good turns from him The Vertue Valour and Courtesie of a Prince will hardly make him affected by those against whom he is in Arms and that are daily pilfer'd by his Souldiers unless they have hopes of a Reparation from him and future security from injuries Christ in the Repetition of the Command to love God with all our mind with all our heart and with all our Soul i. e. with such an ardency above all things which glitter in our Eye or can be Created by him considers him as our God * Mat. 22.37 And the Psalmist considers him as one that had kindly employ'd his power for him in the eruption of his love Psal 18.1 I will love thee Oh Lord my strength And so in Psal 116.1 I love the Lord because he hath heard the voice of my supplications An esteem of the Benefactor is inseparable from gratitude for the received Benefits And should not then the unparallell'd kindness of God advance him in our thoughts much more than slighter Courtesies do a Created Benefactor in ours 'T is an obligation on every Mans Nature to answer Bounty with gratitude and Goodness with love Hence you never knew any Man nor can the Records of Eternity produce any Man or Devil that ever hated any Person or any thing as good in it self 'T is a thing absolutely repugnant to the Nature of any Rational Creature The Devils hate not God because he is good but because he is not so good to them as they would have him because he will not unlock their Chains turn them into liberty and restore them to Happiness i. e. because he will not desert the Rights of abus'd Goodness But how should we send up flames of love to that God since we are under his direct Beams and enjoy such plentiful influences If the Sun is comely in it self yet 't is more amiâ—ble to us by the light we see and the warmth we feel 1. The greatness of his Benefits have reason to affect us with a love to him The Impress he made upon our Souls when he extracted us from the darkness of nothing The Comeliness he hath put upon us by his own Breath The Care he took of our Recovery when we had lost our selves The Expence he was at for our Regaining our defac'd Beauty The gift he made of his Son The Affectionate Calls we have heard to over-master our Corrupt Appetites move us to Repentance and make us disaffect our beloved Misery The loud sound of his Word in our Ears and the more inward knocking 's of his Spirit in our Heart The offering us the Gift of himself and the Everlasting Happiness he Courts us to besides those common favours we enjoy in the World which are all the Streams of his rich Bounty The voice of all is loud enough to sollicite our love and the Merit of all ought to be strong enough to engage our love There is none like the God of Jesurun who rides upon the Heaven in thy help and in his Excellency on the Sky * Deut. 33.26 2. The unmeritedness of them doth inhance this 'T is but reason to love him who hath loved us first * 1 John 4.19 Hath he placed his delight upon were nothing and after they were Sinful and shall he set his delight upon such vile Persons and shall not we set our love upon so Excellent an Object as himself How base are we if his goodness doth not constrain us to affect him who hath been so free in his favour to us who have merited the quite contrary at his hands If his tender Mercies are over all his Works * Psal 145.9 He ought for it to be esteem'd by all his Works that are capable of a Rational Estimation 3. Goodness in Creatures makes them estimable much more should the Goodness of God render him lovely to us If we love a little spark of goodness in this or that Creature if a drop be so delicious to us shall not the immense Sun of Goodness the ever-flowing Fountain of all be much more delightful The Original Excellency always out-strips what is deriv'd from it If so mean and contracted an Object as a little Creature deserves Estimation for a little Mite communicated to it so great and extended a goodness as is in the Creator much more merits it at our hands He is good after the infinite methods of a Deity A weak Resemblance is lovely much more amiable then must be the incomprehensible Original of that Beauty We love Creatures for what we think to be good in them though it may be hurtful And shall we not love God who is a real and unblemisht Goodness And from whose hand are pour'd out all those Blessings that are conveyed to us by second Causes The Object that delights us the Capacity we have to delight in it are both from him Our love therefore to him should transcend the Affection we bear to any Instruments he moves for our welfare Among the Gods there is none like thee O Lord neither are there any Works like unto thy Works * Psal 86.8 Among the pleasantest Creatures there is none like the Creator nor any Goodness like unto his Goodness Shall we love the Food that Nourisheth us and the Medicine that Cures us and the Silver whereby we furnish our selves with useful Commodities Shall we love a Horse or Dog for the benefits we have by them And shall not the Spring of all those draw our Souls after it and make us aspire to the honour of loving and embracing him who hath stor'd every Creature with that which may pleasure us But instead of endeavouring to parallel our Affection with his Kindness we endeavour to make our Disingenuity as extensive and towring as his Divine Goodness 4. This is the true end of the manifestation of his Goodness that he might appear amiable and have a Return of Affection Did God display his Goodness only to be thought of or to be loved 'T is the want of
Holy Name And because himself and all men were insufficient to offer up a praise to God answerable to the greatness of his benefits he summons in the end of the Psalm the Angels and all Creatures to joyn in consort with him Observe 1. As man is too shallow a Creature to comprehend the excellency of God so he is too dull and scanty a Creature to offer up a due praise to God both in regard of the excellency of his nature and the multitude and greatness of his benefits 2. We are apt to forget divine benefits our Souls must therefore be often jogg'd and rous'd up All that is within me every power of my Rational and every Affection of my Sensitive part All his Faculties all his Thoughts Our Souls will hang back from God in every duty much more in this if we lay not a strict charge upon them We are so void of a pure and intire love to God that we have no mind to those duties Wants will spurr us on to Prayer but a pure love to God can only spirit us to Praise We are more ready to reach out a hand to receive his Mercies than to lift up our heart to recognize them after the receipt After the Psalmist had summoned his own Soul to this task he enumerates the Divine blessings received by him to awaken his soul by a sence of them to so noble a work He begins at the first and foundation Mercy to himself the pardon of his sin and justification of his Person the renewing of his sickly and languishing nature Verse 3. Who forgives all thy iniquities and heals all thy diseases His Redemption from death or Eternal destruction his expected glorification thereupon which he speaks of with that certainty as if it were present V. 4 Who redeems thy life from destruction who Crowns thee with loving kindness and tender Mercies He makes his progress to the mercy manifested to the Church in the protection of it against or delivery of it from oppressions Verse 6. The Lord executeth Righteousness and Judgment for all that are oppressed In the discovery of his Will and Law and the glory of his merciful Name to it Verse 7 8. He made known his ways unto Moses and his acts unto the Children of Israel The Lord is Merciful and Gracious slow to Anger and plenteous in Mercy Which latter words may refer also to the free and unmerited spring of the benefits he had reckoned up Viz. The Mercy of God which he mentions also verse 10. He hath not dealt with us after our sins nor rewarded us according to our iniquities And then extols the perfection of Divine mercy in the pardoning of sin Ver. 11 12. The Paternal tenderness of God Verse 13. The eternity of his Mercy Verse 17. But restrains it to the proper object Verse 11.17 To them that fear him i. e. To them that beleive in him Fear being the word commonly used for Faith in the Old Testament under the legal dispensation wherein the spirit of bondage was more eminent than the spirit of Adoption and their fear more than their confidence Observe 1. All true blessings grow up from the pardon of sin ver 3. Who forgives all thine iniquities That is the first blessing the top and Crown of all other favours which draws all other blessings after it and sweetens all other blessings with it The principal intent of Christ was Expiation of sin Redemption from iniquity the purchase of other blessings was consequent upon it Pardon of sin is every blessing vertually and in the root and spring it flows from the favor of God and is such a gift as cannot be tainted with a Curse as outward things may 2. Where sin is pardoned the soul is renewed verse 3. Who heals all thy diseases Where guilt is remitted the deformity and sickness of the soul is cur'd Forgiveness is a teeming mercy it never goes single when we have an interest in Christ as bearing the chastisement of our peace we receive also a balsom from his blood to heal the wounds we feel in our nature Isaiah 53.5 The chastisement of our Peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed As there is a guilt in sin which binds us over to punishment so there is a contagion in sin which fills us with pestilent diseases when the one is removed the other is cur'd We should not know how to love the one without the other The renewing the soul is necessary for a delightful relish of the other blessings of God A condemn'd Malefactor infected with a Leprosie or any other loathsome distemper if pardon'd could take little comfort in his freedom from the Gibbet without a Cure of his Plague 3. God is the sole and soveraign author of all spiritual blessings Who forgives all thy iniquities and heals all thy diseases He refers all to God nothing to himself in his own merit and strength All not the pardon of one sin merited by me not the cure of one disease can I owe to my own power and the strength of my free will and the operations of nature He and he alone is the Prince of pardon the Physitian that restores me the Redeemer that delivers me 't is a Sacriledge to divide the praise between God and our selves God only can knock off our fetters expell our distempers and restore a deformed Soul to its decayed beauty 4. Gracious Souls will bless God as much for Sanctification as for Justification The initials of Sanctification and there are no more in this Life are worthy of solemn acknowledgement 'T is a sign of growth in Grace when our Hymns are made up of acknowledgments of Gods sanctifying as well as pardoning Grace In blessing God for the one we rather shew a love to our selves in blessing God for the other we cast out a pure beam of love to God because by purifying Grace we are fitted to the service of our maker prepared to every good work which is delightful to him by the other we are eas'd in our selves Pardon fills us with inward peace but Sanctification fills us with an activity for God Nothing is so capable of setting the soul in a heavenly tune as the consideration of God as a pardoner and as a healer 5. Where sin is pardon'd the punishment is remitted Verse 3 4. Who forgives all thy iniquities and Redeems thy Life from destruction A Malefactors pardon puts an end to his chains frees him from the stench of the Dungeon and fear of the Gibbet Pardon is nothing else but the remitting of guilt and guilt is nothing else but an obligation to punishment as a penal debt for sin A Creditors tearing a Bond frees the Debtor from payment and rigor 6. Growth in Grace is always annext to true Sanctification Verse 3. So that thy youth is renew'd like the Eagles Interpreters trouble themselves much about the manner of the Eagles renewing its youth and regaining its vigor * Amyrald in loc He speaks
must be resolved into his own will Yet not into a Will without Wisdom God did not choose hand over head and act by meer Will without Reason and Understanding an infinite Wisdom is far from such a kind of procedure but the reason of God is inscrutable to us unless we could understand God as well as he understands himself the whole ground lies in God himself no part of it in the Creature Rom. 9.15 16. Not in him that Wills nor in him that Runs but in God that shews Mercy Since God hath revealed no other cause than his will we can resolve it into no other than his Soveraign Empire over all Creatures 'T is not without a stop to our curiosity that in the same place where God asserts the absolute Soveraignty of his mercy to Moses he tells him he could not see his face Exod. 33.19 20. I will be Gracious to whom I will be Gracious and he said Thou canst not see my face The rayes of his infinite Wisdom are too bright and dazling for our weakness The Apostle acknowledged not only a Wisdom in this proceeding but a riches and treasure of Wisdom not only that but a depth and vastness of those riches of Wisdom but was unable to give us an Inventory and Scheme of it Rom. 11.33 The secrets of his Counsels are too deep for us to wade into in attempting to know the reason of those acts we should find our selves swallowed up into a bottomless Gulf. Though the understanding be above our capacity yet the admiration of his Authority and Submission to it are not We should cast our selves down at his feet with a full resignation of our selves to his Soveraign pleasure * This was Dr. Goodwins Speech when he was in trouble This is a more comely carriage in a Christian than all the contentious endeavours to measure God by our line 2. In bestowing Grace where he pleases God in Conversion and Pardon works not as a natural Agent putting forth strength to the utmost which God must do if he did renew man naturally as the Sun shines and the fire burns which always act ad extremum virium unless a Cloud interpose to eclipse the one and water to extinguish the other But God acts as a voluntary Agent which can freely exert his power when he please and suspend it when he please Though God be necessarily good yet he is not necessitated to manifest all the Treasures of his Goodness to every Subject he hath power to distill his dews upon one part and not upon another If he were necessitated to express his Goodness without a liberty no thanks were due to him Who thanks the Sun for shining on him or the fire for warming him None Because they are necessary Agents and can do no other What is the reason he did not reach out his hand to keep all the Angels from sinking as well as some or recover them when they were sunk What is the reason he engrafts one man into the true Vine and lets another remain a wild Olive Why is not the efficacy of the Spirit always linkt with the motions of the Spirit Why doth he not mould the Heart into a Gospel frame when he fills the Ear with a Gospel sound Why doth he strike off the chains from some and tear the vail from the Heart while he leaves others under their natural slavery and Aegyptian darkness Why do some lie under the bands of death while another is rais'd to a spiritual life What reason is there for all this but his absolute Will The Apostle resolves the question if the question be askt why he begets one and not another Not from the Will of the Creature but his own Will is the determination of one James 1.18 Why doth he work in one to will and to do and not in another Because of his good pleasure is the answer of another Phil. 2.13 He could as well new create every one as he at first created them and make Grace as universal as Nature and Reason but it is not his pleasure so to do 1. 'T is not from want of strength in himself The power of God is unquestionably able to strike off the chains of unbeleief from all he could surmount the obstinacy of every child of wrath and inspire every Son of Adam with Faith as well as Adam himself He wants not a vertue superior to the greatest resistance of his Creature a victorious beam of light might be shot into their understandings and a flood of Grace might overspread their Wills with one word of his mouth without putting forth the utmost of his power What hinderance could there be in any created spirit which cannot be easily peirced into and new moulded by the Father of Spirits Yet he only breaths this efficacious vertue into some and leaves others under that insensibility and hardness which they love and suffers them to continue in their benighting ignorance and consume themselves in the embraces of their dear though deceitful Dalilahs He could have conquered the resistance of the Jews as well as chased away the darkness and ignorance of the Gentiles No doubt but he could over power the Heart of the most malicious Devil as well as that of the simplest and weakest man But the breath of the Almighty Spirit is in his own power to breath where he lists John 3.8 'T is at his liberty whither he will give to any the feeling of the invincible efficacy of his Grace He did not want strength to have kept man as firm as a Rock against the temptation of Satan and pour'd in such fortifying Grace as to have made him impregnable against the powers of Hell as well as he did secure the standing of the Angels against the Sedition of their fellows But it was his will to permit it to be otherwise 2. Nor is it from any prerogative in the Creature He converts not any for their natural perfection Because he seizeth upon the most ignorant Nor for their moral perfection Because he converts the most sinful Nor for their Civil perfection Because he turns the most despicable 1. Not for their natural perfection of knowledge He opened the minds and hearts of the more ignorant Were the nature of the Gentiles better manur'd than that of the Jews or did the Tapers of their understandings burn clearer No the one were skil'd in the Prophesies of the Messiah and might have compared the Predictions they own'd with the Actions and Sufferings of Christ which they were spectators of He let alone those that had expectations of the Messiah and expectations about the time of Christ's appearance both grounded upon the Oracles wherewith he had intrusted them The Gentiles were unacquainted with the Prophets and therefore destitute of the expectations of the Messiah Eph. 2.12 They were without Christ Without any Revelation of Christ because aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the Covenant of Promise having no hope and without God in
give ability and Grace to receive Well then what reason but the Soveraign pleasure of God can be alledged why Christ forbad the Apostles at their first Commission to Preach to the Gentiles Matth. 10.15 But at the second and standing Commission orders them to Preach to every Creature Why did he put a demurr to the resolutions of Paul and Timothy to impart light to Bithynia or Order them to go into Macedonia Was that Country more worthy upon whom lay a great part of the bloud of the world shed in Alexanders time Acts 16.6 7 9 10. Why should Corazin and Bethsaida enjoy those means that were not granted to the Tyrians and Sidonians who might probably have sooner reached out their Arms to welcome it Matth. 11.21 Why should God send the Gospel into our Island and cause it to flourish so long here and not send it or continue it in the furthest Eastern parts of the World Why should the very profession of Christianity possess so small a compass of ground in the world but five parts in Thirty the Mahometans holding six parts and the other nineteen overgrown with Paganism where either the Gospel was never planted or else since rooted up To whom will you refer this but to the same cause our Saviour doth the Revelation of the Gospel to Babes and not to the wise even to his Father For so it seemed good in thy sight Matth. 11.25 26. For so was thy good pleasure before thee as in the original 'T is at his pleasure whither he will give any a clear Revelation of his Gospel or leave them only to the light of Nature He could have kept up the first beam of the Gospel in the promise in all Nations among the Apostasies of Adam's posterity or renewed it in all Nations when it began to be darkned as well as he first publisht it to Adam after his fall But it was his Soveraign pleasure to permit it to be obscur'd in one place and to keep it lighted in another 4. His Soveraignty is manifest in the various influences of the means of Grace He saith to these waters of the Sanctuary as to the Floods of the Sea Hitherto you shall go and no further Sometimes they wash away the filth of the flesh and outward man but 〈◊〉 thâ—â— of the Spirit The Gospel Spiritualizeth some and only moralizeth others some are by the power of it struck down to Conviction but not rais'd up to Conversion Some have only the gleams of it in their Consciences and others more powerful flashes some remain in their thick darkness under the beaming of the Gospel every day in their face and after a long insensibleness are rouz'd by its light and wâ—rmth Sometimes there is such a powerful breath in it that it levels the haughty imaginations of men and lays them at its feet that before strutted against it in the pride of their Heart The foundation of this is not in the Gospel it self which is always the same nor in the Ordinances which are Channels as sound at one time as at another but divine Soveraignty that Spirits them as he pleaseth and blows when and where it lists It has sometimes conquered its thousands Acts 2.41 At another time scarce its tens sometimes the Harvest hath been great when the Labourers have been but few at another time it hath been small when the Labourers have been many Sometimes whole sheaves at another time scarce gleanings The Evangelical Net hath been sometimes full at a cast and at every cast at another time many have laboured all night and day too and catched nothing Acts 2.47 The Lord added to the Church daily The Gospel Chariot doth not alwayes return with Captives chain'd to the sides of it but sometimes blur'd and reproached wearing the marks of Hells spite instead of imprinting the marks of its own beauty In Corinth it triumph'd over many people Acts 18.10 In Athens 't is mockt and gathers but a few clusters Acts 17.32.34 God keeps the Key of the heart as well as of the Womb. The Apostles had a power of publishing the Gospel and working miracles but under the Divine conduct It was an instrumentality durante bene placito and as God saw it convenient Miracles were not upon every occasion allow'd to them to be wrought nor success upon every Administration granted to them God sometimes lent them the Key but to take out no more Treasure than was alloted to them There is a variety in the time of Gospel operation some rise out of their Graves of Sin and Beds of sluggishness at the first appearance of this Sun others lie snorting longer Why doth not God Spirit it at one season as well as at another but set his distinct periods of time but because he will show his absolute freedom And do we not sometimes experiment that after the most solemn preparations of the Heart we are frustrated of those incomes we expected Perhaps it was because we thought Divine returns were due to our preparations and God stops up the Channel and we return dryer than we came that God may confute our false opinion and preserve the honour of his own Soveraignty Sometimes we leap with John Baptist in the Womb at the appearance of Christ sometimes we lie upon a lazy bed when he knocks from Heaven Sometimes the Fleece is dry and sometimes wet and God withholds to drop down his dew of the morning upon it The dews of his word as well as the droppings of the Clouds belong to his Royalty Light will not shine into the Heart though it shine round about us without the Soveraign order of that God who commanded Light to shine out of the Darkness of the Chaos 2 Cor. 4.6 And is it not seen also in regard of the refreshing influences of the word sometimes the strongest arguments and clearest promises prevail nothing towards the quelling black and despairing imaginations when afterwards we have found them frighted away by an unexpected word that seem'd to have less vertue in it self than any that passed in vain before it The reasonings of Wisdom have dropt down like arrows against a brazâ—n wall when the speech of a weaker person hath found an efficacy 'T is God by his Soveraignty spirits one word and not another Sometimâ—s a sâ—cret word comes in which was not thought of before as dropt from Heaven and gives a refreshing when emptiness was found in all the rest One word from the lips of a Soveraign Prince is a greater Cordial than all the Harang 〈◊〉 of subjâ—â—â—â— without it What is the reason of this variety but that God woâ—lâ— encrease 〈◊〉 proof of his own Soveraignty That as it was a part of his Dominion to Create the beâ—uty of a World so it is no less to Create the peace as well as the Graâ—e of â—he heart Isaiah 57.19 I create the fruit of the lips peace Let us learn from hence to have adoring thoughts of not murmuring fanciâ—s against the Soveraignty of God To
though Divines take notice of other sins in the fall of Adam yet God in his tryal chargeth him with none but this and doth put upon his question an Emphasis of his own Authority Gen. 3.11 Hast thou eaten of the Tree whereof I commanded ye that thou shoâ—ld'st not eat This I am displeased with that thou shouldest disown my dominion over thy self and this Garden This was the inlet to all the other sins as the acknowledgment of God's soveraignty is the first step to the practice of all the duties of a Creature so the disowning his soveraignty is the first spring of all the extravagancies of a Creature Every sin against the soveraign Law-giver is worthy of Death The Transgression of this positive command desâ—rved death and procured it to spread it self over the face of the World God's dominion cannot be despis'd without meriting the greatest punishment 1. Punishment necessarily follows upon the Doctrine of Soveraignty 'T is a faint and a feeble Soveraignty that cannot preserve it self and vindicate its own wrongs against râ—bellious subjects The height of God's dominion infers a vengeance on the contemners of it If God be an Eternal King he is an Eternal Judge Since sin unlinks the dependance between God the Soveraign and man the subject if God did not vindicate the rights of his Soveraignty and the Authority of his Law he would seem to despise his own dominion be weary of it and not act the part of a good Governour But God is tender of his prerogative and doth most bestir himself when men exalt themselves proudly against him Exod. 18.11 In the thing wherein they dealt proudly he will be above them When Pharaoh thought himself a mate for God and proudly rejected his commands as if they had been the messages of some petty Arabian Lord God rights his own Authority upon the life of his enemy by the ministry of the Red Sea He turned a great King into a beast to make him know that the most high ruled in the Kingdoms of men Dan. 4.16 17. The demand is by the word of the Holy ones to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the Kingdoms of men And that by the Petitions of the Angels who cannot endure that the Empire of God should be obscur'd and diminisht by the pride of man Besides the tender respect he hath to his own glory he is constantly presented with the sollicitations of the Angels to punish the proud ones of the earth that darken the glory of his Majesty 'T is necessary for the rescue of his honour and necessary for the satisfaction of his illustrious attendants who would think it a shame to them to serve a Lord that were always unconcern'd in the rebellions of his creatures and tamely suffer their spurns at his Throne and therefore there is a day wherein the haughtiness of man shall be bowed down the Cedars of Lebanon over-thrown and high Mountains levell'd that God may be exalted in that day Isa 2.11 12. c. Pride is a sin that immediately swells against God's Authority this shall be brought down that God may be exalted not that he should have a real exaltation as if he were actually depos'd from his Government but that he shall be manifested to be the Soveraign of the whole World 'T is necessary there should be a day to chase away those clouds that are upon his Throne that the lustre of his Majesty may break forth to the confusion of all the children of pride that vaunt against him God hath a dominion over us as a Law-giver as we are his creatures and a dominion over us in away of Justice as we are his criminals 2. This punishment is unavoidable 1. None can escape him He hath the sole Authority over Hell and Death the Keyes of both are in his hand The greatest Caesar can no more escape him than the meanest Peasant Who art thou O great Mountain before Zerubbabel Zac. 4.7 The height of Angels is no match for him much less that of the mortal grandees of the World they can no more resist him than the meanest person But are rather as the highest Steeples the fittest marks for his crushing thunder If he speaks the word the principalities of men come down and the Crown of their glory Jer. 13.18 He can take the Mighty away in a moment and that without hands i. e. without instruments Job 34.20 The strongest are like the feet of Nebuchadnezzar's Image Iron and Clay Iron to man but Clay to God to be crumbled to nothing 2. What comfort can be reapt from a creature when the Soveraign of the World arms himself with terrors and begins his visitation Isa 10.3 What will you do in the day of visitation to whom will you flie for help and where will you leave your glory The torments from a Subject may be releived by the Prince but where can there be an appeal from the Soveraign of the World Where is there any above him to controul him if he will overthrow us who is there to call him to account and say to him what dost thou He works by an uncontroulable Authority he needs not ask leave of any Isa 43.13 He works and none can let it As when he will relieve none can afflict so when he will wound none can relieve If a King appoint the punishment of a rebel the greatest Favorite in the Court cannot speak a comfortable word to him The most beloved Angel in Heaven cannot sweeten and ease the spirit of a man that the Soveraign power is set against to make the butt of his wrath The Devils lye under his sentence and wear their chains as marks of their condemnation without hope of ever having them filed off since they are laid upon them by the Authority of an unaccountable Soveraign 3. By his Soveraign Authority God can make any creature the instrument of his vengeance He hath all the creatures at his beck and can Commission any of them to be a dreadful scourge Strong winds and tempests fulfil his word Psal 148.8 The Lightnings answer him at his call and cry aloud here are we Job 38.35 By his Soveraign Authority he can render Locusts as mischievous as Lions forge the meanest creatures into Swords and Arrows and commission the most despicable to be his Executioners He can cut off joy from our spirits and make our own hearts be our tormentors our most confident friends our persecutors our nearest relations to be his avengers They are more his who is their Soveraign than ours who place a vain confidence in them Rather than Abraham shall want children he can raise up stones and adopt them into his Family And rather than not execute his vengeance he can array the stones in the streets and make them his armed subjects against us If he speak the word a hair shall drop from our heads to choak us or a vapour congeal'd into Rheum in our heads shall dropdown and putrifie our
of sparing exercis'd to the Devils in deferring their compleat punishment and hitherto keeping off the day wherein their final sentence is to be pronounced yet the Scripture never mentions this by the name of slowness to anger or long suffering It can no more be call'd Patience than a Princes keeping a Malefactor in chains and not pronouncing a condemning sentence or not executing a sentence already pronounced can be call'd a Patience with him when it is not out of kindness to the Offender but for some reasons of State God's sparing the Devils from their total punishment which they have not yet but are reserved in chains under darkness for it Jude 6. is not in order to Repentance or attended with any invitations from God or hopes in them and therefore cannot come under the same title as Gods sparing man Where there is no proposal of mercy there is no exercise of Patience The fall'n Angels had no mercy reserv'd for them nor any Sacrifice prepar'd for them God spared not the Angels 2 Pet. 2.4 but delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment i. e. he had no Patience for them For Patience is properly a temporary sparing a person with a waiting for his relenting and a change of his injurious demeanour The object of goodness is more extensive than that of Patience Nor do they both consider the object under the same relation Goodness respects things in a capacity or in a state of Creation and brings them forth into Creation and nurseth and supports them as Creatures Patience considers them already Created and fall'n short of the duty of creatures It considers them as sinners or in relation to sinners Had not sin entred Patience had never been exercised but goodness had been exercised had the creature stood firm in its Created State without any transgression Nay Creation could not have been without goodness because it was goodness to Create But Patience had never been known without an object which could not have been without an injury Where there is no wrong no suffering nor like to be any Patience hath no prospect of any operation So then goodness respects persons as creatures Patience as transgressors Mercy eyes men as miserable and obnoxious to punishment Patience considers men as sinful and provoking to punishment 2. Since 't is a part of goodness and mercy 't is not an insensible patience What is the fruit of pure goodness cannot be from a weakness of resentment he is slow to anger The Prophet doth not say he is uncapable of anger or cannot discern what is a real object of anger It implyes that he doth consider every provocation but he is not hasty to discharge his arrows upon the Offenders He sees all while he bears with them his omniscience excludes any ignorance He cannot but see every wrong every aggravation in that wrong every step and motion from the begiâ—â—ing to the compleating it For he knows all our thoughts he sees the sin and 〈◊〉 sinner at the same time the sin with an eye of abhorrency and the sinner with an eye of pity His eye is upon their iniquities and his hatred edged against them while he stands with arms open waiting a penitent return When he publisheth his patience in his keeping silence he publisheth also his resolution to set sin in order before their Eyes Psal 50.21 I will reprove thee and set them in order before thy Eyes Think me not such a peice of phlegm and so dull as not to resent your insolencies you shall see in my final charge when I come to Judge that not a wry look escap't my knowledge that I had an eye to behold and a heart to loath every one of your Transgressions The Church was ready to think that Gods slowness to deliver her and his bearing with her oppressors was not from any Patience in his nature but a drowsie carelessness a senseless Lethargy Psal 44.23 Awake why sleepest thou Oh Lord We must conclude him an inapprehensive God before we can conclude him an insensible God As his delaying his promise is not slackness to his people 2 Pet. 3.9 So his deferring of punishment is not from a stupidity under the affronts offered him 3. Since 't is a part of his Mercy and Goodness 't is not a constrained or faint-hearted Patience 'T is not a slowness to Anger arising from a despondency of his own pâ—â—er to revenge He hath as much power to punish as he hath to forbear punishment He that created a World in six days and that by a word wants not a strength to crush all mankind in one minute and with as much ease as a Word imports can give satisfaction to his Justice in the blood of the offender Patience in man is many times interpreted and truly too a cowardise a feebleness of Spirit and a want of strength But i◠〈…〉 not from the shortness of the divine arm that he cannot reach us nor from th◠〈…〉 of his hand that he cannot strike us 'T is not because he cannot lev◠〈…〉 dust 〈◊〉 us in peices like a Potters Vessel or consume us as a Moth◠〈…〉 â—tiest to fall before him and lay the strongest at his fe◠〈…〉 crime He that did not want a powerful Word to 〈…〉 want a powerful Word to dissolve the whole frame of 〈…〉 it out of being 'T is not therefore out of a distrust of his own power that he hath supported a sinful World for so many ages and patiently born the Blasphemies of some the neglects of others and the ingratitude of all without inflicting that severe Justice which righteously he might have done he wants no thunder to crush the whole generation of men nor waters to drown them nor Earth to swallow them up How easie is it for him to single out this or that particular person to be the object of his Wrath and not of his Patience What he hath done to one he may to another any signal judgment he hath sent upon one is an evidence that he wants not power to inflict it upon all Could he not make the motes in the Air to choke us at every breath Rain thunderbolts instead of drops of water fill the Clouds with a consuming Lightning take off the reverence and fear of man which he hath imprinted upon the Creature Spirit our domestick Beasts to be our Executioners unloose the Tiles from the house top to brain us or make the fall of a house to crush us 'T is but taking out the pins and giving a blast and the work is done And doth he want a power to do any of those things 'T is not then a faint-hearted or feeble Patience that he exerciseth towards Man 4. Since 't is not for want of power over the Creature 't is from a fulness of power over himself This is in the Text The Lord is slow to Anger and great in Power 't is a part of his Dominion over himself whereby he can moderate and rule his
Goodness of God seen in them Pag. 450 607 Spaces imaginary beyond the World God is present with Pag. 249 250 251 Spirit that God is so plainly asserted but once in Scripture Pag. 112 Various acceptations of the word Pag. 113 That God is so how to be understood ibid. God the only pure one Pag. 114 Arguments to prove God is one Pag. 115 ad 118. Objection against it answered Pag. 118 119 Spirit of God his assistance necessary to Spiritual Worship Pag. 142 Spirits of men raised up and ordered by God as be pleases Pag. 743 744 Subjection to our Superiors God remits of his own right for preserving it Pag. 651 652 Success men apt to ascribe to themselves Pag. 82 Not to be ascribed to our selves Pag. 669 670 Denied by God to some Pag. 740 Summer how necessary Pag. 350 Sun conveniently placed Pag. 22 148 Its motion useful Pag. 22 23 25 148 The Power of God seen in it Pag. 450 Lord's Supper the goodness of God in appointing it Pag. 639 Seals the Covenant of Grace Pag. 640 641 In it we have Union and Communion with Christ Pag. 641 642 The neglect of it reproved Pag. 642 Supererogation an Opinion that injures the Holiness of God Pag. 546 Superstition proceeds from vain imaginations of God Pag. 95 Swearing by any Creature an injury to God's Omniscience Pag. 323 324 T. TEmptations the Presence of God a comfort in them Pag. 266 The thoughts of it would be a Shield against them Pag. 269 The Wisdom and Power of God a comfort under them Pag. 406 486 The goodness manifested to his people under them Pag. 658 659 660 The thoughts of God's Soveraignty would arm and make us watchful against them Pag. 774 Thankfulness a necessary ingredient in Spiritual worship Pag. 148 Due to God Pag. 689 690 777 778 823 824 825 A sense of his Goodness would promote it Pag. 689 Theft an Invasion of God's Dominion Pag. 758 Thoughts should be often upon God Pag. 46 Seldom are on him Pag. 86 97 98 All known by God only Pag. 285 286 287 And by Christ Pag. 316 317 Cherishing evil ones a practical denial of God's Knowledge Pag. 327 Thoughts of God's Knowledge would make us watchful over them Pag. 338 †Threatnings the not fulfilling them sometimes argue no change in God Pag. 226 227 Are conditional ibid. The goodness of God in them Pag. 613 Go before Judgments v. Judgments Time cannot be infinite Pag. 16 Times of bestowing Mercy God orders as a Soveraign Pag. 741 Tongue how curious a Workmanship Pag. 31 Traditions old ones generally lost Pag. 11 Belief of a God not owing meerly to it ibid. Transubstantiation an absurd Doctrine Pag. 483 Trees how useful Pag. 23 350 Trust in themselves men do and not in God Pag. 83 84 We should not in the World Pag. 199 200 236 God the fit Object of it Pag. 329 386 397 489 551 552 †678 779 Means to promote it Pag. 339 †773 Should not in our own Wisdom Pag. 411 412 In our selves a contempt of God's Power and Dominion Pag. 482 759 God's Power the main ground of trusting him Pag. 489 490 And sometimes the only one Pag. 490 Should be placed in God against outward appearances Pag. 558 Goodness the first motive of it Pag. 678 More foundations of it and motives to it under the Gospel than under the Law Pag. 679 Gives God the glory of his goodness Pag. 679 680 God's Patience to the Wicked a ground for the Righteous to trust in his promise Pag. 821 Truths of God most contrary to self man most opposite to And to those that are most holy spiritual lead most to God and relate most to him Pag. 59 60 Men unconstant in the belief of them Pag. 231 232 Corrupters of them no better than Devils Pag. 541 †Evangelical shall prevail ibid. U. UBiquity of Christ's Human Nature confuted Pag. 252 Venial sins an opinion that reproaches God's Holiness Pag. 546 Vertue and Vice not Arbitrary things Pag. 51 Vnbelief the Reason of it Pag. 101 102 A contempt of Divine Power Pag. 483 And Goodness Pag. 664 665 Vnion of Soul and Body an effect of Almighty Power Pag. 33 Of two Natures in Christ made no change in his Divine Nature Pag. 224 Shews the Wisdom of God Pag. 339 ad 383 How necessary for us Pag. 381 382 383 Shews the Power of God Pag. 458 459 460 Explain'd Pag. 459 460 Vide Incarnation Vsurpations of Men an Invasion of God's Soveraignty Pag. 754 755 W. WAter an excellent Creature Pag. 588 Weakness a sensibleness of it a necessary ingredient in Spiritual Worship Pag. 148 Will of God cannot be defeated Pag. 52 Man averse to it vide Man The same with his Essence Pag. 214 Always accompanied with his Understanding ibid. Unchangeable Pag. 214 215 The unchangeableness of it doth not make things willed by him so Pag. 215 216 Free Pag. 216 How conversant about Sin Pag. 522 Will of Man not necessitated by God's Fore-knowledge Pag. 301 ad 304 Of Man subject to God Pag. 720 Winds how useful Pag. 349 Winter how useful Pag. 350 Wisdom an Attribute of God Pag. 337 What it is and wherein it consists Pag. 338 Distinct from Knowledge Pag. 338 Essential which is the same with his Essence and personal Pag. 339 In what sense God is only wise Pag. 339 ad 343 Proved to be in God Pag. 343 ad 346 Appears in Creation Pag. 346 ad 351 In government of Man as Rational Pag. 352 ad 357 As fallen and sinful Pag. 357 ad 367 As restored Pag. 367 ad 373 In Redemption Pag. 373 ad 388 In the Condition of the Covenant of Grace Pag. 388 ad 390 In the propagation of the Gospel Pag. 390 ad 395 Ascribed to Christ Pag. 395 Renders God fit to govern the World and enclines him actually to govern it Pag. 395 396 A ground of his Patience and Immutability in his Decrees Pag. 396 397 Makes him a fit Object of our Trust Pag. 397 Infers a Day of Judgment Pag. 398 Calls for a Veneration of him ibid. A ground of Prayer to him Pag. 399 Prodigiously contemn'd and wherein Pag. 399 ad 405 Comfortable to the Righteous Pag. 405 406 407 In Creation and Government should be meditated on and Motives to it Pag. 407 ad 410 In Redemption to be studied and admired Pag. 410 411 To be submitted to in his Revelations Precepts Providences Pag. 413 414 415 Not to be censured in any of his ways Pag. 415 Wisdom no Man should be proud of or trust in Pag. 411 412 Should be sought from God Pag. 412 413 World was not and could not be from Eternity Pag. 16 17 Could not make it self Pag. 17 18 19 No Creature could make it Pag. 20 Its Harmony Pag. 21 ad 27 Greedily pursued by Men Pag. 86 Inordinate desires after it a great hindrance to Spiritual Worship Pag. 177 Our Love and Confidence not to be placed in it Pag. 199 200 207 Shall not be
yet he cannot but approve of that Law as it prohibits every man from doing him the like injury and disgrace The sutableness of the Law to the Consciences of men is further evidenced by those furious reflections and strong alarms of Conscience upon a transgression of it and that in all parts of the World more or less in all men So exactly hath Divine wisdom fitted the Law to the Reason and Consciences of men as one Tally to another Indeed without such an agreement no mans Conscience could have any ground for a Hue and Cry nor need any man be startled with the Records of it This manifests the wisdom of God in framing his Law so that the Reasons and consciences of all men do one time or other subscribe to it What Governour in the World is able to make any Law distinct from this revealed by God that shall reach all places all persons all Hearts We may add to this the extent of his Commands in ordering goodness at the root not only in action but affection not only in the motion of the Members but the disposition of the Soul which suting a Law to the inward frame of man is quite out of the compass of the wisdom of any Creature 4. His Wisdom is seen in the incouragements he gives for the studying and observing his will Psal 19.11 In keeping thy Commandments there is great reward The variety of them there is not any particular Genius in man but may find something sutable to win upon him in the revealed will of God There is a strain of Reason to satisfy the Rational of Eloquence to gratify the the Fanciful of Interest to allure the Selfish of Terror to startle the Obstinate As a skilful Angler stores himself with Baits according to the Appetites of the sorts of fish he intends to catch so in the Word of God there are varieties of Baits according to the varieties of the Inclinations of men Threatnings to work upon Fear Promises to work upon Love Examples of holy men set out for Imitation and those plainly neither his Threatnings nor his Promises are dark as the Heathen Oracles but peremptory as becomes a Soveraign Law giver and plain as was necessary for the understanding of a Creature As he deals graciously with men in exhorting and incouraging them so he deals wisely herein by taking away all Excuse from them if they ruine the interest of their Souls by denying Obedience to their Soveraign Again the Rewards God proposeth are accommodated not to the Brutish parts of man his Carnal Sense and Fleshly Appetite but to the Capacity of a Spiritual Soul which admits only of Spiritual Gratifications and cannot in its own Nature without a sordid subjection to the Humors of the Body be moved by Sensual Proposals God backs his Precepts with that which the Nature of Man longed for and with Spiritual Delights which can only satisfy a rational Appetite And thereby did as well gratifie the noblest Desires in man as Oblige him to the noblest Service and Work * Amytaut Indeed Vertue and Holiness being perfectly amiable ought chiefly to affect our Understandings and by them draw our Wills to the esteem and pursuit of them But since the desire of Happiness is inseparable from the Nature of Man as impossible to be dis-join'd as an Inclination to descend to be severed from heavy Bodies or an instinct to ascend from Light and A ry of Substances God serves himself of the Inclination of our Natures to happiness to engender in us an esteem and affection to the Holiness he doth require He proposeth the enjoyment of a supernatural Good and everlasting Glory as a Bait to that insatiable longing our Natures have for Happiness to receive the impression of Holiness into our Souls And besides he doth proportion Rewards according to the degrees of mens Industry Labour and Zeal for him and weighs out a Recompence not only suted to but above the service He that improves five Talents is to be ruler over five Cities that is a greater proportion of Honour and Glory than another Luke 19.17.18 As a wise Father excites the affection of his Children to things worthy of Praise by varieties of Recompenses according to their several Actions And it was the Wisdom of the Steward in the Judgment of our Saviour to give every one the portion that belonged to him Luke 12.42 There is no part of the Word wherein we meet not with the will and Wisdom of God varieties of Duties and varieties of Encouragement mingled together 5. The Wisdom of God is seen In fitting the Revelations of his will to after-times and for the preventing of the foreseen Corruptions of men The whole Revelation of the mind of God is stored with Wisdom in the words connexion sence It looks backwards to past and forwards to Ages to come A hidden wisdom lies in the bowels of it like Gold in a Mine The Old testament was so composed as to fortify the New when God should bring it to light The Foundations of the Gopel were laid in the Law The Predictions of the Prophets and figures of the Law were so wisely framed and laid down in such clear expressions as to be Proofs of the Authority of the New Testament and Convictions of Jesus his being the Messiah Luke 24.14 Things concerning Christ were written in Moses the Prophets and Psalms and do to this day stare the Jews so in the face that they are fain to invent absurd and Nonsensical Interpretations to excuse their Unbelief and continue themselves in their obstinate Blindness And in pursuance of the efficacy of those Predictions it was a part of the Wisdom of God to bring forth the Translation of the Old Testament by the means Ptolomy King of Egypt some hundreds of years before the coming of Christ into the Greek Language the Tongue then most known in the World And why to prepare the Gentiles by the reading of it for that gracious call he intended them and for the entertainment of the Gospel which some few years after was to be publisht among them that by reading the Predictions so long before made they might more readily receive the accomplishment of them in their due time The Scripture is written in such a manner as to obviate Errors foreseen by God to enter into the Church It may be wondred why the Vniversal Particle should be inserted by Christ in the giving the Cup in the Supper which was not in the distributing the Bread Mat. 26 27. Drink ye all of it Not at the distributing the Bread Eat you all of it And Mark in his Relation tels us They all drank of it Mark 11.23 The Church of Rome hath been the occasion of discovering to us the Wisdom of our Saviour in in s erting that Particle all since they were so bold to exclude the Communicants from the Cup by a trick of Concomitancy Christ foresaw the Error and therefore put in a little word to obviate a
great Invasion And the spirit of God hath particularly left upon record that Particle as we may reasonably suppose to such a purpose And so in the description of the blessed Virgin Luke 1.27 There is nothing of her Holiness mentioned which is with much diligence recorded of Elizabeth Vers 6. Righteous walking in all the commandments of God blameless Probably to prevent the superstition which God foresaw would arise in the World And we do not find more undervaluing speeches uttered by Christ to any of his Disciples in the exercise of his Office than to her except to Peter As when she acquainted him with the want of Wine at the Marriage in Cana she receives a slighting answer Woman what have I to do with thee John 2.4 And when one was admiring the blessedness of her that bare him he turns the Discourse another way to pronounce a blessedness rather belonging to them that hear the Word of God and keep it Luke 11.27 28. in a mighty Wisdom to Antidote his people against any conceit of the prevalency of the Virgin over him in Heaven in the Exercise of his Mediatory Office 2. As his Wisdom appears in his Government by his Laws so it appears in the various inclinations and conditions of Men. As there is a distinction of several Creatures and several qualities in them for the Common good of the World so among men there are several inclinations and several Abilities as Donatives from God for the Common advantage of Human Society As several Chanels cut out from the same River run several waies and refresh several Soils one Man is qualified for one Employment another marked out by God for a different Work yet all of them fruitful to bring in a Revenue of Glory to God and a harvest of Profit to the rest of Mankind How unusefull would the Body be if it had but one Member 1 Cor. 12.19 How unprovided would a House be if it had not Vessels of Dishonour as well as of Honour The Corporation of Mankind would be as much a Chaos as the Matter of the Heavens and the Earth was before it was distinguisht by several forms breathed into it at the Creation Some are inspired with a particular Genius for one Art some for another Every man hath a distinct Talent If all were Husband-men where would be the Instruments to Plow and Reap If all were Artificers where would they have Corn to nourish themselves All men are like Vessels and Parts in the Body design'd for distinct Offices and Functions for the good of the whole and mutually return an advantage to one another As the variety of Gifts in the Church is a fruit of the Wisdom of God for the preservation and increase of the Church so the variety of Inclinations and Employments in the World is a fruit of the Wisdom of God for the preservation and subsistence of the World by mutual Commerce What the Apostle largely discourseth of the former in 1 Cor. 12. may be applied to the other The various Conditions of men is also a fruit of Divine Wisdom Some are Rich and some Poor the Rich have as much need of the Poor as the Poor have of the Rich If the Poor depend upon the Rich for their livelyhood the Rich depend upon the Poor for their Conveniencies Many Arts would not be learn'd by men if Poverty did not oblige them to it and many would faint in the learning of them if they were not thereunto encouraged by the Rich. The Poor labour for the Rich as the Earth sends Vapours into the vaster and fuller Air and the Rich return advantages again to the Poor as the Clouds do the Vapours in Rain upon the Earth As Meat would not afford a nourishing Juyce without Bread and Bread without other Food would immoderately fill the Stomach and not be well digested so the Rich would be unprofitable in the Common-wealth without the Poor and the Poor would be burthensom to a Common-wealth without the Rich The Poor could not be easily govern'd without the Rich nor the Rich sufficiently and conveniently provided for without the Poor If all were Rich there would be no Objects for the exercise of a Noble part of Charity If all were Poor there were no Matter for the exercise of it Thus the Divine Wisdom planted various Inclinations and diversified the Conditions of Men for the publick advantages of the World 2. Gods Wisdom appears in the government of Men as Fallen and Sinful or in the government of Sin After the Law of God was broke and Sin invaded and conquer'd the World Divine Wisdom had another Scene to act in and other Methods of Government were necessary The Wisdom of God is then seen in ordering those Jarring Discords drawing Good out of Evil and Honour to himself out of that which in its own Nature tended to the supplanting of his Glory God being a Soveraign Good would not suffer so great an Evil to enter but to serve himsâ—lf of it for some greater End for all his Thoughts are full of Goodness and Wisdom Now though the Permission of Sin be an Act of his Soveraignty and the Punishment of Sin be an Act of his Justice yet the Ordination of Sin to good is an Act of his Wisdom whereby he doth dispose the Evil over-rules the Malice and orders the Events of it to his own Purposes Sin in it self is a Disorder and therefore God doth not permit Sin for it self for in its own Nature it hath nothing of Amiableness but he wills it for some Righteous End which belongs to the manifestation of his Glory which is his aim in all the Acts of his Will He wills it not as Sin but as his Wisdom can order it to some greater Good than was before in the World and make it contribute to the beauty of the Order he intends As a dark Shadow is not delightful and pleasant in it self nor is Drawn by a Painter for any Amiableness there is in the Shadow it self but as it serves to set forth that Beauty which is the main design of his Art so the glorious Effects which arise from the Entrance of Sin into the World are not from the Creatures Evil but the Depths of Divine Wisdom Particularly 1. Gods Wisdom is seen in the bounding of Sin As it is said of the Wrath of Man it shall praise him and the remainder of Wrath God doth restrain Psal 76.10 He sets limits to the boyling Corruption of the Heart as he doth to the boisterous Waves of of the Sea Hitherto shalt thou go and no further As God is the Rector of the World he doth so restrain Sin so temper and direct it as that Human Society is preserved which else would be overflown with a Deluge of Wickedness and Ruine would be brought upon all Communities The World would be a Shambles a Brothel-house if God by his Wisdom and Goodness did not set bars to that Wickedness which is in the Hearts of Men The whole Earth
Corruptions will certainly be subdued in his voluntary subjects The Covenant I will be your God implyes protection government and relief which are all grounded upon Soveraignty That therefore which is our greatest burden will be remov'd by his Soveraign power Micah 7.19 He will subdue our iniquities If the outward enemies of the Church shall not bear up against his Dominion and perpetuate their rebellions unpunisht those within his people shall as little bear up against his Throne without being destroy'd by him The billows of our own hearts and the raging waves within us are as much at his beck as those without us And his Soveraignty is more eminent in quelling the corruptions of the heart than the commotions of the World in reigning over mens Spirits by changing them or curbing them more than over mens bodies by pinching and punishing them The remainders of Satans Empire will moulder away before him since he that is in us is a greater Soveraign than he that is in the World 1 Joh. 4.4 His enemies will be laid at his feet and so neveâ— shall prevail against him when his Kingdom shall come He could not be Lord of any man as a happy creature if he did not by his power make them happy and he could not make them happy unless by his Grace he made them holy He could not be praised as a Lord of Glory if he did not make some creatures glorious to praise him And an Earthly Creature could not praise him perfectly unless he had every grain of enmity to his Glory taken out of his heart Since God is the only Soveraign he only can still the commotions in our spirits and pull down all the Ensigns of the Devil's royalty he can wast him by the powerful word of his lips 4. Hence is a strong encouragement for Prayer My King was the strong compellation David us'd in Prayer as an argument of comfort and confidence as well as that of My God Psal 5 2. Hearken to the voice of my cry my King and my God To be a King is to have an Office of Government and Protection He gives us liberty to approach to him as the Judge of all Heb. 12.23 i. e. As the Governour of the World we pray to one that hath the whole Globe of Heaven and Earth in his hand and can do whatsoever he will Though he be higher than the Cherubims and transcendently above all in Majesty yet we may soar up to him with the wings of our Soul Faith and Love and lay open our cause and find him as gracious as if he were the meanest subject on Earth rather than the most soveraign God in Heaven He hath as much of tenderness as he hath of Authority and is pleased with Prayer which is an acknowledgment of his Dominion an honouring of that which he delights to honour For Prayer in the notion of it imports thus much that God is the Rector of the World that he takes notice of humane affairs that he is a careful just wise Governour a store-house of blessing a fountain of goodness to the indigent and a releif to the oppressed What have we reason to fear when the soveraign of the World gives us liberty to approach to him and lay open our case That God who is King of the whole Earth not only of a few Villages or Cities in the Earth but the whole Earth and not only King of this dreggy place of our dross but of Heaven having prepar'd or established his Throne in the most glorious place of the Creation 5. Here is comfort in afflictions As a soveraign he is the Author of Afflictions as a soveraign he can be the remover of them he can command the waters of affliction to go so far and no farther If he speaks the Word a disease shall depart as soon as a servant shall from your presence with a Nod. If we are banisht from one place he can command a shelter for us in another If he orders Moab a Nation that had no great kindness for his people to let his outcasts dwell with them they shall entertain them and afford them sanctuary Isaiah 16.4 Again God chastneth as a soveraign but teacheth as a Father Psal 99.12 The exercise of his Authority is not without an exercise of his goodness He doth not correct for his own pleasure or the Creature 's torment but for the Creature 's instruction though the rod be in the hand of a soveraign yet it is tinctur'd with the kindness of divine bowels He can order them as a soveraign to mortifie our flesh and try our Faith In the severest tempest the Lord that rais'd the Wind against us which shatter'd the ship and tore its rigging can change that contrary wind for a more happy one to drive us into the Port. 6. 'T is a comfort against the projects of the Churches adversaries in times of publick commotions The consideration of the Divine soveraignty may arm us against the threatnings of mighty ones and the menaces of persecutors God hath Authority above the Crowns of men and a Wisdom superior to the cabals of men None can move a step without him he hath a negative voice upon their Counsels a negative hand upon their motions their politick resolves must stop at the point he hath prescrib'd them Their formidable strength cannot exceed the limits he hath set them their overreaching wisdom expires at the breath of God There is no Wisdom nor Vnderstanding nor Counsel against the Lord. Prov. 21.30 Not a bullet can be discharg'd nor a Sword drawn a wall battered nor a person dispatcht out of the world without the leave of God by the mightiest in the World The instruments of Satan are no more free from his soveraign restraint than their inspirer they cannot pull the hook out of their nostrils nor cast the bridle out of their mouths This soveraign can shake the Earth rend the Heavens overthrow Mountains the most Mountainous opposers of his interest Though the Nations rush in against his people like the rushing of many waters God shall rebuke them they shall be chased as the chaff of the Mountains before the Wind and like a rolling thing before the Whirlwind Isaiah 17.13 So doth he often burst in pieces the most mischievous designs and conducts the oppressed to a happy port He often turns the severest tempests into a calm as well as the most peaceful calm into a horrible storm How often hath a well-rigg'd ship that seemed to spâ—rn the Sea under her feet and beat the waves before her to a foam been swallowed up into the bowels of that Element over whose back she rode a little before God never comes to deliver his Church as a Governour but in a wrathful posture Ezek. 20.23 Surely saith the Lord with a mighty hand and with an out stretched arm and with fury pour'd out will I rule over you not with fury poured out upon the Church but fury pour'd out upon her Enemies as the words
following evidence The Church he would bring out from the Countries where she was scattered and bring the people into the bond of the Covenant He sometimes cuts off the Spirits of Princes Psal 76.12 i. e. cuts off their designs as men do the pipes of a water-course The hearts of all are as open to him as the riches of heaven where he resides He can slip an inclination into the heart of the mighty which they dream'd not of before and if he doth not change their projects he can make them abortive and way-lay them in their attempts Laâ—an marched with fury but God put a padlock upon his passion against Jacob. Gen. 31.24.29 The Devils which ravage mens minds must be still when he gives out his soveraign orders This soveraign can make his people find favour in the eyes of the cruel Egyptians which had so long opprest them Exod. 11.3 And speak a good word in the heart of Nebuchadnezzar for the Prophet Jeremy that he should order his Captain to take him into his special protection when he took Zedekiah away prisoner in chains and put out his eyes Jerem. 39.11 His people cannot want deliverance from him who hath all the world at his command when he is pleased to bestow it he hath as many instruments of deliverance as he hath Creatures at his beck in Heaven or Earth from the meanest to the highest As he is the Lord of Hosts the Church hath not only an interest in the strength he himself is possessed with but in the strength of all the Creatures that are under his command in the Elements below and Angels above in those armies of Heaven and in the inhabitants of the Earth he doth what he will Dan. 4.35 They are all in order and array at his command There are Angels to employ in a fatal stroke Lice and Froggs to quell the stubborn hearts of his Enemies He can range his Thunders and Lightnings the Canon and Granado's of Heaven and the Worms of the Earth in his service He can muzzle Lions calm the fury of the Fire turn his Enemies Swords into their own bowels and their Artillery on their own breasts set the wind in their Teeth and make their Chariot-wheels languish make the Sea enter a quarrel with them and wrap them in its waves till it hath stifled them in its lap The Angels have Storms and Tempests and Warrs in their hands but at the disposal of God when they shall cast them out against the Empire of Antichrist Rev. 7.1 2. then shall Satan be discharg'd from his Throne and no more seduce the Nations the everlasting Gospel shall be preached and God shall reign gloriously in Sion Let us therefore shelter our selves in the divine soveraignty regard God as the most High in our dangers and in our petitions This was Davids resolution Psal 57.1 2. I will cry unto unto God most high This Dominion of God is the true Tower of David wherein there are a thousand shields for defence and encouragement Cant. 4.4 IV. USE If God hath an extensive Dominion over the whole World this ought to be often meditated on and acknowledged by us This is the universal duty of mankind if he be the soveraign of all we should frequently think of our great Prince and acknowledge our selves his Subjects and him our Lord. God will be acknowledg'd the Lord of the whole Earth the neglect of this is the cause of the Judgments which are sent upon the World All the Prodigies were to this end that they might know or acknowledge that God was the Lord. Exod. 10.2 As God was proprietor he demanded the first-born of every Jew and the first-born of every Beast the one was to be Redeemed and the other Sacrificed this was the Quit-Rent they were to pay to him for their fruitful Land The first Fruits of the Earth were ordered to be paid to him as a homage due to the Landlord and an acknowledgment they held all in chief of him The practice of offering first-fruits for an acknowledgment of Gods soveraignty was among many of the Heathens and very ancient hence they dedicated some of the chief of their spoils owning thereby the Dominion and Goodness of God whereby they had gain'd the Victory Cain own'd this in offering the Fruits of the Earth and it was his sin he own'd no more viz. His being a sinner and meriting the Justice of God as his Brother Abel did in his bloody Sacrifice God was a soveraign Proprietor and Governour while man was in a state of innocence but when man proved a Rebel the soveraignty of God bore another relation towards him that of a Judge added to the other The First-fruits might have been offered to God in a state of innocence as a homage to him as Lord of the Manour of the World the design of them was to own Gods propriety in all things and mens dependance on him for the influences of heaven in producing the fruits of the Earth which he had ordered for their use The design of Sacrifices and placing beasts instead of the criminal was to acknowledg their own guilt and God as a soveraign Judge Cain own'd the first but not the second he acknowledged his dependance on God as a proprietor but not his obnoxiousness to God as a Judg which may be probably gathered from his own speech when God came to examine him and ask him for his Brother Gen. 4.9 Am I my Brothers keeper Why do you ask me though I own thee as the Lord of my Land and Goods yet I do not think my self accountable to thee for all my actions This Soveraignty of God ought to be acknowledged in all the parts of it in all the manifestations of it to the creature We should bear a sense of this always upon our Spirits and be often in the thoughts of it in our retirements We should fancy that we saw God upon his Throne in his Royal Garb and great attendants about him and take a view of it to imprint an awe upon our Spirits The meditation on this would 1. Fix us on him as an object of trust 'T is upon his Soveraign Dominion as much as upon anything that safe and secure confidence is built for if he had any superior above him to controul him in his designs and promises his veracity and power would be of little efficacy to form our souls to a close adherency to him It were not fit to make him the object of our trust that can be gainsaid by a higher than himself and had not a full Authority to answer our expectations If we were possessed with this notion fully and believingly that God were high above all that his Kingdom rules over all we should not catch at every broken reed and stand gaping for comforts from a pebble stone He that understands the Authority of a King would not wave a relyance on his promise to depend upon the breath of a changeling favorite None but an ignorant man would