from it The meeting of a Divine Truth and the Heart of Man is like the meeting of two Tides the weaker swells and foams We have a natural Antipathy against a Divine Rule and therefore when it is clapt close to our Consciences there is a snuffing at it high reasonings against it corruption breaks out more strongly As Water poured on Lime sets it on Fire by an Antiperistasis and the more Water is cast upon it the more furiously it burns Or as the Sun Beams shining upon a Dung-hill makes the steams the thicker and the stench the noysomer neither being the positive cause of the smoke in the Lime or the stench in the Dung-hill but by accident the causes of the eruption Rom. 7.8 But Sin taking occasion by the Commandment wrought in me all manner of Concupiscence for without the Law Sin was dead Sin was in a languishing posture as if it were dead like a lazy Garrison in a City till upon an Alarm from the Adversary it takes Arms and revives its courage all the sin in the heart gathers together its force to maintain its standing like the vapours of the Night which unite themselves more closely to resist the Beams of the rising Sun Deep Conviction often provokes fierce Opposition sometimes Disputes against a Divine Rule end in Blasphemies Acts 13.45 Contradicting and Blaspheming are coupled together Men naturally desire things that are forbidden and reject things commanded from the corruption of Nature which affects an unbounded Liberty and is impatient of returning under that Yoke it hath shaken off and therefore rageth against the bars of the Law as the Waves roar against the restraint of a bank When the Understanding is dark and the Mind Ignorant Sin lies as dead * Thes Salmur De Spiritu Servitutis Thes 19. a man scarce knows he hath such Motions of Concupiscence in him he finds not the least breath of Wind but a full calm in his Soul but when he is awakened by the Law then the vitiousness of nature being sensible of an Invasion of its Empire arms it self against the Divine Law and the more the Command is urged the more vigorously it bends its strength and more insolently lifts up it self against it he perceives more and more Atheistical Lusts than before all manner of Concupiscence more leprous and contagious than before When there are any motions to turn to God a reluctancy is presently perceived Atheistical thoughts bluster in the mind like the wind they know not whence they come nor whether they go So unapt is the heart to any acknowledgement of God as his Ruler and any re-union with him Hence men are said to resist the Holy Ghost Acts 7.51 to fall against it as the word signifies as a stone or any ponderous body falls against that which lies in its way They would dash to pieces or grind to powder that very motion which is made for their instruction and the Spirit too which makes it and that not from a fit of passion but an habitual repugnance Ye always resist c. 2. External 't is a fruit of Atheism in the fourth verse of this Psalm Who eat up my people as they eat bread How do the revelations of the Mind of God meet with opposition And the Carnal World like dogs bark against the shining of the Moon So much men hate the Light that they spurn at the Lanthorns that bear it And because they cannot endure the Treasure often fling the earthen vessels against the ground wherein it is held If the entrance of Truth render the Market worse for Diana's Shrines the whole City will be in an uproar * Act. 19.24.28.29 When Socrates upon natural Principles confuted the Heathen Idolatry and asserted the unity of God the whole cry of Athens a learned University is against him and because he opposed the publick received Religion though with an undoubted Truth he must end his Life by Violence How hath every Corner of the World steam'd with the blood of those that would maintain the Authority of God in the World The Devils Children will follow the steps of their Father and endeavour to bruise the Heel of Divine Truth that would endeavour to break the Head of corrupt Lust 5. Men often seem desirous to be acquainted with the Will of God not out of any respect to his Will and to make it their Rule but upon some other Consideration Truth is scarce received as truth There is more of Hypocrisie than Sincerity in the pale of the Church and attendance on the Mind of God The outward dowry of a religious Profession makes it often more desirable than the Beauty Judas was a follower of Christ for the Bag not out of any affection to the Divine Revelation Men sometime pretend a desire to be acquainted with the Will of God to satisfie their own passions rather than to conform to Gods Will The Religion of such is not the judgment of the Man but the passion of the Brute Many entertain a Doctrine's for the persons sake rather than a person for the Doctrine sake and believe a thing because it comes from a Man they esteem as if his lips were more Canonical than Scripture The Apostle implies in the Commendation he gives the Thessalonians * 1 Thes 2.13 that some receive the Word for human interest not as it is in truth the Word and Will of God to command and govern their Consciences by its Soveraign Authority Or else they have the Truth of God as St. James speaks of the Faith of Christ with respect of persons * Jam. 2.2 and receive it not for the sake of the Fountain but of the Channel So that many times the same Truth delivered by another is disregarded which when dropping from the fancy and mouth of a Man 's own Idol is cryed up as an Oracle This is to make not God but Man the Rule For though we entertain that which materially is the Truth of God yet not formally as his Truth but as conveyed by one we affect And that we receive a Truth and not an Error we ow the obligation to the honesty of the Instrument and not to the strength and clearness of our own Judgment Wrong considerations may give admittance to an unclean as well as a clean beast into the Ark of the Soul That which is contrary to the Mind of God may be entertained as well as that which is agreeable 'T is all one to such that have no respect to God what they have As it is all one to a Spunge to suck up the foulest water or the sweetest wine when either is applyed to it 6. Many that entertain the Notions of the Will and Mind of God admit them with unsettled and wavering Affections There is a great Levity in the heart of Man The Jews that one day applaud our Saviour with Hosannahs as their King vote his Crucifixion the next and use him as a Murderer We begin in the Spirit and
Pet. 1.12 It was publish'd in Paradise but in such words as Adam did not fully understand It was both discover'd and clouded in the Smoke of Sacrifices It was wrapped up in a Vail under the Law but not open'd till the Death of the Redeemer It was then plainly said to the Cities of Judah Behold your God comes The whole Transaction of it between the Father and the Son which is the Spirit of the Gospel was from Eternity the Creation of the World was in order to the manifestation of it Let us not then regard the Gospel as a Novelty the consideration of it as one of Gods Cabinet Rarities should enhance our Estimation of it No Traditions of Men no Inventions of vain Wits that pretend to be wiser than God should have the same Credit with that which bears date from Eternity 8. Observe That Divine Truth is Mysterious According to the revelation of the mystery Christ manifested in the flesh The whole Scheme of Godliness is a Mystery No Man or Angel could imagine how two Natures so distant as the Divine and Human should be united how the same Person should be Criminal and Righteous how a Just God should have a Satisfaction and Sinful Man a Justification how the Sin should be punish'd and the Sinner saved None could imagine such a way of Justification as the Apostle in this Epistle declares It was a Mystery when hid under the Shadows of the Law and a Mystery to the Prophets when it sounded from their Mouths they searched it without being able to comprehend it †1 Pet. 1.10 11. If it be a Mystery 't is humbly to be submitted to Mysteries surmount Human Reason The study of the Gospel must not be with a yawning and careless frame Trades you call Mysteries are not learned sleeping and nodding Diligence is required we must be Disciples at Gods Feet As it had God for the Author so we must have God for the Teacher of it the Contrivance was his and the Illumination of our Minds must be from him As God only manifested the Gospel so he only can open our Eyes to see the Mysteries of Christ in it In Verse 26. we may observe 1. The Scriptures of the Old Testament verifie the substance of the New and the New doth evidence the Authority of the Old By the Scriptures of the Prophets made known The Old Testament credits the New and the New illustrates the Old The New Testament is a Comment upon the Prophetick part of the Old The Old shews the Promises and Predictions of God and the New shews the Performance What was foretold in the Old is fulfilled in the New the Predictions are cleared by the Events The Predictions of the Old are Divine because they are above the Reason of Man to foreknow None but an Infinite Knowledge could foretell them because none but an Infinite Wisdom could order all things for the accomplishment of them The Christian Religion hath then the surest Foundation since the Scriptures of the Prophets wherein it is foretold are of undoubted Antiquity and owned by the Jews and many Heathens which are and were the great Enemies of Christ The Old Testament is therefore to be read for the strengthning of our Faith Our Blessed Saviour himself draws the Streams of his Doctrine from the Old Testament He clears up the Promise of Eternal Life and the Doctrine of the Resurrection from the words of the Covenant I am the God of Abraham c. Mat. 22.32 And our Apostle clears up the Doctrine of Justification by Faith from Gods Covenant with Abraham Rom. 4. It must be read and it must be read as it is writ It was writ to a Gospel End it must be studied with a Gospel Spirit The Old Testament was writ to give Credit to the New when it should be manifested in the World It must be read by us to give strength to our Faith and establish us in the Doctrine of Christianity How many view it as a bare story an Almanack out of date and regard it as a dry Bone without sucking from it the Evangelical Marrow Christ is in Genesis Abrahams Seed in Davids Psalms and the Prophets the Messiah and Redeemer of the World 2. Observe the Antiquity of the Gospel Is made manifest by the Scriptures of the Prophets It was of as Ancient a date as any Prophesy The first Prophesy was nothing else but a Gospel Charter it was not made at the Incarnation of Christ but made manifest It then rose up to its Meridian lustre and sprung out of the Clouds wherewith it was before obscur'd The Gospel was preached to the Ancients by the Prophets as well as to the Gentiles by the Apostles Heb. 4.2 Vnto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them To them first to us after to them indeed more cloudy to us more clear but they as well as we were Evangeliz'd as the word signifies The Covenant of Grace was the same in the Writings of the Prophets and the Declarations of the Evangelists and Apostles Though by our Saviours Incarnation the Gospel Light was clearer and by his Ascension the Effusions of the Spirit fuller and stronger yet the Believers under the Old Testament saw Christ in the Swadling Bands of Legal Ceremonies and the Lattice of Prophetical Writings they could not else offer one Sacrifice or read one Prophesy with a Faith of the right stamp Abrahams Justifying Faith had Christ for its Object though it was not so Explicit as ours because the Manifestation was not so clear as ours 3. All Truth is to be drawn from Scripture The Apostle refers them here to the Gospel and the Prophets The Scripture is the Source of Divine Knowledge not the Traditions of Men nor Reason separate from Scripture Whosoever brings another Doctrine coyns another Christ nothing is to be added to what is written nothing detracted from it He doth not send us for Truth to the Puddles of Human Inventions to the Enthusiasms of our Brain not to the See of Rome no nor to the Instructions of Angels but the Writings of the Prophets as they clear up the Declarations of the Apostles The Church of Rome is not made here the Standard of Truth but the Scriptures of the Prophets are to be the Touch-stone to the Romans for the Trial of the Truth of the Gospel 4. How great is the Goodness of God The Borders of Grace are enlarged to the Gentiles and not hid under the Skirts of the Jews He that was so long the God of the Jews is now also manifest to be the God of the Gentiles The Gospel is now made known to all Nations according to the Commandment of the Everlasting God Not only in a way of Common Providence but Special Grace in Calling them to the Knowledge of himself and a Justification of them by Faith He hath brought Strangers to him to the Adoption of Children and lodged them under the Wings of the Covenant that were before alienated from
only sound Divines having tasted the old he did not desire the new but said the old is better Some Errours especially the Socinian he sets himself industriously against and cuts the very Sinews of them yet sometimes almost without naming them In the Doctrinal Part of several of his Discourses thou wilt find the depth of Polemical Divinity and in his Inferences from thence the sweetness of Practical some things which may exercise the profoundest Scholar and others which may instruct and edifie the weakest Christian nothing is more nervous than his Reasonings and nothing more affecting than his Applications Though he make great use of Schoolmen yet they are certainly more beholden to him than he to them he adopts their Notions but he refines them too and improves them and reforms them from the barbarousness in which they were expressed and dresseth them up in his own Language so far as the nature of the matter will permit and more clear terms are to be found and so makes them intelligible to Vulgar Capacities which in their original rudeness were obscure and strange even to Learned Heads In a word he handles the great Truths of the Gospel with that Perspicuity Gravity and Majesty which best becomes the Oracles of God and we have reason to believe that no judicious and unbiassed Reader but will acknowledge this to be incomparably the best practical Treatise the World ever saw in English upon this Subject What Dr. Jackson did to whom our Authour gave all due respect was more brief and in another way Dr. Preston did worthily upon the Attributes in his day but his Discourses likewise are more succinct when this Authours are more full and large But whatever were the mind of God in it it was not his Will that either of these two should live to finish what he had begun both being taken away when Preaching upon this Subject Happy Souls whose last breath was spent in so noble a Work * Psal 146.2 praising God while they had any being His Method is much the same in most of these Discourses both in the Doctrinal and Practical Part which will make the whole more plain and facile to ordinary Readers He rarely makes Objections and yet frequently answers them by implying them in those Propositions he lays down for the clearing up the Truths he asserts His Dexterity is admirable in the Applicatory Work where he not only brings down the highest Doctrines to the lowest Capacities but collects great varietie of proper pertinent useful and yet many times unthought of Inferences and that from those Truths which however they afford much matter for Inquisition and Speculation yet might seem unless to the most intelligent and judicious Christians to have a more remote influence upon Practice He is not like some School Writers who attenuate and rarefie the Matter they Discourse of to a degree bordering upon Annihilation at least beat it so thin that a puff of breath may blow it away spin their Thred so fine that the Cloth when made up proves useless Solidity dwindles into Niceties and what we thought we had got by their Assertions we lose by their Distinctions But if our Author have some Subtilties and superfine Notions in his Argumentations yet he condenseth them again and consolidates them into substantial and profitable Corolaries in his Applications And in them his main business is as to discipline a prophane World for its neglect of God and contempt of him in his most adorable and shining Perfections so likewise to shew how the Divine Attributes are not only infinitely excellent in themselves but a grand Foundation for all true Divine Worship and should be the great Motives to provoke men to the exercise of Faith and Love and Fear and Humility and all that holy Obedience they are called to by the Gospel And this without peradventure is the great end of all those rich Discoveries God hath in his Word made of himself to us And Reader if these elaborate Discourses of this holy Man through the Lord's blessing become a means of promoting Holiness in thee Psal 109.1 and stir thee up to love and live to the God of his praise we are well assured that his end in Preaching them is answered and so is ours in publishing them Thine in the Lord EDW. VEEL RI. ADAMS The several Discourses in this Volume VIZ. Page 1. 47. THE Existence of God and Practical Atheism from Psal 14.1 The Fool hath said in his heart there is no God c. Page 109. 129. God a Spirit and Spiritual Worship from John 4.24 God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth Page 179. The Eternity of God from Psal 90.2 Before the Mountains were brought forth or ever thou hadst formed the Earth and the World Even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God Page 203. The Immutability of God From Psal 102 26 27. They shall perish but thou shalt endure Yea all of them shall wax old like a Garment as a Vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed But thou art the same and thy years shall have no end Page 241. The Omnipresence of God from Jer. 23.24 Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him saith the Lord. Do not I fill Heaven and Earth saith the Lord Page 272. God's Infinite Knowledge from Psal 147.5 Great is our Lord and of great Power His Vnderstanding is infinite Page 341. God's Infinite Wisdom from Rom. 16.27 To God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ for ever Amen Page 417. God's Infinite Power from Job 26.14 Lo these are parts of his ways but how little a portion is heard of him But the Thunder of his Power who can understand Page 493. God's Infinite Holiness From Exod. 15.11 Who is like unto thee O Lord among the Gods Who is like thee glorious in holiness fearful in praises doing wonders Page 577. God's Infinite Goodness from Mark 10.18 And Jesus said unto him Why callest thou me good There is none good but one that is God Page 697. The Dominion of God from Psal 103.19 The Lord hath prepared his Throne in the Heavens and his Kingdom ruleth over all Page 787. God's Infinite Patience from Nahum 1.3 The Lord is slow to Anger and great in Power and will not all acquit the Wicked The Lord hath his way in the Whirlwind and in the Storm and the Clouds are the Dust of his feet A DISCOURSE UPON THE Existence of God Psalm 14.1 The fool hath said in his heart there is no God they are corrupt they have done abominable Works there is none that doth good THIS Psalm is a description of the deplorable corruption by Nature of every Son of Adam since the withering of that Common Root Some restrain it to the Gentiles as a Wilderness full of Bryars and Thorns as not concerning the Jews the Garden of God planted by his Grace and watered by the Dew of Heaven
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
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
integrity of the body Who would argue that because some men are mad and hâ—ve lost their reason by a distemper of the brain that therefore reason hath no reality but is an imaginary thing But I think it is a standing truth that every man hath been under the scourge of it one time or other in a less or greater degree For since every man is an offender it cannot be imagined Conscience which is natural to man and an active faculty should always lie idle without doing this part of its office The Apostle tells us of the thoughts accusing or excusing one another or by turns according as the actions were Nor is this truth weakned by the corruptions in the world whereby many have thought themselves bound in Conscience to adhere to a false and superstitious worship and Idolatry as much as any have thought themselves bound to adhere to a Worship commanded by God This very thing infers that all men have a reflecting principle in them it is no argument against the being of Conscience but only inferrs that it may Err in the application of what it naturally owns We can no more say that because some men walk by a false rule there is no such thing as Conscience than we can say that because men have Errors in their minds therefore they have no such faculty as an Understanding or because men will that which is evil they have no such faculty as a Will in them 2. These operations of Conscience are when the wickedness is most secret These tormenting fears of Vengeance have been frequent in men who have had no reason to fear man since their wickedness being unknown to any but themselves they could have no accuser but themselves They have been in many acts which their companions have justified them in Persons above the stroak of human laws yea such as the people have honoured as Gods have been haunted by them Conscience hath not been frighted by the power of Princes or brib'd by the pleasures of Courts David was pursued by his horrors when he was by reason of his dignity above the punishment by the Law or at least was not reacht by the Law since though the Murder of Vriah was intended by him it was not acted by him Such examples are frequent in human Records When the crime hath been above any punishment by man they have had an Accuser Judge and Executioner in their own breasts Can this be originally from a mans self He who loves and cherishes himself would fly from any thing that disturbs him T is a greater Power and Majesty from whom man cannot hide himself that holds him in those fetters What should affect their minds for that which can never bring them shame or punishment in this World if there were not some supream Judge to whom they were to give an account whose instrument Conscience is Doth it do this of it self hath it received an Authority from the man himself to sting him It is some supream power that doth direct and commission it against our Wills 3. These operations of Conscience cannot be totally shaken off by Man If there 〈◊〉 no God why do not men silence the clamors of their Consciences and scatter thâ—â—e fears that disturb their rest and pleasures How inquisitive are men after some remedy against those convulsions Sometimes they would render the charge insignificant and sing a rest to themselves though they walk in the wickedness of their own hearts * Deâ—â— How often do men attempt to drown it by sensual pleasures and perhaps over-power it for a time but it revives reinforceth it self and Acts a revenge for its former stop It holds sin to a mans view and fixes his eyes upon it whether he will or no The wicked are like a troubled Sea and cannot rest Isa 57.20 They would wallow in sin without controul but this inward principle will not suffer it nothing can shelter men from those blows What is the reason it could never be cried down Man is an Enemy to his own disquiet what man would continue upon the rack if it were in his power to deliver himself why have all human remedies been without success and not able to extinguish those operations though all the wickedness of the heart hath been ready to assist and second the attempt It hath pursued men notwithstanding all the violence used against it and renewed its scourges with more severity as men deal with their resisting Slaves Man can as little silence those Thunders in his Soul as he can the Thunders in the Heavens He must strip himself of his humanity before he can be stript of an accusing and affrighting Conscience It sticks as close to him as his nature Since man cannot throw out the Process it makes against him t is an evidence that some higher power secures its Throne and standing Who should put this scourge into the hand of Conscience which no man in the World is able to wrest out 4. We may add the comfortable reflections of Conscience There are excusing as well as accusing reflections of Conscience when things are done as works of the law of nature Rom. 2.15 As it doth not forbear to accuse and torture when a wickedness though unknown to others is committed So when a man hath done well though he be attackt with all the calumnies the wit of man can forge yet his Conscience justifies the action and fills him with a singular contentment As there is torture in sinning so there is peace and joy in well doing Neither of those it could do if it did not understand a Soveraign Judge who punishes the Rebels and rewards the well-doer Conscience is the foundation of all Religion and the two Pillars upon which it is built are the being of God and the bounty of God to those that diligently seek him * Heb. 11.6 This proves the Existence of God If there were no God Conscience were useless the operations of it would have no foundation if there were not an eye to take notice and a hand to punish or reward the action The accusations of Conscience evidence the Omniscience and the Holiness of God The terrors of Conscience the justice of God The approbations of Conscience the Goodness of God All the order in the world owes it self next to the Providence of God to Conscience Without it the world would be a Golgotha As the Creatures witness there was a first cause that produced them so this Principle in man evidenceth it self to be set by the same hand for the good of that which it had so framed There could be no Conscience if there were no God and man could not be a rational Creature if there were no Conscience As there is a Rule in us there must be a Judge whether our actions be according to the rule And since Conscience in our corrupted state is in some particular misled there must be a power superior to Conscience to judge how it hath behaved it self in its deputed
dived into the depths of Nature have been more studious of the qualities of the Creatures than of the excellency of the nature or the discovery of the mind of God in them who regard only the rising and motions of the Star but follow not with the wise men its conduct to the King of the Jews How often do we see men filled with an eager thirst for all other kind of knowledge that cannot acquiesce in a twilight discovery but are inquisitive into the causes and reasons of effects yet are contented with a weak and languishing knowledge of God and his Law and are easily tired with the Proposals of them He now that nauseates the means whereby he may come to know and obey God has no intention to make the Law of God his Rule There is no man that intends seriously an end but he intends means in order to that end As when a man intends the preservation or recovery of his health he will intend means in order to those ends otherwise he cannot be said to intend his health So he that is not diligent in using means to know the mind of God has no sound intention to make the Will and Law of God his Rule Is not the inquiry after the Will of God made a work by the by and fain to lacquy after other concerns of an inferior nature if it hath any place at all in the Soul which is a despising the Being of God The Notion of the Soveraignty of God bears the same date with the Notion of his Godhead and by the same way that he reveals Himself he reveals his Authority over us whether it be by Creatures without or Conscience within All Authority over Rational Creatures consists in commanding and directing the duty of Rational Creatures in compliance with that Authority consists in obeying Where there is therefore a careless neglect of those means which convey the knowledge of Gods Will and our Duty there is an utter disowning of God as our Soveraign and our Rule 2. When any part of the Mind and Will of God breaks in upon Men they endeavour to shake it off As a Man would a Sergeant that comes to arrest him they like not to retain God in their Knowledge Rom. 1.28 A natural Man receives not the things of the Spirit of God that is into his Affection he pusheth them back as men do troublesome and importunate Beggers They have no kindness to bestow upon it They thrust with both shoulders against the Truth of God when it presseth in upon them and dash as much contempt upon it as the Pharisees did upon the Doctrine our Saviour directed against their Covetousness As men naturally delight to be without God in the world so they delight to be without any offspring of God in their thoughts Since the Spiritual Palate of Man is depraved Divine Truth is unsavoury and ungrateful to us till our taste and relish is restored by Grace Hence men damp and quench the motions of the Spirit to Obedience and Compliance with the Dictates of God strip them of their Life and Vigor and kill them in the Womb. How unable are our Memories to retain the substance of spiritual Truth but like Sand in a Glass put in at one part and runs out at the other Have not many a secret wish that the Scripture had never mentioned some truths or that they were blotted out of the Bible because they face their Consciences and discourage those boiling Lusts they would with eagerness and delight pursue Me thinks that interruption John gives our Saviour when he was upon the Reproof of their Pride looks little better * Mark 9.33.38 than a design to divert him from a discourse so much against the grain by telling him a story of their prohibiting one to cast out Devils because he followed not them How glad are men when they can raise a Battery against a Command of God and raise some smart Objection whereby they may shelter themselves from the strictness of it 3. When men cannot shake off the Notices of the Will and Mind of God they have no pleasure in the consideration of them Which could not possibly be if there were a real and fixed design to own the Mind and Law of God as our Rule Subjects or Servants that love to obey their Prince and Master will delight to read and execute their Orders The Devils understand the Law of God in their minds but they loath the impressions of it upon their Wills Those miserable Spirits are bound in Chains of Darkness evil Habits in their Wills that they have not a thought of obeying that Law they know It was an unclean Beast under the Law that did not chew the Cud 'T is a corrupt Heart that doth not chew Truth by Meditation A natural man is said not to know God or the things of God he may know them notionally but he knows them not affectionately A sensual Soul can have no delight in a spiritual Law To be sensual and not to have the Spirit are inseparable Jude 19. Natural Men may indeed meditate upon the Law and Truth of God but without delight in it if they take any pleasure in it 't is only as 't is knowledge not as it is a Rule for we delight in nothing that we desire but upon the same account that we desire it Natural Men desire to know God and some part of his Will and Law not out of a sense of their practical excellency but a natural thirst after knowledge and if they have a delight 't is in the act of knowing not in the Object known not in the Duties that stream from that Kowledge they design the furnishing their Understandings not the quickning their Affections like idle Boys that strike Fire not to warm themselves by the heat but sport themselves with the Sparks Whereas a gracious Soul accounts not only his Meditation or the Operations of his Soul about God and his Will to be sweet but he hath a joy in the object of that Meditation * Psal 104.34 Many have the knowledge of God who have no delight in Him or his Will Owls have Eyes to perceive that there is a Sun but by reason of the weakness of their sight have no pleasure to look upon a Beam of it So neither can a man by Nature love or delight in the Will of God because of his natural corruption That Law that riseth up in men for Conviction and Instruction they keep down under the power of Corruption making their Souls not the Sanctuary but Prison of Truth Rom. 1.18 They will keep it down in their hearts if they cannot keep it out of their heads and will not endeavour to know and taste the Spirit of it 4. There is farther a rising and swelling of the Heart against the Will of God 1. Internal Gods Law cast against a hard Heart is like a Ball thrown against a stone Wall by reason of the resistance rebounding the further
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
morally carnal in the practises as the Ceremonies were materially carnal in their substance It was not their disobedience to observe them but it was a disobedience and a contempt of the end of the institution to rest upon them to be warm in them and cold in morals They fed upon the Bone and neglected the Marrow pleased themselves with the Shell and sought not for the Kernel They joyned not with them the internal Worship of God Fear of him with Faith in the promised Seed which lay vail'd under those Coverings Hos 6.6 I desired Mercy and not Sacrifice and the Knowledge of God more than burnt Offerings And therefore he seems sometimes weary of his own institutions and calls them not his own but their Sacrifices their Feasts Isa 1.11 14. They were his by appointment theirs by abuse The Institution was from his goodness and condescension therefore his the corruption of them was from the vice of their Nature therefore theirs He often blamed them for their carnality in them shew'd his dislike of placing all their Religion in them gives the Sacrificers upon that account no better a title than that of the Princes of Sodom and Gomorrah * Isa 1.10 And compares the Sacrifices themselves to the cutting off a Dog's Neck Swines Blood and the Murder of a Man * Isa 66.3 And indeed God never valued them or exprest any delight in them He despised the Feasts of the Wicked Amos 5.21 and had no esteem for the material Offerings of the Godly Psal 50.13 Will I eat the flesh of Bulls or drink the blood of Goats which he speaks to his Saints and People before he comes to reprove the Wicked which he begins v. 16. But to the Wicked God said c. So slightly he esteemed them that he seems to disown them to be any part of his Command when he brought his People out of the Land of Egypt Jer. 7.21 I spake not to your Fathers nor commanded them concerning burnt Offerings and Sacrifices He did not value and regard them in comparison of that inward frame which he had required by the moral Law that being given before the Law of Ceremonies obliged them in the first place to an observance of those Precepts They seemed to be below the Nature of God and could not of themselves please him None could in reason perswade themselves that the death of a Beast was a proportionable Offering for the sin of a Man or ever was intended for the expiation of Transgression In the same rank are all our bodily services under the Gospel A loud voice without Spirit bended bulrushes without inward affections are no more delightful to God than the Sacrifices of Animals 'T is but a change of one Brute for another of a higher species a meer Brute for that part of man which hath an agreement with Brutes Such a service is a meer animal service and not spiritual 5. And therefore God never intended that sort of Worship to be durable and had often mentioned the change of it for one more spiritual It was not good or evil in it self whatsoever goodness it had was solely deriv'd to it by institution and therefore it was mutable It had no conformity with the spiritual nature of God who was to be worshipped nor with the rational nature of man who was to worship And therefore he often speaks of taking away the New-Moons and Feasts and Sacrifices and all the ceremonial Worship as things he took no pleasure in to have a Worship more suted to his excellent Nature But he never speaks of removing the Gospel Administration and the worship prescribed there as being more agreeable to the nature and perfections of God and displaying them more illustriously to the World The Apostle tells us it was to be disannul'd because of its weakness * Heb. 7.18 A determinate time was fixed for its duration till the accomplishment of the truth figured under that Pedagogy * Gal. 4.2 Some of the modes of that worship being only typical must naturally expire and be insignificant in their use upon the finishing of that by the Redeemer which they did prefigure And other parts of it though God suffered them so long because of the weakness of the Worshipper yet because it became not God to be alway worshipped in that manner he would reject them and introduce another more spiritual and elevated Incense and a pure Offering should be offered every where unto his Name * Mal. 1.11 * Pascal Pen. 142. He often told them he would make a new Covenant by the Messiah and the old should be rejected that the former things should not be remembred and the things of old no more considered when he should do a new thing in the Earth * Isa 43.18.19 Even the Ark of the Covenant the Symbol of his presence and the glory of the Lord in that Nation should not any more be remembered and visited * Jer. 3.16 That the Temple and Sacrifices should be rejected and others established That the Order of the Aaronical Priest-hood should be abolisht and that of Melchisedeck set up in the stead of it in the Person of the Messiah to endure for ever * Psal 110. That Jerusalem should be changed a new Heaven and Earth created a Worship more conformable to Heaven more advantagious to Earth God had proceeded in the removal of some parts of it before the time of taking down the whole furniture of this house The Pot of Manna was lost Vrim and Thumim ceased the glory of the Temple was diminish'd and the ignorant people wept at the sight of the one without raising their Faith and Hope in the consideration of the other which was promised to be filled with a spiritual glory And as soon as ever the Gospel was spread in the World God thundred out his judgments upon that place in which he had fixed all those legal Observances so that the Jews in the Letter and Flesh could never practise the main part of their worship since they were expelled from that place where it was only to be celebrated 'T is one thousand six hundred years since they have been deprived of their Altar which was the foundation of all the Levitical-worship and have wandred in the world without a Sacrifice a Prince or Priest an Ephod or Teraphim * Hos 3.4 And God fully put an end to it in the Command he gave to the Apostles and in them to us in the presence of Moses and Elias to hear his Son only Matth. 17.5 Behold a voice out of the Cloud which said this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear him And at the death of our Saviour testified it to that whole Nation and the World by the rending in twain the vail of the Temple The whole frame of that service which was carnal and by reason of the corruption of Man weakned is nulled and a spiritual worship is made known to the world
any Creature is from Grace and Gift Naturally we tend to nothing as we come from nothing This Creature-mutability is not our sin yet it should cause us to lye down under a sense of our own nothingness in the presence of the Creator The Angels as Creatures though not corrupt cover their faces before him And the Arguments God uses to humble Job though a fallen Creature are not from his Corruption for I do not remember that he taxed him with that but from the greatness of his Majesty and excellency of his Nature declared in his Works * Job 38.39 40.41 And therefore Men that have no sense of God and humility before him forget that they are Creatures as well as corrupt ones How great is the distance between God and us in regard of our inconstancy in good which is not natural to us by Creation For the mind and affections were regular and by the great Artificer were pointed to God as the Object of Knowledge and Love We have the same faculties of Understanding Will and Affection as Adam had in Innocence but not with the same Light the same Bias and the same Ballast Man by his fall wounded his head and heart the wound in his head made him unstable in the Truth and that in his heart unstedfast in his Affections He changed himself from the Image of God to that of the Devil from Innocence to Corruption and from an ability to be stedfast to a perpetual Inconstancy His Silver became Dross and his Wine was mixed with Water * Isa 1.22 He changed 1. To inconstancy in Truth opposed to the Immutability of Knowledge in God How are our Minds floating between Ignorance and Knowledge Truth in us is like those Ephemera Creatures of a days continuance springs up in the Morning and expires at Night How soon doth that fly away from us which we have had not only some weak flashes of but which we have learned and have had some relish of The Devil stood not in the Truth * John 8.44 and therefore manages his Engines to make us as unstable as himself Our Minds reel and corrupt reasonings oversway us like Spunges we suck up Water and a light compression makes us spout it out again Truths are not engraven upon our hearts but writ as in Dust defaced by the next puff of Wind carried about with every Wind of Doctrin Eph. 4.14 Like a Ship without a Pilot and Sails at the courtesy of the next Storm or like Clouds that are Tenants to the Wind and Sun moved by the Wind and melted by the Sun The Galatians were no sooner called into the Grace of God but they were removed from it * Gal. 1.6 Some have been reported to have menstruam fidem kept an Opinion for a Month and many are like him that believed the Souls Immortality no longer than he had Plato's Book of that Subject in his hand * Sedgwick Christs Counsel p. 230. One likens such to Children they play with Truths as Children do with Babies one while embrace them and a little after throw them into the Durt How soon do we forget what the Truth is delivered to us and what it represented us to be * James 1.23.24 Is it not a thing to be bewailed that Man should be such a Weathercock turned about with every Breath of Wind and shifting Aspects as the Wind shifts Points 2. Inconstancy in Will and Affections opposed to the Immutability of Will in God We waver between God and Baal and while we are not only resolving but upon motion a little way look back with a hankring after Sodom Sometimes lifted up with heavenly intentions and presently cast down with earthly cares like a Ship that by an advancing Wave seems to aspire to Heaven and the next fall of the Waves makes it sink down to the Depths We change Purposes oftner than Fashions and our Resolutions are like Letters in water whereof no mark remains We will be as John to day to love Christ and as Judas to morrow to betray him and by an unworthy levity pass into the Camp of the Enemies of God resolv'd to be as holy as Angels in the Morning when the Evening beholds us as impure as Devils How often do we hate what before we loved and shun what before we longed for And our Resolutions are like Vessels of Christal which break at the first knock are dasht in pieces by the next Temptation Saul resolved not to persecute David any more but you soon find him upon his old game Pharaoh more than once promised and probably resolved to let Israel go but at the end of the storm his purposes vanish * Exod. 8.27 32. When an Affliction pincheth Men they intend to change their course and the next news of ease changes their intentions Like a Bow not fully bent in their inclinations they cannot reach the Mark but live many years between resolutions of Obedience and affections to Rebellion * Psal 78.17 And what promises men make to God are often the fruit of their Passion their Fear not of their Will The Israelites were startled at the terrors wherewith the Law was delivered and promised obedience * Exod. 20.19 but a Month after forgat them and make a Golden Calf and in the sight of Sinai call for and dance before their Gods * Exod. 32. Never people more unconstant Peter who vowed an Allegiance to his Master and a Courage to stick to him forswears him almost with the same breath Those that cry out with a zeal the Lord he is God shortly after return to the service of their Idols * 1 Kings 18.39 That which seems to be our pleasure this day is our vexation to morrow A Fear of a Judgment puts us into a religious pang and a Love to our Lusts reduceth us to a rebellious inclination As soon as the danger is over the Saint is forgotten Salvation and Damnation present themselves to us touch us and ingender some weak wishes which are dissolved by the next allurements of a carnal interest No hold can be taken of our promises no credit is to be given to our resolutions 3. Inconstancy in practice How much beginning in the Spirit and ending in the Flesh one day in the Sanctuary another in the Stews clear in the morning as the Sun and clouded before noon in Heaven by an excellency of Gifts in Hell by a course of prophanness Like a Flower which some mention that changes its colour three times a day one part white then purple then yellow The Spirit lusts against the Flesh and the Flesh quickly triumphs over the Spirit In a good man how often is there a Spiritual Lethargy Tho he doth not openly defame God yet he doth not alwayes glorifie him He doth not forsake the truth but he doth not alwayes make the attainment of it and settlement in it his business This levity discovers it self in religious duties when I would do
righteous person to keep the truth Isa 26.2 And it is as positively said that he that abides not in the Doctrine of Christ hath not God 2 Epist John 9. but he that doth hath both the Father and the Son So much of uncertainty so much of nature so much of firmness in duty so much of Grace We can never honour God unless we finish his work as Christ did not glorifie God but in finishing the work God gave him to do * John 17.4 The nearer the world comes to an end the more is Gods immutability seen in his promises and predictions and the more must our unchangeableness be seen in our obedience Heb. 10.23 25. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering and so much the more as you see the day approaching The Christian Jews were to be the more tenacious of their faith the nearer they saw the day approaching the day of Jerusalems destruction prophesied of by Daniel * Dan. 9.26 which accomplishment must be a great argument to establish the Christian Jews in the profession of Christ to be the Messiah because the destruction of the City was not to be before the cutting off the Messiah Let us be therefore constant in our profession and service of God and not suffer our selves to be driven from him by the ill usage or flatter'd from him by the Caresses of the world 1. T is reasonable If God be unchangeable in doing us good it is reason we should be unchangeable in doing him service If he assure us that he is our God our I am he would also that we should be his people His we are If he declare himself constant in his promises he expects we should be so in our obedience As a spouse we should be unchangeably faithful to him as a Husband As subjects have an unchangeable allegiance to him as our Prince He would not have us faithful to him for an hour or a day but to the death * Rev. 2.10 And it is reason we should be his and if we be his Children imitate him in his constancy of his holy purposes 2. T is our glory and interest To be a reed shaken with every wind is no commendation among men and t is less a ground of praise with God It was Jobs glory that he held fast his integrity * Job 1.22 In all this Job sinned not In all this which whole Cities and Kingdoms would have thought ground enough of high exclamations against God And also against the temptation of his Wife he retained his integrity Job 2.9 Dost thou still retain thy integrity The Devil who by Gods permission stript him of his goods and health yet could not strip him of his grace As a Traveller when the wind and snow beats in his face wraps his cloak more closely about him to preserve that and himself Better we had never made profession than afterwards to abandon it such a withering profession serves for no other use than to aggravate the crime if any of us fly like a coward or revolt like a Traytor What profit will it be to a Souldier if he hath withstood many assaults and turn his back at last If we would have God Crown us with an immutable glory we must Crown our beginnings with a happy perseverance Rev. 2.10 Be faithful to the Death and I will give thee a Crown of life Not as tho this were the cause to merit it but a necessary condition to possess it Constancy in good is accompanied with an immutability of Glory 3. By an unchangeable disposition to good we should begin the happiness of Heaven upon Earth This is the perfection of blessed Spirits those that are nearest to God as Angels and glorified Souls they are immutable Not indeed by nature but by grace yet not only by a necessity of grace but a liberty of Will Grace will not let them change and that grace doth animate their Wills that they would not change an immutable God fills their understandings and affections and gives satisfaction to their desires The Saints when they were below tried other things and found them deficient But now they are so fully satisfied with the beatifick vision that if Satan should have entrance among the Angels and Sons of God 't is not likely he should have any influence upon them he could not present to their understandings any thing that could either at the first glance or upon a deliberate view be preferrable to what they enjoy and are fixed in Well then let us be immoveable in the Knowledge and Love of God 'T is the delight of God to see his Creatures resemble him in what they are able Let not our Affections to him be as Jonah's Goard growing up in one Night and withering the next Let us not only fight a good Fight but do so till we have finished our course and imitate God in an unchangeableness of holy purposes and to that purpose examin our selves daily what fixedness we have arrived unto And to prevent any temptation to a revolt let us often possess our minds with thoughts of the immutability of Gods Nature and Will which like Fire under Water will keep a good matter boiling up in us and make it both retain and increase its heat 4. Let this Doctrin teach us to have recourse to God and aim at a near conjunction with him When our Spirits begin to flag and a cold aguish temper is drawing upon us let us go to him who can only fix our hearts and furnish us with a Ballast to render them stedfast As he is only immutable in his Nature so he is the only Principle of Immutability as well as Being in the Creature Without his Grace we shall be as changeable in our appearances as a Chamelion and in our turnings as the Wind. When Peter trusted in himself he changed to the worse It was his Masters recourse to God for him that preserved in him a reducing Principle which changed him again for the better and fixed him in it * Luke 22.32 It will be our Interest to be in conjunction with him that moves not about with the Heavens nor is turned by the force of Nature nor changed by the accidents in the world but sits in the Heavens moving all things by his powerful Arm according to his infinite Skill While we have him for our God we have his Immutability as well as any other Perfection of his Nature for our advantage The nearer we come to him the more stability we shall have in our selves the further from him the more lyable to change The Line that is nearest to the place where it is first fixed is least subject to motion the further it is stretched from it the weaker it is and more liable to be shaken Let us also affect those things which are nearest to him in this perfection the righteousness of Christ that shall never wear out and the graces of the Spirit that shall never burn
out By this means what God is infinitely by Nature we shall come tâ— be finitely immutable by Grace as much as the capacity of a Creature can contain GODS OMNIPRESENCE Jeremiah 23.24 Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him saith the Lord Do not I fill Heaven and Earth saith the Lord THE occasion of this Discourse begins vers 16. where God admonisheth the people not to hearken to the words of the false Prophets which spake a Vision of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord. They made the people vain by their Insinuations of Peace when God had proclaimed War and Calamity and uttered the Dreams of their Phansies and not the Visions of the Lord and so turned the people from the expectation of the evil day which God had threatned ver 17. They say still unto them that despise me The Lord hath said Ye shall have peace and they say unto every one that walks after the Imagination of his own heart No evil shall come upon you And they invalidate the Prophesies of those whom God had sent v. 18. Who hath stood in the Counsel of the Lord and hath perceived and heard his word Who hath marked his word and heard it Who hath stood in the Counsel of the Lord Are they acquainted with the Secrets of God more than we Who have the word of the Lord if we have not Or it may be a continuation of Gods Admonition Believe not those Prophets for who of them have been acquainted with rhe Secrets of God or by what means should they learn his Counsel No assure your selves a whirlwind of the Lord is gone forth in fury even a grievous whirlwind it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked v. 19. A whirlwind shall come from Babylon 't is just at the door and shall not be blown over it shall fall with a witness upon the wicked people and the deceiving Prophets and sweep them together into Captivity For v. 20. The anger of the Lord shall not return until he have executed and till he have performed the thoughts of his heart My fury shall not be a childish fury that quickly languisheth but shall accomplish whatsoever I threaten and burn so hot as not to be cool till I have satisfied my vengeance in the latter days ye shall consider it perfectly v. 20. when the storm shall beat upon you you shall then know that the Calamities shall answer the words you have heard When the Conquerour shall waste your Grounds demolish your Houses and manacle your hands then shall you consider it and have the wishes of Fools that you had had your eyes in your heads before you shall then know the falsness of your Guides and the truth of may Prophets and discern who stood in the Counsel of the Lord and subscribe to the Messages I have sent you Some understand this not only of the Babylonish Captivity but refer it to the time of Christ and the false Doctrine of mens own Righteousness in opposition to the Righteousness of God understanding this Verse to be partly a threatning of Wrath which shall end in an advantage to the Jews who shall in the latter time consider the falsness of their Notions about a legal Righteousness and so make it a promise they shall then know the intent of the Scripture and in the latter days the latter end of the World when time shall be near the rouling up they shall reflect upon themselves they shall look upon him whom they have pierced and till these latter days they shall be hardned and believe nothing of Evangelical truths Now God denieth that he sent those Prophets v. 21. I have not sent these Prophets yet they ran I have not spoken to them yet they prophesyed They have intruded themselves without a Commission from me whatsoever their Brags are The reason to prove it is v. 22. If they had stood in my Counsel if they had been instructed and inspired by me they would have caused my people to hear my words they would have regulated themselves according to my word and have turned them from their evil way i. e. endeavoured to shake down their false confidences of peace and make them sensible of their false Notions of me and my ways Now because those false Prophets could not be so impudent as to boast that they prophecied in the Name of God when they had not Commission from him unless they had some secret Sentiment that they and their intentions were hid from the Knowledg and Eye of God He adds v. 23. Am I a God at hand and not a God a far off Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him Have I not the power of seeing and knowing what they do what they design what they think Why should I not have such a power since I fill Heaven and Earth by my essence Am I a God at hand and not a God afar off He excludes here the Doctrine of those that excluded the Providence of God from extending its self to the inferior things of the earth which error was ancient as ancient as the time of Job as appears by their opinion That Gods eyes were hood-winkt and mufled by the thickness of the Clouds and could not pierce through their dark and dense body * Job 22.14 Thick clouds are a covering to him that he seeth not * Munster Vatablus Castalio Oecolamp Some refer it to time Do you imagine me a God new fram'd like your Idols beginning a little time ago and not existing before the foundation of the World yea from Eternity a God afar off further than your acutest understandings can reach I am of a longer standing and you ought to know my Majesty But it rather refers to place than time Do you think I do not behold every thing in the earth as well as in Heaven Am I lockt up within the walls of my Palace and cannot peep out to behold the things done in the World or that am I so linkt to pleasure in the place of my Glory as earthly Kings are in their Courts that I have no mind or leasure to take notice of the carriages of men upon earth God doth not say He was a far off but only gives an account of the inward thoughts of their minds or at least of the Language exprest by their Actions The Interrogation carries in it a strong Affirmation and assures us more of Gods care and the folly of men in not considering it Am I a God at hand and not a God afar off Can any hide himself in secret places Heb. in Hiddenesses in the deepest Cells What are you besotted by your base Lusts that you think me a God careless ignorant blind that I can see nothing but as a purblind man what is very near my eye Are you so out of your wits that you imagine you can deceive me Do not all your behaviours speak such a Sentiment to
manifestation of himself If by his dwelling in heaven be meant his whole essence why is it not also to be meant by his dwelling in the Ark It was not sure part of his essence that was in heaven and part of his essence that was on earth his essence would then be divided and can it be imagined that he should be in Heaven and the Ark at the same time and not in the spaces between Could his essence be split into fragments and a gap made in it that two distant spaces should be fill'd by him and all between be empty of him So that Gods being said to dwell in Heaven and in the Temple is so far from impairing the truth of this doctrine that it more confirms and evidences it 2. Nor do the Expressions of God's coming to us or departing from us impair this Doctrine of his Omnipresence God is said to hide his face from his People * Psal 10.1 to be far from the Wicked and the Gentiles are said to be afar off viz. from God †Prov. 15.29 and upon the manifestation of Christ made near †Eph 2.17 These must not be understood of any distance or nearness of his Essence for that is equally near to all persons and things but of some other special way and manifestation of his Presence Thus God is said to be in Believers by Love as they are in him * 1 Joh. 4.15 He that abides in love abides in God and God in him He that loves is in the thing beloved and when two love one another they are in one another God is in a Righteous man by a special grace and far from the Wicked in regard of such special Works and God is said to be in a place by a special manifestation as when he was in the Bush * Exod. 3. or manifesting his Glory upon Mount Sinai †Exod. 24.16 The Glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai God is said to hide his face when he withdraws his comforting Presence disturbs the repose of our hearts flasheth Terror into our Consciences when he puts men under the smart of the Cross as tho' he had ordered his Mercy utterly to depart from them or when he doth withdraw his special assisting Providence from us in our affairs so he departed from Saul when he withdrew his direction and Protection from him in the concerns of his Government * 1 Sam. 16.14 The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul i. e. the Spirit of Government God may be far from us in one respect and near to us in another far from us in regard of Comfort yet near to us in regard of Support when his Essential Presence continues the same this is a necessary consequent upon the infiniteness of God the other is an act of the Will of God so he was said to forsake Christ in regard of his obscuring his Glory from his Humane Nature and inflicting his Wrath tho' he was near to him in regard of his Grace and preserved him from contracting any spot in his Sufferings We do not say the Sun is departed out of the Heavens when it is be-misted it remains in the same part of the Heavens passes on its course tho' its Beams do not reach us by reason of the Bar between us and it The Soul is in every part of the Body in regard of its Substance and constantly in it tho' it doth not act so spritely and vigorously at one time as at another in one and the same Member and discover it self so sensibly in its Operations so all the various effects of God towards the Sons of men are but divers Operations of one and the same Essence He is far from us or near to us as he is a Judg or a Benefactor when he comes to Punish it notes not the approach of his Essence but the stroak of his Justice when he comes to Benefit 't is not by a new access of his Essence but an efflux of his Grace he departs from us when he leaves us to the Frowns of his Justice he comes to us when he encircles us in the Arms of his Mercy but he was equally present with us in both dispensations in regard of his Essence And likewise God is said to come down * Gen. 11.5 And the Lord came down to see the City when he doth some signal and wonderful Works which attract the minds of men to the acknowledgment of a Supream Power and Providence in the World who judg'd God absent and careless before 3. Nor is the Essential Presence of God with all Creatures any disparagement to him Since it was no disparagement to Create the Heaven and the Earth 't is no disparagement to him to him to fill them if he were Essentially present with them when he created them 't is no dishonour to him to be Essentiall present with them to support them if it were his Glory to Create them by his Essence when they were nothing Can it be his disgrace to be present by his Essence since they are something and something good and very good in his Eye * Gen. 1.31 God saw every thing and behold it was very good or mighty good all ordered to declare his Goodness Wisdom Power and to make him adorable to man and therefore took complacency in tehm There is a Harmony in all things a Combination in them for those glorious Ends for which God Created them and is it a disgrace for God to be present with his own Harmonious composition Is it not a Musicians Glory to touch with his fingers the Trebble the least and tenderest string as well as the strongest and greatest Base Hath not every thing some Stamp of Gods own Being upon it since he eminently contains in himself the Perfections of all his Works whatsoever hath Being hath a Foot-step of God upon it who is all Being every thing in the Earth is his Foot-Stool having a mark of his Foot upon it all declare the Being of God because they had their Being from God and will God account it any disparagement to him to be present with that which confirms his Being and the glorious Perfections of his nature to his intelligent Creatures the meanest things are not without their Vertues which may boast Gods being the Creator of them and rank them in the midst of his Works of Wisdom as well as Power Doth God debase himself to be present by his Essence with the things he hath made more than he doth to know them by his Essence Is not the least thing known by him How not by a faculty or act distinct from his Essence but by his Essence it self How is any thing disgraceful to the Essential Presence of God that is not disgraceful to his Knowledge by his Essence Besides would God make any thing that should be an invincible reason to him to part with his own infiniteness by a contraction of his own Essence into a less compass than
the suggestions of their Carnal Wisdom The Brats of Soul-destroying Errors may walk about the World in a garb and disguise of good words and fair speeches as it is in the 18th Verse by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple And for their encouragement to a constancy in the Gospel Doctrine he assures them that all those that would dispossess them of Truth to possess them with Vanity are but Satans Instruments and will fall under the same Captivity and Yoke with their Principal Verse 18. The God of Peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly Whence observe 1. All Corrupters of Divine Truth and Troublers of the Churches Peace are no better than Devils Our Saviour thought the Name Satan a Title merited by Peter when he breathed out an Advice as an Ax at the Root of the Gospel the Death of Christ the foundation of all Gospel Truth and the Apostle concludes them under the same Character which hinder the superstructure and would mix their Chaff with his Wheat Mat. 16.23 Get thee behind me Satan 'T is not Get thee behind me Simon or Get thee behind me Peter but Get thee behind me Satan thou art an offence to me Thou dost oppose thy self to the Wisdom and Grace and Authority of God to the Redemption of Man and to the good of the World As the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Truth so is Satan the Spirit of Falshood As the Holy Ghost inspires Believers with Truth so doth the Devil corrupt Unbelievers with Error Let us cleave to the Truth of the Gospel that we may not be counted by God as part of the Corporation of Fallen Angels and not be barely reckon'd as Enemies of God but in league with the greatest Enemy to his Glory in the World 2. The Reconciler of the World will be the subduer of Satan The God of Peace sent the Prince of Peace to be the Restorer of his Rights and the Hammer to beat in pieces the Usurper of them As a God of Truth he will make good his Promise as a God of Peace he will perfect the design his Wisdom hath laid and begun to act In the subduing Satan he will be the Conqueror of his Instruments He saith nor God shall bruise your Troublers and Hereticks but Satan The fall of a General proves the rout of the Army Since God as a God of Peace hath delivered his own he will perfect the Victory and make them cease from bruising the heel of his Spiritual Seed 3. Divine Evangelical Truth shall be Victorious No Weapon formed against it shall prosper The Head of the Wicked shall fall as low as the Feet of the Godly The Devil never yet bluster'd in the World but he met at last with a disappointment His Fall hath been like Lightning sudden certain vanishing 4. Faith must look back as far as the foundation Promise The God of Peace shall bruise c. The Apostle seems to allude to the first Promise Gen. 2.15 A Promise that hath vigor to nourish the Church in all Ages of the World 'T is the standing Cordial out of the Womb of this Promise all the rest have taken their birth The Promises of the Old Testament were designed for those under the New and the full performance of them is to be expected and will be enjoyed by them 'T is a mighty strengthning to Faith to trace the footsteps of Gods Truth and Wisdom from the Threatning against the Serpent in Eden to the bruise he received in Calvary and the Triumph over him upon Mount Olivet 5. We are to confide in the Promise of God but leave the season of its accomplishment to his Wisdom He will bruise Satan under your feet therefore do not doubt it and shortly therefore wait for it Shortly it will be done that is quickly when you think it may be a great way off or shortly that is seasonably when Satans Rage is hottest God is the best Judge of the seasons of distributing his own Mercies and darting out his own Glory 'T is enough to encourage our waiting that it will be and that it will be shortly but we must not measure God's shortly by our Minutes The Apostle after this concludes with a comfortable Prayer That since they were liable to many Temptations to turn their backs upon the Doctrine which they had learned yet he desires God who had brought them to the knowledge of his Truth would confirm them in the belief of it since it was the Gospel of Christ his dear Son and a Mystery he had been chary of and kept in his own Cabinet and now brought forth to the World in pursuance of the ancient Prophesies and now had publish'd to all Nations for that end that it might be obeyed and concludes with a Doxology a voice of Praise to him who was only Wise to effect his own purposes Verses 25 26 27. Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the Mystery which was kept secret since the World began but now is made manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the commandment of the Everlasting God made known to all Nations for the obedience of Faith This Doxology is interlac'd with many Comforts for the Romans He explains the causes of this glory to God Power and Wisdom Power to establish the Romans in Grace which includes his Will This he proves from a Divine Testimony viz. the Gospel the Gospel committed to him and preached by him which he commends by calling it the preaching of Christ and describes it for the instruction and comfort of the Church from the Adjuncts the obscurity of it under the old Testament and the clearness of it under the New It was hid from the former Ages and kept in silence not simply and absolutely but comparatively and in part because in the Old Testament the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ was confin'd to the limits of Judea preached only to the Inhabitants of that Country To them he gave his Statutes and his Judgments and dealt not so magnificently with any Nation †Psal 147.19 20. but now he causes it to spring with greater Majesty out of those narrow bounds and spread its Wings about the World This manifestation of the Gospel he declares first from the subject All Nations 2. From the principal efficient cause of it The Commandment and Order of God 3. The Instrumental cause The Prophetick Scriptures 4. From the End of it Gomarus in loc The obedience of Faith 1. Observe The glorious Attributes of God bear a comfortable respect to Believers Power and Wisdom are here mention'd as two props of their Faith his Power here includes his Goodness Power to help without Will to assist is a dry Chip The Apostle mentions not Gods Power simply and absolutely considered for that of it self is no more comfort to Men than it is to Devils but
time to the World And the Wisdom of God in them would be amazing if we could understand the analogy between every Ceremony in the Law and the thing signified by it As it cannot buâ— affect a diligent Reader to observe that little account of them we have by the Apostle Paul sprinkled in his Eipstles and more largely in that to the Hebrews As the Political Laws of the Jews flowed from the depth of the Moral Law so their Ceremonial did from the depth of Evangelical Counsels and all of them had a special relation to the honour of God and the debasing the Creature Though God formed the Mass and Matter of the World at the first creation at once yet his Wisdom took six days time for the disposing and adorning it The more illustrious truths of God are not to be comprehended on a suddain by the weakness of men Christ did not declare all Truths to his Disciples in the time of his life because they were not able at that present to bear them John 16.12 Ye cannot bear them now Some were reserved for his Resurrection others for the coming of the Spirit and the full discovery of all kept back for another World This Doctrine God figured out in the Law Oracled by the Prophets and unvail'd by Christ and his Apostles 2. The Wisdom of God appeared in using all proper means to render the belief of it easie 1. The most minute things that were to be transacted were predicted in the ancient foregoing Age long before the comeing of the Redeemer The vinegar and gall offered to him upon the Cross the parting his Garments the not breaking of his Bones the piercing of his Hands and Feet the betraying of him the slighting of him by the multitude all were exactly painted and represented in variety of Figures There was Light enough to good men not to mistake him and yet not so plain as to hinder bad men from being Serviceable to the counsels of God in the crucifying of him when he came 2. The translation of the Old Testament from the private Language of the Jews into the most publick Language of the World That Translation which we call Septuagint from Hebrew into Greeks some years before the coming of Christ that Tongue being most diffused at that time by reason of the Macedonian Empire raised by Alexander and the University of Athens to which other Nations resorted for Learning and Education This was a preparation for the Sons of Japhet to dwell in the Tents of Shem. By this was the entertainment of the Gospel facilitated When they compar'd the Prophecies of the Old Testament with the Declarations of the New and found things so long predicted before they were transacted in the publick view 3. By ordering concurrent Testimonies as to matter of Fact that the matter of Fact was not deniable That there was such a Person as Christ that his Miracles were stupendous that hâ—s Doctrine did not incline to Sedition that he affected not Worldly Applause that he did suffer at Jerusalem was acknowledged by all Not a man among the greatest Enemies of Christians was found that denied the matter of Fact And this great truth that Christ is the Messiah and Redeemer hath been with universal consent owned by all the Professors of Christianity throughout the World Whatever Bickerings there have been among them about some particular Doctrines they all centred in that Truth of Christ's being the Redeemer The first publication of this Doctrine was sealed by a thousand Miracles and so illustrious that he was an utter Stranger to the World that was ignorant of them 4. In keeping up some Principles and Opinions in the World to facilitate the belief of this or render men inexcusable for rejecting of it The Incarnation of the Son of God could not be so strange to the World if we consider the general belief of the Appearances †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of their Gods among them that the Epicureans and others that denied any such Appearances were counted Atheists * Dionis Halicar Antiq. l. 2. p. 128. And Pythagoras was esteemed to be one not of the inferiour Genij and Lunar Daemons but one of the higher Gods who appeared in a Human Body for the curing and rectifying mortal Life †Iamblych Vit. Pythag. l. 1. cap. 6. p. 44. lib. 2. c. 19. p. 94. And himself tells Abaris the Scythian that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he took the flesh of man that men might not be astonished at him and in a fright fly from his Instructions It was not therefore accounted an irrational thing among them that God should be Incarnate But indeed the great stumbling block was a crucified God But had they known the holy and righteous Nature of God the Malice of sin the universal Corruption of Human Nature the first threatning and the necessity of vindicating the honour of the Law and clearing the Justice of God the Notion of his crucifixion would not have appeared so incredible since they believed the possibility of an Incarnation Another Principle was that universal One of Sacrifices for Expiation and rendring God propitious to man and was practised among all Nations I remember not any wherein this Custom did not prevail for it did even among those People where the Jews as being no trading Nation had not any Commerce and also in America found out in these latter Ages It was not a Law of Nature no man can find any such thing written in his own heart but a Tradition from Adam Now that among the loss of so many other Doctrines that were handed down from Adam to his immediate Posterity as in particular that of the Seed of the Woman which one would think a necessary Appendix to that of Sacrificing This latter should be preserved as a Fragment of an ancient Tradition seems to be an Act of Divine Wisdom to prepare men for the entertainment of the Doctrine of the great Sacrifice for the Expiation of the sin of the World And as the Apostle forms his Argument from the Jewish Sacrifices in the Epistle to the Hebrews for the convincing them of the end of the death of Christ so did the Ancient Fathers make use of this practise of the Heathen to convince them of the same Doctrine 5. The wisdom of God appeared in the time and circumstances of the first solemn publication of the Gospel by the Apostles at Jerusalem The Relation you may read in Acts 2. from verse 1. to the 12th The Spirit was given to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost a time wherein there were multitudes of Jews from all Nations not only near but remote that heard the great things of God spoken in the several Languages of those Nations where their Habitations were fixed and that by twelve illiterate men that two or three hours before knew no Language but that of their Native Country It was the custom of the Jews that dwelt among other Nations at a
distance from Jerusalem to assemble together at Jerusalem at the Feast of Pentecost And God pitched upon this Season that there might be Witnesses of thâ—s Miracle in many parts of the World There were some of every Nation under Heaven verse 5. that is of that known part of the World so saith the Text. Fourteen several Nations are mentioned and Proselytes as well as Jews by Birth They are called devout men men of Conscience whose testimony would carry weight with it among their Neighbours at their return because of their Reputation by their Religious Carriage Again this was not heard and seen by some of them at one time and some at another by some one hour by others the next successively * Faucheur in loc p. 294 295. but altogether in a Solemn Assembly that the testimony of so many Witnesses at a time might be more valid and the truth of the Doctrine appear more illustrious and undeniable And it must needs be astonishing to them to hear that Person magnified in so miraculous a manner who had so lately been condemned by their Country-men as a Malefactor Wisdom consists in the timing of things And in this Circumstance doth the wisdom of God appear in furnishing the Apostles with the Spirit at such a time and bringing forth such a Miracle as the gift of Tongues on a suddain that every Nation might hear in their own Language the wonder of Redemption and as Witnesses at their returns into their own Countreys report it to others that the credit they had in their several Places might facilitate the belief and entertainment of the Gospel when the Apostles or others should arrive to those several Charges and Dioceses appointed for them to preach the Gospel in Had this Miracle been wrought in the presence only of the Inhabitants of Judea that understood only their own Language or one or two of the Neighbouring Tongues it had been counted by them rather a Madness than a Miracle Or had they understood all the Tongues which they spoke the news of it had spread no further than the limits of their own Habitations and had been confin'd within the narrow bounds of the Land of Judea But now it is carried to several remote Nations where any of those Auditors then assembled had their Residence As God chose the time of the Passeover for the Death of Christ that there might be the greatest Number of the Inhabitants of the Country as Witnesses of the Matter of Fact the Innocence and Sufferings of Christ so he chose the time of Pentecost for the first publishing the value and end of this Blood to the World Thus the Evangelical Law was given in a Confluence of People from all Parts and Nations because it was a Covenant with all Nations And the variety of Languages spoken by a Company of poor Galileans bred up at the Lake of Tiberias and in poor corners of Canaan without the Instructions of men for so great a Skil might well evidence to the hearers that God that brought the Confusion of Languages first at Babel did only work that Cure of them and combine all together at Jerusalem 3. The wisdom of God is seen in the Instruments he employed in the publishing the Gospel He did not employ Philosophers but Fishermen used not acquired Arts but infus'd wisdom and courage This Treasure was put into and preserved in Earthen Vessels that the Wisdom as well as the Power of God might be magnified The weaker the means are which attain the end the greater is the skill of the Conductor of them Wise Princes choose men of most credit Interest Wisdom and Ability to be Ministers of their Affairs and Embassadors to others But what were these that God chose for so great a Work as the publishing a new Doctrine to the World What was their quality but mean what was their Authority without Interest What was their Ability without eminent Parts for so great a Work but what Divine Grace in a special manner endowed them with Nay what was their disposition to it as dull and unweildy Witness the frequent rebukes for their slow-heartedness from their Master when he conversed in the Flesh with them And One of the greatest of them so fond of the Jewish Ceremonies and Pharisaical Principles wherein he had been more than ordinarily principled that he hated the Christian Religion to extirpation and the Professors of it to death by those ways which were out of the rode of Human wisdom and would be accompted the greatest absurdity to be practis'd by men that have a repute for Discretion did God advance his Wisdom 1 Cor. 1.25 The foolishness of God is wiser than man By this means it was indisputably evidenc'd to unbyassed Minds that the Doctrine was Divine It could not rationally be imagined that Instruments destitute of all Human Advantages should be able to vanquish the World confound Judaism overturn Heathenism chase away the Devils strip them of their Temples alienate the Minds of men from their several Religions which had been rooted in them by Education and established by a long succession It could not I say reasonably be imagined to be without a Supernatural Assistance an heavenly and efficacious working Whereas had God taken a Course agreeable to the prudence of Man and used those that had been furnished with Learning tip'd with Eloquence and armed with Human Authority the Doctrines would have been thought to have been of a Human Invention and to be some subtle Contrivance for some unworthy and ambitious end The nothingness and weakness of the Instruments manifest them to be conducted by a Divine Power and declare the Doctrine it self to be from Heaven When we see such feeble Instruments proclaiming a Doctrine repugnant to Flesh and Blood sounding forth a crucified Christ to be believed in and trusted on and declaiming against the Religion and Worship under which the Roman Empire had long flourished exhorting them to the Contempt of the World preparation for Afflictions denying themselves and their own Honours by the hopes of an unseen reward things so repugnant to Flesh and Blood And these Instruments concurring in the same Story with an admirable Harmony in all parts and sealing this Doctrine with their Blood can we upon all this ascribe this Doctrine to a Human Contrivance or fix any lower Author of it than the wisdom of Heaven 'T is the wisdom of God that carries on his own Designs in methods most sutable to his own Greatness and different from the Customes and Modes of Men that less of Humanity and more of Divinity might appear 4. The wisdom of God appears in the ways and manner as well as in the Instruments of its propagation By ways seemingly contrary You know how God had sent the Jews into Captivity in Babylon and though he struck off their Chains and restored them to their Country yet many of them had no mind to leave a Country wherein they had been born and bred The distance from the
Goodness to himself and his own Honour he had cast that off had he not insisted on this Condition of Faith it being the lowest he could condescend to with a salvo for his Glory And it was a Goodness to us 't is nothing else he requires but a willingness to accept what he hath contrived and acted for us And no Man can be happy against his will without this belief at least Man could never voluntarily have arriv'd to his Happiness The Goodness of God is evidenced in that First 'T is an easie Condition not impossible 1. It was not the Condition of the old Covenant The Condition of that was an entire Obedience to every Precept with a Mans whole strength and without any flaw or crack But the Condition of the Evangelical Covenant is a sincere though weak Faith He hath suited this Covenant to the Misery of Mans fall'n Condition He considers our weakness and that we are but Dust and therefore exacts not of us an entire but a sincere Obedience Had God sent Christ to expiate the Crime of Adam restore him to his Paradise Estate and repair in Man the ruin'd Image of Holiness and after this to have renewed the Covenant of Works for the future and settled the same Condition in exacting a compleat Obedience for the time to come Divine Goodness had been above any accusation and had deserv'd our highest admiration in the pardon of former Transgressions and giving out to us our first Stock But Divine Goodness took larger strides He had tried our first Condition and found his mutable Creature quickly to violate it Had he demanded the same now 't is likely it had met with the same issue as before in Mans disobedience and fall we should have been as Men as Adam * Hos 6.7 transgrâ—ssing the Covenant and then we must have lain groaning under our Disease and wallowing in our Blood unless Christ had come to die for the Expiation of our new Crimes for every Transgression had been a violation of that Covenant and a forfeiture of our Right to the benefits of it If we had broke it but in one tittle we had rendred our selves uncapable to fulfil it for the future that one Transgression had stood as a bar against the pleas of after Obedience But God hath wholly laid that Condition aside as to us and setled that of Faith more easie to be perform'd and to be renew'd by us 'T is infinite Grace in him that he will accept of Faith in us instead of that perfect Obedience he requir'd of us in the Covenant of Works 2. It is easie not like the burdensom Ceremonies appointed under the Law He exacts not now the legal Obedience expensive Sacrifices troublesom Purifications and Abstinencies that Yoak of Bondage †Gal. 5.1 which they were not able to bear * Acts 15.10 He treats us not as Servants or Children in their Nonage under the Elements of the World nor requires those innumerable bodily Exercises that he exacted of them He demands not 1000 of Lambs and Rivers of Oyl but he requires a sincere Confession and Repentance in order to our absolution an unfain'd Faith in order to our Blessedness and elevation to a Glorious Life He requires only that we should believe what he saith and have so good an opinion of his Goodness and Veracity as to perswade our selves of the reality of his Intentions confide in his Word and rely upon his Promise cordially embrace his Crucified Son whom he hath set forth as the means of our Happiness and have a sincere Respect to all the discoveries of his Will What can be more easie than this Though some in the days of the Apostles and others since have endeavoured to introduce a multitude of legal Burthens as if they envied God the Expressions of his Goodness or thought him guilty of too much Remissness in taking off the Yoak and treating Man too favourably 3. Nor is it a clear knowledge of every Revelation that is the Condition of this Covenant God in his kindness to Man hath made Revelations of himself but his Goodness is manifested in obliging us to believe him not fully to understand him He hath made them by sufficient Testimonies as clear to our Faith as they are incomprehensible to our Reason He hath reveal'd a Trinity of Persons in their distinct Offices in the business of Redemption without which Revelation of a Trinity we could not have a right Notion and Scheme of Redeeming Grace But since the clearness of Mens understanding is sullied by the fall and hath lost its Wings to fly up to a knowledge of such sublime things as that of the Trinity and other Mysteries of the Christian Religion God hath manifested his Goodness in not obliging us to understand them but to beleive them and hath given us reason enough to believe it to be his Revelation both from the Nature of the Revelation it self and the way and manner of propagating it which is wholly Divine exceeding all the Methods of Humane Art though he hath not extended our understandings to a capacity to know them and render a reason of every Mystery He did not require of every Israelite or of any of them that were stung by the fiery Serpents that they should understand or be able to discourse of the Nature and Qualities of that Brass of which the Serpent upon the Pole was made or by what Art that Serpent was formed or in what manner the sight of it did operate in them for their Cure it was enough that they did believe the Institution and Precept of God and that their own Cure was assured by it It was enough if they cast their Eyes upon it according to the direction The understandings of Men are of several sizes and elevations one higher than another If the Condition of this Covenant had been a greatness of knowledge the most acute Men had only enjoyed the benefits of it But it is Faith which is as easie to be performed by the ignorant and simple as by the strongest and most towring Mind 'T is that which is within the compass of every Mans understanding God did not require that every one within the Verge of the Covenant should be able to discourse of it to the reasons of Men He requir'd not that every Man should be a Philosopher or an Orator but a Believer What could be more easie than to lift up the Eye to the Brazen Serpent to be Cur'd of a fiery Sting What could be more facile than a glance which is done without any pain and in a moment 'T is a Condition may be perform'd by the weakest as well as the strongest Could those that were bitten in the most Vital part cast up their Eyes though at the last gasp they would arise to health by the expulsion of the Venom 2. As 't is Easie so 't is Reasonable Repent and Believe is that which is requir'd by Christ and the Apostles for the injoyment of
acknowledge it with thankfulness in what we have to implore it with a holy submission in what wâ— wâ—nt To oâ—n Gâ—â— as a Soveraign in a way of dependance is the way to be own'd by him as Subjects in a way of favour 5. His Soveraignty is manifested in giving a great measure of knowledge to some than to others What Parts Gifts excellency of Nature any have above others are Gods donative He gives Wisdom to the wise and knowledge to them that know understanding Dan. 2.21 Wisdom the habit and Knowledge the right use of it in discerning the right nature of objects and the fitness of means conducing to the end all is but a beam of Divine Light and the different degrees of Knowledge in one man above another are the effects of his Soveraign pleasure He enlightens not the minds of all men to know every part of his will one eats with a doubtful Conscience another in Faith without any staggering Romans 14.2 Peter had a desire to keep up Circumcision not fully understanding the mind of God in the abolition of the Jewish Ceremonies While Paul was clear in the Truth of that Doctrine A thought comes into our mind that like a Sun-beam makes a Scripture Truth visible in a moment which before we were poring upon without any success this is from his pleasure One in the primitive times had the gift of Knowledge another of Wisdom one the gift of Prophesie another of Tongues one the gift of Healing another that of discerning Spirits why this gift to one man and not to another Why such a distribution in several Subjects Because it is his Soveraign pleasure The Spirit divides to every man severally as he will 1 Cor. 12.11 Why doth he give Bezaleel and Aholiah the gift of Engraving and making curious works for the Tabernacle Exod. 31.3 and not others Why doth he bestow the Treasures of Evangelical Knowledge upon the meanest of Earthen Vessels the poor Galileans and neglect the Pharisees stor'd with the Knowledge both of Naturals and Morals Why did he give to some and not to others to know the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven Matth. 13.11 The reason is implyed in the words Because it was the mystery of his Kingdom and therefore was the act of his Soveraignty How would it be a Kingdom and Monarchy if the Governour of it were bound to do what he did 'T is to be resolv'd only into the Soveraign right of propriety of his own goods that he furnisheth Babes with a stock of knowledge and leaves the Wise and Prudent empty of it Matth. 11.26 Even so Father for so it seem'd good in thy sight Why did he not reveal his mind to Eri a grown man and in the highest office in the Jewish Church but open it to Samuel a stripling Why did the Lord go from the one to the other Because his motion depends upon his own will Some are of so dull a constitution that they are uncapable of any impression like Rocks too hard for a stamp others like water you may stamp what you please but it vanisheth as soon as the Seal is remov'd 'T is God forms men as he pleaseth Some have parts to govern a Kingdom others scarce brains to conduct their own affairs One is fit to rule men and another scarce fit to keep Swine Some have capacious Souls in crazy and deform'd Bodies others contracted Spirits and heavier minds in a richer and more beautiful case Why are not all stones alike some have a more sparkling light as gems more orient than pebbles Some are Stars of first and others of a less magnitude others as mean as Glo-worms a slimy lustre 'T is because he is the Soveraign disposer of what belongs to him and gives here as well as at the Resurrection to one a Glory of the Sun to another that of the Moon and to a third a less resembling that of a Star 1 Cor. 15.40 And this God may do by the same right of Dominion as he exercised when he endow'd some kinds of Creaâ—â—â—es with a greater perfection than others in their Nature Why may he not as well garnish one man with a greater proportion of gifts as make a man differ in excellency from the Nature of a Beast Or frame Angels to a more purely spiritual Nature than a man Or make one Angel a Cherubim or Seraphim with a greater measure of light than another Though the foundation of this is his Dominion yet his wisdom is not uninterested in his Soveraign disposal he garnisheth those with a greater ability whom he intends for greater service than those that he intends for less or none at all As an Artificer bestows more labour and carves a more excellent figure upon those Stones that he designs for a more honourable place in the building But though the intending this or that man for service be the motive of laying in a greater provision in him than in others yet still it is to be referred to his Soveraignty Since that first act of culling him out for such an end was the fruit solely of his Soveraign pleasure As when he resolv'd to make a Creature actively to glorifie him in wisdom he must give him reason yet the making such a Creature was an act of his absolute Dominion 6. His Soveraignty is manifest in the calling some to a more special service in their Generation God settles some in immediate Offices of his service and perpetuates them in those Offices with a neglect of others who seem to have a greater pretence to them Moses was a great sufferer for Israel the sollicitor for them in Egypt and the conductor of them from Egypt to Canaan yet he was not chosen to the High Priesthood but that was an office setled upon Aaron and his posterity after him in a lineal descent Moses was only pitched upon for the present resscue of the Captiv'd Israelites and to be the instrument of Divine Miracles but notwithstanding all the success he had in his conduct his faithfulness in his employment and the transcendent familiarity he had with the great Ruler of the World his posterity were left in the common level of the Tribe of Levi without any special mark of dignity upon them above the rest for all the services of that great man Why Moses for a Temporary Magistracy Aaron for a perpetual Priesthood above all the rest of the Israelites hath little reason but the absolute pleasure of God who distributes his employments as he pleaseth and as a Master orders this Servant to do the noblest work and another to labour in baser offices according to his pleasure Why doth he call out David a Shepherd to sway the Jewish Scepter above the rest of the Brothers that had a fairer appearance and had been bred in arms and enur'd to the Toyls and Watchings of a Camp Why should Mary be the Mother of Christ and not some other of the same Family of David of a more splendid birth and a
some might take in beholding the Miracles of our Saviour who could not endure his searching Doctrine The light of speculation may be pleasant but the light of conviction is grievous that which galls their Consciences and would affect them with a sense of their duty to God Is it not easy to perceive that when a man begins to be serious in the concerns of the Honour of God and the duty of his soul he feels a reluctancy within him even against the pleas of Conscience which evidenceth that some unworthy principle has got footing in the hearts of men which fights against the declarations of God without and the impressions of the Law of God within at the same time when a man 's own Conscience takes part with it which is the substance of the Apostles discourse Rom. 7.15 16 c. Close discourses of the Honour of God and our duty to him are irksome when men are upon a merry pin They are like a damp in a Mine that takes away their breath they shuffle them out as soon as they can and are as unwilling to retain the-speech of them in their mouths as the knowledge of them in their hearts Gracious speeches instead of bettering many men distemper them as sometimes sweet perfumes affect a weak head with aches 3. As t is most contrary to self Men are unwilling to acquaint themselves with any truth that leads to God because it leads from self Every part of the Will of God is more or less displeasing as it sounds harsh against some carnal interest men would set above God or as a Mate with him Man cannot desire any intimacy with that Law which he regards as a Bird of prey to pick out his right eye or gnaw off his right hand his lust dearer than himself The reason we have such hard thoughts of Gods Will is because we have such high thoughts of our selves T is a hard matter to Believe or Will that which hath no affinity with some principle in the understanding and no interest in our Will and Passions Our unwillingness to be acquainted with the Will of God ariseth from the disproportion between that and our corrupt hearts We are alienated from the life of God in our minds Eph. 41 18 19. As we live not like God so we neither think or Will as God There is an antipathy in the heart of man against that Doctrine which teaches us to deny our selves and be under the rule of another But whatsoever favours the ambition lusts and profits of men is easily entertainable Many are fond of those Sciences which may enrich their understandings and grate not upon their sensual delights Many have an admirable dexterity in finding out Philosophical reasons Mathematical demonstrations or raising observations upon the Records of History and spend much time and many serious and affectionate thoughts in the study of them In those they have not immediatly to do with God their beloved pleasures are not impaired T is a satisfaction to self without the exercise of any hostility against it But had those Sciences been against self as much as the Law and Will of God they had long since been rooted out of the World Why did the Young-man turn his back upon the Law of Christ because of his worldly self Why did the Pharisees mock at the Doctrine of our Saviour and not at their own traditions because of Covetous self Why did the Jews slight the person of our Saviour and put him to death after the reading so many Credentials of his being sent from Heaven because of ambitious self that the Romans might not come and take away their Kingdom If the Law of God were fitted to the humors of self it would be readily and cordially observed by all men Self is the measure of a world of seeming Religious actions while God seems to be the object and his Law the motive self is the rule and end Zach. 7.5 Did you fast unto me c. 2 As men discover their disowning the Will of God as a rule by unwillingness to be acquainted with it so they discover it by the contempt of it after they cannot avoid the Notions and some impressions of it The rule of God is burthensome to a sinner he flies from it as from a frightful bug-bear and unpleasant Yoke Sin against the knowledge of the Law is therefore called a going back from the Commandment of Gods lips Job 23.12 A casting Gods word behind them * Psal 50.17 as a contemptible thing fitter to be trodden in the durt than lodged in the heart Nay it is a casting it off as an abominable thing for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Hos 8.3 Israel hath cast off the thing that is good an utter refusal of God Jer. 44.16 As for the word which thou hast spoken to us in the name of the Lord we will not hearken In the slight of his precepts his essential perfections are slighted In disowning his Will as a Rule we disown all those attributes which flow from his Will as Goodness Righteousness and Truth As an Act of the Divine understanding is supposed to precede the Act of the Divine Will so we slight the infinite reason of God Every Law tho it proceeds from the Will of the Law-giver and doth formally consist in an Act of the Will yet it doth presuppose an act of the understanding If the Commandment be holy just and good as it is Rom. 7.12 if it be the image of Gods holiness a transcript of his righteousness and the efflux of his goodness then in every breach of it durt is cast upon those Attributes which shine in it and a slight of all the regards he hath to his own Honour and all the provisions he makes for his Creature This Atheism or contempt of God is more taken notice of by God than the matter of the sin it self As a respect to God in a weak and imperfect obedience is more than the matter of the obedience it self because it is an acknowledgment of God So a contempt of God in an act of disobedience is more than the matter of the disobedience The Creature stands in such an Act not only in a posture of distance from God but defiance of him It was not the bare act of Murder and Adultery which Nathan charged upon David but the Atheistical principle which Spirited those evil acts The despising the Commandment of the Lord was the venom of them * 2 Sam. 12. ◠1◠T is possible to break a Law without contempt But when men pretend to believe there is a God and that this is the Law of God it shews a contempt of his Majesty * Claud. Men naturally account Gods Laws too strict his Yoak too heavy and his limits too strait And he that liveth in a contempt of this Law curseth God in his life How can they believe there is a God who despise him as a Ruler How can they believe him to
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