that we might now serve God in a more spiritual manner and with more spiritual frames 6. Proposition The Service and worship the Gospel settles is spiritual and the performance of it more spiritual Spirituality is the Genius of the Gospel as Carnality was of the Law the Gospel is therefore called Spirit We are abstracted from the imployments of Sense and brought neerer to a Heavenly State The Jews had Angels Bread poured upon them we have Angels Service prescribed to us the Praises of God Communion with God in Spirit through his Son Jesus Christ and stronger foundations for spiritual affections 'T is called a reasonable service * Rom. 12.1 t is suted to a rational nature tho it finds no friendship from the Corruption of reason It prescribes a service fit for the reasonable faculties of the Soul and advanceth them while it employs them The word reasonable may be translated word service * V. Hammond in loc as well as reasonable service an Evangelical service in opposition to a Law service All Evangelical service is reasonable and all truly reasonable service is Evangelical The matter of the worship is Spiritual it consists in love of God faith in God recourse to his goodness Meditation on him and Communion with him It lays aside the Ceremonial Spiritualizeth the moral The Commands that concerned our duty to God as well as those that concerned our duty to our Neighbour were reduced by Christ to their Spiritual intention The Motives are Spiritual t is a state of more grace as well as of more truth * John 1.17 supported by Spiritual promises beaming out in Spiritual priviledges heaven comes down in it to Earth to Spiritualize Earth for Heaven The manner of worship is more Spiritual higher flights of the Soul stronger ardours of affections sincerer aims at his glory mists are removed from our minds Cloggs from the Soul more of love than fear faith in Christ kindles the affections and works by them The assistances to Spiritual worship are greater The Spirit doth not drop but is plentifully poured out It doth not light sometimes upon but dwells in the heart Christ suted the Gospel to a Spiritual heart and the Spirit changeth a carnal heart to make it fit for a Spiritual Gospel He blows upon the Garden and causes the spices to flow forth And often makes the Soul in worship like the Chariots of Aminadab in a quick and nimble motion Our blessed Lord and Saviour by his death discovered to us the nature of God and after his ascension sent his Spirit to fit us for the worship of God and converse with him One Spiritual Evangelical believing breath is more delightful to God than millions of Altars made up of the richest pearls and smoaking with the costliest oblations because it is Spiritual And a mite of Spirit is of more worth than the greatest weight of flesh One holy Angel is more excellent than a whole world of meer bodies 7. Proposition Yet the worship of God with our bodies is not to be rejected upon the account that God requires a Spiritual worship Tho we must perform the weightier duties of the Law yet we are not to omit and leave undone the lighter precepts Since both the Magnalia and minutula legis the greater and the lesser duties of the Law have the stamp of Divine authority upon them As God under the Ceremonial Law did not Command the worship of the body and the observation of outward rites without the engagement of the Spirit so neither doth he Command that of the Spirit without the peculiar attendance of the body The Schwelk sendians denied bodily worship And the indecent postures of many in publick attendance intimate no great care either of Composing their bodies or Spirits A morally discomposed body intimates a tainted heart Our Bodies as well as our Spirits are to be presented to God * Rom. 12.1 Our bodies in lieu of the Sacrifices of Beasts as in the Judaical institutions body for the whole man a living Sacrifice not to be slain as the Beasts were but living a new life in a holy posture with Crucified affections This is the inference the Apostle makes of the priviledges of Justification Adoption Coheirship with Christ which he had before discoursed of Priviledges conferred upon the person and not upon a part of man 1. Bodily worship is due to God He hath a right to an Adoration by our bodies as they are his by Creation his right is not diminisht but increased by the blessing of Redemption 1 Cor. 6.20 For you are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your bodies and your Spirits which are Gods The Body as well as the Spirit is redeemed since our Saviour suffered Crucifixion in his body as well as Agonies in his Soul Body is not taken here for the whole man as it may be in Rom. 12. But for the material part of our nature it being distinguisht from the Spirit If we are to render to God an obedience with our bodies we are to render him such Acts of worship with our bodies as they are capable of As God is the Father of Spirits so he is the God of all flesh Therefore the flesh he hath framed of the Earth as well as the noble portion he hath breathed into us cannot be denyed him without apalpable in justice The service of the body we must not deny to God unless we will deny him to be the author of it and the exercise of his providential care about it The mercies of God are renewed every day upon our bodies as well as our Souls and therefore they ought to express a fealty to God for his bounty everyday * Sherman's Greek in the Temple pa. 61.62 both are from God both should be for God Man consists of Body and Soul the service of Man is the service of both The body is to be Sanctified as well as the Soul and therefore to be offered to God as well as the Soul Both are to be glorified both are to glorifie As our Saviours Divinity was manifested in his body so should our Spirituality in ours To give God the service of the body and not of the Soul is hypocrisie to give God the service of the Spirit and not of the body is sacriledge to give him neither Atheism If the only part of man that is visible were exempted from the service of God there could be no visible Testimonies of piety given upon any occasion Since not a moiety of man but the whole is Gods Creature he ought to pay a homage with the whole and not only with a moiety of himself 2. Worship in societies is due to God but this cannot be without some bodily expressions The law of nature doth as much direct men to combine together in publick societies for the acknowledgment of God as in Civil Communities for self preservation and order And the notice of a society for Religion is more Ancient than the mention of
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
more distractions jogg us the more need we should see of going out to a Saviour by Faith One part of our Saviours Office is to stand between us and the infirmities of our worship As he is an Advocate he presents our services and pleads for them and us * 1 John 2.1 for the sins of our duties as well as for our other sins Jesus Christ is an High-priest appointed by God to take away the iniquities of our holy things which was typified by Aarons Plate upon his Mitre * Exod. 28.36 38. Were there no imperfections were there no creeping up of those Froggs into our minds we should think our worship might merit acceptance with God upon its own account But if we behold our own weakness that not a tear a groan a sigh is so pure but must have Christ to make it entertainable that there is no worship without those blemishes and upon this throw all our services into the Arms of Christ for acceptance and sollicite him to put his merits in the front to make our ciphers appear valuable 't is a spiritual act the design of God in the Gospel being to advance the honour and mediation of his Son That is a spiritual and evangelical act which answers the evangelical design The design of Satan and our own corruption is defeated when those interruptions make us run swifter and take faster hold on the High-priest who is to present our worship to God and our own Souls receive comfort thereby Christ had temptations offered to him by the Devil in his Wilderness retirement that from an experimental knowledge he might be able more compassionatly to succour us * Heb. 2.18 we have such assaults in our retir'd worship especially that we may be able more highly to value him and his mediation 3. Let us not therefore be discouraged by those interruptions and starts of our hearts 1. If we find in our selves a strong resistance of them The Flesh will be lusting that cannot be hindered yet if we do not fulfil the lusts of it rise up at its command and go about its work we may be said to walk in the Spirit * Gal. 5.16 17. We walk in the Spirit if we fulfil not the lusts of the Flesh though there be a lusting of the Flesh against the Spirit So we worship in the Spirit though there be carnal thoughts arising if we do not fulfil them though the stirring of them discovers some contrariety in us to God yet the resistance manifests that there is a principle of contrariety in us to them that as there is something of Flesh that lusts against the Spirit so there is something of Spirit in worship which lusts against the Flesh We must take heed of omitting worship because of such in-rodes and lying down in the mire of a total neglect If our Spirits are made more lively and vigorous against them If those cold vapours which have risen from our hearts make us like a Spring in the midst of the cold Earth more warm There is in this case more reason for us to bless God than to be discouraged God looks upon it as the disease not the wilfulness of our nature as the weakness of the Flesh not the willingness of the Spirit If we would shut the door upon them it seems they are unwelcome company Men do not use to lock their doors upon those they love If they break in and disturb us with their impertinencies we need not be discomforted unless we give them a share in our affections and turn our back upon God to entertain them If their presence makes us sad their flight would make us joyful 2. If we find our selves excited to a stricter watch over our hearts against them As Travellers will be careful when they come to places where they have been rob'd before that they be not so easily surprized again We should not only lament when we have had such foolish imaginations in worship breaking in upon us but also bless God that we have had no more since we have hearts so fruitful of weeds We should give God the glory when we find our hearts preserved from these intruders and not boast of our selves but return him our praise for the watch and guard he kept over us to preserve us from such Thieves Let us not be discomforted for as the greatness of our sins upon our turning to God is no hinderance to our justification because it doth not depend upon our conversion as the meritorious cause but upon the infinite value of our Saviours satisfaction which reaches the greatest sins as well as the least so the multitude of our bewail'd distractions in worship are not a hinderance to our acceptation because of the uncontroulable power of Christs intercession Vse 3. Is for exhortation Since Spiritual worship is due to God and the Father seeks such to worship him how much should we endeavour to satisfie the desire and order of God and act conformable to the Law of our Creation and the love of Redemption Our end must be the same in worship which was Gods end in Creation and Redemption to glorifie his name set forth his perfections and be rendred fit as Creatures and Redeemed ones to partake of that grace which is the fruit of worship An Evangelical dispensation requires a Spiritual homage to neglect therefore either the matter or manner of Gospel duties is to put a slight upon Gospel priviledges The manner of duty is ever of more value than the matter the Scarlet dye is more precious than the cloth tinctured with it God respects more the diposition of the Sacrificer than the multitude of the Sacrifices * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈…〉 Abstinentia The Solemn feasts appointed by God were but Dung as managed by the Jews Mâ—â— 2.3 The heart is often welcome without the body but the body never graâ—â—ful without the heart The inward acts of the Spirit require nothing from without to constitute them good in themselves but the outward acts of devotion require inward acts to render them savory to God As the goodness of outward acts consists not in the acts themselves so the acceptableness of them results not from the acts themselves but from the inward frame animating and quickning those acts as blood and Spirits running through the veins of a duty to make it a living service in the sight of God Imperfections in worship hinder not Gods acceptation of it if the heart Spirited by Grace be there to make it a sweet Savour The stench of burning flesh and fat in the legal Sacrifices might render them noysome to the outward senses but God smelt a sweet savour in them as they respected Christ When the heart and Spirit are offered up to God it may be a savory duty though attended with unsavory imperfections But a thousand Sacrifices without a stamp of faith a thousand Spiritual duties with an habitual carnality are no better than stench with God The heart must
circumstances We honour the Majesty of God when we consider him with due reverence according to the greatness and perfection of his works and in this reverence of his Majesty doth worship chiefly consist Low thoughts of God will make low frames in us before him If we thought God an infinite glorious Spirit how would our hearts be lower than our knees in his presence How humbly how believingly pleading is the Psalmist when he considers God to be without comparison in the Heavens to whom none of the Sons of the Mighty can be likened when there was none like to him in strength or faithfulness round about * Psal 89.6 7 8. We should have also deep impressions of the Omniscience of God and remember we have to deal with a God that searcheth the heart and tryeth the reins to whom the most secret temper is as visible as the loudest words are Audible that though man judges by outward expressions God judges by inward affections As the Law of God regulates the inward frames of the heart so the eye of God pitches upon the inward intentions of the Soul If God were visibly present with us should we not approach to him with strong affections summon our Spirits to attend upon him behave our selves modestly before him Let us consider he is as really present with us as if he were visible to us let us therefore preserve a strong sense of the presence of God No man but one out of his wits when he were in the presence of a Prince and making a Speech to him would break off at every Period and run after the catching of Butter-flyes Remember in all worship you are before the Lord to whom all things are open and naked Direction 4. Let us take heed of inordinate desires after the world As the world steals away a mans heart from the Word so it doth from all other worship It chokes the Word * Mat. 13.27 it stifles all the spiritual breathings after God in every duty The edge of the Soul is blunted by it and made too dull for such sublime exercises The Apostles rule in Prayer when he joyns sobriety with watching unto Prayer 1 Pet. 4.7 is of concern in all worship sobriety in the pursuite and use of all wordly things A man drunk with worldly fumes cannot watch cannot be heavenly affectionate spiritual in service There is a magnetick force in the Earth to hinder our flights to Heaven Birds when they take their first flights from the Earth have more flutterings of their wings than when they are mounted further in the Air and got more without the Sphear of the Earths attractiveness the motion of their wings is more steady that you can scarce perceive them stir they move like a Ship with a full Gale The world is a clog upon the Soul and a bar to spiritual frames 'T is as hard to elevate the heart to God in the midst of a hurry of worldly affairs as it is difficult to meditate when we are near a great noise of waters falling from a Precipice or in the midst of a Volly of Muskets Thick claiy affections bemire the heart and make it unfit for such high flights it is to take in worship Therefore get your hearts clear from worldly thoughts and desires if you would be more spiritual in worship 5. Let us be deeply sensible of our present wants and the supplies we may meet with in worship Cold affections to the things we would have will grow cooler Weakness of desire for the communications in worship will freez our hearts at the time of worship and make way for vain and foolish diversions A Begger that is ready to perish and knows he is next door to ruin will not slightly and dully began Alms and will not be diverted from his importunity by every slight call or the moving of an Atom in the Air. Is it Pardon we would have Let us apprehend the blackness of sin with the aggravations of it as it respects God Let us be deeply sensible of the want of pardon and worth of mercy and get our affections into such a frame as a condemned man would do Let us consider that as we are now at the Throne of Gods grace we shall shortly be at the Bar of Gods Justice and if the Soul should be forlorn there how fixedly and earnestly would it plead for mercy Let us endeavour to stir up the same affections now which we have seen some dying men have and which we suppose despairing Souls would have done at Gods Tribunal * Guliel Paris Rhetor. Divin cap. 26. p. 350. Col. 1. We must be sensible that the life or death of our Souls depends upon worship Would we not be ashamed to be ridiculous in our carriage while we are eating and shall we not be ashamed to be cold or garish before God when the Salvation of our Souls as well as the Honour of God is concerned If we did see the heaps of sins the eternity of punishment due to them If we did see an angry and offended Judge If we did see the riches of mercy the glorious outgoings of God in the Sanctuary the blessed Doles he gives out to men when they spiritually attend upon him both the one and the other would make us perform our duties humbly sincerely earnestly and affectionately and wait upon him with our whole Souls to have misery averted and mercy bestowed Let our sense of this be encouragâ—d by the consideration of our Saviour presenting his merits With what affection doth he present his merits his blood shed upon the Cross now in Heaven And shall our hearts be cold and frozen flitting and unsteady when his affectioâ—s are so much concerned Christ doth not present any Mans case and duties without a sense of hiâ— wants and shall we have none of our own Let me add this let us affect our hearts with a sense of what supplies we haâ—â— met with in former worship The delightful remembrance of what converâ—â— we have had with God in former worship would spiritualize our hearts for the present worship Had Peter had a view of Christs glory in the Mount fresh in his thoughts he would not so easily have turned his back upon his Master Nor would the Israelites have been at leasure for their Idolatry had they preserved the sense of the Majesty of God discovered in his late Thunders from Mount Sinai 6. If any thing intrudes that may choak the Worship cast it speedily out We cannot hinder Satan and our own Corruption from presenting Coolers to us but we may hinder the success of them We cannot hinder the Gnats from buzzing about us when we are in our business but we may prevent them from setling upon us A man that is running on a considerable Errand will shun all unnecessary discourse that may make him forget or loyter in his business What though there may be something offered that is good in it self yet if it hath a
the Soul of Man more excellent than other Animals Angels more excellent than Men They contain in their own nature whatsoever dignity there is in the inferior Creatures God must have therefore an excellency above all those and therefore is intirely remote from the conditions of a Body * Calov Socin Proflig P. 129. 130. 'T is a gross conceit therefore to think that God is such a Spirit as the Air is for that is to be a body as the Air is though it be a thin one and if God were no more a Spirit than that or than Angels he would not be the most simple Being * Amirald Sup. Heb. 9. p. 146. c. Yet some think that the spiritual Deity was represented by the Air in the Ark of the Testament It was unlawful to represent him by any Image that God had prohibited Every thing about the Ark had a particular signification The Gold and other Ornaments about it signified something of Christ but were unfit to represent the Nature of God A thing purely invisible and falling under nothing of sense could not represent him to the mind of Man The Air in the Ark was the fittest it represented the invisibility of God Air being imperceptible to our eyes Air diffuseth it self through all parts of the world it glides through secret passages into all Creatures it fills the space between Heaven and Earth there is no place wherein God is not present To evidence this 1. If God were not a Spirit he could not be Creator All multitude begins in and is reduced to unity As above multitude there is an absolute unity So above mixt Creatures there is an absolute simplicity You cannot conceive number without conceiving the beginning of it in that which was not number viz. a unite You cannot conceive any mixture but you must conceive some simple thing to be the Original and Basis of it The works of Art done by rational Creatures have their Foundation in something Spiritual Every Artificer Watch-maker Carpenter hath a model in his own mind of the work he designs to frame The material and outward Fabrick is squared according to an inward and Spiritual Idea A Spiritual Idea speaks a Spiritual faculty as the subject of it God could not have an Idea of that vast number of Creatures he brought into being if he had not had a Spiritual Nature * Amiral moral Tom. 1. pa. 282. The wisdom whereby the world was Created could never be the fruit of a Corporeal nature such natures are not capable of understanding and comprehending the things which are within the compass of their nature much less of produ them And therefore beasts which have only Corporeal faculties move to objects by the force of their sense and have no knowledge of things as they are comprehended by the understanding of Man All acts of wisdom speak an intelligent and Spiritual agent The effects of wisdom goodness power are so great and admirable that they bespeak him a more perfect and eminent being than can possibly be beheld under a bodily shape Can a Coporeal substance put Wisdom in the inward parts and give understanding to the heart * Job 38.16 2. If God were not a pure Spirit he could not be one If God had a body consisting of distinct members as ours or all of one nature as the water and air are yet he were then capable of division and therefore could not be entirely one Either those parts would be finite or infinite if finite they are not parts of God for to be God and finite is a contradiction If infinite then there are as many infinites as distinct members and therefore as many Deities Suppose this body had all parts of the same nature as air and water hath every little part of air is as much air as the greatest and every little part of water is as much water as the Ocean so every little part of God would be as much God as the whole as many particular Deities to make up God as little Atomes to compose a body What can be more absurd If God had a body like a human body and were compounded of body and Soul of substance and quality he could not be the most perfect unity he would be made up of distinct parts and those of a distinct nature as the members of a human body are Where there is the greatest unity there must be the greatest simplicity but God is one As he is free from any change so he is void of any multitude Deut. 6.4 The Lord our God is one Lord. 3. If God had a body as we have he would not be invisible Every material thing is not visible The Air is a body yet invisible but it is sensible the cooling quality of it is felt by us at every breath and we know it by our touch which is the most material sense Every body that hath Members like to bodies is visible But God is invisible * Daille in Tim The Apostle reckons it amongst his other perfections 1 Tim. 1.17 Now unto the King Eternal Immortal Invisible He is invisible to our sense which beholds nothing but material and coloured things and incomprehensible to our understanding that conceives nothing but what is finite God is therefore a Spirit uncapable of being seen and infinitely uncapable of being understood If he be invisible he is also Spiritual If he had a body and hid it from our eyes he might be said not to be seen but could not be said to be invisible When we say a thing is visible we understand that it hath such qualities which are the objects of sense tho we may never see that which is in its own nature is to be seen God hath no such qualities as fall under the perception of our sense His works are visible to us but not his God-head * Rom. 1.20 The nature of a human body is to be seen and handled Christ gives us such a description of it Luke 24.39 Handle me and see for a Spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me have But man hath been so far from seeing God that it is impossible he can see him 1 Tim. 6.16 There is such a disproportion between an infinite object and a finite sense and understanding that it is utterly impossible either to behold or comprehend him But if God had a body more luminous and glorious than that of the Sun he would be as well visible to us as the Sun tho the immensity of that light would dazle our eyes and forbid any close inspection into him by the vertue of our sence We have seen the shape and figure of the Sun but no man hath ever seen the shape of God * Joh. 5.37 If God had a body he were visible tho he might not perfectly and fully be seen by us * Goulart de Dieu pa. 94. As we see the Heavens tho we see not the extension latitude and greatness of them
a Wilderness become Waters and speak a Chaos into a beautiful frame of Heaven and Earth He can act our souls with infinite more ease than our souls can act our bodies he can fix in us what motions frames inclinations he pleases he can come and settle in our hearts with all his Treasures 'T is an encouragement to confide in him when we petition him for spiritual Blessings As he is a Spirit he is possessed with spiritual Blessings * Eph. 1.3 A Spirit delights to bestow things sutable to its Nature do Bodies are to communicate what is agreeable to theirs As he is a Father of Spirits we may go to him for the Welfare of our Spirits he being a Spirit is as able to repair our Spirits as he was to create them As he is a Spirit he is indefatigable in acting The members of the body tire and flagg but whoever heard of a Soul wearied with being active Whoever heard of a weary Angel In the purest Simplicity there is the greatest Power the most efficacious Goodness the most reaching Justice to affect the Spirit that can insinuate it self every where to punish wickedness without weariness as well as to comfort goodness God is active because he is Spirit and if we be like to God the more spiritual we are the more active we shall be 6. Inference God being a Spirit is immortal His being immortal and being invisible are joyned together * 1 Tim. 1.17 Spirits are in their nature incorruptible they can only perish by that hand that framed them Every compounded thing is subject to mutation but God being a pure and simple Spirit is without corruption without any shadow of change * James 1.17 Where there is composition there is some kind of repugnancy of one part against the other and where there is repugnancy there is a capability of dissolution God in regard of his infinite spirituality hath nothing in his own nature contrary to it can have nothing in himself which is not himself The world perishes friends change and are dissolved bodies moulder because they are mutable God is a Spirit in the highest excellency and glory of Spirits nothing is beyond him nothing above him no contrariety within him This is our comfort if we devote our selves to him this God is our God this Spirit is our Spirit this is our all our immutable our incorruptible support a Spirit that cannot die and leave us 7. Inference If God be a Spirit we see how we can only converse with him by our Spirits Bodies and Spirits are not sutable to one another We can only see know embrace a Spirit with our Spirits He judges not of us by our corporeal actions nor our external devotions by our masks and disguises He fixes his eye upon the frame of the heart bends his ear to the groans of our Spirits He is not pleased with outward pomp He is not a Body therefore the beauty of Temples delicacy of Sacrifices fumes of Incense are not grateful to him by those or any external action we have no communion with him A Spirit when broken is his delightful Sacrifice * Psal 51.17 We must therefore have our Spirits fitted for him be renewed in the spirit of our minds * Eph. 4.23 that we may be in a posture to live with him and have an intercourse with him We can never be united to God but in our Spirits Bodies unite with Bodies Spirits with Spirits The more spiritual any thing is the more closely doth it unite Air hath the closest union nothing meets together sooner than that when the parts are divided by the interposition of a body 8. Inference If God be a Spirit he can only be the true satisfaction of our Spirits Spirit can only be fill'd with Spirit Content flows from likeness and sutableness As we have a resemblance to God in regard of the spiritual nature of our Soul so we can have no satisfaction but in him Spirit can no more be really satisfied with that which is corporeal than a beast can delight in the company of an Angel Corporeal things can no more fill a hungry Spirit than pure Spirit can feed an hungry Body God the highest Spirit can only reach out a full content to our spirits Man is Lord of the Creation nothing below him can be fit for his converse nothing above him offers it self to his converse but God We have no correspondence with Angels The influence they have upon us the protection they afford us is secret and undiscern'd but God the highest Spirit offers himself to us in his Son in his Ordinances is visible in every Creature presents himself to us in every providence to him we must seek in him we must rest God had no rest from the Creation till he had made Man and Man can have no rest in the Creation till he rests in God * Psal 90.1 God only is our dwelling place our Souls should only long for him our Souls should only wait upon him * Psal 63.1 The Spirit of Man never riseth to its original glory till it be carried up on the wings of Faith and Love to its original Copy The face of the Soul looks most beautiful when it is turned to the face of God the Father of Spirits when the derived Spirit is fixed upon the original Spirit drawing from it Life and Glory Spirit is only the receptacle of Spirit God as Spirit is our Principle we must therefore live upon him God as Spirit hath some resemblance to us as his Image we must therefore only satisfie our selves in him 9. Inference If God be a Spirit we should take most care of that wherein we are like to God Spirit is nobler than Body we must thererefore value our Spirits above our Bodies The Soul as Spirit partakes more of the Divine Nature and deserves more of our choycest cares If we have any love to this Spirit we should have a real affection to our own Spirits as bearing a stamp of the spiritual Divinity the chiefest of all the works of God as it is said of Behemoth Job 40.19 .. That which is most the Image of this immense Spirit should be our Darling So David calls his Soul Psal 35.17 Shall we take care of that wherein we partake not of God and not delight in the Jewel which hath his own Signature upon it God was not only the Framer of Spirits and the End of Spirits but the Copy and Exemplar of Spirits God partakes of no corporeity he is pure Spirit But how do we act as if we were only matter and body We have but little kindness for this great Spirit as well as our own if we take no care of his immediate offspring since he is not only Spirit but the Father of Spirits * Heb. 12.9 10. Inference If God be a Spirit let us take heed of those sins which are spiritual Paul distinguisheth between the filth of the Flesh and that of
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
meltings flights In the highest raptures the body is most insensible Strong Spiritual affections are abstracted from outward sense 6. Spiritual worship is performed with acting Spiritual habits When all the living springs of Grace are opened as the Fountains of the deep were in the deluge the Soul and all that is within it all the Spiritual impresses of God upon it erect themselves to bless his holy name * Psa 103.1 This is necessary to make a worship Spiritual As natural agents are determined to act sutable to their proper nature So rational agents are to act conformable to a rational being When there is a conformity between the act and the nature whence it flows t is a good act in its kind if it be rational t is a good rational act because sutable to its principle As a Man endowed with reason must act sutable to that endowment and exercise his reason in his acting So a Christian endued with Grace must act sutable to that nature and exercise his Grace in his acting Acts done by a natural inclination are no more human acts than the natural acts of a beast may be said to be human Tho they are the acts of a Man as he is the efficient cause of them yet they are not human acts because they arise not from that principle of Reason which denominates him a man So acts of worship performed by a bare exercise of reason are not Christian and Spiritual acts because they come not from the principle which constitutes him a Christian Reason is not the principle for then all rational Creatures would be Christians They ought therefore to be acts of a higher principle Exercises of that Grace whereby Christians are what they are Not but that rational acts in worship are due to God for worship is due from us as men and we are setled in that rank of being by our reason Grace doth not exclude reason but ennobles it and calls it up to another form But we must not rest in a bare rational worship but exert that principle whereby we are Christians To worship God with our reason is to worship him as Men To worship God with our grace is to worship him as Christians and so Spiritually But to worship him only with our bodies is no better than Brutes Our desires of the word are to issue from the regenerate principle 1 Pet. 2.2 As new born babes desire the sincere milk of the word It seems to be not a comparison but a restriction All worship must have the same spring and be the exercise of that principle otherwise we can have no Communion with God Friends that have the same habitual dispositions have a fundamental fitness for an agreeable converse with one another but if the temper wherein their likeness consists be languishing and the string out of tune there is not an actual fitness and the present indisposition breaks the converse and renders the Company troublesome Tho we may have the habitual graces which compose in us a resemblance to God yet for want of acting those sutable dispositions we render our selves unfit for his converse and make the worship which is fundamentally Spiritual to become actually carnal As the Will cannot naturally act to any object but by the exercise of its affections So the heart cannot Spiritually act towards God but by the exercise of graces This is Gods Musick Eph. 5.19 Singing and making melody to God in your hearts Singing and all other acts of worship are outward but the Spiritual melody is by grace in the heart Col. 3.16 This renders it a Spiritual worship for it is an effect of the fulness of the Spirit in the Soul as v. 19. But be filled with the Spirit The overflowing of the Spirit in the heart setting the Soul of a beliver thus on work to make a Spiritual melody to God shews that something higher than bare reason is put in tune in the heart Then is the fruit of the Garden pleasant to Christ when the holy Spirit the North and South wind blow upon the spices and strike out the fragrancy of them * Cant. 4.16 Since God is the Author of graces and bestows them to have a glory from them they are best employed about him and his service T is fit he should have the Cream of his own gifts Without the exercise of grace we perform but a work of nature and offer him a few dry bones without marrow The whole set of graces must be one way or other exercised If any treble be wanting in a Lute there will be a great defect in the Musick If any one Spiritual string be dull the Spiritual harmony of worship will be spoiled And therefore 1. First Faith must be acted in worship A confidence in God A natural worship cannot be performed without a natural confidence in the goodness of God Whosoever comes to him must regard him as a Rewarder and a faithful Creator * Heb. 11.6 A Spiritual worship cannot be performed without an Evangelical confidence in him as a gracious Redeemer To think him a Tyrant meditating revenge damps the Soul to regard him as a gracious King full of tender bowels Spirits the affections to him The mercy of God is the proper object of trust Psal 33.18 The eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him upon them that hope in his mercy The worship of God in the old Testament is most described by fear In the new Testamen by faith Fear or the worship of God and hope in his mercy are linkt together when they go hand in hand the accepting eye of God is upon us When we do not trust we do not worship * Zeph. 3.2 Those of Judah had the Temple worship among them especially in Josiah's time Zeph. 3.2 the time of that Prophecy yet it was accounted no worship because no trust in the Worshippers Interest in God cannot be improved without an exercise of Faith The Gospel worship is prophecied of to be a confidence in God as in a Husband more than in a Lord Hos 2.16 Thou shalt call me Ishi and shalt call me no more Baali Thou shalt call me that is thou shalt worship me Worship being often comprehended under Invocation More confidence is to be exercised in a Husband or Father than in a Lord or Master If a Man have not Faith he is without Christ and though a Man be in Christ by the habit of Faith â—e performs a duty out of Christ without an act of Faith Without the habit of Faith our persons are out of Christ and without the exercise of Faith the duties are out of Christ As the want of Faith in a person is the death of the Soul so the want of Faith in a Service is the death of the Offering Though a man were at the cost of an Ox yet to kill it without bringing it to the door of the Tabernacle was not a Sacrifice but a Murder * Levit. 17.3 4. The Tabernacle
be a slight and mean Being Our being in Covenant with him must not lower our awful apprehensions of him As he is the Lord thy God 't is a gloririous and fearful Name or wonderful * Deut. 28.58 Though he lay by his Justice to Believers he doth not lay by his Majesty When we have a confidence in him because he is the Lord our God we must have awful thoughts of his Majesty because his name is glorious God is terrible from his Holy-places in regard of the great things he doth for his Israel * Psal 68.35 We should behave our selves with that inward honour and respect of him as if he were present to our bodily eyes The higher apprehensions we have of his Majesty the greater aw will be upon our hearts in his presence and the greater spirituality in our acts We should manage our hearts so as if we had a view of God in his heavenly glory 9. Spiritual Worship is to be performed with humility in our Spirits This is to follow upon the reverence of God As we are to have high thoughts of God that we may not debase him we must have low thoughts of our selves not to vaunt before him When we have right notions of the Divine Majesty we shall be as Worms in our own thoughts and creep as Worms into his presence We can never consider him in his Glory but we have a fit opportunity to reflect upon our selves and consider how basely we revolted from him and how graciously we are restored by him As the Gospel affords us greater discoveries of Gods nature and so enhaunceth our reverence of him so it helps us to a fuller understanding of our own vileness and weakness and therefore is proper to ingender Humility The more spiritual and evangelical therefore any service is the more humble it is That is a spiritual service that doth most manifest the glory of God and this cannot be manifested by us without manifesting our own emptiness and nothingness The Heathens were sensible of the necessity of Humility by the Light of Nature * Plutarch Moral P. 344. after the Name of God signified by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inscribed on the Temple at Delphos followed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereby was insinuated that when we have to do with God who is the only Ens we should behave our selves with a sense of our own infirmity and infinite distance from him As a person so a duty leavened with Pride hath nothing of sincerity and therefore nothing of spirituality in it Hab. 2.4 His Soul which is lifted up is not upright in him The Elders that were crowned by God to be Kings and Priests to offer spiritual Sacrifices uncrown themselves in their worship of him and cast down their Ornaments at his feet * Revel 4 1◠compared with 5. and the 1◠The Greek word to worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to creep like a Dog upon his belly before his Master to lye low How deep should our sense be of the priviledge of Gods admitting us to his worship and affording us such a mercy under our deserts of wrath How mean should be our thoughts both of our persons and performances How patiently should we wait upon God for the success of worship How did Abraham the Father of the Faithful equal himself to the Earth when he supplicated the God of Heaven and devote himself to him under the title of very Dust and Ashes * Gen. 18.27 Isaiah did but behold an Evangelical Apparition of God and the Angels worshipping him and presently reflects upon his own uncleaness * Isa 6.5 Gods presence both requires and causes Humility How lowly is David in his own opinion after a magnificent duty performed by himself and his people 1 Chron. 29.14 Who am I And what is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly The more spiritual the Soul is in its carriage to God the more humble it is and the more gracious God is in his communications to the Soul the lower it lies God commanded not the fiercer Creatures to be offered to him in Sacrifices but Lambs and Kids meek and lowly Creatures none that had stings in their tails or venom in their tongues * Caudam aculeatam vel linguam nigram Alexand. ab Alex. l. 3. c. 12. The meek Lamb was the daily Sacrifice The Doves were to be offered by Pairs God would not have Hony mixed with any Sacrifice Levit. 2.11 That breeds Choler and Choler Pride but Oyle he commanded to be used that supples and mollifies the parts Swelling Pride and boiling Passions render our services carnal they cannot be spiritual without an humble sweetness and an innocent sincerity One grain of this transcends the most costly Sacrifices A Contrite Heart puts a gloss upon Worship * Psal 51.16 17 The departure of men and Angels from God began in Pride Our approaches and return to him must begin in Humility And therefore all those Graces which are bottom'd on Humility must be acted in worship as Faith and a sense of our own indigence Our blessed Saviour the most spiritual Worshipper prostrated himself in the Garden with the greatest lowliness and offered himself upon the Cross a Sacrifice with the greatest humility Melted Souls in worship have the most spiritual conformity to the person of Christ in the state of humiliation and his design in that state As worship without it is not sutable to God so neither is it advantageous for us A time of worship is a time of Gods Communication The Vessel must be melted to receive the Mould it is designed for Softned wax is fittest to receive a stamp and a spiritually melted Soul fittest to receive a spiritual impression We cannot perform duty in an evangelical and spiritual strain without the meltingness and meaness in our selves which the Gospel requires 10. Spiritual worship is to be performed with Holiness God is a holy Spirit a likeness to God must attend the worshipping of God as he is Holiness is alway in season It becomes his house for ever * Psal 91.5 We can never serve the living God till we have Consciences purged from dead works Heb. 9.14 Dead works in our Consciences are unsutable to God an eternal living Spirit The more mortified the heart the more quickned the service Nothing can please an infinite Purity but that which is pure Since God is in his Glory in his Ordinances we must not be in our Filthiness The Holiness of his Spirit doth sparkle in his Ordinances The holiness of our Spirits ought also to sparkle in our observance of them The Holiness of God is most celebrated in the worship of Angels * Isa 6.3 Revel 4.8 Spiritual worship ought to be like Angelical That cannot be with Souls totally impure As there must be perfect holiness to make a worship perfectly spiritual so there must be some degree of holiness to make it in any measure spiritual God would
Zech. 4.1 The Angel that talked with me came again and awaked me as a man is awaked out of sleep He had been rouzed up before but he was ready to drop down again his heart was gone till the Angel jogged him We may complain of such imaginations as Jerem. doth of the Enemies of the Jews * Lam. 4.19 Our Persecutors are swifter than Eagles they light upon us with as much speed as Eagles upon a Carcass they pursue us upon the Mountain of Divine institutions and they lay wait for us in the Wilderness in our retired addresses to God And this will be so while 1. There is natural corruption in us There are in a Godly man two contrary principles Flesh and Spirit which endeavour to hinder one anothers acts and are alway stirring upon the offensive or defensive part * Gal. 5.17 There is a body of death continually exhaling its noysom vapours 'T is a body of death in our worship as well as in our natures it snaps our resolutions asunder * Rom. 7.19 it hinders us in the doing good and contradicts our wills in the stirring up evil This corruption being seated in all the faculties and a constant Domestick in them has the greater opportunity to trouble us since it is by those faculties that we spiritually transact with God and it stirs more in the time of religious exercises though it be in part mortified As a wounded Beast though tired will rage and strive to its utmost when the Enemy is about to fetch a blow at it All duties of worship tend to the wounding of corruption and it is no wonder to feel the striving of sin to defend it self and offend us when we have our Arms in our hands to mortifie it that the blow may be diverted which is directed against it The Apostles had aspiring thoughts and being perswaded of an earthly Kingdom expected a Grandeur in it And though we find some appearance of it at other times as when they were casting out Devils and gave an account of it to their Master he gives them a kind of a check * Luke 10.20 intimating that there was some kind of evil in their rejoycing upon that account Yet this never swelled so high as to break out into a quarrel who should be greatest * Luke 22.24 until they had the most solemn Ordinance the Lords Supper to quell it* Our corruption is like Lime which discovers not its fire by any smoke or heat till you cast water the Enemy of fire upon it Neither doth our natural corruption rage so much as when we are using means to quench and destroy it 2. While there is a Devil and we in his Precinct As he accuseth us to God so he disturbs us in our selves He is a bold Spirit and loves to intrude himself when we are conversing with God We read that when the Angels presented themselves before God Satan comes among them * Job 1.6 Motions from Satan will thrust themselves in with our most raised and Angelical frames He loves to take off the edge of our Spirits from God He acts but after the old rate He from the first envied God an obedience from man and envied man the felicity of communion with God He is unwilling God should have the honour of worship and that we should have the fruit of it He hath himself lost it and therefore is unwilling we should enjoy it and being subtil he knows how to make impressions upon us sutable to our inbred corruptions and assault us in the weakest part He knows all the avenues to get within us as he did in the temptation of Eve and being a Spirit he wants not a power to dart them immediatly upon our fancy And being a Spirit and therefore active and nimble he can shoot those darts faster than our weakness can beat them off He is diligent also and watcheth for his Prey and seeks to devour our services as well as our Souls and snatch our best morsels from us We know he mixed himself with our Saviours retirements in the Wilderness and endeavoured to Fly-blow his holy converse with his Father in the preparation to his mediatory work Satan is Gods Ape and imitates the Spirit in the Office of a Remembrancer As the Spirit brings good thoughts and divine promises to mind to quicken our worship so the Devil brings evil things to mind and endeavours to fasten them in our Souls to disturb us And though all the foolish starts we have in worship are not purely his issue yet being of kin to him he claps his hands and sets them on like so many Mastives to tear the service in pieces And both those distractions which arise from our own corruption and from Satan are most rise in worship when we are under some pressing affliction This seems to be David's Case Psal 86. when in v. 11. He prays God to unite his heart to fear and worship his Name he seems to be under some affliction or fear of his Enemies Oh free me from those distractions of Spirit and those passions which arise in my Soul upon considering the designs of my enemies against me and press upon me in my addresses to thee and attendances on thee Job also in his affliction complains Job 17.11 That his purposes were broken off He could not make an even thread of thoughts and resolutions they were frequently snapt saunder like rotten Yarn when one is winding it up Good Men and spiritual Worshippers have lain under this trouble Though they are a sign of weakness of grace or some obstructions in the acting of strong grace yet they are not alway evidences of a want of grace What ariseth from our own corruption is to be matter of humiliation and resistance what ariseth from Satan should edge our minds to a noble conquest of them If the Apostle did comfort himself with his disapproving of what rose from the natural spring of sin within him with his consent to the Law and dissent from his Lust and charges it not upon himself but upon the sin that dwelt in him with which he had broken off the former League and was resolved never to enter into Amity with it By the same reason we may comfort our selves if such thoughts are undelighted in and alienate not our hearts from the worship of God by all their busie intrusions to interrupt us 2. These distractions not allowed may be occasions by an holy improvement to make our hearts more spiritual after worship though they disturb us in it By answering those ends for which we may suppose God permits them to invade us And that is 1. When they are occasions to humble us 1. For our carriage in the particular worship There is nothing so dangerous as spiritual pride It deprived Devils and Men of the presence of God and will hinder us of the influence of God If we had had raised and uninterrupted motions in worship we should be apt to be lifted
be purged as well as the Temple was by our Saviour of the Thieves that would rob God of his due worship Antiquity had some Temples wherein it was a crime to bring any gold therefore those that came to worship laid their gold aside before they went into the Temple We should lay aside our worldly and trading thoughts before we address to worship Isa 26.9 With my Spirit within me will I seek thee early Let not our minds be gadding abroad and exil'd from God and themselves It will be thus when the desire of our Soul is to his name and the remembrance of him ver 8. When he hath given so great and admirable a gift as that of his Son in whom are all things necessary to Salvation Righteousness Peace and pardon of sin we should manage the remembrance of his name in worship with the closest unitedness of heart and the most Spiritual affections The motion of the Spirit is the first act in Religion to this we are obliged in every act The Devil requires the Spirit of his votaries should God have a less dedication than the Devil Motives to back this exhortation 1. Not to give God our Spirit is a great sin T is a mockery of God not worship contempt not adoration whatever our outward fervency or protestations may be * Nâ—n valet prâ—testatio câ—ntra jactum is a rule in the civil law Every alienation of our hearts from him is a real scorn put upon him The acts of the Soul are real and more the acts of the man than the acts of the body because they are the acts of the choicest part of man and of that which is the first spring of all bodily motions 't is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Inrenal speech whereby we must speak with God To give him therefore only an external form of worship without the life of it is a taking his name in vain We mock him when we mind not what we are speaking to him or what he is speaking to us when the motions of our hearts are contrary to the motions of our tongues when we do any thing before him slovenly impudently or rashly As in a Lutinisi it is absurd to sing one Tune and play another so it is a foul thing to tell God one thing with our lips and think another thing with our hearts 't is a sin like that the Apostle chargeth the Heathens with Rom. 1.28 they like not to retain God in their knowledge their stomachs are sick while they are upon any duty and never leave working till they have thrown up all the spiritual part of Worship and rid themselves of the thoughts of God which are as unwelcome and troublesome Guests to them When men behave themselves in the sight of God as if God were not God they do not only defame him but deny him and violate the unchangeable perfections of the Divine Nature 1. 'T is against the Majesty of God When we have not awful thoughts of that great Majesty to whom we address when our Souls cleave not to him when we petition him in Prayer or when he gives out his Orders to us in his Word 'T is a contempt of the Majesty of a Prince if whiles he is speaking to us we listen not to him with reverence and attention but turn our backs on him to play with one of his Hounds or talk with a Begger or while we speak to him to rake in a Dunghill Solomon adviseth us to keep our foot when we go to the House of God * Eccles 5.1 Our affections should be steady and not slip away again why v. 2. because God is in Heaven c. He is a God of Majesty earthly durty frames are unsutable to the God of Heaven low Spirits are unsutable to the most High We would not bring our mean Servants or durty Dogs into a Princes Presence Chamber yet we bring not only our worldly but our prophane affections into Gods presence We give in this case those services to God which our Governour would think unworthy of him * Mal. 1.8 The more excellent and glorious God is the greater contempt of him it is to suffer such foolish affections to be Competitors with him for our hearts 'T is a scorn put upon him to converse with a Creature while we are dealing with him but a greater to converse in our thoughts and fancies with some sordid lust which is most hateful to him And the more aggravation it attracts in that we are to apprehend him the most glorious Object sitting upon his Throne in time of worship and our selves standing as vile Creatures before him supplicating for our lives and the conveyances of grace and mercy to our Souls As if a grand Mutineer instead of humbly begging the pardon of his offended Prince should present his Petition not only scribled and blotted but besmeared with some loathsome excrement 'T is unbecoming the Majesty both of God and the worship it self to present him with a Picture instead of Substance and bring a world of nasty affections in our hearts and ridiculous toys in our heads before him and worship with indisposed and heedless Souls Malac. 1.14 He is a great King therefore address to him with fear and reverence 2. 'T is against the Life of God Is a dead worship proportioned to a living God The separation of heavenly affections from our Souls before God makes them as much a Carcass in his sight as the divorce of the Soul makes the Body a Carcass When the affections are separated worship is no longer worship but a dead offering a liveless bulk for the essence and spirit of worship is departed Though the Soul be present with the Body in a way of information yet it is not present in a way of affection and this is the worst for it is not the separation of the Soul from informing that doth separate a man from God but the removal of our affections from him If a man pretend an application to God and sleep and snore all the time without question such a one did not worship In a careless worship the heart is morally dead while the eyes are open The heart of the Spouse * Cant. 5.2 waked whiles her eyes slept and our hearts on the contrary sleep while our eyes wake Our blessed Saviour hath died to purge our Consciences from dead works and frames that we may serve the living God * Heb. 9.14 to serve God as a God of Life Davids Soul cried and fainted for God under this consideration * Psal 42.2 But to present our Bodies without our Spirits is such a usage of God that implies he is a dead Image not worthy of any but a dead and heartless service Like one of those Idols the Psalmist speaks of * Psal 115.5 that have eyes and see not ears and hear not no life in it Though it be not an objective Idolatry because the worship is directed to the true
thoughts of Men or his Mercy which he manifested to the height in the time of his suffering That is truly a change when a thing ceaseth to be what it was before This was not in Christ He assumed our Nature without laying aside his own * Zanch. de Immutab Dei When the Soul is united to the Body doth it lose any of those perfections that are proper to its Nature Is there any change either in the substance or qualities of it * Goulart de Immutab de Dieu No but it makes a change in the Body and of a dull Lump it makes it a living Mass conveys vigor and strength to it and by its power quickens it to sense and motion So did the Divine Nature and Human remain intire there was no change of the one into the other as Christ by a Miracle changed Water into Wine or Men by Art change Sand or Ashes into Glass And when he prays for the Glory he had with God before the World was * John 17.5 he prays that a Glory he had in his Deity might shine forth in his Person as Mediator and be evidenced in that height and splendor sutable to his Dignity which had been so lately darkned by his abasement that as he had appeared to be the Son of Man in the infirmity of the Flesh he might appear to be the Son of God in the glory of his Person that he might appear to be the Son of God and the Son of Man in one Person * Gamach in part 1. Aquin. qu. 9. cap. 1. Again there could be no change in this Union for in a real change something is acquired which was not possessed before neither formally nor eminently But the Divinity had from Eternity before the Incarnation all the perfections of the Human Nature eminently in a nobler manner than they are in themselves and therefore could not be changed by a real Union 3. The third Proposition Repentance and other Affections ascribed to God in Scripture argue no change in God We often read of Gods repenting repenting of the Good he promised * Jer. 18.10 and of the Evil he threatned * Exod. 32.14 John 3.10 or of the Work he hath wrought * Gen. 6.6 We must observe therefore that 1. Repentance is not properly in God He is a pure Spirit and is not capable of those Passions which are signs of weakness and impotence or subject to those regrets we are subject to Where there is a proper repentance there is a want of foresight an ignorance of what would succeed or a defect in the examination of the occurences which might fall within consideration All repentance of a fact is grounded upon a mistake in the event which was not foreseen or upon an after knowledge of the evil of the thing which was acted by the person repenting But God is so wise that he cannot err so holy he cannot do evil and his certain prescience or foreknowledge secures him against any unexpected events God doth not act but upon clear and infallible reason And a change upon passion is accounted by all so great a weakness in man that none can entertain so unworthy a conceit of God Where he is said to repent * Gen. 6.6 he is also said to grieve now no proper grief can be imagined to be in God As repentance is inconsistent with infallible foresight so is grief no less inconsistent with undefiled blessedness God is blessed for ever * Rom. 9.8 and therefore nothing can befall him that can stain that blessedness his blessednes would be impaired and interrupted while he is repenting tho he did soon rectifie that which is the cause of his repentance God is of one mind and who can turn him what his Soul desires that he doth * Job 23.13 2. But God accommodates himself in the Scripture to our weak capacity God hath no more of a proper repentance than he hath of a real body tho he in accommodation to our weakness ascribes to himself the members of our bodies to set out to our understanding the greatness of his perfections we must not conclude him a body like us so because he is said to have anger and repentance we must not conclude him to have passions like us When we cannot fully comprehend him as he is he cloths himself with our nature in his expressions that we may apprehend him as we are able and by an inspection into our selves learn something of the nature of God yet those human wayes of speaking ought to be understood in a manner agreeable to the infinite excellency and Majesty of God and are only designed to mark out something in God which hath a resemblance with something in us As we cannot speak to God as Gods but as men so we cannot understand him speaking to us as a God unless he condescend to speak to us like a man God therefore frames his language to our dulness not to his own state and informs us by our own phrases what he would have us learn of his nature as Nurses talk broken language to young Children In all such expressions therefore we must ascribe the perfection we conceive in them to God and lay the imperfection at the door of the Creature 3. Therefore repentance in God is only a change of his outward conduct according to his infallible foresight and immutable Will He changes the way of his Providential proceeding according to the carriage of the Creature without changing his Will which is the Rule of his Providence when God speaks of his repenting that he had made man * Gen. 6.6 t is only his changing his conduct from a way of kindness to a way of severity and is a word suted to our capacities to signifie his detestation of sin and his resolution to punish it after man had made himself quite another thing than God had made him It repents me that is I am purposed to destroy the world as he that repents of his work throws it away * Mercer ir loc As if a Potter cast away the vessel he had framed it were a testimony that he repented that ever he took pains about it So the destruction of them seems to be a repentance in God that ever he made them t is a change of events not of Counsels Repentance in us is a grief for a former fact and a changing of our course in it Grief is not in God * Petavius Theol. Dogmaâ— but his repentance is a willing a thing should not be as it was which Will was fixed from Eternity for God foreseeing Man would fall and decreeing to permit it he could not be said to repent in time of what he did not repent from Eternity and therefore if there were no repentance in God from Eternity there could be none in time But God is said to repent when he changes the disposition of affairs without himself as men when they repent alter
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
cannot be well governed but by one endowed with infinite Discretion Providential government can be no more without infinite wisdom than infinite wisdom can be without Providence Reas 3. The Creatures working for an end without their own knowledge demonstrates the wisdom of God that guides them All things in the World work for some end the ends are unknown to them though many of their ends are visible to us As there was some prime Cause which by his power inspir'd them with their several instincts so there must be some supream wisdom which moves and guides them to their end As their Being manifests his power that endowed them so the acting according to the rules of their Nature which they themselves understand not manifests his wisdom in directing them Every thing that acts for an end must know that end or be directed by another to attain that end The Arrow doth not know who shoots it or to what end it is shot or what Mark is aimed at but the Archer that puts it in and darts it out of the Bow knows A Watch hath a regular motion but neither the Spring nor the Wheels that move know the end of their motion no man will judge a wisdom to be in the Watch but in the Artificer that dispos'd the Wheels and Spring by a joint combination to produce such a motion for such an end Doth either the Sun that enlivens the Earth or the Earth that travels with the Plant know what Plant it produceth in such a Soil what temper it should be of what fruit it should bear and of what colour What Plant knows its own medicinal qualities it s own beautiful flowers and for what use they are ordain'd When it strikes up its head from the Earth doth it know what proportion of them there will be Yet it produceth all these things in a state of ignorance The Sun warms the Earth concocts the humours excites the vertue of it and cherishes the Seeds which are cast into her lap yet all unknown to the Sun or the Earth Since therefore that Nature that is the immediate cause of those things doth not understand its own quality nor operation nor the end of its action that which thus directs them must be conceived to have an infinite wisdom When things act by a Rule they know not and move for an end they understand not and yet work harmoniously together for one end that all of them we are sure are ignorant of it mounts up our minds to acknowledge the wisdom of that supream Cause that hath rang'd all these inferiour Causes in their order and imprinted upon them the Laws of their motions according to the Ideas in his own Mind who orders the Rule by which they act and the end for which they act and directs every motion according to their several Natures and therefore is possessed with infinite wisdom in his own Nature Reas 4. God is the fountain of all wisdom in the creatures and therefore is infinitely wise himself As he hath a fulness of being in himself because the streams of being are derived to other things from him So he hath a fulness of wisdom because he is the spring of wisdom to Angels and men That Being must be infinitely wise from whence all other wisdom derives its original For nothing can be in the effect which is not eminently in the cause the cause is alway more perfect than the effect If therefore the creatures are wise the Creator must be much more wise If the Creator were destitute of wisdom the creature would be much more perfect than the Creator If you consider the wisdom of the Spider in her web which is both her house and net the artifice of the Bee in her Comb which is both her chamber and granary the provision of the Pismire in her repositories for corn the wisdom of the Creator is illustrated by them whatsoever excellency you see in any creature is an Image of some excellency in God The skill of the artificer is visible in the fruits of his Art a workman transcribes his spirit in the work of his hands But the wisdom of rational creatures as men doth more illustrate it All Arts among men are the rayes of divine Wisdom shining upon them and by a common gift of the Spirit enlightning their minds to curious inventions as Prov. 8.12 I wisdom find out the knowledge of witty inventions that is I give a faculty to men to find them out without my wisdom all things would be buried in darkness and ignorance Whatsoever wisdom there is in the World it is but a shadow of the wisdom of God a small Rivulet derived from him a spark leaping out from Uncreated Wisdom Isa 54.16 He created the Smith that bloweth the coals in the fire and makes the Instruments The skill to use those weapons in War-like Enterprises is from him I have created the waster to destroy 'T is not meant of creating their Persons but communicating to them their Art He speaks it there to expell fear from the Church of all war-like preparations against them He had given Men the skill to form and use Weapons and could as well strip them of it and defeat their purposes The Art of husbandry is a fruit of divine teaching Isa 28.24 25. If those lower kinds of Knowledge that are common to all Nations and easily learn'd by all are discoveries of Divine Wisdom much more the nobler Sciences intellectual and Political Wisdom Dan. 2.21 He gives Wisdom to the wise and knowledge to them that know understanding speaking of the more abstruse parts of knowledge The inspiration of the Almighty gives Vnderstanding Job 32.8 Hence the Wisdom which Solomon exprest in the Harlots case 1 Kings 3.28 was in the Judgment of all Israel the Wisdom of God that is a fruit of Divine Wisdom a beam communicated to him from God Every mans Soul is endowed more or less with those noble qualities The Soul of every man exceeds that of a Brute If the streams be so excellent the Fountain must be fuller and clearer The first Spirit must infinitely more possess what other Spirits derive from him by Creation Were the Wisdom of all the Angels in Heaven and men on Earth collected in one Spirit it must be infinitely less than what is in the Spring for no Creature can be equal to the Creator As the highest Creature already made or that we can conceive may be made by Infinite Power would be infinitely below God in the Notion of a Creature so it would be infinitely below God in the Notion of Wise IV. The fourth Thing is Wherein the Wisdom of God appears It appears 1. In Creation 2. In Government 3. In Redemption 1. In Creation As in a Musical Instrument there is first the skill of the Workman in the frame then the skill of the Musician in stringing it proper for such Musical Notes as he will express upon it and after that the tempering of the Strings by
might be ordered as an Answer to his former Petition Psal 19.12 Cleanse thou me from my secret sins and as he did earnestly pray after his Fall so no doubt but he endeavour'd a thorough Sanctification Psal 51.7 Purge me wash me and that he meant not only a Sanctification from that single Sin but from all Root and Branch is evident by that Complaint of the slaw in his Nature verse 5. the Dross and Chaff which lies in the heart is hereby discovered and an opportunity administred of throwing it out and searching all the corners of the Heart to discover where it lay As God sometimes takes occasion from one Sin to reckon with Men in a way of Justice for others so he sometimes takes occasion from the commission of one Sin to bring out all the actions against the Sinner to make him in a way of gracious Wisdom set more cordially upon the work of Sanctification A great Fall sometimes hath been the occasion of a Mans Conversion The Fall of Mankind occasioned a more blessed Restoration and the Falls of particular Believers ofttimes occasion a more extensive Sanctification Thus the only Wise God makes poysons in Nature to become Medicines in a way of Grace and Wisdom 5. Hereby the growth in Grace is furthered 'T is a wonder of Divine Wisdom to substract sometimes his Grace from a Person and let him fall into Sin thereby to occasion the increase of habitual Grace in him and to augment it by those ways that seem'd to depress it By making Sins an occasion of a more vigorous acting the contrary Grace the Wisdom of God makes our Corruptions in their own nature destructive to become profitable to us Grace often breaks out more strongly afterwards as the Sun doth with its heat after it hath been mask'd and interrupted with a Mist They often through the mighty working of the Spirit make us more humble and Humility fits us to receive more Grace from God †James 4.6 How doth Faith that sunk under the Waves lift up its head again and carry the Soul out with a greater liveliness What ardours of Love what flouds of Repenting Tears what severity of Revenge what horrours at the remembrance of the Sin what Tremblings at the appearance of a second Temptation So that Grace seems to be be awaken'd to a new and more vigorous life ‖ 2 Cor. 7.11 The broken Joynt is many times stronger in the Rupture than it was before The Luxuriancy of the Branches of Corruption is an occasion of purging and purging is with a design to make Grace more fruitful John 15.2 He purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit Thus Divine Wisdom doth both sharpen and brighten us by the dust of Sin and ripen and mellow the fruits of Grace by the dung of Corruption Grace grows the stronger by opposition as the Fire burns hottest and clearest when it is most surrounded by a cold Air and our Natural heat reassumes a new strength by the coldness of the Winter The foyl under a Diamond though an imperfection in it self increaseth the beauty and lustre of the Stone The Enmity of Man was a commendation of the Grace of God It occasioned the breaking out of the Grace of God upon us and is an occasion by the Wisdom and Grace of God of the increase of Grace many times in us How should the Consideration of Gods Incomprhensible Wisdom in the management of Evil swallow us up in Admiration who brings forth such beauty such eminent Discoveries of himself such excellent good to the Creature out of the bowels of the greatest Contrarieties making dark Shadows serve to display and beautisie to our Apprehensions the Divine Glory If Evil were not in the World Men would not know what Good is They would not behold the lustre of Divine Wisdom as without Night we could not understand the beauty of the Day Though God is not the Author of Sin because of his Holiness yet he is the Administrator of Sin by his Wisdom and accomplisheth his own Purposes by the Iniquities of his Enemies and the Lapses and Infirmities of his Friends Thus much for the Second The Government of Man in his Lapsed state and the Government of Sin wherein the Wisdom of God doth wonderfully appear III. The Wisdom of God appears in the Government of Man in his Conversion and Return to him If there be a Counsel in framing the lowest Creature and in the minutest passages of Providence there must needs be a higher Wisdom in the government of the Creature to a Supernatural End and framing the Soul to be a monument of his Glory The Wisdom of God is seen with more Admirations and in more varieties by the Angels in the Church than in the Creation * Eph. 3.10 that is in forming a Church out of the Rubbish of the World out of Contrarieties and Contradictions to him which is greater than the framing a Celestial and Elementary World out of a rude Chaos The most glorious Bodies in the World even those of the Sun Moon and Stars have not such stamps of Divine Skill upon them as the Soul of Man nor is there so much of Wisdom in the Fabrick and Faculties of that as in the reduction of a blind wilful rebellious Soul to its own happiness and Gods glory Eph. 1.11 12. He worketh all things according to the counsel of his own Will that we should be for the praise of his glory If all things then this which is none of the least of his works To the praise of the glory of his Goodness in his work and to the praise of the Rule of his work his Counsel in both the act of his Will and the act of his Wisdom The restoring of the Beauty of the Soul and its fitness for its true end speaks no less Wisdom than the first draught of it in Creation And the application of Redemption and bringing forth the fruits of it is as well an act of his Prudence as the contrivance was of his Counsel Divine Wisdom appears First In the Subjects of Conversion His Goodness reigns in the very Dust and he erects the Walls and Ornaments of his Temple from the Clay and Mud of the World He passes over the Wise and Noble and Mighty that may pretend some grounds of boasting in their own natural or acquired Endowments and pitches upon the most contemptible Materials wherewith to build a Spiritual Tabernacle for himself 1 Cor. 1.26 27. The foolish and weak things of the World those that are naturally most unfit for it and most refractory to it Herein lies the Skill of an Architect to render the most knotty crooked and inform Pieces by his Art subservient to his main purpose and design Thus God hath ordered from the beginning of the World contrary Tempers various Humors diverse Nations as Stones of several Natures to be a Building for himself fitly framed together and to be his own Family †1 Cor. 3.7 Who will
by the throng and his death hath brought a defeat to his Army and deliverance to the other Party that were upon the brink of ruine Thus doth the Wisdom of God link things together according to Natural order to work out his intended preservation of a People 2. In the season of Deliverance The Timing of Affairs is a part of the Wisdom of Man and an eminent part of the Wisdom of God It is in due season he sends the former and the latter Rain when the Earth is in the greatest Indigence and when his Influences may most contribute to the bringing forth and ripening the Fruit. The dumb Creatures have their meat from him in due season * Psal 104.27 And in his due season have his darling People their Deliverance When Paul was upon his Journey to Damascus with a Persecuting Commission he is struck down for the security of the Church in that City The Nature of the Lion is changed in due season for the preservation of the Lambs from worrying The Israelites are miraculously rescued from Egypt when their Wits were at a loss when their danger to Human understanding was unavoidable when Earth and Sea refus'd protection then the Wisdom and Power of Heaven stept in to effect that which was past the skill of the Conductors of that Multitude And when the Lives of the Jews lay at the stake and their Necks were upon the Block at the mercy of their Enemies Swords by an Order from Shushan not only a Reprieve but a Triumph arrives to the Jews by the Wisdom of God guiding the Affair whereby of Persons design'd to execution they are made Conquerors and have opportunity to exercise their Revenge instead of their Patience proving Triumphers where they expected to be Sufferers †Esih 8 9. How strangely doth God by secret ways bow the hearts of Men and the nature of things to the execution of that which he designs notwithstanding all the resistance of that which would traverse the security of his People How often doth he trap the wicked in the work of their own hands make their confidence to become their ruine and ensnare them in those Nets they wrought and laid for others Psal 9.16 The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands He scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts Luke 1.51 in the height of their hopes when their designs have been laid so deep in the Foundation and knit and cemented so close in their superstructure that no Human Power or Wisdom could raze them down He hath then disappointed their Projects and befool'd their Craft How often hath he kept back the Fire when it hath been ready to devour broke the Arrows when they have been prepared in the Bow turned the Spear into the bowels of the Bearers and wounded them at the very instant they were ready to wound others 3. In suting Instruments to his purpose He either finds them sit or makes them on a suddain fit for his gracious ends If he hath a Tabernacle to build he will sit a Bezaleel and an Aholiab with the Spirit of wisdom and Understanding in all cunning workmanship Exod. 31.3 6. If he finds them crooked pieces he can like a wise Architect make them strait Beams for the rearing his House and for the honour of his Name He sometimes picks out men according to their natural Tempers and employs them in his Work Jehu a man of a furious Temper and ambitious Spirit is called out for the destruction of Ahab's House Moses a man furnisht with all Egyptian wisdom fitted by a generous Education prepared also by the Affliction he met with in his flight and one who had had the benefit of conversation with Jethro a man of more than an ordinary wisdom and goodness as appears by his prudent and religious Counsel this man is called out to be the Head and Captain of an opprest People and to rescue them from their Bondage and settle the first National Church in the World So Elijah a high spirited man of a hot and angry temper one that sl ghted the Frowns and undervalued the Favour of Princes is set up to stem the Torrent of the Israelitish Idolatry So Luther a man of the same temper is drawn out by the same Wisdom to encounter the Corruptions in the Church against such Opposition which a milder Temper would have sunâ— under The Earth in Rev. 12.16 is made an Instrument to help the woman When the Grandees of that Age transferred the Imperial Power upon Constantine who became afterwards a protecting and nursing Father to the Church a thnig end which many of his Favourers never design'd nor ever dreamt of But God by his infinite Wisdom made these several Designs like several Arrows shot at Rovers meet in one Mark to which he directed them viz. in bringing forth an Instrument to render Peace to the World and Security and Increase to his Church 3. The wisdom of God doth wonderfully appear in Redemption His wisdom in Creation ravisheth the Eye and Understanding his wisdom in Government doth no less affect a curious Observer of the Links and Concatenation of the Means but his wisdom in Redemption mounts the Mind to a greater astonishment The works of Creation are the Footsteps of his wisdom the work of Redâ—mption is the Face of his wisdom A man is better known by the Features of his Face than by the Prints of his Feet We with open face or a revealed face beholding the glory of the Lord 2 Cor. 3.18 Face there refers to God not to us the glory of God's wisdom is now open and no longer covered and vailed by the shadows of the Law As we behold the Light glorious as scattered in the Air before the appearance of the Sun but more gloriously in the Face of the Sun when it begins its Race in our Horizon All the wisdom of God in Creation and Government in his variety of Laws was like the light the three first days of the Creation disperst about the World but the fourth day it was more glorious when all gathered into the Body of the Sun Gen. 1.4 16. So the Light of Divine wisdom and glory was scattered about the World and so more obscure till the fourth Divine day of the World about the four thousandth year it was gathered into one Body the Sun of Righteousness and so shone out more gloriously to Men and Angels All things are weaker the thinner they are extended but stronger the more they are united and compacted in one Body and Appearance In Christ in the dispensation by him as well as in his Person were hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge Coloss 2.3 Some Doles of wisdom were given out in Creation but the Treasures of it opened in Redemption the highest degrees of it that ever God did exert in the World Christ is therefore called the wisdom of God as well as the power of God 1 Cor. 1.24 and the Gospel is called
that Redemption to us the order of the Persons had also been inverted The Spirit then who was third in order had been second in Operation The Son would then have received of the Spirit as the Spirit doth now of Christ and shew it unto us Joh. 1.15 As the Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son so the proper Function and Operation of it was in order alter the Operations of the Father and the Son Had the Spirit been sent to redeem us and the Son sent by the Father and the Spirit to apply that Redemption to us the Son in his acts had proceeded from the Father and the Spirit the Spirit as sender had been in order before the Son whereas the Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ as sent by Christ from the Father Gal. 4.6 Joh. 15.27 But as the order of the Works so the order of the Persons is preserved in their several Operations Creation and a Law to govern the Creature precedes Redemption Nothing or that which hath no being is not capable of a redeemed being Redemption supposeth the existence and the misery of a Person redeemed As Creation precedes Redemption so Redemption precedes the application of it As Redemption supposeth the being of the Creature so application of Redemption supposeth the efficacy of Redemption According to the order of these Works is the order of the Operations of the three Persons Creation belongs to the Father the first Person Redemption the second work is the Function of the Son the second Person Application the third work is the Office of the Holy Ghost the third Person The Father orders it the Son acts it the Holy Ghost applies it He purifies our Souls to understand believe and love these Mysteries He forms Christ in the womb of the Soul as he did the Body of Christ in the womb of the Virgin As the Spirit of God moved upon the waters to garnish and adorn the World after the Matter of it was formed Gen. 1.2 so he moves upon the heart to supple it to a complyance with Christ and draws the Lineaments of the new Creation in the Soul after the Foundation is laid The Son pays the price that was due from us to God and the Spirit is the earnest of the Promises of Life and Glory purchased by the Merit of that Death * Amyraâ—t Moral Tom. 5. p. 478 479 480. 'T is to be observed that the Father under the dispensation of the Law proposed the Commands with the Promises and Threatnings to the Understandings of Men and Christ under the dispensation of Grace when he was upon the Earth proposeth the Gospel as the Means of Salvation exhorts to Faith as the Condition of salvation but it was neither the Function of the one or the other to display such an efficacy in the Understanding and Will to make men believe and obey and therefore there were such few Conversions in the time of Christ by his Miracles But this work was reserved for the fuller and brighter appearance of the Spirit whose Office it was to convince the World of the necessity of a Redeemer because of their lost Condition of the Person of the Redeemer the Son of God of the sufficiency and efficacy of Redemption because of his righteousness and acceptation by the Father The Wisdom of God is seen in preparing and presenting the Objects and then in making impression of them upon the Subjects he intends And thus is the order of the three Persons preserved 2. The second Person had the greatest congruity to this work He by whom God created the World was most conveniently imployed in restoring the defaced World Who more fit to recover it from it s lapsed state John 1.4 than he that had erected it in its primitive state Hebr. 1.2 He was the light of men in Creation and therefore it was most reasonable he should be the light of men in Redemption Who sitter to reform the Divine Image than he that first formed it Who fitter to speak for us to God than he who was the Word Joh. 1.1 Who could better intercede with the Father than he who was the only begotten and beloved Son Who so fit to redeem the forfeited Inheritance as the Heir of all things Who fitter and better to prevail for us to have the right of Children than he that possessed it by Nature We fell from being the Sons of God and who fitter to introduce us into an adopted state than the Son of God Herein was an expression of the richer Grace because the first sin was immediately against the wisdom of God by an ambitious affectation of a wisdom equal to God That that Person who was the wisdom of God should be made a Sacrifice for the expiation of the sin against Wisdom 3. The wisdom of God is seen in the two Natures of Christ whereby this Redemption was accomplished The Union of the two Natures was the Foundation of the Union of God and the fallen Creature 1. The Vnion it self is admirable The Word is made Flesh Joh. 1.14 One equal with God in the form of a Servant Phil. 2.7 When the Apostle speaks of God manifested in the flesh he speaks the wisdom of God in a Mystery 1 Tim. 3.16 That which is incomprehensible to the Angels which they never imagined before it was revealed which perhaps they never knew till they beheld it I am sure under the Law the Figures of the Cherubims were placed in the Sanctuary with their faces looking towards the Propitiatory in a perpetual posture of Contemplation and Admiration Exod. 37.9 to which the Apostle alludes 1 Pet. 1.12 Mysterious is the wisdom of God to unite Finite and Infinite Almightiness and Weakness Immortality and Mortality Immutability with a Thing subject to Change to have a Nature from Eternity and yet a Nature subject to the Revolutions of Time a Nature to make a Law and a Nature to be subjected to the Law to be God blessed for ever in the bosom of his Father and an Infant exposed to Câ—lâ—mities from the Womb of his Mother Terms seeming most distant from union most uncapable of conjunction to shake hands together to be most intimately conjoyned Glory and Vileness Fulness and Emptiness Heaven and Earth the Creature with the Creator he that made all things in one Person with a Nature that is made Immanuel God and Man in one That which is most Spiritual to partake of that which is Carnal flesh and blood * Heb. 2.14 One with the Father in his Godhead one with us in his Manhood The Godhead to be in him in the fullest Perfection and the Manhood in the greatest Purity The Creature one with the Creator and the Creator one with the Creature Thus is the incomprehensible Wisdom of God declared in the Word being made Flesh 2. In the manner of this Vnion A Union of two Natures yet no Natural Union It transcends all the Unions visible among Creatures †Savana triâ—mp
the heart of a wise Man discerns both time and judgment Eccles 8.5 There is as much Judgment in sending them as Judgment in removing them How comfortable is it to think that our Distresses as well as our Deliverances are the fruits of Infinite Wisdom Nothing is done by him too soon or too slow but in the true point of Time with all its due circumstances most conveniently for his glory and our good How Wise is God to bring the glory of our Salvation out of the depths of a seeming Ruine and make the Evils of Affliction subservient to the good of the Afflicted 2. In Temptations his Wisdom is no less employed in permitting them than in bringing them to a good issue His Wisdom in leading our Saviour to be Tempted of the Devil was to fit him for our succour and his Wisdom in suffering us to be Tempted is to fit us for his own Service and our Salvation He makes a Thorn in the flesh to be an occasion of a refreshing Grace to the Spirit and brings forth cordial Grapes from those pricking Brambles and magnifies his Grace by his Wisdom from the deepest subtilties of Hell Let Satans Intentions be what they will he can be for him at every turn to out-wit him in his Stratagems to baffle him in his Enterprizes to make him instrumental for our good where he designs nothing but our hurt The Lord hath his methods of Deliverance from him 2 Pet. 2.9 The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of Temptation 3. In Denials or delays of Answers of Prayer He is gracious to Hear but he is wise to Answer in an acceptable time and succour us in a day proper for our salvation 2 Cor. 6.2 We have partial Affections to our selves Ignorance is natural to us Rom. 8.26 We ask we know not what because we ask out of Ignorance God grants what he knows what is fit for him to do and fit for us to receive and the exact season wherein it is fittest for him to bestow a Mercy As God would have us bring forth our Fruit in season so he will send forth his Mercies in season He is wise to sute his Remedy to our Condition to Time it so as that we shall have an evident prospect of his Wisdom in it that more of Divine Skill and less of Human may appear in the Issue He is ready at our Call but he will not Answer till he see the Season fit to reach out his hand He is wise to prove our Faith to humble us under the sense of our own Unworthiness to whet our Affections to set a better estimate on the Blessings prayed for and that he may double the Blessing as we do our Devotion But when his Wisdom sees us fit to receive his Goodness he grants what we stand in need of He is Wise to chuse the fittest Time and Faithful to give the best Covenant Mercy 4. In all Evils threatned to the Church by her Enemies He hath Knowledge to fore-see them and Wisdom to disappoint them Job 5.13 He taketh the wise in their own craftiness and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong The Church hath the Wisdom of God to enter the Lists with the Policy of Hell He defeated the Serpent in the first Net he laid and brought a glorious Salvation out of Hells Rubbish and is yet as Skilful to disappoint the After-game of the Serpentine-brood The Policy of Hell and the Subtilty of the World are no better than Folly with God 1 Cor. 3.19 All Creatures are Fools as Creatures in comparison with the Creator The Angels he chargeth with Folly much more us Sinners Depraved Understandings are not fit Mates for a pure and unblemish'd Mind Pharaoh with his wisdom finds a Grave in the Sea and Achitophels Plots are finished in his own murder He breaks the Enemies by his Power and orders them by his Skill to be a feast to his People Psal 74.14 Thou brakest the Head of the Leviathan and gavest him to be meat to the people in the Wilderness The Spoils of the Egyptians Carkasses cast upon the shore served the Israelites Necessities or were as Meat to them as being a Deliverance the Church might feed upon in all Ages in a Wilderness Condition to maintain their Faith the vital Principle of the Soul There is a Wisdom superiour to the subtilties of Men which laughs at their Follies and hath them in derision Psal 2.4 There is no wisdom or counsel against the Lord Prov. 21.30 You never question the wisdom of an Artist to use his File when he takes it into his hand Wicked Instruments are Gods Axes and Files let him alone he hath Skill enough to manage them God hath too much Affection to destroy his People and Wisdom enough to beautifie them by the worst Tools he uses He can make all things conspire in a perfect harmony for his own Ends and his Peoples good when they see no way to escape a Danger feared or attain a Blessing wanted Vse IV. I. For Exhortation 1. Meditate on the Wisdom of God in Creation and Government How little do we think of God when we behold his Works Our Sense dwells upon the surface of Plants and Animals beholds the variety of their Colours and the progress in their Motion Our Reason studies the qualities of them our Spirits seldom take a slight to the Divine Wisdom which framed them Our Senses engross our Minds from God that we scarce have a Thought free to bestow upon the Maker of them but only on the by The constancy of seeing things that are common stifles our Admiration of God due upon the sight of them How seldom do we raise our Souls as far as Heaven in our views of the Order of the World the Revolutions of the Seasons the Natures of the Creatures that are common among us and the mutual Assistances they give to each other Since God hath manifested himself in them to neglect the Consideration of them is to neglect the Manifestation of God and the way whereby he hath transmitted something of his Perfections to our Understanding It renders Men inexcusably guilty of not glorifying of God Rom. 1.19 20. We can never neglect the meditation of the Creatures without a blemish cast upon the Creators Wisdom As every River can conduct us to the Sea so every Creature points us to an Ocean of Infinite Wisdom Not the minutest of them but rich tracts of this may be observed in them and a due sense of God result from them They are exposed to our view that something of God may be lodged in our Minds that as our Bodies extract their quintessence for our Nourishment so our Minds may extract a quintessence for the Makers Praise Though God is principally to be Praised in and for Christ yet as Grace doth not raze out the Law of Nature so the operations of Grace put not the dictates of Nature to silence nor suspend the Homage due to God upon our
The Power of God is seen in those Commotions in the Air and Earth by Thunders Lightnings Storms Earth-quakes which rack the Air and make the Mountains and Hills tremble as Servants before a frowning and rebuking Master And as he makes motions in the Earth and Air so is his Power seen in their Influences upon the Sea He judges the Sea with his power and by his understanding he smites through the proud †Verse 12. At the Creation he put the Waters into several Channels and caused the dry Land to appear barefac'd for a Habitation for Man and Beasts or rather he splits the Sea by Storms as though he would make the bottom of the Deep visible and rakes up the Sands to the Surface of the Waters and marshals the Waves into Mountains and Valleys After that he smites through the proud that is humbles the proud Waves and by allaying the Storm reduceth them to their former Level The Power of God is visible as well in rebuking as in awakning the winds he makes them sensible of his Voice and according to his Pleasure exasperates or calms them The striking through the proud here is not probably meant of the destruction of the Egyptian Army for some guess that Job died that year †Drusius in loc or about the time of the Israelites coming out of Egypt So that this Discourse here being in the time of his Affliction could not point at that which was done after his restoration to his temporal Prosperity And now at last he sums up the Power of God in the chiefest of his Works above and the greatest wonder of his Works below Verse 13. By his Spirit he hath garnisht the Heavens his hand hath formed the crooked Serpent c. The greater and lesser Lights Sun Moon and Stars the Ornaments and Furniture of Heaven and the Whale a prodigious Monument of Gods Power often mention'd in Scripture to this purpose and in particular in this Book of Job ‖ Job 41. and called by the same name of Crooked Serpent Isa 27.1 where it is applied by way of Metaphor to the King of Assyria or Egypt or all Oppressors of the Church Various Interpretations there are of this crooked Serpent Some understanding that Constellation in Heaven which Astronomers call the Dragon some that Combination of weaker Stars which they call the Galaxia which winds about the Heavens But it is most probable that Job drawing near to a conclusion of his Discourse joyns the two greatest Testimonies of Gods Power in the World the highest Heavens and the lowest Leviathan which is here called a bar Serpent * As the word signifies in the Hebrew in regard of his strength and hardness as mighty Men are called bars in Scripture Jer. 51.30 Her bars are broken things And in regard of this Power of God in the Creation of this Creature 't is particularly mention'd in the Catalogue of Gods Works Gen. 1.21 And God created great Whales all the other Creatures being put into one sum and not particularly exprest And now he makes the use of this Lecture in the Text Loe these are parts of his ways but how little a portion is heard of him but the thunder of his Power who can understand This is but a small Landskip of some of his Works of Power the outsides and extremities of it more glorious things are within his Palaces Though those things argue a stupendous Power of the Creator in his Works of Creation and Providence yet they are nothing to what may be declared of his Power And what may be declared is nothing to what may be conceived and what may be conceived is nothing to what is above the conceptions of any Creature These are but little Crumbs and Fragments of that infinite Power which is in his Nature like a drop in comparison of the mighty Ocean a hiss or whisper in comparison of a mighty Voice of Thunder †Oecolamp This which I have spoken is but like a Spark to the fiery Region a few lines by the by a drop of speech The thunder of his Power Some understand it of Thunder literally for material Thunder in the Air The Thunder of his Power that is according to the Hebrew Dialect his powerful Thunder This is not the sense the nature of Thunder in the Air doth not so much exceed the capacity of human understanding 't is therefore rather to be understood Metaphorically The Thunder of his Power that is the greatness and immensity of his Power manifested in the magnificent Miracles of Nature in the consideration whereof men are astonished as if they had heard an unusual Clap of Thunder So Thunder is used Job 39.25 The Thunder of the Captains that is strength and force of the Captains of an Army And verse 19. God speaking to Job of a Horse saith Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder that is strength And Thunder being a mark of the Power of God some of the Heathen have called God by the name of a Thunderer The ancient Gawl◠worshipped him under the name of Taranis The Greeks called Jupiter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Thor whence our Thursday is derived signifieth Thunderer a title the Germans gave their God And Toran in the British Language signifies Thunder Voss Idolo lib. 2. cap. 33. Camb. Britan. p. 17. As Thunder pierceth the lowest places and alters the state of things so doth the Power of God penetrate into all things whatsoever the Thunder of his Power that is the Greatness of his Power as the strength of Salvation Psal 20.6 that is a mighty Salvation Who can understand Who is able to count all the Monuments of his Power How doth this little which I have spoken of exceed the capacity of our Understanding and is rather the matter of our astonishment than the object of our comprehensive knowledge The Power of the greatest Potentate or the mightiest Creature is but of small extent None but have their limits It may be understood how far they can act in what sphere their activity is bounded But when I have spoken all of Divine Power that I can when you have thought all that you can think of it your Souls will prompt you to conceive something more beyond what I have spoken and what you have thought His Power shines in every thing and is beyond every thing There is infinitely more Power lodged in his Nature not exprest to the World The understanding of Men and Angels centred in one Creature would fall short of the perception of the Infiniteness of it All that can be comprehended of it are but little Fringes of it a small Portion No man ever discours'd or can of Gods Power according to the magnificence of it No Creature can conceive it God himself only comprehends it God himself is only able to express it Mans power being limited his Line is too short to measure the incomprehensible Omnipotence of God The thunder of his Power who can understand
they entitle God in their Liturgy the Lord of Ages that is the Lord of the World and all Ages and Revolutions of the World from the Creation to the last Period of Time If any thing were in Being before this frame of Heaven and Earth and within the compass of Time it receiv'd Being and Duration from the Son of God The Apostle would give an Argument to prove the equity of making him Heir of all things as Mediator because he was the Framer of all things as God He may well be the Heir or Lord of Angels as well as Men who created Angels as well as Men All things were justly under his Power as Mediator since they deriv'd their Existence from him as Creator 3. But Thirdly what evasion can there be for that Coloss 1.16 By him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were created by him and for him He is said to be the Creator of Material and Visible things as well as Spiritual and Invisible of things in Heaven which needed no restoration as well as things on Earth which were polluted by Sin and stood in need of a new Creation How could the Angels belong to the new Creation who had never put off the honour and purity of the first Since they never divested themselves of their original Integrity they could not be reinvested with that which they never lost Besides suppose the Holy Angels be one way or other reduc'd as parts of the new Creation as being under the Mediatory Government of our Saviour as their Head and in regard of their confirmation by him in that happy state In what manner shall the Devils be ran'kd among new Creatures They are called Principalities and Powers as well as the Angels and may come under the Title of Things invisible That they are called Principalities and Powers is plain Ephes 6.12 For we wrestle not against Flesh and Blood but against Principalities and Powers the Rulers of the Darkness of this World against Spiritual wickedness in high places Good Angels are not there meant for what War have Believers with them or they with Believers They are the Guardians of them since Christ hath taken away the Enmity between our Lord and theirs in whose quarrel they were engag'd against us And since the Apostle speaking of All things created by him expresseth it so that it cannot be conceived he should except any thing how come the finally Impenitent and Unbelievers which are Things in Earth and visible to be listed here in the Roll of New Creatures None of these can be called New Creatures because they are subjected to the Government of Christ no more than the Earth and Sea and the Animals in it are made New Creatures because they are all under the Dominion of Christ and his Providential Government Again the Apostle manifestly makes the Creation he here speaks of to be the Material and not the New Creation for that he speaks of afterwards as a distinct act of our Lord Jesus under the Title of Reconciliation Coloss 1.20 21. which was the restoration of the World and the satisfying for that Curse that lay upon it His intent is here to shew that not an Angel in Heaven nor a Creature upon Earth but was placed in their several degrees of excellency by the Power of the Son of God who after that act of Creation and the entrance of Sin was the Reconciler of the World through the Blood of his Cross 4. There is another place as clear John 1.3 All things were made by him and without him was nothing made that was made The Creation is here ascrib'd to him Affirmatively All things were made by him Negatively There was nothing made without him And the Words are Emphatical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not one thing excepting nothing including invisible things as well as things conspicuous to sense only mentioned in the story of the Creation Gen. 1. not only the intire Mass but the distinct parcels the smallest Worm and the highest Angel owe their Original to him And if not one thing then the Matter was not created to his hands and his work consisted not only in the forming things from that Matter If that one thing of Matter were excepted a chief thing were excepted if not one thing were excepted then he created Something of Nothing because Spirits as Angels and Souls are not made of any pre-existing or fore-created Matter How could the Evangelist phrase it more extensively and comprehensively This is a Character of Omnipotency to create the World and every thing in it of Nothing requires an Infinite Virtue and Power If all things were created by him they were not created by him as Man because Himself as Man was not in Being before the Creation If all things were made by him then Himself was not made Himself was not created and to be existent without being made without being created is to be unboundedly Omnipotent And if we understand it of the New Creation as they do that will not allow him an existence in his Deity before his Humanity it cannot be true of that for how could he regenerate Abraham make Simeon and Anna new Creatures who waited for the salvation of Israel and form John Baptist and fill him with the Holy Ghost even from the womb * Luke 1.15 who belong'd to the new Creation and was to prepare the way if Christ had not a Being before him The Evangelist alludes to and explains the History of the Creation in the beginning and acquaints us what was meant by God said so often viz. the Eternal Word and describes him in his Creative Power manifested in the framing the World before he describes him in his Incarnation when he came to lay the Foundation of the restoration of the World John 1.14 The Word was made flesh this Word who was with God who was God who made all things and gave Being to the most glorious Angels and the meanest Creature without exception this Word in time was made flesh 5. The Creation of things mentioned in these Scriptures cannot be attributed to him as an Instrument As if when it is said God created all things by him and by him made the Worlds we were to understand the Father to be the Agent and the Son to be a Tool in his Fathers hand as an Ax in the hand of a Carpenter or a File in the hand of a Smith or a Servant acting by Command as the Organ of his Master The Preposition Per. or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not alway signifie an Instrumental cause When it is said that the Apostle gave the Thessalonians a Command by Jesus Christ 1 Thess 4 2. was Christ the Instrument and not the Lord of that Command the Apostle gave The immediate Operation of Christ dwelling in the Apostles was that whereby they gave the Commands to their Disciples When we are called by God
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
God speaking of the opposite to it the Vncleaness and Prophaness of the Gentiles We are only alienated from that which we are bound to imitate but this is the Perfection alway set out as the Pattern of our Actions Be you holy as I am Holy no other is proposed as our Copy Alienated from that Purity of God which is as much as his Life without which he could not live If he were stript of this he would be a dead God more than by the want of any other Perfection His Swearing by it intimates as much He Swears often by his own Life As I live saith the Lord so he Swears by his Holiness as if it were his Life and more his Life than any other Let me not live or Let me not be Holy are all one in his Oath His Deity could not outlive the Life of his Purity II. As it seems to challenge an Excellency above all his other Perfections so 't is the glory of all the rest As it is the glory of the Godhead so 't is the glory of every Perfection in the Godhead As his Power is the Strength of them so his Holiness is the Beauty of them As all would be weak without Almightiness to back them so all would be uncomly without Holiness to adorn them Should this be sullied all the rest would lose their Honour and their comfortable Efficacy As at the same instant that the Sun should lose its Light it would lose its Heat its Strength its generative and quickening virtue As Sincerity is the lustre of every Grace in a Christian so is Purity the splendor of every Attribute in the Godhead His Justice is a holy Justice his Wisdom a holy Wisdom his Arm of Power a Holy Arm Psal 98.1 his Truth or Promise a Holy Promise Psal 105.42 Holy and True go hand in hand Revel 6.10 His Name which signifies all his Attributes in conjunction is Holy Psal 103.1 Yea he is Râ—ghteous in all his waies and Holy in all his works Psal 145 17. 'T is the Rule oâ— all his Acts the Source of all his Punishments If every Attribute of the Deity were a distinct Member Purity would be the Form the Soul the Spirit to animate them Without it his Patience would be an Indulgence to Sin his Mercy a Fondness his Wrath a Madness his Power a Tyranny his Wisdom an unworthy Subtilty 'T is this gives a Decorum to all His Mercy is not exercis'd without it since he pardons none but those that have an Interest by Union in the Obedience of a Mediator which was so delightful to his Infinite Purity His Justice which Guilty man is apt to tax with Cruelty and Violence in the exercise of it is not acted out of the compass of this Rule In Acts of Mans vindictive Justice there is something of Impurity Perturbation Passion some mixture of Cruelty but none of these fall upon God in the severest Acts of Wrath. When God appears to Ezekiel in the resemblance of Fire to signifie his Anger against the House of Judah for their Idolatry from his Loyns downward there was the appearance of Fire but from the Loyns upward the appearance of Brightness as the colour of Amber Ezek. 8.2 His Heart is clear in his most Terrible acts of Vengeance 't is a pure Flame wherewith he scorcheth and burns his Enemies He is Holy in the most fiery appearance This Attribute therefore is never so much applauded as when his Sword hath been drawn and he hath manifested the greatest fierceness against his Enemies The Magnificent and Triumphant expression of it in the Text follows just upon Gods Miraculous defeat and ruine of the Egyptian Army The Sea covered them they sank as Lead in the mighty waters Then it follows Who is like unto thee oh Lord glorious in Holiness And when it was so celebrated by the Seraphims Isai 6.3 it was when the Posts moved and the House was filled with smoke v. 4. which are signs of Anger Psal 18.7 8. And when he was about to send Isaiah upon a Message of Spiritual and Temporal Judgments that he would make the heart of that people fat and their ears heavy and their eyes shut waste their Cities without Inhabitant and their Houses without Man and make the Land desolate Verses 9 10 11 12. and the Angels which here applaud him for his Holiness are the Executioners of his Justice and here called Seraphims from burning or fiery Spirits as being the Ministers of his Wrath. His Justice is part of his Holiness whereby he doth reduce into order those things that are out of order When he is consuming Men by his Fury he doth not diminish but manifest Purity Zephany 3.5 The just Lord is in the midst of her he will do no Iniquity Every Action of his is free from all tincture of Evil. 'T is also celebrated with Praise by the four Beasts about his Throne when he appears in a Covenant garb with a Rain-bow about his Throne and yet with Thundrings and Lightnings shot out against his Enemies Revel 4.8 compared with vers 3.5 to shew that all his Acts of Mercy as well as Justice are clear from any stain This is the Crown of all his Attributes the Life of all his Decrees the Brightness of all his Actions Nothing is Decreed by him nothing is acted by him but what is worthy of the Dignity and becoming the Honour of this Attribute For the better understanding this Attribute observe 1. The Nature of this Holiness 2. The Demonstration of it 3. The Purity of his Nature in all his Acts about Sin 4. The Vse of all to our selves First The Nature of Divine Holiness In General The Holiness of God Negatively is a perfect and unpolluted freedom from all Evil. As we call Gold pure that is not embased by any Dross and that Garment clean that is free from any Spot so the Nature of God is estranged from all shadow of Evil all imaginable contagion Positively 'T is the Rectitude or Integrity of the Divine Nature or that conformity of it in Affection and Action to the Divine Will as to his Eternal Law whereby he works with a becomingness to his own Excellency and whereby he hath a delight and complacency in every thing agreeable to his Will and an abhorrency of every thing contrary thereunto As there is no darkness in his Understanding so there is no spot in his Will As his Mind is possessed with all Truth so there is no deviation in his Will from it He loves all Truth and Goodness He hates all falsity and Evil. In regard of his Righteousness he loves Righteousness Psal 11.7 The righteous Lord loveth righteousness and hath no pleasure in wickedness Psal 5.4 He values Purity in his Creatures and detests all Impurity whether inward or outward ‖ Martin de Deo p. 86. We may indeed distinguish the Holiness of God from his Righteousness in our Conceptions Holiness is a Perfection absolutely considered in the Nature
when that Fire is removed they return to their natural quality of hardness and brittleness the positive act of the Fire is to melt and soften and the softness of the Rosin is to be ascribed to that but the hardness is from the Rosin it self wherein the Fire hath no influence but only a negative act by a removal of it So when God hardens a man he only leaves him to that stony heart which he derived from Adam and brought with him into the world All mens understandings being blinded and their wills perverted in Adam God's withdrawing his Grace is but a leaving them to their natural pravity which is the cause of their further sinning and not God's removal of that special light he before afforded them or restraint he held over them As when God withdraws his preserving Power from the Creature he is not the efficient but deficient cause of the Creatures destruction so in this case God only ceaseth to bind and damm up that sin which else would break out 2. The whole positive cause of this hardness is from mans corruption God infuseth not any sin into his Creatures but forbears to infuse his Grace restrain their Lusts which upon the removal of his Grace work impetuously God only gives them up to that which he knows will work strongly in their hearts And therefore the Apostle wipes off from God any positive act in that uncleaness the Heathens were given up to Rom. 1.24 Wherefore God gave them up to uncleaness through the lusts of their own hearts And verse 26. God gave them up to vile affections but they were their own affections none of Gods inspiring by adding through the lusts of their own Hearts Gods giving them up was the Logical cause or a cause by way of Argument their own Lusts were the true and natural cause their own they were before they were given up to them and belonging to none as the Author but themselves after they were given up to them The Lust in the Heart and the temptation without easily close and mix interests with one another As the Fire in a Coal pit will with the fuell if the streams derived into it for the quenching it be dam'd up The naturall Passions will run to a temptation as the Waters of a River tumble towards the Sea When a man that hath bridled in a high mettled-Horse from running out gives him the Rains or a Huntsman takes off the string that held the Dog and lets him run after the Hare are they the immediate cause of the motion of the one or the other no but the mettle and strength of the Horse and the natural inclination of the Hound both which are left to their own motions to pursue their own natural instincts Man doth as naturally tend to sin as a stone to the Center or as a weighty thing inclines to a motion to the Earth Tâ—s from the propension of mans nature that he drinks up iniquity like water and God doth no more when he leaves a man to sin by taking away the Hedge which stopt him but leave him to his natural Inclination As a man that breaks up a damm he hath placed leaves the Streams to run in their natural Chanel or one that takes away a prop from a Stone to let it fall leaves it only to that nature which inclines it to a descent both have their motion from their own Nature and man his Sin from his own Corruption * Amyrald de predest p. 107. The withdrawing the Sun-beams is not the cause of Darkness but the Shadiness of the Earth nor is the departure of the Sun the cause of Winter but the coldness of the Air and Earth which was temper'd and beaten back into the bowels of the Earth by the vigor of the Sun upon whose departure they return to their natural state The Sun only leaves the Earth and Air as it found them at the beginning of the Spring or the beginning of the Day If God do not give a man Grace to melt him yet he cannot be said to communicate to him that nature which hardens him which man hath from himself As God was not the cause of the first sin of Adam which was the root of all other so he is not the cause of the following sins which as branches spring from that root mans free-will was the cause of the first sin and the corruption of his nature by it the cause of all succeeding sins God doth not immediately harden any man but doth propose those things from whence the natural Vice of man takes an occasion to strengthen and nourish itself Hence God is said to harden Pharao'hs Heart ‖ Exod. 7.13 by concurring with the Magicians in turning their rods into Serpents which stiffened his Heart against Moses conceiving him by reason of that to have no more power than other men and was an occasion of his further hardning And Pharaoh is said to harden himself * Exod. 8.32 that is in regard of his own natural passion 3. God is holy and righteous because he doth not withdraw from man till man deserts him To say that God withdrew that Grace from Adam which he had afforded him in Creation or any thing that was due to him till he had abused the Gifts of God and turned them to an end contrary to that of Creation would be a reflection upon the Divine Holiness God was first deserted by man before man was deserted by God and man doth first contemn and abuse the common Grace of God and those reliques of natural light that enlighten every man that comes into the World †John 1 9. before God leaves him to the hurry of his own Passions Ephraim was first joyned to Idols before God pronounced the fatal sentence Let him alone ‖ Hos 4.17 And the Heathens first changed the glory of the incorruptible God before God withdrew his common Grace from the corrupted creature * Rom. 1.23 24. and they first served the Creature more then the Creator before the Creator gave them up to the slavish Chains of their vile affections †Ver. 25 26. Israel first cast off God before God cast off them but then he gave them up to their own Hearts Lusts and they walked in their own Counsels Psa 81.11 12. Since sin entred into the World by the fall of Adam and the blood of all his posterity was tainted Man cannot do any thing that is formally good not for want of faculties but for the want of a righteous habit in those faculties especially in the Will yet God discovers himself to man in the works of his hands he hath left in him footsteps of natural reason he doth attend him with common motions of his Spirit corrects him for his faults with gentle Chastisements He is neer unto all in some kind of Instructions He puts many times providential bars in their way of sinning but when they will rush into it as the Horse into
such a return that he hath usually aggravated from the Benefits he hath bestow'd upon Men. Every thought of him should be attended with a Motion sutable to the Excellency of his Nature and Works Can we think those nobler Spirits the Angels look upon themselves or those Frames of things in the Heavens and Earth without starting some practical Affection to him for them Their knowledge of his Excellency and Works cannot be a lazy Contemplation 'T is impossible their Wills and Affections should be a thousand Miles distant from their Understandings in their Operations 'T is not the least part of his condescending Goodness to Court in such Methods the Affections of us Worms and manifest his desire to be beloved by us Let us give him then that Affection he deserves as well as demands and which cannot be with-held from him without horrible Sacriledge There is nothing worthy of love besides him Let no Fire be kindled in our hearts but what may ascend directly to him 7. The seventh Instruction is this This renders God a fit Object of trust and confidence Since none is good but God none can be a full and satisfactory Ground or Object of confidence but God As all things derive their beings so they derive their helpfulness to us from God they are not therefore the principal Objects of trust but that Goodness alone that renders them fit Instruments of our support They can no more challenge from us a stable Confidence than they can a Supream Affection 'T is by this the Psalmist allures Men to a trust in him * Psal 34.8 Taste and see how good the Lord is What is the consequence Blessed is the Man that trusts in thee The Voice of Divine Goodness sounds nothing more intelligibly and a taste of it produceth nothing more effectually than this As the Vials of his Justice are to make us fear him so the Streams of his Goodness are to make us rely on him As his Patience is design'd to broach our Repentance so his Goodness is most proper to strengthen our assurance in him That Goodness which surmounted so many difficulties and conquer'd so many motions that might be made against any repeated Exercise of it after it had been abus'd by the first Rebellion of Man That Goodness that after so much contempt of it appeared in such a Majestick tenderness and threw aside those impediments which Men had cast in the way of Divine Inclinations This Goodness is the foundation of all reliance upon God Who is better than God And therefore Who more to be trusted than God As his Power cannot act any thing weakly so his Goodness cannot act any thing unbecomingly and unworthy of his Infinite Majesty And here consider 1. Goodness is the first motive of trust Nothing but this could be the encouragement to Man had he stood in a State of Innocence to present himself before God The Majesty of God would have constrain'd him to keep his due distance but the Goodness of God could only hearten his Confidence 'T is nothing else now that can preserve the same temper in us in our lapsed Condition To regard him only as the Judge of our Crimes will drive us from him but only the regard of him as the Donor of our Blessings will allure us to him The principal Foundation of Faith is not the Word of God but God himself and God as consider'd in this Perfection As the Goodness of God in his Invitations and Providential Blessings leads us to Repentance * Rom. 2.4 so by the same reason the Goodness of God by his Promises leads us to Reliance If God be not first believed to be good he would not be believed at all in any thing that he speaks or swears If you were not satisfied in the goodness of a Man though he should swear a thousand times you would value neither his Word nor Oath as any security Many times where we are certain of the goodness of a Man we are willing to trust him without his promise This Divine Perfection gives Credit to the Divine Promises they of themselves would not be a sufficient ground of trust without an apprehension of his truth nor would his truth be very comfortable without a belief of his good will whereby we are assured that what he promises to give he gives liberally free and without regret The truth of the Promiser makes the Promise Credible but the goodness of the Promiser makes it chearfully relied on In Psal 73. Asaphs Penitential Psalm for his distrust of God he begins the first Verse with an assertion of this Attribute v. 1. Truly God is good to Israel and ends with this fruit of it Verse 28. I will put my trust in the Lord God 'T is a mighty ill Nature that receives not with assurance the Dictates of Infinite Goodness that cannot deceive or frustrate the hopes we conceive of him that is unconceivably more abundant in the breast and inclinations of the Promiser than expressible in the words of his Promise All true faith works by love * Gal. 5.6 and therefore necessarily includes a particular eying of this Excellency in the Divine Nature which renders him amiable and is the Motive and Encouragement of a love to him His Power indeed is a foundation of trust but his Goodness is the principal Motive of it His Power without good Will would be dangerous and could not allure Affection and his good Will without Power would be useless and though it might merit a love yet could not create a Confidence both in conjunction are strong grounds of hope Especially since his Goodness is of the same infinity with his Wisdom and Power and that he can be no more wanting in the effusions of this upon them that seek him than in his Wisdom to contrive or his Power to effect his Designs and Works 2. This goodness is more the foundation and motive of trust under the Gospel than under the Law They under the Law had more evidences of Divine Power and their trust eyed that much though there was an eminency of goodness in the frequent deliverances they had yet the Power of God had a more glorious dress than his Goodness because of the extraordinary and miraculous ways whereby he brought those deliverances about Therefore in the Catalogue of Believers in Heb. 11. you shall find the Power of God to be the Center of their Rest and Trust and their Faith was built upon the extraordinary Marks of Divine Power which were frequently visible to them But under the Gospel goodness and love was intended by God to be the chief Object of trust suitable to the Excellency of that Dispensation he would have an Exercise of more ingenuity in the Creatures Therefore 't is said Hosea 3.5 A promise of Gospel-times They shall fear God and his goodness in the later days when they shall return to seek the Lord and David their King 'T is not said they shall fear God and his Power but
a man of them succeeded in the Throne but the Crown is transferr'd to Jehu by Gods disposal In Warrs whereby flourishing Kingdoms are overthrown God hath the cheif hand in reference to which it is observed that in the two Prophets Isaiah and Jeremy God is called the Lord of Hosts 130 times 'T is not the Sword of the Captain but the Sword of the Lord bears the first rank The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon Judg. 7.18 The Sword of a Conqueror is the Sword of the Lord and receives its Charge and Commission from the great Soveraign Jerem. 47.6 7. VVe are apt to confine our thoughts to second Causes lay the fault upon the miscarriages of persons the Ambition of the one and the Covetousness of another and regard them not as the effects of Gods soveraign Authority linking second Causes together to serve his own purpose The skill of one man may lay open the folly of a Counsellour an earthly force may break in peices the power of a mighty Prince But Job in his consideration of those things referrs the matter higher Job 12.18 He looseth the bond of Kings and girdeth their Loyns with a girdle He looseth the Bonds of Kings i. â— takes off the yokes they lay upon their Subjects and girds their Loyns with a girdle A Cord as the Vulgar he lays upon them those fetters they fram'd for others such a girdle or band as is the mark of Captivity as the words ver 19. confirm it He leads Princes away spoil'd and overthrows the mighty God lifts up some to a great height and casts down others to a disgraceful ruine All those changes in the face of the World the revolutions of Emâ—ires the desolating and ravaging wars which are often immediately the birth of the Vice Ambition and fury of Princes are the Royal Acts of God as Governour of the World All Government belongs to him he is the Fountain of all the Great and the Petty Dominions in the World And therefore may place in them what substitutes and Vicegerents he pleaseth As a Prince may remove his Officers at pleasure and take their Commissions from them The highest are setled by God durante bene placito and not quamdiu bene se gâ—ssâ—rint Those Princes that have been the Glory of their Country have sway'd the Scepter but a short time when the more Wolvish ones have remain'd longâ—r in Commission as God hath seen fit for the ends of his own Soveraign Government Now by the revolutions in the World and Changes in Governours and Government God keeps up the acknowledgment of his Soveraignty when he doth arrest grand and publick offenders that wear a Crown by his Providence and employ it by their pride against him that plac'd it there When he arraigns such by a signal hand from Heaven he makes them the publick examples of the rights of his Soveraignty declaring thereby that the Cedars of Lebanon are as much at his foot as the Shrubs of the Valley that he hath as Soveraign an Authority over the Throne in the Palace as over the Stool in the Cottage 2. The Dominion of God is manifested in raising up and ordering the Spirits of men according to his pleasure He doth as the Father of Spirits communicate an influence to the Spirits of men as well as an existence he puts what inclinations he pleaseth into the will stores it with what habits he please whither natural or supernatural whereby it may be render'd more ready to act according to the divine purpose The will of man is a finite principle and therefore subject to him who hath an infinite Soveraignty over all things and God having a Soveraignty over the will in the manner of its acting as causeth it to will what he wills as to the outward act and the outward manner of performing it There are many examples of this part of his Soveraignty God by his Soveraign conduct ordered Moses a Protectoress as soon as his Parents had form'd an Ark of Bulrushes wherein to set him floting on the River Exod. 2.3 4.5.6 They expose him to the waves and the waves expose him to the view of Pharoahs Daughter whom God by his secret ordering her motion had posted in that place and though she was the Daughter of a Prince that inveterately hated the whole Nation and had by various Arts endeavour'd to extirpate them yet God inspires the Royal Lady with sentiments of compassion to the forlorn Infant though she knew him to be one of the Hebrews Children ver 6. i. e. one of that race whom her Father had devoted to the hands of an Executioner yet God that doth by his Soveraignty rule over the Spirits of all men moves her to take that Infant into her protection and nourish him at her own charge give him a liberal Education Adopt him her Son who in time was to be the ruin of her race and the Saviour of his Nation Thus he appointed Cyrus to be his Shepherd and gave him a Pastoral Spirit for the Restauration of the City and Temple of Jerusalem Isaiah 44.28 And Isaiah 45.5 Tells them in the Prophesie that he had girded him though Cyrus had not known him i. e. God had given him a military Spirit and strength for so great an attempt though he did not know that he was acted by God for those divine purposes And when the time came for the House of the Lord to be re-built the Spirits of the people were rais'd up not by themselves but by God Ezra 1.5 Whose Spirit God had rais'd to go up And not only the Spirit of Zerubbabel the Magistrate and of Joshua the Priest but the Spirit of all the people from the highest to the meanest that attended him were acted by God to strengthen their hands and promote the work Hag. 1.14 The Spirits of men even in those works which are naturally desirable to them as the Restauration of the City and rebuilding of the Temple was to those Jews are acted by God as the soveraign over them much more when the wheels of mens spirits are lifted up above their ordinary temper and motion It was this Empire of God good Nehemiah regarded as that whence he was to hope for success he did not assure himself so much of it from the favour he had with the King nor the reasonableness of his intended Petition but the absolute power God had over the heart of that great Monarch And therefore he supplicates the heavenly before he petitioned the earthly Throne Nehem. 2.4 So I pray'd to the God of Heaven The Heathens had some glance of this 't is an expression that Cicero hath some where That the Roman Common-wealth was rather Govern'd by the Assistance of the supream Divinity over the Hearts of Men than by their own Counsels and Management How often hath the feeble courage of men been heightned to such a pitch as to stare death in the face which before were dampt with the least thought or glance of
in the Womb the Miracles that he wrought were by the Power of the Spirit in him Power is a Title belonging to him and sometimes both are put together 1 Thess 1.5 and other places And that great Power of changing the Heart and sanctifying a polluted Nature a work greater than Creation is frequently acknowledged in the Scripture to be the peculiar act of the Holy Ghost The Father Son Spirit are one Principle in Creation Resurrection and all the Works of Omnipotence 3. Inference from the Doctrine The Blessedness of God is hence evidenc'd If God be Almighty he can want nothing all want speaks Weakness If he doth what he will he cannot be miserable all Misery consists in those things which happen contrary to our will There is nothing can hinder his Happiness because nothing can resist his Power Since he is Omnipotent nothing can hurt him nothing can strip him of what he hath of what he is †Sal unde Tit. 39. If he can do whatsoever he will he cannot want any thing that he wills He is as happy as great as glorious as he will for he hath a perfect liberty of Will to will and a perfect Power to attain what he will His Will cannot be restrained nor his Power mated It would be a defect in Blessedness to Will what he were not able to do Sorrow is the result of a want of Power with a presence of Will * Pont. Part 6. med 16. p 531. If he could Will any thing which he could not effect he would be miserable and no longer God He can do whatsoever he pleases and therefore can want nothing that pleases him He cannot be happy the original of whose Happiness is not in himself Nothing can be infinitely happy that is limited and bounded 4. Hence is a ground for the Immutability of God As he is uncapable of changing his Resolves because of his Infinite Wisdom so he is uncapable of being forced to any Change because of his Infinite Power Being Almighty He can be no more chang'd from Power to Weakness than being All-wise He can be chang'd from Wisdom to Folly or being Omniscient from Knowledge to Ignorance He cannot be alter'd in his Purposes because of his Wisdom nor in the manner and method of his Actions because of his Infinite strength Men indeed when their Designs are laid deepest and their Purposes stand firmest yet are forced to stand still or change the manner of the execution of their Resolves by reason of some outward Accidents that obstruct them in their course for having not Wisdom to foresee future hindrances they have not power to prevent them or strength to remove them when they unexpectedly interpose themselves between their desire and performance But no created Power has strength enough to be a bar against God By the same act of his Will that he resolves a thing He can puff away any Impediments that seem to rise up against him He that wants no Means to effect his Purposes cannot be check'd by any thing that riseth up to stand in his way Heaven Earth Sea the deepest places are too weak to resist his Will †Psal 135.6 The Purity of the Angels will not and the Devils Malice cannot frustrate his Will the one voluntarily obeys the beck of his hand and the other are vanquisht by the Power of it What can make him change his Purposes who if he please can dash the Earth against the Heavens in the twinkling of an Eye untying the World from its Center clap the Stars and Elements together into one Mass and blow the whole Creation of Men and Devils into Nothing Because he is Almighty therefore he is Immutable 5. Hence is inferred the Providence of God and his Government of the World His Power as well as his Wisdom gives him a right to Govern Nothing can equal him therefore nothing can share the Command with him since All things are his Works 't is fittest they should be under His Order He that frames a work is fittest to guide and govern it God hath the most Right to Govern because he hath Knowledge to direct his Power and Power to execute the Results of his Wisdom He knows what is convenient to order and hath Strength to effect what he orders As his Power would be oppressive without Goodness and Wisdom so his Goodness and Wisdom would be fruitless without Power An Artificer that hath lost his Hands may direct but cannot make an Engine A Pilot that hath lost his Arms may advise the way of Steerage but cannot hold the Helm something is wanting in him to be a compleat Governour But since both Counsel and Power are Infinite in God hence results an Infinite Right to Govern and an Infinite Fitness because his Will cannot be resisted his Power cannot be enfeebled or diminish'd he can quicken and increase the strength of all Means as he pleases He can hold all things in the World together and preserve them in those Functions wherein he setled them and conduct them to those ends for which he design'd them Every Artificer the more Excellent he is and the more Excellency of Power appears in his work is the more careful to maintain and cherish it Those that deny Providence do not only ravish from him the bowels of his Goodness but strip him of a main exercise of his Power and engender in Men a suspicion of Weariness and Feebleness in him as though his strength had been spent in making them that none is left to guide them They would make him Headless in regard of his Wisdom and Bowelless in regard of his Goodness and Armless in regard of his Strength If he did not or were not able to preserve and provide for his Creatures his Power in making them would be in a great part an Invisible Power if he did not preserve what he made and govern what he preserves it would be a kind of strange and rude Power to make and suffer it to be dasht in pieces at the pleasure of others If the Power of God should relinquish the World the life of things would be extinguisht the Fabrick would be confounded and fall into a deplorable Chaos That which is composed of so many various pieces could not maintain its Union if there were not a secret virtue binding them together and maintaining those varieties of links Well then since God is not only so Good that he cannot will any thing but what is good so Wise that he cannot erre or mistake but also so Able that he cannot be defeated or maâ—ed He hath every way a full Ability to govern the World where those Three are Infinite the right and fitness resulting from thence is unquestionable And indeed to deny God this Active part of his Power is to render him Weak Foolish Cruel or all 6. Here is a ground for the Worship of God Wisdom and Power are the grounds of the Respect we give to Men they being both infinite in God