all affections to sin lye down in Sorrow and bewail what he hath done amiss against so tender a God Can you expect that any man that Promises you a great honour or a rich donative should demand less of you than to trust his word bear an affection to him and return him kindness Can any less be expected by a Prince than obedience from a pardoned Subject and a redeemed Captive If you have injured any man in his Body Estate Reputation would you not count it a reasonable Condition for the partaking of his Clemency and Forgiveness to express a hearty sorrow for it and a resolution not to fall into the like Crime again Such are the Conditions of the Gospel suted to the Consciences of men 5. The Wisdom of God appears in that this condition was only likely to attain the end There are but two Common Heads appointed by God Adam and Christ By one we are made a living Soul by the other a quickning Spirit By the one we are made sinners by the other we are made righteous Adam fell as a Head and all his members his whole Issue and Posterity fell with him because they proceeded from him by natural Generation But since the second Adam can not be our Head by natural Generation there must be some other way of engrafting us in him and uniting us to him as our Head which must be Moral and Spiritual this can not rationally be conceived to be by any other way than What is sutable to a reasonable Creature and therefore must be by an act of the Will Consent and Acceptance and owning the terms setled for an Admission to that Union And this is that we properly call Faith and therefore called a receiving of him John 1.12 Now this Condition of enjoying the Fruits of Redemption could not be a bare Knowledge for that is but only an act of the Understanding and doth not in itself include the act of the Will and so would have united only one Faculty to him not the whole Soul But Faith in an act both of the Understanding and Will too and principally of the Will which doth presuppose an act of the Understanding For there cannot be a Perswasion in the Will without a Proposition from the Understanding The Understanding must be convinced of the truth and goodness of a thing before the Will can be perswaded to make any motion towards it and therefore all the Promises Invitations and Proffers are suted to the Understanding and Will To the Understanding in regard of Knowledge to the Will in regard of Appetite to the Understanding as true to the Will as good To the Understanding as practical and influencing the Will 2. Nor could it be an intire Obedience That as was said before would have made the Creature have some matter of boasting and this was not sutable to the Condition he was sunk into by the fall Besides mans Nature being corrupted was rendered uncapable to obey and unable to have one thought of a due Obedience 2 Cor. 3.5 When man turned from God and upon that was turned out of Paradise his return was impossible by any strength of his own his Nature was as much corrupted as his re-entrance into Paradise was prohibited That Covenant whereby he stood in the garden required a perfection of action and intention in the observance of all the Commands of God But his Fall had crack'd his Ability to recover happiness by the terms and condition of an intire Obedience yet man being a person governable by a Law and capable of happiness by a Covenant if God would restore him and enter into a Covenant with him we must suppose it to have some Condition as all Covenants have That Condition could not be works because mans Nature was polluted Indeed had God reduced mans Body to the dust and his Soul to nothing and framed another man he might have govern'd him by a Covenant of Works But that had not been the same man that had revolted and upon his revolt was stain'd and disabled But suppose God had by any transcendent Grace wholly purified him from the stain of his former Transgression and restored to him the strength and ability he had lost might he not as easily have rebelled again And so the Condition would never have been accomplisht the Covenant never have been performed and Happiness never have been enjoyed There must be some other Condition then in the Covenant God would make for mans Security Now Faith is the most proper for receiving the Promise of Pardon of Sin Belief of those promises is the first natural reflection that a Malefactor can make upon a pardon offered him and acceptance of it is the first consequent from that beliefe Hence is Faith entitled a perswasion of and embraceing the Promises Heb 11.13 and a receiving the atonement Rom. 5.11 Thus the Wisdom of God is apparent in annexing such a Condition to the Covenant whereby man is restored as answers the end of God for his glory the State Conscience and necessity of Man and had the greatest congruity to his recovery 9. This Wisdom of God is manifest in the manner of the publishing and propagating this Doctrine of Redemption 1. In the gradual discoveries of it Flashing a great light in the face of a suddain is amazing should the Sun glare in our Eye in all its brightness on a suddain after we have been in a thick darkness it would blind us instead of comforting us So great a work as this must have several digestions God first reveals of what Seed the Redeeming Person should be the Seed of the Woman Gen. 3.15 Then of what Nation Gen. 26.4 then of what Tribe Gen. 49.12 of the Tribe of Judah then of what Family the family of David then what works he was to do what sufferings to undergoe The first Predictions of our Saviour were obscure Adam could not well see the Redemption in the Promise for the punishment of death which succeeded in the Threatning the Promise exercised his Faith and the Obscurity and bodily Death his Humility The Promise made to Abraham was clearer than the Revelations made before yet he could not tell how to reconcile his Redemption with his Exile God supported his Faith by the Promise and exercised his Humility by making him a Pilgrim and keeping him in a perpetual dependance upon him in all his motions The Declarations to Moses are brighter than those to Abraham The delineations of Christ by David in the Psalms more illustrious than the former And all those exceeded by the Revelations made to the Prophet Isaiah and the other Prophets according as the Age did approach wherein the Redeemer was to enter into his Office God wrapt up this Gospel in a multitude of Types and Ceremonies fitted to the Infant state of the Church Gal. 4.3 An Infant State is usually affected with sensible things yet all those Ceremonies were fitted to that great end of the Gospel which he would bring forth in
one as well as the other denies his spiritual nature This is worse for had it been lawful to represent God to the eye it could not have been done but by a bodily figure suted to the sense but since it is necessary to worship him it cannot be by a corporeal attendance without the operation of the Spirit A spiritual frame is more pleasing to God than the highest exterior adornments than the greatest gifts and the highest Prophetical illuminations The glory of the second Temple exceeded the glory of the first * Hag. 2.8 9. As God accounts the spiritual glory of Ordinances most beneficial for us so our spiritual attendance upon Ordinances is most pleasing to him He that offers the greatest services without it offers but flesh Hos 8.13 They sacrifice Flesh for the Sacrifices of my Offerings but the Lord accepts them not Spiritual frames are the Soul of Religious services all other carriages without them are contemptible to this Spirit We can never lay claim to that promise of God none shall seek my face in vain We affect a vain seeking of him when we want a due temper of Spirit for him And vain Spirits shall have vain returns 'T is more contrary to the nature of Gods Holiness to have communion with such than it is contrary to the nature of Light to have communion with Darkness To make use of this Vse 1. First it serves for information 1. If spiritual worship be required by God How sad is it for them that are so far from giving God a spiritual worship that they render him no worship at all I speak not of the neglect of publick but of private when men present not a devotion to God from one years end to the other The speech of our Saviour that we must worship God in Spirit and Truth implies that a worship is due to him from every one That is the common impression upon the Consciences of all men in the world if they have not by some constant course in gross sins hardned their Souls and stifled those natural sentiments There was never a Nation in the world without some kind of Religion and no Religion was ever without some modes to testifie a devotion The Heathens had their Sacrifices and Purifications and the Jews by Gods order had their rites whereby they were to express their Allegiance to God Consider 1. Worship is a duty incumbent upon all men 'T is a homage Mankind ows to God under the relation wherein he stands obliged to him 'T is a prime and immutable justice to own our Allegiance to him 'T is as unchangeable a truth that God is to be worshipped as that God is He is to be worshipped as God as Creator and therefore by all since he is the Creator of all the Lord of all and all are his Creatures and all are his Subjects Worship is founded upon Creation Psal 100.2 3. 'T is due to God for himself and his own essential excellency and therefore due from all 'T is due upon the account of mans nature The human rational nature is the same in all Whatsoever is due to God upon the account of mans nature and the natural obligations he hath laid upon man is due from all men because they all enjoy the benefits which are proper to their nature Man in no state was exempted nor can be exempted from it In Paradise he had his Sabbath and Sacraments Man therefore dissolves the obligation of a reasonable nature by neglecting the worship of God Religion is in the first place to be minded As soon as Noah came out of the Ark he contrived not a Habitation for himself but an Altar for the Lord to acknowledge him the Author of his preservation from the Deluge * Gen. 8.20 And wheresoever Abraham came his first business was to erect an Altar and pay his arrears of gratitude to God before he ran upon the score for new mercies * Gen. 12.7 Gen. 13.4.18 He left a testimony of worship where ever he came 2. Wholly therefore to neglect it is a high degree of Atheism He that calls not upon God saith in his heart there is no God and seems to have the sentiments of natural Conscience as to God stifled in him * Psal 14.1 4 It must arise from a conceit that there is no God or that we are equal to him adoration not being due from persons of an equal state or that God is unable or unwilling to take notice of the adoring acts of his Creatures What is any of these but an undeifying the supream Majesty When we lay aside all thoughts of paying any homage to him we are in a fair way opinionatively to deny him as much as we practically disown him Where there is no knowledge of God that is no acknowledgment of God a gap is opened to all licentiousness * Hos 4.1 2. And that by degrees brawns the Conscience and raseth out the sense of God Those forsake God that forget his holy Mountain * Isa 65.11 They do not practically own him as the Creator of their Souls or bodies 'T is the sin of Cain who turning his back upon worship is said to go out from the presence of the Lord * Gen. 4.16 Not to worship him with our Spirits is against his Law of Creation Not to worship him at all is against his act of Creation Not to worship him in truth is Hypocrisie Not to worship him at all is Atheism whereby we render our selves worse than the worms in the Earth or a toad in a Ditch 3. To perform a worship to a false God or to the true God in a false manner seems to be less a sin than to live in perpetual neglects of it Though it be directed to a false Object instead of God yet it is under the notion of a God and so is an acknowledgement of such a Being as God in the world whereas the total neglect of any worship is a practical denying of the existence of any supream Majesty Whosoever constantly omits a publick and private worship transgresses against an universally received dictate For all Nations have agreed in the common notion of worshipping God though they have disagreed in the several modes and rites whereby they would testifie that adoration By a worship of God though superstitious a veneration and reverence of such a being is maintained in the world whereas by a total neglect of worship he is vertually disowned and discarded if not from his existence yet from his Providence and Government of the world All the mercies we breath in are denied to flow from him A foolish worship owns Religion though it bespatters it As if a stranger coming into a Country mistakes a Subject for the Prince and pays that reverence to the Subject which is due to the Prince though he mistakes the object yet he owns an Authority or if he pays any respect to the true Prince of that Country after the mode of
it self that it cannot be conceived to fall within the Compass of the Divine Nature †Deut. 32.4 who is a God without iniquity because a God of truth and sincerity just and right is he To bestow excellent Faculties upon Man in Creation and incline him by a suddain impulsion to things contrary to the true end of him and induce an inevitable ruin upon that Work which he had composed with so much Wisdom and Goodness and pronounced good with so much delight and Pleasure is inconsistent with that love which God bears to the Creature of his own framing To incline his Will to that which would render him the Object of his hatred the Fuel for his Justice and sink him into deplorable Misery 't is most absurd and unchristian-like to imagine 3. Nor can God necessitate man to sin Indeed sin cannot be committed by force there is no sin but is in some sort voluntary Voluntary in the root or voluntary in the branch voluntary by an immediate act of the Will or voluntary by a general or natural inclination of the Will That is not a Crime to which a man is violenc'd without any concurrence of the Faculties of the Soul to that act 't is indeed not an act but a passion a man that is forced is not an Agent but a Patient under the force But what necessity can there be upon Man from God since he hath implanted such a Principle in him that he cannot desire any thing but what is good either really or apparently and if a man mistakes the Object 't is his own fault for God hath endowed him with Reason to discern and liberty of Will to choose upon that Judgment And though 't is to be acknowledged that God hath an Absolute Soveraign Dominion over his Creature without any Limitation and may do what he pleases and dispose of it according to his own Will as a Potter doth with his Vessel Rom. 9.21 according as the Church speaks Isa 64.8 We are the Clay and thou our Potter and we all are the work of thy hand Yet he cannot pollute any undefiled Creature by virtue of that Soveraign Power which he hath to do what he will with it because such an act would be contrary to the Foundation and Right of his Dominion which consists in the excellency of his Nature his immense Wisdom and unspotted Purity If God should therefore do any such act he would expunge the right of his Dominion by blotting out that nature which renders him fit for that Dominion and the exercise of it * Amyrald disert pa 103 104. Any Dominion which is exercis'd without the Rules of goodness is not a true Soveraignty but an insupportable Tyranny God would cease to be a rightful Soveraign if he ceased to be good and he would cease to be good if he did command necessitate or by any positive operation incline inwardly the heart of a Creature directly to that which were morally evil and contrary to the eminency of his own Nature But that we may the better conceive of this let us trace Man in his first fall whereby he subjected himself and all his Posterity to the Curse of the Law and hatred of God we shall find no foot-steps either of Precept outward force or inward impulsion †Amyrald defens de Calvin p. 151. 152 The plain story of Man's Apostacy dischargeth God from any interest in the Crime as an incouragement and excuseth him from any appearance of suspicion when he shewed him the Tree he had reserved as a mark of his Soveraignty and forbad him to eat of the Fruit of it He backt the Prohibition with the threatning the greatest Evil viz. Death which could be understood to imply nothing less than the loss of all his happiness and in that couch'd an assurance of the perpetuity of his felicity if he did not rebelliously reach forth his hand to take and eat of the Fruit * Gen. 2.16 17 'T is true God had given that Fruit an excellency a goodness for food and a pleasantness to the eye †Gen. 3.6 He had given Man an appetite whereby he was capable of desiring so pleasant a Fruit but God had by Creation rang'd it under the Command of Reason if man would have kept it in its due Obedience he had fixed a severe Threatning to bar the unlawful Excursions of it He had allowed him a multitude of other Fruits in the Garden and given him liberty enough to satisfie his Curiosity in all except this only Could there be any thing more obliging to Man to let God have his reserve of that one Tree than the grant of all the rest and more deterring from any disobedient Attempt than so strict a Command spirited with so dreadful a Penalty God did not sollicite him to rebel against him A sollicitation to it and a command against it were inconsistent The Devil assaults him and God permitted it and stands as it were a Spectator of the issue of the Combat There could be no necessity upon Man to listen to and entertain the Suggestions of the Serpent He had a power to resist him and he had an answer ready for all the Devils Arguments had they been multiplied to more than they were the opposing the Order of God had been a sufficient Confutaion of all the Devils plausible reasonings That Creator who hath given me my being hath ordered me not to eat of it Though the pleasure of the Fruit might allure him yet the force of his Reason might have quell'd the liquorishness of his Sense The perpetual thinking of and sounding out the command of God had silenc'd both Satan and his own Appetite had disarm'd the Tempter and preserved his Sensitive part in its due subjection What inclination can we suppose there could be from the Creator when upon the very first offer of the Temptation Eve opposes to the Tempter the Prohibition and Threatning of God and strains it to a higher peg than we find God had delivered it in For in Gen. 2.17 't is you shall not eat of it but she adds Gen. 3.3 neither shall you touch it which was a Remark that might have had more influence to restrain her Had our first Parents kept this fixed upon their Understandings and Thoughts that God had forbidden any such act as the Eating of the Fruit and that he was true to execute the Threatning he had uttered of which Truth of God they could not but have a natural Notion with what ease might they have withstood the Devils attack'd and defeated his Design And it had been easie with them to have kept their Understandings by the force of such a thought from entertaining any contrary Imagination There is no ground for any jealousie of any Encouragements inward Impulsions or necessity from God in this Affair A discharge of God from this first sin will easily induce a freedom of him from all other sins which follow upon it God doth not then
is a God in being and the Apostle doth not say that they know God but they profess to know him True knowledge and profession of knowledge are distinct It intimates also to us the unreasonableness of Atheism in the Consequence when men shut their eyes against the beams of so clear a sun God revengeth himself upon them for their impiety by leaving them to their own wills lets them fall into the deepest sink and dregs of iniquity and since they doubt of him in their hearts suffers them above others to deny him in their works this the Apostle discourseth at large * Rom. 1.24 The Text then is a description of mans Corruption 1. Of his mind The fool hath said in his heart No better title than that of a fool is afforded to the Atheist 2. Of the other faculties 1. In sins of Commission exprest by the loathsomeness corrupt abominable 2. In sins of Ommission there is none that doth good he lays down the Corruption of the mind as the cause the corruption of the other faculties as the effect I. Doct. 1 'T is a great Folly to deny or doubt of the Existence or Being of God Or An Atheist is a great Fool. II. Practical Atheism is natural to man in his corrupt State 'T is against Nature as constituted by God but Natural as Nature is depraved by Man The absolute disowning of the Being of a God is not natural to men but the contrary is natural but an inconsideration of God or mis-representation of his Nature is natural to Man as corrupt III. A secret Atheism or a partial Atheism is the Spring of all the wicked Practices in the world The disorders of the Life spring from the ill dispositions of the Heart For the first every Atheist is a Grand Fool. If he were not a Fool he would not imagine a thing so contrary to the stream of the Universal Reason of the world contrary to the rational Dictates of his own Soul and contrary to the Testimony of every Creature and Link in the Chain of Creation If he were not a Fool he would not strip himself of Humanity and degrade himself lower than the most despicable Brute 'T is a Folly for tho God be so Inaccessible that we cannot know him perfectly yet he is so much in the light that we cannot be totally ignorant of him As he cannot be comprehended in his Essence he cannot be unknown in his Existence 't is as easie by Reason to understand that he is as it is difficult to know what he is The Demonstrations Reason furnisheth us with for the Existence of God will be Evidences of the Atheist's Folly One would think there were little need of spending time in evidencing this Truth since in the Principle of it it seems to be so universally own'd and at the first proposal and demand gains the assent of most men But 1. Doth not the growth of Atheism among us render this Necessary may it not justly be suspected that the swarms of Atheists are more numerous in our times than History Records to have been in any age when men will not only say it in their hearts but publish it with their lips and boast that they have shaken of those Shackles which bind other mens Consciences Doth not the bare-fac'd Debauchery of men evidence such a setled Sentiment or at least a careless Beleif of the truth which lies at the root and sprouts up in such venemous branches in the World Can mens hearts be free from that Principle wherewith their Practices are so openly depraved 'T is true the light of Nature shines too vigorously for the Power of Man totally to put it out yet loathsom Actions impair and weaken the actual thoughts and considerations of a Deity and are like Mists that darken the light of the Sun though they cannot extinguish it their Consciences as a Candlestick must hold it though their unrighteousness obscure it Rom. 1.18 Who hold the Truth in Vnrighteousness The engraved Characters of the Law of Nature remain though they dawb them with their muddy Lusts to make them illegible So that since the inconsideration of a Deity is the cause of all the wickedness and extravigancies of men and as Austin saith the Proposition is always true the Fool hath said in his heart c. and more evidently true in this age than any it will not be unnecsseary to discourse of the Demonstrations of this first Principle The Apostles spent little time in urgng this Truth it was taken for granted all over the world and they were generally devout in the Worship of those Idols they thought to be Gods That age run from one God to many and our age is running from one God to none at all 2. The Existence of God is the Foundation of all Religion The whole Building totters if the Foundation be out of Course If we have not deliberate and right Notions of it we shall perform no Worship no Service yeild no affection to him If there be not a God 't is impossible there can be one for Eternity is Essential to the notion of a God so all Religion would be vain and unreasonable to pay Homage to that which is not in being nor can ever be We must first beleive that he is and that he is what he declares himself to be before we can seek him adore him and devote our Affections to him * Heb. 11.6 We cannot pay God a due and regular Homage unless we understand him in his Perfections what he is and we can pay him no Homage at all unless we beleive that he is 3. 'T is sit we should know why we beleive that our Beleif of a God may appear to be upon undeniable Evidence and that we may give a better reason for his Existence than that we have heard our Parents and Teachers tell us so and our acquaintance think so 'T is as much as to say there is no God when we know not why we believe there is and would not consider the Arguments for his Existence 4. It is necessary to depress that secret Atheism which is in the heart of every man by nature Though every visible object which offers it self to our sense presents a Deity to our minds and exhorts us to subscribe to the truth of it yet there is a Root of Atheism springing up sometimes in wavering thoughts and foolish imaginations inordinate actions and secret wishes Certain it is that every man that doth not love God denyes God now can he that disaffects him and hath a slavish fear of him wish his Existence and say to his own heart with any chearfulness there is a God and make it his cheif care to perswade himself of it he would perswade himself there is no God and stifle the seeds of it in his Reason and Conscience that he might have the greatest liberty to intertain the allurements of the Flesh 'T is necessary to Excite men to daily and actual considerations of
God and his nature which would be a bar to much of that wickedness which overflows in the lives of men 5. Nor is it unuseful to those who effectually beleive and love him * Coccei Sum. Theol. c. 8. § 1. for those who have had a converse with God and felt his powerful influences in the secrets of their hearts to take a prospect of those satisfactory accounts which reason gives of that God they adore and love to see every Creature justifie them in their owning of him and affections to him Indeed the Evidences of a God striking upon the Conscience of those who resolve to cleave to sin as their cheifest darling will dash their pleasures with unwelcome mixtures I shall further premise this That the folly of Atheism is evidenced by the light of Reason Men that will not listen to Scripture as having no counterpart of it in their Souls cannot easily deny natural Reason which riseth up on all sides for the justification of this Truth There is a natural as well as a revealed Knowledg and the Book of the Creatures is legible in declaring the Being of a God as well as the Scriptures are in declaring the Nature of a God there are outward objects in the World and common Principles in the Conscience whence it may be inferr'd For 1. God in regard of his Existence is not only the discovery of Faith but of Reason God hath revealed not only his Being but some sparks of his eternal Power and Godhead in his Works as well as in his Word Rom. 1.19 20. God hath shewed it unto them how * Aquin. in his works by the things that are made t is a discovery to our Reason as shining in the Creatures and an object of our Faith as breaking out upon us in the Scriptures 't is an Article of our Faith and an Article of our Reason Faith supposeth natural knowledge as Grace supposeth nature Faith indeed is properly of things above Reason purely depending upon Revelation What can be demonstrated by natural light is not so properly the object of Faith though in regard of the addition of a certainty by Revelation it is so The beleif that God is which the Apostle speaks of * Heb. 11.6 is not so much of the bare Existence of God as what God is in Relation to them that seek to him viz. a Rewarder The Apostle speaks of the Faith of Abel the Faith of Enoch such a Faith that pleases God But the Faith of Abel testified in his sacrifice and the Faith of Enoch testified in his walking with God was not simply a Faith of the Existence of God Cain in the time of Abel other men in the World in the time of Enoch beleived this as well as they But it was a Faith joyned with the Worship of God and desires to please him in the way of his own appointment so that they beleived that God was such as he had declared himself to be in his promise to Adam such an one as would be as good as his word and bruise the Serpents head He that seeks to God according to the mind of God must beleive that he is such a God that will pardon sin and justifie a seeker of him that he is a God of that ability and will to Justifie a sinner in that way he hath appointed for the clearing the Holiness of his Nature and vindicating the Honour of his Law violated by man No man can seek God or love God unless he beleive him to be thus and he cannot seek God without a discovery of his own mind how he would be sought For it is not a seeking God in any way of mans Invention that renders him capable of this desired fruit of a Reward He that beleives God as a Rewarder must beleive the promise of God concerning the Messiah Men under the Conscience of sin cannot tell without a divine discovery whither God will reward or how he will reward the seekers of him and therefore cannot act towards him as an object of Faith Would any man seek God meerly because he is or love him because he is if he did not know that he should be acceptable to him The bare Existence of a thing is not the ground of affection to it but those qualities of it and our interest in it which render it amiable and delightful How can men whose Consciences sly in their faces seek God or love him without this knowledge that he is a Rewarder Nature doth not shew any way to a sinner how to reconcile Gods provoked Justice with his Tenderness The Faith the Apostle speaks of here is a Faith that eyes the reward as an encouragement and the Will of God as the Rule of its acting he doth not speak simply of the Existence of God I have spoken the more of this place because the Socinians * Voet. Theol natural cap. 3. § 1. p. 22. use this to decry any natural knowledge of God and that the Existence of God is only to be known by Revelation so that by that reason any one that lived without the Scripture hath no ground to beleive the being of a God The Scripture ascribes a knowledge of God to all Nations in the world Rom. 1.19 not only a faculty of knowing if they had arguments and demonstrations as an ignorant man in any art hath a faculty to know but it ascribes an actual knowledge ver 19. manifest in them ver 21. They knew God not they might know him they knew him when they did not care for knowing him the notices of God are as intelligible to us by reason as any object in the world is visible he is written in every Letter 2. We are often in the Scripture sent to take a prospect of the Creatures for a discovery of God The Apostles drew arguments from the Topicks of nature when they discoursed with those that owned the Scripture Rom. 1.19 As well as when they treated with those that were ignorant of it as Acts 14.16 17. And among the Philosophers of Athens Acts 17.27 29. such arguments the Holy Ghost in the Apostles thought sufficient to convince men of the Existence Unity Spirituality and Patience of God * Voet Theol. natural cap. 3. § 1. p. 22. Such arguments had not been used by them and the Prophets from the visible things in the world to silence the Gentiles with whom they dealt had not this Truth and much more about God been demonstrable by natural Reason they knew well enough that probable arguments would not satisfie peircing and inquisitive minds In Pauls account the Testimony of the Creatures was without contradiction God himself justifies this way of proceeding by his own example and remits Job to the consideration of the Creatures to spell out something of his Divine Perfections * Job 28.39.40 c. T is but one truth in Philosophy and Divinity That which is false in one cannot be true in another Truth in what appearance
so ever doth never contradict it self And this is so convincing an argument of the Existence of God that God never vouchsafed any Miracle or put forth any act of Omnipotency besides what was evident in the Creatures for the satisfaction of the Curiosity of any Atheist or the evincing of his Being as he hath done for the Evidencing those Truths which were not written in the book of nature or for the restoring a decayed worship or the protection or deliverance of his people Those Miracles in publishing the Gospel indeed did demonstrate the existence of some supream Power but they were not seals designedly affixt for that but for the confirmation of that truth which was above the ken of purblind Reason and purely the birth of Divine Revelation Yet what proves the Truth of any Spiritual Doctrine proves also in that act the Existence of the Divine Author of it The Revelation alwayes implies a Revealer and that which manifests it to be a Revelation manifests also the supream Revealer of it By the same light the Sun manifests other things to us it also manifests it self But what Miracles could rationally be supposed to work upon an Atheist who is not drawn to a sence of the Truth proclaimed aloud by so many wonders of the Creation Let us now proceed to the demonstration of the Atheists Folly T is a Folly to deny or doubt of a Soveraign Being incomprehensible in his Nature infinite in his Essence and Perfections independent in his Operations who hath given Being to the whole frame of sensible and intelligible Creatures and governs them according to their several natures by an unconceivable Wisdom who fills the Heavens with the Glory of his Majesty and the Earth with the influences of his Goodness 'T is a Folly inexcusable to renounce in this case all appeal to universal consent and the joynt assurances of the Creatures Reason 1. 'T is a Folly to deny or doubt of that which hath been the acknowledged Sentiment of all Nations in all places and ages There is no Nation but hath owned some kind of Religion and therefore no Nation but hath consented in the notion of a supream Creator and Governor 1. This hath been universal 2. It hath been constant and uninterrupted 3. Natural and innate First I. It hath been universally assented to by the Judgments and practices of all Nations in the World 1. No Nation hath been exempt from it All Histories of former and latter Ages have not produced any one Nation but fell under the force of this Truth Though they have differed in their Religions they have agreed in this Truth here both Heathen Turk Jew and Christian center without any Contention No quarrel was ever commenced upon this score though about other opinions Wars have been sharp and Enmities Irriconcilable The notion of the Existence of a Deity was the same in all Indians as well as Britains Americans as well as Jews It hath not been an opinion peculiar to this or that people to this or that Sect of Philosophers but hath been as universal as the reason whereby men are differenc'd from other Creatures so that some have rather defin'd man by animal religiosum then animal rationale 'T is so twisted with Reason that a man cannot be accounted rational unless he own an object of Religion Therefore he that understands not this renounceth his Humanity when he renounceth a Divinity No instance can be given of any one people in the World that disclaimed it It hath been owned by the Wise and ignorant by the learned and stupid by those who had no other guide but the dimmest light of Nature as well as by those whose Candles were snuft by a more polite Education and that without any solemne debate and contention Though some Philosophers have been known to change their opinions in the concerns of Nature yet none can be proved to have absolutely changed their opinion concerning the Being of a God One died for asserting one God none in the former Ages upon record hath died for asserting no God Go to the utmost bounds of America you may find people without some broken peices of the Law of nature but not without this signature and stamp upon them though they wanted commerce with other Nation except as Savage as themselves in whom the light of nature was as it were sunk into the Socket who are but one remove from Brutes who cloath not their bodies cover not their shame yet were they as soon known to own a God as they were known to be a people they were possessed with the Notion of a Supream Being the Author of the World had an object of Religious adoration put up Prayers to the Deity they owned for the good things they wanted and the diverting the evils they feared no people so untamed where absolute perfect Atheism hath gained a footing Not one Nation of the World known in the time of the Romans that were without their Ceremonies whereby they signified their devotion to a Deity They had their places of Worship where they made their Vows presented their Prayers offered their Sacrifices and implored the Assistance of what they thought to be a God And in their distresses run immediatly without any deliberation to their Gods so that the notion of a Deity was as inward and setled in them as their own Souls and indeed runs in the blood of mankind the distempers of the understanding cannot utterly deface it you shall scarce find the most distracted Bedlam in his raving sits to deny a God though he may Blaspheme and fancy himself one 2. Nor doth the Idolatry and multiplicity of Gods in the World weaken but confirm this universal consent Whatsoever unworthy conceits men have had of God in all Nations or whatsoever degrading representations they have made of him yet they all concur in this that there is a Supream Power to he ador'd Tho one People worshipped the Sun others the Fire and the Egyptians gods out of their Rivers Gardens and Fields yet the Notion of a Deity existent who created and governed the World and conferred daily benefits upon them was maintained by all tho applyed to the Stars and in part to those sordid Creatures All the Dagons of the World establish this Truth and fall down before it Had not the Nations owned the Being of a God they had never offered Incense to an Idol Had there not been a deep impression of the Existence of a Deity they had never exalted Creatures below themselves to the honour of Altars Men could not so easily have been deceived by forged Deities if they had not had a Notion of a real one Their fondness to set up others in the place of God evidenced a natural knowledg that there was one who had a right to be worshipped If there were not this sentiment of a Deity no man would ever have made an Image of a peice of Wood worshipp'd it pray'd to it and said deliver me for thou art my God
first principle was setled by the first man in himself where was the stop that he did not implant all in his own mind and consequently in the minds of all his descendents Our Souls know little of themselves little of the World are every day upon new enquiries have little satisfaction in themselves meet with many an invincible rub in their way and when they seem to come to some resolution in some cases stagger again and like a stone rould up to the top of the Hill quickly find themselves again at the foot How come they to be so purblind in Truth So short of that which they Judge true goodness How comes it to pass they cannot order their own Rebellious affections and suffer the rains they have to hold over their affections to be taken out of their hands by the unruly fancy and flesh This no man that denies the being of a God and the Revelation in Scripture can give an account of Blessed be God that we have the Scripture which gives us an account of those things that all the wit of men could never inform us of and that when they are discovered and known by Revelation they appear not contrary to reason 3. If the first Man made himself how came he to limit himself If he gave himself being why did he not give himself all the perfections and Ornaments of being Nothing that made it self could sit down contented with a little but would have had as much power to give it self that which is less as to give it self being when it was nothing The exellencies it wanted had not been more difficult to gain than the other which it possessed as belonging to its nature If the first man had been independent upon another and had his perfection from himself he might have acquired that perfection he wanted as well as have bestowed upon himself that perfection he had and then there would have been no bounds set to him He would have been Omniscient and Immutable He might have given himself what he would if he had had the setting his own bounds he would have set none at all For what should restrain him No man now wants Ambition to be what he is not and if the first man had not been determined by another but had given himself being he would not have remained in that determinate being no more than a Toad would remain a Toad if it had power to make it self a man and that power it would have had if it had given it self a being Whatsoever gives it self being would give it self all degrees of being and so would have no imperfection because every imperfection is a want of some degree of being * Therefore the Heathens called God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only Being Other things were not beings because they had not all degrees of being He that could give himself matter and life might give himself every thing The giving of life is an act of Omnipotence and what is Omnipotent in one thing may be in all Besides if the first man had made himself he would have conveyed himself to all his posterity in the same manner every man would have had all the perfections of the first man as every Creature hath the perfections of the same kind from whence it naturally Issues all are desirous to communicate what they can to their posterity Communicative goodness belongs to every nature Every plant propagates its kind in the same perfection it hath itself and the nearer any thing comes to a rational nature the greater affection it hath to that which descends from it therefore this affection belongs to a rational nature much more The first man therefore if he had had power to give himself being and consequently all perfection he would have had as much power to convey it down to his posterity no impediment could have stopt his way then all Souls proceeding from that first man would have been equally intellectual What should hinder them from inheriting the same perfections whence should they have divers qualifications and differences in their understandings No man then would have been subject to those weaknesses doubtings and unsatisfied desires of knowledg and perfection But being all Souls are not alike 't is certain they depend upon some other cause for the communication of that excellency they have If the perfections of Man be so contracted and kept within certain bounds 't is certain that they were not in his own power and so were not from himself Whatsoever hath a determinate being must be limited by some superior cause There is therefore some superior power that hath thus determined the Creature by set bounds and distinct measures and hath assigned to every one its proper nature that it should not be greater or less than it is who hath said of every one as of the waves of the Sea * Job 38.11 Hitherto shalt thou come but no further and this is God Man could not have reserved any perfection from his Posterity For since he doth propagate not by choice but nature he could no more have kept back any perfection from them than he could as he pleased have given any perfection belonging to his nature to them 4. That which hath power to give it self being cannot want power to preserve that being Preservation is not more difficult than Creation If the first Man made himself why did he not preserve himself He is not now among the living in the world How came he to be so feeble as to sink into the Grave Why did he not inspire himself with new heat and moisture and fill his languishing limbs and declining body with new strength Why did he not chase away Diseases and Death at the first approach What Creature can find the dust of the first Man All his posterity traverse the Stage and retire again in a short space their Age departs and is removed from them as a Shepherds Tent and is cut off with pining Sickness * Isa 38.12 The life of Man is as a wind and like a cloud that is consumed and vanishes away * Job 7.6 7 8 9. The Eye that sees him shall see him no more he returns not to his house neither doth his place know him any more The Scripture gives us the reason of this and layes it upon the score of sin against his Creator which no Man without revelation can give any satisfactory account of Had the first Man made himself he had been sufficient for himself able to support himself without the assistance of any creature He would not have needed animals and plants and other helps to nourish and refresh him nor Medicines to cure him He could not be beholding to other things for his support which he is certain he never made for himself His own nature would have continued that vigour which once he had conferred upon himself He would not have needed the heat and light of the Sun he would have wanted nothing sufficient for himself in himself
every side destruction shall be ready at his side the first born of Death shall devour his strength his confidence shall be rooted out and it shall bring him to the King of Terrors Brimstone shall be scattered upon his Habitation he shall be driven from light into darkness and chased out of the World they that come after him shall be astonished at his day as they that went before were affrighted and this is the place of him that knows not God * Ver. 21 If there be a future reckoning as his own Conscience cannot but sometimes inform him of his condition is desperate and his misery dreadful and unavoidable T is not righteous a Hell should entertain any else if it refuse him Vse 2 2. How lamentable is it that in our times this folly of Atheism should be so rise That there should be found such Monsters in human nature in the midst of the improvements of Reason and shinings of the Gospel who not only make the Scripture the matter of their Jeers but Scoff at the Judgments and Providences of God in the World and envy their Creator a being without whose goodness they had had none themselves who contradict in their carriage what they assert to be their sentiment when they dreadfully imprecate damnation to themselves Whence should that damnation they so rashly wish be poured forth upon them if there were not a revenging God Formerly Atheism was as rare as prodigious scarce two or three known in an age * And those that are reported to be so in former ages are rather thought to be counted so for mocking at the senceless Deities the common people ador'd and laying open their impurities A meer natural strength would easily discover that those they adored for Gods could not deserve that title since their original was known their uncleanness manifest and acknowledged by their worshippers And probably it was so * As Justin infâ—rm us since the Christians were termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because they acknowledged not their vain Idols I question whether there ever was or can be in the world an uninterrupted and internal denyal of the being of God or that men unless we can suppose Conscience utterly dead can arrive to such a degree of impiety For before they can stifle such sentiments in them whatsoever they may assert they must be utter strangers to the common conceptions of reason and despoile themselves of their own humanity He that dares to deny a God with his lips yet sets up something or other as a God in his heart Is it not lamentable that this sacred truth consented to by all Nations which is the band of civil societies the source of all order in the world should be denyed with a bare face and disputed against in Companies And the Glory of a wise Creator ascribed to an unintelligent nature to blind chance are not such worse then Heathens They worshipped many Gods these none They preserved a notion of God in the world under a disguise of Images These would banish him both from Earth and Heaven and demolish the Statues of him in their own Consciences They degraded him these would destroy him They coupled Creatures with him Rom 1.25 Who worshipped the Creature with the Creator as it may most properly be rendred And these would make him worse than the Creature a meer nothing Earth is hereby become worse than Hell Atheism is a perswasion which finds no footing any where else Hell that receives such persons in this point reforms them They can never deny or doubt of his being while they feel his stroaks The Devil that rejoyces at their wickedness knows them to be in an error for he believes and trembles at the belief * Jam. 2.19 This is a forerunner of Judgment Boldness in sin is a presage of vengeance especially when the honour of God is more particularly concern'd therein It tends to the overturning human society taking off the Bridle from the wicked inclinations of men And God appears not in such visible Judgments against sin immediately committed against himself as in the case of those sins that are destructive to human society Besides God as Governor of the world will uphold that without which all his ordinances in the world would be useless Atheism is point blank against all the Glory of God in Creation and against all the glory of God in Redemption and pronounceth at one breath both the Creator and all Acts of Religion and Divine Institutions useless and insignificant Since most have had one time or other some risings of doubt whether there be a God tho few do in expressions deny his being it may not be unnecessary to propose somethings for the further impressing this truth and guarding themselves against such temptations 1. T is utterly impossible to demonstrate there is no God He can choose no Medium but will fall in as a proof for his Existence and a manifestation of his excellency rather than against it The pretences of the Atheist are so ridiculous that they are not worth the mentioning They never saw God and therefore know not how to believe such a Being they cannot comprehend him He would not be God if he could fall within the narrow Model of an humane Understanding He would not be infinite if he were comprehensible or to be terminated by our sight How small a thing must that be which is seen by a bodily Eye or graspt by a weak Mind If God were visible or comprehensible he would be limited Shall it be a sufficient Demonstration from a blind man that there is no fire in the Room because he sees it not though he feel the warmth of it The knowledge of the effect is sufficient to conclude the existence of the cause Who ever saw his own Life Is it sufficient to deny a man lives because he beholds not his Life and only knows it by his motion He never saw his own Soul but knows he hath one by his thinking power The Air renders it self sensible to Men in its Operations yet was never seen by the eye If God should render Himself visible they might question as well as now whether that which was so visible were God or some delusion If he should appear glorious we can as little behold him in his Majestick Glory as an Owl can behold the Sun in its brightness we should still but see him in his Effects as we do the Sun by his Beams If he should shew a new Miracle we should still see him but by his Works so we see him in his Creatures every one of which would be as great a Miracle as any can be wrought to one that had the first prospect of them To require to see God is to require that which is impossible 1 Tim. 6.16 He dwels in the Light which no man can approach unto whom no man hath seen nor can see 'T is visibe that he is for he covers himself with Light as with a Garment Psal 104.2
consist before we can beleive any means which conduct us to him Moses begins with the Author of Creation before he treats of the Promise of Redemption Paul preached God as a Creator to a University before he preached Christ as Mediator * Acts 17.24 What influence can the Testimony of God have in his Revelation upon one that doth not firmly assent to the truth of his Being All would be in vain that is so often repeated thus saith the Lord if we do not beleive there is a Lord that speaks it There could be no aw from his Soveraignity in his Commands nor any comfortable taste of his Goodness in his Promises The more we are strengthened in this Principle the more credit we shall be able to give to divine Revelation to rest in his Promise and to reverence his Precept the Authority of all depends upon the Being of the Revealer To this purpose since we have handled this discourse by natural Arguments 1. Study God in the Creatures as well as in the Scriptures The primary use of the Creatures is to acknowledge God in them they were made to be witnesses of himself and his Goodness and Heralds of his Glory which Glory of God as Creator shall endure for ever Psal 104.31 that whole Psalm is a Lecture of Creation and Providence The World is a sacred Temple Man is introduced to contemplate it and behold with Praise the Glory of God in the pieces of his Art As Grace doth not destroy Nature so the Book of Redemption blots not out that of Creation Had he not shewn himself in his Creatures he could never have shewn himself in his Christ The order of things required it God must be read where ever he is legible The Creatures are one book wherein he hath writ a part of the excellency of his name * Psal 8.9 as many Artists do in their Works and Watches Gods Glory like the Filings of Gold is too precious to be lost where ever it drops Nothing so vile and base in the World but carries in it an instruction for Man and drives in further the Notion of a God As he said of his Cottage Enter here Sunt hic etiam Dij God disdains not this place So the least Creature speaks to Man every Shrub in the Field every Fly in the Air every Limbin a Body consider me God disdains not to appear in me he hath discovered in me his Being and a part of his Skill as well as in the highest The Creatures manifest the Being of God and part of his Perfections We have indeed a more excellent way a Revelation setting him forth in a more excellent manner a firmer Object of Dependence a brighter Object of Love raising our hearts from self confidence to a confidence in him Though the appearance of God in the one be clearer than in the other yet neither is to be neglected The Scripture directs us to Nature to view God it had been in vain else for the Apostle to make use of natural Arguments Nature is not contrary to Scripture nor Scripture to Nature unless we should think God contrary to himself who is the Author of both 2. View God in your own experiences of him There is a taste and sight of his Goodness though no sight of his Essence * Psal 34.98 By the taste of his Goodness you may know the reality of the fountain whence it springs and from whence it flows This surpasseth the greatest Capacity of a meer natural Understanding Experience of the sweetness of the ways of Christianity is a mighty preservative against Atheism Many a Man knows not how to prove Hony to be sweet by his reason but by his sense and if all the reason in the world be brought against it he will not be reasoned out of what he tasts Have not many found the delightful illappses of God into their Souls often sprinkled with his inward blessings upon their seeking of him had secret warnings in their approaches to him and gentle rebukes in their Consciences upon their swervings from him Have not many found sometimes an invisible hand raising them up when they were dejected some unexpected providence stepping in for their relief and easily perceived that it could not be a work of chance nor many times the intention of the instruments he hath used in it You have often found that he is by finding that he is a rewarder and can set to your seals that he is what he hath declared himself to be in his word Isa 43.12 I have declared and have saved therefore you are my witnesses saith the Lord that I am God The secret touches of God upon the heart and inward converses with him are a greater evidence of the Existence of a supream and infinitely good being than all nature Vse 4 4. Is it a folly to deny or doubt of the being of God T is a folly also not to worship God when we acknowledge his Existence T is our Wisdom then to Worship him As it is not indifferent whether we beleive there is a God or no So it is not indifferent whether we will give Honour to that God or no. A worship is his right as he is the Author of our being and fountain of our happiness By this only we acknowledge his Deity Tho we may profess his being yet we deny that profession in neglects of worship To deny him a Worship is as a great folly as to deny his being He that renounceth all homage to his Creator envies him the being which he cannot deprive him of The natural inclination to worship is as universal as the Notion of a God Idolatry else had never gained footing in the world The Existence of God was never owned in any Nation but a Worship of him was appointed And many people who have turned their backs upon some other parts of the Law of nature have paid a continual homage to some superior and invisible being The Jews give a Reason why Man was Created in the Evening of the Sabbath because he should begin his being with the worship of his Maker As soon as ever he found himself to be a Creature his first solemn act should be a particular respect to his Creator * Eccl. 12. To fear God and keep his Commandment is the whole of man or is * Heb. whole man he is not a man but a beast without observance of God Religion is as requisite as reason to compleat a man He were not reasonable if he were not Religious because by neglecting Religion he neglects the chiefest dictate of reason Either God framed the world with so much Order Elegancy and variety to no purpose or this was his end at least that reasonable Creatures should admire him in it and Honour him for it The Notion of God was not stampt upon men the shadows of God did not appear in the Creatures to be the Subject of an idle contemplation but the motive of a due homage to God
end in the Flesh Our hearts like Lute-strings are changed with every change of weather with every appearance of a Temptation scarce one motion of God in a thousand prevails with us for a setled abode 'T is a hard task to make a signature of those Truths upon our affections which will with ease pass currant with our understandings Our affections will as soon lose them as our understandings embrace them The heart of Man is unstable as water * Gen. 49.4 Jam. 1.8 Some were willing to rejoyce in Johns Light which reflected a lustre on their minds but not in his heat which would have conveyed a warmth to their hearts and the Light was pleasing to them but for a season * Joh. 5.35 while their corruptions lay as if they were dead not when they were awakened Truth may be admitted one day and the next day rejected As Austin saith of a wicked Man he loves the Truth shining but he hates the Truth reproving This is not to make God but our own humor our rule and measure 7. Many desire an acquaintance with the Law and Truth of God with a design to improve some lust by it To turn the Word of God to be a Pander to the Breach of his Law This is so far from making Gods Will our Rule that we make our own vile affections the Rule of his Law How many forced Interpretations of Scripture have been coyned to give content to the lusts of men and the Divine Rule forced to bend and be squared to mens loose and carnal apprehensions 'T is a part of the instability or falseness of the heart to wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction * 2 Pet. 3.16 which they could not do if they did not first wring them to countenance some detestable Error or filthy Crime In Paradise the first Interpretation made of the first Law of God was point blank against the mind of the Law-giver and venemous to the whole Race of Mankind Paul himself feared that some might put his Doctrine of Grace to so ill a use as to be an Altar and Sanctuary to shelter their Presumption Rom. 6.1.15 shall we then continue in Sin that Grace may abound Poysonous Consequences are often drawn from the sweetest Truths As when Gods Patience is made a Topick whence to argue against his Providence * Psal 94.1 or an encouragement to commit Evil more greedily as though because he had not presently a revenging Hand he had not an all seeing Eye Or when the Doctrine of Justification by Faith is made use of to depress a holy life or Gods readiness to receive returning sinners an encouragement to defer repentance till a death bed A Lyar will hunt for shelter in the reward God gave the Midwifes that lyed to Pharaoh for the preservation of the Males of Israel and Rahabs saving the Spies by false intelligence God knows how to distinguish between grace and corruption that may lie close together or between something of moral goodness and moral evil which may be mixed We find their fidelity rewarded which was a moral good but not their lye approved which was a moral evil Nor will Christs conversing with sinners be a plea for any to thrust themselves into evil Company Christ conversed with sinners as a Physitian with diseased persons to cure them not approve them others with profligate persons to receive infection from them not to communicate holiness to them Satans Children have studied their Fathers art who wanted not perverted Scripture to second his Temptations against our Saviour * How often do carnal hearts turn Divine Revelation to carnal ends as the Sea fresh water into salt As meâ—â—â—â—ject the precepts of God to carnal interests so they subject the truths of God to â—â—â—nal fancies When men will allegorize the Word and make a humorous and crazy fancy the Interpreter of Divine oracles and not the Spirit speaking in the Word This is to enthrone our own imaginations as the rule of Gods Law and depose his Law from being the rule of our reason This is to riflle truth of its true mind and intent T is more to rob a man of his reason the essential constitutive part of man than of his estate This is to refuse an intimate acquaintance with his Will We shall never tell what is the matter of a precept or the matter of a promise if we impose a sense upon it contrary to the plain meaning of it Thereby we shall make the Law of God to have a distinct sense according to the variety of mens imaginations and so make every mans fancy a Law to himself Now that this unwillingness to have a Spiritual acquaintance with Divine Truth is a disowning God as our rule and a setting up self in his stead is evident because this unwillingness respects Truth 1. As it is most Spiritual and Holy A fleshly mind is most contrary to a Spiritual Law and particularly as it is a searching and discovering Law that would dethrone all other rules in the Soul As men love to be without a Holy God in the world so they love to be without a holy Law the transcript and image of Gods Holiness in their hearts and without holy men the lights kindled by the Father of lights As the holiness of God so the holiness of the Law most offends a carnal heart Isa 30.11 Cause the holy one of Israel to cease from before us prophecy to us right things They could not endure God as a holy one Herein God places their Rebellion rejecting him as their rule ver 9. Rebellious Children that will not hear the Law of the Lord. The more pure and precious any discovery of God is the more it is disrelisht by the world As Spiritual sins are sweetest to a carnal heart so Spiritual truths are most distastful The more of the brightness of the Sun any beam conveys the more offensive it is to a distempered eye 2. As it doth most relate to or lead to God The Devil directs his fiercest batteries against those Doctrines in the Word and those Graces in the heart which most exalt God debase man and bring men to the lowest subjection to their Creator Such is the Doctrine and grace of justifying faith That men hate not knowledge as knowledge but as it directs them to choose the fear of the Lord was the determination of the Holy Ghost long ago Prov. 1.29 for that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. Whatsoever respects God clears up guilt witnesses mans revolt to him rouzeth up Conscience and moves to a return to God a man naturally runs from as Adam did from God and seeks a shelter in some weak bushes of error rather than appear before it Not that men are unwilling to inquire into and contemplate some Divine Truths which lie furthest from the heart and concern not themselves immediatly with the rectifying the soul They may view them with such a pleasure as
a bitter potion we are rather haled than run to it There is a contradiction of sin within us against our service as there was a contradiction of sinners without our Saviour against his doing the Will of God Our hearts are unweildy to any Spiritual service of God we are fain to use a violence with them sometimes Hezekiah it is said walked before the Lord with a perfect heart 2 Kings 20.9 he walked he made himself to walk Man naturally cares not for a walk with God If he hath any Communion with him t is with such a dulness and heaviness of Spirit as if he wished himself out of his Company Mans nature being contrary to holiness hath an aversion to any act of homage to God because Holiness must at least be pretended In every duty wherein we have a Communion with God Holiness is requisite Now as men are against the truth of Holiness because it is unsutable to them so they are not friends to those duties which require it and for some space divert them from the thoughts of their beloved lusts The word of the Lord is a Yoke Prayer a drudgery Obedience a strange Element We are like fish that drink up iniquity like water * Job 15.16 and come not to the bank without the force of an Angle No more willing to do service for God than a fish is of it self to do service for Man T is a constrained act to satisfie Conscience and such are servile not Son-like performances and spring from bondage more than affection If Conscience like a task Master did not scourge them to duty they would never perform it Let us appeal to our selves whether we are not more unwilling to secret Closet hearty duty to God than to joyn with others in some external service as if those inward services were a going to the rack and rather our pennance than priviledg How much service hath God in the world from the same principle that Vagrants perform their task in Bridewel How glad are many of evasions to back them in the neglect of the Commands of God of Corrupt reasonings from the flesh to way-lay an Act of obedience and a multitude of excuses to blunt the edge of the precept The very service of God shall be a pretence to deprive him of the obedience due to him Saul will not be ruled by Gods Will in the destroying the Cattle of the Amalekites but by his own and will impose upon the Will and Wisdom of God Judging God mistaken in his Command and that the Cattle God thought fittest to be meat to the fouls were fitter to be Sacrifices on the Altar * 1 Sam. 15.3.9.15.21 If we do perform any part of his Will is it not for our own ends to have some deliverance from trouble Isa 26.16 In trouble have they visited thee they poured out a Prayer when thy Chastening was upon them In affliction he shall find them kneeling in Homage and Devotion In prosperity he shall feel them kicking with contempt they can poure out a Prayer in distress and scarce drop one when they are delivered 2. There is a slightness in our service of God We are loath to come into his presence and when we do come we are loth to continue with him We pay not an Homage to him heartily as to our Lord and Governour we regard him not as our Master whose work we ought to do and whose Honour we ought to aime at 1. In regard of the matter of service When the torn the lame and the sick is offered to God * Mal. 1.13.14 so thin and lean a Sacrifice that you may have thrown it to the ground with a puff so some understand the meaning of you have snufft at it Men have naturally such slight thoughts of the Majesty and Law of God that they think any service is good enough for him and conformable to his Law The dullest and deadest times we think fittest to pay God a service in when sleep is ready to close our eyes and we are unfit to serve our selves we think it a fit time to open our hearts to God How few Morning Sacrifices hath God from many persons and Families Men leap out of their beds to their carnal pleasures or worldly employments without any thought of their Creator and Preserver or any reflection upon his Will as the rule of our dayly obedience And as many reserve the dregs of their Lives their Old-age to offer up their Souls to God So they reserve the Dreggs of the Day their sleeping time for the offering up their service to Him How many grudge to spend their best time in the serving the Will of God and reserve for him the sickly and rheumatick part of their Lives the remainder of that which the Devil and their own Lusts have fed upon Would not any Prince or Governour judge a Present half eaten up by Wild-beasts or that which died in a Ditch a contempt of his Royalty A corrupt thing is too base and vile for so great a King as God is whose Name is dreadful * Mal. 1.14 When by Age Men are weary of their own Bodies they would present them to God yet grudgingly as if a tired body were too good for him snuffing at the Command for Service God calls for our best and we give him the worst 2. In respect of Frame We think any frame will serve Gods turn which speaks our slight of God as a Ruler Man naturally performs duty with an unholy heart whereby it becomes an abomination to God Pro. 28.9 He that turns away his Ear from hearing the Law even his prayers shall be an abomination to God The Services which he commands he hates for their evil frames or corrupt ends Amos 5.21 I hate I despise your Feast-days I will not smell in your Solemn Assemblies God requires gracious services and we give him corrupt ones We do not rouze up our hearts as David called upon his Lute and Harp to awake Psal 57.8 Our hearts are not given to him we put him off with bodily exercise The heart is but Ice to what it doth not affect 1. There is not that natural vigor in the observance of God which we have in worldly business When we see a liveliness in men in other things change the Scene into a motion towards God how suddenly doth their vigoâ— shrink and their hearts freeze into sluggishness Many times we serve God as lanâ—guishingly as if we were afraid he should accept us and pray as coldly as if we were unwilling he should hear us and take away that lust by which we are Governed and which Conscience forces us to pray against as if we were afraid God should set up his own throne and Government in our hearts How fleeting are we in Divine Meditation how sleepy in Spiritual exercises but in other exercises active The Soul doth not awaken it self and excite those animal and vital Spirits which it will in bodily recreations and
as well as Heathens who used the outward Ceremonies not as signs of better things but as if they did of themselves please God and render the worshippers accepted with him without any sutable frame of the inward man * Amirald in loc It is as if he had said now you must separate your selves from all carnal modes to which the service of God is now tyed and render a worship chiefly consisting in the affectionate motions of the heart and accommodated more exactly to the condition of the object who is a Spirit In Spirit and Truth * Amirald in loc The Evangelical Service now required has the advantage of the former that was a Shadow and Figure this the Body and Truth * Muscul Spirit say some is here opposed to the legal Ceremonies Truth to hypocritical services or * Chemnit rather truth is opposed to shadows and an opinion of worth in the outward action 't is principally opposed to external Rites because our Saviour saith v. 23. The hour comes and â—oâ— is c. Had it been opposed to Hypocrisy Christ had said no new thing For God always required Truth in the inward parts and all true Worshippers had served him with a sincere Conscience and single Heart The old Patriarks did worship God in Spirit and Truth as taken for sincerity Such a Worship was always and is perpetually due to God because he always was and eternally will be a Spirit * Musâ—al And it is said the Father seeks such to worship him not shall seek He always sought it it always was performed to him by one or other in the world And the Prophets had always rebuked them for resting upon their outward Solemnities Isa 58.7 and Micah 6.8 But a Worship without legal Rites was proper to an Evangelical State and the times of the Gospel God having then exhibited Christ and brought into the world the substance of those shadows and the end of those institutions There was no more need to continue them when the true reason of them was ceased All Laws do naturally expire when the true reason upon which they were first framed is changed Or by Spirit may be meant such a Worship as is kindled in the heart by the breath of the holy Ghost Since we are dead in sin a spiritual light and flame in the heart sutable to the nature of the object of our worship cannot be raised in us without the operation of a supernatural Grace And though the Fathers could not worship God without the Spirit yet in the Gospel-times there being a fuller effusion of the Spirit the Evangelical State is called the administration of the Spirit and the newness of the Spirit 2 Cor. 3.8 in opposition to the legal Oeconomy entitled the oldness of the Letter * Rom. 7.6 The Evangelical State is more suted to the Nature of God than any other Such a Worship God must have whereby he is acknowledged to be the true Sanctifier and Quickner of the Soul The nearer God doth approach to us and the more full his manifestations are the more spiritual is the Worship we return to God The Gospel pares off the rugged parts of the Law and Heaven shall remove what is material in the Gospel and change the Ordinances of Worship into that of a Spiritual Praise In the words there is 1. A Proposition God is a Spirit The Foundation of all Religion 2. An Inference they that worship him c. As God a Worship belongs to him as a Spirit a spiritual Worship is due to him in the inference we have 1. The manner of Worship in Spirit and Truth 2. The necessity of such a Worship must The Proposition declares the Nature of God the Inference the Duty of Man The Observations lie plain Ob. 1. God is a pure spiritual Being He is a Spirit 2. The Worship due from the Creature to God must be agreeable to the Nature of God and purely spiritual 3. The Evangelical State is suted to the Nature of God For the first D. God is a pure spiritual Being 'T is the Observation of one * Episcop insti tut l. 4. c. 3. that the plain assertion of Gods being a Spirit is found but once in the whole Bible and that is in this place which may well be wondred at because God is so often described with hands feet eyes and ears in the form and figure of a Man The spiritual Nature of God is deducible from many places but not any where as I remember asserted totidem verbis but in this Text Some alledge that place 2 Cor. 3.17 the Lord is that Spirit for the proof of it but that seems to have a different sense In the Text the Nature of God is described in that place the operations of God in the Gospel * Amyrald in loc 'T is not the Ministry of Moses or that old Covenant which communicates to you that Spirit it speaks of but it is the Lord Jesus and the Doctrin of the Gospel delivered by him whereby this Spirit and Liberty is dispensed to you He opposes here the Liberty of the Gospel to the Servitude of the Law 'T is from Christ that a Divine Vertue diffuseth it self by the Gospel 't is by him not by the Law that we partake of that Spirit * Suarez de Deo vol. 1. P. 9. Col. 2. The Spirituality of God is as evident as his Being If we grant that God is we must necessarily grant that he cannot be corporeal because a Body is of an imperfect Nature It will appear incredible to any that acknowledge God the first Being and Creator of all things that he should be a massy heavy Body and have Eyes and Ears Feet and hands as we have For the explication of it 1. Spirit is taken various ways in Scripture It signifies sometimes an aereal substance as Psal 11.6 A horrible Tempest Heb. A Spirit of Tempest Sometimes the breath which is a thin substance Gen. 6.17 All Flesh wherein is the breath of Life Heb. Spirit of Life A thin substance though it be material and corporeal is called Spirit And in the bodies of living Creatures that which is the principle of their actions is called Spirits the animal and vital Spirits And the finer parts extracted from Plants and Minerals we call Spirits Those volatile parts separated from that gross matter wherein they were immerst because they come nearest to the nature of an incorporeal substance And from this notion of the word 't is translated to signifie those substances that are purely immaterial as Angels and the Souls of Men. Angels are called Spirits Psal 104.4 who makes his Angels Spirits * Heb. 1.14 And not only good Angels are so called but evil Angels Mark 1.27 Souls of men are called Spirits Eccl. 12. And the Soul of Christ is called so John 19.30 whence God is called the God of the Spirits of all Flesh Numb 22.16 and Spirit is opposed to Flesh Isa
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
wise that hath no Mate for Wisdom * 1 Tim. 1.17 none wise besides himself If he knew that thing this day which * 1 Tim. 1.17 he knew not before he would not be an only wise Being for a Being that did know every thing at once might be conceived and so a wiser Being be apprehended by the mind of man If God understood a thing at one time which he did not at another he would be changed from Ignorance to Knowledge As if he could not do that this day which he could do to morrow he would be changed from Impotence to Power He could not be always Omniscient because there might be yet something still to come which he yet knows not though he may know all things that are past What way soever you suppose a change you must suppose a present or a past Ignorance If he be changed in his knowledge for the perfection of his understanding he was ignorant before If his understanding be impaired by the change he is ignorant after it 2. If God were changeable in his Knowledge it would make him unfit to be an Object of Trust to any rational Creature His Revelations would want the due ground for entertainment if his Understanding were changeable for that might be revealed as truth now which might prove false heareafter and that as false now which hereafter might prove true and so God would be an unfit Object of Obedience in regard of his Precepts and an unfit Object of confidence in regard of his Promises For if he be changeable in Knowledge he is defective in Knowledge and might promise that now which he would know afterwards was unfit to be promised and therefore unfit to be performed It would make him an incompetent Object of dread in regard of his threatnings for he might threaten that now which he might know hereafter were not fit or just to be inflicted A changeable mind and understanding cannot make a due and right judgment of things to be done and things to be avoided No wise man would judge it reasonable to trust a weak and flitting person God must needs be unchangeable in his Knowledge But as the Schoolmen say that as the Sun always shines so God always knows as the Sun never ceaseth to shine so God never ceaseth to know Nothing can be hid from the vast compass of his Understanding no more than any thing can shelter it self without the Verge of his Power This farther appears in that 1. God knows by his own Essence He doth not know as we do by habits qualities species whereby we may be mistaken at one time and rectified at another He hath not an Understanding distinct from his Essence as we have but being the most simple Being his Understanding is his Essence and as from the infiniteness of his Essence we conclude the infiniteness of his Understanding so from the unchangeableness of his Essence we may justly conclude the unchangeableness of his Knowledge Since therefore God is without all composition and his Understanding is not distinct from his Essence what he knows he knows by his Essence and there can then be no more mutability in his Knowledge than there can be in his Essence and if there were any in that he could not be God because he would have the property of a Creature If his Understanding then be his Essence his Knowledge is as necessary as unchangeable as his Essence As his Essence eminently contains all perfections in it self so his Understanding comprehends all things past present and future in it self If his Understanding and his Essence were not one and the same he were not simple but compounded if compounded he would consist of parts if he consisted of parts he would not be an independent Being and so would not be God 2. God knows all things by one intuitive act As there is no succession in his Being so that he is one thing now and another thing hereafter so there is no succession in his Knowledge He knows things that are successive before their existence and succession by one single act of intuition by one cast of his eye all things future are present to him in regard of his Eternity and Omnipresence So that though there is a change and variation in the things known yet his Knowledge of them and their several changes in nature is invariable and unalterable As imagin a Creature that could see with his eye at one glance the whole compass of the Heavens by sending out beams from his eye without receiving any species from them he would see the whole Heavens uniformly this part now in the East then in the West without any change in his eye for he sees every part and every motion together and though that great Body varies and whirls about and is in continual agitation his eye remains stedfast suffers no change beholds all their motions at once and by one glance * Suarez vol. 1. pa. 137. God knows all things from Eternity and therefore perpetually knows them the reason is because the Divine Knowledge is infinite * Psal 145.5 His understanding is infinite and therefore comprehends all knowable Truths at once An eternal Knowledge comprehends in it self all Time and beholds past and present in the same manner and therefore his Knowledge is immutable By one simple Knowledge he considers the infinite spaces of past and future 3. Gods knowledge and Will is the cause of all things and their successions * Austin Bradwardine There can be no pretence of any changeableness of knowledge in God but in this case before things come to pass he knows that they will come to pass after they are come to pass he knows that they are past and slide away This would be something if the succession of things were the cause of the divine Knowledg as it is of our knowledge but on the contrary the divine Knowledge and Will is the cause of the succession of them God doth not know Creatures because they are but they are because he knows them All his works were known to him from the beginnig of the world * Acts 15.18 All his works were not known to him if the events of all those works were not also known to him If they were not known to him how should he make them he could not do any thing ignorantly He made them then after he knew them and did not know them after he made them His Knowledge of them made a change in them their existence made no change in his Knowledg He knew them when they were to be Created in the same manner that he knew them after they were Created before they were brought into act as well as after they were brought into act before they were made they were and were not they were in the Knowledge of God when they were not in their own nature God did not receive his knowledge from their existence but his Knowledge and Will acted upon them to bring them
him * Petavius changed Did he create he knew not what and knew not before what he should Create Was he ignorant before he acted and in his acting what his operation would tend to or did he not know the nature of things and the ends of them till he had produced them and saw them in Being Creatures then did not arise from his Knowledg but his Knowledg from them he did not then Will that his Creatures should be for he had then willed what he knew not and knew not what he willed they therefore must be known before they were made and not known because they were made he knew them to make them and he did not make them to know them By the same reason that he knew what Creatures should be before they were he knows still what Creatures shall be before they are Bradward lib. 3. cap. 14. for all things that are were in God not really in their own nature but in him as a cause so the Earth and Heavens were in him as a Model is in the mind of a Work man which is in his Mind and Soul before it be brought forth into outward act 2. The Predictions of future things evidence this There is not a Prophecy of any thing to come but is a spark of his fore-knowledg and bears Witness to the Truth of this assertion in the punctual accomplishment of it this is a thing challenged by God as his own peculiar wherein he surmounts all the Idols that mans inventions have Godded in the World Isa 41.21 22. Let them bring forth speaking of the Idols and shew us what shall happen or declare us things to come shew the things that are to come hereafter that we may know that you are Gods Such a fore-knowledg of things to come is here ascribed to God by God himself as a distinction of him from all false Gods such a Knowledg that if any could prove that they were possessors of he would acknowledg them Gods as well as himself that we may know that you are Gods He puts his Deity to stand or fall upon this account and this should be the point which should decide the controversy whether he or the Heathen Idols were the true God the dispute is managed by this medium He that knows things to come is God I know things to come ergo I am God the Idols know not things to come therefore they are not Gods God submits the Being of his Deity to this Tryal If God know things to come no more than the Heathen Idols which were either Devils or men he would be in his own account no more a God than Devils or men no more a God than the Pagan Idols he doth scoff at for this defect If the Heathen Idols were to be stript of their Deity for want of this foreknowledg of things to come would not the true God also fall from the same excellency if he were defective in Knowledg he would in his own judgment no more deserve the Title and Character of a God than they How could he reproach them for that if it were wanting in himself It cannot be understood of future things in their causes when the effects necessarily arise from such causes as Light from the Sun and Heat from the Fire many of these men know more of them Angels and Devils know if God therefore had not a higher and farther Knowledg than this he would not by this be proved to be God any more than Angels and Devils who know necessary effects in their causes The Devils indeed did predict some things in the Heathen Oracles but God is differenced from them here by the infiniteness of his Knowledg in being able to predict things to come that they knew not or things in their particularities things that depended on the liberty of mans Will which the Devils could lay no claim to a certain knowledg of Were it only a conjectural knowledg that is here meant the Devils might answer they can conjecture and so their Deity were as good as Gods for tho' God might know more things and conjecture nearer to what would be yet still it would be but conjectural and therefore not a higher kind of Knowledg than what the Devils might challenge How much then is God beholden to the Socinians for denying the knowledg of all future things to him upon which here he puts the trial of his Deity God asserts his knowledg of things to come as a manifest evidence of his Godhead those that deny therefore the Argument that proves it deny the conclusion too for this will necessarily follow that if he be God because he knows future things then he that doth not know future things is not God and if God knows not future things but only by conjecture then there is no God because a certain knowledg so as infallibly to predict things to come is an inseparable Perfection of the Deity It was therefore well said of Austin that it was as high a madness to deny God to be as to deny him the foreknowledg of things to come The whole Prophetick part of Scripture declares this Perfection of God every Prophets Candle was lighted at this Torch they could not have this foreknowledg of themselves Why might not many other men have the same insight if it were by nature it must be from some superior Agent Pacuvius said Siqui quae eventura sunt provident aeqâ—â— parent Gell. lib. 14. c. 1. and all Nations owned Prophecy as a Beam from God a fruit of Divine Illumination Prophecy must be totally expunged if this be denyed for the subjects of Prophecy are things future and no man is properly a Prophet but in Prediction now Prediction is nothing but foretelling and things foretold are not yet come and the foretelling of them supposeth them not to be yet but that they shall be in time several such Predictions we have in Scripture the event whereof hath been certain The years of Famine in Egypt foretold that he would order second causes for bringing that Judgment upon them the Captivity of his People in Babylon the calling of the Gentiles the rejection of the Jews Daniels Revelation of Nebuchadnezzars Dream that Prince refers to God as the revealer of Secrets Dan. 2.47 By the same reason that he knows one thing future by himself and by the infiniteness of his Knowledg before any causes of them appear he doth know all things future 3. Some future things are known by men and we must allow God a greater Knowledg than any Creature Future things in their Causes may be known by Angels and men as I said before whosoever knows necessary causes and the efficacy of them may foretell the effects and when he sees the meeting and concurrence of several causes together he may presage what the consequent effect will be of such a concurrence So Physicians foretel the Progress of a Disease the increase or diminution of it by natural Signs and Astronomers foretel Eclipses
will allow in God as great a certainty of foreknowledg of the designs and actions of men as there is inconstancy in their resolves God must be altering the methods of his Government every day every hour every minute according to the determinations of men which are so various and changeable in the whole compass of the World in the space of one minute he must wait to see what the counsels of men will be before he could settle his own methods of Government and so must govern the World according to their mutability and not according to any certainty in himself But his counsel is stable in the midst of multitudes of free devices in the heart of man Prov. 19.21 and knovving them all before orders them to be subservient to his ovvn stable counsel If he cannot knovv vvhat to morrovv vvill bring forth in the mind of a man hovv can he certainly settle his ovvn determination of Governing him his Decrees and Resolves must be Temporal and arise pro re natà and he must alvvay be in counsel vvhat he should do upon every change of mens minds This is an unvvorthy conceit of the Infinite Majesty of Heaven to make his Government depend upon the resolves of men rather than their resolves upon the design of God 2. 'T is therefore certain that God doth foreknow the free and voluntary acts of man Hovv could he else order his People to ask of him things to come in order to their deliverance such things as depended upon the Will of man if he foreknevv not the motions of their Will Isa 45.11 1. Actions good or indifferent depending upon the liberty of mans Will as much as any whatsoever Several of these he hath foretold Not only a Person to build up Jerusalem vvas Predicted by him but the Name of that person Cyrus Isa 44.28 What is more contingent or is more the effect of the liberty of mans Will than the Names of their Children Was not the Destruction of the Babylonish Empire foretold vvhich Cyrus undertook not by any compulsion but by a free inclination and resolve of his ovvn Will And vvas not the dismission of the Jews into their ovvn Country a voluntary act in that Conqueror if you consider the liberty of mans Will might not Cyrus as vvell have continued their Yoak as have struck off their Chains and kept them Captive as vvell as dismist them Had it not been for his ovvn interest rather to have strengthned the Fetters of so turbulent a People vvho being tenacious of their Religion and Lavvs different from that profest by the vvhole World vvere like to make disturbances more vvhen they vvere linkt in a body in their ovvn Country than vvhen they vvere transplanted and scatter'd into the several parts of his Empire It vvas in the povver of Cyrus take him as a man to chuse one or the other his interest invited him to continue their Captivity rather than grant their Deliverance yet God knevv that he vvould vvillingly do this rather than the other he knevv this vvhich depended upon the Will of Cyrus and vvhy may not an infinite God foreknovv the free acts of all men as vvell as of one If the liberty of Cyrus's Will vvas no hinderance to Gods certain and infallible foreknovvledg of it hovv can the contingency of any other thing be a hinderance to him for there is the same reason of one and all and his Government extends to every Village every Family every Person as vvell as to Kingdoms and Nations So God foretold by his Prophet not only the destruction of Jeroboams Altar but the Name of the Person that should be the Instrument of it 1 Kings 13.2 and this about 300 years before Josiah's Birth 'T is a vvonder that none of the Pious Kings of Judah in detestation of Idolatry and hopes to recover again the Kingdom of Israel had in all that space Named one of their Sons by that Name of Josiah in hopes that that Prophecy should be accomplisht by him That Manasseh only should do this who vvas the greatest imitator of Jeroboams Idolatry among all the Jewish Kings and indeed vvent beyond them and had no mind to destroy in another Kingdom vvhat he propagated in his ovvn What is freer than the imposition of a Name yet this he foreknevv and this Josiah vvas Manasses's Son 2 Kings 21.26 Was there any thing more voluntary than for Pharaoh to Honour the Butler by restoring him to his place and punish the Baker by hanging him on a Gibbet yet this vvas foretold Gen. 40.8 And vvere not all the voluntary acts of men vvhich vvere the means of Josephs advancement foreknovvn by God as vvell as his exaltation vvhich vvas the end he aimed at by those means Many of these may be reckon'd up Can all the free acts of man surmount the infinite capacity of the Divine Understanding If God singles out one voluntary action in man as contingent as any and lying among a vast number of other designs and resolutions both antecedent and subsequent Why should he not knovv the vvhole mass of mens thoughts and actions and pierce into all that the liberty of mans Will can effect Why should he not knovv every grain as vvell as one that lies in the midst of many of the same kind And since the Scripture gives so large an account of contingents predicted by God no man can certainly prove that any thing is un-foreknovvn to him 'T is as reasonable to think he knovvs every contingent as that he knows some that lye as much hid from the eye of any Creature since there is no more difficulty to an infinite understanding to knovv all than to know some * The Stoicks that thought their Souls to be some particle of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pieces pull'd off from him did conclude from thence that he knew all the motions of their Souls as his own mover as things coherent with him Arrian Epiâ—tet lib. 1. cap. 14. p. 60. Indeed if we deny Gods foreknowledg of the voluntary actions of men we must strike our selves off from the belief of Scripture-Predictions that yet remain unaccomplisht and will be brought about by the voluntary engagements of men as the ruine of Antichrist c. If God foreknows not the secret motions of mans Will how can he foretel them if we strip him of this Perfection of Prescience why should we believe a word of Scripture-Predictions all the Credit of the Word of God is torn up by the Roots If God were uncertain of such events how can we reconcile Gods declaration of them to his Truth and his demanding our Belief of them to his Goodness Were it good and righteous in God to urge us to the Beleif of that he were uncertain of himself how could he be True in Predicting things he were not sure of or Good in requiring credit to be given to that which might be false This would necessarily follow if God did not foreknovv the motions
the things known were the cause of his Knowledg and so before his knowledg and therefore before his action Bradward lib. 1. cap. 15. God would not then be the first in the order of knowing Agents because he would not act by Knowledg but act before he knew and know after he had acted and so the Creature which he made would be before the act of his Understanding whereby he knew what he made Again since Knowledg is a Perfection if Gods knowledg of the Creatures depended upon the Creatures he would derive an excellency from them they would derive no excellency from any Idea in the Divine mind he would not be infinitely perfect in himself if his Perfection in Knowledg were gained from any thing without himself and below himself he would not be sufficient of himself but be under an indigence which wanted a supply from the things he had made and could not be eternally perfect till he had created and seen the effects of his own Power Goodness and Wisdom to render him more wise and knowing in Time than he was from Eternity Who can fancy such a God as this without destroying the Deity he pretends to adore for if his Understanding be perfected by something without him why may not his Essence be perfected by something without him that as he was made knowing by something without him he might be made God by something without him How could his Understanding be infinite if it depended upon a finite object as upon a cause Is the Majesty of God to be debas'd to a Mendicant condition to seek for a supply from things inferior to himself Is it to be imagin'd that a Fool a Toad a Fly should be assistant to the knowledg of God that the most noble Being should be perfected by things so vile that the supream cause of all things should receive any addition of knowledg and be determin'd in his Understanding by the notion of things so mean To conclude this particular all things depend upon his knowledg his knowledg depends upon nothing but is as independent as himself and his own Essence Proposition 4. God knows all things distinctly His understanding is infinite in regard of clearness God is light and in him is no darkness at all John 1.5 he sees not through a Mist or Cloud there 's no blemish in his Understanding no mote or beam in his eye to render any thing obscure to him Man discerns the surface and outside of things little or nothing of the Essence of things we see the noblest things but as in a glass darkly 1 Cor. 13.12 the too great nearness as well as the too great distance of a thing hinders our sight the smallness of a mote escapes our eye and so our knowledg also the weakness of our understanding is troubled with the multitude of things and cannot know many things but confusedly But God knows the forms and essence of things every circumstance nothing is so deep but he sees to the bottom he sees the mass and sees the motes of Beings his Understanding being infinite is not offended with a multitude of things or distracted with the variety of them he discerns every thing infinitely more clearly and perfectly than Adam or Solomon could any one thing in the Circle of their knowledg What knowledg they had was from him he hath therefore infinitely a more perfect knowledg than they were capable in their natures to receive a communication of All things are open to him Heb. 4.13 the least fibre in its nakedness and distinct frame is transparent to him as by the help of Glasses the mouth feet hands of a small Insect are visible to a man which seem to the eye without that assistance one intire piece not diversified into parts All the causes qualities natures properties of things are open to him he brings out the Host of Heaven by number and calleth them by Names Isa 40.26 he numbers the Hairs of our heads what more distinct than number thus God beholds things in every unity which makes up the heap He knows and none else can every thing in its true and intimate causes in its original and intermediate causes in himself as the cause of every particular of their Being every Property in their Being Knowledg by the causes is the most noble and perfect Knowledg and most suited to the infinite excellency of the Divine Being he created all things and ordered them to a universal and particular end he therefore knows the essential Properties of every thing every activity of their nature all their fitness for those distinct ends to which he orders them and for which he governs and disposeth them and understands their darkest and most hidden qualities infinitely clearer than any eye can behold the clear Beams of the Sun He knows all things as he made them he made them distinctly and therefore knows them distinctly and that every individual therefore God is said Gen. 1.31 to see every thing that he had made he took a review of every particular Creature he had made and upon his view pronounced it good To pronounce that good which was not exactly known in every Creek in every Mite of its nature had not consisted with his veracity for every one that speaks truth ignorantly that knows not that he speaks Truth is a Liar in speaking that which is true God knows every act of his own Will whether it be positive or permissive and therefore every effect of his Will We must needs ascribe to God a perfect Knowledg but a confus'd Knowledg cannot challenge that Title To know things only in a heap is unworthy of the Divine Perfection for if God knows his own ends in the Creation of things he knows distinctly the means whereby he will bring them to those ends for which he hath appointed them No Wise man intends an end without a knowledg of the means conducing to that end an ignorance then of any thing in the World which falls under the nature of a means to a Divine end and there is nothing in the World but doth would be inconsistent with the Perfection of God it would ascribe to him a blind Providence in the World As there can be nothing imperfect in his Being and Essence so there can be nothing imperfect in his Understanding and Knowledg and therefore not a confus'd Knowledg which is an Imperfection Darkness and Light are both alike to him Psal 139.12 he sees distinctly into the one as well as the other what is Darkness to us is not so to him Proposition 5. God knows all things infallibly His Understanding is infinite in regard of certainty every Tittle of what he knows is as far from failing as what he speaks our Saviour affirms the one Math. 5.18 and there is the same reason of the certainty of one as well as the other his Essence is the measure of his Knowledg whence it is as impossible that God should be mistaken in the knowledg of the least
in this that they are both Acts of the Understanding but Knowledge is the Apprehension of a thing and Wisdom is the Appointing and Ordering of things Wisdom is the splendor and lustre of Knowledge shining forth in Operations and is an Act both of Understanding and Will Understanding in Counselling and Contriving Will in Resolving and Executing Counsel and Will are link'd together Ephes 1.11 II. The Second thing is to lay down some Propositions in general concerning the Wisdom of God 1. There is an Essential and a Personal Wisdom of God The Essential Wisdom is the Essence of God the Personal Wisdom is the Son of God Christ is called Wisdom by himself Luke 7.35 The Wisdom of God by the Apostle 1 Cor. 1.24 The Wisdom I speak of belongs to the Nature of God and is considered as a necessary Perfection The Personal Wisdom is called so because he opens to us the Secrets of God If the Son were that Wisdom whereby the Father is Wise the Son would be also the Essence whereby the Father is God If the Son were the Wisdom of the Father whereby he is Essentially Wise the Son would be the Essence of the Father and the Father would have his Essence from the Son since the Wisdom of God is the Essence of God and so the Son would be the Father if the Wisdom and Power of the Father were originally in the Son 2. Therefore Secondly The Wisdom of God is the same with the Essence of God Wisdom in God is not a Habit added to his Essence as it is in Man but it is his Essence 'T is like the splendor of the Sun the same with the Sun it self or like the brightness of Chrystal which is not communicated to it by any thing else as the Brightness of a Mountain is by the Beam of the Sun but it is one with the Chrystal it self 'T is not a Habit superadded to the Divine Essence that would be repugnant to the Simplicity of God and speak him compounded of divers Principles it would be contrary to the Eternity of his Perfections If he be Eternally Wise his Wisdom is his Essence for there is nothing Eternal but the Essence of God * Maimon Mor. Part 1. cap. 53. As the Sun melts some things and hardens others blackens some things and whitens others and produceth contrary qualities in different Subjects yet it is but one and the same quality in the Sun which is the cause of those contrary Operations So the Perfections of God seem to be diverse in our Conceptions yet they are but one and the same in God The Wisdom of God is God acting Prudently as the Power of God is God acting Powerfully and the Justice of God is God acting Righteously And therefore 't is more truly said that God is Wisdom Justice Truth Power than that He is Wise Just True c. as if he were compounded of Substance and Qualities All the Operations of God proceed from one Simple Essence as all the Operations of the Mind of Man though various proceed from one faculty of Understanding 3. Wisdom is the Property of God alone He is only Wise 'T is an Honour peculiar to him Upon the account that no Man deserved the Title of Wise but that it was a Royalty belonging to God †Laert. lib. 1. Proem Pythagoras would not be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Title given to their Learned Men but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Name Philosopher arose out of a respect to this transcendent Perfection of God 1. God is only Wise necessarily As He is necessarily God so he is necessarily Wise for the Notion of Wisdom is inseparable from the Notion of a Deity When we say God is a Spirit is True Righteous Wise we understand that he is transcendently these by an intrinsick and absolute necessity by virtue of his own Essence without the Efficiency of any other or any Efficiency in and by himâ—â—lf God doth not make himself Wise no more than he makes himself God As â—e is a necessary Being in regard of his Life so he is necessarily Wise in regard oâ—â—is Understanding Synesius saith that God is Essentiated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by his Vnderstanâ—ing He places the Substance of God in Vnderstanding and Wisdom Wisdom is the first vital Operation of God He can no more be Unwise than he can be Untrue for Folly in the Mind is much the same with Falsity in Speech Wisdom among Men is gained by Age and Experience furthered by Instructions and Exercise but the Wisdom of God is his Nature As the Sun cannot be without Light while it remains a Sun and as Eternity cannot be without Immortality So neither can God be without Wisdom As he only hath Immortality 1 Tim. 6.16 not arbitrarily but necessarily so he only hath Wisdom Not because he will be Wise but because he cannot but be Wise He cannot but contrive Counsels and exert Operations becoming the Greatness and Majesty of his Nature 2. Therefore only Wise originally God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men acquire Wisdom by the loss of their fairest years but his Wisdom is the Perfection of the Divine Nature not the birth of Study or the growth of Experience but as necessary as Eternal as his Essence He goes not out of himself to search Wisdom He needs no more the Brains of Creatures in the contrivance of his Purposes than he doth their Arm in the execution of them He needs no Counsel he receives no Counsel from any Rom. 11.34 Who hath been his Counsellor and Isai 40.14 With whom took he counsel and who instructed him or taught him in the path of Judgment and taught him Knowledge and shewed to him the path of Vnderstanding He is the only Fountain of Wisdom to others Angels and Men have what Wisdom they have by communication from him All created Wisdom is a spark of the Divine Light like that of the Stars borrowed from the Sun He that borrows Wisdom from another and doth not originally possess it in his own Nature cannot properly be called Wise As God is the only Being in regard that all other Beings are derived from him so he is only Wise because all other Wisdom slows from him He is the Spring of Wisdom to all none the Original of Wisdom to him 3. Therefore only Wise perfectly There is no cloud upon his Understanding He hath a distinct and certain Knowledge of all things that can fall under action As he hath a perfect Knowledge without Ignorance so he hath a Beautiful Wisdom without Mole or Wart Men are wise yet have not an Understanding so vast as to grasp all things nor a Perspicacity so clear as to penetrate into the depths of all Beings Angels have more delightful and lively sparks of Wisdom yet so imperfect that in regard of the Wisdom of God they are charged with folly Job 4.18 Their Wisdom as well as their Holiness is vailed in the Presence of God It vanisheth
that is none can The Text is a lofty declaration of the Divine Power with a particular note of Attention Loe. 1. In the expressions of it in the works of Creation and Providence Loe these are his ways Ways and Works excelling any created strength referring to the little summary of them he had made before 2. In the Insufficiency of these ways to measure his Power but how little a portion is heard of him 3. In the Incomprehensibleness of it The thunder of his Power who can understand Doct. Infinite and Incomprehensible Power pertains to the Nature of God and is exprest in part in his Works or Though there be a mighty expression of Divine Power in his Works yet an Incomprehensible Power pertains to his Nature The thunder of his Power who can understand His Power glitters in all his Works as well as his Wisdom Psal 62.11 Twice have I heard this that Power belongs unto God In the Law and in the Prophets say some But why Power twice and not Mercy which he speaks of in the following Verse He had heard of Power twice from the voice of Creation and from the voice of Government Mercy was heard in Government after Man's Fall not in Creation Innocent man was an object of Gods goodness not of his Mercy till he made himself miserable Power was exprest in both or Twice have I heard that Power belongs to God that is it is a certain and undoubted Truth that Power is essential to the Divine Nature 'T is true Mercy is essential Justice is essential but Power more apparently essential because no acts of Mercy or Justice or Wisdom can be exercised by him without Power The repetition of a thing confirms the certainty of it Some observe that God is called Almighty Seventy times in Scripture * Lessius de perfect Divin lib. 5. cap. 1. Though his Power be evident in all his Works yet he hath a Power beyond the expression of it in his Works which as it is the glory of his Nature so it is the comfort of a Believer To which purpose the Apostle expresseth it by an excellent Periphrasis for the honour of the Divine Nature Eph. 3.20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think unto him be glory in the Churches We have reason to acknowledge him Almighty who hath a Power of acting above our power of understanding Who could have imagin'd such a powerful operation in the propagation of the Gospel and the Conversion of the Gentiles which the Apostle seems to hint at in that place His Power is exprest by Horns in his hands Hab. 3.4 because all the Works of his hands are wrought with Almighty strength Power is also used as a Name of God Mark 14.62 The Son of Man sitting on the right hand of Power that is at the right hand of God God and Power are so inseparable that they are reciprocated As his Essence is Immense not to be confin'd in Place as it is Eternal not to be measur'd by Time so it is Almighty not to be limited in regard of Action 1. 'T is Ingeniously illustrated by some by a Vnit †Fotherby Atheomastic p. 306 307. all Numbers depend upon it it makes Numbers by Addition Multiplies them unexpressibly when one Unit is removed from a Number how vastly doth it diminish it It gives perfection to all other Numbers it receives perfection from none If you add a Unit before 100 how doth it multiply it to 1100 If you set a Unit before twenty Millions it presently makes the Number swell up to an hundred and twenty Millions and so powerful is a Unit by adding it to Numbers that it will infinitely inlarge them to such a vastness that shall transcend the capacity of the best Arithmetician to count them By such a Meditation as this you may have some prospect of the Power of that God who is only Unity the Beginning of all things as a Unit is the beginning of all Numbers and can perform as many things really as a Unit can numerically that is can do as much in the making of Creatutes as a Unit can do in the multiplying of Numbers The Omnipotence of God was scarce denied by any Heathen that did not deny the Being of a God and that was Pliny and that upon weak Arguments 2. Indeed we cannot have a conception of God if we conceive him not most Powerful as well as most Wise He is not a God that cannot do what he will and perform all his pleasure If we imagine him restrain'd in his Power we imagine him limited in his Essence As he hath an infinite Knowledge to know what is possible he cannot be without an infinite Power to do what is possible As he hath a Will to resolve what he sees good so he cannot want a Power to effect what he sees good to decree As the Essence of a Creature cannot be conceiv'd without that activity that belongs to his nature as when you conceive Fire you cannot conceive it without a power of burning and warming and when you conceive Water you cannot conceive it without a power of moistning and cleansing So you cannot conceive an Infinite Essence without an Infinite Power of activity And therefore a Heathen could say If you know God you know he can do all things and therefore saith Austin Give me not only a Christian but a Jew not only a Jew but a Heathen that will deny God to be Almighty A Jew a Heathen may deny Christ to be Omnipotent but no Heathen will deny God to be Omnipotent and no Devil will deny either to be so God cannot be conceiv'd without some Power for then he must be conceiv'd without Action Whos 's then are those products and effects of Power which are visible to us in the World to whom do they belong who is the Father of them God cannot be conceiv'd without a Power suitable to his Nature and Essence if we imagine him to be of an Infinite Essence we must imagine him to be of an Infinite Power and Strength In particular I shall shew 1. The Nature of God's Power 2. Reasons to prove that God must needs be Powerful 3. How his Power appears in Creation in Government in Redemption 4. The Vse I. What this Power is or the Nature of it 1. Power sometimes signifies Authority And a Man is said to be Mighty and Powerful in regard of his Dominion and the right he hath to Command multitudes of other persons to take his part but Power taken for Strength and Power taken for Authority are distinct things and may be separated from one another Power may be without Authority as in successful Invasions that have no just foundation Authority may be without Power as in a Just Prince expell'd by an unjust Rebellion the Authority resides in him though he be over-power'd and is destitute of Strength to support and exercise that Authority The Power
it congruous to the righteous and holy nature of God to command Murder and Adultery to command men not to worship him but to be base and unthankful These things would be against the Rules of Righteousness As when we say of a good Man he cannot rob or fight a Duel we do not mean that he wants a courage for such an Act or that he hath not a natural strength and knowledge to manage his Weapon as well as another but he hath a righteous Principle strong in him which will not suffer him to do it his will is setled against it No Power can pass into Act unless applied by the will But the will of God cannot will any thing but what is worthy of him and decent for his Goodness 1. The Scripture saith 't is impossible for God to lye * Hebr. 6.18 and God cannot deny himself because of his faithfulness †2 Tim. 2.13 As he cannot dye because he is life it self as he cannot deceive because he is goodness it self as he cannot do an unwise action because he is wisdom it self so he cannot speak a false word because he is truth it self If he should speak any thing as true and not know it where is his infinite Knowledge and Comprehensiveness of Understanding If he should speak any thing as true which he knows to be false where is his infinite Righteousness If he should deceive any Creature there is an end of his Perfection of Fidelity and Veracity If he should be deceiv'd himself there is an end of his Omniscience we must then fancy him to be a deceitful God an ignorant God that is no God at all ‖ Becan sum Theolog. p. â—3 If he should lye he would be God and no God God upon supposition and no God because not the first Truth All Unrighteousness is Weakness not Power 't is a Defection from right Reason a Deviation from Moral Principles and the Rule of perfect Action and ariseth from a defect of Goodness and Power 'T is a Weakness and not Omnipotence to lose Goodness * Maximus Tyrius God is Light 't is the perfection of Light not to become Darkness and a want of Power in Light if it should become Darkness His Power is infinitely strong so is his Wisdom infinitely clear and his Will infinitely pure Would it not be a part of Weakness to have a disorder in himself and these Perfections shock one against another Since all Perfections are in God in the most Soveraign height of Perfection nothing can be done by the Infiniteness of one against the Infiniteness of the other He would then be unstable in his own Perfections and depart from the infinite rectitude of his own Will if he shoul do an evil action Again †Ambrose What is an Argument of greater strength then to be utterly ignorant of Infirmity God is Omnipotent because he cannot do Evil and would not be Omnipotent if he could Those things would be Marks of Weakness and not Characters of Majesty Would you count a sweet Fountain impotent because it cannot send forth bitter Streams Or the Sun weak because it cannot diffuse Darkness as well as Light in the Air There is an inability arising from Weakness and an ability arising from Perfection 'T is the Perfection of Angels and blessed Spirits that they cannot sin And it would be the Imperfection of God if he could do Evil. 2. Hence it follows that 't is impossible that a thing past should not be past If we ascribe a Power to God to make a thing that is past not to be past we do not truly ascribe Power to him but a Weakness For it is to make God to lye As though God might not have created man yet after he had created Adam though he should presently have reduced Adam to his first nothing yet it would be for ever true that Adam was created and it would for ever be false that Adam never was created So though God may prevent sin yet when sin hath been committed it will alway be true that sin was committed It will never be true to say such a Creature that did sin did not sin his sin cannot be recalled Though God by pardon take off the Guilt of Peter's denying our Saviour yet it will be eternally true that Peter did deny him It is repugnant to the Righteousness and Truth of God to make that which was once true to become false and not true that is to make a Truth to become a Lye and a Lye to become a Truth This is well argued from Hebr. 6.18 'T is impossible for God to lye ‖ Becan sum Theol. p 84. Crel de Deo cap. 22. The Apostle argues that what God had promised and sworn will come to pass and cannot but come to pass Now if God could make a thing past not to be past this consequence would not be good for then he might make himself not to have promised not to have sworn after he hath promised and sworn And so if there were a power to undo that which is past there would be no foundation for Faith no certainty of Revelation It cannot be asserted that God hath created the World that God hath sent his Son to dye that God hath accepted his death for man These might not be true if it were possible that that which hath been done might be said never to have been done So that what any may imagine to be a want of Power in God is the highest perfection of God and the greatest security to a believing Creature that hath to do with God Fourthly Some things are impossible to be done because of God's Ordination Some things are impossible not in their own nature but in regard of the determin'd Will of God So God might have destroy'd the World after Adam's fall but it was impossible not that God wanted Power to do it but because he did not only decree from Eternity to create the World but did also decree to redeem the World by Jesus Christ and erected the World in order to the manifestation of his glory in Christ Eph. 1.4.5 The choice of some in Christ was before the foundation of the World Supposing that there was no hinderance in the Justice of God to pardon the sin of Adam after his fall and to execute no punishment on him yet in regard of Gods threatning that in the day he eat of the forbidden fruit he should dye it was impossible So though it was possible that the Cup should pass from our blessed Saviour that is possible in its own nature yet it was not possible in regard of the determination of Gods Will since he had both decreed and publisht his Will to redeem Man by the Passion and Blood of his Son These things God by his absolute Power might have done but upon the account of his decree they were impossible because it is repugnant to the Nature of God to be mutable 'T is to deny his own
first of Genesis in the whole Chapter unto the finishing the Work in six Days God is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is a Name of Power and that Thirty two times in that Chapter but after the the finishing the six days Work he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which according to their notion is a Name of Goodness and Kindness * Mercer 9.7 col 1 2. His Power is first visible in framing the World before his Goodness is visible in the sustaining and preserving it It was by this Name of Power and Almighty that he was known in the first Ages of the World not by his Name Jehovah Exod. 6.3 And I appeared unto Abraham Isaack and Jacob by the name of God Almighty but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them Not but that they were acquainted with the Name but did not experience the intent of the Name which signified his Truth in the performance of his Promises They knew him by that name as promising but they knew him not by that Name as performing He would be known by his Name Jehovah True to his Word when he was about to effect the Deliverance from Egypt a Type of the Eternal Redemption wherein the Truth of God in performing of his first Promise is gloriously magnified And hence it is that God is called Almighty more in the Book of Job than in all the Scripture besides I think about Thirty two times and Jehovah but once which is Job 12.9 unless in Job 38. when God is introduc'd speaking himself which is an Argument of Jobs living before the Deliverance from Egypt when God was known more by his Works of Creation than by the performance of his Promises before the Name Jehovah was formally publish'd Indeed this Attribute of his Eternal Power is the first thing visible and intelligible upon the first glance of the eye upon the Creatures †Rom. 1.20 Bring a man out of the Cave where he hath been Nurst without seeing any thing out of the confines of it and let him lift up his Eyes to the Heavens and take a prospect of that glorious body the Sun then cast them down to the Earth and behold the Surface of it with its Green cloathing the first Notion which will start up in his Mind from that spring of Wonders is that of Power which he will at first adore with a Religious astonishment The Wisdom of God in them is not so presently apparent till after a more exquisite consideration of his Works and Knowledge of the properties of their natures the conveniency of their situations and the usefulness of their functions and the order wherein they are linkt together for the good of the Universe 2. By this Creative Power God is often distinguisht from all the Idols and False gods in the World And by this Title he sets forth himself when he would act any great and wonderful Work in the World He is great above all gods for he hath done whatsoever he pleased in Heaven and in Earth Psal 135.5 6. Upon this is founded all the Worship he challengeth in the World as his peculiar glory Revel 4.11 Thou art worthy Oh Lord to receive glory honour and power for thou hast Created all things And Rev. 10.6 I have made the Earth and created Man upon it I even my hands have stretched out the Heavens and all their Host have I commanded Isai 45.12 What is the issue Verse 16. They shall be ashamed and confounded all of them that are makers of Idols And the weakness of Idols is exprest by this Title The gods that have not made the Heavens and the Earth Jer. 10.11 The portion of Jacob is not like them for he is the former of all things Verse 16. What is not that God able to do that hath created so great a World How doth the Power of God appear in Creation 1. In making the World of Nothing When we say the World was made of Nothing we mean that there was no Matter existent for God to work upon but what he rais'd himself in the first act of Creation In this regard the Power of God in Creation surmounts his Power in Providence Creation supposeth nothing Providence supposeth something in Being Creation intimates a Creature making Providence speaks a thing already made and capable of Government and in Government God uses second Causes to bring about his Purposes 1. The World was made of nothing The Earth which is describ'd as the first Matter without any form or ornament without any distinction or figures was of Gods forming in the Bulk before he did adorn it with his Pensil * Gen. 1.1 2. †Suarez Vol. 3. p. 33. God in the beginning creating the Heaven and the Earth includes two things First That those were created in the beginning of time and before all other things Secondly That God begun the Creation of the World from those things Therefore before the Heavens and the Earth there was nothing absolutely created and therefore no Matter in being before an act of Creation past upon it It could not be Eternal because nothing can be Eternal but God it must therefore have a beginning If it had a beginning from it self then it was before it was If it acted in the making it self before it was made then it had a being before it had a being for that which is nothing can act nothing The action of any thing supposeth the existence of the thing which acts It being made it was not before it was made for to be made is to be brought into being It was made then by another and that Maker is God 'T is necessary that the first Original of things was from nothing When we see one thing to arise from another we must suppose an Original of the first of each kind As when we see a Tree spring up from a Seed we know that Seed came out of the bowels of another Tree it had a Parent and it had a Matter we must come to some First or else we run into an endless Maze We must come to some first Tree some first Seed that had no cause of the same kind no matter of it but was meer nothing ‖ Suarez Vol. 3. p. 6. Creation doth suppose a production â—â—â—m nothing because if you suppose a thing without any real or actual Existence 't is not capable of any other production then from nothing Nothing must be supposed before the World or we must suppose it Eternal and that is to deny it to be a Creature and make it God The Creation of spiritual Substances such as Angels and Souls evince this those things that are purely spiritual and consist not of matter cannot pretend to any Original from Matter and therefore they rose up from nothing If spiritual things arose from nothing much more may corporeal because they are of a lower nature than spiritual And he that can create a higher Nature of nothing can create an
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
Tabernacle to which service most if not all of them were afterwards dedicated God who is Lawgiver hath power to dispence with his own Law and make use of his own Goods and dispose of them as he pleases 'T is no unholiness in God to dispose of that which he hath a right unto Indeed God cannot command that which is in its own nature intrinsically evill as to command a rational Creature not to love him not to worship him to call God to witness to a Lye these are intrinsically evil but for the disposing of the Lives and Goods of his Creatures which they have from him in right and not in absolute propriety is not evil in him because there is no repugnancy in his own Nature to such acts nor is it any thing inconsistent with the natural duty of a Creature and in such casâ—s he may use what instruments he please The Point was That Holiness is a glorious perfection of the nature of God We have shew'd the Nature of this Holiness in God what it is and we have demonstrated it and proved that God is holy and must needs be so and also the purity of his Nature in all his acts about sin Let us now improve it by way of Vse Vse Is holiness a transcendent perfection belonging to the Nature of God The first Vse shall be of Instruction and Information 1. How great and how frequeâ—â— is the contempt of this eminent perfection in the Deity Since the fall this attribute which renders God most amiable in himself renders him most hateful to his Apostate Creature 'T is impossible that he that loves iniquity can affect that which is irreconcileably contrary to the iniquity he loves Nothing so contrary to the sinfulness of man as the Holiness of God and nothing is thought of by the sinner with so much detestation How do Men account that which is the most glorious perfection of the divinity unworthy to to be regarded as an accomplishment of their own Souls And when they are pressed to an imitation of it and a detestation of what is contrary to it have the same sentiments in their Heart which the Devil had in his Language to Christ Why art thou come to torment us before our time What an enmity the World naturally hath to this perfection I think is visible in the practise of the Heathen who among all their Heroes which they deified elevated none to that dignity among them for this or that moral Vertue that came nearest to it but for their valour or some usefulness in the concerns of this Life Aesculapius was deified for his skill in the cure of Diseases Bacchus for the use of the grape Vulcan for his operations by Fire Hercules for his destroying of Tyrants and Monsters but none for their meer Vertue As if any thing of purity were unworthy their consideration in the frame of a Deity when it is the glory of all other Perfections So essential it is that when Men reject the imitation of this God regards it as a total rejection of himself though they own all the other attributes of his Nature Psal 81.11 Israel would none of me why because they walked not in his ways Vers 13. those ways wherein the purity of the Divine nature was most conspicuous They would own him in his Power when they stood in need of a Deliverance they would own him in his Mercy when they were plung'd in Distress but they would not imitate him in his Holiness This being the lustre of the Divine Nature the contempt of it is an obscuring all his other Perfections and a dashing a blot upon his whole Scutcheon To own all the rest and deny him this is to frame him as an unbeautiful Monster a Deformed power Indeed all sin is against this attribute all sin aims in general at the being of God but in particular at the Holiness of his Being All sin is a violence to this perfection There is not an Iniquity in the World but directs its venemous sting against the divine purity Some sins are directed against his Omniscience as secret Wickedness some against his Providence as distrust some against his Mercy as unbelief some against his Wisdom as neglecting the means instituted by him censuring his ways and actings some against his Power as trusting in means more than in God and the immoderate fear of Men more than of God some against his Truth as distrusting his Promise or not fearing his Threatning but all agree together in their enmity against this which is the peculiar glory of the Deity Every one of them is a receding from the Divine Image and the blackness of every one is the deeper by how much the distance of it from the holiness of God is the greater This contrariety to the Holiness of God is the cause of all the absolute Atheism if there be any such in the World What was the reason the Fool hath said in his heart there is no God but because the Fool is corrupt and hath done abominable works * Psal 14.1 If they believe the being of a God their own Reason will inforce them to imagine him holy Therefore rather then fancy a holy God they would fain fancy none at all In particular 1. The Holiness of God is injur'd in unworthy representations of God and imaginations of him in our own minds The Heathen fell under this guilt and ascribed to their Idols those Vices which their own Sensuality inclin'd them to unworthy of a man much more unworthy of a God that they might find a protection of their Crimes in the practice of their Idols But is this only the notion of the Heathens may there not be many among us whose love to their Lusts and desires of sinning without controul move them to slander God in their thoughts rather than reform their lives and are ready to frame by the power of their imaginative faculty a God not only winking but smiling at their Impurities I am sure God charges the Impieties of Men upon this score in that Psalm Psa 50.21 which seems to be a representation of the day of Judgment as some gather from Verse 6. When God â—ums up all together These things hast thou done and I kept silence thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thy self not a detester but approver of thy crimes And the Psalmist seems to express Gods loathing of sin in such a manner as intimates it to be contrary to the Ideas and Resemblances Men make of him in their minds Psal 5.4 For thou art not a God that hast pleasure in wickedness As we say in vindication of a man he is not such a man as you imagine him to be Thou art not such a God as the World commonly imagines Thee to be a God taking pleasure in iniquity 'T is too common for men to fancy God not as he is but as they would have him strip him of his excellency for their own security As God made man
than Men have reason to complain for the exercise of Justice in the vindication of it If God established all things in Order with Infinite Wisdom and Goodness and God silently behold for ever this Order broken would he not either charge himself with a want of Power or a want of Will to preserve the Marks of his own Goodness Would it be a kindness to himself to be careless of the breaches of his own Orders His Throne would shake yea sink from under him if Justice whereby he Sentenceth and Judgment whereby he Executes his Sentence were not the supports of it †Ps 89.14 Justice and Judgment are the habitation of thy Throne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Stability or Foundation of thy Throne So Psal 92.2 Man would forget his Relation to God God would be unknown to be Soveraign of the World were he careless of the breaches of his own Order * Psal 9.16 The Lord is known by the Judgments which he Executes Is it not a part of his Goodness to preserve the indispensible Order between himself and his Creatures His own Soveraignty which is good and the subjection of the Creature to him as Soveraign which is also good The one would not be maintained in its due place nor the other restrained in due limits without Punishment Would it be a goodness in him to see Goodness it self trampled upon constantly without some time or other appearing for the relief of it Is it not a Goodness to secure his own Honour to prevent further Evil Is it not a Goodness to discourage Men by Judgments sometimes from a contempt and ill use of his Bounty as well as sometimes patiently to bear with them and wait upon them for a Reformation Must God be bad to himself to be kind to his Enemies And shall it be accounted an unkindness and a Mark of Evil in him not to suffer himself to be always outrag'd and defy'd The World is wrong'd by Sin as well as God is injur'd by it How could God be good to himself if he righted not his own Honour Or be a good Governour of the World if he did not sometimes witness against the Injuries it receives sometimes from the works of his hands Would he be good to himself as a God to be careless of his own Honour Or good as the Rector of the World and be regardless of the Worlds Confusion That God should give an Eternal good to that Creature that declines its Duty and despiseth his Soveraignty is not agreeable to the goodness of his Wisdom or that of his Righteousness 'T is a part of Gods Goodness to love himself Would he love his Soveraignty if he saw it dayly slighted without sometimes discovering how much he values the Honour of it Would he have any esteem for his own Goodness if he beheld it trampled upon without any will to vindicate it Doth Mercy deserve the name of Cruelty because it pleads against a Creature that hath so often abused it and hath refused to have any pity exercised towards it in a Righteous and Regular way Is Soveraignty destitute of Goodness because it preserves its Honour against one that would not have it Reign over him Would he not seem by such a regardlesness to renounce his own Essence undervalue and undermine his own Goodness if he had not an implacable aversion to whatsoever is contrary to it If Men turn Grace into Wantonness is it not more reasonable he should turn his Grace into Justice All his Attributes which are parts of his Goodness engage him to punish Sin without it his Authority would be vilified his Purity stain'd his Power derided his Truth disgraced his Justice scorn'd his Wisdom slighted He would be thought to have dissembled in his Laws and be judged according to the Rules of Reason to be void of true Goodness 4. Punishment is not the primary Intention of God 'T is his Goodness that he hath no mind to Punish and therefore he hath put a bar to Evil by his Prohibitions and Threatnings that he might prevent Sin and consequently any occasions of severity against his Creature * Zarnovecius de satisfact Part. 1. cap. 1. p. 3 4. The principal Intention of God in his Law was to encourage Goodness that he might reward it And when by the commission of Evil God is provoked to Punish and takes the Sword into his hand he doth not act against the Nature of his Goodness but against the first intention of his Goodness in his Precepts which was to Reward As a good Judge principally intendeds in the Exercise of his Office to protect good Men from Violence and maintain the honour of the Laws yet consequently to punish bad men without which the Protection of the good would not be secured nor the Honour of the Law be supported And a good Judge in the Exercise of his Office doth principally intend the incouragement of the good and wisheth there were no wickedness that might occasion Punishment and when he doth Sentence a Malefactor in order to the Execution of him he doth not act against the goodness of his Nature but pursuant to the Duty of his Place but wisheth he had no occasion for such severity Thus God seems to speak of himself †Isaiah 28.21 He calls the act of his Wrath his Strange Work his Strange Act A work not against his Nature as the Governor of the World but against his first Intention as Creator which was to manifest his Goodness Therefore he moves with a slow pace in those Acts brings out his Judgments with relentings of heart and seems to cast out his Thunderbolts with a trembling hand He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the Children of Men * Lam. 3.33 And therefore he delights not in the death of a Sinner †Ezek. 33.11 Not in Death as Death in Punishment as Punishment but as it reduceth the suffering Creature to the Order of his Precept or reduceth him into order under his Power or reforms others who are Spectators of the Punishment upon a Criminal of their own Nature God only hates the Sin not the Sinner He desires only the destruction of the one * Suarez Vol. 1. de Deo lib. 3. cap. 7. p. 146. not the misery of the other The Nature of a Man doth not displease him because it is a work of his own Goodness but the Nature of the Sinner displeaseth him because it is a work of the Sinners own extravagance Divine Goodness pitcheth not its hatred primarily upon the Sinner but upon the Sin But since he cannot punish the Sin without punishing the Subject to which it cleaves the Sinner falls under his lash Who ever regards a good Judge as an Enemy to the Malefactor but as an Enemy to his Crime when he doth Sentence and Execute him 5. Judgments in the World have a goodness in them therefore they are no Impeachments of the Goodness of God 1. A Goodness in their preparations He
the Kingdom of Heaven 'T is very reasonable that things so great and glorious so beneficial to Men and reveal'd to them by so sound an Authority and an unerring truth should be believed The Excellency of the thing disclos'd could admit of no lower a Condition than to be believ'd and embraced There is a sort of Faith that is a Natural Condition in every thing All Religion in the World though never so false depends upon a sort of it for unless there be a belief of future things there would never be a hope of Good or a fear of Evil the two great Hinges upon which Religion moves In all kinds of Learning many things must be believed before a progress can be made Belief of one another is necessary in all acts of Humane Life without which Humane Society would be unlinkt and dissolv'd What is that Faith that God requires of us in this Covenant but a willingness of Soul to take God for our God Christ for our Mediator and the Procurer of our Happiness * Rev. 22.17 What Prince could require less upon any Promise he makes his Subjects than to be believed as true and depended on as good That they should accept his Pardon and other gracious offers and be sincere in their Allegiance to him avoiding all things that may offend him and pursuing all things that may please him Thus God by so small and reasonable a Condition as Faith le ts in the Fruits of Christs Death into our Soul and wraps us up in the fruition of all the Priviledges purchas'd by it So much he hath condescended in his Goodness that upon so slight a Condition we may plead his Promise and humbly challenge by vertue of the Covenant those good things he hath promised in his Word 'T is so reasonable a Condition that if God did not require it in the Covenant of Grace the Creature were obliged to perform it For the publishing any Truth from God naturally calls for Credit to be given it by the Creature and an entertainment of it in Practice Could you offer a more reasonable Condition your selves had it been left to your choice Should a Prince proclaim a Pardon to a profligate Wretch would not all the World cry shame of him if he did not believe it upon the highest assurances and if Ingenuity did not make him sorry for his Crimes and careful in the Duty of a Subject surely the World would cry shame of such a Person 5. 'T is a necessary Condition 1. Necessary for the honour of God A Prince is disparag'd if his Authority in his Law and if his Graciousness in his Promises be not accepted and believed What Physician would undertake a Cure if his Precepts may not be Credited 'T is the first thing in the order of Nature that the Revelation of God should be believed that the reality of his Intentions in inviting Man to the acceptance of those Methods he hath prescribed for their attaining their chief Happiness should be acknowledged 'T is a debasing Notion of God that he should give a Happiness purchased by Divine Blood to a Person that hath no value for it nor any abhorrency of those Sins that occasion'd so great a Suffering nor any will to avoid them Should he not vilifie himself to bestow a Heaven upon that Man that will not believe the offers of it nor walk in those ways that leads to it That walks so as if he would declare there was no truth in his Word nor Holiness in his Nature Would not God by such an act verifie a truth in the language of their practice viz. that he were both false and impure careless of his Word and negligent of his Holiness As God was so desirous to ensure the Consolation of Believers that if there had been a greater Being than himself to attest and for him to be Responsible to for the confirmation of his Promise he would willingly have submitted to him and have made him the Umpire * Heb. 6.19 He swore by himself because he could not swear by a greater By the same reason Had it stood with the Majesty and Wisdom of God to stoop to lower Conditions in this Covenant for the reducing of Man to his Duty and Happiness he would have done it but his Goodness could not take lower steps with the preservation of the Rights of his Majesty and the Honour of his Wisdom Would you have had him wholly submitted to the obstinate will of a Rebellious Creature and be ruled only by his terms Would you have had him receiv'd Men to Happiness after they had heightned their Crimes by a contempt of his Grace as well as of his Creating Goodness and have made them blessed under the guilt of their Crimes without an acknowledgment Should he glorifie one that will not believe what he hath reveal'd nor repent of what himself hath committed and so save a Man after a repeated unthankfulness to the most immense Grace that ever was or can be discovered and offer'd without a detestation of his ingratitude and a voluntary acceptance of his offers 'T is necessary for the honour of God that Man should accept of his terms and not give Laws to him to whom he is obnoxious as a guilty Person as well as Subject as a Creature Again it was very equitable and necessary for the honour of God that since Man fell by an unbelief of his Precept and Threatning he should not rise again without a belief of his Promise and calling himself upon his Truth in that Since he had vilified the honour of his Truth in the Threatning Since Man in his fall would lean to his own understanding against God 't is fit that in his Recovery the highest powers of his Soul his Understanding and Will should be subjected to him in an intire Resignation Now whereas Knowledge seems to have a power over its Object Faith is a full submission to that which is the Object of it Since Man intended a glorying in himself the Evangelical Covenant directs its whole battery against it that Men may glory in nothing but Divine Goodness †1 Cor. 1.29 30 31. Had Man perform'd exact Obedience by his own Strength he had had something in himself as the Matter of his Glory And though after the fall Grace had made it self illustrious in setting him up upon a new Stock yet had the same Condition of exact Obedience been setled in the same manner Man would have had something to glory in which is strook off wholly by Faith whereby Man in every act must go out of himself for a supply to that Mediator which Divine Goodness and Grace hath appointed 2. 'T is necessary for the happiness of Man That can be no contenting Condition wherein the will of Man doth not concur He that is forced to the most delicious Diet or to wear the bravest Apparel or to be stor'd with abundance of Treasure cannot be happy in those things without an esteem of them
and delight in them If they be nauseous to him the indisposition of his mind is a dead Fly in those Boxes of precious Ointment Now Faith being a sincere willingness to accept of Christ and to come to God by him and Repentance being a detestation of that which made Mans separation from God 't is impossible he could be yoluntarily happy without it Man cannot attain and enjoy a true happiness without an operation of his understanding about the Object proposed and the means appointed to enjoy it There must be a knowledge of what is offer'd and of the way of it and such a knowledge as may determine the will to affect that end and embrace those means which the will can never do till the understanding be fully perswaded of the truth of the Offerer and the goodness of the Proposal it self and the conveniency of the means for the attaining of it 'T is necessary in the nature of the thing that what is reveal'd should be believ'd to be a Divine Revelation God must be judged true in the Promising Justification and Sanctification the means of happiness and if any Man desires to be Partaker of those Promises he must desire to be Sanctified and how can he desire that which is the Matter of those Promises if he wallow in his own lusts and desire to do so a thing repugnant to the Promise it self Would you have God force Man to be happy against his will Is it not very reasonable he should demand the consent of his reasonable Creature to that Blessedness he offers him The new Covenant is a Marriage Covenant * Hos 2.16 19 20. which implies a consent on our parts as well as a consent on Gods part That is no Marriage that hath not the consent of both Parties Now Faith is our actual Consent and Repentance and sincere Obedience are the Testimonies of the truth and reality of this Consent 6. Divine Goodness is eminent in his Methods of treating with Men to embrace this Covenant They are Methods of gentleness and sweetness 'T is a wooing Go dness and a bewailing Goodness His Expressions are with strong motions of affection He carrieth not on the Gospel by force of Arms He doth not solely menace Men into it as Worldly Conquerors have done He doth not as Mahomet plunder Mens Estates and wound their Bodies to imprint a Religion on their Souls He doth not erect Gibbets and kindle Faggots to scare Men to an entring into Covenant with him What Multitudes might he have raised by his power as well as others What Legions of Angels might he have Rendezvouz'd from Heaven to have beaten Men into a profession of the Gospel Nor doth he only interpose his Soveraign Authority in the Precept of Faith but useth Rational Expostulations to move Men voluntarily to comply with his Proposals †Isaiah 1.18 Come now saith the Lord let us reason together He seems to call Heaven and Earth to be judge whether he had been wanting in any reasonable ways of Goodness to overcome the perversity of the Creature * Isaiah 1.2 Hear O Heavens and give ear O Earth I have nourished and brought up Children What various encouragements doth he use agreeable to the Nature of Men endeavouring to perswade them with all tenderness not to despise their own Mercies and be Enemies to their own Happiness He would allure us by his Beauty and win us by his Mercy He uses the Arms of his own Excellency and our necessity to prevail upon us and this after the highest provocations When Adam had trampl'd upon his Creating Goodness it was not crusht and when Man had cast it from him it took the higher rebound When the Rebels provocation was fresh in his mind he sought him out with a promise in his hand though Adam fled from him out of enmity as well as fear * Gen. 3. And when the Jews had outrag'd his Son whom he loved from Eternity and made the Lord of Heaven and Earth bow down his head like a Slave on the Cross yet in that place where the most horrible wickedness had been committed must the Gospel be preached The Law must go forth out of that Sion and the Apostles must not stir from thence till they had received the promise of the Spirit and publisht the Word of Grace in that ungrateful City whose Inhabitants yet swelled with indignation against the Lord of Life and the Doctrine he had preached among them †Luke 24.47 He would overlook their indignities out of tenderness to their Souls and expose the Apostles to the peril of their Lives rather than expose his Enemies to the fury of the Devil 1. How affectionately doth he invite Men What multitudes of alluring Promises and pressing Exhortations are there every where sprinkled in the Scripture and in such a passionate manner as if God were solely concern'd in our good without a glance on his own glory How tenderly doth he woe flinty hearts and express more pity to them than they do to themselves With what affection do his Bowels rise up to his Lips in his Speech in the Prophet * Acts 1.4.5 Hearken to me O my People and give ear unto me O my Nation my People my Nation Melting Expressions of a tender God solliciting a rebellious People to make their retreat to him He never emptied his hand of his Bounty nor devested his Lips of those charitable Expressions He sent Noah to move the Wicked of the old World to an embracing of his Goodness and frequent Prophets to the provoking Jews and as the World continued and grew up to a taller stature in Sin he stoops more in the manner of his Expressions Never was the World at a higher pitch of Idolatry than at the first publishing the Gospel yet when we should have expected him to be a punishing he is a beseeching God The Apostle fears not to use the Expression for the glory of Divine Goodness †Isaiah 51.4 We are Ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us * 2 Cor. 5.20 The beseeching voice of God is in the voice of the Ministry as the voice of the Prince is in that of the Herald 'T is as if Divine Goodness did kneel down to a Sinner with wringed Hands and blubber'd Cheeks intreating him not to force him to re-assume a Tribunal of Justice in the nature of a Judge since he would treat with Man upon a Throne of Grace in the nature of a Father yea he seems to put himself into the posture of the Criminal that the offending Creature might not feel the punishment due to a Rebel 'T is not the condescension but the interest of a Traytor to creep upon his knees in Sackcloth to his Soveraign to beg his life But it is a Miraculous Goodness in the Soveraign to creep in the lowest posture to the Rebel to importune him not only for an amity to him but a love to his own life and